Page 2 of Return Billionaire to Sender

I straighten and tip my chin up and put my shoulders back—the posture I take when I’m trying to remind myself that I can face anything—and push into the lobby.

It’s like a cathedral of black marble inside. The sleek and gleaming walls are caressed up and down with light from elegant black sconces, and there’s a large fountain in the middle that features a massive, jagged black boulder that’s maybe two stories tall. Is it also black marble? Did Malcolm Blackberg leave any marble for the rest of the world? How did they even get a boulder in here? Did a giant pop off the top of the building and lower it from the sky? Water streams down the sides in gleaming rivulets. Voices and footsteps create an echoing din.

I clutch my bag and stride across polished black marble, avoiding clusters of people while trying to look purposeful, making my way into the belly of the building toward the elevators on the far side.

Halfway in, I pause at the wall to examine the directory, just to gather my courage and to show I have business here.

I don’t need to look at the directory, of course. This isn’t my route, but I know that this building has six floors. I know that Malcolm Blackberg’s firm, Blackberg, Inc., occupies them all. I know their zip code and their delivery office; I know they have their very own plus-four code.

All of a sudden, the din of voices quiets. Did something happen? Did a shooter enter the building? Did the giant pop off the top of the building again, wanting his boulder back? I spin around, alarmed.

That’s when I see him.

I recognize his dark, elegant looks from the few photos of him that we could find, though I think I’d know him just from the way his people walk a little bit behind him, like fighter jets flanking the fiercest and most important jet.

I stand there stupidly, heart racing.

The photos didn’t do him justice. They didn’tprepare me for his beauty. Or let’s make that his terrifying beauty.

His swept-back hair gleams dark as midnight, and the skin on his aerodynamically chiseled face seems to glow with health, or maybe annoyance—it’s hard to tell. His tea-colored eyes shine with gorgeous intensity, focused ferociously on the elevator he’s heading towards, as if it's not enough for him to merely reach it with his two feet as a normal mortal would. No, he must also mesmerize it with his darkly enchanting predator’s gaze.

Onward he strolls, legs long, steps strong and purposeful. I should look away, but I can’t.

The confidence he exudes feels like a physical thing, a phenomenon with mass and weight, the self-assurance of a man with total mastery over his environment.

Nervously, I clutch my bag. Why did I think I could even speak with such a man, no less get him to watch something on my iPad?

Did my butterfly tie cut off circulation to my brain like Francine always warns?

I find myself longing to be anywhere but here. Ideally at work, my happy place.

Unlike most of my girlfriends, I love my job. I love the routine of it—picking up my mail in the morning, planning out my route, strategizing deliveries with the boxes, settling letters and circulars into the proper boxes, tilting them just so for easy grabbing.

My boss couldn’t believe I was actually taking a vacation day. I never take vacation days. Why would I?

There’s an important-looking, briefcase-toting woman coming toward Malcolm from the other way. Malcolm stops her and issues a command that causes her to show him something on her phone, and then the exchange is over, and the groups proceed in opposite directions, like a businesspersons’ Ice Capades. And Malcolm is the star, the Grand Master of Ceremonies, the harsh and unforgiving god gliding among trembling masses.

He nears.

This is my chance—my chance to go up to him. To ask him for a few moments of his time.

But my feet stay rooted to the ground. Malcolm Blackberg seems too big, too fierce, not of this world.

I remind myself that we’re just two human beings, but it’s no use.

Sweat blooms up my spine.

This whole caper seems doomed. Who thought it up? Wait, I did.

I remind myself of this trick that I do when I’m scared during a delivery, like if an area is super dark, or if a building looks creepy, I remind myself that people inside there are relying on me. I imagine their faces, waiting for an important letter.

Standing there in the Blackberg lobby, I imagine my friends’ faces, waiting to hear if I’m successful.

I remind myself that I’m our last hope; if I don’t stop Malcolm Blackberg from destroying our building, my girlfriends and I will have to move away from each other to lord knows where. Sure, we’ll make an effort to see each other, it just won’t be the same as being able to pop down the hall and unload about the minutiae of our days, knowing there’s always somebody to commiserate with you about the man spreader you had to sit next to on the train or watch Bachelor with you.

The little community that we’ve built up and down the hallways of our seven-story brick building is like a family. Especially to me. And poor old Maisey—she’ll lose the rent-controlled apartment she’s been in for five decades. Same with John, always in his platoon hat, leaning on his cane, and first-floor Kara—who will watch her baby when she has to suddenly run out?

None of us will ever find a community like the one at 341 West 45thStreet.

---