18 Red Boxes

A Valentines Day Story

 

The man only glanced up from his newspaper to inventory the other patrons. No one in the small corner diner would change his or her morning routine. This was a nighttime holiday, like New Years Eve or Halloween.

 

His eyes fell back to the grainy black and white ad photos and newsprint.  When the frumpy middle-aged waitress came by the table, he silently indicated that he would like another cup of coffee. She gave him an extraordinary toothy tobacco stained smile. He politely nodded, but remained expressionless. Even if he was interested, this was not the day to harvest.

 

“Why are you so dressed up today, sugar?” The man was in an impeccable dark suit with an expensive tie and shoes. Every other time she had seen him he was wearing some sort of carelessly assembled workout garb. A sweatshirt and shorts with a hand towel accessory. Something of that nature.

 

“It’s Valentines Day,” he said into the rim of his cup.

 

He hadn’t intended to be rude, but it was important for him to maintain his focus. He had a busy agenda and might not eat again until late into the night.

 

He glanced at the inexpensive watch that disappointed in living up to the rest of his ensemble.  Later, he would remove the watch entirely, but in the meantime he would conceal it when possible. It was a quarter to nine.  It was time to move.

 

He calculated the bill in his head. He threw too much money on the table and walked out. 364 days of the year, he conserved money. On Valentines Day cash was not the commodity that he most coveted. Time was.

 

February can be a brutally cold month, but the temperature was a bearable 35 degrees and dry. Still, he had never undertaken an agenda of this magnitude. He walked the three blocks to the gourmet grocer in under five minutes. He lit a cigarette and waited for the owner to unbolt the door.

 

“Hello, Jack.”

 

“Hello, Gregi. Is my order ready?”

“Yes, but I changed the beluga to a case. It actually is the same price as ordering twenty.”

 

“You want the extra four. I don’t like caviar.”

 

“Why does a man spend three grand on something that he doesn’t like? Save your money.”

 

“Never mind. I’ll take them. What about the rest?”

 

“Vodka, Champagne, water crackers, Caciocavallo cheese - which by the way I have never heard of prior to your request - and truffles. Twenty of each. May I ask what all of this is about?”

 

“No, you may not, Gregi.”

 

“You are a very strange man, Jack.”

 

Jack placed five of each items – six of the caviar – into four durable shopping bags.  The bags already contained five bottles of Chanel and fine silk unmentionables. This would allow the weight to be evenly distributed. There would be no replacing this $5,000 shopping list.

 

He was easily able to find a cab. He had counted on their being in abundance on a weekend morning. Customarily, he would have taken the bus, but he normally wasn’t carrying ten percent of his annual income in shopping bags.

 

“Kate’s Paperie.”

 

“I have no idea where that is?”

 

“You really don’t know?  Eight West Thirteenth.” They had several locations, but Jack had an inside person in the Village.

 

“What kind of place is it?”

 

Jack ignored the question and checked his watch. He was behind schedule. “Please, hurry.”

 

As the driver pulled onto 13^th, Jack asked him, “Do you have a wife or girlfriend?”

 

“You’re not going to ask me out are you?”

 

“Give her this. I paid a lot for it, but I have extras.”

 

“Does this mean you’re not giving me a tip?” Jack wasn’t.

 

“Enjoy the caviar.”

 

Jack glanced over his shoulder long enough to see a caviar covered finger disappear into the thick beard. He shuddered as he walked into Kate’s with his bags. Without preamble he asked the girl at the counter, “Where’s Star?”

 

 “She called in sick today.”

 

“On Valentines Day? Unacceptable.  Get her in here.”

 

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible. Is there something that I can help you with?”

 

Jack looked at the girl. Pretty, but too young to have the kind of experience that he required. “This may be too much for you. How old are you, young lady.”

 

“Twenty two.” My God. She was just a kid.

 

“I need you to listen very carefully. Inside these bags, you will find an assortment of items. Twenty each. I need them placed in your 12x16x8 boxes. Wrap the bottles in the white paper with the gold leaf. In addition, the other items should be packed in a way where they will be instantly recognizable and visually pleasing. You need to write this down, please.”

 

The girl took out a pen and scrawled some notes. None of them had anything to do with the order.

 

“Do you have a name?”

 

“Margaret.” Not a very artistic name he thought.

 

“You are then to wrap each box in the vermillion paper. The lid and the bottom are to be wrapped separately so that the box can be opened without marring the paper. For the love of all that is sacred, do not wrap them together. The ribbon is also to be the matching vermillion. It has to be sufficiently secure to hold the box and the lid.”

 

“Um, okay.”

 

“I will return throughout the day to pick up the packages one at a time. Before I leave, I want to see you wrap one.”

 

The young girl nervously wrapped the first box.

 

“You know what you want is going to cost you about $35 per box.” Jack laid ten hundred dollar bills on the counter. “The rest is yours if you do this right.”

 

“I’ll take the first one with me. I can make a stop on the way back.” He would be heading to Kaleidakolor Calligraphy Studio. Isadora lived two blocks away. He could deliver his package and make up some time.  A lot hinged on Margaret. As he walked into the street with the first of the twenty vermillion packages under his arm, he felt a slight cold trickle of perspiration sliding down his neck. Damn it. It was too soon for this.

 

Another cab ride and jar of caviar lost on an unappreciative cab driver later, Jack walked into KCS. He saw Sarah behind the counter.

 

“Hello, my love.”

 

“Hello, Jack.” She spit his name at him.

 

“Are they ready?”

 

“You f*****g a*****e. Why would you make me do this?”

 

“Because no one writes like you do. I have no choice. It is beyond my control.”

 

Her eyes began to well up with tears and Jack thought for a moment how beautiful they were awash in their tears.  

 

“May I please see the product,” he said coldly.

 

She handed him a box containing twenty envelopes.

 

He took off his gloves and opened one carefully. The card read:

 

To My Love On A Day That Was Made For You

 

Happy Valentines Day

 

Love Always,

 

Jack

 

“Twenty this year, Jack? You know you won’t get away with this! It’s not even that good.”

 

“It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be enough.” He eyed her a bit suspiciously. “Now, do I need to check all of these? You didn’t sabotage me, did you?”

 

Her lip quivered, “I love you, you son of a b***h!”

 

“Oh. This is awkward. Well, here.” He tucked the card that he was reading into the ribbon of the package that he was carrying. “I always make a couple of extra.”

 

He exited the shop to blood curdling whaling reverberating off of the paned glass door.

 

It’s not that he didn’t understand her despair.  Later it would pain him deeply. He simply didn’t have time to consider another person’s feelings at the moment. This was Valentines Day and 18 women needed him.

 

Jack was not a romantic. He was not spontaneous. In fact, he was one of the most calculating individuals that one could find in New York. This was a remarkable pinnacle to reach in a city that is filled with manipulative power brokers. However, for all of his meticulousness he was not a successful man. Well, not in most things anyway.

 

He would stop by the florist and get white French tulips to go on the boxes. At least now he would only need 19. A savings of six dollars. The florist visit went off without a hitch. It always did.

 

“Nineteen this year, Jack? That’s an odd number.”

 

“In a box, please.”

 

When he returned to Kate’s he placed the boxes of cards and tulips on the counter in front of a frazzled Margaret.

 

“Okay, I have about nine done. That’s pretty good right?”

 

Jack randomly inspected one of the perfect packages. “My God. This is well done. Where did you learn to wrap like this?”

 

“Well, I…”

 

“No matter. We are barely on schedule. Put these cards and flowers on each package like so.” He artfully demonstrated the exact arrangement that he was seeking.

 

Jack scooped up four boxes and placed each of them in one of the shopping bags in which he had brought the ingredients of his red boxes. It was tremendously inefficient to carry them this way, but any more than one package per bag could ruin the presentation. A crushed tulip or creased card was unacceptable.

 

Walking with four packages made smoking difficult, so he set the packages down under the awning of Kate’s. He lipped a cigarette and lit it. He would smoke it down to the butt and then spit it on the street. He did this with each pickup.

 

It had started half a decade ago with a rose left on the desk of a recently divorced secretary who was lamenting the approaching holiday after having Christmas and New Years destroyed by the discovery of her husband’s affair and her subsequent abandonment.

 

The next year it was a bottle of Moet here and heart shaped chocolates there.  A rose or two even. He wore a “silk” tie that he bought in China Town to make the deliveries.

 

Single women were lonely on Valentines Day. New York had approximately four million women. He estimated if one third were single at any given time, it left a hunting ground of over a million.  However, he focused solely in Manhattan to make his delivery runs feasible. Still that left a few hundred thousand.

 

Each year for the past seven, the tradition grew. It became his raison d’être.

 

After the first sixteen deliveries he returned for the final few boxes. There were three left at the Kate’s.

 

“This is my last pick up. You did great.” He pushed one of the boxes back at her. “Share this with your boyfriend. You’ve earned it.”

 

“I suppose this is the point where I tell you that I don’t have a boyfriend, or he’s working or some such crap and you try to charm me with one of these stupid boxes. No thanks.”

 

“Is that true?”

 

“Yeah, I got dumped by the a*****e last week.”

 

“Some of the stuff in here is pretty nice. Give it to a friend. You’ve earned it.” He didn’t wait for her to unload anymore of her self-righteous rhetoric on him. In truth, he was tired of lugging boxes back and forth. He had only two more deliveries to make and this would cut his burden in half.

 

Margaret took off her glasses and loosened the bun in which her hair had been tightly locked.

 

“I close up in ten minutes. If you don’t deliver the last two, we can share this one at my place. I won’t wait. You have to spend the rest of the night with me.”

 

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

 

“F**k you.”

 

“I get that a lot. It doesn’t really phase me anymore.”

 

“Fine. Make your deliveries. I don’t want to be alone tonight. Just come back.”

 

“I never spend Valentines Day with anyone. Let me take you out tomorrow. I’ll make it up to you.” This was a day for planting. He had 364 days to harvest.

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Author's Note

This is currently a rough draft/work in progress

Reviews

[None]

I loved the story as it is...enjoyable and interesting. You have the reader curious about the recipients though. If you are going to add to the story then possibly give us more info on the 19 or 18. Jack doesn't seem to be the giving type. I guess he is forced by tradition. Great character outlining in your charming story.