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.
I nod and wave. The window of Josie and Terry’s living room slams shut, punctuating our conversation.
I take a sip of my coffee and hear the slapping of two sets of feet against the sidewalk.
“Good morning!” Jenn and Jen say. They’re holding hands as they stride down the street in sync, matching smiles on their faces. Even their flourishing plots in the garden complement each other: Jen’s bursting with flowers and Jenn’s with vegetables.
“Morning! Have a good day, you two,” I say as they march past, sounding like an auntie even though they’re probably only a few years younger than me.
I’m not faking my pleasantness. I want them to know that if their presence bothers me, it’s not because they’re holding hands. It’s because of everything else. I wish I didn’t have to think about everything else, but . . . Miss Wanda is gone. The Hancocks. Mr. Joe.
Sometimes it feels like everything rock-solid about my world is slipping away, like the sand sucked through my fingers when I’d sit in the breaking waves at Coney Island.
I suddenly remember one of our mother-daughter beach days, when I was four or five. Mommy had treated me to Nathan’s, and a seagull swooped down and snatched a crinkle-cut french fry out of my hand right before I bit into it. The biggest fry. I’d saved it for last. The sudden shock of the fry theft, the unfairness of it, had made me start wailing. Mommy shook her head and laughed as she wiped my cheeks with thumbs gritty from sand and smelling of ketchup. “Baby, if you wanna keep what’s yours, you gotta hold on to it better than that. Someone is always waiting to snatch what you got, even these damn birds.”
I’m trying, Mommy. And I hate it.
A shiver runs down my spine despite the heat, and when I look up, I see Bill Bil coming. His name is William Bilford, real estate agent, but I call him Bill Bil because it annoys him and why should I be the only one suffering? I’m alone, my new neighbors are assholes, and this con artist is roaming the neighborhood, trying to bring in more of them.
I grimace in his direction. He’s wearing jeans that are too thick and too tight for the heat index and the amount of walking he’s doing. There are sweat stains around the armpits of his tight gray T-shirt, hinting at the swamp-ass horror show that must be playing below. His face sports carefully contoured stubble and eyes that are red-rimmed from too much booze or coke or both. His light brown hair is carefully styled, though, so he’s not entirely a mess.
“Hey, Ms. Green,” he says with a wink and a grin that probably goes over well in a dive bar in Williamsburg but has no effect on me at all.
“Hey, Bill Bil,” I chirp. His shark’s smile doesn’t falter but the brightness in his eyes dims. I pick up the loosie and lighter I bought from the bodega and make a big production of holding the flame to the tip of the cigarette. The smoke that floods my mouth is disgusting—I can taste the cancer, and hey, maybe that’s what makes it enjoyable—but I’ve been smoking one with my morning coffee every now and again anyway.
“That’s bad for your health,” he says.
I exhale a cloud of smoke toward where he’s standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Nothing has changed from the last ten times you walked by here. We’re still not selling the house. Have a blessed day.”
His shark smile widens. “Come on. I’m just being friendly.”
“You’re just trying to create a false sense of camaraderie because you think it’ll make me trust you. Then you can convince me to sell so you can pocket that sweet, sweet commission.”