Jeremiah #2
I’m one block from the post office, stack tucked under my arm, when Chase Sullivan falls into step beside me like he’s been waiting on the corner specifically for this.
Sullivan plays for the East Stripes for this tournament, but we played together on Team USA in February, winning Olympic Gold together.
But during this tournament, he’s the enemy.
Not that any of that matters off the ice.
“The hotel does that, you know. Concierge mails stuff. Full service.”
“I know.”
“So why are you personally hauling what looks like forty pounds of postcards to an actual post office?”
“Because I want the good stamps.”
He blinks at me, entirely too delighted. “The good stamps.”
“They released a whole series for the two-fiftieth. There’s a Declaration of Independence sheet which has feather quills spelling out 1776, like the Founding Fathers used.
” I hear how much enthusiasm is in my own voice and choose not to be embarrassed about it.
“You don’t get that from a concierge. Concierge gives you a boring flag stamp. ”
Sullivan studies me for a long beat and grins, probably judging me. Then he claps me on the back, hard, once, right there on the sidewalk outside the post office doors. He’s already backing away toward wherever he’s actually supposed to be, grinning ear to ear, "Go get your quills… Zesty."
“How did you…?” Then I call out as he struts away, “That nickname won’t stick.”
“Already has,” he says without looking back.
He’s simultaneously right and extremely annoying about it. Great. Now the East team got wind of my new nickname.
Inside the post office, the line is short and the air conditioning is blessedly aggressive.
I get the Declaration sheet, plus a few from the Figures of the American Revolution pane, because there’s a Benjamin Franklin stamp that looks like he’s mid-eye-roll and I genuinely cannot not get it, and I’m licking the last stamp when Sticky Fingers steps up to the self-serve counter beside mine, apparently finishing up business of her own at the exact same moment.
“Small world,” I say.
“Smaller than you’d think.” She doesn’t even look up, sliding her envelope into the slot. “Or are you stalking me?”
“I’m not stalking you.” It comes out faster than I mean it to, and more defensive. “I had postcards to mail. I didn’t even know you’d be in here.”
“Relax.” She’s grinning now, fully, watching me flounder with real appreciation. “I’m kidding.”
“Oh.” Right. Obviously. “I knew that.”
“You did not. You went full courtroom on me for a second there.” She’s delighted about it.
I decide not to dignify that with a defense, mostly because I don’t have one.
We walk out at the same time, headed, as it turns out, in the exact same direction, and there’s a solid five seconds where neither of us says anything, just matching pace down the sidewalk like two people assigned to the same group project who haven’t figured out who’s supposed to talk first.
“So this is going to be awkward,” she says finally.
“A little.”
“I should warn you, I’m genuinely terrible at small talk. Weather. Traffic. How about that heat, huh. I’ve got nothing.”
“I detest small talk. On principle.”
“Good. We’re aligned.” She says it like we just closed a business deal, and something about the flat, official delivery makes me laugh before I mean to.
A guy jogs past us in a full Uncle Sam costume, sweating clean through the beard, handing out flyers for something.
“That’s either performance art,” she says, watching him go. "Or he lost a bet."
“I’m going with the bet.”
“Same. Nobody wakes up and chooses that costume voluntarily. Not in July. Not for free.”
“For money, though?”
“For enough money, sure. Everyone’s got a number.” She says it with total conviction, like she’s given this more thought than the average person should. “What’s yours?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has one. You just haven’t found it yet.” She glances sideways, assessing me like she’s actually running calculations. “You seem like a guy who’d cave for something dumb. A really good sandwich, maybe.”
“I would not cave for a sandwich.”
“You absolutely would. Somebody hands you a truly excellent sandwich, says ‘do a cartwheel,’ and you're already halfway into it before your brain catches up.”
“I… well I suppose it depends on the sandwich.”
She just grins and keeps walking, already onto the next thing.
A guy power-walking past in a full suit, sweat-soaked, phone clenched.
She has opinions about his tie. I have opinions about the fact that she has opinions about a stranger’s tie.
Neither of us runs out of things to say, and somewhere in there, this stops feeling like two strangers making conversation and starts just feeling like we’ve known each other for years.
A block later she stops without announcing it. Just plants her feet in front of a narrow storefront with crates of vinyl stacked in the window, and a cat asleep on top of the crates like it owns the whole operation. I stop because she stopped. That’s apparently just how this works now.
“You a record person?” I ask.
“I’m a nosy person. Records happen to be involved.
” She taps the glass near a sleeve with a lurid orange cover.
A barbershop quartet that peaked a decade ago.
“I dated a guy who owned four hundred records and zero furniture. Slept on a mattress on the floor surrounded by milk crates like some kind of vinyl monk.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s out there somewhere. Presumably still alphabetizing.” She says it completely deadpan, and starts walking again before I can ask anything else.
We argue for an entire block over whether owning a turntable in this decade is a personality or an affectation.
She’s firmly in the personality camp. I point out it requires a certain aesthetic to make oneself appear sophisticated, which feels like a level of commitment most people aren’t built for.
She says commitment’s overrated, and she just smiles like I’ve somehow proven her point for her.