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were associated with CREEP: the Committee to Re-Elect the President—in this case, President Richard Nixon, who was seeking
his second term in office. The break-in and subsequent investigations, the most famous of which were done by journalists Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein at the Washington Post, revealed a wide-ranging series of crimes and payoffs that ultimately resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon on August
In this exhibit . . .
Stevie sat on the grand but cold stone steps of the New York Public Library on Forty-Second Street holding the discarded brochure about the Watergate exhibit that she had found there.
CREEP? How the hell did something like that even happen?
How did you end up calling your breaking in and bugging group CREEP?
Crime was stupid a lot of the time. And obvious. Maybe the more obvious you were, the better. No one believes the obvious.
She had returned to the apartment to tell Nate all about Helen and her bird and the tarot cards, but he was gone. He had sent
a text that said: Going out. Back later.
Though her impulse was to lie on her face and do nothing, she knew this was a bad choice. Helen had just spotted the fact
that Stevie wore her pathetic broken-up condition like a Halloween mask and that she was a fool on her way to a shitstorm.
Tarot or not, Helen was probably correct in that assessment, and it was enough of a wake-up call to motivate Stevie to put
on some clean pants and get the hell out for a while. Maybe the universe had a point. The NYPL site said the library would
be open for another hour and a half, and that was possibly enough time to get in the door.
The transit app suggested taking the Fifth Avenue bus, which she managed to do, and was treated to a slow crawl down New York
City’s major shopping street, every window glistening in red and green and gold and silver, everything pumping out the message
that these were the holidays and it was time to buy and celebrate and not be alone in an apartment in a city you did not know.
She didn’t make it on time, of course. So she sat on the steps gazing down at the hot dog and pretzel vendors and the two stone lions that stood guard by the steps, welcoming those who sought knowledge and warning off anyone who would take access to that knowledge away.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Stevie let the cold wind of New York slap her face, her coat snapping and billowing around her. It wasn’t David’s coat anymore.
It was her coat. She would document it, showing the world and herself and mostly David that she was not just okay but thriving
beyond belief, and if social media believed it, it would be real. She positioned herself in front of the lions and got several
shots, then walked back downtown, making sure to get shots of herself with the Empire State Building in the background. She
posed near a massive decorated tree at Madison Square Park. She bought a breathtakingly expensive hot chocolate and posed
with that. She would pose until she felt something positive. It hadn’t worked yet, but she would keep trying.
When she returned before three with numb hands and a running nose, Nate still wasn’t back. She stood helplessly in front of
the apartment. At the other end of the hall, a door opened, and a tiny figure in huge shoes appeared. Today Luna was wearing
red plaid pants and a massive Cure T-shirt.
“Locked out?” she said as she clomped down the hall toward Stevie. She was carrying a small bag.
“Waiting for Nate. We just have the one key.”
“I got his book,” she said. “Do you think he would sign it? Is that okay to ask? And I got you this. . . .”
She opened the bag and handed Stevie Nate’s book and a book called Those Who Eat Death.
“This is Ivy Grey’s adult mystery. It’s sort of paranormal because the main character is a dream thief, but it follows normal mystery rules. Like, she witnesses part of a murder when she steals a dream and she has to put it together using regular clues.”
It was a kind gesture. This was Christmas—this might be her only gift, the only thing she would have to celebrate the holiday,
and it came from a goth kid she’d only just met. Tears began to sting her eyes. She quick-blinked them away as she thanked
Luna.
“If you’re stuck,” Luna said, “do you want me to show you a secret place in the building, and I can tell you all the gossip
about everyone here?”
Even though Stevie had nothing else to do, in truth, she was always ready to go and see a secret place in any building.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
Luna looked thrilled that this gambit had worked and headed for the elevator, punching the button to take them to the basement.
It stopped once at the lobby level.
“We’re going down,” Luna said to the person standing there.
“Luna!” the doorwoman called. “Packages for your mom!”
“I’ll come back,” Luna called as the door closed. She rolled her eyes and turned to Stevie.
“My mom gets shit every day. She’s an influencer. Or she thinks she is.”
The basement was a gray and cold space, pipes lining the ceiling and walls, with the audible whistle of wind.
There was a laundry room, a community-notice board kept under glass, and the boxes.
The boxes were piled high and ran the length of the wall—boxes from countless deliveries, boxes that had held fruit and champagne and baby supplies, massive boxes that had contained chairs and lamps and fake Christmas trees, cat litter subscription boxes, boxes that had contained live plants, and yes, one Box Box box.
It was a pyramid, some holy temple devoted to consumerism and daily need, large and mostly hollow.
“Here’s the trick,” Luna said. “See that?”
She pointed to a long counter that was marked RECYCLING, with cutouts in the wood and the bins underneath for metal and paper
and compost. It was overflowing, with excess bags of paper and cartons piled on and around it.
“Yeah . . .” Stevie said.
Luna nodded toward a dark dome in the ceiling. A camera.
“There are cameras here in the basement. Cameras in the lobby. Cameras in the elevators and on the fire escape. But none on
the floors. The co-op board got into a big fight about it because some people thought there should be and some people thought
that was an invasion of privacy, and those people won. But there are cameras in all the other public areas. So . . .”
Luna made a stack of boxes that reached the ceiling and positioned them so that they blocked the camera’s view.
“Benny showed me this,” she said with a smile.
Luna pushed aside bags of crushed cartons and junk mail, reached into the cutout space, and shoved the bin inside of it back. Then she pushed herself up onto the counter and into the hole.
“Come on,” she said to Stevie.
Stevie looked around, decided that there was nothing really stopping her from climbing into an empty trash hole, and followed
Luna in, emerging into a large room filled with cleaning supplies and more garbage, all packed up and ready to go outside.
Luna pushed the bin back into place so no one would notice.
“Secret room,” she said, smiling. “I come here a lot.”
She began walking around the room, picking up glue traps with her bare hands and checking to make sure they were empty, before
putting them into the now-empty bag that had held the books.
“Last night,” she said, “everyone was talking shit about Benny. Benny is the only good thing that’s ever happened here. I
mean, it’s cool that you’re here. But Benny is different. She volunteers at an animal shelter. She doesn’t kill things. We
practice radical non-extermination. She showed me how to eat vegan and get vegan shoes. Everyone hates her and she doesn’t
give a fuck.”
Luna lowered her voice to a whisper to utter that last word.
“Helen doesn’t seem to,” Stevie said.
“No, Helen’s good too. My mom thinks Helen is a freaky old hippie, but she’s a real person—she doesn’t like bullshit.
Benny and Helen are the good ones. Arthur spies on everyone.
He’s a pain in the ass. Mitzi hates Benny, and maybe me.
I mean, she’s not mean to me, but I know she calls me Little Lizzie Borden and Spooky Barbie, but I actually kind of like those names so it’s fine.
Lance just likes Italian stuff. Elliot and Benny dated for, like, a minute and a half.
He sucks. Benny read that book he’s writing and said it’s the worst thing she’s ever read.
Sophie and Imogen are new, but I think Sophie is kind of famous, so my mom has been trying to talk to her. ”
Luna found the last trap, made sure it had no inhabitant, and stomped on it with her big Doc Martens platform boot before
putting it in the bag.
“My mom wants to be an influencer. She used to sell beauty supplements. Then she coached some diet where you only get to eat
their dusty-ass bars and one meal a day and you’re so hungry you can’t stand up and you can only call it The Program, so that’s
not culty or anything. But you lose money on all that stuff, so now she’s one of those people who lives in New York and just
shows you what her day is like here. Her fake day. Don’t let my mom use your socials. She tries to collab with anyone with a following. You must have a lot of followers.”
“I’m private,” Stevie said.
“Why?”
Once you solve a murder or two, people get in touch.
They came to Stevie’s profile to tell her about neighbors who went on vacation too often, suspicious rolled-up carpets with person-shaped lumps in the middle, dead body smells, petty grievances, eerie coincidences.
At first, Stevie found it interesting. Then she found it a bit unsettling that so many strangers were lurking around on her profile and talking about death when she posted pictures of her friends.
“I just . . . I don’t want everyone to see my stuff.”
Luna stared in wonder at this fact for a moment.
“See that?” She indicated what seemed to be a room inside the room they were in, but with a tiny metal door. “It’s the old
incinerator. Here. Look.”
She got up and indicated for Stevie to follow her. The metal door was partially open. Luna pulled it back, revealing a black
space filled with trash bags.
“They don’t use it anymore. Fire hazard. But now . . .”
There was movement. Then Stevie saw them. At least a dozen of them, scurrying around.
“Are those rats?” she said, backing away.
“No.” Luna reached in casually, adjusting something. “These are mice. We put them in here and feed them. Keep them warm. Then
we take them to the park, so at least they have a chance to live and not die from poison or starvation. Sometimes I put little
boxes in there with cotton so they can nest. There’s less we can do for the rats, but at least we can destroy the traps.”
Stevie made her way to the other side of the room. Luna pushed the door back into its original position.
“Do you know how hot crematorium ovens have to be?” she said. “Over seven hundred and fifty degrees. Up to two thousand. Crazy
hot.”
This, Stevie realized, is why you never follow a goth to a second location.
“I really respect what you do,” Luna said. “For the dead.”
Stevie kind of knew what this meant. What you do for the dead. It made her sound like a priestess, a figure from one of Helen’s tarot cards. The sudden weirdness of it threw her, though.
“I want to be a mortician,” Luna continued. “I know . . .”
She indicated herself—her dress, her makeup.
“. . . my parents think I say that just because of how I look. But it’s an amazing job. There are a lot of components—chemistry,
biology, anatomy, and there’s the psychological angle of helping people with the process. The legal angle, because you have
to sign a lot of stuff and there’s a lot of law about how to handle the dead. The ecological angle—you know, green funerals—and
art because you have to do hair, makeup, reconstruction. It’s kind of the perfect career. Because everyone dies.”
Because everyone dies.
This was clearly not the first time Luna had given this speech. But Luna seemed to see something in Stevie. She knew Stevie
would get it. And she was right. Stevie knew the feeling of being dismissed as a freak and a creep by her parents—that fact was a primary
driver for why she was sitting in the back room of a basement in New York City for Christmas.
“Do you follow any funeral home accounts?” Luna asked. “They’re amazing. That’s how I knew I wanted to do this. I’ll show
you some of my favorites.”
Funeral director influencers, as it turned out, were funny and friendly.
They did day-in-the-life videos, getting dressed and pouring coffee before embalming.
They had families running around their office.
They did memes with respirators on. They talked about their clients with respect and normalcy, about how they used makeup, what their schedule was like when they had to answer a death call in the night.
“I’m going to send you a follow request,” Luna said. “Then I guess I better go back. We’re supposed to have dinner.”
Right. It was Christmas Eve. Luna had somewhere to be, aside from this basement.
“Can’t wait to see your posts,” she said.
They left the way they’d come, with Luna dumping the cardboard glue traps deep in the paper recycling and covering them up.
When they returned to the eighth floor, there was a small object sitting against the door that looked like a brick. As she
approached, Stevie could make out it was something brown, tightly wrapped in plastic. She picked it up and examined the sticky
note stuck to the top.
Thanks for the chat. Try my fruitcake. Helen.
Somehow, this gift of fruitcake—the cake she made for spite—was more ominous than that Tower card.