“What’s its name?”
“Palm Tree,” Chantale says, rolling her eyes at the cutesiness. “I can assure you that the brown balls he produces do not smell like coconut.”
“Hi, Palm Tree.”
“As I said in the email,” Chantale continues, immune to his charms—or mine, for that matter—“I’m often at my office this semester, and my daughter has a very rigorous academic schedule, so we need some consistent help for the foreseeable fut—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Corinne stands in the doorway, her overstuffed backpack slung over both shoulders. She gives the straps an angry tug. My smiling is sometimes genuine and involuntary.
“Hi again, Corinne.” I grin. “Cute dog.”
“Mom, no,” she says, instantly dropping her bag to the floor, still in her FATE uniform and carrying the notebooks she had with her earlier. “This can’t be the new dog walker.”
“Don’t be rude, Corinne,” Chantale says. “They have a five-star online rating.”
“Just request a different walker, then!”
“The headquarters assigns walkers based on zip codes,” I quickly step in to say. “They probably wouldn’t be able to find another walker that’s closer than me. Same door address and all.”
Corinne narrows her eyes at me. “Mom, I can find us a better dog walker in three swipes,” she says, brandishing her phone.
“One that lives in the building? And has twenty-four/seven access to the super in case of emergencies, too, Corinne? This feels like a great arrangement.”
“He’s a high schooler,” Corinne continues, undaunted. “Palm Tree deserves better than a wildly immature seventeen-year-old.”
“Ageism,” I whisper, which causes Chantale to smile, ever so slightly.
“Quiet, you,” snaps Corinne.
“He’s not wrong, Corinne. Are you advocating for discriminatory hiring practices right in my home?”
Chantale seems to be the sort of mother that enjoys rhetorical arguments over breakfast. I wonder if she was on a debate team during her high school heyday.
“I don’t— Whatever. This is so boring,” Corinne says, shaking her head. She walks past me, reaches into the crate, and scoops up Palm Tree with a free hand before grabbing her bag with the other. “I have application essays to finish.”
She purposefully moves the eager dog’s head out of the way as I move to pet him. Rude.
“Don’t come into my room when you’re here—that’s trespassing—and there’s legal precedent for prosecuting negligent dog walkers in the state of New York,” she says before disappearing down one of the apartment’s multiple hallways and slamming a door.
“She wants to be a lawyer,” Chantale explains, sounding a little proud of her daughter at the moment. “Apologies for the tantrum. College anxiety.”
“Oh, I’m familiar with it.”
“Right, of course. Well, her father, my ex-husband, thought a puppy might lighten her up with college applications at the door. He’s . . . a very dumb man.”
I Smile and nod at the awkward conversation turn. It feels safer not to comment. Chantale retrieves a pair of silver keys from a drawer in the kitchen and slides them my way. Numbers are exchanged, security code granted, and she seems to approve of the app I use for dog walk payments. In two texts there’s the first of a weekly sixty-dollar deposit into my checking account. After being on the receiving end of a handshake firmer than Dad’s, my first walk is agreed to be this Friday. I’m to let myself in.
And so it begins.
Three
According to his last text, my friend Ming is still nearby and about to make a colossal mistake. That blurry shot of hastily photographed probable contraband tells me exactly where to stop before heading home on Friday afternoon. We don’t have any classes together this semester and are on wildly different schedules, but of all the FATE students, Ming Denison-Eilfing might be the only one I consider a bona fide bro, as opposed to simply a cohort.
DON’T BUY! I rapidly text as I quickstep out of FATE. I turn two street corners and up four blocks to the storefront I recognized in the photo. When I find Ming, ungloved hands against the glass, he’s so mesmerized by the window display of sneakers that it’s a wonder he’s not getting pickpocketed right now.
“Dude!” I say, snapping my fingers in front of his hyperfocused eyes lovingly gazing at a pair of Nikes behind the glass. “You realize these are total fakes, right?”
That seems to pull him out of his trance. He eyes me up and down like I might be a doppelganger sent to distract him from his righteous path of owning a new pair of sneakers this week.
“How do you know?” he eventually asks in a whine.
I stare at him blankly until he concedes his passive agreement with a long-suffering sigh.
“Fine, fine. Don’t go Yoda on me.”
If there is one thing that Ming knows that I know in this world, it’s sneakers—and even he doesn’t quite know the extent of it.
The walls of my room are covered in them. Well, sort of. Not actual sneakers. The walls are covered in labels I found, sketches of early drafts of limited editions from that student exhibit at the Parsons School for Fashion Design, a few printed designs from the web. I’ve never been able to afford many sneakers, but if you know where to look, you can find some pretty cool things around the city. Original. Designers passing through town are also always game to autograph an empty shoebox. If you flatten them into one another, the result is something that comes pretty close to a mural of sorts. I used to spend a considerable amount of time on the specialized blogs and message boards before little by little, college fare replaced most of those bookmarks on my phone.
“The SKU number is scratched out on the box, for one,” I say after a closer look inside, which confirms what I’d assumed from the window.
“I always forget the SKU number,” Ming eventually grumbles, falling out of love as quickly as he fell in.
“That’s what they’re counting on.” Stock-Keeping Units. Eight characters that will tell you the full life span of a pair of shoes if you know how to read them. “Plus, check the tongue label. Those sizing labels that were designed in 2014 and these were 2012 releases. . . . Also, seventy-nine dollars? C’mon, dude. These retail for two forty online!”
“Stop,” he dramatically whines, passing his hand over the rows and rows of shoeboxes like some southern dame grazing a lake during a boat ride. “You’ve already crushed my ‘sneakerection’ into dust.”
“Ew. If something is too good to be true . . .” I shrug, drifting off because I’m sounding way too much like my dad right now. “How did you even know about this place?”
“What do you mean?”
“You shop in Harlem a lot?” I ask skeptically.
“I’m not a high-rise kid, Haltiwanger!” Ming says with a glare. We listlessly walk through the shop, taking in the new designs and colors of the season. Purple and green are going to be in this year. The streets of New York are going to look like the Joker’s laundry basket.