When No One Is Watching(58)
“Come on, Sydney.”
The voice seems far away, but someone takes my arm and pulls me back. The grip is strong and reminds me of my mother, trying to keep me from danger.
“But Mommy’s—”
“Sydney, let’s go!” Ms. Candace squeezes my arm harder and pulls me away, and Len comes up from behind; I realize he’s covering my flank, and that’s enough to get me moving.
I look back one more time. The officers and the man who stole my mother’s garden are laughing. They’re laughing and I can’t do a damn thing about it.
I reflexively take out my phone, pull up my log, and dial the last person I’d called: Mommy. I just need to hear her voice, to apologize.
The phone stops ringing and I wait for her voicemail to pick up, but there’s only silence. Then . . . an exhale.
The dread in my body constricts to a sharp pain in my chest.
“Hello?” I whisper.
No response, but someone is there—I know with the surety of a child who refuses to let their feet hang off the edge of the bed.
“Hello?” Tears well in my eyes.
They hang up on me.
Ms. Candace rubs my back when I grasp the rim of a trash can in front of Etta Mason’s house and throw up.
“Etta will understand,” she says over and over again. “Anyone would understand.”
Gifford Place OurHood post by Candace Tompkins:
I think we should all discuss the loss of the community garden. There’s no way that man is the rightful owner. We need to know what happened and how.
Asia Martin: Who has the money to prove him otherwise?
Jenn Lithwick: Oh no! I heard what happened! How awful. Is Sydney okay?
Jen Peterson: Can someone really lie about that? I mean, the police were with him? They would know if his claim was real, right? Maybe I’m being naive but the alternative is . . .
Asia Martin: . . . business as usual, Jen. That’s all it is.
Jen Peterson: I’m sorry, Asia. I just can’t believe something like this could happen in Brooklyn.
Jenn Lithwick: Honey . . .
Chapter 15
Theo
AFTER THE RIESLING INCIDENT, I’M STAYING WELL AWAY FROM booze, which is a pretty abrupt change of pace for my body. I’d wanted a beer pretty badly after the weird spat with Sydney outside the corner store, and even more after going to see a room for rent a few train stops away. As expected, it was someone’s curtained-off living room, but it will be fine as a temporary base while I figure out what the next step will be.
Instead of cracking open a cold one, I go to the gym, needing to work out the feelings bobbing around recklessly now that I’m not drowning them with booze or distracting myself with Sydney.
Some people get to a zen place while working out, but my thoughts race as I swing my arms on the elliptical. Life had been stalled for months, it seemed, but things have kicked back into gear with a vengeance—my world is entirely different than it was a week ago. I made a friend, found a purpose—however temporary—then lost my girlfriend, my new friend, and my purpose. Oh, and also my house.
Now I’ve made the dubious decision to room with a seventy-year-old Polish ex-con who’s way too interested in my cooking skills and wanted to know if I could get the viruses off his computer.
William, the weird guy from the real estate place, suddenly steps in front of the elliptical. He doesn’t say anything, just looks up at me expectantly like we were already in midconversation and he’d just made a dirty joke.
“I’ll be done in five minutes,” I say.
“It’s cool. I’m more of a weight room guy.” He purses his lips, then frowns. “You never called me.”
“Called?”
“About the job offer. It’s not like they take on just anyone at BVT, and I thought you had what it takes. You look like . . .” He considers me with a kind of detached amusement, like I’m a ukulele or something. “. . . Like a guy who doesn’t have scruples, when it comes to making money.”
I don’t let my rhythm show it, but his words jar me. I slow a bit, unsure of what turn this situation is about to take.
“What makes you say that?”
He shrugs. “I’m not judging you. We could use guys like that because things are starting to get intense. Did you hear about the community garden on Gifford?”
The question is gleeful and a little gossipy.
My stomach drops as an image of Sydney on her hands and knees, miserably tending her plot, pops into my head.
“Hear what?”
“Some developer ganked it,” he says. “Slid right in with a new deed and was like, ‘Yeah, this is my shit now. In your face, bitch!’”
I consider just knocking my fist right into his mouth to shut him up.
No. I’ve backslid a lot in the last few months, but I don’t do that anymore.
“For a second it looked like things might go sideways. The cops talked sense into everyone so things panned out, but that’s the part where we need more guys like you.” His hyperfriendly expression shifts just subtly enough around his mouth and eyes to become hateful. “I wish I could’ve been there. I’ve put up with months of attitude from that—”
“I thought the community garden already belongs to somebody,” I say. “Wouldn’t a developer just make an offer to whoever owns it?”