At 9:14 Friday morning, a lawyer emailed me at my kitchen table.
His name was Stuart Kemp.
His letterhead had a gold column on it.
He represented Hale Family Dental, P.C.
He reminded me of my non-compete agreement.
He reminded me not to contact the practice.
He attached the agreement as a PDF.
I didn't open it yet.
At 9:20, he called.
"Mrs. Albright, Stuart Kemp."
"I want to make sure you got my email."
"I got it."
"Good."
"Then you understand the situation."
"Tell me the situation," I said.
He sighed like I'd tracked mud onto his carpet.
"Dr. Hale is a generous man."
"He doesn't want this to get unpleasant."
"Then it won't," I said.
"There are three dental offices in Harlow, Mrs. Albright."
"Dr. Hale golfs with the other two."
"You'll never work in this town again."
"Is that in the agreement?"
"It's in the spirit of it."
"I'll read the agreement," I said.
"Do that."
He hung up first.
I poured coffee and did the math on a napkin.
My last check would come on the fifteenth.
COBRA would cost $742 a month to keep my health insurance.
I had no job lined up.
I hadn't needed one since 1995.
I put the napkin under the sugar bowl, where I wouldn't have to see it.
At 10:40, I opened the PDF.
It was the 2009 template.
I knew it because I'd typed it.
That spring, Dr. Hale had read about non-competes in a dental magazine.
He asked me to draft one for the staff.
Everybody signed it.
I didn't.
"Fine," he'd said.
"It's just paper."
I kept the HR files for sixteen years after that.
I knew exactly what the last page looked like.
Kemp had sent me the last page.
Employee Signature: ____________
Date: ____________
Both lines were blank.
Nobody had even bothered to fake a date.
I wrote Kemp one email.
The attachment is unsigned. Codes for Keystone and the clearinghouse still come to my phone. Tell me when to move them.
I read it once and hit send.
I didn't add please.
At 11:02, he answered.
Any contact with practice systems, staff, vendors, or patients will be treated as a breach.
That was the whole email.
He said nothing about the signature.
He said nothing about the codes.
I printed it and put it in a manila folder.
I wrote KEMP on the tab.
Then I wrote the date under it.
At 3:15, Brianna texted.
Brent is yelling passwords at the screen.
He's reading them out of your binder.
None of them work.
A minute later, another one came.
The Keystone packet is still under the Wawa bag.
Then a third.
His phone lit up on the counter last night. It said "it broke on her watch." Whatever that means.
I read that one three times.
The passwords in that binder had worked on Thursday at noon.
I'd used two of them myself.
I didn't answer her.
Kemp had been very clear about staff.
I turned the phone over and slid it next to the sugar bowl.
The office was four miles away.
It might as well have been Ohio.
Saturday at 10:00, I went to Weis Markets for coffee filters.
Gloria was in the cereal aisle with a box of Cheerios in each hand.
She put both back when she saw me.
"Mo."
"Hi, Gloria."
"They told us not to call you."
"Who told you?"
"Brent did, at huddle."
"He said it came from a lawyer."
"It did," I said.
She checked both ends of the aisle.
"Give me your cell anyway."
"You've had my cell for twenty years."
"I had it on the staff sheet by the time clock."
"Brent took the sheet down."
She held out her phone.
I typed my number in and handed it back.
"Don't call me about work," I said.
"I won't."
She picked the Cheerios back up.
"I'll call you about you."
In the parking lot, Nate Fulmer was loading paper towels into his trunk.
Nate sells gloves and impression material for Allegheny Dental Supply.
He'd had our account for six years.
"Maureen," he said.
"I heard."
"Everybody heard," I said.
"Can I get your number?"
"Why?"
He shut the trunk.
"For when they figure it out."
I gave it to him.
I didn't ask who they were.
I drove home with the coffee filters on the passenger seat.
The packet was due next Friday at five.
At the light on Main Street, I counted on my fingers, today included.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Seven days, and nobody had looked.