“Ma’am?” The security guard pointed a finger at her face. “I am speaking to the child.”
“Oh right, okay. ’Cause she’s the one to ask. BB, look at me.” Emira forced a gleeful expression into her lips and bounced the toddler twice. “How many are you?”
“One two fee four fie!”
“How old am I?”
“Happy birfday!”
Emira looked back to the security guard and said, “You good?” In her cell phone, the ringing stopped. “Mr. Chamberlain?” Something clicked in the earpiece but she didn’t hear a voice. “It’s Emira, hello? Can you hear me?”
“I’d like to speak to her father.” The security guard reached out for her phone.
“The fuck are you doing? Don’t touch me!” Emira turned her body. At this motion, Briar gasped. She held Emira’s black, synthetic hair against her chest like rosary beads.
“You don’t wanna touch her, dude,” Penn State warned. “She’s not resisting. She’s calling the kid’s dad.”
“Ma’am, I am asking you to kindly hand over the phone.”
“Come on, man, you can’t take her phone.”
The guard turned with a hand outstretched and yelled, “Back up, sir!”
With her phone pressed to her face and Briar’s hands in her hair, Emira screamed, “You’re not even a real cop, so you back up, son!” And then she watched his face shift. His eyes said, I see you now. I know exactly who you are, and Emira held her breath as he began to call for backup.
Emira heard Mr. Chamberlain’s voice at the top of her cell phone. He said, “Emira?” and then, “Hello?”
“Mr. Chamberlain? Can you please come to Market Depot?” In the same controlled panic that started her night, she said, “Because they think I stole Briar. Can you please hurry?” He said something between What and Oh God, and then he said, “I’m coming right now.”
Emira hadn’t anticipated that the heated accusations would be favorable to the silence that followed. The five of them stood there, appearing more annoyed than justified, as they waited to see who would win. As Emira began a staring contest with the floor, Briar patted the hair on Emira’s shoulders. “Dis is like my horsey hair,” Briar said. Emira bounced her and said, “Mm-hmm. It was very expensive so please be careful.” Finally, she heard the glide of an automatic door. With quick footsteps, Mr. Chamberlain emerged from the cereal aisle. Briar pointed with one finger and said, “That’s Dada.”
Mr. Chamberlain looked as if he’d jogged the whole way—tiny beads of sweat on his nose—and he placed a hand on Emira’s shoulder. “What’s going on here?”
Emira responded by holding out his daughter. The woman took a step back and said, “Okay, great. I’ll just leave you guys to it.” The security guard began to explain and apologize. He took off his hat as his backup arrived.
Emira didn’t wait for Mr. Chamberlain to finish lecturing the guards about how long he had been coming to the store, how they cannot detain people without reasonable cause, or how inappropriate it was that they question his decisions as a parent. Instead she whispered, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Emira,” he said. “Wait. Let me pay you.”
She waved no with both hands. “I get paid on Fridays. I’ll see you at your birthday, Bri.” But Briar had begun to fall asleep on Mr. Chamberlain’s shoulder.
Outside, Emira jogged around the corner, in the opposite direction of the Chamberlain home. She stopped and stood in front of a closed bakery with cupcakes on display behind a gridded security gate; her hands were still shaking as she texted no one. Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, Emira scanned through hundreds of songs. She shimmied her hips and pulled her skirt back down.
“Hey hey hey.” Penn State appeared at the street corner. He made his way toward her and said, “Hey, are you okay?”
Emira slumped her shoulders in a miserable lift that said I don’t know. With her phone in front of her stomach, she bit the inside of her cheek.
“Listen, that was super fucked up,” he said. “I got the whole thing on tape. I would turn it in to a news station if I were you and then you can—”
“Oof. Yeah . . . no,” she said. She pushed her hair out of her face. “No way, but . . . thanks anyway, though.”
He paused and ran his tongue over his front teeth. “Okay, that guy was a dick to you. Don’t you wanna get him fired?”
Emira laughed and said, “For what?” She shifted in her heels and put her phone back in her purse. “So he can go to another grocery store and get some other nine-dollar-an-hour bullshit job? Please. I’m not tryna have people Google my name and see me lit, with a baby that isn’t mine, at a fucking grocery store in Washington Square.”
The man exhaled and held up one hand in surrender. Underneath his other arm was a Market Depot paper bag. “I mean . . .” He put his free hand on his hip. “At the very least, you could probably get free groceries for a year.”
“Oh, right. So I can stock up on kombucha and shit?”
He laughed and said, “Fair.”
“Lemme see your phone.” Emira jiggled her ring and middle finger as she held out her palm. “You need to delete that thing.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked carefully. “I’m serious. This would definitely get you an op-ed or something.”
“I’m not a writer,” Emira said. “And I don’t mess with the Internet, so give it.”
“Wait, how about this?” He took out his phone. “It’s your business and I’m happy to delete it. But let me email it to you first, in case you ever change your mind.”
“I won’t, though—”
“Just in case . . . here. Type your email in.”
Because it seemed easier to share her email than convince him otherwise, Emira held the strap of her purse in one hand and began to type with the other. When she saw the email address in the From section, reading [email protected], she stopped and said, “Hold up, who the fuck is Kelley?”
He blinked. “I’m Kelley.”
“Oh.” As she finished typing her email, Emira looked up and said, “Really?”
“Alright, alright.” He took the phone back from her. “I’ve been to middle school so you can’t really hurt me.”
Emira smiled. “No wonder you shop here.”