Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
I put a heart over Clara’s last text and set my phone down, leaning back in my home office chair. It immediately lets out a concerning crack, and I need to hurl my weight forward, palms slapping onto my desk to keep myself from falling backward. When I stand, the chair flops over on its base with a groan, like it heard bad news and needed to lie down.
Amazing. Another thing I’m going to have to replace, including my ancient personal laptop (had to turn my work computer in when I was laid off), my AirPods (they were tumbled and humbled when I left them in my pocket on laundry day), and my refrigerator (it was a hand-me-down from my grandmother and honestly lived longer than it should have, but damn).
Instinctively, I glance at the clock, wondering, Is it too early for a beer? The small hand on the two gives me a definitive Yes, too early, but it does make me realize that Larry, the most consistent postal worker ever, will have just delivered the mail, and this day could be improved by the arrival of my final paycheck with my six months’ severance.
I find it obnoxious and stupid that Payroll insisted that, due to the need for paper trails as well as the date of my termination, my final check couldn’t be direct deposited like all the other ones. It’s meant that I’ve been on high alert for over two weeks now, paranoid that this money—the only thing keeping me from having to move in with my sister—will somehow vanish into the logistical tangle of the USPS.
Trust in Larry, I tell myself.
Downstairs it is, predictably, a gentle swarm of the work-from-home contingent, who all know Larry’s schedule and probably also want an excuse to get away from their screens. There’s Catalogs from 2A, who gets dozens of glossy catalogs crammed daily into her small mailbox; Loud Kevin, the mid-twenties day trader from 8G, who is so thundering during calls from his balcony that I can often hear him from my place on the fourth floor; my silver fox next-door neighbor, Mad Men Roger Sterling, from 4B, who always has at least one AirPod in his ear and continues his call no matter how many of us are listening in; and Velvet Rope, the sleazy guy just below me in 3C, who dresses exclusively in very loud, but very clearly knockoff, Versace.
Obviously, I have no idea what anyone’s real name is (other than Kevin, because we all hear “Hey, man, it’s Kevin” a hundred times a day). Perhaps not surprisingly, ours is not the most social of buildings in downtown Chicago.
At the wall of mailboxes in the marble-and-brass lobby, we all shift around each other, apologizing under our breath like a group of moms retrieving their shoes from the cubbies at the yoga studio. I open up my mailbox—4C—and my heart sinks.
No check.
I tilt my head back in frustration, and that’s when I see him walk down the curved wooden staircase.
He lives in 2C, that much I know. I think he only moved in about a month ago, and although it isn’t the culture of the historic Grand Fir Estates apartment building to get very chummy in the lobby, I’m not sure I would even want us to have a conversation if it was possible. He’s the kind of beautiful man to be admired from a distance, because there’s no way when he opens his mouth that whatever comes out can live up to the exterior.
In a move that I will never admit to anyone other than my sister, I’ve taken to calling him Friday, because seeing him is what I look forward to. After glimpsing him only once as we passed in the lobby, Clara named him Lava Lamp because, according to her, “He’s hot and mesmerizing.”
I don’t know what he does for work, just that he seems to work three days a week at home and two at the office. Also, I know that he’s well over six feet tall, with dark curls, deep-brown eyes, and smooth olive skin. His work-from-home attire is worn jeans, soft cashmere sweaters or well-loved plain black T-shirts, and sneakers. His office days find him in pressed trousers and a button-down shirt that’s either white or soft blue. The one time I saw him smile—he was checking the mail with one of his friends in tow—I caught a flash of two of the deepest dimples I’d ever seen and probably should have taken a pregnancy test a few days later.
Catalogs and I both watch him pull his mail from the box and obliviously make his way back up the stairs. I honestly don’t care that Loud Kevin has just caught us ogling, or that there isn’t a check in my mailbox today. Catching a glimpse of Friday has made me forget about all of it.