And then, without warning, he’d said, “Come to Chicago. I need you here. I need you in my life.”
Dangling the promise of both student-loan-payoff-level money and the chance to work on a team developing the technology to diagnose childhood cancer before it even happened, he had talked her into withdrawing her acceptance from a fellowship at Duke.
She had been looking forward to meeting Jon at the door of the apartment where they would begin their new life together—until this morning, when he’d texted, Meeting’s running long. I have to take a later flight, but I’ll call when I’m on my way. XO.
As she had replied from the road to ask for a more precise ETA, she realized her off-brand USB cord, which worked only intermittently anyway, had stopped charging entirely somewhere near the Iowa-Illinois border. The phone had died before she could hit “Send,” and she’d made the rest of the drive to Chicago accompanied only by the voices of rural radio stations.
Jessica hated to cross the threshold without him, but as she entered the gleaming white lobby and noted the modern artwork, sleek furniture, and slate-tile floor, she was too excited to wait. Besides, she probably had fifteen minutes to get her car unpacked before it was ticketed, towed, and incarcerated in some sort of Chicago parking prison.
She rode the elevator to the second floor. Having spent the first few years of her thirties living in a worn beige block of apartments in a cookie-cutter Arizona development, she’d been craving character and charm, and probably would have picked out something different. On the other hand, she didn’t miss the musty, commingled odor created by years of cooking and human habitation. She also liked the wide hallway, the high ceiling, and the two skylights that illuminated the path to 205 despite the overcast afternoon.
There was a note taped to the door.
For a moment, she wondered if Jon had arrived before her after all and had some sort of surprise planned. Maybe a romantic scavenger hunt leading to what was destined to become their new favorite coffee place?
As she took another step closer, she realized the logo at the top of the page had also been painted on the truck blocking the front of the building: Chicagoland Rent-to-Own.
Please call our office to reschedule your furniture delivery.
“Shit!” echoed down the hallway as she dropped the laundry basket by the door and veered into the nearby stairwell. All her furniture was thrift store and hand-me-down IKEA, so she’d gifted it to an incoming resident at the hospital and kept only what she could fit in her car. Jon had promised to furnish their new apartment and make arrangements with the movers.
Jessica knew he was starting from scratch, too, but rental furniture?
Another question for her growing list.
She flew down the stairs and sprinted across the lobby, but as she burst through the front door, the truck was already moving away down the block. She raced after it, the gusty wind and spattering raindrops chilling her skin.
Thanks to Chicago traffic, perhaps the first and last time she’d think that, the truck slowed to a stop fifty feet away.
Jessica caught up and rapped on the window.
“I just missed you!” she said, pointing back toward her building. “Apartment 205!”
The driver looked at her in surprise before cracking the window. “We had the code to the building but no key to the unit. We tried to call.”
“My phone is dead and my boyfriend is on a flight,” Jessica told him. “Would you come back? Please?”
His hulking partner, who looked like a former football player whose muscles were turning to fat, shrugged and said, “Gotta be done by six.”
“It’ll take us five or ten to get back around the block,” added the driver resignedly.
“I really appreciate this,” Jessica said, glad she had cash for a tip and a few minutes to take in the apartment before they arrived.
She headed back, detouring into the parking lot to check on her car and grab her finicky charger and a couple of boxes. She reentered the warm lobby and called the elevator, which arrived quickly—another promising sign.
Finally, she put her key in the door and entered her apartment. Their apartment.
It was simply stunning. A cozy warm-gray entryway opened into a big airy space, with a white open-concept kitchen/dining area (complete with quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances) on the left and an oversize living room on the right. Between them, metal-railed stairs led to an open second-level hallway that overlooked the living area and two-story floor-to-ceiling windows.
Jessica made her way to the upper level, where there was a roomy master bedroom with both a walk-in closet and an en suite bathroom with a double-sink vanity. The other doors along the hallway revealed a guest bedroom, a laundry closet with washer and dryer, and a full guest bathroom. There was even a charming office nook complete with a built-in desk.
While she was flipping a light switch that didn’t seem to work, the movers arrived. She let them in and showed them around while still taking everything in herself, from the dramatic dark floors to the genuine wood-burning fireplace.
“Layout seems self-explanatory,” said the big guy, whose uniform name patch identified him as Darnell.
“We’ll start bringing everything in,” said the driver, a.k.a. Steve.
“I have a few more boxes to bring up, and I need to move my car,” she told them. “I’ll leave the door open so you can come and go.”
“Hurry back, so you can tell us where you want everything.”
Since everything they were about to bring in had been chosen by Jon, she hoped he’d be arriving soon. She fished a charging block out of her bag, plugged it into a wall outlet, and fiddled with both ends of the USB cord.
No luck.
She went down to get another load from her trunk before the movers came back.
It was raining harder now, so she moved the car to the building’s back entrance and shuttled the remainder of her worldly belongings inside.
Permanent parking? moved to the top of the list of her questions for Jon as she circled the block, looking for a spot that was both open and free of resident-only restrictions. She finally found one two blocks away.
She grabbed the jean jacket she’d left on the passenger seat, covered her head, and ran back to the building. Picking up two suitcases, she was grateful she’d included some bath towels among the few household items she’d brought.
Jessica reached the elevator at the same time as the movers and squeezed in with them.
“It says we’re supposed to have two club chairs, but there were three on the truck,” Darnell said, handing her a manifest.
She examined the list of furniture as they walked down the hall together and entered the apartment.
“I need to call my boyfriend to find out what he ordered. Do you have a USB cord I can borrow to charge my phone?”
“Sure, but I don’t think it’s going to help,” Steve said, flipping a nearby light switch up and down a few times. “Your utilities aren’t on yet.”
“They were supposed to be,” she said.
Darnell handed her his phone.
She thanked him, dialed Jon, and got his voice mail.
In what she hoped was a breezy tone, she left a message inquiring about the furniture order, asking if he knew when the power was scheduled to go on, wondering when he thought he would arrive, and suggesting where he might find parking when he did.