One day she touched his arm at the mailbox.
Let her hand linger.
Daniel stepped back so fast he dropped the mail.
He came inside shaking his head.
“She grabbed my arm. In broad daylight. At the mailbox.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her I’m happily married and I’d appreciate some space.”
“And?”
“She smiled and said, ‘We’ll see.'”
We’ll see.
Like my marriage was a bet she was placing.
I started watching her more carefully after that.
Not out of fear.
Out of study.
You study your opponent.
And Camille, I realized, had a pattern.
She needed an audience.
The flirting ramped up whenever other neighbors were around.
She wanted witnesses.
She wanted the street to see her chasing Daniel.
She wanted it to look like something was happening.
Because if it looked real, maybe it could become real.
That was her strategy.
Build the story in public.
Make everyone believe it.
Then step into the role she’d written.
And that’s when I understood how to beat her.
You don’t beat a woman like Camille in private.
She’ll just lie about what happened.
You beat her in front of her audience.
You take the stage she built.
And you use it against her.
I just needed the right moment.
Camille handed it to me herself.
She announced a party.
A big backyard barbecue.
The whole street invited.
End-of-summer bash, she called it.
She printed little cards and put them in everyone’s mailbox.
I watched her do it from my window.
She skipped our box.
Then she walked up our path and knocked.
Handed a single card to Daniel at the door.
“You’re invited,” she said, sweet as syrup. “You specifically.”
She looked past him at me in the hallway.
“Family only can’t make it, apparently.”
Then she walked away, hips swinging.
Daniel closed the door.
He looked at the card.
Then at me.
“I’m not going,” he said. “Obviously.”
I took the card from his hand.
I read it.
A nice thick card. Gold lettering.
She’d spent money on these.
She was serious.
“Actually,” I said. “I think you should go.”
