Chapter 6
My commute home is only two blocks—one block up and one to the right. It’s a gorgeous afternoon, sunny and warm. People are
out walking dogs, bikers pedal past, there are even some late-summer blooms holding on here and there. But I’m not enjoying
one second of it.
I’ve got the heebie-jeebies the whole way.
The alderman knows where you live, Poodle Dude had said.
But, like, why? Why would he know something like that? Is the alderman a perv? Is he watching me? With binoculars? How did this all escalate
so fast? I was only trying to do this job I don’t actually want, I think miserably. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to be back in Chris’s condo, safe and cozy.
Instead, I’m out here on the mean Chicago streets, being threatened by a guy who owns three poodles and a pervy elected official.
“Watch out!” somebody yells, just as a Frisbee hits me in the head.
Streets so mean you have to wear a helmet.
I hand the Frisbee back to a little kid who does not apologize, and, head pulsating, I push through the imposing gate to my apartment building.
My new home looms over me. I hate that this is home now. It’s a sketchy brick U-shaped monstrosity that crumbles at the corners
when the wind blows hard. There are three separate entrances, one for each section of the U, and the courtyard has a distinct
prison yard vibe. The studio I rent month to month is a third-floor walk-up in the center of the U, and to get there, I have
to pass my landlord’s apartment. I’m pretty sure that’s why the place was so affordable. Roy, professional landlord, lives
on the first floor with a TV blaring the Home Shopping Network 24/7, and every time I walk past, he flings his door open and
talks at me.
Every. Single. Time.
Roy is approximately seven hundred years old, exclusively wears blue button-downs with a different food stain on each one,
and the top of his head comes up to my boobs, which is convenient for him, since most of the time, that’s where he’s looking.
Forehead still throbbing, I try to sneak in, but right as I reach his apartment, Roy flings the door open and sidles into
the hall, blocking my way. I am extremely not in the mood to hear his usual gossip about other tenants’ communicable diseases
and medical procedures, but instead he squares off with me, boob to eyeball, and goes, “Someone just came looking for you.”
Blood instantly ices in my veins. My voice shakes as I ask, “Who? When?”
“A man. In a hurry. Few minutes ago,” he says, very pleased with himself. “I let him up to your apartment.”
“You what?” I shriek.
“Well, I didn’t let him in to your place,” he says, clarifying. “Just up to the door. Not a friend of yours, I take it?”
I gaze up the stairs.
Holy shit. The alderman. Here. Poodle Dude sent him.
No, Roy, definitely not a friend.
My heart is pounding, heart attack style.
“Is he still up there?” I whisper.
“What do I look like, a snoop?” Roy says defensively and, feelings clearly hurt, slams his door.
Alone in the stairwell, I debate my next move. I’m tempted to run away and maybe start a new life in a new city under a new
name, like a DIY witness protection sort of thing. Upside: I’ve never liked my name. Downside: I will definitely lose my security
deposit.
Reluctantly, I creep up the stairs as quietly as I can, which is not very because the stairway is old and creaky as fuck.
It smells like Victorian ghosts, and I have no intention of joining them today.
At the top landing, I peer around the corner, and, seeing no one standing menacingly in front of 3C, I finally exhale. The
hallway is short, with no shadowy corners or alcoves to hide in. The alderman must have come by to intimidate me. Damn, these
guys work fast. Did he leave anything behind? A note, say? Or, I don’t know, a horse head?
There’s nothing obvious lying around, so I lift the gross old doormat that came with the apartment. Nothing under there but
grimy, threadbare carpet. I’m almost relieved until I realize he might have picked the lock and could be inside my apartment waiting for me right now.
Careful not to make any noise, I press my ear to the door. Are you supposed to be able to hear through wood? I don’t hear
anything, so I wiggle the doorknob. It’s locked. Okay, would he have gone through the trouble of breaking into my apartment
and then locking the door behind him? I feel like no?
I unlock the dead bolt slowly and try to subtly ease the door open, just in case there’s an ambush waiting for me on the other side—but of course it’s humid, so the wood has swelled, and I have no choice but to throw myself against the door repeatedly, wedging my shoulder in just the right spot to get it to unstick.
Extremely unsubtle.
When the door finally gives way, I stumble into the apartment and instinctively brace myself for another blow to the head.
Would that be a thing an alderman would do? I have no idea. When it doesn’t happen, I glance around, the tension unbearable
as I am forced to scan my grim studio apartment, that yes, fine, gets lots of light and has wood floors, but also has exactly
three pieces of furniture: a double bed on the metal frame that comes with the mattress, a faded pink velour armchair I got
off Facebook Marketplace, and a small, round side table I brought from my parents’ house. It barely looks like anybody lives
here—I haven’t hung anything up, not a single photo or poster.
This would be a very depressing place to get murdered by a low-level government official.
Or murdered by anybody, I guess.
After a few moments of silence and no head-bashing, I’m thinking about letting my guard down . . .
. . . just as a skull-shattering clank clank clank explodes from the corner of the apartment. I whip around and scream.
The fact that I’m screaming scares me even more, and so it’s at least twenty more seconds of CLANKing and even louder screaming
before I realize the CLANKing is the 1980s beige fridge, just trying to do its job.
“I thought we were friends!” I holler, kicking the side of the fridge.
Okay. I am yelling at a kitchen appliance.
I need backup.
“Hiiiiiii,” I say as Hannah’s boyfriend Kenji opens the door.
“Oh,” he says, instead of hi. “Hannah didn’t mention you were coming.”
“So weird!” I say, casually squeezing past him into the stairwell. It’s not weird at all. I didn’t tell Hannah. I knew if
I did, she’d put me off until later, and I am in danger now.
But also now? I smell something delicious wafting down from the apartment. I follow my nose up the stairs.
Kenji sighs heavily, and I turn back to him with a shrug. “Sorry, Reuben’s cooking is calling me.”
Hannah’s other boyfriend, Reuben, is currently working on his second cookbook (Getting Even Blacker in the Kitchen, sequel to his first cookbook, the TikTok hit Getting Black in the Kitchen).
Kenji’s girlfriend Eva is a big-time photographer who focuses on themes of Puerto Rican statehood, but also does the art
for the cookbooks, and sometimes helps Hannah with her UPGRADE reels. Kenji is a mosaic muralist, and when he’s between commissions,
he redecorates their bathrooms into glittering dreamscapes that make you want to poop forever (a compliment). And Hannah,
of course, has cornered the white-girl influencer market.
They are my MAGA aunt’s worst nightmare (again, compliment).
Hannah and Kenji are together, and so are Hannah and Reuben, as well as Eva and Kenji, and sometimes Eva and Reuben. And Kenji
and Reuben are in a casual friends-with-benefits thing, I think? Hard to keep track. Their whole relationship status is literally,
“it’s complicated.”
I offered to be their HR person once, and Eva told me it wasn’t funny.
I strongly suspect that Eva doesn’t like me.
But now, after my horrible day, this is the only place I want to be. I’ve got Reuben’s cherry cobbler burning the roof of my mouth because I ate it too fast, I’m surrounded by friends (and, okay, one frenemy)—and I actually start tearing up and sniffling.
“I told you to wait till it cooled off,” Reuben says, washing a bowl at the sink.
“She’s not crying because of the cobbler, Reu.” Hannah touches my arm. “Mo, did you get fired again?”
I semi-successfully keep the pastry in my mouth and the snot in my nose while I bawl through the highlights: I pissed off
somebody dangerous, he has a government connection, and said government connection knows where I live.
“Which is bad enough, but then my landlord let him up to my apartment. He didn’t let him in but—” I pause, letting them imagine what horrors might have befallen me.
“—God, watch literally any horror movie, Roy,” Hannah finishes.
I nod, helping myself to another scoop of cobbler. I knew she’d understand.
“So that’s why I’m here, guys. I need your help. What if—hear me out—you rotated keeping me company at home?” I glance around
the table. Everyone’s avoiding my gaze. “Listen, it would only be 24/7 for a few days till I can clear this up. A week, tops.
You all work remote, so I figure—”
Eva smacks her fork down, startling us all. “You guys have got to do a better job protecting yourselves. You think nothing bad will happen to you, so you just open your DMs up to whoever
wants to slide in.”
DMs? You guys?
“I’m sorry,” I say, “what are we talking about?”
“Boundaries, babe.” Returning from the sink, Reuben gently squeezes my and Hannah’s shoulders. “When you’re chronically online, people just kind of—glom on to you. They’ll project their shit all over you. Believe me, I’ve been there. Eva’s right, you have to take initiative to protect yourself.”
I widen my eyes at Hannah like Can you believe I’m getting lectured right now? But she’s just staring blankly at her untouched cobbler.
“I have like ten followers on Instagram,” I say, my face getting hot. “You guys don’t even follow me. This isn’t a chronically online thing, it’s an actual threat to my IRL life!”
They all turn to look at me. Kenji leans across the table to touch my hand. “He threatened to kill you?” he asks.
My confidence wobbles. “Maybe not kill me, per se,” I say.
Eva groans.
“Okay, fine,” I admit, “there is a very small chance I am blowing it out of proportion a very little bit. But the alderman
did come up to my apartment—” I turn to Hannah for support. “The whole thing was so scary, you have no idea.”
My bestie nods. “I do, I do. I get it.” She’s not facing me, though, she’s frowning at Eva, who’s glaring back at her, and
I’m so overwhelmed with love for my best friend who sticks up for me, no matter what. “And the worst part is,” I say, “the
poodle was totally fine! Licking its butt like nothing even happened!”
“Oh,” Hannah says, turning back to me. “Maybe I don’t get it.”
“There’s a . . . poodle . . . involved?” Kenji asks.
I shake my head sadly. “Three.”
A brief silence falls over the table as I wipe my nose on my sleeve. You’d think they could polycule me up a real Kleenex,
but no. Kenji is anti-single-use products.
“I bet you leave your door unlocked too,” Eva mumbles. “It’s amazing you made it to thirty in one piece.”
“Excuse me,” I say. “I’m twenty-nine.”
“Lock your door, every time. Tell the landlord you’ll sue him if he lets anyone up to your apartment. Get some pepper spray and stay offline,” Eva says, slapping her palm on the table. “There’s your advice.”
Those two helpings of cherry cobbler are sitting like a boulder in my guts, along with some foreboding rumblings. I really
shouldn’t eat so fast when I’m stressed-out. This isn’t the kind of backup I was hoping for.
I say my goodbyes and Hannah walks me back downstairs. “Your boyfriend’s girlfriend drives me nuts,” I grumble as I step out
onto the porch.
“I know,” Hannah says, leaning against the doorframe. “When Eva gets scared, she lashes out. But she does it because she cares.
I bet if you walked back in right now, she’d apologize . . .” She glances uncertainly up the stairs.
I seriously doubt that, but I let it go.
Because I’ve decided what I’m going to do.
I am going to protect myself, Eva. By beating Poodle Dude at his own game.
I’m going to take some initiative and go straight to the alderman’s office.