Page 12

ELEVEN

Lucy leads Alex out of the office and down the long hallway, occasionally glancing behind her. They pass the doorway that leads out into the newsroom and keep walking to the opposite end of the hall.

“I always take the stairs when I go between the newsroom and the mailroom. I hope you don’t mind. I like the exercise,” Lucy says, pushing open a heavy fire door at the end of the hall. It leads to the landing of an old stairwell with an elaborate wrought iron railing. The staircase wraps around an open atrium about twenty feet wide.

“This must still be the old part of the building?” Alex asks, trying to be conversational as they descend. She can feel the grooves in the marble stairs worn in the centers from decades of foot traffic.

“It is, yeah. Isn’t it cool? Actually, this was once the building’s main stairwell, but it was converted after the renovation.” She glances back at Alex. “It’s a shame it’s not used much these days, because it’s actually quite beautiful, I think.”

Alex supposes she’s right. With a bit of dusting and some better lighting, a coat of fresh paint on the chipped metalwork, it would be gorgeous. But as it is, the dank smell and the flickering yellow-green light make it more creepy than charming. Art deco flourishes embedded in the corners hold a coating of thick gray dust. The finish on the wrought iron banister is chipped in places, cracking away to reveal the raw metal below, like bones peeking through skin.

Alex leans over the railing to look down and gasps. Around the central space the loop of the staircase repeats for what feels like forever, ending a million miles below at the tiniest patch of checked tile floor.

“A little intense, huh? The history of this building is just so fascinating,” Lucy says, continuing down the steps, her hand trailing lightly on the wood of the railing.

As she follows Lucy, Alex tries to imagine it bustling with people who worked here back in the early days. There would be lots of men in dark suits and hats. She pictures the heels of their polished shoes clicking quickly on the stairs as they rushed to deliver urgent copy to their editor or to go collect a story unfolding out in the world. There would have been women, though not nearly as many. They would likely have been kept in the realm of secretarial work.

Alex feels momentarily embarrassed that in her days of time-wasting research over the weekend, even after running out of things to google about Howard Demetri and his wife, it had not occurred to her to look up the history of the building itself.

“I just love history, don’t you?” Lucy says, not waiting for a reply. “Did you know that the architect who made this place actually was petrified of the elevator? It was a new invention then, of course. He just straight up didn’t trust it. That’s why this stairwell is so nice.”

“Interesting,” Alex mumbles, looking over the edge.

Without slowing her pace, Lucy glances back, her cheeks glowing. “I’ll never understand why he would kill himself by jumping from the top floor. That’s never made sense to me.”

Alex leaps back from the opening, pushing herself against the wall. The blood drains from her limbs as she imagines her own body falling through the space, dropping past the last forty-five floors and hitting the ground with a speed so violent it crushes her.

“You okay, Alex?” Lucy asks, her small face bunching up with concern.

“I’m fine,” Alex says, her hand slick now as she guides it back to the banister. She wants to be out of there. She focuses on her feet, on placing each one in front of her and not falling.

“Ah, this is us,” Lucy says finally, coming to a stop on a landing before a door with the number 42 nailed to it in an art deco font. She uses her full body weight to push it open. Alex lets out a long shaky breath as they emerge into an empty white hallway. Sickly fluorescent lighting buzzes overhead as they make their way down the hall, stopping at an off-white door stained with scuff marks.

“This is the mailroom, prepare to be dazzled,” Lucy says wryly as she pulls a key on a coiled plastic cord from around her wrist, twisting it in the lock. It’s a typical-looking mailroom, set up with a few metal tables in the center for sorting. One side of the room is orderly, a grid of nearly empty cubbies along the wall labeled with the names of different departments. But the opposite side of the room makes Alex gasp. A disorderly pile has formed in the corner. A mountain of letters joining into one heaving tower over the tops of three large roller bins. It is more mail than Alex has ever seen in one place. And she’ll have to read it all.

“You might have already guessed that these are the Dear Constance letters. There are quite a few after eight months, obviously. We just haven’t known what to do with them all and could never return them to sender.” She chuckles. “That would be a bit like sending back letters to Santa from the North Pole.”

“Didn’t they know about Francis?” Alex asks. “You’d think that people would have stopped writing in.” She approaches the pile tentatively, worried that any slight disturbance will send them toppling.

Lucy shrugs. “If anything, it seems like there have been more recently. I guess some people just didn’t get the news.”

Alex has begun mentally doing the math of how long it will take to read all of them. The long nights she’ll have to put in to make sure she gets to each one. But it doesn’t upset her. In fact, she feels herself eagerly looking forward to it. Lucy picks up a plastic bin from under the sorting table.

“Where do you want to start?” she asks.

“Which are the oldest?”

Lucy points to the bin farthest into the corner where the pile of letters is the highest. “I think those. But you’d have to get to the bottom of the pile.”

“It only seems fair, doesn’t it?” Alex says, then wobbles. “Or should I be answering those who have written in more recently, the ones I have more of a chance of helping?”

“Tell you what,” Lucy says, so gently that she might think Alex is heading for a meltdown. “I can bring up some of these from each bin every day. That way you won’t have to come down here and be overwhelmed by it all.”

“That would be amazing,” Alex says gratefully. It’s not so bad having someone to walk her through her first day. Lucy being here is helping Alex feel a bit better about the whole situation. Though she’d still like to talk to Howard, see what her boss thinks about which to read first.

Lucy plunges her hands into the drift of letters. As she piles them into the bin, Alex thinks it must be hard for Lucy to be working with somebody new after all that time with Francis. It’s got to be an intimate job, being someone’s assistant. You’d know everything about them, from the ins and outs of their schedule down to what they like for lunch and how they take their coffee. Whether they came in early or liked to stay late. All of their habits and eccentricities. Alex could learn a lot about Francis from her, she thinks suddenly, a small thrill creeping up her spine. What amazing details could she tell Alex about Francis Keen’s life?

“What was she like?” Alex asks cautiously.

“Who, Francis?” Lucy stops, resting one hand against her hip. “Well, she could be impatient at times. She suffered no fools, as my mom always says. But she also had this innate sense of wisdom. She never placated people. If someone was struggling, there was no pity, it was only empathy with Francis. And there’s a big difference. You felt like she was in it with you.” She gives a tight, pained smile, her eyes clouding. “I really loved her.”

Alex smiles. “Funny, that’s exactly how I imagined her to be. She sounds amazing.” There is a tug of sadness in her chest that she was never able to meet Francis. Especially now that they share so much.

“Yeah, she was. Too bad you never got to meet her. I feel like you’d have a lot in common. It’s honestly a bit hard for me to talk about her still. I’m sorry.” Lucy turns away from her toward the piles of letters. Her shoulders slump as she pulls letters from the pile and continues stacking them in the small bin next to her. Alex wonders if she’s upset Lucy. Maybe it was too much to ask. She leans over to help her, pulling out a handful of fresh envelopes stuck in the corner of one of the rolling bins and putting them into the smaller one.

“So, Francis really read every single one of these?” Alex asks.

Lucy’s hair bounces around her face as she nods. “Oh yes. It was part of her belief system that everyone who shared something so special and secret was at least heard out.”

“Did you ever help her read?” Alex asks.

“I offered pretty much daily, but she never would let me. Francis was very stubborn. Too proud not to do all the dirty work herself.” She pauses. “There is a system for keeping the already read letters. Most of them are shredded eventually, but there are certain letters that Francis kept. She always wanted to make sure that she saved any letters from people who could possibly be a danger to themselves or others.”

“Oh?” Alex tugs at the edges of her sleeves. “What did she do with those?”

“I’m not sure, honestly. I think she kept them at her beach house for some reason. All I know is that if someone wrote to her in need, there is no way she would get rid of the letter.”

“Great,” Alex says weakly, dropping an envelope and watching it flutter into the bin. The piles of letters are making her feel claustrophobic. It is almost as though she can hear the voices coming from each of them, crying out. The overhead lighting keeps flickering. She steps back from the bins and tries to take it all in, to fit the massive pile into her brain. She wonders if she will be able to handle it all. There are so many people out there struggling. Will she be able to truly help a single one of them?