Lakewood(22)

Next, everyone returned to their desks and were given similar videos to watch while wearing headphones. One of the performers looked more like a reptile than a person. He told jokes about air travel that should have been tired, but the idea of a half-chameleon, half-man having the same boring complaints as everyone else about aisle seats made her laugh. She watched videos and filled out surveys for the rest of the day.

Lena’s apartment was fully furnished, and less than 10 minutes away from work. There were pots and pans in the cupboards, a bag of towels with tags attached in the bathroom. A brand-new dishwasher. Hardwood floors in the kitchen, dining room, and bedroom. It looked like a place where someone would want to live. She wanted to post a picture of it on social media, but that felt like a bad idea. Instead of unpacking—because the apartment felt so clean, so new—Lena took a drive through town.

She liked seeing large, white wildflowers poking up out of the ditches along the highway. The air alternated between smelling like sewer and the sweet joy of corn growing under sunshine. Unexpected graveyards surrounded by fields told Lena that Lakewood had been around for hundreds of years. She didn’t feel ready to stop in any of the small diners or restaurants. Maybe people would leave her alone, but she was worried about drawing too much attention—“It’s a small town and people like to talk”—or worse, feeling trapped. Every time she had been in a place like this in the past, at least a few white people would stare at her or do double takes. It would be hard to stay under the radar if she said to someone, “Yes, black people are real.”

Lena passed a field with green stems rising out of the dirt. Wooden signs announced it as home to premium Michigan sunflowers. She was used to a Michigan that was cities, vacant lots, and boarded-up houses. Cute university towns, billboards that reminded you to brush your teeth for four minutes a day, looking across the river toward Canada. Here she felt like an explorer. There were roads where she saw no one, only dull-red barns and green fields.

When she started to get hungry, Lena turned back toward Lakewood. As she drove past one of the downtown parks, in her rearview mirror she saw six teenage boys fighting. The right word might be a brawl. They were punching and kicking and slapping at one another, but through her open car windows, Lena could hear no yelling. One boy was wearing a white shirt and there was a solid line of blood leading from his nose to his shirt bottom.

As Lena circled the block, she saw another car pull up and park. Three teenage girls got out and ran to the boys. One of them kicked off her flip-flops so she could run faster. A second girl was wearing a lemon-print dress. It was full skirted, and her red hair was in ringlets.

When the girl in the lemon dress reached the boys, she jumped onto the one closest to her and wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing him forward with her momentum. Her curls bounced around. She pulled his hair, kept yanking at it, and all the other boys paused. Still he thrashed. She slapped the top of his head as if she were playing a bongo drum. Still no one yelled. The boy stood straight, and the girl allowed herself to be dropped off his back. They started to make out while all the others—and an older man sitting on a bench—watched.





9


That night, a storm kept Lena awake. Hail rattled against her windows, the wind argued with itself, and she could hear a dog in the apartment next door whining after each thunder clap. The rain, a sound that usually made her sleep deeply, sounded as if it was clawing and scratching its way through the building’s bricks.

Around six a.m., Lena turned her alarm off, and realized she didn’t own a coffeemaker. She ate her breakfast, washed the dishes, changed. Every motion took effort. She yawned twice, three times. In the parking lot there were five lawn chairs—red and white gingham—where she almost tripped over a tree branch. Her windshield was shattered over the driver’s seat. Glass decorated the car’s insides. The offending branch’s leaves wet on the wheel and on the seat.

“Shit,” Lena said. “Triple shit.”

The air was silver. No one else was around; there weren’t any lights or televisions on in the apartments facing the driveway. Lena went back to her apartment, dug a jacket out of one of her boxes, and then called the number Dr. Lisa had given her. A person on the line said they would take care of her car for her, and then connected her with Charlie, who lived two blocks over.

He showed up with two cups of coffee and they drank it while looking over her smashed windshield.

“Well, welcome to Lakewood,” Charlie said.

On the way to work in his car, they stopped at a small brick house. “Be back in two.”

He removed fallen branches from the sidewalk and pushed the tipped-over garbage and recycling bins inside the garage. Next to the mailbox was a tipped-over tomato cage that Charlie righted, though nothing seemed to be growing yet. When he got back in the car there was dark soil underneath his fingernails. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Sorry about that.”

“Is that your house?” Lena leaned forward in her seat.

“It’s Mrs. Thompson’s. My second-grade teacher. My parents said I was in love with her when I was eight. So, they think it’s really funny to make jokes now that I help her out. When she’s away I take care of the garden. In winter I shovel the walks.” He put on his sunglasses and drove with his knees. “My mom’s favorite joke is ‘My daughter-in-law and I can share a room in the retirement home.’”