Chapter 3: Her Name Was on My Parking Spot

Subject: Facilities Update: Garage Reallocation (Effective Monday) I have parked in Space 14 for six years. It is near the elevator, it has a column that shields my car from the sun, and it was, until Monday, mine. On Monday there was a small laminated sign bolted to the wall reading 'RESERVED: J. VOSS.' I looked at it for a full minute. The sign did not look back, which I respected.

I did what any mature professional would do. I parked in it anyway. At 9:12 a.m. my phone buzzed. A message from Julian: 'There appears to be a Subaru in my life.' I wrote back that the Subaru had seniority. He replied, 'Seniority is a state of mind.' I told him that state of mind was currently holding a coffee and a grudge, and I locked my phone in a drawer.

I did what any mature professional would do.

By noon the war had escalated. He left a sticky note on my windshield that said 'Nice parking.' I left one on his monitor that said 'Nice taste in furniture, shame about the personality.' He added a second note under mine: 'Dinner?' I crossed out 'Dinner' and wrote 'Absolutely not' and put it back, in the same spot, with a certain amount of ceremony.

The facilities manager, a gentle man named Desmond, eventually called us both into a room and asked whether we could 'share the garage like adults.' Julian said yes. I said no. Desmond sighed with the weariness of a man who has watched this exact opera before. Then he slid a key across the table and said the matter would be handled by whoever got in earlier. Julian smiled. I did not.

Tuesday I arrived at 6:40 a.m. to find Space 14 occupied by his gray sedan. On the dashboard, face up, was a coffee in my usual order and a note: 'Early bird. Truce?' I stood in the empty garage with the cup warm in my hand, and the humiliating thing is that it was perfect. Oat milk, one sugar, extra hot. I had never told him that. I took it upstairs and told no one.

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