“Thank you,” Sylvia said. “Thank you very much. I’ll come by this afternoon.”

Diego went with her in a rented van. She should let him get the boxes, he pleaded all the way, and she should wait outside. She protested vehemently, but he eventually won her over. He could carry more stuff, he said. And someone had to be with the van or else it would be towed.

The receptionist looked him up and down from behind the U-shaped desk, told him to wait, then whispered into the intercom. He paced the floor. There were two people in interview suits sitting on the couch.

“Sir,” the receptionist said, “would you like to have a seat?”

“No. I’d like the boxes,” he replied sharply.

This is the bitch, he thought, who’d fucked with Sylvia.

“I can’t give them to you,” she snapped. “Sylvia has to get them herself, because she has to sign.”

“Sign what?”

“A form saying it’s all hers and that nothing’s damaged.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to the company.”

Don’t get upset, Diego. Set an example for Sylvia. He bit his lip and went to the elevator.

Sylvia sat up when she saw him without the boxes. “What’s the matter?”

He tried to sound relaxed. “You need to sign something to say that it’s yours and there’s no damage.”

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said as she jumped out onto the sidewalk.

Diego didn’t like the look in her eye, and he told her that.

“I’m cool,” she said, reassuringly. “I just want my stuff. I don’t care about their bullshit.”

No one else who’d been fired had gone through this, she thought. Former employees were usually allowed the courtesy of collecting their things in the company of someone senior.

She started off quickly and he jogged next to her.

“Who’s going to stay with the van if you go with me?” she snapped. “One of us has to stay put.”

“Don’t start any shit, Sylvia,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I’m trusting you. They’re a bunch of dunces. You’re a genius. Think about it: in the grand scheme, do they really count? Letting them get to you is like an elephant being bothered by a mosquito. They are little black insects, Sylvia, that’s all they are. One smack and they’re done. Fuckem.”

She said she’d be calm. He leaned against the van and let her go.

She was caught off guard by the hiccups in her heartbeat as the elevator opened.

“Let me have the form,” she said when she got to the front desk.

She signed it quickly and handed it back. Fuck, she’d left the hand truck. The oversight pissed her off.

“How’d it go?” Diego asked when she arrived outside.

“I need the hand truck for the boxes.”

He patted her on the back.

“Now that everything is signed,” he said, “stay here and let me get them.”

She let him go.

Just as he was about to lift the first box, however, the receptionist said, “Keys first.”