Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

@janeyjaneyjaneyUWS

I swear to god the Watch Me Piddle woman just came into Zabar’s. Here’s a picture. It’s definitely her, right??? #watchmepiddle

@NewYorkDailyNews to @janeyjaneyjaneyUWS

Hi! We’d love to use your picture. Can we DMyou?

@janeyjaneyjaneyUWS

Sure thing!

It’s okay.It’s fine. Everything is going to be just fine. I can get it. I can get the letter. I have long enough arms to reach down into the mailbox, don’t I? I can just get it. It’s one of those thick-papered expensive envelopes. I’ll be able to feel it, pull it out and then everything will be okay. I can deliver it to Chuck at the bank and all will be fine. Fine! Fine.

I peek out from beneath my umbrella. It’s so busy on this street and everyone’s moving quickly to avoid being out in the rain. No one is looking at me. No one wouldsee…

As casually as I can manage, I lean to the left and discreetly snake my arm into the mailbox.

I feel around. There’s a mass of papers and… ew, something soggy?

‘Ugh,’ I shudder, moving my hand to the right to feel for Birdie’s letter.

My hand grabs onto a large thick envelope. It’s the right size, the right weight…

I pull it out hopefully.

This envelope’s brown.

Birdie’s is cream.

Shit.

Keeping hold of the brown envelope so I don’t repeat grab it, I reach my hand down again and clutch about, like one of those fairground machine claws.

‘Excuse me,’ comes a voice from my left. ‘What are you doing?’

I jolt upright from the mailbox so quickly that my beret falls off, my curls springingfree.

The person asking the question is a handsome besuited dark-skinned man with a sour look on hisface.

‘I… I accidentally posted a letter,’ I explain.

The man’s mouth turns down. ‘I knowyou…’

‘Nope,’ I say, pulling the hat back on quickly. ‘I don’t think youdo.’

The man examines my face suspiciously. ‘I know you, I’m sure… And it’s not for a good reason… Are you, wait, are you stealingmail?’

‘No!’ I assure him. ‘Of course not! I’m trying to get back the letter I accidentally posted!’

I really don’t need some busybody interrupting me right now. And then I notice that the guy has got longer arms thanme.

‘Ooh, will you have a try for me?’ I ask. ‘Your arms are longer, you might be able to get furtherdown.’

Pursing his lips, the man steps away from me, looking around worriedly.

‘It’ll only take you a second!’ I add. ‘Just have a dig around. The envelope is thick. High-quality paper. I beg of you. This is a life or death situation and your help would be much appreciated.’

‘Excuse me!’ the man yells out into the busy street. ‘I need some assistancehere!’

I follow the man’s line of sight and notice that he is calling over acop.

‘Good idea!’ I say. ‘He’ll probably know what to do with lost mail. Shit. What a nightmare!’

The cop comes over – a short, skinny man with pockmarkedskin.

‘This woman is fishing for mail! I think she’s looking for cheques.’ The besuited man tells the cop, like a kid telling over another kid. I throw him a dirtylook.

‘Of course I’m bloody not!’ I protest. ‘I dropped my friend’s letter in there by mistake! I promise I’m not a mail thief. I’m Olive. I’m from England. I respect the postal service very much. Can youhelp?’

The cop nods and smiles at me, pulling out his phone.

‘Thank you!’ I say in relief as he taps onto the screen. ‘Anything at all you can do to assist. Maybe have someone unlock it and I can just take my letter and then I’ll be going.’

Forehead crinkling, the cop stares at his phone and then at my face. Then at his phone and at my face again.

‘Ma’am, do you know anything about an incident in Gramercy Park yesterday?’ heasks.

‘Nope,’ I say immediately. ‘What, um, is Gramercy Park? Incident? No, thankyou.’

Eek. I sound super guilty. They must have that stupid picture the woman in the park took on file. How on earth does he recognise me, though? I have a regular face. My eyes are a bit far apart from each other, but not in a freaky, instantly recognisable way. And I’m not wearing a unicorn horn today.

Then I realise the pink bumbag is still dangling from my arm after I posted all of the stuff. Damn. This beautiful bag is causing me more problems than it’s worth.

My instinct – the safest option – is to try to reason with the cop. To tell him that yes, it was I in Gramercy Park yesterday, but the whole situation was a misunderstanding. I could reasonably explain to him that the incident in Gramercy Park was just me being wrongly accused of something I did not do. And that also today I am once again being accused of something I didn’tdo.

Hmmmm.

Even to me that sounds highly suspect. A cop won’t believe that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, two days in a row? Even if it is completely true, it sounds like a totallie!

‘Ma’am?’ the cop says again, glancing down at his phone and then at my bumbag. ‘Can you tell me your name, please?

I look around me in panic. And in that moment, I make a decision I may well come to regret. But, honestly, all I care about right now is Birdie and getting that letter back for Chuck.

‘Oh wow!’ I exclaim loudly, pointing into the distance. ‘It’s beloved pop icon Beyoncé!’

The two men whip their heads around – no one is immune to Beyoncé. And when their heads are turned, I leg it and dive behind a nearby hot dog cart. A I crouch down, I hear the cop yelling into his walkie-talkie. ‘Menace located at the mailbox on 106th and West End Avenue. On foot. Holding a pink fanny pack, a brown grocery bag and a Samuel L Jackson style beret.’

Menace? He’s calling me a menace? Rude.

The cop looks up and down the street, assuming I’ve run far away. I feel a dart of cleverness at my decision to hide unexpectedly nearby.

As the grumpy besuited man walks off shaking his head, and the cop heads to his car, I take the opportunity to run away, as fast as Ican.

Running away from the law twice in twodays.

I think technically that makes me a fugitive.

HolyFuck.

* * *

I’m intermittently lookingat my Citymapper app and walking quickly through the streets of NYC. Damn that Seth Hartman. If I hadn’t been so focused on calling him out on his awful behaviour, I wouldn’t have been distracted enough to post Birdie’s letter along with Mrs Ramirez’s postcards and had to run away from the mailbox to avoid getting arrested!

‘Riverside Theatre,’ I mutter to myself. He got me into this mess and he can bloody well get me out of it. I bet he’s in the theatre right now having a ball, while I’m out here on the run from the NYPD. I bet he’s with all his thespian mates and they’re congratulating him on his sketch comedy glory. I wonder if they know that it didn’t even come from his own brain, but from a real person. Me! I wonder if he’s even allowed to impersonate a real person so closely on a TV show. I mean, of course he is, Sunday Night Live is full of celebrity impressions and such. But I’m not a celebrity. I’m a sweet and innocent person who didn’t ask to be in the publiceye.

I follow my travel app map towards the Riverside Theatre, and as I do, the streets become less and less desirable. Where previously there were trees and fancy buildings, there is now graffiti and boarded windows.

A group of teenagers on the corner stare at me as I walkpast.

‘Hey look, it’s Samuel L Jackson!’ one of them shouts and they all start laughing.

I speed up my walk and turn the corner, finally reaching the theatre. Although it doesn’t look like the upmarket theatre I was expecting. It’s an unattractive concrete building with a big green door, the paint a scuffed off to reveal splintered wood beneath. There’s a ramp leading up to the door and the metal bar at each side is rusty and covered with splats of birdturd.

I spot a small rusted, dull plaque above the door. Riverside Community Theatre. Oh! I expected something with nice lights on the façade and posters of musical theatre stars looking dramatically into the distance.

Hmmm. Seth is a comedy writer for a huge TV Show. What is he doing in a run-down theatre likethis?

I take down my umbrella and shake the rain off heartily onto the pavement. I prop it up against the door, step inside and wander through a quiet lobby. The right wall is plastered in notices and leaflets. Over-60s Zumba classes, bridge club, and an am-dram production of Cats). I wonder what Seth is here for. Is he in Cats? I bet he’s playing Macavity the sneaky, villainous cat. That would suit him perfectly.

I hear joyful voices from a room down the hall. I go and look through a little window in thedoor.

There he is. His too-long hair still damp from the rain. He’s not wearing the button down shirt he had on before though. He’s wearing a white T-shirt imprinted with the words West Side Knitters.

Huh.

I notice that everyone else in the room is aged between about thirteen and sixteen and they’re all listening to Seth talk, wide-eyed, like is he is telling them the guaranteed secret to acne-freeskin.

I stop nosying, remember why I’m here and gently push open the door. Ordinarily I would wait politely outside until whatever it is that’s going on is finished. But I haven’t exactly got a great deal of time, and whatever is going on in here can’t be as important as Birdie’s lost letter.

I check that my beret is securely on. I can’t have all these teenagers recognising me too. I try to enter the room without drawing too much attention but my trainers are wet and they squeak on the gym floor obnoxiously. Seth and about twenty teenagers stop what they’re doing and spin around to look atme.

Eek.

‘Sorry! Really sorry!’ I say, holding my hands up as I creep past. But then, remembering that it was my Mancunian accent that got me recognised in the deli this morning I decide to change it into something less recognisable. ‘Sorry!’ I say again in an Australian accent. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, I just need a quick word withSeth?’

Seth comes out asSith.

Why did you choose an Australian accent, Olive?

I mentally berate myself.Australian is definitely the hardest accent! And I have tried every accent out in the mirror at one point or another.

At my terrible Australian impression, Seth’s eyes widen, his brows dipping and creating a mini crevice in his forehead. He glares at me in disbelief, like I’m a hallucination. Like he cannot believe I have tracked him down to a tiny community theatre on the outer fringes of the Upper West Side. Like a crazy stalker.

‘Just a second, guys,’ Seth says, walking across the hall towardsme.

‘Oooooooh!’ some of the teens shout. ‘It’s your girlfriend! You looooooveher!’

‘Give me some credit!’ Seth fires back. Which actually hurts my feelings. I may not look very attractive in this beret and red-cheeked from my trek through New York to find him. But still…

‘I need to talk to you!’ I explain when he reaches me. ‘I need your help and it’s urgent.’

Seth bites at his lower lip. ‘This is all incredibly weird but okay… Can you wait? I’ll be finished up here in around thirty minutes.’

I sigh, thinking of that letter on the move to god knows where. And then I get a vision of Birdie’s face when I have to tell her that whoops, I lost her letter and this was all a waste oftime.

‘Actually, it’s really important,’ I say. ‘I need younow.’

He raises an eyebrow.

I tut. ‘I mean I need to talk to you now. I’ll only be a few minutes, I—’

Seth interrupts me, an expression of irritation flitting crossing his face. ‘Look, this is the only time these kids get away from a school that writes them off, a home that’s dysfunctional or, for some of them, the streets where they hang out with an older, shittier crowd. I volunteer and they only get one hour with me every week. I already arrived late…’ He gives me a pointed look. ‘I mean, if it’s another bathroom related requested, you’re on your own. But otherwise, you can wait another thirty minutes, right?

I feel embarrassed at my storming in here. He volunteers? That doesn’t fit with my current impression of him. He’s clearly having some kind of Dangerous Minds moment. Or maybe he’s volunteering just so he can tell people he volunteers and act all worthy about it. Yes, that must be it. There’s no way someone so self-important would volunteer out of the goodness of their heart. Either way. I suppose I can manage another thirty minutes. I really could do with hishelp.

‘Fine,’ I sniff.

‘In half an hour you can have as much of me as you want,’ Seth says loudly so the kids canhear.

What adick.

‘Give me some credit,’ I call back to his retreating form, to which some of the kids whoop and cheer meon.

I amble into the corner, every squelchy footstep amplified by the acoustics of the room, and plop down on an errant plastic yellow chair.

I take a breath and pull out my phone and earphones. Now would be a great time to listen to that meditation app I’ve been meaning to try. Thirty minutes of Still Minds sounds like a positive and sensible thing to do rightnow.

I press the buttons on my phone to load it up but am soon distracted by Seth’s voice booming into theroom.

‘Alan, Trey, Lauren. You’re up!’ he’s saying. ‘Your theme is…’ He holds his hands to his chin as if he’s thinking very hard. ‘Birthday.’

Three of the kids step out from the crowd and form their own group.

‘Remember,’ Seth says. ‘Relax! It’s all about relaxing.’

At Seth’s instruction the kids shake out their legs andarms.

‘Okay, go!’

‘I got you a gift,’ one of the kids says, pretending to hand something to one of the others. ‘It’s a really cute little teddybear.’

The other kid, a skinny little thing, folds his arms. ‘That’s not a teddy bear,’ he says. ‘It’s a killer drone!’

‘Hold up!’ Seth interrupts. ‘Okay, Alan,’ he says to drone boy. ‘The point with improvisation is that you always have to say yes. No matter what. So if your teammate starts the scene by saying that they are giving you a cute little teddy bear, they are giving you a cute little teddy bear. You have to go with it. Sayyes.’

Alan nods, his little cheeks turning a bitpink.

‘Try again,’ Seth says, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Go from the start.’

‘I got you a gift,’ the girl says again. ‘it’s a really cute little teddybear.’

Alan takes the invisible teddy bear from Lauren and gasps. ‘This is the most beautiful teddy bear I’ve seen in my entire life. And lord knows I’ve seen a lot of teddy bears.’ Alan pretends to look at the floor sadly. ‘Too many teddy bears…’ he says mysteriously.

A big laugh goes up around the room and I find myself joiningin.

I put down my earbuds and watch with interest as an entire scene is created in front of me, totally off the cuff. With the guidance of Seth, the kids concoct a whole story in which the teddy bear is secretly stuffed with stolenpot.

I watch as the kids go from tentative and nervous to being fully into the scene, putting on voices and being silly. They make more and more outlandish suggestions each time and support each other’s choices. It’s brilliant and I find myself clapping and cheering along from my seat in the corner.

The thirty minutes whizz by and soon enough Seth is ending the class.

‘See you next week,’ he says with a little wave. ‘And sorry I waslate.’

‘You’re always late,’ one of the kids retorts.

‘Yeah yeah.’ Seth shoos him away. ‘And remember, guys…’

‘Just say yes!’ the kids callback.

‘That’s right.’

As the kids file out of the hall, Seth strides over to me and takes a seat in one of the other plastic chairs.

‘So. Olive Maudine. What can I do foryou?’

‘Just Olive,’ I correct him. Then I tell him about the accidental letter being posted.

He shrugs. ‘That sucks.’

Understatement.

‘You don’t understand. It’s a life or death letter,’ I tell him. ‘It was supposed to be hand-delivered. There’s no stamp on it, or address so if I can’t rescue it, it’ll probably just get chucked in thebin.’

‘Why is it so important? Just write anotherone.’

‘It’s private,’ I tell him, not feeling very keen on the idea of divulging anything to this guy – who knows what will show up on the TV next week if I do. ‘But please trust me when I say that this letter is the only letter of its kind and it is truly, truly important that I get itback.’

I feel my throat swell with unshed tears.

Seth’s cocky face softens slightly. ‘This really matters to you, huh?’

‘Yes.’ I nod fervently. ‘It really, reallydoes.’

Seth blows the air out from his cheeks. ‘I don’t want to come off as a jackass, but what do you want me to do aboutit?’

‘You are very much coming off as a jackass,’ I mutter. ‘It’s your fault I posted it. If I hadn’t been so concerned with being angry at you for your stupid sketch, then I would have been my usual organised self and I would still have the letter. So you have to help me get it back. I don’t know how. But you are responsible too now. So just help me already.’

God, what is wrong with thisguy?

He holds up his hands. ‘Fine, relax!’

‘You relax,’ I spitback.

Seth laughs, though I’m not sure why. None of this is a laughing situation. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you what to do. You have to go to the sorting office on Staten Island. That’s where all the mail gets routed to before it’s rerouted to the boroughs. It used to be Brooklyn, but the rents are so high these days that they moved it to Staten Island.’

I goggle at him. ‘How on earth do you know so much about the US postal system?’

‘I get sent news headlines every week as part of my job. We use them to generate jokes and sketch ideas. The Staten Island postal re-route was a headline a few monthsago.’

‘Oh!’ I fold my arms. ‘So some of your sketches aren’t based on poor innocent strangers who needed your help on a plane?’

‘I said sorry.’

‘Didyou?’

‘Yeah.’ He holds his arms out wide. ‘I’m sorry!’

‘Well, I don’t forgive you. And I don’t even know where Staten Island is. I’m assuming it’s an actual island?’

Seth runs his hands over his stubbled jaw. ‘Look. I’ve got to get to work now, but I don’t start until 2 p.m. tomorrow. How about I go with you to the sorting office tomorrow morning? The letters from today’s mail won’t get there until then anyway and I know Staten Island pretty well, as it happens. We can get the letter; I know a place that does a great pizza. I’ll buy you lunch. And then will you forgiveme?’

Tomorrow isn’t ideal. I could really do with getting this sorted today… But things have a lot better chance of going smoothly if I’m with someone who actually knows this place. I can’t risk getting lost or something going wrong again! And at this point I’m almost expecting itto!

‘Okay. Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘Thankyou.’

‘Great.’ Seth stands up and crosses the hall to grab his still damp shirt from where it’s laid on top of his record bag. ‘I will meet you at The Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan. Nine thirtya.m.?’

‘Ferry terminal?’ I repeat, feeling suddenly sick at the thought of being on the water. I have never been on a boat in my life! Not even the rowing boats at Heaton Park. Plus, I’m a terrible swimmer. The very thought of a ferry makes me want tohurl.

‘Yeah’ he says. ‘It’s the best way to get to Staten island. And the most pleasant. Hopefully this rain will clear and you’ll get to see the view of Manhattan from the water. It’s really something to behold.’

I bite my lip and nod very slowly.

He already thinks I’m crazy. I can’t be afraid of planes and ferries. Even to my mind that sounds super neurotic.

‘Fine. 9 a.m. tomorrow,’ I say. And then, for some reason, I hold out my hand for him to shake. Like we are making some sort of formal businessdeal.

Olive, yougeek!

‘Fine,’ Seth replies.

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

‘Can we stop saying fine now, please?’

‘Fine.’