The Woman Using My Name

She was ahead of me at the supermarket checkout, unremarkable until the cashier asked if she had a loyalty card, and she said my name. First, middle and last — and mine is a three-name pileup that has never once been guessed correctly by a stranger.

I assumed mishearing. Then the cashier, scanning her card, said the points balance and it was substantial, years deep, and the woman said, comfortably, 'It adds up, living on Harrow Lane as long as I have.' My street. I live on Harrow Lane. I have the middle name and the street and, as she chatted on — cashiers invite this — the same employer, named, and the same profession, and 'my daughter's at the music school on Vine,' where my daughter is at the music school on Vine.

I want to convey the texture of it: nothing performative, no glances at me. She was not doing this AT me. She was a woman buying vegetables and being, in passing, factually, me.

I did the only brave thing I have ever done in a queue: I said my own full name out loud, as a question. She turned and looked at me with polite non-recognition — and something underneath it. Not alarm. Assessment. The way you would look at an administrative error that had learned to talk. 'What a coincidence,' she said, evenly, collected her bags, and left at exactly the pace of a person not leaving quickly.

The cashier and I looked at her receipt together, conspirators by then. The card was real, registered years ago. The store manager, days later, told me the account's details matched mine 'except everything was slightly older' — an email at a provider that shut down; a phone number one digit off mine; my previous address. My life, but running about four years behind, maintained by someone who buys reasonable vegetables.

I have never seen her again. Occasionally the loyalty scheme emails me points I did not earn, from a branch across the city. I have decided to consider it rent.