The car stopped at a red light, and her attention was caught by one couple. The woman, her hair in a sleek, dark bob, was talking animatedly, while the man was listening intently, staring straight in the woman’s eyes. They seemed very in love. She stared out the window at them, craning her head to see them even as the car turned the corner.

Her phone flashed red in the dark interior. She tensed before clicking on the email, but it wasn’t from Malaburn. The car turned left to go across Central Park towards the Upper West Side. She and Eve joked that the Upper West Side must be filled with single women based on the types of stores: cupcakes, cookies, and clothing. It seemed contradictory: who could fit into the clothes after eating the cupcakes and cookies?

The car dropped her off in front of her building. As she entered the foyer, she saw a long rectangular moving box on the table with AUDREY handwritten on it in black capital letters. That was weird. It was tightly taped. Maybe she should put on her cleaning gloves and open it outside in her yard. She picked it up gingerly. It was light for its size. She left the package outside her apartment door as she went inside to get gloves from under the kitchen sink—if she had any. Her cleaner came every two weeks with her own supplies, but Audrey had bought some when she’d first moved in. She’d had visions of domesticity, dinner parties galore—before she’d started her job as a lawyer and realized her apartment was mostly a place to sleep. Luckily, Eve periodically threw impromptu gatherings anchored by delicious food, all of which she made look effortless. But one day, she would have dinner parties too, with witty conversation. Maybe when she was an established partner.

She found the gloves, still in their package, and put them on. Grabbing scissors, she carried the box to her yard, and sitting on her chaise lounge, she opened the package. Red, yellow and pink tulips greeted her (flowers!), and a pile of papers tied up with string. A folded-over note was taped to the flowers. She carefully un-taped the note and read it:

Sunday, NYC

Dear Audrey,

Thanks for your warm welcome to the neighborhood—those cookies definitely helped fuel me through the unpacking process! They were amazing—you should give up being a lawyer and make your fortune selling cookies.

I can never have enough take-out menus.

So here you go: legal disclosures for your leisurely reading and this small bouquet of flowers as a thank you.

Cheers,

Jake

Surveying the pile of legal disclosures, she laughed. It didn’t seem like he was dating the woman from breakfast if he was sending her flowers. Putting on pop music, she shimmied over to her desk and opened up her laptop to finish the research for Malaburn.

Chapter Eight

To: Winnie Chu