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“Who’s it from?” someone said.
“Check!” Ariana didn’t wait for her, she fumbled open the little note tied around center of the packaging.
“Be mine,” Rebecca read aloud, over Ariana's shoulder.
“From Woodrow Barret,” Nora added.
Each of her coworkers turned and looked at her. By now, the news of his visit to Olivia had reached them and he was public enemy number one. A picture of him was tacked to their bulletin board, and of course his eyes had been colored red and Ariana had drawn a penis on his face and Rebecca had drawn a Hitler mustache under his nose.
Now, their enemy, who had sworn to Olivia to squeeze the DNF to death if she didn’t sell to him, wanted Gertrude.
“Be mine,” Nora scoffed. “Can you tell he’s never been told no?”
“He left his phone number,” Ariana reported. “Can I text him for you?”
“Text him what?”
“I haven’t thought about it, but probably something along the lines of “die”.
Gertrude leaned in and snatched the note from them. It was written in curly, girlish handwriting, so that meant someone else had likely written it. What would it be like, dating someone like that? Would they outsource their affection? Would she date a stand-in, and that avatar would report back to Barret? Billionaires were aliens; people from a different plane of existence. Had he ever used shampoo on his clothes, soaking them in the bathtub, because the washer broke and it was too far a walk in the cold to the laundromat? Had he ever felt a cavity working its sinister magic on a tooth and brushed it furiously, cursing himself for drinking too many cheap sodas, praying that it magically went away because a two-hundred dollar filling meant rent was going to be behind, the water bill would go unpaid, or fuck it, maybe Mom didn’t eat much that week.
They were chatting, joking back and forth about bad dates they’d been on, when Rebecca looked sideways at Gertrude and said that she should marry him, take half his money and keep the bookstore open.
That set an idea flickering in her mind. A bad idea. A detestable idea. One she rejected immediately…
Until the following day when catered, gourmet lunch arrived for her and the entire DNF staff. “A taste of what could be,” the note said.
They were incredulous when, later that week, a giant cake arrived. Three layers, with green frosting in the shape of a book. It was Wuthering Heights but spelled “Wethering” and he must’ve typed all of it into an app when ordering because it had “by Virginia Wolfe” written in candied gold below the title.
This time, Olivia read the note. “You’ve caught my eye, from WB.”
Gertrude felt the need to apologize. “I’m sorry, I don’t know, I barely talked to him and like, I’m not friendly so I don’t know why he’s so into me—” She spat out a bunch of worried half-apologies, wanting to reassure Olivia that she wasn't in cahoots with an attractive version of the Monopoly Man.
Olivia nodded thoughtfully; a bemused expression stretched across her face as she let Gertrude rant. When she ran out of steam, Olivia glanced at the cake.
“I think the billionaire has a crush on our little dark princess,” she said. “I don’t blame him." She crumpled the note and tossed it to her. “Break his heart for me, will ya?”
