Busted

I woke up really groggy to the sound of banging pipes. I complain about them a lot, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd wake up properly in the morning without the Room 704 Shower Racket. Maybe I should be thankful. On the bright side, all of my terrible stress from the day before seemed to have calmed itself a bit from the stupor of unconsciousness. The banging sounded oddly distant this morning. Dreamlike, almost.

I remembered that my daughter was missing, felt an uncanny sense of deja vu, and went into her bedroom. Sure enough, she was gone.

I felt a twinge of guilt for not having even tried to locate her the night before. Shame on you, Renshu. Just because she hadn't been hurt the first time she disappeared didn't mean she wasn't kidnapped or mugged or raped or murdered! I tried not to think about that. Honestly, it probably wasn't any of those. I fully believed it had to do with the scenario I had going on at work.

I took a shower, wondering if my pipes were as noisy to room 504 as 704's were to us. Then again, I was making the assumption that the Room 704 shower wasn't noisy to its inhabitants. Perhaps Ms. Lannes was just really, really deaf.

As I was toweling off, something hit me. Not literally. But I was suddenly struck with the fact that my actions today could cost me my daughter or my job. Or both. I was essentially stuck making a choice between the post office and my daughter. If I went to look for Xiu Li, then I wouldn't raise the money necessary to save the post office after all of the time and effort all of the employees had put in. And if I saved the post office, I would be ignoring the fact that my teenage daughter had mysteriously disappeared.

I really despise making last-second decisions. Truly. And yet here I was, having to make what I saw as quite the life-changing decision in less than 5 minutes. Unless I could figure a way out of it... was there a way to save the post office or Xiu Li without my presence? Maybe I could hire a manager for the day, or a detective. Nothing seemed right, though. No, I needed someone who would actually know the entire scenario.

Then I had my brilliant idea. Arjun. He was suspended. And he probably knew Xiu Li pretty well, judging from their... closeness. Maybe he could help. I paused. Was it creepy of me to track down my daughter's teenage friend? I concluded not, since so many things were at stake. I only knew his name as Arjun, though. And there was bound to be more Arjuns. So I enhanced my stalker credentials and called the school.

"Hello, how may I help you?" asked the voice on the other end.
"Yes, I'm looking for a student's home phone number--" How was I going to make this sound less creepy? "--to get in touch with his parents. My daughter and their son were recently involved in a disciplinary matter at the school, and I want to talk to them."
I felt bad for lying, but I told myself that the ends would justify the means. Besides, it was a very smooth excuse.
"What's the student's name?"
"Arjun. He's a sophomore."
"Okay, please hold just a minute, let me check the databases."
I was brilliant.
The lady came back on the line and gave me a number I could call. I was actually hoping that Arjun would pick up the phone when I called, so I wouldn't have to explain anything awkward.

First, I realized, I was going to be late to the office. I called the front lobby of the post office, and Bill picked up. "Hi, it's Renshu," I said. "I'm going to be a little bit late today; my daughter's gone missing."
"I'll keep an eye out for anything related to that," he said, "and we'll see you when you get here."

Then I dialed the number the front office had given me. It rang four times before anyone picked up, and I was getting pretty scared that no one would. But I shouldn't have worried.
A man with a deep voice answered.
"Hello?" Damn. I had to think of something, and fast.
That's when I did the most humiliating thing I've ever done.
My voice isn't exactly deep. It's not that high-pitched, either, but it's in the middle of the range. So I mustered up all my courage, ignored my sense of manhood, and spoke with the most girlish tone I could muster.
"Hi, this is Xiu Li Zheng. Can I speak to Arjun, please?"
"Arjun's in a bit of trouble right now," said the voice.
"Please," I said. "It's actually very important. I promise I won't talk long."
This voice was making my throat hurt. I held the phone away and coughed. I coughed harder in response to what I heard next.
"I don't know who you are," said the voice, now sounding less deep, "but you're definitely not Xiu Li. So what the hell do you want?"
"Arjun?" I asked, in my normal voice.
"Yeah, who is this? You're not funny, you know. I've been prank called before."
"Arjun," I said seriously, "this is Renshu Zheng. And I need your help finding my daughter."
"Oh, damn, sorry, Mr. Zheng," he said. "Wait, what?"
"Xiu Li. She's gone missing. And you're the only one I know of that can help me find her."
"Well, I'm home alone," said Arjun, "so I can pretty much go anywhere you need me to. Where should I meet you?"
"Outside Castle Apartments?"
"I'll be there in ten," he promised.

I headed down the stairs and waited around for Arjun. He arrived a couple minutes early, to my surprise, and running at that. "When did she disappear?"
He was cutting straight to the chase, apparently.
"I don't know. Sometime in the evening last night. She left the post office to go home, and when I got home, she wasn't there."
"Why was she at the post office?"
I figured I should operate on a policy of full disclosure if I actually wanted this kid to find Xiu Li. "Because I have a crazy former boss who called the USPS and told them my office is indebted. I have until 6 p.m. tonight to pay off all the debt he racked up in his time as postmaster."
"Is this Mr. Devilbear or something?"
I laughed. "DuBolaire. Yes."
Arjun grinned. "Xiu Li mentioned him a couple times. I'll try looking around town, and I'll do some research on Mr. -- could you write that down?"
I did as he asked, and he pocketed the sheet of paper. "I'll do my best, Mr. Zheng. I'm as worried as you are."
We parted ways.

Then I headed over to the post office. Marjorie had been doing some more intense loan research. Curt seemed ready to go back and start a street riot outside DuBolaire's office if necessary, and I was trying to talk him down from that. Bill reported proudly that'd he'd gotten another couple of sponsors, and asked if I'd found my daughter.
"No, I haven't," I said. "I have one of her friends looking for her today while I work." I turned around to walk towards my office.
Bill spoke sarcastically from behind me. "You mean to tell me," he said, "that you've appointed a high school detective to look for your teenage daughter while you come up with ineffective fundraisers for a lost cause?"
I turned around. "What?"
"Renshu, there's no way we can do this thing without loans. Do you really expect to raise that much money in 12 hours? This isn't the Muppet movie."
"That was a good movie," said Marjorie absentmindedly.
"I have to try," I said.
"You're not a hero, Renshu," said Bill. "You're a postmaster. And we get that you can only do so much. So why bother working yourself into the ground like this? You can't handle this!"
"Yes!" I shouted. "Yes, I can!"
"Listen to you!" he shouted. "Even now!"
"I'm with Renshu, though," said Curt. "We can't just pick our bellybuttons while DuBolaire sabotages us like this!"
"Enough, all of you," I said. "I don't know what we should be doing. But arguing isn't it."
"What a great idea," said Bill. I'd never seen him lose it like this before. It was making me angry.

The phone broke the awkward silence.
Bill stared at it for the first three rings before picking up.
"Hello?" Then his face changed. "You're kidding. Do you want to talk to him?"
He handed the phone to me.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Zheng, this is Arjun. I'm coming to the post office right now. I have something really, really important to show you."
He hung up.
I was really confused. "What'd he say to you?" I asked Bill.
"He just said that he had to talk to you immediately, because it was about more than just your daughter."
"That's not cryptic at all," said Marjorie.
I paced back and forth across the post office. Arjun arrived running again within five minutes of the time he'd called. He had a few sheets of paper in his hand.
"Mr. Zheng," he panted, "I have the answer to all your problems."

It sounded really dramatic. I was inclined not to believe him.
"Well? Let's see it."
He threw down a sheet of paper on my desk.
I picked it up. There was a mugshot of Mr. DuBolaire at the top of the page. He was much younger, though. His hair was longer (though it still had a lot of gel) and he wasn't cleanshaven. Next to the picture were the words "Carson DuBolaire. 18. Breaking and entering; attempted kidnapping."
"Kidnapping?" I looked up. "You think he took Xiu Li?"
"Maybe," said Arjun, "but I'm getting to that." He threw down a couple more pieces of paper. I'd forgotten completely about the post office. "Mr. DuBolaire also has a restraining order from the orphanage, from when he broke in five years ago to try to steal his daughter, Jane Patterson." Okay, now I was confused.
"What?"
Arjun stopped and sighed. "Mr. Zheng, how much did Xiu Li tell you about her time under the city? Did she mention a girl named Annalisa?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Okay. Well, Jane Patterson is Annalisa's legal name. Xiu Li told me that when we hired a detective to go look for her."
"So what does Jane, or Annalisa, or whatever, have to do with my post office or with Xiu Li's whereabouts?" He was actually starting to irritate me.
Arjun looked at the floor. "Well, first of all, Mr. DuBolaire is a criminal. So you can get revenge on him by busting him."
Bill laughed at that one. "Wow. Great background checks from the USPS."
"And Xiu Li?"
"I don't know. But I do know she's been looking for Annalisa. And my best guess is that Annalisa's disappearance and lack of traceability by the police is connected to Mr. Carson DuBolaire's restraining order."
The kid was sharp, I'd give him that. I just wasn't sure about the connection to my daughter. It seemed a little bit forced.
"Why would he use his real name?" I asked.
"Well, he is crazy," suggested Curt.
That was a fair point.

"I guess our next move is to call the police and head over to the post office, then," I said reluctantly.
Bill picked up the phone.

We all crammed ourselves into one of the mail trucks and headed over there. Only after Curt had finally managed to cram everyone in the back did it occur to me that we could've just taken the bus.
"Are your parents okay with you being out?" I asked Arjun.
"They won't be back until 9," he said. "They both have really long hours."
He hadn't answered my question, but I chose to ignore that.

The police arrived at the post office at the same time that we did. Arjun helped me explain the situation to one of the officers on hand.
They followed us into the building, but stayed out of sight from Mr. DuBolaire's office.
I walked in first.
"Oh, hello, Renshu," said Mr. DuBolaire. "Fancy seeing you here. I'd think you'd be out... begging and burgling, with your current predicament."
"You know," I told him, "as my boss, there were a few things you neglected to tell me about your personal life."
He looked bemused. "Oh, really? What makes you think I would tell you anything of the sort?"
I ignored him. "For instance," I continued, "you failed to mention the fact that you're a known criminal."
He paled.
"So," I said. "How'd you get through the USPS?"
"Why do you think I changed offices?"
I nodded. "So where's your precious daughter, then?"
"None of your business," he snapped. "Why are you here, Renshu?"
I stepped out of the office and motioned for the police to come in.
"Because," I said, "you have been a complete asshole to me, not to mention being a douchebag to Xiu Li, and you did all that knowing that I could so easily wreck your life."

To my complete and utter shock, he dropped to his knees as the police came in. "Please, no!" he screamed. "I just want to be with my daughter! You can't take my daughter away from me! My precious Jane! JANE!"
"I think we can," said the policeman nearest to him, and they handcuffed Mr. DuBolaire and took him out of the building.
As they dragged him off, a policewoman asked him where his daughter was, to which he responded, "You'll never know!"
The policeman who'd remained behind with the rest of us in Mr. DuBolaire's office smirked. Then he went over to the closet, picked the lock, and opened it.

Two girls squinted back at us from the tiny space.
My daughter, Xiu Li, and another girl, taller, with darker hair. I assumed she was Annalisa.

They looked really surprised to see us. I smiled, trying not to think about what would've happened if Xiu Li hadn't also been in the closet with DuBolaire's daughter.
Annalisa stood up and helped Xiu Li to her feet. She didn't let go of her hand.
Xiu Li was grinning from ear to ear.
"Dad! Arjun!" she said, and I actually ran into the closet and hugged her.
Annalisa didn't say anything. She just looked at Xiu Li uncertainly. Xiu Li looked at her and squeezed her hand.
Then they both came out of the closet, and I watched awkwardly as my daughter threw her arms around Annalisa's neck and kissed her.

Actually, I lied. I didn't watch. I saw the beginning of it, and then looked away, because that's really awkward.

* * *

We headed back over to the post office, where I had a serious conversation with the USPS. I explained the situation, occasionally handing off the phone to policemen or letting Bill fax something or another.

Eventually, they decided we should still pay off the debt, but we had a month to do so. I sold a few of the extra trucks back to the USPS to get us moving towards that goal. The neighboring post office, now under new management, offered to loan us some money, which we gladly took. So that was that.

After a celebration by all the employees of the post office, I took Xiu Li back to the apartment, along with Annalisa and Arjun.

As we walked over there, Xiu Li and Arjun walked up ahead, talking excitedly. Annalisa and I didn't say anything for awhile. Then I broke the silence and looked at her. "In case you're wondering," I said, "I'm fine with you dating my daughter." She didn't make eye contact.
"Thanks, Mr. Zheng."
"And if you need a place to live until you can get on your feet, you're welcome to stay with us."
"Really?" She smiled faintly. Xiu Li sure had picked a shy one.
"Yes." Wait. "But not in the same room."
She laughed. "Yeah. I figured."

After an entertaining conversation in the TV room, Arjun went home and the girls went to bed. Everyone was pretty tired. Except for me.
So, for the first time in a long time, I decided to stay up late.

I played some video games. I watched TV. And I signed up for an online dating site for the first time.
As I was falling asleep, I worried very briefly that things were about to get boring. But if there's one thing you can count on, it's that there will always be something to keep life interesting.

At that moment, the fire alarm went off.

Treading water

I really don't have a lot to say about today. It was mostly just work, work, work. But I may as well, I suppose. I'm too demoralized to come up with any other details.

When I rubbed my eyes and sat up, I had a huge headache. I could scarcely tell if I was awake, even, because I was too busy focusing on the earsplitting pains emitting from my skull. Every new "bang" from the pipes sent a new stab of pain down my forehead. I shivered.

Eventually, I managed to lug the uncooperative body that was attached to my head over to the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face, and then popped a couple of pills to relieve the pain. Now I only had about 20 more minutes of intense suffering, at least. I splashed more water on my face, got some in my eyes, and didn't even notice that pain compared to the skullsplitting agony above it.

I went and lay down on my bed for a couple of minutes. I was lucky; the painkillers kicked in pretty fast. Or maybe they didn't. I didn't have the best concept of time at that moment.

Anyway, my head was clearer, and the pain had been reduced to a dull throbbing ache. So I walked out into the TV room and headed for the kitchen. Xiu Li was on the couch watching TV. Wait. No, she wasn't. She was reading a book.

I couldn't remember the last time I saw Xiu Li read a book. She's pretty smart and all, but she just doesn't read much anymore. I must admit, my first reaction to seeing her reading was to check over the couch and make sure it was actually her. "Are you reading, Xiu Li?" She looked up at me and nodded, almost guiltily.
I grinned at her. "I haven't seen you do that since you learned how."
Xiu Li glared at me and muttered, "Shut up."
I gestured to the TV, which was off. "Is the TV really that bad?"
"This morning? Yes." I noticed the remote next to her. "Just boring news."
I chuckled at the entire scenario until she finally said, "So, what am I doing today?"
I hadn't thought that far ahead. I didn't want to just leave her in the house, and as much as I felt guilty about it, I really could use the extra help at the post office.
"I need you to help me at work again."
She didn't throw any tantrums or anything. "Do I have to run another postal route?"
She seemed to be under the illusion that I actually had planned ahead what was going to happen today. "I'll give you a solid maybe." I was tired of talking about this, though. And I was hungry.
"Now," I told Xiu Li, having a burst of spontaneity, "come into the kitchen. We're going to make breakfast." And we did. We made french toast, and it was actually really good. I felt, for the first time in what seemed like forever, that I was actually doing a good job as a dad.

After we finished breakfast, I put all the dishes in the sink, gathered up my things, and we were off. It was kind of strange for me to walk to work with my daughter. I kept having to remind myself that this wasn't a permanent arrangement. That reminded me of the high probability of my impending job loss, which was demoralizing. I kicked a rock as we walked down the sidewalk.

When we got there, everyone showed up within a margin of five minutes. I immediately started trying to talk it out. "Okay," I said, "so here's the deal. Bill, I want you to call people up and start seeing if we can get people to sponsor us. Make sure you tell them about how far we've gone to get them their mail. Don't mention the whole shopping cart thing unless you can figure out a way to shed a positive light on it." He nodded, and went over to the desk. He stopped and looked at me like he had a question, but I held up a hand for him to wait. I needed to dole out the tasks as fast as I could. Today I was a manager.
"Curt and Marjorie, I need you both to stay here today and help with fundraisers. We're going to need all hands on deck." Then something occurred to me. "Xiu Li, that means I'm actually going to need you to cover all the mail routes today. I know that'll take up most of your time, but you did such a fabulous job yesterday and you're a big girl. I know you can handle it." Any respect she had for me as a father probably sublimated at that point, but I was on a roll. I could always apologize to her later, and this was essentially my last chance to keep my job. Right? I tried not to think too much about it. Xiu Li scowled impressively and ran out back. I hoped this wouldn't come back to bite me.

I helped Bill compile a list of people to call.
It wasn't a very long list, but I was hoping that some of them would be able to help more than a little bit. After he started dialing the numbers, I started talking to Curt and Marjorie.

"Okay," I told them. "Whatcha got?"
They exchanged glances. "I'll rob a bank," said Marjorie. I couldn't tell if she was kidding, but I shook my head just to be sure.
I was discouraged by the silence that followed, but then Curt spoke. "I think I'll go over to DuBolaire's post office and try to... discourage the competition." He grinned.
For such a quiet, nerdy-looking kid, he certainly had an interesting conniving side.
"You, sir," I said, "are a genius. That sounds like a plan."
Curt left without saying anything else.
I looked at Marjorie. "You can't really rob a bank," I told her. "So what are you going to do?"
She smiled. "I know. I was mostly kidding." That word "mostly" disturbed me a little. "You could go talk to banks about loans," I suggested. Marjorie nodded, surprised. "I hadn't thought of that. Sounds good to me."
I told Eli I needed her to just keep working the counter.

With Marjorie and Curt gone and Bill making phone calls, I decided I needed to take action for myself. I started walking into various stores all over town and essentially soliciting.

Shoes & Etc. didn't give me anything.
The pawn shop tried to convince me to pawn off everything I owned.
Isabella's Cafe thought my post office uniform meant I was some kind of porn star. I left quickly.
I came back in the afternoon, completely wiped out from all my hopeless attempts at raising money. Thankfully, Bill was a smooth talker on the phone and had gotten a little bit of money. Marjorie brought me back a ton of information on loans at banks. I really didn't want to put us further into debt, though, so I decided that would be our backup plan.

We were getting pretty desperate by the afternoon. The post office had apparently specified that we had until six the next day. When Xiu Li came back from her mail route, I gave her a lunch and then told her to go stand on the street corner with a sign.

I felt awful. We were doing all of the stupid cheesy ideas that people make fun of. I was getting so desperate. I could think of very few things I wouldn't have done to raise money. (Well, I didn't like the idea Isabella's had.) Why was I making everyone go through this? I was fighting a losing battle. I didn't know whether or not I should just give up on everything or fight the urge to even think that thought. I was completely overwhelmed with stress and confusion.

I tried to channel some of my stress energy into calculating how much more we had to earn, but that only stressed me out more, since the number was so high.

Eventually, Xiu Li came back from the corner and gave me the money she'd earned. I was actually surprised and impressed with the amount of money she'd earned, and I made a mental note to remember to ask her how she did it, but I was so distracted with other things that I didn't even realize when she'd gone home.

When everyone came back to the post office at the end of the day (Curt had narrowly avoided getting arrested, but apparently he'd managed to convince a few people to use our post office instead of DuBolaire's), I had a serious chat with all of them.

"Tomorrow is going to be a big day. It's possible that we'll end up having tons of loans, but we've already come this far. I really appreciate everything you all have done today, and I hope that we can make it through this."

I thought I was done, and I moved towards the door, but Curt spoke. "Mr. Zheng?"
"Renshu."
"Renshu," said Curt, "I'm willing to give up my salary until we can get this resolved. I have enough to get by, and I think this is important for all of us."
Marjorie nodded. "Me, too."
Bill smiled. "I guess I can do that."
I was shocked. "Thank you," I said as sincerely as I could.

Without another word, we all went home.

I didn't feel like exerting any effort. I lay down on the couch to watch TV. It was only when a nature program about slugs came on that I even thought about Xiu Li. Dammit. 
I stood up. "Xiu Li?"
No answer.
I knew she was gone. It was the same sinking feeling I got on my infamous 33rd birthday. But I had to check.
"XIU LI!"

I am a terrible father.
I didn't even look for her. I didn't have the heart.

Not all threats are empty

When I opened my eyes, I felt catastrophically terrible. I didn't even get the five seconds of respite that you usually get from having been asleep. Just blah.

I had thought I was free. I had watched DuBolaire walk out that door. Felt like I'd finally defeated something; finally succeeded. But things are never good like that, apparently, and DuBolaire was still back in control of my life and well-being. Had he even ever stopped being in control? I tried to tune out and focus on the noisy pipes. It didn't work. I sat up.

The night before, I had thought a bit about telling Xiu Li what was going on. After all, hadn't she poured out her story to me? Including some rather personal details, too. Maybe I owed her the truth. Maybe she could even help. But the fact remained that it was deathly early in the morning, and I wasn't about to exert that much emotional effort. She'd find out eventually anyway. And how would she have helped? I knew I was just rationalizing, but I ignored my knowledge once more and took a shower.

Thing is, once you start telling people about emotional things, it becomes really easy to lapse into emotional shit and get all teary-eyed or lovey-dovey. I've never been that good at articulating that, even when Xiu Li was little. I don't usually cry, either. I tell her that she's my little girl and that I love her, and I mean it, but that's as far as I usually take the emotional side of parenting.

I finished showering, toweled off, and stepped onto the bathmat. A roach ran across the floor.

Have you ever noticed that once you decide you're having a bad day, it can really only get worse? You start to ignore all the positive things and focus on the negative. The selection effect, I think it's called. If you try to make a list of all the things that go wrong in your day, it'll be really long, because you're trying to make anything into something that made you sad.

I puttered around the house for a bit, completely ignoring my dear daughter, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. I'm not even sure if Xiu Li was awake. I hadn't been paying much attention. A wave of guilt swept over me and told me that I was really becoming an absentee parent. I tried to fight it off by saying she was probably leaving home in a few years anyway (hopefully going to college... though I hadn't asked her about her plans. Anything but stripping would probably be fine by me.) and she needed to get used to being independent. Nonetheless, I felt kind of bad as I descended the stairs.

As I arrived at the office, Bill was already waiting outside. I let him in glumly. He's one of those people people who just notices things, and so he asked me, "What's up?"
I didn't answer for a second. Then I sighed, and set my bag down next to my desk. "I'll tell you when everyone else gets here."
A millennium of boredom passed. Marjorie and Curt showed up and so did Eli, the new employee. I rose from my desk, slowly.
"Everyone, we need to chat."

So I told them what was going on. I told them about my ex-boss who wrestled my daughter and wrecked the post office, and how everyone had left except him, until everything was all messed up. "His name is Mr. DuBolaire," I finished. "He's possibly the most vile human alive."
"Question?" said Marjorie. "Are you just sharing, or is there a point to this story?"
"I'm getting to that," I said. "So yesterday I went to visit the neighboring post office, remember?" People were nodding. "When I did, I was hoping to negotiate maybe a deal to ease their workload and increase ours. But as it turns out, Mr. DuBolaire is now the postmaster for that post office. Needless to say, he did not want to negotiate anything with me, and instead blackmailed me until I left his office."
"Blackmail?" said Curt.
"He threatened to call the USPS and tell them how far in debt we were. If he did that, they'd probably close our branch, and we'd all lose our jobs."
"Did he?" asked Marjorie. I shook my head.
"Well, then." She looked at me quizzically. "Why is this a problem?"
"We still need to expand our business. And anything we do is going to be held back by DuBolaire and his bigger, more successful post office." My employees just looked at me. Eli looked worried. Curt and Bill just stared into space grimly.
Marjorie piped up again. "What is he trying to do, anyway, in terms of taking over post offices?"
"Maybe he's trying to take over the world by way of mail," joked Bill.
"Nah," said Curt, biting the bullet. "I think he's an employee from Google that's trying to end physical mail once and for all to increase their number of users."
"Seriously, guys," I said. "What's he doing here?"
Silence.
"You're telling me that DuBolaire doesn't have some kind of master plan?"
"We're not saying that," said Bill. "We just don't know what it is. And someone needs to go find out."
"Like a spy?" said Eli.
"Maybe," said Bill.

After some discussion, we all agreed that someone needed to go and spy in Mr. DuBolaire's post office for the day. Much to my surprise, Curt immediately volunteered. I warned him, "This means that your mail is going to be a day late. The town won't be happy. Is it worth possibly sacrificing a few customers to DuBolaire just to get information?"
"I think so," said Curt. "Now I have to go to work, if you don't mind."
He smiled at me and went out the door.

I proceeded to sit in my office with nothing to do for much of the morning. What do normal managers do? I had no idea, really. I played solitaire for a bit, and then just browsed the internet. Nothing to do, nothing to do at all.

I talked a little to Eli. She had a few customers coming in occasionally to mail packages or buy birthday cards or stamps.

Just as I was about to go on lunch break, Bill came running into my office. "Renshu!"
I panicked. "What is it?"
"The school is on the phone. They said it's about your daughter."
Wonderful. I sent sarcastic thank-you vibes to Xiu Li. This was exactly what I needed.
"Hello, this is Renshu Zheng," I said cordially.
"Hello, Mr. Zheng. Your daughter has been causing quite a bit of trouble today," said the bland vanilla administrative voice on the other end of the line.
"Really?" I said, trying to sound more interested.
"Yes. She and her friend were the sole masterminds behind a certain prank played today."
"What did she do?" I was almost curious. I'd been a bit of a prankster myself, in my day.
"They hung up an enormous banner with the words 'ski area' above the teachers' lounge, and filled the hall and room with fake snow."
I resisted the urge to laugh at that.
"Did they?"
"Yes, sir, and unfortunately, this means we need you to come down to the school as soon as possible. Your daughter is facing severe punishment, most likely suspension."
Shit. 
I didn't want to deal with this right now.
It’s awful, but sometimes I forget that being a dad can be a job in and of itself. I almost felt guilty for being so angry, and I wondered for a second if I would’ve still been angry had I not already been so swamped with post office stuff.


I decided I probably would be, and I headed over to the school with a cloud over my head and my morale.
When I entered the office, Xiu Li and another kid were sitting in chairs across from an administrator, perhaps the one I’d spoken on the phone with. I assumed her companion was the Arjun she’d referenced earlier. I wondered briefly if they were... a thing, but I tried not to think about that. I usually stay out of Xiu Li’s personal life. I have enough awkward things going on already.


"Hello," I said, and I didn't have to hide the ice in my voice.
"Hi, Dad," said Xiu Li. I would've thought she maybe would've looked ashamed or something, maybe tried to look at the floor. But I swear she was almost smirking when she looked right back at me.
"So what's going on here?"
The administrator, a plump lady with fake highlights, repeated what I'd already heard over the phone.
"Your daughter turned the teachers' lounge into a ski area."
The Indian kid next to her piped up, "It wasn't entirely her! I helped." Plump Fake Lady stared at him. He stopped smiling.
I turned to my lovely daughter.
"Really, Xiu Li? As if I didn't have enough to deal with."
She looked disconcerted. I don't get mad at her that often, I realized.
"I know you're all cool and delinquent now, but this is a little too far."
Xiu Li looked slightly more penitent. "Sorry, Dad." I was pretty sure she meant it, too.
I turned to the administrator.
"So what will the consequences be?" I was hoping it wouldn't be anything too major. My hopes were slightly shattered when she answered, "Three days of suspension."
Damn. Now what was I supposed to do?
"As for the outside consequences, you'll have to talk with her about that."
I felt like I was being slightly pressured into publicly punishing my daughter. But she did need to be punished.
"For starters," I said, looking at Xiu Li, "you're grounded."


That's when it dawned on me that this could potentially be extremely useful. I almost felt like cackling.
But instead, I took Xiu Li's hand and led her out of the school. She yelled "Bye Arjun" over her shoulder, so my suspicions were correct after all.


We walked away from the school and back towards the post office.
"So," said Xiu Li. "If I'm grounded, what am I gonna do?"
"You're coming to work for me."
"What? What am I gonna do?"
"Drive a mail route."
She was stunned. "What? Why?"
"One of our guys is otherwise occupied," I told her. I was somewhat enjoying being a little mystic.
"What do you mean?" So much for mystery...
"He's on a spy mission. DuBolaire runs the post office in the next town over and he may be blackmailing me."
It sounded so much more serious that way, I noted.
"Oh." She didn't look too comfortable. "Dad, I don't even have a permit."
I didn't say anything. I was going to let her deal with a bit of discomfort for her earlier actions. It wasn't nice, but I wasn't really in a pleasant mood.


We reached the post office, and Bill looked up as we walked in. "Here's the troublemaker." I tried not to make eye contact with him.



"Hi," said Xiu Li glumly. She followed me out back to where the mail trucks were. "I want you to take Curt's mail route," I told her.
"Dad, I told you, I don't have my permit yet, let alone a license."
We've never really had a car, so this was the first time I'd even talked with Xiu Li about driving. In general, we walk everywhere. I couldn't remember the last time I'd driven anything besides a mail truck myself.
"It doesn't matter. Right now, that's what I need you to do."
Ordinarily, I would've been really worried letting my 15-year-old daughter (whose only driving experience was crashing a shopping cart in the grocery store) drive a car. I guess I was really getting that desperate.
"Dad, that's--"
"Xiu Li, it'll be okay." Was I saying it for me or for her? Even I didn't know. "You'll be going really slowly."
My conscience told me I was an asshole who cared more about my job than my daughter. I told it that it wasn't that bad. Right-hand drive was different anyway. A permit wouldn't have helped her. It was hardly dangerous, right?

Xiu Li didn't say anything. I offered her the keys, and she snatched them out of my hand. She turned her back and started to walk away. I yelled after her, "Use the one closest to the exit! Your batch of mail is in the back room, labeled for Curt."
She didn't say anything. I hoped she'd heard me.

Right after I heard the truck leave the post office, I heard it coming back. What was she doing? I was getting pretty irritated, so I went outside to see what was going on. Actually, I'd been wrong; it was Marjorie getting back from her mail route. She dropped her bag and brushed a couple wisps of hair out of her face, and then noticed me lurking awkwardly by the door. "What's up, Renshu?"
"Nothing," I said. "My daughter got in trouble, so she's taking Curt's mail route today."
Curt.
Where was he, anyway?
Marjorie seemed to have read my mind. "You haven't heard from him, have you?"
"No."
We headed into the building.
"Bill, have you heard anything back from Curt?"
Even while giving away his mail route, I seemed to have completely forgotten about Curt and his little spy mission. That sent another wave of guilt over me.
"No, I haven't," said Bill. "When do you think he'll be back?"
I looked at Marjorie, and we exchanged shrugs.

I sat down in a chair. Bill sat at the desk writing some things, perhaps transferring over records from Eli's front-desk work. Marjorie paced back and forth across the room. I tried not to look at the time, and instead focused on the little bumps on the ceiling. I don't know how long the three of us kept up our nervous behaviors. My mind wandered, and I wondered how Xiu Li was doing on her mail route.

I was fiddling with my fingernails and shifting slightly around in the chair when two things happened all at once.

The door swung open noisily, and Curt walked in with a grim expression on his face. At the same time, the phone on Bill's desk rang. Curt didn't say anything, he was too busy looking alarmed at the phone. Bill looked down at the caller ID and lost about 3 shades of color from his face. I was really scared. "Who is it?"

Bill didn't say anything. Instead, he picked up the phone. It was hard to follow anything from his side of the conversation, and it was clear that the party on the other end was doing most of the talking. I did my best to hypothesize and decipher as he said yet another time, "Yes. I understand." Marjorie was just looking at the floor. Eli wasn't in the room, but Curt just shook his head when he caught my eye.

When Bill hung up, Marjorie beat me to the punch. "Curt, what happened?"
Her voice was much higher than usual. I guess we were all a bit high-strung in the heat of the moment.
"He found me out," said Curt. "It was like he was looking out for spies." He paused, and looked at me.
"Damn, he's foul," he said.
"Do you believe me now?" I said.
He nodded. "As soon as he realized I wasn't an employee, he kicked me out. I didn't have to tell him where I was from, he somehow already knew. I think he might have looked up who your employees are, Renshu."
"Well, did you find anything out?" I was hoping our efforts hadn't been wasted.
"I think he just wants money. I really don't know. I haven't managed to uncover any secret plans. Have you considered the fact that maybe he's just... crazy? Or drunk with his tiny bit of power over his tiny corner of the world?"
"So you didn't find anything out." That really wasn't helpful. "Did he say anything else?"
Curt shuffled his feet a little. "Well, yeah." He paused. I looked at him expectantly, prompting him.
"He said you had no idea what you were getting into. And that not all threats are empty."
Oh, God. That wasn't good. But it was time for the next order of business. I noticed Bill hadn't spoken the whole time.

"So, Bill, who was that?"
He didn't seem to hear me. He just stared at his desk.
"Bill!" said Marjorie. We all waited.
"That," said Bill, "was the USPS."
I knew what was coming even before Curt said, "And?"
"We have two days to pay off our entire debt, or we will no longer be recognized as a legitimate post office."

The silence hung over us like fog for at least five minutes. Then I stood up straighter and made an announcement. "Well, back to business. We have to raise tons of money by the day after tomorrow."

The four of us pulled up chairs and started talking frantically. As Curt dragged a chair across the room, making a repulsive screeching noise, the door to the post office swung open again, and Xiu Li came in, looking incredibly frazzled.

I talked to Bill a little bit about what money we had and what expenditures were required while Curt filled Xiu Li in on what was going on. Then she sat around while the rest of us brainstormed. She wasn't being very helpful, though. She kept making snarky irrelevant comments. It wasn't the time, so I pulled her aside.
"Xiu Li, I think you should go on home. I'll be home as soon as I can."
Thankfully, she didn't argue with me. She just waved to everyone and left almost immediately. It made me feel guilty again. I was really being a little bit of a suckish dad, but I was too busy to really do anything about it.

After about an hour more of heated debate, I called it a day. As we all pushed the chairs back into position and made our way for the door, I turned around. "Look." I sighed.
"We haven't been together long as a group of employees. And I know that. But we have to keep this post office open, because our jobs depend on it. So I want all of you to go home tonight and think of the best possible means of acquiring money that you can, and I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow."
I stood in the doorway and watched as everyone went their respective ways, and then I went back into the post office and locked everything up.

I walked back over to Castle Apartments dragging my feet and my morale behind me. I stopped and sat there on the second flight of stairs for a few minutes, just because I didn't feel like I could go up any more stairs. But I had to, and eventually I did. What a god-awful day.

When I walked into the living room, Xiu Li was just watching some TV show. My mind didn't even register what show it was. I stroked her hair as I walked by.
I hoped she hadn't been too overwhelmed by the day's events...

I peeled off my clothes, changed into a T-shirt, and slipped into bed. It took me a really long time before I fell asleep, because I was dreading the dreams about DuBolaire and the money crisis.

I shouldn't have worried, though, because no one visited my dreams except for Dmitri, and he just stood there and told me I should take better care of his Juli.

One new hope, and the empire strikes back

"Hi, Renshu. I hope I didn't scare you."
"What are you doing here?" I pinched my arm under my sleeve to make sure she was actually real. "How did you--" I broke off. What I had been about to ask was "How did you find me?," which, I realized, was stupid. I was in exactly the same place as before.

"Well," Nova started, "After college, I went to med school, and since then I've been on-and-off searching for jobs. I'm a doctor now, but I have nowhere to be."
"This is the post office." I wasn't even sure myself whether I was bitter or confused.
"After my last small job, and because of some other circumstances, I thought I'd come back and see if I couldn't find work in my old hometown."
I stared at her. "You're a doctor." Wow, I was just full of intelligence. I'd lost all my charm to fifteen years of time.
"Yeah," she said, "but I was also curious. I wanted to see what had happened to you."
She motioned towards the door. I locked up the post office and we started walking.
How embarrassing that I was doing the exact same thing as when she'd left? Raising a daughter and working at the post office? I had to justify this somehow.
"Well, I'm the postmaster now," I said. "After fifteen years of service as a regular old mailman."
She grinned. "I was half expecting that you wouldn't even be here, and that you'd have gone off to college after all and become a writer like you wanted to be."
Had I wanted to be a writer? Ah, youth. Ugh, memory.
Here I was, thirty-three and single, in almost the exact same situation that Nova had left me in.
Suddenly I felt self-conscious about my appearance for the first time in forever. Did I still have feelings for her? I tried to search myself and figure that out, but I couldn't tell. She was as beautiful as ever, despite the faint lines on her face that hadn't been there in her teenage years, but I seemed to have lost my feelings-for-people muscles gradually over more than a decade. I didn't love her. I wasn't sure whether that was relieving or saddening.

Nova used to be scrawny in high school. She had filled out a bit, although not to the point of being plump. And she hadn't gotten that extra inch of height after all. We were still eye-to-eye.

We were gradually walking towards Castle Apartments. I wanted to ask her more about her life, but her brief doctor story seemed to be all that she was interested in telling me. Awkwardly, I ventured, "Do you need a place to stay until you can find a job? There's a clinic here in town, I can take you there in the morning."
I was worried that she'd read mixed signals in my innocent statement, but she smiled. "Thanks, Renshu. That'd be wonderful, but I didn't want to ask. And yeah, I can go to the clinic in the morning."
We didn't say much for the rest of the walk. Or maybe we did, but I just didn't remember. The whole thing was eerie. My arm hurt from pinching myself, and I almost expected her to disappear or take off and fly away.
Betwixt my wandering thoughts, I had absentmindedly reached for her hand. Old habits really do die hard. I brushed her pinky and we both jerked our hands away as if we'd been shocked. Awkward, Renshu...

A few minutes later, I walked into the apartment followed closely by Nova. I walked around the corner and found Xiu Li making pasta in the kitchen. I pretended like this was completely normal. "Dad!" said Xiu Li, and I realized that I hadn't called her about being late.
But I didn't have time to explain anything, because Xiu Li saw Nova first.
"DAD!" she yelled. "Who the hell is in our apartment!?"
God, I didn't know what I had been expecting, but that wasn't it.
"Be nice, Xiu Li!" I retorted.
"Oh, that's great. Bring a girl home. You could've warned me!" She was furious. I was so confused.
"This is Nova. She was my high school girlfriend." I paused. "You've actually met before."
Xiu Li eyed her suspiciously. This was going to be a long evening, I thought.
"I don't believe you," she said, less confidently, and sat down in a chair.
Then, for the first time, she addressed Nova directly.
"Like Supernova?"
I couldn't believe I'd never told Xiu Li about Nova, but she was being obnoxious on purpose and I didn't like it.

Thankfully, Nova seemed not to mind so much.
"That's original," she snapped, but she was smiling.
"If you're going to have sex with my dad, you will have to go somewhere else."
Xiu Li seemed determined to out-bitch my ex-girlfriend. I'd forgotten over the past few days (what with her sulking) just how sharptongued she could be. I worried for a second that Nova would think badly of me, but realized I didn't have to care.
"I'm thirty-three, little miss," said Nova, who was grinning widely. "I'll fornicate wherever I please, thanks."
I tried to interrupt, but it was poorly timed and overly forced. "Nova's a doctor. She's here looking for a job."
"There's a lovely place called Isabella's Cafe down the street," said Xiu Li, without missing a beat, "although you may have trouble getting above minimum wage with those legs of yours."
I instinctively looked down, and then felt embarrassed. Nova was too busy verbally abusing my daughter, though.
"You seem to have quite a bit of knowledge about the establishment," she said coolly.
Then I watched in awe as the two of them struck up a conversation about law enforcement.
They chatted for a long time, and I drained the pasta.
We sat down to eat, and I tried three times before succeeding in rejoining the conversation.

Nova was talking about me. "Well," she said, "I'm not saying I wish I'd kept your father around--" I scoffed, not sure whether or not that was supposed to be an actual insult-- "but my now ex-husband was really a tool."
She'd been married?!
"Do tell," said Xiu Li, sprinkling parmesan cheese over the noodles.
"Well, he and I had different definitions of acceptable married behavior. For instance, he preferred to go elsewhere to satisfy his sexual needs. Specifically, as I discovered, to my former college roommate."
"You say 'well' a lot," noted Xiu Li. "But seriously, dude, that does suck."
"How long has it been?" I asked.
"Three years," she said. "Why do you ask?"
I must have turned a fascinating shade of red. Xiu Li kicked me and said, "Nice going, Dad."

She was starting to piss me off a bit. My high school girlfriend had appeared at the apartment, and I was the odd one out.
Xiu Li had started talking about her own social problems. "My best friend was caught living in electrical tunnels under the city," she piped up. "Then the police took her away and I hired a detective."
I had to interrupt.
"You did what?"
"Hired a detective. Me and Arjun."
Who the hell was Arjun?
"Arjun and me," said Nova.
Xiu Li flipped her off and kept talking. "He said he'd look for her." She shoveled a huge bite of pasta into her mouth and stopped speaking.
"Where do you find detectives these days, anyway?" said Nova.
"Antique shops," said Xiu Li, after finishing chewing.

The conversation continued for only a couple minutes longer before Xiu Li announced that she was going to bed, got up from the table, and headed into her room.
Nova stared after her, then back at me, and then at the shut door to Xiu Li's bedroom.
"Your daughter," she said, "is amazing."
I couldn't have been more caught off guard. "What?"
"Incredible," echoed Nova.
"That's not exactly the word I would've used. I'm going to have to talk to her later. She took a huge risk, not knowing you and talking to you like that."
"She knew I could handle it," said Nova. She smirked at me.
"She's a lot like you in some ways, Renshu."
I stared at my shoes for a second.
"I guess that'd be an argument for nurture, then." Nova laughed.
"You know," she mused, "I didn't know if you'd still be here. In town, I mean. I figured you would've up and left. And now you're a postmaster, of all things, and Xiu Li is fifteen years old."

For a split second, I remembered my baby's cries on the baby monitor after Nova hung up on me for the last time.

You'll be thirty-six when she goes to college...


"She's going to college in three years," I said, thinking out loud. "So I'm thirty-three."
She clearly didn't remember the phone call as vividly as I did, so I dropped it.
There was a pause for a minute.

"This is really weird," I said. Nova smiled. "Yeah. It is."
"I should go to bed," I decided aloud, breaking the silence.

I helped Nova set up the couch to sleep on, and warned her about the imminent Banging of Pipes in the morning. She clearly didn't know what I meant. I chuckled to myself as I walked back to my room. She'd know soon enough.

As I undressed and lay down on my bed, I thought about the odd events of the day.

November Murphy. Here. Talking to my daughter and sleeping on my couch. Thirty-three, just like me.
I dozed off.

* * *

By the time I woke up, Nova had been awake for a good while, sitting up angrily on the couch. I had, as it seemed, built a mild tolerance to the pipe banging, but she was a novice.
"Can we just get out of here?" she yelled as I entered the room in my pajamas.
I had planned to take a shower, but I threw on an old T-shirt and some sweatpants and descended the stairs with her, leaving Xiu Li asleep in the apartment.

As planned, we headed straight for the clinic. I let Nova do most of the talking, and she quickly located the woman she needed to talk to, whose name was Clara Kate. After they chatted for a bit and I once again felt awkward, Nova reassured me that she was fine and that I could go home.

I went back up to the apartment, took a quick shower, and left for work.

Bill, Curt, and Marjorie all showed up punctually, fifteen minutes after I did. I was hoping that the system would work just as well as it had yesterday. Even better.

Curt and Marjorie loaded up with the day's mail and left in their respective trucks on their respective routes. Bill took a seat at the front desk and took a couple of phone calls. Meanwhile, I searched through the phone book for a plumber, because the post office bathroom was, well, shitty.

Suddenly, I was interrupted from looking at ads by Bill yelling from the next room. I ran in to see what was going on, and he handed me the phone. "I didn't answer it yet," he hissed, "but I have to go to the bathroom."
Before I could tell him to beware of the mens' toilets, he was off, and I put the phone to my ear.
Almost immediately, I realized that the noise I'd just heard was the second half of the word 'hello.'"
"Yes," I said confidently. "This is, uh, the post office. How may I help you?"
I was terrible at this secretary thing.

"Well, uh," said the female voice on the other end, "I don't know how to really say this, but do you perhaps... have an Asian mailman? Working for you? I'm sorry, I'm not being racist or anything, I just don't know how else to describe him..." She babbled on for a good bit, talking almost too fast to be understandable. Apparently she was the girl from Forever 21 who I'd given a ferry ride in my cart. God, that seemed like ages ago.
Just to be sure, I asked her if that's who she was, and thank goodness, she said yes. That could've been much worse.
She kept trying to thank me, but I just wanted to get back to the phone book. What was the point of her call, anyway?
"If that's all you had to say..." I began, but she interrupted me.
"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "I actually also wanted to ask you if I could possibly get a job there, you know, since my work place burned down."
That was actually enormously helpful, much as she was annoying me.
"Hmmm," I said, half-sarcastically. "Let me think about it. Are you good at typing?"
Here I was playing hard to get on a potential employee. Pathetic.
"Yes!"
"What about filing?"
"I'm pretty efficient," she said excitedly.
"What about taking calls?" I didn't want to have to take any more of those, that was for sure.
"Did it all the time at Forever 21," said... was her name Eli?... offhandedly.
"Alright," I said, and I told her I'd call back later.
After talking to a plumber on the phone for a little while, I decided there was no point postponing it, and I did call her back.

I told her she could have the job working the front desk, starting tomorrow. She started to thank me, but I managed to cut her short.
I laughed when I finally hung up. "Talkative?" said Bill.
"You bet," I said, still chuckling.
We started talking idly as I puttered around the office, trying to find things to do.
Not to be sexist, but despite being male, Bill was very much a secretary. He was interesting and easy to communicate with. He also loved to talk, though not quite as much as Miss Rosenthal from Forever 21.

Bill, as he told me, had a wife and twin seven-year-olds. I thought of Xiu Li at seven and laughed uproariously at that. "God, twins!" I exclaimed. "That'd be hell. Mine's enough of a handful."
"Daughter or son?"
"Daughter. She's fifteen."
"More power to you," he said. "I couldn't abide all that teen stuff. And will you look at this! You, so much younger than me, and with a daughter eight years older than mine. How old are you, anyway?"
I ignored the question.
"You think that's crazy," I told him. "My high school girlfriend showed up at the post office last night at closing time and then came home and slept on my freaking couch."
Bill's eyes bugged slightly.
"Whoa, Renshu, that's intense! What's she doing here?"

"I'm not exactly sure," I said. "She came looking for a job-- she's a doctor-- so I connected her with the clinic. I'm not sure if she's coming back to stay with us tonight or not.
"Not to pry," said Bill, "but... you still got feelings for..."
"Nova?" I contributed. "Well, she's still beautiful. But that's stupid, man. I mean, this isn't some stupid fairy tale." I laughed at myself and my hipster phrasing. "She's a doctor, and I'm a..." I stopped myself. "Postmaster."
"That's not what I asked, Renshu. Do you still love the girl?"
I thought about it.
I tried to remember back in high school when I'd wake up on the weekends to her nose brushing mine, where she'd climbed in through the window the night before. The way she looked when the wind blew her hair all over her face and she started laughing through all of it. She was stunning, all the time, and people were jealous of me, all the time.
I thought again.
But I didn't want to marry her. In hindsight, I never would've.
She'd dumped me as soon as she'd had the slightest reason. And it's not like we'd kept in touch after that.

The spark was gone. I didn't even know her anymore.
"No," I said definitively.
Bill looked at me and decided I was telling the truth.
We worked around more on a computer bug that had come up that morning.

Three people came in to mail packages, which I realized hadn't happened in DuBolaire's time. Apparently people had been going to the next town over rather than deal with this office. I swelled with pride over the reputation we were getting.

After lunch, Marjorie and Curt arrived back at the office within five minutes of each other, and I called a quick meeting.
"We're going to have a girl named..." I paused, searching my memory again. "Eli Rosenthal, I think. She's going to be our front desk girl." They all nodded at me. "After that, we just need one more person to work for the front desk and maybe one more mail route, and I think we should be able to cover the town effectively, at least for now. We're doing great."
They were all smiling. Marjorie gave Curt a high five, and I took a double take before going on.
"But we're still really in debt here, and it's hard to recover from that in the electronic age, where no one sends letters except grandmothers and liberal arts colleges."
"Amen," joked Bill.
"We need more people wanting to send packages and letters," I finished, and made a decision on the spot. I felt proud that I could do that now with my manager position. "This afternoon, I'll head over to the neighboring town and ask about mailing packages. Maybe they'd be willing to negotiate a deal on distributing customers and maybe delivery routes."

With that, the three of them left fairly promptly, leaving me Googling how to get to the next closest post office. It turned out to be only a block from one of the bus stops, which was incredibly convenient with my lack of car. I walked over to the bus stop and waited for a bit.

After the bus arrived and I got on, I realized how long it'd been since I'd actually broken out of my routine. It was really kind of sad. I vowed that I would leave town more often. Maybe I'd take Xiu Li to the beach or something. But my bus had already reached the stop.

It didn't take me long to find the neighboring post office. It was much bigger than ours, and as I walked in, I could tell immediately that they had tons more employees than we'd ever had. I walked up to one woman at random. "Can I help you?" she said, with the tone of one who hopes your answer is no.
"I'd like to speak to the manager," I said. She gave me quite a look.
"You have a complaint or something?"
I wanted to reply that yeah, that's why I was wearing a mail jacket, but I refrained. Finally, after a minute of polite dispute, she finally let me go without helping me. I walked up to another employee, determined to succeed in my quest.
"Hey," I said, half-hoping he'd think I was another employee. "Can you go get the postmaster?"
I hadn't fooled the guy.
"Are you positive you want to talk to him? He's new. No one really likes him."
"I'm very sure," I said.
"Fine," said the guy indifferently. He showed me to a small area with chairs, next to the door of the postmaster's office.
And I sat down.
And I sat.
And I sat.
Half an hour passed very quickly, to my surprise. It had been almost 38 minutes when I heard the manager walk out of the office over my shoulder.
I stood up, pretending like I hadn't been sitting long, and turned around to shake his hand
"Hi," I started. "My name is Renshu Zheng, and I'm the postmaster from the next town east..."
I trailed off.

Dammit.

Mr. DuBolaire smirked at me.
"That was a lovely introduction, but maybe you should just cut straight to the chase."
My blood boiled.
"You look like a squinting ape with your mouth hanging open like that, Renshu," he said calmly.
"You're a crook," I hissed, with that clever wit I've always had.
"How about we chat in my office?" he demanded, and much to my great anger, steered me over the threshold into the room.
Once he'd shut the door, his phony smile vanished completely.
"What are you doing here, Renshu?"
I decided that I was here on business and business was business.
"I was trying to see if we could negotiate an agreement between the two offices as to where our routes stop and start, and maybe alert some people to the existence of my location."
I knew it was futile before I even finished talking.
"Well," said the gel-haired embodiment of Satan, "I think maybe you should take your business somewhere else." He stood up and began to pace around his desk.

"Does the USPS know how far in debt you are? Careful. They may just decide to close your office and make mine the cover for your town as well." I stood up, glaring. He continued hurriedly.
"If you want to keep your job, maybe you should leave before someone calls and complains about your complete lack of finances," he said.
I was fuming. I'd thought this man was out of my life, and now he was blackmailing me with the problem he created. How had this happened? What was Mr. DuBolaire even trying to do?
"Did you privatize this office, too?" I asked coldly.
"Oh no, there's no need to. I don't intend to ruin this one. I intend to move up the ladder. And I have my ways of getting control."
He opened the door. "Thank you for your offer, Mr. Zheng, but I think our office is fine in its current state of things. Have a nice day."

I walked as rudely as I could out of his office, hoping that wouldn't be enough to trigger a certain kind of phone call. I stalked off down the block, only to discover I'd missed my bus. I called Xiu Li to warn her, but I ended up having to wait until after dark.

I had a lot to think about when I got home.

An unexpected November in March

For some reason, I woke up in an astonishingly good mood this morning, at least given the circumstances. Sure, I had no money, no employees, and a moody daughter, not to mention the ritual ruckus coming from upstairs, but I had a cheesy smile plastered on my face from the moment I woke up.

"Shh, shh, shh," I said softly, and rocked her back and forth. She stopped making noise, but a couple of extra tears leaked out of her eyes. I felt like mirroring her.

Why did I do this? What was I trying to prove to myself?

So I bounced out of bed, grabbed my clothes, and took a shower, singing over the banging. Then I toweled off and waltzed into the main room. Xiu Li was lying on the couch, half asleep. Even through my strange and unexplainable cheer, I was a bit worried about her. Everything felt a little backwards. Usually I’m the one who’s dragging my feet through a sludge of nonexistent intrinsic motivation, and she bounces. But she'd been so out of it the day before. I didn't really know what to say to her. I was never really an athlete myself, so her sorrow at getting kicked off the swim team was sorely lost on me. I vowed that if she was still in a bad mood come morning, I would make my best effort to be comforting.

I sat there and listened to the dial tone. I tried to call her back once, but on the first ring I heard Xiu Li crying on the baby monitor.

It's over, Renshu, I told myself, and held my breath before hanging up.

Before I went to go get Xiu Li, I deleted her number from the contact menu.

I was on my own hours now, so technically, I didn’t really have to get to work so early. But I wanted to make sure that I was there when any prospective employees dropped by. I grabbed my jacket and swung the door open. I took the stairs by twos, which usually I wouldn’t do on the way down (especially with a recent hospital visit looming over me), but I felt invincible. I walked out of the apartment buildings making a conscious effort not to start skipping. 

"Will I ever see you again?"

"Do you want me to answer that question?"

I didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry, Renshu," she said.

Not very many people were outside at this time of morning, but I gave sunny hellos to everyone who was. Most just grunted at me, and one guy flipped me off. I couldn’t’ve cared less. I noticed that my posters were still up as I walked down the block. I fantasized for a bit about happy, wonderful employees who would have to take orders from me, of all people. I unlocked the door to the post office and walked in joyously, humming to myself. No sooner had I walked in than the phone rang.

"I have a life. What do you mean, I don't have a life? Just because suddenly I can't go to college--"

"You don't. That's the thing. You really don't have a life anymore. You're an adult. I'm a college student. I feel so backwards, Renshu, I really do. But I have a life. You have a baby."

"Don't worry," I said sarcastically. "It's not yours." But I wished I hadn't. I didn't want to be mad at her. I just wanted her to stop talking, or tell me she was kidding. But April Fools' Day is in April. This was mid-August. And she was dead serious about all of this.

"You know what I'm getting at, don't you?"

She was going to make me say it. That was almost worse, in a way. But I couldn't hear her say it. So I did.

"It's over."

"Bingo," she said, a little too lightly. "I didn't lie to you, you know. I did love you. I still kind of do. But I'm outgrowing you, even though I'm trying not to. That's why I had to call today, before it got too impersonal."

I didn't say anything. I didn't cry. I just didn't say anything.

It was going to be a great day.

I had just gotten Xiu Li down for a nap when the phone rang. I picked it up on the first ring, hoping the baby wouldn't be disturbed. "Hello?"

"Hi, Renshu," said the voice on the other end.

"Nova!" Suddenly, the week caught up to me and I missed her painfully. "How is it? How's your roommate? How are you?" I was so overwhelmed. "I--"

"Renshu, stop."

There are four words that no guy wants to hear. They sound hilariously cliche out of context, but it's not so funny when you hear them yourself. Nova paused. And I could tell immediately what was about to happen. I almost wished later that I'd hung up.

"We need to talk."

I picked up the phone. "Hello, this is the post office."

"Yeah, hi. You have a job opening?" The voice was female. I didn't realize that I had assumed most applicants would be male until I heard her speak. But I tried not to let on.

"Yes," I said, trying to use a professional voice only to discover I didn't possess one. "Are you interested in applying?"

"Yes," she said back. "What time should I drop by?"

"Anytime is fine," I said. "We're... undergoing some shifts; we just switched management."

"I'll be there in an hour," she said.

The week after Nova left, I was incredibly busy. I was almost ashamed at how little I thought about her. Not because I didn't care. I did. I slept on the right side of the bed only, religiously so, and occasionally thought I saw her when I was out. But there are a lot of brunettes out there. I busied myself with Xiu Li, trying to figure out how to be a parent while I still remembered mine. 

I hung up the phone feeling remarkably successful about myself. I wasn't sure what to do for the coming hour, so I started puttering around a bit, organizing things and just generally improving the aesthetic appeal of the post office. Not that it needed to be feng shui or anything, but it was a little bit messy. 

Goodbye, I told the hallway full of people. 

While I cleaned, though, the phone rang again. I jumped. It had been so quiet around the place with just me that the noise sounded three times as loud. Then I laughed at myself, nursed my injured shin that I'd just bumped on the table, and answered the call. 

"Hello, this is the post office."
"Hey, I'm looking to get a job." Energetic bass voice.

"Well," I said, "we could use a secretary." I hadn't dared give the job to the woman, for fear she might have thought I was being sexist.
I was half-waiting for the guy to laugh at me or demand one of the mail routes. He defied my expectations by going "Sure."

"Can you come by after lunch today so we can negotiate a plan?"

There was a silence. I wondered if he had nodded. Then, finally, he said, "Oh, sorry. Yes."

The intercom came too soon, as I expected it would, but I hadn't expected how unreal the whole thing would be. Just like another date, but with more people around, and less restaurant. I politely asked her mom to hold the sling for me, and I hugged her. I held her as tightly as I could, until my arms hurt, and she held me back. All the young energy of two seemingly star-crossed 18-year-olds. I didn't want to let go, because as soon as I did, she would get on a plane and go become some remarkable young woman while I became a single mailman dad. So I kept holding on. I half expected Nova's mom to stop me, but she didn't. I don't know how long we stood there, but eventually she stepped back, and I looked at her. She was breaking out a little from stress, and had a couple of bags under her eyes, and I took it all in, because she was beautiful. I expected her to be crying, but she wasn't. I looked at her for a minute until she looked like she didn't know why I was doing that. "I love you, Nova," I told her, and kissed her. She kissed me back for what wasn't long enough, and then took off. 

We exchanged goodbyes and I hung up the phone. This was nice. I already had three employees. I hoped none of them would split due to the financial situation of the post office. 

I went to the airport with her, carrying Xiu Li in a sling. She was with her mom, who had about a bajillion suitcases. I wondered momentarily about the baggage fees. Nova was confusing me; she kept alternating between smiling and laughing, being excited to go, and then catching a glance at me and looking almost piteous, like she didn't know if she was allowed to be happy. 

I sighed and sat down at DuBolaire's old desk. My desk. I wasn't used to this managing business yet, but I was starting to like it.
The door opened in the lobby, and in came a teenage boy with huge glasses. I don't mean ironic hipster glasses. I mean glasses. Like the kind I had in the 80s and 90s.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm here about the job offer?"

It was a question. He was so awkward-looking. I felt for the kid. I'd been his Asian look-a-like seventeen years ago.

"Well, I have another woman coming in to talk to me soon, but we have no shortage of job openings. I can probably get you in for a mail route. What's your name?"
"Curt. Well, Cuthbert O'Reilly, but really it's just Curt."
I tried not to snort at the name Cuthbert. "Curt it is," I said. We shook hands.

While we talked about his hours and his salary, I observed Curt a little bit. He seemed to be really responsible. I wondered how old he was. His face behind the glasses was young, but he seemed to have done a lot of aging for such a small guy. He really needed the job, he told me, and for some reason I felt like I could trust the kid. 

He was so much older than he looked; one of those kids that wears adult clothes when they're not big enough to fit in them. But they grow, and they fill out the sleeves and the chest and the hips, and the pant legs stop dragging the ground. And then you've got yourself a teenager who took on too much, too soon. Curt was one of these. I wondered if that was what had happened to Xiu Li, too.

She came over a few times after that to help me with the baby, but she was even more clueless than I was. "You have to hold her head up!" I said, frantically. Nova looked up at me, grinning. "I'm sorry, Renshu! God, you're so protective of her." She grabbed my hair and ruffled it a bit. 

As we settled on a deal for his hours and his salary, I noticed that a woman, presumably the one I'd talked to, had come into the post office. I gave Curt my phone number and told him to call me with any questions or trouble, and I'd see him after lunch. He stood there for a minute. "Uh. Won't I need keys for that?"

I blinked. "Yes." I went over to the cabinet where all the truck keys were kept and handed him a keyring. "You do have your license, right?"

He nodded.

"Then go ahead. Remember what I told you, pull as far over as you can when you make the stops."

He nodded again, and carried himself out the door on his lanky legs.

"You adopted a baby?"

I couldn't read her tone at all. Disbelief was definitely in there, though.

"The orphanage didn't have any room."

"What is this, a freaking fairy tale?"

"Maybe I just want company for when you leave in August," I joked.

"Renshu, shut up. This is serious. That's a baby."

"Her name is Xiu Li," I said, proudly.

"She's white." "She's Asian," I said, grinning. "I'm her dad, and I'm Asian. It'll be hilarious when she gets older. Every substitute's gonna think she's screwing with them."

Nova sighed.

"It is a nice name."

I squeezed her shoulder.

"You're going to raise her. Like, completely." I nodded.

"You're insane. You're going to be thirty-six when she goes to college, you know that?"

I didn't care. I could tell she was being serious, but I had no idea why I'd done it, either. But,

"She's my daughter now," I said. "And I love her. I love you, too. But I love Xiu Li. And I will be the best father I can to her."

"You're a cheeseball. An idiotic cheeseball."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, and then her ride pulled up.

I wondered if it would've been too much to ask him about his college plans. I thought back. I don't think I would've wanted somebody to ask me about that. So I promised myself I wouldn't bring it up unless Curt did.

I took the baby back to my apartment, completely in shock about what I'd just done. They don't warn you about these things in high school. Life decisions. Although I'm not sure how many people are accosted with baby adoption at the ripe young age of 18. I think they're usually on the other side of the deal.

"You're just my little ball of irony," I told Xiu Li, and she threw up on my shoulder.

I turned my attention now to the woman in the lobby. She was white, with really tan skin, and was probably in her mid-50s. Her hair was curly and short, and she had on a polo and jeans. Somehow, she still didn't come across as masculine. 

As it turned out, her name was Marjorie. She used to work a mail route in Omaha, and she had just divorced her husband and needed a job.

I gave her the other mail route, and after some quick money talk, she leaves. No instructions needed.

I signed a ton of paperwork, and then they asked me what her name was. "Last name Zheng," I said. "And?" said the guy filling out the forms. I thought a minute. It wasn't a poetic moment. "Xiu Li. X-i-u space l-i." And before I knew it, I was out the door to my mail truck, having doubled the size of my family. 

That being done, I sat back down in my desk and worked some figures, trying to see what we'd have to do to get more money. It was going to be close. I promised myself I'd have a meeting with my two, no, probably three employees that afternoon, for the sake of full disclosure.

I was delivering my afternoon mail route again, finally getting used to the routine. It already felt like an old chore, something I just did, just because. But I was getting paid. I had a package for the orphanage, and I pulled up into the middle of some serious drama. I walked up to the door with the package, and a lady was yelling in the back.

"We have nowhere to put her. This damn town is full of stupid teenagers getting pregnant and trying to pass off their damn offspring on us. DO YOU HEAR ME? NOWHERE TO PUT HER!"

"Uh, excuse me," I said, to the woman at the door. "I have a package for the orphanage."

"Just a minute," she said. "We've had a doorstep delivery, and things are a bit heated at the moment."

"Doorstep delivery?"

The yelling woman came to the door holding a bundle of cloth. The baby was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Can you sign for your package?" I yelled over the screams.

"What are we supposed to do? No note, nothing. We're the closest place in 50 miles. What are we supposed to do with this girl?"

"PACKAGE," I yelled. I was behind schedule.

"Okay," said the first woman exasperatedly. "I'll sign for your damned package."

"No, you won't," said the second woman. "You're going to go make some arrangements. This is your fault. We didn't have to take her." "Didn't have to? She was on the doorstep!"

"Hold her," said the second woman again, and handed me the yelling bundle of fabric.

I didn't really know how to hold a baby, so I just stood there. She stopped crying and hiccuped. I looked at her. She was shriveled and tiny and fragile and incredibly hideous.

And then I did something ridiculously stupid.

"I'll take her," I said.

Despite the financial situation, I had retained my good mood. I was on top of the world. The top of my tiny little step-stool career ladder. I grinned. It was lunchtime.

I left a note on the door for Curt and Marjorie, and jogged over to Casa D'Waffle. I was starting to notice that I was becoming a regular there by accident. Oh well.

"Can I help you?"

He wasn't very intimidating, thankfully. "Yes," I said, standing tall. I swallowed. Do it for Nova. "I'm interested in applying for a job." "Boy, how old are you?" He laughed.

"Eighteen, sir."

"You graduate high school?"

"Yep. Last month."

"You're hired."

And that was that.

As I buttered my waffle, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I picked up with a mouthful of waffle. "Mmmph?"

"Uh, hi, Mr. Zheng. This is Curt. I'm having a little trouble."
There was shouting in the background.

"What's going on?"

"Well, this woman is expecting a letter from her husband and I don't have it in my truck. I tried telling her that maybe it just isn't here today, but she didn't want to listen to me." He sounded a bit worried.

"Ah, that's not your fault. Give her the phone."
I tried to console the woman for ten minutes. I succeeded only by convincing her that her letter was probably in tomorrow's mail. I hoped I was right. I had no clue who she was.

I didn't know what to do. If it weren't for Nova, I would have been completely alone. Even she didn't really know how to handle it. I felt like a terrible person, but I didn't have anywhere to go. Anything to do. I was just... alone. Graduating in two days, with no one to see me walk. 

Then Curt got back on the phone and thanked me. He said he was almost done with the route, so I finished my waffle and high-tailed it back to the post office. I got there a couple of minutes before he did. I assumed Marjorie would take longer, even with her experience, because she'd left a considerable bit later than Curt had. That, and she had a much longer route. I hoped she hadn't been kidding about being a mailwoman in Omaha.

I called up the university and told them I had to turn down their offer, unfortunately, because of my family scenario. I spared the details for the admissions counselor. She tried to tell me about the 1-year gap, but I think we both knew by then that I wasn't going to college.

I asked Curt to stick around and help me for extra pay, and he looked over financial stuff with me. Thankfully, he didn't seem too alarmed when I explained about the mugging and Mr. DuBolaire and being thrust into the management job.

She was cremated, and I waited outside. I wondered vaguely what Dad would have thought of all of this. Nova looked at me and squeezed my hand. She had no idea what she was supposed to tell me. That was becoming a theme these days.

As he pored over the computer and helped me get some of the files in order, a big guy walked into the office. "Hello," I said. "Are you the man I spoke to earlier?"

He grinned. "That'd be me. Are you the manager?"

"That's Mr. Zheng to you," I laughed. We shook hands. 

Bill was a congenial guy who used to own a bike shop. He mostly just wanted a job, and he was fine with being a secretary. I thanked my lucky stars. Things were looking up.

"Mom?"

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

There wasn't any answer. I walked into the living room dubiously. "Mom! I'm home!"

The silence was really eerie. I walked into her bedroom. The clock was ticking nonchalantly, and the phone was off the hook. I pulled the door to and walked out. I rounded the corner of the hallway.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

Dad's pool of blood had been spattered. Like he'd been filled with jelly and someone had stepped on him.

Mom's, I noted, was artistic, like she was. The entire scene looked surreal. The linoleum pattern disrupted by a sprawled figure and a crimson puddle.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

I dropped my backpack, and then dropped to my knees. I would have panicked, but she was no longer my mother. Just a corpse, I told myself.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window. It glinted off the knife.

I walked as calmly as I could back into the bedroom, dialed the phone, and fainted.

My last, terrible thought was that if I'd taken Forensics with Nova, I'd have known when Mom killed herself.

I gave Bill a desk in the lobby and explained where all the records and things were. He also got put in charge of answering the phone. After a brief discussion, we decided that he would also be the temporary treasurer, until things were under more control.

Mom didn't do much of anything after the accident. She drove me to school. She drove me from school, sometimes. But mostly she just cooked things, gave them to her friends, drew this, painted that, told me off for something or another. She was dead. Completely gone. Smiling at her was like throwing light at a black hole now, rather than a mirror. 

Marjorie came back from her mail route, and we all had a short meeting. The time had gone by fairly quickly, and it was already almost dinner time. 

Mom drove me home from the hospital in complete silence. I remember wondering if she'd wished it'd been me instead of him. 

I thanked Curt, Marjorie, and Bill for their help. I thought we could probably pull off the operation pretty well if we got someone to work the desk and maybe another mail route, so I told them to ask around and see who they could get. They promised, and then they were out the door into the still-bright evening.

I woke up in a really pale white room, and a nurse came in. She looked like she was thinking twice about being there at all. But she sat down on my bed awkwardly. I didn't want to drag it out.

"He's gone, isn't he?" I asked.

She didn't say anything. Just looked at me.

"Where's Mom?"

Even though I knew Xiu Li was probably long since home, I stayed a little while longer, doing not much in particular. I searched through DuBolaire's computer files. I'll spare you the details.

We drove home on the highway that night, just Dad and me. We were blasting hilarious songs on the radio, and I kept trying to tune it to the Mexican channels. He kept teasing me and saying I was Chinese and not Latino, and that I was getting too American. Maybe we should've stayed in China.

"We're going to be late," I told him. "Drive faster. Mom's going to be mad at us." "No, she won't," he said. "We're both sober, and she'd rather I didn't speed."

He signaled.

I laughed.

The sedan shifted over slightly, into the left lane.

That truck was a little too close for my liking.

It was already getting dark when I stopped tinkering around in the post office. I just liked being there. It was mine now, and that made it look so different from before. I stood on chairs. I moved the furniture around. I went behind the empty delivery desk. Just because I could. But I realized it was really getting ridiculous, and Xiu Li was probably waiting on me.

The last months or so of high school were amazing. I was finished with most of my major projects, and it was early May, and I was coasting. Nova made fun of me for slipping into what she affectionately called the "C-zone." I brushed it off. They weren't going to revoke my acceptance. I had a pretty decent scholarship, too.

So I looked for my mail bag and jacket. 8:46 pm. I wasn't sure why I'd brought them, really.

I asked her out in September.

Everything was going so well, I thought to myself. Great employees. Much better than that guy who used to swear and spit on things. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. 

I looked up.

"The post office is closed..."

She walked into first period on the first day of school. She sat down next to me.

"Your name is?" she said.

"Renshu Zheng," I said, caught off guard.

Hers was November. And she was beautiful.

I startled. "Nova!?"

And now, here she was in the post office.