Chapter 2
At home the socks had stuck to the sores, and I peeled them off a bit at a time while sweat came out on my forehead.
The first thing I learned in prison was how to take it. Crying didn't help, explaining didn't help, and hating didn't help either.
The next day, I started delivering food.
The helmet was rented from the app, the electric bike came from a secondhand lot, the brakes squealed now and then, and the battery didn't hold a charge.
But it ran, and so did I.
After seven days on the road I had saved up 179 dollars.
On the eighth night the app pushed out a high-paying order, and the address was the most expensive private club in Northgate.
The note said the food had to go up to the Skylark Lounge on the third floor and couldn't be left at the front desk.
I checked my battery, and it was at 24 percent. Then I saw the delivery fee, and I took the order anyway.
The entrance was all gold and glare. The doorman in white gloves ran his eyes from my helmet to my delivery box and waved me through, barely hiding how much he wanted me gone.
I carried the bag up to the third floor, to the Skylark Lounge, and champagne and perfume rolled out at me the second I pushed the door open.
A dozen or so men and women stood around a three-tiered cake with gift boxes stacked beside it, and the lights were bright enough to hurt.
I set the food down in a corner with my head low and turned to go.
"Wait." A woman's voice came from behind me, and my fingers went stiff.
She stood in the light in a white dress with a narrow waist, and when she smiled, the outer corners of her eyes tipped down, as if she had always been wronged and would always forgive anyway.
She held out a slice of cake to me. "It's my birthday, and you came all this way. Have a piece."
I looked at her through my helmet, and she had no idea who I was. A year and eight months, and she hadn't changed at all.
I reached out and took it, and my throat was tight when I forced out, "Thanks."
Only one thought filled my head, and that was to run.
I turned too fast, the cake hit somebody's chest, and cream spread across a black shirt.
The laughter in the room broke off for a beat.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I apologized fast and looked up, and Charles was standing in front of me.
He looked at his shirt first, then at me, and his eyes stopped on my helmet for one second, then another.
Somebody whistled. "Charles, that shirt's new, isn't it? Fifty thousand dollars? Can the delivery girl even cover that?"
Vanessa grabbed a napkin and started wiping his shirt, and her fingers rested on his chest while her eyes came to me.
"Leave it. She didn't do it on purpose. Don't scare the poor girl." Then she smiled at me. "You can go. You don't owe anything."
I nodded. "Thanks."
I turned around, wanting nothing but to get out, and then Charles reached over.
His fingers hooked the edge of my helmet, and I took half a step back before I could stop myself.
A second later the helmet came off, a beam of light landed square on me, and my hair was flattened and messy, and I probably looked terrible.
The room went dead silent. Somebody hesitated, then said, "Emily?"
The napkin fell out of Vanessa's hand.
"Emily, you're out?" Her eyes were red rimmed, and there was a catch of tears in her voice.
I put out my hand. "Give me my helmet."
Charles didn't move, and he kept staring at me through what looked like a layer of fog.
I said, "Mr. Rivers, please give me my helmet. I have another order waiting."
Somebody in the corner laughed. "Seriously? She really is delivering food?"
"Wasn't she the high and mighty one? She even went after Charles."
"Isn't she the one who went to prison? The hit-and-run?"
The lines came one after another, light as air, and every one of them landed hard.
Vanessa lowered her voice. "That's enough. Emily's had it hard. She lost her head back then, that's all."
I looked at her, and I didn't want to explain anything.
I took my helmet back out of Charles' hand and put it on.
I said, "If it isn't too much trouble, leave me five stars."
Vanessa blinked, and then her eyes curved. "Of course."
By the time I got out of the club my bike was down to 8 percent, and the night wind came through the gaps in my helmet and cut at my eyes.
I was about to look for a charging station when my phone buzzed.
[Customer complaint: The driver was rude and ruined the meal. The bonus for this order has been canceled.]
I stood at the roadside, and the light off the screen washed all the color out of me.
It buzzed again. [Customer rating: 1 star.]
The complaint had no name on it, and I looked back up at the third floor.
The Skylark Lounge was still lit up. They were probably still cutting the cake and still saying happy birthday.
The whole night had come to nothing.
At one in the morning I pushed the dead bike home, and I stopped at a convenience store on the way and bought the cheapest box of spaghetti on the shelf.
There were no eggs and no vegetables, so I cooked myself plain spaghetti when I got in.
I looked at my mom's photo and said quietly, "I saw them today."
She was smiling in the picture, and I smiled too.
"Don't worry. I didn't make a scene, and I didn't embarrass myself."
All I had done was swallow it and ask for five stars, because a person had to live, and living meant swallowing plenty of things she never wanted to.
*****
The next day, the moment I logged on, a notice popped up. [Your service score is too low. Please follow delivery guidelines.]
I sighed, closed it, and went back to taking orders, but from that day on one strange thing happened after another.
Some people ordered, never picked up the phone, gave the wrong address, and then reported me for a late delivery.
Others left a note to drop it in the underground garage and told me they had never ordered anything once I got there.
Others had me deliver into an office tower, security wouldn't let me in, and the customer screamed at me over the phone like he was smashing dishes.
Three days brought seven complaints, and the app suspended my peak-hour orders.
I sat at the roadside and refreshed the screen again and again, and there were no orders at all.