Read When the Messenger Is Hot for Free Online

brought the box up to me himself, but he didn’t say anything about it), and a week to the day, called Harriet’s for more chicken, two orders. I didn’t know what he’d do, but the chicken is just as good the next day, so I wasn’t worried about it going to waste. Which it didn’t, anyway, because he did stay, only for a little while, because he wasn’t really on a break, during which time I of course imagined a lot of testy people waiting for the elevator. He told me he wanted to stay and chat the first time but he thought maybe I didn’t want to see anyone. I don’t mind if people come up , I said. It’s the going out. I’m not very outgoing . I leaned in to emphasize my little play on words, and he nodded like he understood, but he didn’t laugh out loud or anything, and obviously, the guy goes out. Look, I have to go now , he said, but would you mind if I came back another time?
    Let’s review: fabulous rent-free Central Park West penthouse, free everything else, cute elevator man wants to come up. This was all working out even better than I’d hoped.
    um, no, not at all , I said.
    The elevator man came back the next day; I almost didn’t recognize him in his street clothes, black Levi’s and a rumply lavender oxford shirt, untucked. I wondered whether to take the lavender as some sign of solidarity. He looked even better than he did in his uniform, but it left me unable to cast him exactly, some cross between edgy and messy prep. He was obviously neither, and although we talked at some length over time, it turned out that he was fully his own person, with some thoughts and ideas I found to be both original and comprehensible. I didn’t agree with everything he said, and he didn’t seem to need me to, which was sort of a refreshing change from some of my exes, although I can’t exactly say whether we were dating or not. Anyway, he told me that his parents were with the circus; I felt it might be invasive to ask in what capacity, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t freaks of any kind. He’s extremely normal-looking, and also, while he seems to have a sense of humor, he kind of always has this serious look on his face. (You have to look for the twinkle when he’s trying to be funny — that’s how you can tell, when you’re not sure.) They traveled extensively around the country when he was a kid, and then when he was seventeen his parents moved more into circus management and settled down in a small town in Oklahoma, which was about when he moved to New York. He’s been an elevator man here in this building almost ever since then.
    So you like what you do? I asked.
    It’s a good job , he said. It doesn’t change much. I like the people. You’d be surprised how interesting that can be .
    I don’t think I would , I said. I was thinking how people were often a little too interesting for me. He admitted that he writes a little poetry too. It’s fairly bad , he said with that twinkle.
    Another time he stopped by when I had been looking down onto 73rd Street, trying to figure out about all the people (something I did often, it wasn’t any weird coincidence), and I said, Come here, look , and he looked and nodded and I said, Where do they all go all the time? Home? Work? Home again? he asked. I think so , I said, but over and over again like that? I’m pretty sure , he said, smiling. The elevator man didn’t ever ask me a lot of questions, and I’m not stupid, I’m sure my residency on the roof probably answered most of them in his mind. Looking down at all those tiny people moving around like that all the time, home, work, in, out, day after day, I dunno, it just seemed to me like it wasn’t me who was acting strange.
    A few months went by, and the elevator man and I had gotten to know each other pretty well, and like I said, I was never really sure about the romantic thing, it