Day Seven I Signed It novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Day One

Locked out of his own door, Colin collects his laptop while Reese films it, meets his neighbor Ivy, and finds the clip has forty thousand views and his employer tagged.

On Tuesday at noon I stood at my own front door and pressed my thumb to the lock.

It blinked red.

I pressed it again, and it blinked red again.

Margo had taken my fingerprint off the door in less than a day.

I rang the bell instead.

Gavin opened it.

He was wearing my gray slippers and a sweater I didn't recognize, and he smiled at me, friendly and relaxed.

"Colin," he said. "Come in. Margo's upstairs."

"I'm not coming in," I said. "I need my work laptop and my passport."

"Sure. Sure, of course."

Behind him, Reese was standing in the living room with her phone up and the red recording light on.

"Day one, everybody," she said to the screen, in a low voice that was meant to be funny. "He's already at the door. Margo owes me ten dollars for being right about noon."

I looked at her until she lowered the phone a few inches.

She raised it again.

Gavin crossed the living room and came back with my laptop bag and the folder with my passport in it.

He had put them by the door before I knocked.

Somebody had packed them for me, and the thought of it made my chest tight.

"It's all there," Gavin said. "I checked, so nothing would go missing."

"Thank you."

"Colin, don't thank him," Margo said.

She was halfway down the stairs in her robe, with her hair twisted up and her coffee in her hand.

She looked rested.

"You can't even look at me," she said.

"I came for my bag."

"You came because you're lonely, and you're proud, and you're doing the thing where you pretend it isn't the same as the other times."

She smiled at me, and I understood that she believed every word.

"Come home," she said. "Say sorry to Reese for storming out, eat something, and we'll forget it."

"Apologize to Reese?" I said.

"Don't be difficult."

I turned to go.

Gavin held the door for me, and as I passed him I saw him look over my shoulder, into the hall.

He was looking at my father's photograph.

He looked at it for exactly as long as it took me to notice, and then he looked at me and smiled again.

"Take care of yourself," he said.

I didn't answer.

I carried my bag down the steps and heard the door close, and then I heard Reese's laugh start up again before I had reached my car.

My temporary place was a furnished sublet across town, one bedroom on the third floor of an old brick building.

A coworker was away for six months and wanted somebody to water his plants.

He had texted me the address that morning, with no questions, which was the nicest thing anyone had done for me in a week.

I got there at two and stood in the hall with the key in my hand.

The key went in.

The door would not move.

I put my shoulder against it, and it still would not move.

"You have to lift while you push," a voice said behind me.

A woman was standing in the open door across the hall, in blue scrubs and a green cardigan, with a mug in her hand and her curly hair coming out of its clip.

"Lift the handle, then push with your hip," she said. "The landlord has been promising to fix it since March."

I lifted and pushed.

The door swung open.

"Thank you," I said.

"Ivy," she said. "Across the hall. I just got off a night shift, so if I'm rude, that's why."

"Colin."

She looked at the single laptop bag in my hand.

"One bag," she said. "Either you're running from something or you're very organized."

"Both," I said.

Ivy laughed, a short surprised laugh.

"Okay, that was good," she said. "Water the ficus. The last guy killed it and I took it personally."

"I'm only watering plants here. I'm not staying."

"Everybody says that," she said, and went back inside.

I stood in the doorway of the strange apartment and noticed that I was smiling.

It was the first time since Monday.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket, and it kept buzzing.

It was a cousin, then a coworker from the county office, then an unknown number.

I opened the first message.

It was a link to Reese's story.

Under the clip of me at the door, taking my laptop bag with my head down, she had written: DAY ONE. WALK OF SHAME. POOL STILL OPEN.

It had forty thousand views.

Someone had tagged the county engineer's office, and the director's account had liked it.

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