Chapter Nine
The doorbell rings twenty minutes before it’s supposed to. They’re early.
I throw on a polo shirt, heading toward the door. “Hold on a minute,” I say to the room, eying the kitchen, making sure it’s presentable for guests.
Jeannie has this spectacular idea that we should do a “bakery crawl” this afternoon, which is basically where we stroll from bakery to bakery, enjoying different baked items. This might be a great idea in a city somewhere with bakeries, but we’re making it work in our small town with a stop at each of the two actual bakeries and a third stop at The Cedar and Fig for naan bread, which is technically baked, I guess.
It works. Jeannie loves the idea, so we love it too!
“Hey,” I smile, throwing the door open. Then my heart drops out of my chest.
“You have a package,” Brad is saying and Jeannie is holding out a white envelope with a blue tie-string. I think the blood visibly drains from my face because Jeannie’s smile drops as she lowers the envelope. What is she doing with it?
I snatch it from her hand and I watch Brad flinch, first away and then toward me, almost aggressively. I lurch backward as he does, protecting my prize.
“Where did you get this?” I demand.
Jeannie frowns as her brow curls up. “That’s a terrible way to welcome someone! What’s going on here?”
I’m hugging the envelope awkwardly, “What were you doing with it? Why did you have it? Who gave it to you?”
Both she and Brad are walking toward me as I involuntarily retreat. Brad speaks through strained words, “What’s so important about that envelope?”
“It was on your doormat, Liam,” Jeannie is explaining, still following me in my backward path toward the kitchen, “I just picked it up for you. As a courtesy.”
“Are you okay?” Brad demands. “What is this all about?”
I feel a small sense of relief wash over me with the news of how it came to be in her possession, but the heat in my neck is still rising. “Oh,” I drop the envelope to my side and try to laugh an apologetic laugh, unsuccessfully I’m sure. “It’s nothing. It’s just something I was expecting.”
Jeannie and Brad share a glance that communicates a lot between them.
A lot that I’m being left out of. There’s silence in the room for a heartbeat as they both look back to me and then down to the envelope swinging awkwardly in my hand.
“That’s no ordinary package, Liam. Not by the way you’re acting,” she says.
“What’s in it?” Brad demands, “And why is it so important that it makes you react this way?” I really want their tone to be playful, like they’re teasing me in a fun way, but their entire body language radiates deep concern and worry.
I’m suddenly searching for words and trying to rub the heat from my neck.
Retreating for safety on the other side of the small kitchen, I set the envelope on the kitchen island now between us. The distance helps my breath relax, and Brad slides out a stool and plops himself down at the island bar. Jeannie leans into the counter with her palms, her eyes digging into me.
“I’m sorry. I was just shocked to see you holding it.” My voice fractures. I can’t make eye contact with either of them as I fumble with a drawer-knob for comfort.
Neither respond. Their eyes are burning holes in me. They don’t move.
“I have a secret person.” I hiss finally, looking up at them, slamming one hand on the countertop with a sting. “That envelope is from my secret person.”
“Your secret what?” Brad breathes, and Jeannie reaches across the counter to squeeze his arm.
Jeannie starts: “You have a secret…”
“Person. Admirer. Whatever you want to call it.” I’m running my hand through my hair involuntarily.
There’s a heartbeat of silence that I just can’t bear, so I fill it with something: “I have a secret admirer, or person, or somebody who I’m communicating with but I don’t know who they are, so they are a secret person. Like a pen pal, but without letters.”
I look up to see Brad completely bewildered and Jeannie smiling so tightly she’s squinting, her teeth glistening as if to blind me. “You have a secret admirer?” she sings, almost ecstatic.
“A what? A pen pal?” Brad’s face is curled up in knots. Jeannie squeezes his arm again and he looks her way, which seems to help his face relax, so I’m assuming he’s caught on.
“This is exciting Liam. You should tell us all about it.” Jeannie is beaming and her posture has straightened. “So your secret person sends you stuff in that envelope?”
“And leaves it on your doormat?” Brad is assembling the pieces together.
“Well, not always on the doormat,” I stammer, still playing with the drawer knob. “Actually, never on the doormat. I think that was the first time for the journal.”
“Journal?” Jeannie is huffing her words. “That’s a journal? Your secret person sends you a journal?” She looks to Brad with excitement, but his response is quizzical.
“It’s a notebook and we both write in it,” I say.
The room seems to exhale. It feels like the universe has just let out a giant sigh. “You both write in it? That’s so sweet.” Jeannie is nearly singing again and she begins to hug herself. “What do you write?”
Brad looks from her to me with the same question on his face, but his face makes the question seem more analytical than Jeannie’s.
“About the things my secret person has me do. Like the places they send me. Stuff like that.”
“What? What does that mean?” Brad is lost again.
“Your secret person sends you to places?” Jeannie’s eyelids flutter with the words.
Releasing the drawer knob, I grab my forehead with my index fingers, trying to massage the words out. “My secret person sends me on adventures. Anonymous tasks. And then we write to each other about what we did.” I’m not sure I’m making sense.
“Do you know who this person is?” Brad asks. Jeannie and I both freeze and glare hard at him.
I open my mouth to speak, but close it again when Jeannie starts: “It’s a secret person, Brad. Not a known person. Hence the word secret.”
I summon the energy to end this line of questioning, picking up and then smacking the envelope on the counter, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s get out of here. We have bakeries that need crawling.”
They both look at me with stretched faces at the abrupt change of topic.
“What about the envelope?” Jeannie is asking, “Aren’t you going to open it and read what your secret person has written?”
I do my best to dismiss the whole thing calmly, “I…” my tone serious and casual, “will read this message from my secret person after I get back from ‘bakery-ing’ and hanging out with my non-secret people this afternoon. It can wait until then.”
Brad almost doesn’t let me finish my sentence. “But, aren’t you wondering what it says?”
“Can you wait that long?” Jeannie asks, leaning into the counter again.
Leaving the envelope on the counter where it splatted, I begin to make my way back around the island.
“That’s what my secret person and I do. We wait.
That’s the nature of our secret relationship,” I say so solidly that I believe my own words, even absorbing the calmness in which they are spoken.
Their eyes follow me around the island as I make my way into the living room, Brad spinning on his stool.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Jeannie says.
The enduring silence after her statement tells me clearly that they want to argue this point and possibly know what’s in the envelope more than I do, but I let it dissolve in its own way.
It isn’t until we’ve made our way down the outdoor stairs and hit the sidewalk that any of us speak. It’s Jeannie who breaks the silence: “Martin is meeting us at the Village Bakery. Then we’ll go from there.”
The Village Bakery is a reasonable walk from my apartment and the conversation has thankfully cycled through several unimportant topics before we’ve arrived.
The bakery is a disproportionate space, like the open area in the back is huge with its elaborate ovens and aproned attendants, but the purchase counter is tiny with a single register and an ultra-friendly clerk who doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the infinite line of customers is winding through the cordoned off queuing area.
There’s also something intriguing about the way that the line seems so long and you grumpily wish for a more efficient system until you arrive at the counter, dissolving into the friendship and focus offered and you’re suddenly thankful for the human interaction, wishing the rest of the world could be as personal. It’s a unique experience.
We’ve moved halfway through the line when I see Martin approaching the glass doors.
I must admit that the universe smiles brighter when he arrives.
I wonder if the other customers notice, or is it just me?
Rather than anger the last half of the line by offering him to cut the line, I tell Brad and Jeannie that I’ll join Martin at the end and they can stay where they are.
In some ways the line is almost superfluous because the register is only for placing orders and paying, because then you must wait for them to call your name, which I’ve always wondered about: It feels like they could just grab your loaf and hand it to you as you pay, but they must have a reason.
Maybe it just forces you to stay and smell the bread baking.
I meet Martin at the end of the line and he pulls me in for a brief hug. I don’t question it as much as I wonder about the strong aftershave I sense and the warmth that swims through my body as we pull apart.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says.
I laugh. “There is no ‘late’ today. We’ve got nothing to do but walk and buy pastries.” I form my face into an expression that I intend to convey how sarcastically I love Jeannie’s bakery crawl idea.
“I love it,” he says with a smile and piercing glance, “Way better than just driving to a bakery and buying pastries.”
I pause for a moment and soak in the expression on his face. “You’re right,” I admit, as we settle into the wait.