Chapter Fifteen

On Audrey’s third day, Dennis, potent and crisp in a navy suit and yellow tie, briefly greeted her and then dashed out the door. He was courteous but distracted, and that distraction came across as coldness.

At least I’m learning to tell all his grim expressions apart.

But the thought gave her little ease.

“Woohoo! Swimming class today! Swimming class today!” Cole ran down the long hall with a beach towel tied around his neck. He wore baggy blue bathing trunks covered in sharks. Given his good mood, maybe he wouldn’t try any of his antics.

She was wrong. They hadn’t been at the pool for fifteen minutes before Cole pretended to drown, splashing furiously and shouting for help. He scared himself more than anyone and spent the rest of the class seated on the pool’s ledge, nervously checking his bright orange water wings every time a kid swam near him.

Audrey crouched down next to him on the wet ledge. “Are you okay, Cole?”

He kicked his feet to splash. “I can make waves, see!”

She took that as a yes.

After swimming, they returned to the apartment for lunch and dry clothes. As they entered the immaculate marble lobby, Paul the door attendant stopped them.

“Delivery came for Mr. Delaney this morning,” he said. “Heavy one. I’ll get it on the cart and meet you up there.”

Audrey didn’t give it much more thought. She led Cole upstairs and helped him pick out shorts and a dinosaur t-shirt. He pulled off his swim sandals listlessly. “Do I have to go to stupid violin class?”

“Cole, you like music. It’ll be fun.”

The doorbell rang and Cole didn’t even look up.

“I’ll get that,” Audrey said. “You finish changing.”

She opened the front door and was confronted with a huge cardboard cube, the door attendant’s face poking up from behind it.

“Don’t worry,” Paul said at her frown. “It’ll fit.”

Audrey opened the door as wide as it would go. Paul pushed the dolly forward. The box made it halfway in before the cardboard caught on the doorjamb.

Audrey bent over the box to get a better look. The metal plate for the doorknob had wedged itself in a handhold. She reached into the hole to try to flatten the cardboard and unstick the metal plate. But nothing would budge.

“What’s behind the hole?” Paul asked.

“A solid layer of packing foam, it looks like.”

“Back up,” he said, “I’m gonna give it a good push.”

There seemed to be no other solution. Audrey stood to the side. With one mighty shove and an animal grunt, the door attendant heaved. The side of the box gashed open with a grating squeak.

“Where do you want it?” Paul asked.

“I really don’t know. Maybe just leave it here.”

“Too heavy for a tiny thing like you,” he said. “Maybe we should figure out where it goes while it’s still on the dolly.”

Cole ran out of his room. His listlessness evaporated at the sight of the box. “Is it a toy? Is it for me?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey said. “We have to wait till your daddy gets home.”

“No!” Cole shouted. With both his hands, he grabbed the frayed side of the box and tugged. The box was too heavy for him to budge, even on the wheeled cart, but a bit of the cardboard ripped free in his grasp.

“Please don’t do that,” Audrey said.

“Oh, almost forgot,” the door attendant said. He removed a delivery slip from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “You sure you want to just leave it here?”

“I don’t know.” Audrey checked the delivery ticket. It was from a high-end Lincoln Park furniture store. Contents: office guest chair.

She felt the blush bloom across her cheeks. A brand new chair for the office. And the order date was Monday.

Dennis had seen her struggle with the chair and had ordered a new one that same day. It wasn’t just a chair. It was a sign that he paid attention to her. It might even be considered a peace offering after their rocky start. Her blush deepened.

The door attendant rocked the box to ease it off the dolly.

“Wait,” Audrey said. “I think I know where it goes. Back here, please.” She led him down the hall to Dennis’s office.

“Inside door,” Paul eyed the doorframe. “Inside door’s narrower than the other one.”

“Leave it in the hall, then.”

“I wanna open it,” Cole wailed.

“Cole, it’s just a chair.”

Just a chair. For all she knew, Dennis had planned to buy it long before she’d practiced her circus act in the steel tube contraption.

“Aw, I want it to be a toy,” Cole said.

Audrey didn’t respond. She thanked Paul and locked the door behind him. And when she turned to stare down the long hallway, there at the end, like a mangled symbol, was the box.

For all she knew, inside the box was another steel and leather snare, the identical twin of the one that had nearly sent her sprawling. For all she knew, Dennis had thought her clumsy and incompetent at the rare art of sitting still. He might not have blamed the chair at all.

But the tube chair weighed no more than a small suitcase, and this box was more along the lines of a steamer trunk. It must be a different chair. Anything else seemed impossible.

He’d noticed. Maybe he’d cared. A little, anyway.

Why should that matter? Get a hold of yourself, Audrey.

Cole picked at the frayed cardboard. The gash in the box was about level with his chin.

“I asked you not to do that.” Audrey walked down the hall. “You want to help me get your lunch ready?”

“Daddy will let me open it.”

“Daddy’s not here.” Audrey pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen. “You want to pick out your soup?”

“No, you can pick it out.” Cole scratched at the packing foam through the torn cardboard.

“Cole?” Cole dragged his eyes from the box but his finger still hooked around the torn edge. “I want you to make me a deal. You won’t tear even one tiny bit of that box, and I won’t tell your daddy that you were naughty in swimming class.”

She had no intention of telling Dennis about Cole’s drowning drama–Cole had scared himself badly enough that he’d never repeat that act, anyway–but Cole didn’t know that. He poked at the foam, moving his finger deliberately away from the ripped edge of the box.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I won’t rip the box anymore.”

“Promise?”

Cole removed his hand from the box and crossed his heart. “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

“Me, too.” Audrey crossed her own heart solemnly.

She let the door swing shut behind her and started heating a bowl of vegetable soup. As she fished some crackers from a box, she listened for sounds from the hallway.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Maybe he’d moved into his room to play with his toys. She had to resist the urge to check up on him. He’d heart-cross promised, and if he tore that box even a little, Audrey would have no choice but to tell on him. A deal was a deal.

The microwave dinged and Audrey finished setting up Cole’s lunch at the breakfast bar.

“Cole, if you eat your soup, you can have juicy pears for dessert,” she called at the closed door. Normally, he would have yelped joyfully in response. Cole loved his fruit cups.

But there was no answer, just a faint scuffling sound from the hallway, like rustling leaves.

Audrey pushed open the swinging door and was deluged in a blizzard of tiny white foam crumbles. Everywhere she turned she saw bits of white, as if the hall had been sprinkled with swollen grains of salt. Cole crouched to scoop more white pellets from the floor. He cackled as he flung them at her.

“Cole, what have you done?” This was absolutely the last time she would leave him to his own devices.

He grabbed two small chunks of packing foam and rubbed them together. They pulverized into pellets between his fingers. A shower of white crumbles drifted down to the pristine floor.

“I’m making snow! Snow in the summertime!”

“But Cole, you promised!”

“I promised not to rip the bo-ox,” he sang.

Audrey looked at the box. True to his word, he hadn’t damaged the cardboard at all, instead using the existing gash to dig out chunks of packing foam.

And through the gaping tunnel inside, Audrey could see an arm of the new chair wrapped in clear plastic. Solid dark wood, thick and sturdy, with some kind of fabric upholstery.

A warm glow simmered deep in her belly before spreading through her entire body. Such a silly thing, a new chair, but it made her feel almost cherished. She smiled, and couldn’t stop.

“You like my snow, Miss Turner?”

“It’s the best summertime snow I have ever seen.” With a whoop, she reached for twin fistfuls of white crumbles and flung them at Cole. In seconds, the hallway air was filled with their laughter and hundreds of floating, drifting white pellets. It was like being inside a snow globe, a place where the world became more beautiful when shaken.