by Natalie Dean
“No, I’m just researching.”
“Oh, researching? What, like this is a zoo?”
“No, not like that.”
“Well, if you’re at the zoo, you have to pay to get in, right? Did you pay your admission, rich boy?”
“He looks like a cowboy,” one of them said and laughed. “Is there such a thing as a rich cowboy?”
Silas declined from stating his family’s net worth. That seemed like the worst idea considering the situation.
“If you want admission, I’m glad to give you that. I have that in my wallet, which I’m going to grab from my pocket right now. Alright?” He carefully reached for it, opening up the leather to slip his ID from it before tossing it between him and the five. So much for thinking that the city was far too empty. “Take whatever you want.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re real used to doing that, aren’t ya?” the one that seemed to be the leader asked, finally getting off his ride. Silas finally saw that it was a regular bike that had a motor attached to it in a way he didn’t understand. Huh, that was wild. “Just coming in and taking whatever you want from people like us. They got a word for that, you know? Remix was just telling us about it. Weren’t you, Remix?”
One of the smallest of the five, a skinny whip of a young man with close-shaved hair and a face so bony he was almost a skeleton. If he wasn’t threatening Silas, he would have been tempted to feed the young man a burger. “G-g-g-gentrification.”
“That’s right. Gentrification.” The leader grinned and took another step, picking up the wallet. “Are you surprised we know that word? You lot think we’re so stupid, don’t you? Just a bunch of punks who don’t know no better than to be failures.”
Oh boy, there was a whole lot to unpack there. “I don’t think that.”
“Sure, you don’t,” he said, taking the cash out of Silas’ wallet then throwing the rest behind him. “You’re just here to evaluate the place and push us to prosperity like some sort of… of… Remix, what was that trope thing you were talking about?”
“W-w-white sav-vior.”
Oh. They called the kid Remix because he had a stutter. Wasn’t that something?
The leader snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s it. A white savior to come save all us dumb ghetto folk who just love being poor.”
There was that bite again. Was that how people saw him and his family? Silas didn’t get it. They weren’t trying to hurt anybody. In fact, his family’s payoffs would definitely change some of their lives. And those that stayed on the edges of the development—if it was successful—would have a huge influx of business. It could be good for everyone.
So why was this group of wannabe gang members looking at him like he was the villain?
“Well, you can go back to whatever mansion you came from and tell your big ol’ boss that you can’t buy us off. Tell him you’re not welcome here.”
“I’ll make sure your concerns are communicated.”
Silas was puzzled. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. But he wasn’t going to kowtow to them either. He just wanted to de-escalate the situation and get home. If that meant being diplomatic… well, he had experience with that. Managing his dad’s increasing temper tantrums was experience enough, along with navigating the rest of the politics needed to grow their family business as much as they had.
“I dunno,” another said, lips pulling back from his teeth in a snarl. “How do we know he’s gonna say it exactly how we want him to?”
“You know, that’s a fair point,” the leader said. Suddenly there was a knife in his hand, and Silas knew the situation wasn’t de-escalating at all. “I guess we’ll send the message ourselves then.”
Silas broadened his stance and raised his hands, bending his knees slightly. If it was going to be a fight, he was going to go down swinging. He wasn’t helpless; he knew that any fight with a knife usually ended in terrible injuries.
“Oh, he’s keyed up for a fight, is he? Look at him, some sort of kung-fu cowboy. Well then giddy—”
His taunt was cut off by a jarring boom that filled the entire alley. It jolted all of them, and Silas looked past the young men to see none other than the woman from the mechanic shop.
Even in the dark, she was striking. Pale skin and bright hair, grease on her coveralls. She was standing next to one of the garage doors, a baseball bat in her hands. So that was how she’d made the boom.
“What the hell do you lot think you’re doing? You know you’re not welcome near this property.”
They rounded on her and Silas was sure he was about to see a real fight go down, but Teddy seemed unbothered. She shifted, a hip out, and swinging the baseball bat behind her to rest on her shoulders. It was like something out of a movie, not possible, and yet that was exactly what Silas was seeing.
“What, your black daddy owns this alley too?”
“No,” Teddy said, taking a step forward and if that wasn’t a power move, Silas didn’t know what was.
She wasn’t the tallest woman, wasn’t the most jacked he had ever seen, wasn’t even the fattest, but she commanded the space like she was four times her size. The tension ramped up that much higher, to an impossible level, and Silas swore he saw the gangbangers wilt slightly.
“No, but that won’t stop me from beating the ever-loving crap out of y’all.”
The leader walked toward her a short way but stayed out of range of her bat. “Just ’cause you messed up a few faces you think you can take on all of us?”
“Nah,” she said, clearing her throat and spitting just in front of the young man’s shoes. “I know I can’t. But I also know that I can take out at least three of you before you bring me down.” She closed one eye and aimed her baseball bat out like a gun, sweeping over them all. “Wanna take bets on which one of you’s it’d be?”
Incredible. It was so different from the icy, measured tone she’d taken with him before. She was all heat and bravado, about twenty feet tall and sure of herself as a hurricane. It was baffling. It was awe-inspiring. It was confusing.
It was… hot.
There was silence for a long moment, the tension spiraling ever upward until finally, it snapped.
“Whatever,” the leader said, clicking his tongue. “Y’aint worth the sweat. Come on, let’s go get some food.”
And just like that, the group got back on their bikes and headed out, exchanging poisonous looks with the woman. She seemed to be completely unaffected, watching them with a bored expression before looking to Silas.
“Your car is ready,” she said flatly, lowering the baseball bat and crossing to a smaller door.
Silas stared after her, feeling a bit like he was caught in mood-whiplash.
…who was this woman?
5
Theodora
Teddy was irritated.
Actually, that was putting it lightly. It’d been such a stressful, fraught day from start to finish, the last thing she had wanted was to come out of her garden to see five lowlifes on her father’s property.
The long day had all started when they’d gotten a call from the local charity they worked with pretty often. They’d only been told about one car that needed some help to get on the road, but when they’d shown up, they’d found out that both of the vans the charity used were in need of repair.
So that was less than stellar and took both her and Andre way longer than it should have. But then after that, there had been some peripheral cars used for smaller errands that they’d worked on, and before either of them knew it, the day was practically gone.
So coming home and going through her nightly routine had been a huge relief. Relief that quickly dried up when she heard somewhat familiar voices in the alley. She’d grabbed the bat she kept above the mechanic shop door then headed out, unsurprised to see a group of young men that she had run into before.
It wasn’t all of the mini-gang, which numbered maybe about fifteen young men in total—all in their late teens and early twenties. To
say they didn’t get along with the shop was putting it mildly, but they had a loose sort of stalemate because all of their families and younger siblings loved either her, her father or the shop. If Teddy ran to their abuelas or moms and tattled, the sky would rain down on them.
But that unspoken truce didn’t cover the rich man whose car was in her shop, and that was exactly who they had cornered.
What was he even doing in the alley? Didn’t he have a lick of sense?
“Thank you for that,” he said, approaching her as she finished unlocking the door to the inside.
“Bad for business if some rich guy gets killed right outside of our shop.”
“Uh… thanks for the concern.”
She scoffed and headed inside. She was tired and cranky, and she was also irritated with the rich man for coming in and trying to poach her neighborhood. The community around her was hard built, with families and stories going back for generations. They opened their hearts and homes to her after everything had happened with her mother. Welcomed her with open arms even though she was pale and prickly and… well, her.
“Anyway, I apologize for the scheduling error. We had some emergencies come up suddenly and our fill-in for the receptionist didn’t get the memo in time. He was trying to be helpful. As an apology, we’d like to offer you ten percent off.”
He blinked at her like he was surprised. That irritated her too. He was always looking at her like she had grown another head. She knew that she wasn’t what people pictured when they thought of a mechanic, but that didn’t mean he needed to stare at her.
“Oh no, that’s fine. You were helping out a charity. It’d be pretty terrible of me to complain about that, or demand compensation.”
That wasn’t what she expected. She had to admit, she had a pretty unimpressed view of the wealthy for the most part. “Huh.”
“You sound surprised.”
He was smirking in a charming way, but instead of soothing her, it just made her feel on the defensive. He was just so… so… pretty. No. That wasn’t quite the right word. Handsome. She was usually too busy to care about such things. The last time she’d had a crush or really noticed a man was in high school, with Marquis White. He’d been in her shop class, and she’d always gotten so tongue-tied around him, even when they’d finally gone on a date.
But the man in front of her, although he was the complete opposite of Marquis, was undeniably attractive.
Add that to the list of irritating things. It would be easier if he was some ugly, scheming old sleaze. If his outsides matched his insides, maybe she could get some good hits in with the baseball bat and blame it on the wannabes she had chased off.
No, she could never hurt someone outside of self-defense. It was one of the tenants Andre had made sure to teach her ever since she had shown a proficiency for putting school bullies in garbage cans. There was a responsibility that came with strength, and she couldn’t abuse it.
Even if the handsome, rich man was clearly coming to her home to wreck everything important to her. He wasn’t the first, and unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be the last.
“Probably because I am,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“You know.”
He leaned against the counter, flashing her a mega-watt smile that he should have to carry a license for, because it felt like a weapon, she didn’t have the right comeback for. “No, I don’t. You could explain it to me.”
Was he… flirting with her? That wasn’t right. Guys like him didn’t flirt with women like her. So that just left mocking. Well, if he wanted to dish it out, she could give it back just as politely. “Because you’re rich, and the rich are always greedy, right? Always wanting more, more, more, until you have everything and nobody else has anything.”
That smooth expression slid from his face and he looked genuinely confused. Was she the first person to not kiss up and to tell him the truth instead?
“Is that really how you see me?”
She fixed him with the most level gaze she could. “How else should I see you?”
He didn’t answer that, and she figured the conversation was done. She really wanted to get to bed. Having the handsome man in her space made her feel off-center. Like she was mad at herself for even noticing that chiseled jaw or those dark, dark, umber eyes that seemed to stare right down to her soul.
“If you head out to the desk, I’ll drive your car out and we’ll handle the payment and get your receipt.”
“Of course,” he said without any other comments.
Good. The sooner he was out of her hair, the sooner she could get in a bath and go to bed, signing off the attraction as a weird blip that she’d forget about in a couple of days.
It only took a couple of minutes to get everything all set, and then she was sliding his credit card and handing him his keys. She could practically smell the lavender bath bomb that she was going to use. They were expensive, so she didn’t have many of them, but it was definitely a bath bomb sort of night.
But as she handed the man his keys, it seemed like he wanted to tell her something.
“Yes?” she asked expectantly.
“This doesn’t have to be a bad process, you know. For you, your family. Or the… community.” He pulled out a small square of paper from his wallet then wrote something across the back. “If you ever need anything or want to discuss what you would need to be happy with a transition, please give us a call. If my family chooses to move forward, I’m sure we can compromise. You know, do the best for everyone.”
She took the card from him, glancing at it before shoving it into the pocket of her jeans.
Huh. Was he feeling guilty? Good. He should. She’d seen what happened when businesses came in, suddenly interested in low-income neighborhoods. They always built something that drove property taxes and prices up until no one could afford to live there anymore. And then all the people who lived there for years would vacate only to have the empty space snatched up by whatever wealthy folks that wanted to get in on a “promising new developmental area.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” she said. She didn’t need to beleaguer the point. He knew how she felt and that was that. She was honest to a fault, but she felt no need to argue with him right outside her father’s mechanic shop.
He didn’t say anything again, although he did hesitate. With one last look at her, he got into his car and finally drove away. As he disappeared, she couldn’t help but hope it was the last she would see of him.
But she also knew it was only going to get worse. The sharks were circling her home, and it would be only a matter of time before they got hungry.
6
Theodora
“Ah, my habibi, I thought I would never see you again!”
Teddy laughed as the very old man pressed a gentle kiss to her hand. Mr. Abadi was one of her favorites to visit. He was a charismatic man, and although he was both widowed and confined to his chair, he always was so bright whenever she visited him.
“I just saw you over the weekend,” she said as she placed her basket full of veggies into his fridge. It had taken a while, but his home health aide for the past two years was excellent at making sure the bounty went to good use.
“Ah yes, but that was days ago. When you get to be as old as I am, you never know how many you’ll have.”
“Aw, don’t play the old man card now. We both know you’re going to live forever just to spite everyone who said you couldn’t.”
“Ah, she knows me so well! Come, sit for a minute. Read to me the paper?”
Teddy finished up what she was doing and crossed to him to kiss the top of his head. “Sorry, not today. I have to make sure I get the rest of these to Mrs. Sanchez and Routier.”
“Ah, beautiful and so generous. What would we old folks ever do without you and your magic garden?”
“It’s not magic, and I’m no angel.”
“Hmmm, I think maybe you’re wrong.”
“You think w
hatever you want, Mr. Abadi. I’ll be back on the weekend, and I’ll read whatever papers you like and make you lemonade.”
“Ah! Lemonda! Frieda tries to make it like you, but it’s not the same.”
“That’s because she doesn’t put a splash of lime juice in it.”
“What’s this? Should you be revealing such valuable secrets to me?”
She teasingly stuck her tongue out at him as she started to shut the door. “What, it’s not like you’re going to remember this tomorrow, old man.”
He let out a loud laugh and jokingly threw a magazine. It didn’t reach, of course, but Teddy blew a raspberry before closing the door completely. He was such a sweet man. She should see about getting him into the reading program for seniors at the local school. She bet a bunch of the kids would love him.
She started making a list of older folks who could be good for the program that was supposed to start over the summer. Some of them were too weak or not social enough to want to join, but for some of them, it’d be real good.
That thought perked her up as she made the rest of her deliveries. Roman never understood why she wanted to spend so much of what little free time she had running produce across their neighborhood, but it was cathartic for her. Her way of giving back to the place and people who had been there for her in the darkest of times. Besides, she grew way more produce than she could ever get Andre and Roman to eat, so might as well not let it go to waste.
Wednesdays were her light day, where she went into the shop at noon instead of at open, so she only ran three to four deliveries. That was hardly any work at all, unlike her full day off where she ran close to ten deliveries and was out from sunup to sundown.
She headed back home, whistling as she rode along on her bike. The sun was bright, there was a nice breeze going, and she felt good. None of her regulars were sick or had fallen, and she had gotten a full night’s sleep after a long soak in her tub. It had all the fixings of a good day, and she was ready to go into the shop and work.
