Page 7 of Return Billionaire to Sender

A female voice. “Yeah.”

Anya gestures me through the open door.

Janice West is a stately woman in her forties with a long neck, black hair, and bright red lips. “What is it that you have to show Mr. Blackberg?”

“It’s exclusively for Mr. Blackberg.”

“That’s not how this works,” Janice says. “I’ll take a look at whatever you have that’s so very urgent, and I’ll decide if it seems important enough to pass upstairs.”

“It’s for him alone to—”

“The answer’s no.” She waves a hand for Anya and me to skedaddle.

“Come on, then,”Anya says.

“No, wait,” I say. “It’s from the tenants. Things he needs to know about the building.”

“There’s nothing he needs to know about the building. He’s knocking that building down, and that tends to get rid of the issues with a building,” Janice says.

“No, we need him to know…look, we’re losing our homes. There’s just this small film I wanted to show him. It shows what the place means to us…”

“That would be a hard no,” Janice says. “The hardest of hard nos.”

“You’re leaving,” Anya says.

“But we’re losing ourhomes.”

Janice says, “There’s nothing anybody can do about that.”

I don’t know why this makes me mad, but it really does. “Mr. Blackberg could do something about it. He could change his mind—I heard there are other ways he could execute this project. If he could just see it. Look…it’s just us telling…” I open the small portfolio and turn on the screen and press play, tilting it so that they both can see it. I have it cued up to a part with Maisey. She’s the most persuasive. She starts talking about what 341 means to her.

“Good lord,” Janice groans.

“Come on, then,”Anya says.

“A minute of his time?” I close the portfolio, cutting off Maisey’s story.

“Here’s what you need to understand,” Janice says. “Bambi and Mother Teresa could chain themselves to that building and Mr. Blackberg wouldn’t stop the wrecking ball. In fact, if Bambi and Mother Teresa chained themselves to the building, he’d take great pleasure in swinging the wrecking ball himself.”

I grip my iPad. What kind of person would demolish a building more gleefully if Mother Teresa and Bambi were chained to it? This is who has our fate in his hands?

“I won’t believe that,” I say, remembering the way Malcolm Blackberg tucked my phone into the just-right little pocket, a small, kind gesture offered as I squatted there, dying of nervousness. I have the crazy thought that these women just don’t get him.

“He’d take extra pleasure in demolishing it,” Janice says. “Like it or not, I’m doing you a favor. Because if I sent you upstairs and by some miracle—and trust me, it would have to be a miracle—they let you through, and you showed him those few seconds of your little movie? He’d speed up the timeline. If there’s one thing Mr. Blackberg hates, it’s his time being wasted with things like this.”

“Leave with me or be escorted by security,” Anya says.

Defeated, I followAnya and her bright bun back toward the front. She walks me right to the elevator and pushes the down button. There is only a down button.

The elevator dumps me back into the grand lobby.

This can’t be it. It can’t be over now.

I linger for a while, pretending to wait for an elevator. I can’t run back home with my tail between my legs.

I watch a person wave a card in front of the black box that goes to the higher-up offices. The card hangs around her neck. What if I went and stood next to her? And just got on with her? I watch the doors open.She sees me watching and frowns. I lose my nerve and watch the doors shut.

I decide I’ll try to join the next person. Somebody else waves a card in front of the box. I go up and stand next to him, try to look like I belong.

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