7
LEXI
“You are a godsend!” my downstairs neighbor cried when she opened the door to see me standing there.
Maria and her sister, her elderly mother, and her sister’s disabled twin boys shared a small one-bedroom apartment in my apartment building. I knew that money was tight for them since Maria’s sister couldn’t work and the boys needed a lot of medical care. The food I brought by every week was a big help for their family.
“Bless you, bless you, and bless your boss. What a wonderful man, that Mr. Richmond.” Maria’s mother hobbled over to me balancing on her cane.
I grimaced. “That’s a reach. My boss doesn’t know I’m giving this food away. He’d be pretty angry if he knew.”
“He would be happy if he knew how much this helped us,” the elderly woman insisted.
Maria started crying when I handed her the package of steak.
“And butter! We don’t need to go grocery shopping this week.”
Every week when I made my delivery, they were effusive with thanks. Nothing warmed the soul more than doing a good deed.Not that I needed any extra incentive to steal-slash-rehome food from Grayson Richmond.
“I can’t give you all the eggs,” I said apologetically. “Sheila’s husband isn’t supposed to eat meat, and I was going to let her have some eggs for him.”
“Of course, take all these eggs.” Maria handed me the carton. “The steak is plenty for us.”
“Take some chicken too,” I said, stuffing the package in her hands. “I know the boys like it.”
While all the food Mr. Richmond ordered was way too much for one person, it didn’t go as far as I would like for the residents in the narrow, dark 1920s apartment building.
It was much cooler on paper than in reality. The hex-tile mosaic in the foyer was blackened with soot from the decades when Manhattan was heated by coal. The wall covering was grungy, and the elevator hadn’t worked since the nineties. McKenna and I regularly had to assist elderly residents up and down the stairs.
“I better go take these up while they’re still cold. You all enjoy!”
The lights in the narrow stairwell flickered as I headed upstairs to pass out free food to several elderly neighbors. Manhattan was expensive, and everyone was appreciative of the food, as it would help them make ends meet.
“I hoped you save some of that booty for us!” Grenadine called as I used my shoulder to push into the small studio apartment I shared with McKenna and her grandmother.
“Scallops, cheese, some chicken thighs,” I said as she and McKenna unpacked the now mostly empty bags.
“Any booze?” asked Grenadine, who did not want to be referred to as Grandma, because she wasn’t old goddamn it, and we could just call her Grenadine, so named on account of her father being a bartender.
“Mr. Richmond’s going to notice if one of his eight-hundred-dollar bottles of wine walks off. Not to mention, Anthym already has it out for me,” I said as I unpacked the bags. “I keep expecting her to pop out of the toilet to yell at me about not curtsying low enough to our esteemed CEO.”
Reptilian nails scratched on the linoleum floor, and Gizzy, my rescue iguana, trudged out from under the bunk bed, his five-foot-long body swaying with each giant step.
“How is mommy’s big boy?” I cooed at the iguana. I’d saved him during a hurricane when I was younger, and we had been best friends ever since. We both loved to eat, we both liked to chill with a Disney movie, and neither of us liked Manhattan all that much—Gizzy because it was cold, and me because I had the worst boss in the world.
“Do you want a treat?” The large blue iguana tipped his head back, and I scratched his throat.
“I swear every time I see that thing, he gets bigger and bigger,” McKenna remarked.
“It’s like having my own dragon,” I said gleefully.
Gizzy nuzzled me, seeking warmth.
I grabbed a knife and cut up a zucchini for him while he paced around my feet, tail thumping against the peeling cabinet doors.
“You need to start sucking up to whoever is doing Mr. Richmond’s shopping,” Grenadine said, inspecting the shrimp. “You know, give him one of those emotional blow jobs.”
“My compliments are wholesome,” I protested.
