“I don’t know. I’m almost afraid to look.” Summer carefully peeled back the flap. The envelope was filled with travel brochures. Brightly colored, glossy booklets extolling the virtues of the Bahamas, Japan, China, Australia, Southern France, Italy, India and more. A plain white card bore Derek’s distinctive handwriting.
You want adventure? Tell me when you want to leave.
“I think I’m going to cry,” Connie wailed when she read the card.
“Do that and Gleason will fire us on the spot,” Summer protested, blinking back her own tears.
“I guess you’re right. But it really is sweet, Summer.”
“Yes,” she whispered dreamily. “It really is sweet.”
Derek wasn’t playing fair at all.
ANOTHER ENVELOPE CAME on Wednesday. Mr. Gleason was heard to utter a rare curse when half the accounting department gathered around Summer’s desk to watch her open it. Her heart pounding in her throat, Summer smiled tremulously at Connie and ripped open the envelope. Then shook it. Then pulled it apart and stared into it.
“It’s empty,” she concluded finally, looking up in bewilderment.
“It’s empty?” everyone repeated in disappointed unison.
“He must have forgotten to put whatever it was in the envelope before he sealed it,” Connie said slowly. “Though goodness knows that doesn’t sound like Derek.”
Summer pursed her lips and frowned thoughtfully at the torn package. “No,” she said finally. “Derek didn’t forget to put anything inside. This envelope was meant to be delivered empty. Just don’t anyone ask me why. I have no idea.”
“You mean,” asked one of the women nearby, who had always found Summer and Connie thoroughly amusing, “some guy paid a fortune for a bicycle messenger to deliver an empty envelope?”
“I think so,” Summer agreed.
The woman giggled. “Can you beat that? I always knew that you’d fall for someone as funny and unpredictable as you are, Summer.”
The women went back to their desks, delighted with the unusual romance being carried on in their normally routine workdays.
Connie and Summer stared at each other for a moment, then burst into helpless laughter.
THE ROOMMATES RUSHED home from work Wednesday afternoon, both in a frenzy to get ready for their respective appointments. Munching on a peanut butter sandwich, Summer stripped out of the sweater and skirt she’d worn to the office and pulled on a purple-and-yellow-printed knit shirt and a pair of baggy yellow overalls. Then she began to look around her bedroom for the notes she’d need during the final rehearsal of the Halloran House talent show. Naturally, the papers were nowhere to be found.
“Dammit!” she muttered, heedlessly trashing the tiny writing desk in one corner of the bedroom. “Where are those notes?” Paperback romances and leather-bound classics fell into a heap on the carpet, followed by an oversize pictorial history of musical comedy movies and a Cosmopolitan magazine.
When the desk failed to produce the papers she needed, Summer groaned and began to go through a stack of magazines on the floor beside her bed.
“Summer! I can’t find my red knit dress. Do you have any suggestions where it might be?” Connie’s voice from the other room sounded frantic.
“It’s at the cleaners. You asked me to take it with my things just yesterday,” Summer yelled back, tossing magazines in all directions.
Connie screamed.
Summer sighed and pushed herself to her feet, going off to assist her friend.
Connie was nearly hysterical. “What am I going to wear?” she wailed. “Joel will be here in twenty minutes, and I look like Bertha the Bag Lady. Help!”
“Calm down, Connie,” Summer ordered, amazed at her roommate’s unprecedented behavior. Connie went on dates nearly every night of the week and more times than not did not come home until morning. Now she was having a nervous breakdown over a routine dinner date, for Pete’s sake. “Wear your gray paisley silk with the black jacket. It makes you look classy.”
“You think so?” Connie asked dubiously, reaching for a dress that she’d spent half a month’s salary on, to Summer’s dismay at the time.
“Absolutely,” Summer declared. “It’s perfect. Much better than the red knit would have been.”
“My gray shoes! Where are my gray shoes?”
Summer counted to ten and prayed for patience. “One of them somehow fell into San Pablo Bay, remember?”