He scrubs his face. “Dammit.”
“I promise, you’ve got nothing to worry about, I’m a model tenant.”
“It’s not that,” he mutters.
“What is it, then?”
He tips his cart onto its back wheels and shoves it up the first step. “I was hoping you were a going to be someone cute.”
I mime a dagger plunged into my heart. “Ouch.”
He glowers at me. “Someone cute who’smy age. Given the name, I had high hopes.”
“Ohhh. Well, that tracks—I was named after my grandma.” I stand up and reach for the bottom of his cart, lifting it up the lasttwo steps as he pushes. “I’m sorry to have disappointed,” I tell him. “If it’s any help, I’m basically seventysomething inside?”
Mr. Fleischer gives me a withering look. “It does not.”
“I understand; it takes me out of the running romantically, but just think, wecouldbe friends here, too.”
“?‘Here, too?’?” His bushy white eyebrows shoot up past his black-frame glasses. “Toots, we are not friendsanywhere.”
“Now, I can take a lot,” I say to him, holding the building’s door open for him, “but I can’t take your denying our friendship at The Bookshop. I don’t sell a signed copy of Alexander McCall Smith’s highly anticipated latest installment ofNo. 1 Ladies Detective Agencya week early to just anybody. And I know you don’t split a blueberry muffin with any other staff member on their break.”
He glares up at me. “That was one time, when I was very hungry, andyoutook your break withme.”
I smile. “But what a delightful one time it was.”
He pushes his cart inside, grumbling under his breath.
“Good to see you, friend!” I call from the threshold. “And neighbor!”
He waves a hand vaguely, then stops his cart in front of the elevator and presses the up button.
“Close the door!” he hollers over his shoulder. “You’re air-conditioning the neighborhood.”
“Ah, speaking of!” I let the door fall shut behind me. “My air-conditioning isn’t working, and I’m having the hardest time getting through to the property manager about it. I thought I’d try the landlord, next. Any tips for how to reach him?”
The elevator dings, and its narrow door slides open. Mr. Fleischer turns, facing me as he backs into the elevator with his cart. “Yes,” he says. “But be warned, he’s a surly old sonofabitch.”
I grimace. “Well, I’m sure he’s got a lot on his plate. Landlording can’t be easy, especially with a hard-to-reach property manager and an older building like this. I do need to get my AC fixed, though. It’s so hot up there, my Jif peanut butter spread is currently more like Jif peanut butter syrup. I’ll take any help I can get in reaching him.”
The elevator door starts to close, but Mr. Fleischer juts his cart out in time to stop it. He sighs heavily and says, “Then consider it your lucky day. You just did.”
In a truly epic exit, he yanks the cart back, and the elevator door slides shut.
I rush up the stairs as the elevator dings in the second-floor hallway, stopping when my face clears the floor to call through the railing rungs, “Just confirming, you’re good to get the AC fixed?”
“No need to shout!” he shouts. “I’m old, not deaf!”
“Right, so—”
“Chrissake, yes, the AC will be fixed. I already texted my guy. He’s on it. Now, would you leave a man in peace?”
“Great!” I tell him. “Thanks, neighbor! And friend!”
In answer, Mr. Fleischer’s door slams shut.
“Can I just say,” Lauren calls from the vestibule below, “I want to be that guy when I’m older?”