IT was weeks before I found out his name, weeks before I was able to get up the courage to actually ask someone who he was. I had been watching him from my position behind that huge wood, marble and real simulated brass reception desk since I had started working. Every morning, with the trickle that became a rush and then went back to a constant trickle, people walked into the building, past my station, never seeing me behind that monstrosity of a counter. I watched them, too, putting names to faces as I had been hired to do, checking them in and out of the building without their ever knowing that they were being checked. That was my gift, they said, face recognition. The names weren’t always as easy, so I occasionally made up names. Like Mr. Don’t-Talk-To-Me-I’m-Too-Important and Little Miss Gucci. By the end of the first fortnight, I had placed about 99% of them. Except for him. He wasn’t on the regular list - I never did find out why.

The funny thing was, he always smiled at me when he came in, one of the few (and the term “few” may be an exaggeration) who did. And it was a genuine smile, as if he really was happy to see me. That was even more rare. I started looking forward to seeing him each morning, seeing his smiling crinkled eyes, his longer-than-fashionable hair, combed back so elegantly. I had him pegged as a European even before he opened his mouth, but when he did, oh, let me tell you. If his smile was a pleasure, his voice was absolute nirvana. The timbre, the melodious accent, and certainly not the least, his words. Always kind, as if it were his duty to make my day start out well.

Yeah, you guessed it. I fell hard.

I passed him one day in the hall and was surprised to see him huddled in the corner with the Chairman’s daughter. (She, I had figured out immediately.) They were whispering so intently that I felt like an intruder while I was still 20 feet away. I had no idea what they were talking about, but the intensity of his expression was palpable. There he was, my gallant knight, consummately absorbed in some great battle with the forces of Darkness. I knew he would feel so strongly, knew he would be so passionate. I just wished to heaven that I knew what it was all about.

So often, he would be late going home, later even than my ten or twelve hour shift. Once, (oh, I wish it had been more) he and I were leaving the building at the same hour, and he offered to walk me to my car. Not that I was ever worried about being mugged or anything here. Ha, that’s a laugh. This is probably the safest place in the country, that is, if you have permission to leave. But still, cliché though it is, it was the thought that mattered so much to me. The chivalry of the deed. But had I expected anything less?

I guess that’s why I decided to help the man who approached me in the grocery store. Yeah, I know, strange place for a rendezvous, but that’s where he found me, trying to pick one of three trillion kinds of frozen pizza. He was polite, non-threatening, if a tad strange, and had a little bit of the same aire as the man that he called his “mentor.” I imagine that’s why I listened to him for more than half a minute – normally I would have been in the Express Check-out before he had gotten past his name. But listen I did, all through the frozen food, down the produce aisle, and the dairy products. A bag of green seedless grapes and six ounces of Neufchatel later, I agreed.

So, that’s how it happened. How I turned into the “mail drop” for Sydney. How I became the one to leave him the cryptic little notes, the brown-paper-wrapped packages, the various “droppings” as Miss Parker once graphically described them. I did it because I thought that Sydney would appreciate them, that they would make him happy, just as he could make me happy with his smile. I did it because I wanted to help, because I cared.

No, I never met the man who introduced himself as Jarod again. The packages would just appear on the table next to my front door. At first, it freaked me out a little, knowing that someone could just walk into my house, but he never touched anything, and eventually, it was almost reassuring knowing that he would be around sooner or later, that I would be able to deliver my little box of sunshine to Sydney.

I just wanted to help him, to help Sydney. I didn’t do anything wrong, I was just the messenger.

Can I go home now?