I pick it up, expecting some sort of advertisement or flier, but it’s just a plain, sealed envelope—with my name written in blue cursive letters on the front.
The back of my neck starts to tingle, and I reach for the lock on my door. Someone was at my apartment, someone who knows my name and how to find me. Anyone I can think of who’d have an envelope to give me would have just called my cell.
TheTwilight Zonetheme song starts playing in my head as I take a seat on my couch. I know I’m being paranoid, but when you live alone, anything slightly freaky is an automatic threat.
I rip the envelope open with my fingers, nearly tearing the bundle of papers inside in the process. It’s some sort of legal document, but I haven’t even started on the first sentence when I notice the handwritten note included with the pages. The words are inked in the same blue pen and tidy cursive as my name on the front.
‘A very little key will open a very heavy door.’
-Charles Dickens
Chère Monroe,
I’ll admit it. I had to Google that quote. I knew you would probably only bother reading this note if it started off with some words from your beloved Monsieur Dickens, so I found something to suit the occasion.
I haven’t gotten my key to Taverne Toulouse yet, so consider me giving you this document to mean the same thing. If you sign it (along with several other lengthy contracts that were too big to fit in the envelope) the bar will be yours. Completely. I bought it for you—not because I think you need me, or anyone, to buy you things. I bought it because before you, I never wanted another person’s success as much as my own. That never would have changed if I hadn’t met a woman good, kind, and courageous enough to fight for the happiness of others the way I’ve seen you fight for it every day since I met you.
You’ve changed me. I haven’t even known you for four months, and you’ve changed me. This is my way to prove it to you. This is my way to promise that the past made me who I was—not who I am. I’ve never felt this way about my future before. It’s like for the past thirty-two years, I was living for someone else. I was being someone else.
I’m going to be me now, and I know it’s selfish to ask, but I would really like you to meet that person, to let him prove there’s nothing holding him back anymore.
I can’t lie; he’s all yours if you want him.
I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me. That’s why I wrote this in a note. I was an idiot for taking this long to tell you about the bar. It wasn’t my intention, and I really do have an explanation for you if you want to hear it. I knew you probably wouldn’t open the door if I rang, but I’ll be hanging around your staircase—and possibly getting arrested by the neighbourhood watch—for the next few minutes if you want to talk. I have so much I want to tell you and so much I want to ask.
-Julien
Well, fuck.
My hand is shaking where it grips the page and my heart is a jackhammer in my chest, but my mind is strangely blank. I’m like a video stuck in buffering mode, unable to move to the next frame.
Monroe is loading. Please wait.
Several minutes pass before I can push myself up off the couch, my steps tentative as I cross the room and crack the front door open. The streetlamps are on, illuminating a circle of sidewalk at the bottom of my staircase, but there’s no one in sight.
“Julien?” I call, my voice barely above normal conversation volume. I can hear my neighbour’s TV through an open window, and I don’t want to rouse the entire building by shouting for strange men in the night. There’s no answer, though, so I try again, louder this time.
Still nothing. He must have given up. I glance at the neighbour’s place before padding out onto the landing in my bare feet and cupping my hands around my mouth.
“Julien!”
He comes running from up the street. He’s wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt that’s probably from some fancy brand name. The price tag might just be worth it with the way the fabric clings to his chest. That beard, those damn scholar’s glasses, that fuckingsmile—it’s enough to make me forget all about the answers and questions hanging over our heads. For a moment, all I want is to rush down this staircase and into his arms before making him carry me back up so I can lock the two of us in my apartment for the next several days—possibly weeks.
Then the moment passes and fades to a distant yearning somewhere deep in my chest. We have some shit to sort out first, and it can’t wait until later. As if he senses my resolve, he pauses at the foot of the staircase and looks up at me, seeking permission.
“You were right,” I tell him. “Youwerean idiot.”
He looks so instantly chagrined it’s almost as if his smile slides off his face and onto the sidewalk. I fight to urge to run down and scoop it up to put it back where it belongs.
“You bought the bar almost two week ago, and you’re just telling me now?”
“I wanted to do it in person.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I repeat: you bought the bartwo weeks ago.”
“And I had a plan to tell you as soon as it was a done deal, but then my grandmother died, and—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” I cut him off, one hand flying off my hip to rest over my thumping heart. “Your grandmother died? Oh my god, Julien, I...”
