Hello Stranger: A Novel

Sadie cancels her next session with Sue because she’s too upset about Peanut and is still frustrated over her inability to distinguish faces. When Sue suggests she watch a show to relax, Sadie realizes that Sue doesn’t fully understand her condition.

Sadie visits Peanut daily to deliver him his favorite foods. She’s careful to dress nicely in case she sees Dr. Addison. On the third day, she arrives just as Dr. Addison is locking up, but he allows her to feed Peanut the pad Thai she brought. Though Dr. Addison disagrees with her feeding Peanut takeout food, he empathizes with her needing to be close to her pet as she explains she’s had him since she was a kid. Once Peanut is strong enough, he can begin a course of steroids and immune suppressors that Dr. Addison is hopeful will cure him. Sadie notices that while she feeds Peanut, Dr. Addison stays close instead of going away to do “doctorly things.” As they leave, he asks if she is “doing better.” Dr. Addison says he doesn’t have a pet but understands her emotions. Just before she walks away, Dr. Addison asks her out on a date.

Sadie wonders whether Dr. Addison would “[…] want to date—be anywhere near—a total disaster […]” (100). She tells him that she wants to go out with him, but they must wait three weeks until after she’s completed the portrait for the contest. She doesn’t tell him about her surgery or face blindness. He agrees but suggests they meet for coffee in the meantime.

On her way home, Sadie fantasizes about marrying Dr. Addison, winning the contest, and Peanut’s recovery. She stops at Bean Street Coffee, where two Hazels work. Sadie nicknames them Hazel One and Two. She hears someone call her name. She can’t recognize the voice, but the person carries a hairless cat. To her dismay, it’s Parker again, and she announces she’s moving into Sadie’s building. When Sadie reacts angrily, Parker suggests they “[…] move on from high school” (105). Sadie recalls Parker’s merciless cruelty to her in high school, even going as far as ruining her friendship with Augusta Ross by bullying her and blaming Sadie. The incident resulted in Sadie being expelled from school. Parker adds tauntingly that she also stole Sadie’s boyfriend. Parker shows no remorse and refuses when Sadie insists she can’t live in the building. She adds that Sadie won’t know she’s there since she can’t see her face.

Sadie hardly sees Parker but begins seeing “The Weasel,” or Joe, more regularly. He’s easily identifiable by his bowling jacket and his Vespa motorbike. Sadie sees him and another woman, whom she and Sue nickname “Busty McGee,” walking into the building together, and he’s holding her up. She assumes they’re intoxicated and offers to help the woman, but Joe accompanies her to her apartment. Sadie contemplates calling the police, fearing for the woman’s safety. After that, Sadie witnesses him going home with multiple different women and assumes he’s a “womanizer,” though Sue suggests he might be a sex worker. Sue says Joe is handsome, describes his perfectly proportionate features to Sadie, and convinces her he’s not dangerous.

At therapy, Dr. Nicole listens to Sadie’s account of Joe and begs her not to call the police on him, saying, “Go easy on poor Joe. And go easy on yourself. You can’t entirely trust yourself right now. Your senses are out of whack. Your brain has a lot going on” (111-112). Dr. Nicole explains that because Sadie has been through trauma, she is leaning into confirmation bias or finding what she expects to see. She encourages Sadie to look for the good and not assume the worst about people and situations.

Peanut recovers and is well enough to come home. While lying next to him on the floor, Sadie spots a box under her bed that contains mementos from her mother. Inside, she finds her mother’s roller skates, and memories of roller skating with her mother flood her memories. Sadie’s mother loved roller skating while listening to disco music, and they enjoyed skating together. Sadie tries on the skates, which fit, so she goes to the rooftop to skate. Though shaky at first, Sadie’s muscle memory kicks in, and soon, she’s smoothly skating and swirling on the rooftop to a disco playlist. The moment is bliss and reawakens her to “An awareness of the glorious, impossible miracle of being alive” (118).

Sadie is interrupted by Joe calling her name, and she’s so startled she trips and falls into him, pinning him to the ground. Momentarily stunned by the fact that she fell weeks out from brain surgery and she’s lying on top of a man she hates, Sadie lingers for an uncomfortably long moment until she gathers herself. She is unharmed, but Joe hits his head and scrapes his back. Sadie is angry that he's there because she’s the only person in the building with access to the roof, but Joe says the door is open. He apologizes for frightening her and calls her skating ability “mesmerizing.” Sadie makes Joe remove his shirt to examine the wounds and is immediately attracted to his physique. She makes him come to her apartment so she can attend to the wounds and selfishly so she can spend more time with him. Joe stares at her artwork, and she can tell he is impressed. She applies ointment to his scrapes, and Joe loves that she’s doing all this while wearing skates.

It’s Sadie’s mother’s birthday and the day for Sadie and Dr. Addison’s coffee date. She usually spends the day at home celebrating and remembering her mother, but today, she dons her favorite dress and carefully applies makeup. After waiting at the coffee shop for an hour, Sadie resolves that she’s been stood up. Just as she leaves, Parker enters the coffee shop and mocks Sadie for being stood up. Parker demands that Sadie give her Joe’s phone number, but Sadie refuses. Parker lunges for the phone when Sadie’s phone buzzes with a text from the vet clinic alerting Sadie that Dr. Addison is late due to an emergency case. Sadie defends herself, and Parker bumps into a customer, causing her to fall to the floor, spilling iced coffee all over her white outfit. Parker leaves without apologizing, and Sadie helps the woman clean up in the bathroom. The woman is going to the airport, so Sadie swaps her dress for the coffee-soaked outfit. She’s sad to part with her favorite dress, but it feels good to help another person.

Sadie walks out of the coffee shop and runs into Joe. She explains her wet clothes, and he asks her out to dinner. Sadie must first change her clothes, but when she gets home, she discovers Sue is throwing her a surprise party for being a contest finalist. Sadie tries to be thankful for her friend’s thoughtfulness, but mingling in a room full of strange faces makes her anxious. To make matters worse, Ezra, her ex, is there. Sue promises to stay with Sadie all night, helping her navigate the awkwardness, but she doesn’t follow through, and Sadie has a panic attack and hides. Joe finds Sadie and rubs her back to calm her down, but she insists she doesn’t need his help. Joe explains that his wife left him because he was too helpful and generous. Joe flips the breaker to fake a power outage to disband the party and send everyone home. Sadie says the darkness might frighten her, but Joe orders pizza and says, “We’ve got the moon” (146).

Sadie feels so relaxed being with Joe that she tells him it’s her mother’s birthday and shares how she celebrates the occasion each year. Joe empathizes with her desire to remember her mother on a happy day rather than marking the day of her death. Sadie still has the last voicemail her mother left her, and she’s played it so much that she’s memorized it. She recites it verbatim to Joe, and the tenderness of the act moves him. Sadie is missing out on baking a cake for the day, so Joe takes her on the Vespa to get cake slices at a diner. He gets the entire place to sing “Happy Birthday, Nora” for Sadie’s mom.

Despite not celebrating the day as she typically does, Sadie calls it a success because she stood up to Parker, helped a person in need, and discovered that Joe is kind. Still, she can’t get past Dr. Addison standing her up and not calling to apologize. Her disappointment forces her to reconsider her conclusion that he is her future husband. Conversely, Joe is “Surprisingly nice. Surprisingly attentive” (153), the opposite of a weasel.