When No One Is Watching(17)
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.
(14 additional comments . . . see more)
Chapter 4
Theo
VOLUNTEERING TO HELP SYDNEY WAS A DUMB MOVE—I’M supposed to be blending in enough that people will think I’m nice. Normal. Not being the center of attention. But something about my neighbor leads to ill-advised decisions.
Before this evening, she was “the woman from the tour” and then “the woman I watch from my window.” My run-ins with her had either been abrupt and awkward, or from a detached distance, like watching a character in a Sims video game go about her business. Now she feels . . . real, I guess. All of the neighbors I spoke to do.
I hadn’t thought of them as real people. Even when I’d chatted with Mr. Perkins, even when I’d watched from my window or observed people during my walks, I hadn’t really been seeing them. It’s a startling realization, but to be fair, I’ve spent most of my life having to quickly categorize people as either threat or . . . something else. That doesn’t leave much room for having to think about their past or their feelings, or whatever.
Now I want to know more. And Sydney—I might want more than that.
Hold your horses, buddy.
Volunteering for her project is just a way to kill time until the ax over my head drops or miraculously disappears. While Sydney makes for a nice fantasy, my reality is being stuck in a co-owned house with a woman who barely acknowledges my existence, let alone our relationship.
I intend on going right up to my cramped attic studio and looking up some history stuff so Sydney doesn’t realize I know nothing about history, before heading out again. Kim has been staying out later and later anyway—which probably means exactly what I think it means, so I’ve been spending my nights out and about—but I hear music floating through the closed windows of the living room as I jog up the front steps.
The low, sorrowful notes sound like one of Kim’s classical music albums, which I call her “cultured entertaining soundtrack” since she usually listens to Taylor Swift when she’s alone; she must have guests.
Anxiety punches me in the belly as I imagine her parents behind that door, the rich, judgmental pieces of work who’d made it clear from the beginning that I wasn’t good enough, but they’d tolerate me temporarily because what Kim wanted, Kim got.
One Easter dinner at their place in the Hamptons, they’d told the story of how Kim had always begged for a new bunny every Easter and they’d obliged her, to the point that they’d started to run out of bunny names. When I’d attempted a joke about them recycling the same rabbit and renaming it every year, the table had fallen silent and her father had laughed in that tone someone uses when you’ve mispronounced your entrée at a French restaurant.
“You don’t keep replaceable playthings for longer than necessary,” he’d explained, and there’d been contempt in his eyes that had seemed disproportionate to a discussion about Easter rabbits. At the time, I thought he was making a sly jab at Kim’s affection for me, but now I think maybe he’d really been disgusted that I’d been gauche enough to suggest they couldn’t simply buy what they wanted, dispose of it when they were tired of it, and get a new one when the mood struck again.
Deep male laughter sounds through the door to the first-floor apartment, followed by Kim’s flirtatious giggle.
Maybe it isn’t her parents. Maybe it’s the asshole who sat across from me at brunch almost exactly a year ago, talking to me about his 401(k) like he hadn’t fucked Kim in the hot tub just hours earlier.
If David had been smug or had seemed like he was needling me, that would have given me something to really hitch my rage trailer to. But no. He’d been bland and boring before, and he’d been bland and boring after, and apparently that was what Kim preferred over me. And instead of leaving, I’d stayed and tried to make things good again, like it was another challenge and I’d win some kind of prize.