by Alyssa Cole
She sighs, shakes her head. “Look, there’s no point to dragging this out. We clearly have different values and our relationship has been stalled for months. From before we even moved in. We’re both relatively young and—”
“Where am I supposed to live?” I cut her off. My face is hot and I feel ridiculous and exposed: broke, jobless, and half-naked, about to be kicked out of my own house. “I threw most of my savings into moving into this place with you, I’m on the mortgage, and now you think you can—”
“I can kick you out? Yes,” she says, standing her bag up. “I know you’re about to mention tenancy laws or equity or something tedious, but only one of us has a parent who’s a high-powered attorney with detailed knowledge on the matter.”
“You aren’t even going to offer to buy me out?” That’s the real blow. She can afford to do that. She can more than afford it—she doesn’t even need my contribution to the mortgage, but I’d wanted to prove to her that I wasn’t just using her for her money.
I’d wanted to provide, but I’d been the caveman bringing an emaciated hare to our campfire when her family had already downed and preserved a herd of woolly mammoths.
She laughs, one sharp ha. “Why should I? Dad never did like you anyway. I’m sure he’d love a reason to fuck with you some more.”
“You liked me once, though,” I say.
She looks at me like she’s the harried heroine in a romantic comedy and I’m the Joe Blow standing between her and happiness.
“Things change.” A horn honks outside and she shrugs. “Look, I’m giving you a week. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a room somewhere.”
Not when you’re rich and can pass any background check, I imagine.
“Thanks for the last few years. They were good, mostly. But they’re over now, and I’m doing what’s best for me. My therapist told me that I’ll be much happier once my living situation is free of toxic people, so there’s no reason to put it off any longer.”
With that, she strolls out of the living room and out of my life, too, I guess.
“Oh!” Her voice rings out in the hallway. “You can have the leftover wine in the fridge, but don’t fuck up any of my belongings or I’ll make your life hell.”
Then she’s really gone.
I head into the shower, or my body does while my mind starts running through possibilities. I don’t have any friends I can crash with—before her I’d been new to the city and friendless, hanging with my roommates out of convenience. Other than that, I’d mostly had acquaintances I’d lost touch with or who may or may not be in jail somewhere. Mom has never been able to help, so that’s not a possibility.
The chances of ever getting another job like the one I got to make Kim happy are slim to none, and besides, it was too much work. I have other ways of making money fast, which is why I’ll be able to afford a couple months’ rent, but I’d convinced myself I was just making do while times were tough. Am I really just going to fall back into that life again?
When I was young, I’d get so mad at my mom for always making the same stupid mistakes. Now I wonder if there’s any avoiding that pattern. I tried hard as hell to break it, and look where it’s gotten me.
After a few minutes of standing under the lukewarm spray, the panic and anger get shunted away like they have all my life—probably compacting into a tumor in some dark corner of my body—and I turn off the water and calmly step out.
I have a week. I’ll be fine.
We often moved with way shorter notice when I was a kid—I know for a fact that you can pack up everything you really need to get by in half an hour. A week is golden.
Everything will be fine.
She’s probably giving David a handie on the LIE right now.
Whatever.
I head to her fridge, pull the fancy stopper out of the wine Josie had been trying to get me to drink the other night, and take a huge swallow of the too-sweet liquid. Leftovers from the fancy Italian restaurant we used to go to when we were renting in Manhattan sit on the shelf below, and I grab the box out of sheer spite.
Given the short notice, I’ll probably end up in some illegal living room rental with an IKEA curtain for a wall. I deserve this leftover vegetarian lasagna—that’s what she always orders.
I know those kinds of things about her, and she knows nothing about me. Nothing. And not just the stuff I hid from her.
I take another swig of the Riesling—which has gone bad but will still get me buzzed—then carry the box to the microwave and open it.
It’s shrimp scampi.
Well, would you look at that.
After warming the food, I carry the bottle up to my studio and sit at my desk to start searching for a place. I drink. I send a text asking an old contact I’d been trying to avoid slinking back to if he has any work for me, hoping the number is still in service. I drink. I look at more places, and email a couple of them.
I’m still in whatever numb state is preventing me from being really pissed off at Kim—I’m mostly mad at myself.
I’d known she wasn’t my type when we first met at that happy hour—she’d clearly been slumming it at dollar shots night while I was actually trying to save a buck. Our first dates had been in the summer, full of free concerts, train rides to the beach, and cheap beer. It was only when she’d taken me to a fancy restaurant to meet her friends four months in that I’d realized how different our bank statements, and our everyday lives, really were. But at that point it had been an ego thing—the hot rich girl liked me.
She was vibrant, and independent, and she didn’t need me.
Her family was old money and they’d be passing it on to her.
I had to keep her.
Jesus, it’s pathetic in retrospect, and really fucked up on my end. Had I liked her for more than the fact that she liked me when she shouldn’t? That she didn’t mind picking up the tab, after all? That she liked putting my life in order and pushing me to reach for things a guy like me would’ve never even known about?
When she’d told me I needed to get a better job . . . I’d reached a bit too high. Part of me resents that that particular Jenga block was tugged from the bottom and brought everything crashing down only after the ink had dried on the deed for this place.
The ping of an email response sounds from the computer—one of the rental ads has already responded because it’s a scam. I delete it and the previous email fills the screen.
Tour Basic Overview
I click the link to the shared document Sydney sent earlier, her research opening in a new tab on my browser. A circle floats in the right-hand corner of the screen, a picture of a cartoon string bean. When I hover over it, [email protected] pops up. I try not to be goofy about the fact that she’s on the other side of my screen in a way. I just get to work.
I scroll past the pages she already showed me and go to a section entitled “Black home ownership.”
Owning property was seen as pivotal to obtaining full citizenship status; abolitionists and activists over the course of Brooklyn’s history have suggested that efforts to block home ownership and/or devalue property in Black communities can be seen as an attack on Black citizenship and general well-being.
I’m not sure if these are Sydney’s words or someone else’s, but it occurs to me that all those nights I saw her taking notes on her couch, between crying bouts and glasses of wine, this is probably what she was working on. Even though she’s been acting like this is something she’s doing on a whim and hasn’t given enough attention to.
I open another tab and type “Dutch West India Company + Brooklyn” in the search bar, then skim through the preview text that pops up for each hit, seeing if anything catches my eye.
After the establishment of New Amsterdam, the Dutch set about what would be one of their most lasting contributions to the five boroughs—the importation of Africans to work on farms and public works.
The preview text for another site reads: . . . with the end of slavery in
Brooklyn, many of the Dutch West India Company slave owners turned their eye to a new industry: banking.
I snort. Yeah, having just been fired from a bank job, I know why some lazy asshole would turn to that business. Easy money, made from other people’s hard work.
I should keep looking for a place, but instead, I grab the bottle of wine and start to read.
I COME TO with half my body slid off my office chair, the low grunt and moan of porn buzzing from my headphones, which lie across the desk. Some weird shit that I can only assume is the result of autoplay and someone else’s eclectic video playlist is happening on my screen. I don’t remember pulling up any porn. I don’t remember anything after staring at an ad for a shitty basement apartment in Mill Basin. The giant bottle of wine is mostly empty, but my head is spinning like I don’t regularly crush a six-pack a night by myself.
I reach out to slam the laptop screen down, but my motion is slow and unsteady, so I just tap pause and try to get my bearings.
I hit tab to change the screen and end up in the document. I blink and watch as a gap opens up between Sydney’s single-spaced paragraphs, white space eating the screen. Fear tingles up the back of my neck for some reason, until I realize my own hand is resting on the space bar. I lift it with some effort . . . and the white space keeps eating the page, then suddenly stops. The cursor blinks there in the whiteness, then words start to type:
Not feeling too hot, are you?
Sydney?
No. When I look into the right-hand corner, the cartoon bean is gone, replaced by a black circle. Someone else is in the document.
Too much wine’ll do that to you, whoever it is types.
I manage to get the screen down even though my arms feel numb, but when I try to stand up, a painful retch ripples through my stomach and diaphragm.
“Ugh.”
I burp, the taste of bile on my tongue giving an additional warning that moving isn’t a great idea right now. I can’t stand and I also don’t want to puke on one of the few things of value that I’ll be able to take with me when I move out, so I use my feet to propel myself away from the desk, slowly rolling to the window beside it. I park myself directly in front of the fan shoved into the casing, then carefully lean back in the chair and sit still with the nausea. Very still.
How did I get this drunk?
I spent a significant portion of my early twenties pounding vodka in Russian social clubs and never suffered worse than a few blackouts.
The last time I threw up was in high school. I’d gone to a party where I’d unsuccessfully tried to hit on five girls and ended up nursing a bottle of 151 in a corner. Maybe this is how my body responds to rejection.
Wait. Someone was in the document. Someone not Sydney was in the document, typing like they could see me. What was that about?
A deep and melodious howl pierces the night, raising the hairs on my arms. I know this sound—one of my mom’s shitty exes was a hunter, and this is the sound of a hound raising the alarm.
Count.
In the months we’ve lived here, I’ve heard the occasional bark from him—it’s usually Toby that engages in barkapalooza—but nothing like this.
There’s a movement across the street, in Mr. Perkins’s place, on the first floor. I feel woozy and the flickering light from the television in his living room doesn’t help, but there’s definitely someone moving around in there.
Shit.
A post on the OurHood app said there’s been a spate of break-ins, but I know the cause of that rumor. And no one around here would choose his house of all places, would they?
Maybe he’s getting a late-night snack, but I’ve never seen him up this late. He’s usually awake and outside by six—he’s one of my constants, sometimes deviating but generally always following the same pattern. Something is extremely off right now, and out of it as I am, my unease solidifies into clear foreboding; something bad is about to happen. When you have been the bad thing, you get pretty good at knowing what the calm before the storm feels like.
I lean forward, peering through the whirring blades of the fan; the motion makes me want to hurl so I reach up to turn the power switch to zero.
Count barks again, and I squint to see what’s happening through the slowing blades. Mr. Perkins walks into the living room slowly, then is blocked by the fan blade. He looks left—fan blade. Now his head is turned back sharply over his shoulder—fan blade. When I look at the other front-facing window, I spot two bulky shadows pass the glow of the television. Another revolution of the fan blade and the shadows are gone. I want to say it was my imagination, but Count is barking more insistently now.
I see a light turn on in one of Terry and Josie’s windows—she’s likely up to post a noise complaint on the OurHood app—but it’s taking all of my concentration to focus on what’s going on at Mr. Perkins’s.
I grip the edge of the window frame and pull myself to a standing position. Black spots appear at the edges of my vision and my body is bathed in sweat, but I have a better view now. I see Mr. Perkins turning around, his eyes going wide as he takes a step back.
Count is barking and barking.
Shit.
I have to go help, but my body is so heavy. Have to call someone at least, but when I turn my head to look for my phone the room ripples and spins and I dry-heave.
Three things happen in quick succession: the TV shuts off in Mr. Perkins’s living room, leaving the windows dark; there’s a loud crash; and Count stops barking abruptly.
Actually, four things happen: I black out.
Gifford Place OurHood/privateusergroup/Rejuvenation
The Housing Authority has relayed some information: internal files regarding the project have been accessed. Likely nothing, but the matter should be looked into and dealt with, along with the FOIA requests.
Chapter 10
Sydney
I JERK AWAKE ON THE FLOOR BY THE BACK DOOR, CURLED UP like a dog that needs to go out. The haze of a bad dream releases its stranglehold on me, but the dirty mop taste in my mouth, residue of rosé and Ambien, persists.
I shouldn’t have taken the pills, but alcohol hadn’t knocked me out and my mind had been running laps around bad memories, and around good memories that now felt worse than the bad ones. I’d drunkenly grabbed the pills out of desperation; I don’t even remember how many I downed.
I sit up, wince at the pain in my neck. All of my attempts to knock out and have a few hours of peace were for nothing because the nightmares were so realistic that I’m even more exhausted.
There’d been demons in the walls, banging and scratching as they burrowed their way into the house to make me pay for my lies. I’d tried to run for help, to go to Mommy . . .
I wait for the anxiety from the dream to release its hold on me now that I’m awake, but nothing unclenches. Probably because reality is just as shitty and—oh fuck. It’s Thursday.
I push myself up to my feet and jog to my bedroom. My cell phone isn’t on the charger, and I start pulling pillows, duvet, sheets onto the floor until I hear a thud and grab for it.
The phone is dead. It was charging last I remember, so I must have used it during my Ambien stupor, as if things aren’t already bad enough.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
I snatch up the end of the charging cord and plug it in, that annoying image of a battery with a slim red line sitting on the screen forever, like it’s purposely fucking with me. Finally, a white apple appears, and then the security code prompt. Without thinking, I enter my old code—the date of the first day me and Marcus had met—which is, of course, wrong. I changed it three years ago, when I started to suspect he was checking my phone.
“You’re being paranoid, Sydney.”
I put in the new code, the numbers Mommy always played in the lotto.
The phone unlocks and after it connects to the network, the first thing that comes through is a text from Claude.
Yo, you need to chill. My girl saw your wild texts and now
she’s mad at ME. You’re going through something, I get it, but please delete my number.
Ouch.
I can’t bring myself to look at whatever humiliating, pathetic message I sent him, so I just delete the whole text chain. I expect to see a response from Drea letting me know how her night went, but she’s either still on her date from last night or is trying to enforce her “you can’t use me as a therapist” boundary.
None of that matters, though; there’s a voicemail from the lawyers. The call I’ve been waiting on, and maybe my last hope, and I slept through it. I ball my fist and dig it into my thigh as I return the call.
“Gladstone and Gianetti.”
“Hi, this is Sydney Green, I—”
“Hello, Ms. Green. Ms. Gianetti left you a message, but her schedule is packed for the next few weeks.”
“I’m sorry I missed her call. Is there really no way—”
“No.” The receptionist’s tone says this is final. “Unfortunately, it seems that there’s not much that can be done at this point with your mother’s case. She’ll be in contact via email. There’s also the matter of outstanding payment, which we understand might be difficult considering the situation.”
Surprisingly, I don’t feel anything. Somewhere, behind the desperation-fueled attempt at positivity, I’ve known they wouldn’t be able to help. “Okay. I understand.”
“You might also look into one of the nonprofits. They’d probably have more resources for you to act independently, too.”
“Okay.” I listen to her rattle off a phone number, but it’s already too late.
The truth that I’ve been avoiding at all costs starts to sink in: I’m fucked from every angle and no lawyer can help with that.
Pain builds in my chest, and I sink to the floor, eyes squeezed shut and barely able to sip in a breath.
I open the text function to my chain with Drea and tap the audio note feature. “Are you home? It’s happening again. My chest.”
I hit send and then curl up around the phone.
