Not feelin’ this anymore.

Maybe there’d been another woman. Maybe I’d spent too much time stressing over my mother. Maybe he’d just sensed what I’d tried to hide: that my life was a spinout on a slick road and the smart thing to do was pump the brakes while he could.

When Drea had opened her apartment door and found me sniffling as I clutched a pint of Talenti, she’d hugged me, then given my shoulder a little shake. “Girl. Sydney. I’m sorry you’re sad, but how many times do I have to tell you? You won’t find gold panning in Fuckboy Creek.”

She was right.

It’s better this way; a warm body in bed is nice in the winter but it’s too damn hot for cuddling in the summer unless you want to run the AC nonstop, and I don’t have AC-nonstop money at the moment.

I notice a group of people approaching from the far end of the block, down by the garden, and scratch at my neck, at the patch of skin where a few months ago three itchy bites had arisen all in a row. BEDBUGS had been the first result of a frantic “what the fuck are these bites” internet search. Plastic-wrapped mattresses on the curb are a common sight now, the bedbugs apparently hitching rides on the unwashed legs steadily marching into the neighborhood. Even after weeks of steaming and bleaching and boiling my clothes and bedding, I can’t shake the tainted feeling. I wake up in the middle of the night with the sensation of something I can’t see feasting on me—I have to file my nails down to keep from scratching myself raw.

Maybe it’s too late; maybe I’m already sucked dry.

Sure as hell feels that way.

I drop my head and let the morning sun heat my scalp as I sit hunched and hopeless.

The group I’d spotted, apparently this week’s batch of brunch guests, clusters a few feet away from me on the sidewalk in front of Terry and Josie’s outer stairs, and I stop slouching: shoulders back, chin up. I pose as the picture of unbothered—languorously sipping my bodega coffee and pretending sweat isn’t beading at my hairline as I blatantly watch them. None of them even glance at me.

Terry and Josie come outside—her rocking an angular I’d like to speak to the manager platinum-dyed bob and him with a tight fake smile. They keep their heads rigidly straight and their gazes fixed on their friends as they greet them, like I’m a junkyard dog who might growl if they make eye contact.

I don’t think they even know my name is Sydney.

I don’t want to know what “funny” nickname they have for me.

“The place looks great,” one of their friends says as they start up the stairs.

“We used the same company as Sal and Sylvie on Flip Yo’ Crib,” Josie replies as she stops just in front of the doorway so they can admire the newly installed vintage door and stained glass in the transom window above it.

Their contractors had started their early-morning repairs right after the new year, waking Mommy up each time she finally managed to get comfortable enough to rest. In the spring, I’d been jolted awake a full hour early before I had to head to the school office and smile at annoying children and their annoying parents all day—everyone was annoying when you just wanted to sleep and not wake up for years.

Or ever.

“You just would not believe how these people don’t appreciate the historic value of the neighborhood,” Josie says. “We had to completely renovate. It was like there’d been a zoo here before!”

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Miss Wanda had been of the “bleach fumes so strong they burned her neighbors’ lungs” school of cleaning. Josie’s a damn liar, and I have the near-death experience with accidental mustard gas to prove it.

“The other houses look nice to me, especially this one,” says the last person in their line of friends, a woman of East Asian descent with a baby strapped to her chest. “It looks like a tiny castle!”

I smile, thinking about the days when I’d sit at the window set in the whimsical brick demi-turret, a captured princess, while my friends scrambled on the sidewalk out front, vying for the chance to rescue me from the evil witch holding me captive. It’s cool to say the princess should save herself nowadays, but I don’t think I’ve experienced that sensation outside of children’s games—of having someone willing to risk life and limb, everything, to save me.

Mommy protected me, of course, but being protected was different from being saved.

Josie whirls on the top step and frowns down at her friend for apparently not being disdainful enough. “The houses look nice in spite of. No amount of ugly Home Depot plants can hide the neglect, either.”

Oooh, this bitch.

“Right,” her friend says, anxiously stroking the baby’s back.

“All I’m saying is that I can trace my ancestors back to New Amsterdam. I appreciate history,” Josie says, turning to continue into the house.

“Well, family trees have a lot of missing leaves around here, if you know what I mean,” Terry adds as he follows her inside. “Of course they don’t appreciate that kind of thing.”

Maybe I should hop over the banister of my stoop and give them a lesson on the history of curb stomping if they like history so damn much.

The chastised woman’s gaze flits over to mine and she gives me an apologetic wave of acknowledgment as she files into the house. The door closes firmly behind her.

I was already tired, but tears of anger sting my eyes now, though I should be immune to this bullshit. It isn’t fair. I can’t sit on my stoop and enjoy my neighborhood like old times. Even if I retreat to my apartment, it won’t feel like home because Mommy won’t be waiting upstairs. I sit trapped at the edge of the disorienting panic that strikes too often lately, the ground under my ass and the soles of my flip-flops the only things connecting me to this place.

I just want everything to stop.

“Hey, Sydney!”

I glance across the street and the relief of seeing a familiar face helps me get it together. Mr. Perkins, my other next-door neighbor, and his pittiehound, Count Bassie, stroll by on one of their countless daily rounds of the neighborhood. Mommy had gone to the ASPCA with Mr. Perkins after his wife had passed a few years back, and he’s been inseparable from the brown-and-white dog ever since then.

“Morning, Sydney honey!” Mr. Perkins calls out in that scratchy voice of his, his arm rising slowly above his bald head as he waves at me. Count lets out one loud, ridiculously low-toned bark, a doggie hey girl; he loves me because I give him cheese and other delicious human food when he sits close to me.

“Morning!” I call out, feeling a little burst of energy just from seeing him. He’s always been here, looking out for me and my mom—for everyone in the neighborhood.

He’s usually up and making his daily rounds by six, stopping by various stoops, making house calls, keeping an ear to the ground and a smile on his face. It’s why we call him the Mayor of Gifford Place.

Right now, he’s likely on his way to Saturday services, judging from his khakis and pressed shirt. Count usually sits at his feet, and Mr. Perkins jokes that when he howls along with the choir, he hits the right note more often than half the humans singing.

“You gonna have that tour ready for the block party next week? Candace is on my behind about it since you put it on the official schedule.”

I want to say no, it’s not ready, even though I’ve been working on it bit by bit for months. It would be so easy to, since I have no idea if anyone will take this tour, even for free, much less pay for it, but . . . when I’d angrily told Mommy what Zephyr had said to me about starting my own tour, her face had lit up for the first time in weeks.

“You always did have the History Channel on, turning to Secrets of World War II or some mess while I was trying to watch my stories. Why shouldn’t you do it?”

It became a game for us, finding topics that I could work into the tour—it was something we could do while she was in bed, and it kept both of us occupied.

“This is the first time I’ve seen that old fire in your eyes since you got home. I’m glad you’re coming back to yourself, Syd. I can’t wait to take your tour.”

“How’s your mama doing?” Mr. Perkins calls out, the question causing a ripple of pain so real that I draw my knees up to my chest.

“She’s doing good,” I say, hating the lie and ashamed of the resentment that wells up in me every time I have to tell it. “Hates being away from home, but that’s no surprise.”

He nods. “Not at all. Yolanda loved this neighborhood. Tell her I’m praying for her when you see her.”

“I will.”

Count lunges after a pizza crust left on the sidewalk, suddenly spry, and Mr. Perkins gives chase, bringing the painful conversation to a blessed end.

“Come to the planning meeting on Monday,” he calls out with a wave as he walks on. “I’ve got some papers for you.”

He could just hand them to me, but I think he’s making sure I show up. He knows me well.