“You recognized me,” I said tightly.

“Well, sure. I saw you talking to that guy at the gas station and thought I was going to have a heart attack. Then we had the thing when I cleaned your windshield.”

“But you couldn’t see me, the glare—”

“What are you talking about? We were looking right at each other.”

I felt like I was moving in slow motion, underwater.

“So when you came into that restaurant, Fontana’s—”

“I knew you’d be there. Because you’d asked the gas station guy where to eat.”

Not just a fan, a stalker.

“You really seemed like you didn’t remember seeing me,” I said evenly. “That was a good performance.”

“But I thought we both knew. We had had the crazy moment through the windshield, and now we were playing a kind of game. You asked me so many questions. And I kind of spilled the beans when I said I worked at Hertz.”

I didn’t see how that was spilling the beans.

“Oh my god,” he said, covering his mouth, “you’re so . . . You think everyone’s job is to clean your windshield.”

I shook my head. “No—you were cleaning another car, too.”

“A Hertz car. You do understand that I don’t work at a gas station?”

I turned red. There was a little vagueness around car-related jobs.