When No One Is Watching(48)

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.

Whatever. Toby and his owner can kiss my ass. I have more important things to focus on.

The envelope is thin, especially compared to the stacks of papers already on the table. When I open it and pull the papers out I realize this isn’t what I would’ve gotten if I’d gone downtown to make the request. Each one of the ten pages has FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY stamped in red in the top right corner. I grab the lighter from the tabletop and a cigarette, light it, and scan the first page.