"Yes."
"You live in Columbus?"
"No."
"Then where do you live?"
"That's my legal address. It's my designated address." She reached into the wallet one more time and took out the last thing, the thing she had never had to show anybody, a small white card the size of a business card, laminated, with the seal of the Ohio Secretary of State on it and the words SAFE AT HOME and a participant number and her new name in typed capitals and a line at the bottom that said This participant's designated address is to be accepted in lieu of actual address per Ohio Revised Code. She held it out to him. "I'm in the address confidentiality program. Through the Secretary of State. The P.O. box is my address for anything official. The state forwards my mail. I'm not supposed to give out where I actually live."
He took the little card and read it. He read it twice. Then he said, flatly, "I've never heard of this."
"It's real. It's been around for years. There's a phone number on the back."
He turned it over and looked at the phone number and did not take out his phone. He looked up at her with something in his face that was not quite contempt and not quite pity, a look she did not know what to do with.
"Ma'am," he said, "I can go to the copy place on Route 33 and print a laminated card that says I'm an astronaut."
"Then call the number."