Sweet Misfortune: A Novel (14 page)

F
OUR HOURS LATER
, with Evalynn and Justin beside her on the couch, it was all Sophie could do to keep herself from crying, through repeated fits of laughter, as they watched, rewound, and watched again, the top story from the ten o’clock news. It was an inspiring piece about a homeless man in Tacoma whose humble petition in a newspaper want ad was, as Lori Acres explained, “Compelling people everywhere to reflect more carefully on what things matter most in life; urging them to seek out happiness, wherever it may be. Back to you, Kip.”

Chapter 22

When you speak honestly and openly, others truly listen.
They don’t believe you, but at least you have their attention.

S
EVERAL DAYS PASSED BEFORE THE POST OFFICE PROCESSED
Sophie’s request to have her mail forwarded directly to Chocolat’ de Soph. By then, nearly two weeks had passed since she’d picked up the first three letters. With all the media attention it had received, she knew the next wave of responses would be considerably larger.

She couldn’t have imagined how much.

The postal worker who pulled up in front of the store on Saturday afternoon came inside first to ask if there was someplace special Sophie wanted him to deposit her mail.

“You can just leave it here on the counter,” she told him. “I’ll sort through it while I’m tending the register.”

The man chuckled dryly. “I don’t think that’s gonna work. Is there anywhere
else
you’d like me to leave it?”

“There’s that much?”

He chuckled again. “You got room in the back, maybe? I think I can maneuver my hand truck back through there.”

“Yeah
…
oh
…
umm, sure. The back would be fine.”

The man nodded, then went out to his mail van and opened up the tailgate. Sophie watched with disbelief as he stacked four plastic bins full of mail on a dolly and wheeled them in through the front door.

“Ho-ly crrrow,” she said slowly, as he rolled past her to get to the kitchen. “It’ll take me days—
maybe weeks
—to get through all of this.”

The mailman gave another dry laugh. “Not done yet.” After setting the stack against the wall near her office door, the postman went back out and filled his hand truck twice more. On his fourth and final trip, he brought in a large box full of assorted small packages that wouldn’t have fit well in the plastic mail bins. “That’s the last of it,” he told her after he was through. “Good luck with that, ma’am.”

She nodded vacantly, but her eyes remained glued to the stacks of mail in front of her. The postman let himself out while Sophie continued to stare at the mesmerizing sight.

Several minutes later she heard the bell on the front door ring, followed by Randy’s familiar steps pacing through the store. He stopped walking as he came around the dividing wall into the kitchen.

“Dude!” he exclaimed. “This is like
… dude!
You got some serious postage.”

Sophie ran her fingers through her hair. “Tell me about it. How am I ever going to read all of this?”

“Just like a vulture chomps down the rotting flesh of an elephant carcass, I guess. One piece at a time.”

She turned briefly away from the mail and glanced at her quirky employee. “Thanks for that very visual—and slightly disturbing—description.”

He nodded. “’Course, some vultures don’t mind sharing with the flock, long as there’s plenty to go around. Saw that on Discovery, I think.”

She eyed him again. “Is that your way of volunteering to help me take a bite out of this rotten pile of mail?”

Randy shrugged. “If you need help, I’ll do whatever I can.”

Approaching the nearest stack of bins, Sophie dug her hands into the letters, scooped some out, and then let them slip through her fingers like enormous grains of sand. “You know what? I’ll take you up on that. Let’s make sure we’re all set on candy and cleaning to cover the rest of tonight and tomorrow, and then we’ll dig into this nightmare. I may even make some calls to see if I can round up a couple more turkeys to join our flock.”

“Vultures,” he corrected.

“
Turkey
vultures,” she shot back.

Randy thought about that for a second, taking another long look at the ridiculous hoard of letters and packages. “You’re probably right,” he said, then turned around to tend the front of the store.

Sophie went into her office and made phone calls to Evalynn and Ellen to see if they were willing and able to help sort through the mail. Not only were they free, but they were excited to be a part of it. Ellen, in particular, said she was hoping she’d get a chance to see what kinds of things people had sent, but didn’t want to be too nosy.

While Sophie was in the back sprinkling cashews on a fresh batch of caramel apples and mixing pralines into a thick fudge sauce, Randy was counting cash in the register to do a quick inventory against sales for the day. He lost track of the count when the phone rang.

“Chocolat’ de Soph,” he answered. “This is Randy.”

Just then Sophie came barreling around the corner. “If that’s Garrett,” she whispered frantically, “I don’t want to talk to him. Tell him I can’t come to the phone.” He’d been leaving messages for two days on her cell phone to see if any more mail had arrived, but so far she’d managed to avoid direct contact with him.

Randy stuck the phone under his armpit to cover up the receiver. “It is,” he whispered back. “What should I say?”

“Anything! I don’t care, make something up.”

Clearing his throat, Randy extracted the phone from beneath his arm and pressed it to his ear. “Oh hey, Garrett. I’m sorry, dude, what did you say?”

Sophie watched with keen interest, searching his face for any clues about what was being said. Randy nodded his head up and down twice in response to whatever Garrett was saying on the other end of the line.

After a few long pauses, Randy spoke up. “Yeah, sure. Understood. The only thing is, she
…
she can’t really come to the phone right now, ’cuz she’s, like, swamped with mail and stuff from that want ad. Bummer, right?”

“No!” Sophie shouted, not caring that Garrett would probably hear her. “Anything but that!”

Randy’s eyebrows shot up at Sophie’s rebuke, but he couldn’t respond to her right away because Garrett was apparently speaking again. A few seconds later he said, “Yeah
…
okay. I’ll
…
yep, I’ll let her know. Later.” Then he set the phone back down on its base.

Randy didn’t speak right away, but he didn’t have to. His expression said it all.

“He’s coming here, isn’t he?” Sophie said. It was as much a statement as a question.

Randy nodded.

Her shoulders sagged. It was bad enough having to spend the entire evening wading through miles of unwanted letters from strangers, but to do it with Garrett hovering nearby, prodding her to accept one hundred responses so he could earn his date, sounded to Sophie like a cruel and unusual punishment, though for what crime she wasn’t sure. She let out a giant sigh. “Do you happen to know what vultures do to each other when the flock gets too large?” she inquired.

He shook his head.

“Well whatever it is, I’m sure it isn’t pleasant.” Sophie frowned, then went back to finish her preparations for what was shaping up to be a very long night.

“H
ELLO
?”
EVALYNN CALLED
out, after she and Justin entered Chocolat’ de Soph to find the front of the store empty.

“We’re back here,” shouted Sophie.

Evalynn and Justin rounded the final corner to find Sophie, Ellen, Randy, and Garrett sitting on the floor, swimming in a sea of paper.

“Holy crap,” remarked Justin.

“I know,” Sophie said quickly. “I didn’t invite him—he just showed up.”

Garrett laughed, even though her comment was directed at him. “I think he was talking about the mail. How are you, Justin? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m keeping out of trouble. You?”

With a wry grin plastered on his face, Garrett said, “I’ll be better after tonight, I think. I’m on the cusp of winning this little game we’ve got going.”

Sophie pretended like she didn’t hear him. Given the flood of responses, she knew that he was probably right, but she wasn’t willing to roll over and let him declare victory just yet. She was, after all, the sole judge of the responses, and therefore in complete control over the outcome.
No
, she told herself,
if I’m going to have to suffer through a date with him, I’m at least going to put up a good fight
. But even as that thought popped into her head, she knew it wasn’t really the date that she wanted to avoid. More than being alone with the man who had destroyed her heart, her single biggest fear—and the thing that kept her up at night—was the worry that she might still have feelings for him. She’d already decided that it was safer just to avoid him altogether, rather than risk being emotionally chewed up and spit out all over again.

Evalynn’s voice pried Sophie from her own thoughts. “Sorry we’re late, Soph. We stopped to get takeout for everyone.
Chinese okay?”

“Oh
…
yeah. Thanks. Just set it on the counter there and folks can grab what they want.”

“Is there a method to the madness?” Justin asked, eyeing the stacks of letters.

“Umm
…
not really,” replied Sophie. “But I was thinking maybe if everyone could start by sort of screening everything, and them lumping them into piles, that might be easiest. One pile for the definite nos, another for maybes, and then one for the responses that have real promise.” She paused and glanced at Garrett. “Assuming that there are any, of course. How does that sound?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Ellen replied. She was sitting on a chair against the wall with a plastic bin full of letters on her lap, and she was rifling through them as though she were looking for something in particular. “Oh, wait, Sweets. Do you have any guidance on what constitutes a no, a maybe, and a ‘has promise’?”

Garrett let out a little laugh. “Ooh, this should be good,” he mumbled.

Sophie glared at him before answering her foster mother. “Yes, I do. Essentially, anything that is crude or base goes in the No pile. Along with anything about men or romantic relationships. Oh, and anything that is obviously perishable is a no as well. Beyond that, use your own judgment. I trust you—well, most of you anyway—to be able to filter out the junk.”

“And the maybes?” asked Ellen. She held up a letter, inspected the return address, and then set it off to the side in a growing pile of unopened letters near the base of her chair.

“Just anything that doesn’t strike you as junk but also doesn’t necessarily jump out as something terribly insightful. Then if you happen to find some that you think are really good responses, they can go in the third pile.” She paused, looking around at everyone. “Any other questions?”

Garrett raised his hand and waited until Sophie addressed him.

She rolled her eyes. “Mr. Black?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Yes, umm
…
is that a new blouse? I was just noticing how great it looks on you.”

She looked away and forced a frown, hoping that would be enough to camouflage her cheeks, which suddenly felt flush. “Any questions related to the mail or how to sort it?”

Justin and Garrett both chuckled.

For the next hour the group waded through letter after letter, patiently sorting them into piles per Sophie’s instructions. It didn’t take long before everyone became adept at speed-reading, scanning for key words that might tip them off about each letter’s overall theme. The only person who wasn’t doing much reading was Ellen, whose pile of unopened letters was getting very big very fast as she scanned the return addresses on the envelopes and then, if she didn’t like what she saw, dropped them at her feet. Sophie saw what Ellen was doing and considered asking her what she was looking for, but decided it didn’t matter—if it was important enough, eventually Ellen would tell her anyway.

Not surprising to Sophie, most of the responses had nothing to do with finding or experiencing true happiness, but rather leaned toward what she described as “momentary fits of pleasure.” Bobby, for example, a woman from Louisiana, described happiness as “a Harley, a helmet, and a tank full of nothing to do but ride.” Amy from Boston wrote that happiness is “a week on Bermuda’s pink sandy beaches,” while a man from Idaho, who identified himself as Uncle Rico Incarnate, asserted that “true happiness is that magical point in time where
Napoleon Dynamite
finally starts to make sense.”

No one was surprised at the number of letters that mentioned the word
family
, but Sophie dismissed them all, offering her own lack of living relatives as proof that families are too temporary to meet her criteria. Ellen seemed hurt by Sophie’s vigorous claim that she had no family, but said nothing about it.

“I assume,” said Randy, as the night wore on, “that hour-long massages are not going to count, right?” He was holding an egg roll in one hand and a letter in the other.

“Depends on who’s giving the massage,” Justin said flippantly.

Evalynn was sitting close enough to her husband to slug him in the arm. “You’d better be thinking about
me
,” she warned, “or you’re in serious trouble.”

“No,” confirmed Sophie. “Massages are definitely out.”

Randy’s eyes lit up. “Sweet,” he drawled. “Then can I keep this coupon? A spa in Seattle sent you a complimentary one-hour hot rock session.”

Sophie smiled and held out her hand to take the coupon. “It’s not happiness, but that doesn’t mean it’s not extremely enjoyable.”

A little while later Justin found a note from a woman in Texas that he thought was worthy of at least the Maybe pile. “Here, Ev,” he said, handing her a small piece of paper that was clipped to a wallet-size photo of an infant. “I think you could use this. It says happiness is the love and pride one feels for their children.”