My admiration could not, however, unpack my boxes any faster.
Seizing on the arrival of the floral messenger as an excuse to wander out, I leant over the second-level railing to watch our twenty-year-old receptionist sign the delivery slip. She turned to call across the sun-dappled space.
"They're for you,’ she said.
Sean must have sent them, I thought as I clanked down the painted metal stairs. He was at the warehouse today for an efficiency meeting with the company who handled our on-line orders. He was good with the managers, most of whom had worked their way up from the loading bay. They admired a man who'd earned his living with his hands - and could still heave a crate with the best of them.
I smiled as I scampered down the last few steps. The men at the warehouse didn't know that these days Sean kept his calluses in shape by heaving dumbbells, not crates. Fortunately, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt our service, including the fact that Sean could be awfully sweet when he put his mind to it. Imagine -sending me flowers for opening day.
At my approach, the receptionist clasped the fat hand-blown vase and slid it towards the centre of her C-shaped counter. The heavy iron and glass told me this was not a standard arrangement.
'Shall I carry them up, Ms Winthrop?' asked the wide-eyed girl.
I laughed. "They're bigger than you are, Cheryl. No, I'll just read the card and leave them here to impress the movers.'
The profusion of roses was impressive. Three dozen red and white American Beauties spilt from the vase. The air conditioning wasn't up to scratch yet and their perfume overwhelmed the reception area.
The scent triggered a flash of deja vu, more the memory of an emotion than an event. Unaccountably, my pulse began to race.
'Here's the card,' said Cheryl, extracting it from the mass of dark green leaves.
I opened it with unsteady hands. 'Prepare yourself, Kate,' it said.'
My mind blanked. Then I recognised the handwriting. My heart leapt before I could stop it. 'J' for Joe. Joe was sending me flowers? Joe was in town? I touched the bold, swooping initial. He probably was if he'd written the card himself.
But what did he mean by 'prepare yourself?
Whatever happened to 'How have you been?' or 'Congratulations' or 'Sorry for being such an uncommunicative toad!'?
I glared at the heavy cream-coloured paper. I guessed earning a hundred thousand per episode gave a person airs.
'Bad news?' Cheryl asked, practically quaking in her teeny-tiny combat boots. She was an adorable slip of a thing, bright as a new penny, and for some reason I scared the pants off her.
I patted her narrow shoulder. 'Just a note from an old friend. But I remembered something I need to do at the South Street
shop. Can you handle things while I'm gone?'
'Sure,' she said, looking worried but staunch.
'You'll be fine.' I suppressed an urge to pinch her cheek. 'Shall I say "hi" to Keith for you while I'm there?'
She fiddled with the last of the three gold rings that pierced her right eyebrow. 'Oh, well, if you think he'd want me to say "hi".'
I grinned. She had no idea what her diminutive tootsies did to our otherwise conservative shop manager. Keith's freckles practically melted the day he met Cheryl - and her perfect size twos. Too bad he didn't have the nerve to speak to her.
'I'm sure Keith would be delighted to know you were thinking of him,’ I said, 'assuming you want to delight him. He has a wild side, you know.'
'Does he?' she breathed, sounding intrigued enough to justify my matchmaking.
I left assured that she'd have better things to mull over than what might go wrong in my absence - because absent I was determined to be. If Master 'J' decided to follow his flowers into my office, he could bloody well lord it over someone else.
' "Prepare yourself",' I fumed, not stopping to wonder why those words sent me into a fury when they came from Joe - and would have made me chuckle if they'd come from Sean.
The normally quiet Cheryl was bubbling with news when I returned that afternoon.
'You'll never believe who was here,’ she said, her elfin face as pink as the proverbial English rose.
'Joseph Capriccio?' I suggested, pretending to flip through my mail.
'Yes!' she shrieked, then covered her mouth with both hands. I couldn't help smiling as she bounced on the balls of her feet. 'I can't believe you know him, Ms Winthrop. That is, like, way totally cool. He is so hot on Manhattan Nights and even better looking in person. Did you know he had the same voice coach as me? And he's nice. When he heard you were out, we just talked and talked.'
I looked up from the mail.
'Talked about what?' I asked, more sharply than I'd intended.
Cheryl's smile faltered. 'About you, mostly, and MR Enterprises. But I swear I didn't tell him anything that isn't in our brochures. Except -' She drew a circle in the condensation from Joe's huge vase of roses.
'Except?' I prompted.
'Except I sort of let it slip that you didn't have a date tonight.'