“Do you take all this on the bike?” I asked, looking at the duffels and the dry cleaning, wondering how Cary could possibly drive the scooter and hold everything at the same time.
“Something much cooler than that,” Cary said as the woman behind the counter handed over what looked almost like a folded-up stroller. Cary unfolded it, and I saw it was a wheeled cart. He gave it a spin. “See?”
“Much cooler,” I agreed.
“Leon Russo called, wanted to make sure we were bringing his soon,” she said, flipping though some papers on the desk. “Apparently he’s got a date tonight.” She arched an eyebrow.
“Gotcha,” Cary said. “We’ll go there first.” He stacked the bags in the cart, picked up the dry cleaning, and smiled at me. “Ready to go?”
I nodded and walked out the door he held open for me. “So it looks like I’m your wingman.” Cary groaned, which I took as a compliment. He started pulling the cart behind him while also carrying the dry cleaning—which seemed like a lot for one person to do. “You’re going to let me help, right?”
“Sure,” he said, giving me a quick smile. “Absolutely.”
* * *
Cary wouldn’t let me help.
He told me that he did this all the time by himself, so he was used to it. But I felt incredibly guilty as I walked along next to him, eating the snacks that he’d bought me, while he pushed the cart.
After a few stops, I was starting to get the hang of it. In a doorman building, we just left the laundry or dry cleaning at the desk in the lobby. In a walk-up, we buzzed, and when the door was opened for us, we went right to their doors, leaving the cart behind on the ground floor. Cary kept trying to get me to wait in the lobbies of the walk-ups, but I was having much too much fun peeking into these New York apartments. There was the couple we could hear screaming at each other as we got close to the door, but who were then perfectly pleasant as they picked up their laundry and wished us a good night—and then went back to screaming the second the door had closed. The apartment that had vinyl records stacked everywhere; the apartment that had three cats that came to the door along with their owner, sitting on the doorstep at his feet and looking up at us with big green eyes like they were all assessing our job performance. And if I hadn’t gone with him, I wouldn’t have found out to my shock that Mr. Russo—he of the hot date—had to be pushing ninety.
“Chip?” I asked Cary now, as we walked down the street toward our fourth building. I figured that if he wouldn’t let me help, I could at least offer some snacks.
“Thanks,” he said, shifting the dry cleaning to his other arm and taking some Doritos. “That’s really nice of you.”
“Well, you did pay for them.” He laughed. “You can have anything else you want too,” I said, holding out the bag, then remembered what Pete in the bodega had said. “Well—except for the peanut M&Ms, I guess.”
“Yeah, I’ll give those a miss.”
“Is it a bad allergy?” I asked, as Cary tipped his head toward Sixty-Third Street and we both turned down it, my feet falling into step with his. “Do you need me to take the bag away?”
“I’m fine when things are, you know, sealed in packaging. It’s just when they’re out and about that things turn deadly.”
“Deadly?” Cary nodded. “Jeez. So Mr. Peanut isn’t a friendly cartoon mascot to you. He’s, like, a serial killer.”
Cary turned to me and gave me a smile that was wide-open, like I’d just surprised him. “Exactly,” he said with a laugh. “Other people see an anthropomorphic peanut; I see evil in a top hat. Fun fact—”
“About Mr. Peanut?” I raised my eyebrows.
Cary laughed. “I’m full of them.”
“You’re full of something,” I parried back, then wondered a second later if I’d gone too far, but he just rolled his eyes good-naturedly and continued on.
“Mr. Peanut was actually designed in a contest by an eleven-year-old kid. He earned five dollars for it.”
“Five?”
“Well, five dollars went a lot further in 1906. But then Planters paid his way through college and he became a doctor.”
“That is a fact,” I said. “I’m not so sure about the ‘fun’ part. But my brother would be very impressed—he loves stuff like that.”
“A man of excellent taste.”
“He’s ten,” I pointed out, and Cary laughed. I noticed he seemed to do this easily, with no hesitation. I liked it. “What’s with the interest in Mr. Peanut?” I paused. “There’s a sentence I’ve never said before.”
Cary laughed again. “You always want to be well versed in the things that could kill you. Here we are.” He’d stopped in front of a building with a lobby and pulled the door open for me. There hadn’t been a doorman outside, but there was one behind the desk just inside, wearing a military-style long coat with gold braid on the shoulders. “Hey, Wes,” Cary said, approaching the desk.
The doorman—Wes—smiled when he saw him. “Was wondering if I’d see you tonight.”
“Well, wonder no more,” Cary said with a grin. He squinted down at the paper that listed all the drop-offs and pickups. “Tonight it’s dry cleaning for Three C, laundry for our friends in the penthouse, and a pickup for Eleven A.”
“Gotcha,” Wes said, already dialing the phone as Cary started setting things down on the desk and sorting through bundles. “How’s the movie going?”
My head whipped over to him. “Movie?”
He gave me a quick, embarrassed smile, but before I could ask him for more information, Wes was talking to us, lowering the phone slightly. “I can take the dry cleaning and I have the pickup here, but the penthouse would prefer you bring it up right away. They don’t want to wait until I can go off the desk.”
“Oh.” Cary exchanged a look with Wes. “I take it…”
“Yep,” Wes said with a nod. His eyes wandered to me and he raised an eyebrow. “Is she…”
“She’s helping,” Cary said quickly as he took one of the bundles out of the big black bag—until tonight, I had no idea laundry was delivered to people in cubes—and left the rest down by the desk. “Be right back.”
Cary nodded toward the elevators at the other end of the lobby, and we walked toward them. I could see a Christmas tree in the corner—at least ten feet tall—but it wasn’t decorated yet, and I hoped it wasn’t real, since it was still early November and I didn’t see a real tree hanging on for another six weeks.
“Okay,” I said as Cary pressed the up arrow. “I have so many questions.”
“Fire when ready.”
“What movie was he talking about?”
Cary cleared his throat and looked at the numbers lighting up above the elevator, letting us know where it was. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Do you act too?” My voice rose in excitement. “You should have said something—”
“God, no.” Cary shook his head. He set the bag of laundry at his feet. “I’m…” He looked at me for a moment, like he was making a decision. “Well—what I really want to do is make animated movies.”