EMMA

We were standing behind a heterosexual couple at the checkout. They were getting an explanation from the woman serving them why the product she’d just scanned wasn’t registering.
I read the name tag of the woman scanning and turned to Daughter next to me and said, ‘I don’t shop here to have things explained to me by people called Emma, I come for a quiet efficient service. I don’t want to get into anything.’
‘Shhh,’ said Daughter, ‘she heard you.’
‘I didn’t say it loud enough.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘When you say someone’s name they hear it no matter how quietly you say it. And she heard it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The way she’s looking at you.’
I looked at Emma and from looking I couldn’t tell whether she’d heard what I’d said or not but when it came to her serving me she said nothing except to tell me the cost of my shopping and then, ‘Thank you,’ when the transaction was complete.
‘I told you she’d heard,’ said Daughter as we walked away from the checkout.