Chapter Three
Three
Two days after the letter arrived, I found Phoebe waiting on the sidewalk outside our apartment when I got home from work, a storm of emotions brewing in her features.
“You’re late!” she cried as soon as I was within earshot.
Her backpack sat on the pavement at her feet, meaning she hadn’t bothered dropping it off upstairs.
I knew something was up this morning when she wolfed down a bowl of cereal and told me to have a great day before rushing out the door.
A stark difference to the silent stompings of mornings past. I floated through most of the day, keenly aware my phone wasn’t ringing (we weren’t supposed to keep our volume on at work, but considering how often Phoebe’s school called, it had become a necessity, and my students danced along to the ringtone whenever it chimed).
The optimistic part of me hoped we’d simply turned a corner and she liked me again, but I knew better than to trust it by now.
She’d been sleuthing. Hopefully the nice, legal kind of sleuthing that takes place in a public library, but I had my doubts.
“Hello to you, too,” I said, keeping my pace leisurely to piss her off. As much as I wanted her happy, sometimes the older sister gene won out. “And I’m not late. This is the time I get home. You’d know that if you didn’t have detention every day.”
She sneered. “Not today.”
“Not today or you skipped it today?”
“Vi,” she said, ignoring the question, “I found him.”
I sighed. “Of course you did.”
“I didn’t do anything illegal,” she told me in a breathless rush, eyes bright.
“Okay,” I said. “Then how’d you find him?”
“Can’t you just be like, ‘Wow, Bee, you are so beautiful and impressive. Let’s hit the road.’ ”
“Wow, Bee, you are so beautiful and impressive,” I echoed. “Before we hit the road, though, I need to know how you managed to track this guy down.”
She scrunched her nose up, which always preceded something I wouldn’t approve of. Barbies flushed down the toilet, an abandoned baby bunny living in a box in her closet, something terrifically illegal to find a man who didn’t want to be found.
“Remember when Noah said our apartment building probably doesn’t keep records?” She smiled with all her teeth. “Well…”
A breath wheezed out of me like an old balloon. “Phoebe.”
“I didn’t break into anything,” she added quickly. “Rhonda, the lady who works in the office? I just asked her some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Just, like, how her day was going and what she likes most about her job.” She bit her thumbnail. “If she’d be interested in letting me man the desk for a bit while she has a long lunch with her boyfriend.”
“So, bribery,” I said flatly. I shouldn’t have expected anything less when she was so hell-bent on answers. “Which is illegal.”
“It’s not bribery. There was no exchange of goods. Just information.”
I groaned.
“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I didn’t break into anything, either. Rhonda looked up Benji for me and told me he lived here for two years, he has fantastic credit, and he works at Sequest. You know Sequest, right?”
I did. Sequest was a small nonprofit organization that supported LGBT+ youth, particularly those who’d been displaced, and I passed it every morning on my walk to work. Multiple laws broken in an effort to find a man ten minutes down the road.
“Sequest,” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around it. I hadn’t imagined much about Benji Dexter, but this certainly felt a bit out of left field; if I had to guess, I would’ve said he was some sort of writer, considering the yearning letter.
“Right?” Phoebe said. “I have a good feeling about it. Do you?”
The opposite. If not for Phoebe, I would’ve put the letter in a drawer and forgotten about it. But we were in this together, somehow. Our first adventure since Dad died. I had no idea how it turned into this, but I wouldn’t complain.
“I haven’t decided, yet,” I replied. She studied my face, her expression growing wary.
“You said if I found him, we would take him the letter.”
“I know what I said.”
“So…?” She tilted her head, fixing me with one of the sparkly, hopeful looks she used to wear when the tinkling sound of the ice cream truck swung around the corner. My heart dipped, and frankly, I’d let it drown if it meant this budding bond between us could bloom.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. We can go.”
A bright grin overtook her face.
“But we have to bring Arden,” I added. “She’ll kill me if we don’t.”
Phoebe snatched her backpack off the sidewalk and bolted for the entrance of our building. It wasn’t until the elevator doors slid shut, revealing our reflections, that I realized I was smiling too.
Two and a half minutes into the walk to Sequest, Phoebe and Arden had already lost their minds.
“This is so exciting,” Arden said, clapping her hands over her cheeks. “Do you know what this could mean?”
“We go to jail for breaking the law?” I muttered, sidestepping a jogging woman.
The beaming sun had the sidewalks bustling.
Boston was at its very best on the cusp of summer, an almost electric feel in the air.
A steady stream of traffic emitted the stench of exhaust and gasoline, mingling with the smells coming from Antonio’s Pizza and the quaint café next door.
I loved the orange hue painting the tippy tops of high-rises and strategically planted trees, but I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate it with the tittering behind me.
“Think of the possibilities,” Arden said. “What if this is what reunites them? We could bring true love back together!”
“Imagine if that letter never got to Catalina,” Phoebe agreed wistfully. “I would forgive someone if they wrote me a letter like that. Wouldn’t matter what they did.”
I kept my mouth shut so I wouldn’t unleash the pessimistic thoughts rolling through my head. Phoebe needed me to be on board with this. She needed me to be the Violet who was optimistic and fun, even though that version of me had been struggling to scratch the surface since September.
Three positives: Phoebe was smiling, Noah gave us a quart of chicken noodle soup, I avoided stepping in a huge pile of dog shit someone left on the sidewalk.
“We could have a part in this couple’s love story.” Arden burst forward to throw her arms around my shoulders. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“You guys need to calm down,” I replied. “You’re gonna freak everyone out. This whole thing is weird enough without imagining a reconciliation.”
Arden released me at once, turning to Phoebe. “She’s right. They’ll see the mania in our eyes.”
My sister, not listening, said, “Do you think Benji’s bi? Or trans? And that’s why he works at Sequest?”
Arden covered her heart with her hands. I turned to walk backward, pointing between them as I said, “Stop. That’s none of our business. None of this is any of our business. We are returning a letter to its rightful owner, that’s all. If he’s even there.”
“He’s there,” Arden said confidently. “I can feel it. My gut feelings are getting way more accurate lately. Remember Antonio?”
“Anyone with half a brain knows Antonio has a thing for you,” I rebuffed, facing forward. “Just chill out. Both of you.”
“Maybe you should do the talking,” Phoebe said. I stopped on the sidewalk to meet her challenging gaze. “Since this doesn’t matter to you whatsoever.”
“Okay,” Arden cut in, placing a hand on Phoebe’s shoulder. She shrugged her off. “We’re doing something cool right now, remember? Can we focus on that?”
Phoebe continued staring me down, smile gone. I took a small step toward her. “I care,” I said. “I’m keeping my expectations low. It’s not so easy to be optimistic these days. But I do care.”
Her expression softened imperceptibly. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s go.”
The broody stomping briefly returned, but by the time the small brick building came into view, Phoebe was smiling and any semblance of doubt fled my head.
The building itself was fairly bland, save for the Pride flag twitching in the breeze.
Phoebe quickened her pace to reach the door first. Inside, warm lighting and inviting velvet furniture filled the lobby, the walls adorned with paintings, as well as drawings done by children.
It smelled like lemon and honey. An immediate sense of calm drifted through me, and I realized that was exactly the point of a place like this.
An older woman sat behind a mahogany desk, glasses perched at the tip of her nose. She looked up at our arrival, smiling. “Hello. What can I do for you?”
I glanced at Phoebe and Arden, who stared at me expectantly. So, I was actually doing the talking here.
“Hi,” I said, stepping up to the counter. “Um, we have a question. Sort of.”
“I’m happy to answer any questions you have.”
“It’s about someone who works here. Or worked here.” I winced. Years of parent-teacher conferences hadn’t prepared me for interrogating a stranger about her co-worker’s whereabouts. “Basically, we’re looking for someone, and we were hoping he might be here. Benji Dexter.”
The woman’s smile dropped. “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking several times. “You’re looking for Benji Dexter?”
“We have something for him,” I added quickly, casting a glance to Phoebe and Arden.
They looked on, engrossed. “Mail. It came to our apartment by mistake. Or, not by mistake, but…” I cleared my throat, wishing this woman would stop looking at me like I’d asked to speak with a ghost. “We just want to make sure the letter gets to him.”
She threw an anxious glance over her shoulder. “Let me… One moment, please.”
She stood up and approached an open door to her right, ducking her head in and lowering her voice so we couldn’t hear. A different voice shrieked “WHAT? WHY?” loud enough to echo in the lobby.
“That’s foreboding,” Arden said. I cleared the tangle of nerves from my throat.
“We don’t know they’re talking about us.”
On cue, a blond woman appeared in the doorway with the receptionist, and both looked at us, expressions grim. My fingernails dug into my palms.