Chapter 3
They call Chicago a city of neighborhoods.
But it’s more like somebody went and smashed together a bunch of very specific small towns. We’ve got Chinatown and Little Puerto Rico; Ukrainian Village and German Square. There’s Boystown.
Slag Valley. The Viagra Triangle. One neighborhood is known for having wild parrots everywhere. One actually smells like chocolate.
In theory, Chicago is a place where you can find your people, whether they’re promiscuous grandpas or parrot-obsessed bird-watchers.
But now, as a new Uber drives me away from Hannah’s—away from the hip restaurants, away from the job I’ve lost, away from
Chris—each passing neighborhood reminds me that I don’t belong anywhere anymore.
The driver hums along to moody jazz on the radio and takes a right, closing in on my destination as we cross the invisible border of the neighborhood I know best. The neighborhood that’s stuck in time. The neighborhood that practically smells like shag carpet and wood paneling.
It doesn’t get any more old-school than my parents’ block. Their squat seventies-ish bungalow is miles away from Chris’s condo
in every sense of the word. It’s way west, the low-flying planes constantly reminding you exactly how close you are to O’Hare
Airport. And no one in their right mind would ever, ever describe it as sleek.
The car comes to a stop in my parents’ driveway.
“Thanks a lot,” I say to the driver.
I don’t move.
“Are . . . you going to get out?” the guy asks, a saxophone wailing weakly from the car’s speakers.
Behind each bungalow and two-flat in my parents’ neighborhood lurks a network of alleyways, for garages, dumpsters, and a
whole community of flies and raccoons and bedbug-riddled armchairs, and I can’t help thinking that’s what my life has become
without me even realizing it. Respectable and orderly on the outside, and just a smelly ol’ dumpster-fest out back.
“Do I have to?” I ask.
“Here,” he says with a sigh. “Take this bottle of water with you.”
A bottle of water. Tears well in my eyes as I remember the last bottle of water I held, the one also filled with lemon juice.
“No, thank you,” I say bravely. “I think I should face this one alone.”
I step out of the Elantra, hoisting my sad duffel, and trudge up the old, cracked driveway that’s slowly devolving its way
back to gravel. I stop for a second at the doormat shaped like a can of Old Style, trying to psych myself up to ring the doorbell.
It feels like pulling a fire alarm—once I do it, there’s no turning back. I take a deep breath and force myself to push the
button.
And they . . . do not answer the door.
I know they’re home; I can hear someone scrambling around in there.
But no one is coming to greet me.
My stomach clutches, and oh god, do they know? Did Chris call them? They love him, and Mom checks my left hand every single
time I see her, and the thought of my own parents being so upset by our breakup that they’d avoid their own daughter on her birthday is—well, I just don’t think I could take it.
I’m about to ring the bell again, when the door flies open, and there’s Dad, wearing nothing but his bathrobe—and a bedazzled
pink plastic cowboy hat that says “29 and Lookin’ fine.” Behind him, I hear Mom yell, “Davey! The hat! You’re still wearing the hat!”
I don’t think he hears her, though, because he’s standing in the doorway staring at me, deer-in-the-headlights style, clutching
at the lapels of his robe like it’s a string of pearls and he’s a ’50s housewife.
“It’s . . . not the DoorDash,” Dad says, sounding strangled.
“If they’re going to take so long, I guess I could just make some whipped cream,” Mom announces as she steps out from the hall that leads to their bedroom. She is also radically underdressed,
wearing nothing but very high heels and an apron emblazoned with the phrase, “Who’s Your Mama?”
Oh god.
I think the heart attack is coming back.
A few minutes later, the three of us are sitting at the bright yellow Formica kitchen table avoiding eye contact, but at least
everyone’s fully dressed. I spin the lazy Susan in the middle of the table like it’s a roulette wheel. I don’t know why—all
I’m doing today is losing.
“It’s just . . . we like to celebrate your birthday too,” Dad says, staring up at the ceiling.
“It was a pretty big deal, you know,” Mom adds. “That we succeeded.”
Dad picks up. “On account of my low—”
“Nope,” I say quickly. “We are not talking about this.”
And here I thought there was nothing I wanted to talk about less than my breakup.
Welp.
“I need to move in for a while,” I blurt out. No sense beating around the bush. So to speak.
They share a look that I have zero interest in decoding.
Mom clears her throat. “What happened with—”
“Chris and I are taking a short, very mutual breather,” I say, hoping that my subtext, Do not ask me about this, is very, very clear.
“I guess I could empty out your old bedroom?” Dad asks uncertainly.
“Not necessary!” I say as brightly as I can. “I’ll just move the boxes off the bed. This is short term. Very short term.” It’s a lie and we all know it.
Dad gives me an awkward thumbs-up.
I’m trying not to take the lack of enthusiasm personally. After all, it’s not just them. None of us want me here.
After a moment of silence, Mom says, “Well, what do you want for a birthday dinner?”
I opt for full-on comfort food, and we order a couple pizzas from Raul’s, which happened to be my birthday dinner every year
until I turned sixteen. The great thing about thin crust tavern-style pizza is you can stuff approximately a million squares
into your mouth before you want to die.
Comforting, yes. Also extremely depressing.
Once we’ve placed the order, I text Hannah and see if she can pick me up at my parents’ house for our night out. And also maybe bring a cute outfit I can borrow.
Hannah doesn’t text back right away, and I’ll admit I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself, and rightly so, as a person who just
got fired, dumped, and then had to listen to her dad wax nostalgic about his sperm count. But I tell myself she’s still state-of-the-unioning,
or doing whatever an influencer does during the day. I decide to make the best of things, so I grab some fresh twin sheets
from the linen closet and stick my head in my old room.
Ugh.
Dad, come on.
It is a literal fire hazard in here. Boxes piled on boxes. Novelty Zippo lighters precariously balanced on top of propane-fueled
egg cookers (you know, for camping). The man is addicted to eBay and factory warehouses. When he’s not preparing people’s
taxes in the spring, he’s buying bulk overstock sales of the actual dumbest things on earth, and then trying to resell them.
That Old Style welcome mat? There are two hundred more in the garage. He always has a scheme. Always some big new thing that’s
gonna make them rich.
I spend about ten minutes moving boxes of Vienna Beef hot dog air fresheners (no ketchup!) and determine that half a bed is
all I deserve anyway. I’ve just curled up on it pitifully when Mom appears in the doorway.
“I don’t understand,” she says with a frown. “I thought for sure he was going to propose.”
“Well, he did not,” I mumble. “He did the opposite of that.”
“Maybe he was waiting for you? Did you consider proposing to him? Maybe that’s worth a try?”
“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” I say miserably.
“Well, what happened? Did you have a fight? What led up to it?”
I decide to leave out the sexy business. “I’d just, um, gotten fired.”
“You what?” Her eyebrows go up.
“I . . . also got fired today.”
Her lips mash together to form a knife’s edge.
“Mom, I’m handling all of this,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it.
She sits down on the edge of the bed and sighs deeply, and I can already tell I’m going to hate this so much. I wonder if
it would be possible to permanently Freaky Friday myself with one of those propane-fueled egg cookers. Live a simple life.
Have a purpose: the cooking of eggs.
I have never been so jealous of a useless gadget.
Mom sighs again, like I might have missed it the first go-around. “It’s time to take life seriously, Mo.”
“I didn’t try to get fired and dumped,” I argue.
“Maybe not, but be honest with yourself, you have no drive, sweetie—no ambition. Not in your life, not at work. You just take
the path of least resistance. Look at Hannah,” Mom says. “She’s got herself figured out. Found her thing, worked hard at it.”
“So I should be an influencer?” I snort. “I don’t have that kind of charisma.”
“You don’t have to be anything except yourself. Once you figure that out, everything else will fall into place.”
On cue, a Vienna Beef hot dog air freshener falls off the closest box and hits me on the forehead.
I make a noncommittal groan and flop face down into the pillow as she strokes my hair. Then after a beat, she adds, “I just
don’t want you to forget that you are almost thirty.”
Forget? I wish.
In a moment of mercy from the universe, my phone pings. It’s a text from Hannah. Hannah the Perfect.
I’m out front. Mo, you cannot stay here.
My best friend in the whole world paces back and forth between the boxes. “This is where you got potty-trained. Where you
ate a box of crayons on a dare.” She flings her arms around. “The wallpaper is Finding Nemo.”
“I told you I had no other options.”
“Okay, you don’t get to blame me for this,” she says. “You are a grown-up.”
“Grown-ups like fish,” I whimper.
She holds her hand out to me. “We’re taking a walk.”
“What’s that gonna do?”
“Now,” Hannah says. I stand up, but I do it slowly so she knows I don’t want to.
It really is nice outside—a mid-August day but not too humid, and unlike my bedroom, it doesn’t smell like fake hot dogs.
There’s a light breeze in the air, and all around us the cicadas are screaming.
Same, cicadas. Same.
“I wish I could stay with you,” I say glumly.
“I know for a fact that you have some savings,” she says.
“Like three months’ worth.”
“That’s plenty. There are tons of studio apartments for rent this time of year. You just need to hit the right neighborhood.
Like Buffalo Park. Off the end of the Brown Line.”
“All the way at the end?” I wail. “Is that even still in the city?”
She stops and gives me a hard look. “I’m sorry, as opposed to your parents’ house, which is practically a runway at O’Hare?”
“It is free, though,” I mutter.
“You have two choices here, Mo,” Hannah says sternly. “You can be a hot mess with Finding Nemo wallpaper, or you can at least try to get your shit together.”
I want to explain that I’m a hot mess without Finding Nemo wallpaper, too, but I’m too afraid she’d agree with me.
“So what’s it going to be?” she asks.
“I’m going to look around for a cheap studio,” I recite.
“Good girl,” she says, and we start walking again.
“But that still doesn’t fix the job problem,” I say. “How am I supposed to pay for an apartment? Not to mention all these
health problems I’ve accumulated today.”
“You could get marketplace insurance,” she suggests.
“Oh, sure. If I want to pay a billion dollars in premiums only to then also pay for everything else.”
“Okay, so let’s put a budget together. What do you think you spend the most money on?” she says.
“I don’t know, it just disappears!”
Hannah sighs, and I can tell I’ve disappointed her with my chaos monkey lifestyle once again.
The truth is that, over the years, I fell into a habit of letting Chris pay for all the essentials, which—I know—does not
reflect well on me. I try logic instead.
“Believe me, I want to be gainfully employed. But even if I apply for a job today and got an interview tomorrow, it’ll take at least a month—”
Hannah stops abruptly. I slam into her. “Oh my god,” she says.
“What?” I ask, alarmed.
She turns around with a huge grin on her face. This is not a moment for a huge grin.
“I know you think my predicament is hilarious,” I say, “but this is actually my real life.”
She points toward the corner across from the grade school, where the neighborhood gardeners have really dropped the ball.
A patch of desiccated tulips has fallen over, and impaling them is a plastic yard sign. “We just fixed your job problem.”
I squint, reading the sign. This can’t be happening.
“Hannah? No. No way. You’re obviously kidding, yes?”
But she’s not kidding. At all. She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks deep into my eyes. “What does the U stand for
in UPGRADE?”
UPGRADE is her assertiveness program on social media, the one that took off and made her a full-time influencer. She helps
people upgrade themselves is the whole idea. Simple. Brilliant. And Hannah has always given excellent advice, so it’s actually
really cool that she gets to use her skills in this way. It’s just . . . it also feels weird that the advice she used to give
me is now available to hundreds of thousands of fans. I mean, if I ask for her advice now, am I just one of her fans? You
can’t be a groupie to your own best friend, right? Or can you?
No. I’m going to handle this my way. I shake my head and, only half joking, say, “Don’t you dare use your influencer powers
on me—”
“Don’t be a stubborn baby,” she says. “What’s the U, Mo?”
“Understand What You Want,” I mutter.
“Check! You want a job. Now what’s the P?”
I sigh. “Pay Attention to Signs.”
She pulls the sign out of the lawn and holds it in the air triumphantly. “Here’s your sign, kiddo. Happy birthday!”
I read the sign again, each word a nail in the coffin of my soul.
Looking for flexible part-time work with health insurance?
Become a school crossing guard.
Start today.