I was unemployed. My rent was due in five days. I had made an enemy of a world-renowned pastry chef who held the keys to any recommendation for my next job.
My phone also awoke after a forty-eight-hour slumber, and I jumped when it began vibrating with a string of unread text messages. There were a few from Carlo, with sentiments like “You WHAAAAT?!” and “WHO’S FELIX’S DADDY?” I scrolled through two from my mother that read more like epistles, detailing a debacle with a failed sump pump and wet carpet in the basement. After checking twice to be sure, there was not one message from Alain, the jerk. Five years of my life devoted to his restaurant, and he didn’t have the decency to come to my aid, or at least offer a fond farewell. Or a severance package. Or a boot for Felix’s ample rear.
Just as I pulled up Manda’s number and was about to make the call to begin my pity party in earnest, my door buzzer sounded. I scrambled out of bed and threw a sweatshirt and jeans over my sleep shirt. Raking fingers through my hair as I walked, I reached the door and peered through the peephole. A man I didn’t recognize was holding a bulky package. The words on his cap read ABE’S MESSENGER SERVICE.
I unlocked the two deadbolts and undid the chain.
“Can I help you?” I said through the narrow slit that separated us.
“Delivery for a Mr. Charlie Garrett. Does he live here?” The man turned out to be a boy of maybe eighteen with a peppering of blackheads on his nose. He squinted through the opening in the door.
“I do,” I said. “I mean, I am. I am Charlie Garrett. It’s a Ms., not a Mr.”
The kid considered this information and appeared to come to peace with it. “All right. I’ll go with that,” he said. He produced a phone and tapped in some numbers, then held it up to me through the crack in the door. “You have to talk to this dude first. Says here I can’t give you the delivery until you talk to him. I’ll put you on speaker.”
I took the phone, confusion registering on my face. “Hello?” I said into the phone just as Avery Malachowski answered.
“Charlie! Sweet. Okay, tell the delivery guy you are cleared for Package One.”
The kid could hear Avery’s booming voice through the phone’s speaker, so without waiting for a sign from me, he gestured for me to open the door, which I did. Then he handed me a tailored-looking white box tied with an orange and white polka-dot ribbon. I tugged at the ribbon and shimmied the top off the box. A beautiful strawberry mousse tart with a pecan crust was artfully nestled in yards of tissue paper. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“How do you know about this?” I shook my head and pulled the tart box inside my apartment, aware that my stomach was rumbling with neglect.
“Oh, Danny the line cook and I go way back.”
“You do?” I was incredulous. Danny and Avery?
“Nah, actually we don’t. But a hundred bucks can buy a spy and a phone call when a certain pastry chef goes apeshit and gives her psycho boss a pie in the face.”
“It was a tart. And I’m not apeshit.”
“Of course you’re not. Though you do have your quirks, as I remember. Package Two, delivery man,” Avery said, still on speaker phone.
The kid produced a bigger box, wrapped in white and again tied with the orange polka-dot ribbon. I slipped a finger under the paper and unfolded one side without ripping. I must have been taking too long, because the delivery kid sighed and Avery said, “A little faster, Garrett. Not all of us are out of work.”
The contents of Package Two made me giggle like the school girl I’d been when I’d first seen it.
“I can’t believe you remembered this,” I said, blushing at his thoughtfulness.
“The MegaPro Dynamic Action Label Maker with extra labeling tape. Remember how you used to drag me to office supplies stores and salivate over the organization sections? You are a weirdo, Charlie. But I thought the MegaPro might come in handy. Package Three, please.”
The delivery boy was starting to look a little scared of me. Could have been the hair. Could have been the two days’ worth of morning breath. Could have been my unfettered joy at opening a label maker (high speed and with a touch screen!).
I had to crack the door wider for the last package. It was tall, narrow, and awkward, and when I pulled down the brown packing paper, I saw a hefty shrink-wrapped bundle of moving boxes.
I stared, worrying my lower lip with my teeth, until the delivery boy spoke.
“SHE’S GONE MUTE, SIR.” He spoke inappropriately loudly into the phone. “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO NOW?”
“Charlie,” Avery said, “it’s time for a fresh start. Fill those boxes, call a moving company, and send me the bill. Just get out of there.”
“Avery, I’m flattered, but—”
“Oh, sorry! What was that? Hesitation? Reluctance? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I could picture Avery stomping around wherever he was, gesticulating with his hands. “There are no roadblocks here, Charlie. Only fear of the unknown, which, as I remember, used to be something we were excited about ten years ago. Remember?”