Diane appeared increasingly uncomfortable.
“Did you call it?”
Diane opened her mouth.
Marjorie answered instead.
“That is not the point.”
Camille almost laughed.
“That seems like exactly the point.”
Marjorie’s posture changed.
She was accustomed to employees, service workers, and younger people responding to her with a particular level of deference. Camille sounded polite enough, but she was not deferential. To Marjorie, the distinction felt suspiciously close to disrespect.
“What is your name?”
Camille picked up the backpack.
“Why?”
“I asked your name.”
“And I asked why.”
“There is a phone missing.”
“And I didn’t take it.”
“Then show me the bag and this can end.”
Camille slung one strap over her shoulder.
“No.”
She started to step away.
Marjorie reached for the backpack.
Camille twisted.
“Don’t touch my stuff.”
“I’m trying to verify something.”
“You are grabbing me.”
“Stop moving.”
Camille stared.
“You do not get to tell me to stop moving.”
That sentence drew more attention than anything before it. A man at a nearby table lowered his coffee. A woman beside the fountain raised her phone.
Diane stepped closer. “Marjorie, wait for security.”
Marjorie ignored her.
“She’s leaving.”
Camille looked around in disbelief.
“I work here.”
“Where?”
“Linden Row.”
Marjorie glanced toward the bookstore.
“You expect me to believe that?”
The question landed harder than everything before it.
Camille had worn a Linden Row employee badge that morning, but she had removed it during break because Peter disliked employees eating in branded aprons around customer areas. Nothing about the clothes she wore now identified the store. Nothing about them suggested she did not work there either.
“What exactly is hard to believe?”
Marjorie hesitated.
Diane heard the trap inside that pause before Marjorie did.
“I mean you’re walking away instead of helping.”
Camille shook her head.
“I told you where I work.”
“Then you won’t mind waiting.”
“I do mind.”
She reached for the second backpack strap.
Marjorie grabbed it.
Camille pulled away.
“Let go.”
“Open the bag.”
“No.”
Marjorie pulled harder.
The backpack slid off Camille’s shoulder.
For half a second they both held it.
Then Camille let go because she did not want to be physically dragged into a struggle with a woman wearing heels beside a crowded café.
Marjorie had possession.
Diane said her name sharply.
“Give that back.”
Marjorie unzipped it.
Camille stepped forward.
“You cannot go through my bag.”
Marjorie looked inside.
Books.
Notebook.
Headphones.
A pencil pouch.
She began moving items.
Camille reached for the backpack.
Marjorie jerked it away.
Then she did something nobody watching expected.
She turned it upside down.
Everything fell.
Two open textbooks hit the concrete first.
A blue notebook.