Chapter 63 Cass

CHAPTER 63 CASS

April 2013

New Jersey

I spent the drive north picturing canvas sacks filled with fan mail, bursting with readers’ letters. So many bags, in fact, that once I loaded them in my car, I wouldn’t be able to see out the back window. A hazardous amount of fan mail is what I pictured.

My first stop was the branch that housed Cate Kay’s actual P.O. box. The postmaster told me all unclaimed mail was sent to the warehouse across the river, and he did not seem optimistic about my chances. I told him that I understood, but I was happy to see what they had, and he handed over a card with the address.

An hour later, as I walked through the front door of the warehouse and saw the vastness of the space, which looked as if it could house a fleet of jumbo jets, I realized what I really needed was a miracle.

“Can I help you?” came a voice from behind me. I spun around and there was an older woman with a raspy voice who looked like she subsisted on cigarettes.

“Yes, hi,” I said. “I’ve had a P.O. box since 2006 or so, and was told that possibly the uncollected mail from over the years might be stored here?”

She chuckled—again, not reassuring—then said, “So you’re looking for the clerical office then, hon?” The “hon” was a nice touch. “See that big sign?” I followed the direction of her bony hand.

“You’re gonna find the office right below that sign there,” she said. “And make sure you get Carl. If anyone knows about your mail, it’ll be him.”

Carl, my man, had on a John Deere trucker hat that seemed a size too small—he wasn’t so much wearing it as it was perched atop his head. I knew it was him because of his name tag and the unlikeliness that another Carl worked in an office the size of a walk-in freezer. “Hello young lady,” he said without looking up, pecking away at a tan computer that might have been one of IBM’s first models.

“Hi,” I said, then waited. On the remote chance Cate Kay’s mail still existed somewhere inside this building, I knew I was only going to find it if Carl decided I should. He hunt-and-pecked on that computer for a few more minutes, then hit a button with a final flourish and looked at me with his narrow face and lively eyes.

“You’re up,” he said, and I stepped closer, put my elbow on the counter and said in my best spy voice, “I have a mission for you.” Thankfully, this made him grin.

“My life’s a series of missions,” he said, which struck me as some astute everyman philosophy.

“So,” I said, leaning in conspiratorially, “somewhere in this massive building there are a few bags of overflow mail from a P.O. box, and I’m desperate to find them.”

He was already typing on his computer again, eyes down, as he said, “We can do this. What’s the name on the box?”

(I loved the “we.”)

Right before I said it, I did have a moment during which I wondered how he’d react, but then I went ahead, “Cate Kay.”

“Cate Kay,” he repeated back to me as he typed it in, then he slowed down and looked at me. “Cate Kay, you say? From The Very Last ?”

“That’s right,” I said, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased that Carl—post-office-working, John Deere–trucker-hat-wearing Carl—knew me and my books. He reminded me of Amanda’s dad. Carl looked at me and said, “And you’re Cate Kay.” Like really looked at me, and I swear my eyes welled, Carl became blurry, and my throat closed for a second.

Then I said, “Yes, I’m Cate Kay,” and he grinned big and wide like the universe had just impressed him.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”