Page 54 of Return Billionaire to Sender

My friends think it’s amazing that Malcolm is so observant. They think it’s a good sign. I don’t tell them the part where he claims to use it only for ill.

I won’t believe it. I refuse to.

Sometimes Malcolm peppers me with questions about the town where I grew up, and it’s not just about how far Mapleton is from Pittsburgh or Philly or New York—he wants to know about the people, the culture. I dig out shots of the ridiculously tiny school I attended. He digs out pictures of the boys’ school he attended. I tease him about always being in the back of the group pictures, never a smile.

“Oh I always sat in the back—whenever I could,” he says.

“I always sat in the front,” I say.

“That’s perfect,” he says. “With your pencils sharpened.”

“And of course you sat in the back,” I say.

“Where else? The front always seemed so far away. After a while, it was, I suppose.” He sounds almost wistful.

“Would you havewantedto sit in the front?” I ask.

He declares the question unanswerable, and he teases me about always sitting up front. As the days wear on, I find that I’m showing him parts of myself I didn’t expect to show him. Our sessions get longer and longer.

“No more questions; it’s time to watch the video,” I say after a lengthy exchange on favorite music—it turns out he’s into classic UK punk rock like The Damned and Generation X. I’m more of a Sia girl, but I also like folk singers like Frazey Ford. He wants to hear more about Frazey Ford, and I tell him the music talk is over. “Time for the program.”

“Will there be no more postal quizzes? I like those quizzes,” he says.

“I can’t believe you don’t prefer the movie. When I was in school, people were glad when the teacher showed a movie. It meant you didn’t have to do anything.”

“People were glad,” he says. “But you?”

I try not to feel flattered when his observational skills turn on me. The truth is, I always secretly hated having a movie instead of classroom instruction or quizzes. Before I know it, he’s wrangling out of me what a nerd about school I was. I did all my homework, I helped out when I could. I was a Girl Scout well into high school. I always know where my keys are. I love accounting software and day planners. Suddenly I’m pulling my day planner out of my bag in order to show him my system of stickers, including stars, lightning bolts, and hedgehogs. I don’t know what’s come over me—it feels intimate, like showing him a piece of myself, the secret of how I run. And I want him to see.

“I hope you don’t think this shortens your session,” I say, shutting it and nestling it back in my bag.

“The point of chatting with you has nothing to do with my sessions,” he says, and I feel the truth of it, and my belly does its weird fluttery thing. But hey, chatting like nice, normal human beings is a good thing. Chatting is a key part of building empathy, though when I’m honest with myself, the way we’re talking is feeling like a date. A really fun and promising date.

“It’s time.” I push play.

In the days that follow, we fall into a pleasant little routine. We meet in the Blue Flame room and feast and chat, but then it’s onto the video. It’s not easy to limit the chat but I do my best. And even though he acts grumpy about it all, he keeps paying attention.

He seems to really like Antonio, and he’s happy when Antonio appears onscreen to tell a few neighbors that he landed a minor role in “Aladdin.”

On another day, Malcolm laughs when Mia comes into the frame wearing the cat suit she has to wear for her delivery job—that particular video was from a few years back, when she first got the job. “Takes a lot of nerve to walk around Manhattan dressed like that,” he says.

You have no idea how she hated it,I want to say, but obviously I don’t. I do really wish I could tell him about the big break she got recently. And I have a funny story about her delivering sandwiches to her ex while wearing the costume. I hate this deception—it just isn’t me.

But he’s starting to see my friends and neighbors as human beings, and I don’t care how hopeless he makes it sound, I’m going to take that as a great sign. That’s how it was with Scrooge, right? Once he really looked at Tiny Tim, his heart opened. Maybe this is working.

I dine with my traveling team buddies, which is to say I have a drink and laugh and chat with them while they eat. Afterwards I take a walk down Pine Street toward the Embarcadero.

That’s when the call comes in.

I don’t recognize the number, but sometimes I answer unknown calls because I just never know if it’s somebody from the building.

“Is this…Stella?” the woman on the other end asks.

I freeze…is it the Bexley office? I’ve been dreading a call from the Bexley office. “Can I help you?” I ask.

“Is this Stella?” she asks again.

I wince. “Who is this?” I ask.

---