“Yay!” I say.
“And I’m going to quit with no notice. I’m just going to walk out and never look back as punishment for them sending me on the jerk missions.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t let them know?” I try.
“No,” she says gleefully. “Let them figure it out when I don’t show up.”
Inwardly I wince—I’m a total rule follower; I would never dream of walking off a job without giving some kind of notice.
We’re stuck for a good twenty minutes more. In that time she looks up a storage unit place and calls some people to help get her stuff into storage. The overseas-English-teacher people are working on an expedited visa.
The engineers tell us they’re finishing up.
She turns to me. “Thank you. I’m like, happy again.”
“You’re welcome. But you made the plan. You’re taking the leap.”
“But you gave me the push.” She digs a business card out of her briefcase and hands it to me. “That email address won’t work as soon as they figure out I’m AWOL, but the mobile’s good. If you ever need anything, you got it. If you ever go to Estonia, you have a place to crash, sister.”
“Send me a postcard,” I say. I grab a scrap of paper and write down my home address and phone number.
“Cool beans.” She takes it.
Finally, the car lurches to the next floor and the doors open. We get out into the cool air. It’s the fifth floor, and guys with toolboxes and phones are waiting. They apologize profusely. One hands us waters. Another does some work on the button panel.
We’re supposed to get into the other elevator to continue on to the sixth floor, but Stella informs them that she’s going to the lobby.
I hug her and wish her luck.
Talking to Stella was a perfect diversion, but ten minutes later I’m back to reality, getting out alone on the sixth floor with my bogus delivery. I head for the front desk, grateful that there’s no sign of Janice or Anya.
Like everything in this place, the front desk is sleek and polished and possibly made of black marble. The two men and one woman perched behind it are intent on their work.
“You got this,” I say to myself, pressing my bag to my belly. If Stella can drop everything and go to Estonia, I can pretend Malcolm Blackberg’s personal signature is required on a delivery.
My new plan is to tell him that he must watch the video as part of the delivery, that there’s something he must see in it. I’m hoping that gets him curious enough to keep him glued to the screen. Curiosity will keep people watching something for a pretty long time, or at least, that’s how it worked for me when we watched “Stranger Things.”
I smile at the man at the end, the only one of the three people who makes eye contact with me. His dark hair is cropped short against his boxy head, and he wears wire-rimmed glasses.
“Another?” he asks.
“Yup. Addressee only,” I say.
“Sure thing.” He holds his hand out for the electronic clipboard that I don’t have.
“Sorry,” I say. “Addressee only.” I show him the front of it. “Mr. Malcolm Blackberg.”
“We’re all authorized agents to receive for Mr. Blackberg.” He keeps his hand out for the clipboard.
“No, this is a delivery specifically for Mr. Blackberg. Only he can sign.”
“We always sign for Mr. Blackberg’s stuff,” he says. “There’s nothing we can’t sign for.”
I’d be impressed if my heart weren’t pounding like a jackhammer on a pogo stick. “Addressee only,” I say.
“Nobody delivers directly to Mr. Blackberg.”
Another receptionist comes up beside him. “We’re authorized agents. We can sign for his deliveries.”
“This one is special.” I set down my clipboard and Stella’s card and show them the front of the envelope. “It must go to Mr. Blackberg himself.”
The third receptionist comes over. “What’s going on?” She squints at the envelope. “This isn’t how we usually get private stuff. The private stuff comes by courier. I don’t understand.”
“This delivery requires Mr. Blackberg’s signature,” I say. “It’s very unusual, I know. It’s a video he must watch.”
“A video?” She frowns at me.
“My instructions are very specific,” I say.
The guy picks up Stella’s card. “Ohhhhh, I get it.” He shows the woman Stella’s card. “This is who it’s from. She was in the elevator that broke down.”
“Ah,” she says. “You’re late, Stella.”
“Your office called,” the first guy says. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m not Stella,” I say. “I’m the letter carrier. With a very important delivery.”
The other receptionist winks. “Right, you’re the letter carrier. With a special delivery. That happens to be a video.”
“Right,” I say, “but I’m not Stella.”
An older woman comes and takes Stella’s card. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
The guy screws up his face and leans near to me, voice lowered conspiratorially. “Just no on the letter carrier shtick. Mr. Blackberg hates gimmicks. Hates.”
“I’m really just here to—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says. “Your funeral.”
The woman is back. “He’s ready for you, Stella.”
“I’m not Stella…”
“We got it,” she says, annoyed.
The guy comes out from behind the desk and beckons me to follow him.
It’s here that I realize I should just shut up, being that nobody else has gotten anywhere near this far in the quest to see Mr. Blackberg.
Tabitha’s billionaire boyfriend, Rex, even tried to buy the building from him at one point, and Malcolm Blackberg seemed to take perverse glee in turning him down without so much as granting him a meeting. There’s some thinking that Blackberg even sped up the eviction timetable because of Rex’s offer. Tabitha feels sick about it, even though we all assure her that it’s not her fault.
I follow the man into a luxurious little room with a couch and a selection of snacks. I stop him before he knocks.
“Wait. Remind me…how long do you have budgeted for this meeting?”
“We slotted out the hour you requested, but he has an eleven hard stop that can’t be moved. I know you were stuck in the elevator—just add more time to the back of the schedule or whatever you do and we’ll approve it.” With that he knocks.
“Thank you,” I say, clutching the envelope with its rectangular bulge. It’s ten forty. I have exactly twenty minutes to make him watch the video. It’s twenty minutes more than I’d dared to hope for.
There’s a grunt from inside—I can’t tell what it means, but my guide seems to think it means come in because he proceeds to open the door to one of the most luxurious spaces I’ve even seen. Practically everything is black marble or steel.
The desk is a massive black marble slab atop a rough-hewn marble base that looks like it was forged by the axes of ogres.
There behind the desk sits Mr. Blackberg himself. He fixes me with a confused glower.