Chapter 6 #2
Seven minutes later, they came off the bridge at exit 14B, turned onto Sampson Street, and the U-STOR-IT sign came into view. A row of orange corrugated metal doors appeared. Aspen pulled into a parking spot near Bunny’s unit.
Maddy unbuckled her seatbelt. “Which one’s hers?”
“108.” Aspen pointed at the unit.
Maddy picked up her bag from the floorboard and climbed out. Aspen took a quick breath to clear the drive from her mind. It didn’t go as smoothly as she had hoped, but they made it through with no irreversible damage done.
Phase one: complete.
* * *
Aspen rolled up the door to unit 108 with two efficient tugs. The corrugated metal went up with a clunk-clunk-clunk.
She dusted off her hands and took in the towers of stacked boxes, bins, and loose items tucked into every crevice.
Maddy’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open, then quickly clamped shut. “This is… a lot.”
Aspen nodded. She had watched this inventory expand by volume every year for over a decade. “Yup. It is a lot.”
Bunny’s approach to storage was: shove things in, close the lid before they could fall out, declare victory, trust the next person who came along would deal with it. Most of the time, that person was Aspen.
Maddy took two steps inside and stopped.
Her gaze swept the unit the way Aspen had watched her read the Sterling kitchen on Tuesday evening when she arrived—cataloging, analyzing, deciding.
She lifted the lid of the nearest bin and looked in.
“What—” She paused as she studied the contents. “—is this?”
Aspen kept her face neutral. “That would be a bin.”
“I can see it’s a bin, thank you.” Maddy reached in and pulled out, one by one, without commentary: a clump of about thirty Mardi Gras beads, a plastic skeleton hand, a Santa hat, a string of shamrock-shaped lights, a ceramic turkey salt shaker missing its pepper counterpart, and a single pastel-pink beribboned Easter basket containing three plastic eggs and what appeared to be a small, desiccated Peep.
“Why are six separate holidays occupying the same bin?” Her arms were overflowing with mixed seasonal decor.
Aspen nodded sagely. “Ah yes, that is what Bunny calls the unified festive bin.”
Maddy's mouth flattened. “The unified festive bin?”
“Unified festive bin #3, according to the label.” Aspen pointed at the label on the side. She had labeled that bin herself five years ago. “Bunny likes to play decor roulette and put up random holiday decorations out of season to mess with the Peepin’ G’s when they come over for book club.”
“That… sounds like Bunny actually.” Maddy reached into the very bottom of the bin, leaning in nearly to the waist, and pulled out a single Menorah.
Maddy straightened up slowly, holding it up with a questioning look. “We’re not Jewish.”
“I know.”
Maddy exhaled slowly through her nose. She dropped the decor back into the bin and placed the lid back on. “Please tell me the Cup stuff is not in a unified bin with an Advent calendar and a Dia de los Muertos skull.”
Aspen gestured toward the back of the unit. “No. Most of the Cup stuff is scattered around in smaller boxes, or just… loosely set wherever it would fit.”
“Okay.” Maddy turned in a slow circle in the middle of the unit, taking it in, floor to ceiling.
There was a trophy behind Maddy’s left shoulder, engraved MVP: BUNNY STERLING with no year and no context.
And hanging behind it was a sequined bodysuit, glittering faintly in the dust-shaft from when Bunny had decided to perform a rendition of All That Jazz from the Broadway musical Chicago during the opening ceremony of the Cup one year.
Aspen decided not to draw Maddy’s eye to those yet.
Maddy pulled a color-coded binder out of her tote, snapped the rings open, and produced three pens from an interior pocket—black, blue, and red.
“Analog.” Aspen couldn’t help the small tease.
“I left my iPad in Fiji.” Maddy said flatly as she opened the binder. “I found a whole stack of these under my bed.”
Not surprising in the least. Aspen stepped up behind her and glanced over her shoulder.
Maddy had flipped to a tab near the front labeled, in very pretty handwriting that Aspen tried to ignore, SUPPLY AUDIT.
A full list ran down the page. A highlighted column for have.
Another column for condition. A third for replace/source.
There was a legend at the bottom in three colors.
“So.” Maddy’s eyes were glued to the list. “I have a list of supplies I think we need. You know where things are in this mess, right?”
The smell of Maddy’s perfume filled her nostrils and a shiver ran down her spine. Aspen forced herself to take two steps away. “Broadly. I would not claim precision.”
Maddy tapped the pen in a quick, impatient rhythm against the edge of the binder. “Then I’m going to read, and you’re going to tell me if we have it, and if we have it, you’re going to dig it out, and I’m going to inspect it. Yes?”
Phase two, Aspen thought, piece of cake. “Yes.”
* * *
Three hours in, and they were in a good rhythm.
Maddy was bent over a large box of miscellaneous items Aspen had carried out five minutes ago.
And Aspen, who stood six feet away taking orders, found she was actually enjoying her job, even though the unit’s temperature had climbed into the high eighties and her T-shirt was sticking to her back.
She pulled the elastic band off her wrist and pulled her hair up.
Maddy had taken off her blazer an hour ago and draped it over a box in the corner—leaving her in a light gray tank top that clung to her body—with strands of blonde hair plastered to the side of her throat. Aspen had forced her eyes away six times already. Make that seven.
Aspen grabbed two water bottles from the cooler she’d brought and held one out to Maddy. “Hydrate.”
Maddy took the bottle without looking up. Their fingers brushed. Aspen quickly pulled her hand away and cleared her throat—time to activate phase three. “So. How was Fiji?” She uncapped her water and chugged.
Maddy had her head buried in the box. “Hot.”
It was such a Maddy response that Aspen couldn’t help but smile. “What was the water like?”
Maddy paused briefly, like she was sorting through three possible answers and selecting the most accurate one. “Blue.”
Aspen snorted. “Very evocative. Thank you.”
Maddy straightened up, blew a piece of hair from her face, and looked at Aspen directly. There it was again, the almost smile.
Aspen had kept a running private archive of every Maddy Sterling almost-smile she had ever seen. Which was a completely normal thing to do.
Aspen leaned against a stack of bins. “Do you enjoy it?”
Maddy glanced up. “Fiji?”
Aspen didn’t even know what she was asking at this point. She was just trying to get more than a one-word answer from the woman. “Sure.”
Maddy shrugged. “It’s—”
“I swear to God, Maddy, if you say fine…” Aspen cut her off.
Maddy made a sound. It wasn’t quite a laugh, more the pressure of a laugh—a huh that caught in her throat and did not make it out of her mouth. “I was going to say it’s…” Maddy searched the air above Aspen’s head.
She was one hundred percent, without a doubt, going to say fine.
“Beautiful.” She landed on. “But a bit too humid for my taste.” Maddy resumed rummaging through the box, clearly satisfied with her cover-up.
“And don’t even get me started on the mosquitoes.
” Maddy scribbled something in her binder, seeming not to notice that she was still talking. “But I like my job, so yes. It’s fine.”
Aspen grinned. Did Maddy Sterling just make a joke? About her own catchphrase? She wouldn’t draw attention to it. This was good.
Aspen nonchalantly reached down and started sifting through one of the boxes, as if the conversation were an afterthought. “What do you like about it? Your job?”
Maddy continued pulling items out of the box. “I’m good at it.”
“I have no doubt about that. Bossing people around all day, it’s the Maddy Sterling specialty.
” Aspen knew she was bordering on flirtatious.
She couldn’t help herself. The sound of Maddy’s almost laugh undid her on a level that bypassed her prefrontal cortex entirely and went straight to whichever part of her brainstem had been dominant throughout all of high school.
Maddy’s pen stopped moving, her eyes shifted up to look at Aspen over the binder. She held her gaze for a few seconds, then blinked quickly as if her brain were rebooting. She looked back down and gave a tiny head shake.
Aspen bit the inside of her cheek. They were making progress. She wasn’t ready to let that thread go. “But what do you do between seasons? You know, like, for fun.”
There was a small silence. Maddy lifted a bronze medal out of the box, held it up to the light, frowned at it. “Fun?”
She tossed the medal into the replace pile. The medal was in perfect condition. Aspen suspected it had more to do with the fact that it was bronze instead of gold that evoked Maddy’s rejection of it.
“Yes. Fun.” For a moment, Aspen was certain Maddy wasn’t going to answer. She was surprised when Maddy spoke again.
“I read.” Maddy lifted one shoulder. “Or go out.”
“Out? Like, to clubs?” Aspen absolutely could not picture Maddy dancing in a crowded, sweaty club. She could picture Maddy producing a show about women who were dancing in a crowded, sweaty club, but not Maddy herself in the grain of one.
Maddy, still sorting, off-hand: “No. More like dinner, a glass of wine, maybe a show. Normal date stuff.”
Oh.