She just looks at me, a glimmer of frustration in her eyes, then she shakes her head. “You have theeeeee worst taste. The worst. Though . . .” She glances over at him. “He does look a little spicy, with them thick-ass eyebrows. He at least puts paprika on his chicken, I’m guessing. Maybe even some Lawry’s.”

“Drea! If you don’t stop—”

“Stop what? Predicting your dumbass behavior based on a lifetime of observation?” She says it jokingly, but she’s right—she’s always been there to warn me when I was about to slip up, and to catch me when I ignored her and inevitably fell. When my nightmares weren’t about the devil at my elbow, they featured Drea walking away from me and my neediness—like Marcus had.

She touches my shoulder lightly. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I am.” I lean into her a bit, letting myself rest against the familiar warmth of a side that has propped me up countless times over the years, through failures and bad decisions, marriage, divorce, and . . . everything since I came back to Brooklyn. Drea would do anything for me—like, that’s a fact and not a supposition.

My lips turn up at the corners and I sigh, comfort sliding over me like a weighted blanket. The beginning of a bangin’ nap, this one not marred by weird half dreams of colonial destruction, starts to pull me under.

Drea nudges me with her elbow, jostling me away from the edge of sleep. “I talked to work bae in the contracts department about the VerenTech stuff you were complaining about.”

“You didn’t have to ask,” I say grumpily. “I didn’t tell you about the rejected information request so you could do the work for me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I did. And it’s too late to tell him never mind, because then he’s gonna be mad at me since he’s already going out of his way for me since there’s all this extra security around this project.”

That was the thing with Drea: a simple question can turn into her going ten blocks out of her way to get something you didn’t ask for, or, in this case, having her coworker do possibly illegal searches for info that’ll probably be useless to me.

I feel the urge to snap at her, but catch myself before stepping on that particular Lego of regret. Drea . . . has really been there for me. Really fucking been there, and held me down when anyone else would’ve let me go to pieces. I’ve been asking a lot of her while being too empty to give back, and yet here I am about to cop an attitude because she’s being too helpful.

“Thank you, Drea Bond,” I say, reminding myself how lucky I am. I know what it feels like to not have the kind of support Drea excels at, and I never want to feel that way again.

She strikes a pose with a finger gun and winks at me. “I got you.”

“I’m calling this meeting to order,” Ms. Candace says loudly, her voice cutting through the noise to silence everyone. “Now, we have a week until the block party. Almost everything is set, but . . .” She looks around and shakes her head in annoyance. “At least four people on my list aren’t here.”

“Maybe the mole people got them!” Tiffany says in a creepy, raspy voice that imitates an announcer on a kids’ Halloween special.

“I heard they been snatching people up all summer! The news is ignoring it, though.” LaTasha shakes her head.

“Are you serious?” Jen asks, eyes wide. “I thought the neighborhood was supposed to be safe.”

“They’re joking, honey,” Jenn says with a smitten roll of her eyes.

“See, that’s why they don’t talk about it,” LaTasha says, sounding just like her mom, who she probably heard this story from. “Nisha’s aunt went missing and somebody said they saw her get pulled through a subway grate.”

Amber looks between her two friends skeptically. “I don’t believe that story because—deadass?—who walks on subway grates? Even if there aren’t mole people, you can’t be walking on no subway grate.”

She’s right. Nobody with an ounce of common sense is trying to fall through a weak subway grate, a busted manhole, or a janky metal cellar door outside a bodega.

“Where is Kavaughn at?” Ms. Candace calls out. “He volunteered to help Sydney with the last of the research for her tour that she snuck onto the agenda at the last minute. Did the mole people get him, too?”

The room doesn’t go quiet again, but voices lower as people look around, searching for Kavaughn’s familiar Mets cap.

“Oh.” Len snaps his fingers. “I think maybe he went to visit his family in North Carolina? Since his summer session ended. He goes down there for a few days every summer, and it’s so country they don’t even have internet!”

“No internet?” Tiffany, LaTasha, and Amber cry out in horror, turning to look at him.

Len freezes, unprepared to be the center of attention of the three girls he’s been trying to work up the nerve to talk to. Theo nudges him—quickly, encouragingly—pushing Len into action. The boy throws his hands up, grins. “I’m saying! ‘Can you hear me now?’ ‘No, bruh, get Fios!’”

Tiffany, LaTasha, and Amber burst out laughing and Len’s posture slackens in relief. I, on the other hand, am shit out of luck.

“So my assistant just up and left? Cool.” Maybe this is a sign I should just give up on this idea, even if it would feel like disappointing Mommy.

“I can help,” Len says. His gaze flicks over to the girls to make sure they’re listening, then back to me. “I’m taking AP classes at LIU and working at the YMCA camp, though, so I’m pretty busy.”

The girls start whispering and his chest puffs out a bit.

Then Theo raises that big hand of his and says, “I can help, too.”

“Don’t you have better things to do?” I ask.

“Absolutely not.” He runs a hand through his hair with that look of practiced innocence white men use when they’re on some bullshit. “Unemployed, remember? And no AP classes, either. Tests aren’t my strong point. What do you need help with?”

“I’m planning a historical tour of the neighborhood,” I say. Theo was there when Zephyr told me to make my own, and I feel like I’m revealing some dirty secret, but his expression doesn’t change. “I want to do a demo run during the block party.”

“Because she’ll have a captive audience,” Mr. Perkins calls out, and everyone laughs.

I ignore him. “I need help with some historical research and with the tour overview.”

Theo’s eyes brighten. “I’m good at research. And I wanted to explore the neighborhood and get to know my—our neighbors. I could do that and help you at the same time.”

And just like that everyone but Drea is looking at me like if I don’t say yes I’ll be kicking a dog in the ribs. The worst part? I don’t think any of them even realize it.

“I have a camera,” he adds.

“Everyone has a camera, man,” Len says, joking because he apparently likes Theo enough to do that now. “It’s called a cell phone?”

Amber laughs, and Len’s chest puffs up even more.

“And I bet your tour will be way better than the brownstone one. If I can help with that . . .” He shrugs. “That’d be cool.”

“Sydney, you’re the one who put this on the schedule last minute,” Ms. Candace says in her no-nonsense tone that reminds me she spent years managing a bank. “You need help. Our neighbor has offered to help. What exactly is the problem?”

I cross my arms over my chest and glance at Theo.

“I was gonna pay Kavaughn, but I’m not paying you,” I say. “If you really want to help, you can think of this work as reparations.”

There. A little twitch at the corner of his eye. But when he opens his mouth all he says is “Great. Just let me know when and where.”

The meeting moves on and I tune it out, glancing at Theo as he interacts with these people I’ve known all my life. I have no idea why this man is so invested in helping me, or is suddenly all up in the neighborhood Kool-Aid, but I guess I’m about to find out.

Gifford Place OurHood post by Josie Ulnar:

This evening when I was walking home from work, I noticed a group of men in hoodies riding their bikes slowly up and down the street. I’m not sure if they were casing houses or if it’s part of the gang initiations that apparently happen at this time of year, but I did call it in to the police.

Ashley Jones: That was my son Preston, who is 17, babysitting his cousins, who are 8 and 11 years old and thus only allowed to ride their bikes from corner to corner on this street, WHERE THEY LIVE. (-__-)

Josie Ulnar: I was just being vigilant. Crime has been on the rise and it’s something we all need to keep an eye out for.

Kim DeVries: I’m with Josie. There have already been several break-ins over the last few weeks and gangs plan robberies for three-day weekends, when people are away and no one is really paying attention.

Ashley Jones: www.nyccrime.gov/crimerates Crime in our neighborhood is at the lowest it’s been in decades, but go off sis.

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Chapter 4

Theo