Now that we had a plan, I felt better. I wasn’t in this alone.
We went right to Alex’s house—I wanted to get this over with, so I wanted to be ready to go right at one. Raj took Alex’s massive desk chair while she and I dug through her Closet of Wonders for a disguise. We settled on all black for the pants and shirt, covered with a denim jacket and topped with a scarf to cover my face. I wore my hair in a bun and put on a baseball hat and enormous sunglasses. “Unrecognizable,” Alex pronounced.
It only took about twenty minutes to drive to Redwood City, but it felt like forever. This will be over in under an hour, I reminded myself. Except technically it wouldn’t—there could still be more favors to come, after all. I pulled down the mirror in the sun visor and checked myself out. My face was almost completely hidden. I was tempted to get a face wipe and take off my makeup—that would make me look totally different, for sure—but there was no need to go that far. I looked a little ridiculous, but if the parking lot was any indication, the Walmart was pretty crowded. If the cameras caught me, there wasn’t all that much of me to see.
The front of the Walmart was decorated with wreaths and holly, and there was a giant blow-up Santa waving gently in the breeze. I heard the bell of a Salvation Army volunteer ringing as the electric doors opened. The store was full of Christmas shoppers, their carts full of ornaments and fake plastic trees. I’d never been in this Walmart before, but the layout was pretty basic. Though the store was huge, there were signs above all the aisles explaining what I could find in each one, with an enormous arrow pointing toward the pharmacy.
The thing with stores like Walmart, though, is that they rarely let you get anywhere easily. I had to zigzag through aisles of stuff I didn’t want that Walmart hoped I’d buy anyway, just because it caught my eye: consumer electronics, bath towels, hair products. But I barreled ahead, thinking about all those people on reality TV competitions who insisted they weren’t there to make friends—I wasn’t here to shop. And I didn’t want to risk the cameras or run into anyone I knew, so I kept my head down as best as I could.
The pharmacy was in the back corner of the crowded store, of course, and there was a line. Two, actually: one for drop-offs and one to pick up. I got out my phone and started playing games while I waited. The line moved slowly; there was only one person taking orders, and he was moving between the two lines. I kept my head down until I reached the front and heard the pharmacist say, “What can I do for you today?”
I looked up and saw someone I wasn’t expecting.
Justin.
I’d done a good job with my costume—it took him a second to realize it was me, and then his eyes widened in a way that probably mirrored mine. My head started whirling with so many different thoughts, I got dizzy. Did this mean Justin was Blocked Sender? Or knew who was? Or was he being blackmailed like the rest of us? Or was it possible that this was random? I had a million questions I wanted to ask him, but I had a job to do and a camera to avoid.
“Hi,” I said. “I need to fill a prescription.” My voice shook, and my hand started shaking to match as I handed Justin the piece of paper.
He’d recovered faster than I had. He reached out smoothly and took the paper, giving it a quick scan and a nod. No acknowledgment that we knew each other, which told me that randomness was off the table. I realized he had an assistant’s tag on, though that didn’t really clear anything up. “I’ll take care of this right away. Give me a minute.” He disappeared in the back; I could hear people muttering in line behind me, wondering why Walmart didn’t hire more staff for the pharmacy if it was going to get this busy.
Finally, he returned, followed by a much older man—I figured that was the actual pharmacist—who handed him a little orange bottle full of pills. Justin quickly stuffed it in a bag and stapled it closed. “Cash or credit?”
I noticed he hadn’t asked me for insurance. He knew I was coming. No, he’d been surprised to see me—he knew someone was coming, but not that it was me. This whole situation was getting weirder and weirder. “Cash,” I said, and gave him the money, which ended up being three hundred dollars for the thirty pills. Only half of what Raj had told me it was, back when I bought those pills from him, but that was the markup, I supposed. Even with the cheaper price I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do this often, because I didn’t have that kind of cash lying around. Three hundred dollars was already a big chunk of my savings from years’ worth of birthdays and allowance.
“You’re all set,” he said. “Next?”