Baltimore, Maryland
Four years later.
Back to Baltimore. Gabriel turned the key to his new apartment, left and right and left again, trying to figure out which direction meant locked and which meant open. He thought he’d felt the bolt slide back, but the door wouldn’t budge. He experimentally threw a shoulder into it, and it gave way with a pop, almost sending him sprawling into the foyer. Whoops! There we go.
The apartment was part of a charming, one hundred fifty year old converted Victorian in Fells Point, a neighborhood Gabriel probably couldn’t have afforded to live in without the subsidized rent that was a perk of his new job with the Anastasia Anderson Legal Fund. He’d be able to bike to work from here, and the neighborhood was perfect– filled with lots of cute little restaurants, shops, and charming parks. The metro station was a five minute walk from his front door and there was a bus stop just across the street. Perfect for a crunchy, car-phobic hipster like him.
Gabriel gave himself a quick tour, and found that the place was amazing. Two bedrooms, spacious living room, hardwood floors, high ceilings, a bath with a big clawfoot tub, washer and dryer, a modernized kitchen with upscale appliances, plenty of windows and lots of light. One thing was for sure, tricky door or not, it was a major upgrade from the crappy off-campus apartment he’d lived in while he'd been going to Loyola. Or the run-down matchbox he'd lived in in San Francisco. To top it all off, the power and water had actually been turned on in advance without a major struggle with either company, which Gabriel found miraculous.
“Gabriel Cooper?” called a voice from the hallway. Gabriel walked back out into the foyer and saw that the moving company had arrived precisely at the scheduled time, which surprised him. Then again, the previous moves in his life had involved a rented U-haul and/or an overstuffed car and an aching lower back, so he was new to the world of professional movers. Maybe they always showed up on time?
“That’s me!” Gabriel cheerfully announced, giving a little wave.
A burly guy in white coveralls with a AAA Moving Service logo embroidered on the chest offered him a quick handshake. “Okay, sir, I’m Jeremy, I’m with AAA Moving Service. Are you ready for us to start bringing everything up?” Jeremy was sporting a magnificently retro brown handlebar mustache and a resplendent bald head. The man had an official looking clipboard tucked under his arm and a friendly smile. Gabriel automatically scented the air in the room. Granted, his ability to scent people wasn’t the most reliable anymore, but to him, Jeremy smelled pleasantly of detergent and doublemint gum and nothing else. Probably a Beta. Excellent. Maybe it wasn’t fair to have a bias, but Gabriel couldn’t help feeling a bit more comfortable around Betas and Omegas, especially when the person in question was standing inside his home and there was no one else around.
Reassured, Gabriel was not only ready, he was eager to get started. “Sure, let me just put my bag down and I’ll come help.”
“Oh, no, sir, that won’t be necessary.” The mover checked the clipboard. “Looks like this contract covers the white-glove moving service, so we’ll be bringing everything up and then my crew’s going to unpack it for you. You just have tell us where you want everything.”
Gabriel was taken aback. So he was just going to sit and watch? Weird. “Oh! Okay. I don’t mind helping.”
Jeremy shook his head. “No sir, absolutely not. This is all arranged. You just relax and let us handle it.”
"Oooookay, Jeremy. You're the boss." Gabriel tried to look like he was used to white-glove anything.
Gabriel walked into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge just to see what kind of space he had to work with, and was shocked to see that it was already loaded with an array of fresh groceries. Eggs, butter, milk, oat milk, some nice cheese, apples, a series of containers from a local deli… the works. He walked over to the long pantry cupboard and peeked inside. Brand new packages of pasta, crackers, a loaf of crusty bread, flour, sugar, and other pantry staples, and on the top shelf, two bottles of expensive looking wine, one red and one white. What in the bibbity-bobbity-boo…
Curious, Gabriel explored a little more and also turned up a set of fresh towels in the bathroom, some artisanal goat’s milk soap and lotion, and full-sized bottles of fancy salon-brand shampoo and conditioner. Over the fancy eco-friendly front-loading washer and dryer were new bottles of some heavenly smelling green laundry detergent and fabric softener. It is really not going to help my street cred if they find out back in Berkeley that my bleeding-edgy new forefront of the Omegan Rights movement deep-in-enemy-territory nonprofit job is pampering me like I’m Elle Woods. Gabriel could get used to this. Digging his phone out of his back pocket, he looked through his contacts for Jem Dearing, one of the paralegals he’d be working with at the foundation.
Jem picked up on the second ring. “Hey Gabriel! Are you here? How was your flight? Do you miss California yet?”
“I am here. The flights were fine, thanks. I just got to the apartment about 20 minutes ago and I am floored. It’s fabulous– makes it very hard to miss Berkeley fog and biking up hill both ways. And someone loaded it up with all kinds of goodies. Was it you? Who do I have to thank for this?”
Jem quickly demurred. “Oh, that wasn’t me. That would probably be Victoria Anderson. She’s the chair of the board for the whole Foundation. You’ll meet her at the board meeting on Thursday night. You’ll like her– she’s sharp as a tack, and she can organize like a four-star general. I know she’s very happy you’ve come on board, she’s been intent on getting the legal fund up and rolling for years, so I’m not surprised she pulled out all the stops.”
Gabriel wandered through the kitchen and pulled open a random drawer. Corkscrew. He checked another cabinet. A set of wine glasses. This woman was magnificent. “Could you get me her number so I can call and thank her?”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll send you the contact. I know you already know the city, but would you like to have a little 'Welcome Back' semi-working dinner with me tomorrow night? And I can get you up to speed on everything before your first day.”
“That would be perfect.” They chatted for a while longer, and as soon as Gabriel ended the call, Jem sent the contact.
For the next few hours, Gabriel directed the moving crew as they unpacked and arranged his furniture and belongings. They even hung the pictures and assembled a bookshelf for him. In a little over three hours, the six-person crew had him completely settled in, which would have probably taken him six weeks if he’d chipped away at it after work and on the weekends. When it was time for them to leave, Gabriel tried to hand Jeremy a generous tip, but was immediately shut down with a smile that lifted the handle bars, “Oh, no sir. That’s been taken care of, too. You enjoy your night. And welcome to Baltimore!”
Dazed by the speed of his move-in, Gabriel wondered what to do with himself. First, he needed to call Mrs. Anderson. Feeling a little nervous about calling a four-star general fairy godmother chairperson of the board with the power to make or break his new career, he stared at the phone for a while gathering his courage.
He coached himself. Gabriel, why are we here?
We are here to make a difference.
That’s right. Gabriel, why have we chosen to return to Baltimore?
Because we don’t back down from a fight. And we don’t live in fear.
That’s right. After three years at one of the toughest law schools in the country, law review, a punishing clerkship, and two years of volunteer work with a legal aid office in one of the tougher neighborhoods in Oakland, are we going to be scared of the very nice lady who created our job and who tricked out our fantastic subsidized apartment with lovely things including wine?
No, we are not… but we are going to have a glass of that wine before we make this call.
That’s fair, Gabriel.
Fortified by a glass of beaujolais, Gabriel called. He had a brief and very pleasant conversation with a woman who seemed quite happy to hear from him and who deftly deflected all of his attempts to thank her on the grounds that all she had done was “make a couple of phone calls.” Victoria Anderson expressed an eagerness to meet him in person at Thursday’s meeting and looked forward to introducing him to several people that she was sure would be very helpful to him. She wished Gabriel a wonderful first week and a lovely evening and then, poof, she was gone.
Gabriel felt a little conversational whiplash, but he felt it had gone well. See Gabriel? Nailed it. He high-fived a million angels and poured himself a celebratory glass of wine. Now he just needed to figure out what to wear for his first day.
Comments (21)
See all