Chapter Text
The first mistake Joe makes is thinking that shopping for people will be easy. And it seems easy from the outside – just pick up a few items and deliver them to the person's house so they don't have to go out and do it themselves. There's always a big itemized list with pictures of each thing, the system is intuitive and user-friendly, and Joe has no problem meeting and chatting with new people every single day. In fact, it's one of the highlights.
But it turns out there's much more to it than that. There's navigating the pay schedule and remembering the commission rate. There's reporting tips and bonuses. There's the angry and fed-up customers who yell at Joe because their order is late, or, dear god, he substituted an item he couldn't find with something else. And then there's the repeat customers. Well, one repeat customer in particular.
Said repeat customer lives in a tiny apartment less than fifteen blocks from where Joe himself lives. The kind of apartment usually rented out by students or young single professionals who don't spend a lot of time at home. Which is weird in and of itself, because from what Joe can tell, this customer is either a complete recluse or is running an Italian restaurant out of their tiny kitchen. Joe spends hours searching for things he's only heard about on cooking shows – Parma ham, very specific and expensive cheeses, boxes of obscure pasta shapes. And god forbid if Joe has to substitute something, because they are nothing if not meticulous in their ratings of his service.
And that's really all Joe knows about them. Unlike most of his other customers, who will greet him at the door and exchange a few words, all Joe has really seen or heard of this customer is a pale hand reaching from the doorway and a quiet, heavily accented “thank you.” Half unintentionally, Joe starts imagining them as a supernatural creature of some sort – though not a vampire, not with the amount of garlic they buy. Maybe a witch, or someone with a dreadful curse put upon them, or a hideous freak of nature. Though, reasonably, they're probably just agoraphobic. Though it doesn't answer why they always seem to pick Joe to be their shopper on the service.
It isn't until almost four or five months of weekly deliveries that Joe finally gets a good look at this mysterious repeat customer. Joe is delivering yet another order of Italian ingredients to their apartment, when, as the door opens, a furry blur shoots out into the hallway.
“Cazzo!” the customer shrieks, and Joe is nearly knocked over as they run out into the hallway. It turns out the mysterious customer is a white man around Joe's age, just slightly shorter than him with an awful do-it-yourself haircut and absolutely no fashion sense.
“Parmagiana, dulcezza, no! Ritorno, per favore!” the man cries, running down the hall after what Joe now realizes is a cat. He runs in the way of people who are physically active but rarely have to actually run after something, and the cat clearly has him outmatched, sprinting off down the long hallway and down the stairs. The man looks helplessly down the stairwell after it, then turns to look at Joe.
“Um.....” The two of them stare at eachother for a long moment, long enough for Joe to get a good look at how surprisingly handsome his mysterious customer is. He's got a nice face, with high cheekbones and a square jaw, big eyes and full lips. His eyes are a strange greyish-greenish-bluish color, set deep in their sockets astride a regal Roman nose. Joe wishes suddenly that he'd brought his sketchbook with him, so that he could draw this man.
“Hello? Are you listening?”
Oh, shit, he was talking to him. Joe chuckles sheepishly, thanking God that his darker skin hides the growing redness in his cheeks.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
The man huffs in annoyance. “I said,” he repeats loudly, “I need help to get my cat. I need you to help me.”
Joe nods a little too enthusiastically. “Sure, sure I can help you!”
“Thank you. Put the groceries down by the door.”
Joe does as he's told, then joins the man by the stairs. There's no sign of the cat on any of the landings he can see, unfortunately, meaning it must have run the whole way down or ran off into one of the lower levels. Joe thinks about how bad this is going to look on his delivery timer, thinks about the texts from corporate asking him what happened. He better be getting five-star reviews from this guy from now on.
They start making their way down the stairs, the man calling out “Parmagiana! Qui, gatta, gatta!” every few seconds. It's a big building, and Joe's calves are burning by the time they reach the bottom floor, with still no sign of the cat. His customer's face is creased with worry, and he keeps pulling his hands close to his chest and waving them rapidly.
“Does your cat escape a lot?” Joe asks.
“Only recently,” the man says. “Only recently she has been escaping. I don't know why. Parmagiana!”
They're almost out of the building when a familiar blur streaks past them. The customer screams again and whirls around, but the cat is too fast. Fortunately for them, she's too fixated on getting away from her owner to notice Joe walking a few steps behind him, and crashes into his leg. Joe snatches her up into his arms, much to her immediate displeasure.
“Gotcha!” Joe shouts triumphantly, and the full smile on his customer's face is enough to make up for the mauling he's currently receiving. He reaches out to take her, and Joe gratefully deposits the snarling bundle of white fur into his arms.
“Parmagiana!” he coos, before turning stern. “Gatta cattiva! Non scappare da casa!”
The three of them head back up the stairs to the customer's apartment. He doesn't speak to Joe much, but he does give him a twenty dollar tip and a “thank you very much” before finishing the order and retreating back into his apartment. Joe is halfway back home before he realizes he didn't even ask the man's name. He's in the shower when he realizes it's at the top of every order. Nicolo diGenova. Which means that he knows Joe's name, too, because it's displayed in the interface when choosing who will deliver items. Joe will have to remember that when he sees him again. Maybe he'll get more than a “thank you very much” out of it.