“I understand. Thanks for breakfast,” I say. I want to add something else, something that will make her feel better, but I can’t even help myself in that department.

I walk off, Kendra Hill’s words echoing in my mind. Sydney’s mom has both a house and the garden plot, so she’s not in a bad position, but the situation overall is sobering. Even if she stays, the people she knows are leaving one by one.

I never lived in one place for too long as a kid. I’ve never had lifelong neighbors and friends. Sydney’s losing all of that, and in return she gets people like Kim, and Josie, and Terry, who either ignore the people who’ve lived here forever or think they’re plotting against them.

I think back to the process of buying our house, which had seemed so arduous and overwhelming at the time. In retrospect, everything had worked out easily. The realtors had been eager for us to move in, and the bank had preapproved a loan that we didn’t even need.

No one had second-guessed whether we belonged or were a good investment. The realtors had talked about how we were part of a wave of new people coming in to enrich the neighborhood, make it better and more valuable, without knowing a damn thing about us.

No, that’s not true. The realtors had known one thing, that I was starting to see was more important than I’d realized.

Us.

Them.

Gifford Place OurHood post by Jenn Lithwick:

Hey everyone, I know things have been pretty somber, but are we still having the block party this weekend? I’ve been calling Mr. Perkins, but he seems to still be out of town.

Candace Tompkins: The block party is still on. Nothing short of the second coming could stop it.

Josie Ulnar: Fantastic! I’ll be making the potato salad. I’m using this recipe I’ve been looking forward to trying. Link: Carly’s Raisin-tastic Potato Salad.

Fitzroy Sweeney: Frightening!

Derek James:

Chapter 12

Sydney

THE TIGHTNESS IN MY CHEST DOESN’T LOOSEN AFTER THEO leaves. It doesn’t as I walk toward the train station, even though it’s hot enough to feel like I’m in a sauna. Isn’t that shit supposed to relax you? Instead I just feel like I can’t breathe.

I spend three hours of my afternoon in the waiting room of a nonprofit that helps with situations like mine, one I looked up after Ms. Gianetti’s secretary had told me she couldn’t help. The waiting room is packed with people, mostly Black and brown, most sporting either a numbed-out, hopeless expression or one of annoyance. I spend another two hours waiting at the next nonprofit after the first one tells me they can’t help, either. When I finally sit with the poor overworked and harassed advocate, she apologetically tells me I need to come back on Tuesday and to bring my mother with me if possible, or something that shows I have power of attorney.

By the time I get back to Gifford Place, I’m exhausted to the marrow and craving nicotine, alcohol, a few snuggles from the bodega cat—anything to make the shit circling round and round in my head just stop. The block feels off—there are no kids playing in the street. Len, Amber, and LaTasha sit on a stoop, but they look hunched in and sad instead of like kids enjoying the last days of summer. A police car slows as it passes on the street, and maybe I’ve watched too much Animal Planet but it reminds me of a predator scanning a herd, looking for a weak youngster to pick off.

The bodega has its gate down during the evening for the first time ever, maybe, when I stop in front of it. It’s stayed open through nor’easters and hurricanes, through blackouts and water main breaks, and of course now it’s closed. As I stare in annoyed disbelief, I hear a clanking noise coming from the metal cellar door embedded in the sidewalk outside the store. There’s been everything from a number hole to a social club down there over the years, but this isn’t the sound of people gambling or shooting the shit. There’s scraping along with the clanking and then abrupt silence.

I stomp on the metal door twice. “Abdul?”

The noise stops, but I get no response.

I know it’s probably nothing, but that unsettled feeling descends on me again. I curl my fists at my side and march toward the next bodega, two blocks over. I usually avoid it because the guy who works there is always trying to holla when I just want to buy some snacks and go. I end up getting a whole pack of Parliament Lights because he plays dumb when I ask him for a loosie and I won’t beg him for it.

The full box is expensive as shit. I hope Abdul finishes his renovations quickly.

I smoke a cigarette on the walk back to cut the need, deep, greedy pulls that leave me light-headed. My hands are shaking by the time I get to my stoop, and I wonder if I should maybe go to a doctor to get this lack-of-sleep thing looked into because I’m really starting to feel the effects. My mood has plummeted and all I want to do is sit and cry.

I just had my period so I know it can’t be PMS.

When I open the mailbox and see another bundle of medical bills, the worst kind of déjà vu, I let out a little desperate laugh. Yeah, I’m not going to the doctor anytime soon, unless it’s against my will.

Again.

I pull out my phone as I walk through the hallway toward my apartment door, pausing to swipe away the missed calls from bill collectors to see if Drea has texted.

Nothing.

She sometimes does this, disappears into a new bae, eating, drinking, and breathing nothing but them. With a holiday weekend and a surplus of personal days, she could be gone for who knows how long, though I’m surprised that she would boo up right before the West Indian Day parade. This is generally her free agent period so she can whine on whoever.

And at her most infatuated, she still responds to me, even if just with tongue + water drops emojis, or a thumbs-up.

And she never lets a fight drag on. If I piss her off, she tells me. If I start shit, she finishes it, and we get back to normal.

But the Drea is typing . . . message still mocks me from the top of our chat. I bet she started to write something while annoyed and thought better of it, but imagining what it could be, and how angry she must be at me not to even look at the chat and notice, shoots my stress through the roof.

“You’re too clingy.”

“I can’t stand being around you anymore.”

“God, you’re pathetic.”

No. Those are things Marcus would say. Not Drea. Drea loves me. For real loves me.

I shouldn’t push anymore, but I feel frazzled by just about everything, and guilty for putting so much onto her, and worried because a million things could have happened on her date with a stranger.

I call her cell, and when it goes to voicemail, I try to sound normal and not like a stalker friend. “Hey, big head. Let me know you’re okay, okay?”

After I disconnect the call, I dial her work number, and it also goes to voicemail, but I hang up before the beep.

I call Mr. Perkins again and leave another voicemail for him, too. He was always so bad about leaving his phone on silent. One reason why “City Hall” became City Hall was that people knew you had to just go over and see him, since he never answered his phone. I don’t like not hearing from him, but I’m sure Ms. Candace has spoken to him.

When I unlock the door to my apartment and push it open, I’m met with resistance.

I push again and it opens a little and then closes.

Something is pushing back.

Fear slides down my spine and swirls around in my belly, but when I push one more time, I realize that the resistance is coming from the mat on the other side of the door—sometimes the corner rolls back. I let out a shaky breath, tired of being scared of every damn thing. I wiggle the door back and forth, which pushes the mat away and reveals the mustard yellow of a manila envelope.

Drea had told me that she’d slipped the VerenTech info under my door, and I had totally forgotten. She’d gone out of her way for me, like she always did, and I couldn’t even be bothered to remember until days later.

I’m almost relieved to realize I fucked up—maybe this is why she’s avoiding me. This is fixable.

After closing the door, I toss the folder onto the kitchen table with my other research, shuck off my grimy clothes, and head directly into the shower. Lathering up my washcloth and scrubbing until my skin tingles is cheap therapy, and by the time I slip on shorts and a tank top, I’m still exhausted but feel slightly less like I’m in a tar pit of depression.

Night is falling outside and I open the back door to let in a breeze; the neighborhood is too quiet for a summer night, and I jump when a lone cicada suddenly bursts into song somewhere nearby.

Mommy’s Coney Island ashtray, from way back before she quit smoking, rests next to the place mat. I brought it inside a few weeks ago, breaking the “no smoking inside” rule, because every time I tried to relax out back, Toby would go off like I was coming for his Purina. I sometimes imagined him clutching his dog bowl the same way his owner clutched her purse when I was behind her on the walk home from work one day just after they moved here.