17
Jordan
I was simply and purely elated with the way things were going in my life. On days when I didn’t have to work, I was wishing I was at work, and when I was at work, I was wishing it could be my all day, everyday life.
The guys seemed to take any opportunity I wasn’t with the kids to spend time with me themselves, but they also had to be careful to make sure they were still using some of their free time to be with their children as well, and it sometimes left me on days like the one I was currently on, when I was without any kids and any men. I didn’t like it.
“Ma’am?”
I snapped out of my cogitation and remembered I was standing in my favorite local coffee shop waiting for one of their seasonal drinks.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Santa Claus Frapp?” the barista on the other side of the counter said, holding out a drink for me.
“Yes,” I replied, taking it from him. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Happy Holidays,” he said with a wide smile.
“You too.” I took my drink and made my way to the exit.
The streets of Dallas were officially ‘Christmas.’ Folks in Dallas in particular loved decorating for the holidays, and there wasn’t a road you could drive down that didn’t have shimmering lights covering all their trees and hanging from their store fronts, and there was even a maladie of tacky, blow-up creatures. I loved it. Christmas just made me feel warm inside, and with the kids and their dads in my life, I had every reason to be totally at peace with my life.But one should always fear being too happy, because inevitably, someone will come along to ruin it.I didn’t know who my someone was. I was approaching my apartment door and at the same time, a delivery person was walking away from it. He had a large, Manila envelope in his hand and tilted his head when he saw me.“You wouldn’t happen to be Jordan Kent?” he asked.
“Yes?” I replied. “Can I help you?”
He held out the envelope to me. “This is for you, but it was signature required.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the envelope, and it did indeed have my name and address on it, but there was no return address or indicator of who it was from. “Do you know who it’s from?”
The delivery man shook his head. “I just drop em.” He held out an electronic, signature system. He scanned a barcode on the back of the envelope and then handed me the small pen that was attached to it by a twisted cord. “Sign for me.” I signed my name on the screen and then he took the system back and shoved it in his pocket. “There’s a sticky on your door saying I’ll be back tomorrow. Just disregard it. Have a wonderful day.”
“Thanks, you too.”
I made my way down to my door, removed the sticky note, and entered my apartment. I looked over the envelope, but was mostly confused. I didn’t know anyone who would send me mail, certainly not someone who would send me something that needed to come in such an official envelope, and unmarked.
I thought back over all the bills I had to pay for the month. I was no stranger to working the system a little bit, especially when I was trying to make a paycheck do way more than it could. I was a master at due date extensions, payment plans, and even the lesser known ‘I paid it online, if you don’t see it, it’s because there was a problem with your system.’ Typically, when bills got seriously past due, the bill collector would send an important looking piece of paper warning that if the bill wasn’t paid by a certain date that the service would be interrupted. I gave it a look over, thinking that might be what it was, but those always had a return address on them, because they wanted to be paid, and they weren’t typically mailed certified because they didn’t need to be.
