When I knock on the door, Jenny doesn’t open it. “Who is it,” she asks.
“It’s me,” I answer, “your lover,” impatient to get in. I’d only been gone a short time.
“Do you have proof, a photo ID?” She opens the door with the chain still latched, and I hold up my driver’s license, giving her a big smile. “That’s not you,” she says.
I pull it back and glance at the photo. “Of course, it’s me, my love.” I push it through the crack in the door and she takes it.
“The face in the photo—it doesn’t match. You’re older, uglier,” she says.
“Then how I do know that you have a tattoo of a cardinal on your right boob, a birthmark shaped like an aardvark near your navel, which has a belly button like a snake coiled up? How do I know that you get migraines and have to lie down for hours with a pillow over your eyes?”
“You’ve studied my facebook page,” she says. “Back to the ID. What year were you born?”
“June 12, 1985.” “Right day, wrong year.”
“Age is subjective,” I answer.
“Says here, you’re six feet tall, 180 pounds, nice dimensions. Got the weight right, but you don’t look an inch over 5’8.”
“Bad posture,” I reply.
“Can I see that ID again?” I pocket it and hand her another.
“Much better,” she says, nodding and smiling “Even looks like you.” I lean against the doorframe. “But you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” she says. She pulls an ID out of her purse and slips it through the door.
“Nice photo,” I say.
“That is who you want,” she laughs, “and she doesn’t live here anymore.”