Page 82 of Wish I Were Here
Luca strolls back into the mail room. “Catherine, I’m really sorry about the bike. Mr. Winthrop broke his hip a few months ago, and he’s just getting back at it…” He stops, probably taking in my pale face and hunched-over posture, and he hurries toward me. “Shit, are you really hurt? I didn’t realize that bike was quite so heavy…” He reaches for my arm, but I yank it away.
“Please don’t touch me.”
He backs away, his gaze roaming over my face, which I’m sure is rapidly going from ghostly pale to bright red. “Is this about the bike?”
“No. It’s not the bike.” I pick up the letters and hold them out to him. “It’s about these.”
Keeping his eyes on my face, he reaches out and takes the letters. Turning one over in his hand, he glances at it, and then back up to me. “So you finally got the letter from your bank.”
“Finally?” I choke. “Look at the postmark.”
He flips over the envelope again. “August eighth. Why does that date ring a bell?”
“I have no idea.”
“Wait.” He squints. “It’s August ninth that I’m remembering.”
I press my hands to my face. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the letter has been here, in the back of the mail room,for weeks.”
Luca’s gaze slides from the papers in his hand, to the bin on the table, to my face.
“What matters,” I continue, my voice strangely calm, when inside I’m screaming, “is that you left it here, in a bin, instead of putting it in my mailbox, where I would see it. When I would still have time to do something about it before my accounts were shut down and my job put in jeopardy.”
Luca swears under his breath. “I’m so sorry, Catherine.”
“Just like you’re sorry about the bike in the mail room? And the lost dry cleaning? And…” I wave my hand. “All the other rules you break and ways you’re completely, utterly irresponsible?”
Luca stares down at the envelope. “Look, Catherine. I know what this looks like. But that date—I think I know what happened. This letter arrived on August ninth. I was sorting the mail, and there was an emergency…”
I cut him off. “Why do I feel like everything to you is an emergency if it means not doing your job?”
“Okay.” Luca drops his hands to his sides. “This is really unfair. I may not always follow your precious manual of rules and regulations, but I’m good at my job. I’m great at it.”
“A doorman’s job is to be atthe door.”
“Only if you look at everything from your narrow view of the world.”
I take a step back, away from him. “This”—I wave a finger between us—“is never going to work.”
“Catherine, wait. Let’s talk about this.”
“This is all just a game to you, but this ismy life.” I shake my head slowly, realization dawning. “Melanie was right about you.” With that, I turn and push past him, stalking out into the lobby and banging my hand on the elevator button.
Luca trails after me. “What do you mean Melanie was right about me?” He takes my arm, turning me around to face him. And I hate that even now, after all this, my heart tugs in his direction. I hate that his face is creased with worry, and I just want to put the smile back where it belongs. Thankfully, the elevator arrives, and I hop on, quickly hitting the button for my floor. “You’re just like my dad.” I give the button another push for good measure. “That’s what I mean.”
The elevator door begins sliding shut. And at the last moment, right before they close completely, I hear Luca call, “I consider that a compliment!”
Upstairs in my apartment, I bury myself in work, pulling books off my shelves, printing out Dr. Gupta’s notes and spreading them across the coffee table, and tearing apart my research paper outline so I can put it all back together again. Outside, the sun goes down and the streetlights come on. Down the hall, I hear a door open and close, and footsteps pass by my door. I briefly wonder if it’s Sal, but I keep working, stopping only to run to the bathroom and to shove a protein bar in my mouth.
Finally, around midnight, I lean back against the couch cushions and take one last look at the laptop on my knees. My outline for my paper is good. It’s better than good. It’s great, and when I’m done with the paper, it’s going to be accepted toStudies in Applied Mathematicson the first try. I’m sure of it. With a sigh, I gaze around my apartment. If I were at Dad’s place, I never could have worked like this. There would have been too much clutter to spread out my books and papers, and too many distractions.
I feel a tremor of panic. What if I can’t sort out my identity tomorrow? Will I end up living in chaos again? I guess if that’s the case, I won’t have any research papers to writeanyway, and I won’t need this clean, organized space. I’ll be on a direct route to clown town. At least it’s the kind of job you can do without a bank account.
I never thought I’d see the day when that was a silver lining.
I grab for a throw pillow to hug for comfort, and my hand closes around something else instead. A large scrap of black fabric. Luca’s hoodie. He must have left it here the other day.
Of course he left it. He also left a glass on the side table without a coaster and a pair of sunglasses on the kitchen counter, and he doodled all over my to-do list. He’s like a walking hurricane blowing through and leaving chaos in his wake.
