Julia stood at the front of the room, clipboard in hand. “Alright, team, this year The Oddity is running a Valentine’s candygram fundraiser. I need y’all to help with deliveries and orders. Any volunteers?”
The room fell into a dead silence. Theo sprawled in his chair with his feet on the desk and didn’t even look up from his phone. “Hard pass. I don’t do romance.”
Ollie raised his hand while unwrapping what appeared to be his third granola bar of the hour. “Question, do we get to eat the chocolate if someone doesn’t want it?”
“No, Ollie,” Julia said. “Then I’m out.”
Daniel, who had been typing at his laptop, finally looked up, his expression dark. “Absolutely not, Valentine’s Day is a capitalist hellscape designed to make people feel like shit about themselves. I’d rather eat glass.”
“Perfect! Daniel, you’re taking orders with Ollie!” Julia said brightly.
“Did you hear a single word I just said?”
“Oh no, I did; I just don’t care!” Julia said with a huge grin.
Lena, sitting on the couch, smiled, “I think it’s sweet. I can help co-ordinate the marketing side, but I’m not great with the logistics of deliveries and —”
“That’s great! Lena’s in charge of deliveries.” Julia said quickly. “Wait, I didn’t —”
“And Theo, you’re helping her.” Theo’s head snapped up. “Excuse me, what? Did I have a stroke? Did you just volunteer me?”
“You’re the only one with a car that doesn’t sound like it’s actively dying,” Julia exclaimed.
“My car is a 2003 Honda Civic with a duct-taped bumper and a check engine light that’s been on since the Obama administration. It IS actively dying.”
“Still better than Jamie’s bike, or Ollie’s skateboard.” Theo groaned, sliding further down in his chair.
Daniel slammed his laptop shut. “Julia, I’m serious. Put me on literally anything else. I’ll clean the bathroom. I’ll organize the archive closet. Anything but this.”
“Too late!” Julia clapped her hands again. “Great! So, it’s settled. Lena and Theo are running point on deliveries. Jamie, you’ll take photos for our social media coverage. Ollie and Daniel, you’re on customer service.”
The next day, Ollie and Daniel sat at the front desk in the main dining hall with their laptops, a spreadsheet that Julia had created and a concerning amount of candy wrappers on Ollie’s side and empty coffee cups on Daniel’s.
“Okay, next!” Ollie called out to the line of students that had formed. A nervous-looking freshman approached. “Um, hi. I want to send one to someone in my Econ class.”
“Name?” Daniel asked, not looking up from his laptop, where he was clearly working on something else.
“Mine or theirs?”
“Theirs. I don’t care who you are.”
“Oh. Right. Sarah Chen.” Ollie typed slowly, using only his index fingers. “Sarah … Chen. Got it. What do you want the message to say?” The freshman’s face turned red. “Uh … ‘You make my heart go boom boom, I hope I make yours too?’”
Daniel’s head snapped up. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Is that bad?”
“It sounds like you’re threatening her with a cardiac event. Or a bomb. Are you threatening her with a bomb?”
“I-no! It’s romantic!”
“It’s psychotic,” Daniel said flatly. “Five dollars.” As the freshman scurried away, looking traumatized, Ollie turned to Daniel. “Dude, you’re supposed to be encouraging.”
“I’m supposed to be writing about the corruption within our government system, but here I am, facilitating this.”
“Who hurt you?” Ollie said.
Ollie and Daniel then flew through a couple more orders. Jamie appeared with her camera. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve lost faith in humanity’s ability to flirt,” Ollie said. Daniel leaned back in his chair. “My favourite so far was the guy who wanted to send one that just said, ‘Netflix and chill?’ with a winky face. I told him that’s not a Valentine and he should be ashamed of himself.”
“Did he change it?” Jamie asked.
“No, he went with it. Some poor girl is going to get the world’s laziest proposition on Valentine’s Day.”
“How many orders did we take?” Ollie asked. Daniel checked the spreadsheet. “Two hundred and thirty-seven. And I rejected about forty for being creepy, pathetic, or just plain stupid.”
Valentine’s Day arrived with all the subtlety of a brick through a window. The Oddity’s office was transformed into a candygram command centre, with Julia like a general surveying her troops. “Okay, people! We have two hundred and thirty-seven candygrams to deliver by the end of the day.”
Theo loaded the first batch of candygrams into his car while Lena checked them against her organized checklist. Jamie sat in the backseat, camera ready. Their first stop was the North dorms. Theo carried a box of candygrams while Lena knocked on doors. The first few deliveries went smoothly.
Then they got to Room 347. Lena checked her list. “Candygram for … Daniel Le.” Theo froze. “… No.”
Jamie frowned. “What?”
“That’s Daniel, as in our Daniel,” Jamie blinked, “The anti-love guy?”
Lena hesitated, then knocked. The door opened and Daniel stared at them. They stared back.
“This is a mistake,” Daniel said immediately.
Jamie lifted the camera. “Don’t,” Daniel warned.
Lena glanced at the candygram. “It says uh —” She stopped and let out a laugh. Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you laughing?”
Lena tried to recover. “I just — sorry, I didn’t realize.” Theo leaned in. “What?”
Lena opened the bag and looked inside again. “Oh my god,” she said, laughing harder now. “Daniel, you don’t have one.”
Silence.
“You have eighteen.” Jamie craned her neck. “Holy shit.”
“That’s not possible,” Daniel said flatly. Jamie snapped the photo. Daniel reached out, took the bag and exhaled slowly. Theo clapped him on the shoulder. “Congrats, man. You accidentally started a fan club.”
Daniel shut the door without another word.
By late afternoon, Theo, Lena and Jamie were down to the last dozen candygrams. They pulled up to the South dorms and delivered the final candygrams. As they walked back to the car, Theo paused, fishing something out of his bag. He cleared his throat, looking uncharacteristically nervous.
“Hey … Lena?”
She turned, curious. “Yeah?”
Theo held up a candygram, then sighed. “I was … uh … I was so used to doing this for you when we were together, so … here.”
Lena blinked, then a small smile spread across her face, “Thanks, actually, I got one for you too.” She said as she pulled out a candygram and handed it to him.
Jamie, naturally, took a photo. “Delete that,” Theo said, his cheeks turning red.
“Never,” Jamie replied.
Image by: Mallika Badwal | Lead Infinitum Writer
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