Chapter 9
I dial into the first of today’s endless series of calls on the global campaign structure.
“If I can just interject for a moment—” Anthony says, two minutes into the call. “I do not recall agreeing to that first bullet.”
“It’s just a preliminary punching bag, Anthony. We proposed a kit model instead of having an execution team at the global level because it gets the campaigns into market quicker. We agreed—” I start.
“We clearly did not agree if I have questions.”
I mute myself and sigh gustily, closing my eyes and begging the heavens for patience. And then the memory of Jack smirking down at me after his Chewbacca crack flits through my mind.
I should be thinking about how to retaliate for what he did to my garden. Instead I’m imagining what he could be doing to my other garden. My lady garden.
No, ew. It’s my deep need to be liked. Curiously, I’ve never felt that need with Jack, but clearly the overgrown path to not giving a shit needs a machete taking to it every now and then.
The rest of my global project calls go the way of the first: two steps forward, one somersault back. Rochelle assures me she’ll talk to Sam to sort out the disagreement on methodology Anthony broached today. I give her a weak smile and thank her.
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, leaning forward and folding her hands in front of her. “You look out of sorts.”
“I’m fine.” At Rochelle’s skeptical look, a sigh flops out of me. “It’s just that the stuff with Anthony is exhausting, and I’m having some issues with my neighbor.” I blush profusely. “Annoying and dumb one-upmanship. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll talk to Sam about Anthony. The neighbor… I don’t know what’s going on there, but sometimes the only way to win a game is to not play. If you need to talk, I’m here. Okay?”
I nod, eyes misting. I’m a sucker for a sympathetic ear. And she’s right. Retaliating for the garden is probably dumb.
Margie is filming somewhere downtown until late tonight, so I won’t be seeing her, but Avery is supposed to stop in and help with the wall. I jump in a rideshare after work, too exhausted to walk but too poor to take a taxi. I need my raise.
I regret my decision when my ride pulls up and the door to the black SUV opens.
A high school–aged girl with long blond hair and white skin, wearing shorts that look more like denim underwear, hops out and allows me access to the very tight third row of seating.
I sigh and wriggle my way in, praying the combo of AC-vent air fresheners and being wedged in the back doesn’t give me a yak attack.
The teen pushes the seat back until it slams against my knees.
I grab at my legs and let out an involuntary whimper.
“Did that hit you? Sorry…” the girl says.
“It’s okay.”
“I like your top. It’s cute,” she says with enough vocal fry to crisp a churro.
“Thanks,” I say warily.
Her friend, a brunette with shoulder-length hair and olive skin, tears her eyes from her phone to turn and take in my top. They whisper and giggle, and I shift my legs to the side of my squashed seat, wondering what exactly is wrong with my simple, blue, work-appropriate shirt.
In the front passenger seat, an older white woman in a neon-yellow tank keeps an eye on all of us from the mirror in the sun visor.
Her thick-framed glasses match her top, and her veined hands are covered in silver rings.
A young Black man in a suit leans against the window in the front row, paging through a newspaper on his iPad.
He’s seated next to the brunette teen who is currently showing her phone to the blonde who let me in.
Thank God for technology and its ability to provide a social shield for the antisocial. I lean over with difficulty and reach for my tote, pulling out my own phone.
Text from Margie:
I was thinking about ideas for your garden retaliation. Maybe post in some fan forums that Jack’s phone number belongs to Lucas. The man will have no peace.
I’m taking Rochelle’s advice and refusing to play the game. Even if I was planning to engage, I wouldn’t want to screw around with Jack’s phone and potentially mess with people’s immigration situations.
No! That’s too far. And I’m not retaliating.
The car stops. I groan internally, annoyed that we’re picking up a sixth passenger.
“What is this, a clown car?” the old lady in the front says. There’s always someone who makes that comment. The driver chuckles dutifully.
The blond girl’s groan is not internal. She huffs it out in frustration and opens the door, pulling back the seat.
Just the sight of the heavily pregnant woman waiting to board makes it clear there is no way she can squeeze here with me.
To her credit, the blond girl climbs in beside me without a word of question or complaint and pulls the seat to close us in.
The pregnant woman thanks her and heaves herself onto the seat vacated by the blonde. “Lovely. Air conditioning,” she murmurs gratefully.
My phone vibrates.
Oh, you’ve discovered a moral line in the sand? That’s interesting. I figured when you started dabbling in biological warfare the sky was the limit.
I bristle.
Har. Har. If I’m such a bad person, what does that say about you, then?
That I’m just as bad.
“What did you do? The biological warfare thing?” the blond girl next to me asks. She is unashamedly reading my text messages.
“Um, it’s nothing. My neighbor,” I answer. High school girls are unpredictable creatures. There is no ignoring or rebuking her. I do, however, pull my phone up and away from her view.
“You did biological warfare on a neighbor?” the brunette asks, turning around with interest.
“No, no. It was just a cat. My neighbor has allergies, so I—” I see the pregnant woman’s eyebrows angle up in judgment.
“I mean, I wanted to make him itchy so he’d move.
But that’s because he’s forever doing obnoxious things to me.
” The need to defend my honor to this jury of my peers is as necessary as it is ridiculous.
“What did he do?” the old lady asks, angling her body to look at me from the front seat. All eyes are on me, including the driver’s occasional glance through the rearview mirror.
“I mean, he plays his music super loud, the same song over and over on repeat, when I’m hungover. And he cooks the nastiest things, only on days when he knows I was out late.”
The teens look invested in this reality show of mine. The brunette shakes her head in disapproval of Jack’s antics. “He takes my sopping wet clothes out of the dryer and sticks his in instead, then leaves my stuff on the dusty folding table to get that mildew smell.”
That wins over the pregnant woman. She looks furious on my behalf.
“There were, like, three whole days when a dog was barking nonstop in his apartment, and I convinced the super to check inside because I was sure my neighbor had abandoned a helpless animal. But it was a recording playing on his laptop. A recording of a dog barking…for three days.”
The old woman looks aghast. I eye the man in the suit.
Which story will win him over? “Our super painted the stair banisters black, and my neighbor removed the wet paint sign on his way out in the morning. I ended up getting paint all over my favorite top, and I was late getting to work because I had to run back into my apartment and change.”
That does it. The suit is in.
“What have you done to him besides the cat thing?” the blond girl asks.
I recite the ways I’ve retaliated, skipping some—like that time I posted a fake petition from him in the lobby, asking for signatures to support turning the basement into a sex club—since I don’t want to lose my front-seat support.
Before I know it, the rest of the story—about the wall, my thinking Jack was a cheater and his attempt to kiss me, him throwing my mom’s words in my face, and his plans to buy my apartment—all pours out.
“You should, like, tell everyone in the building he’s a sex offender,” the blond girl says.
“That’s probably illegal,” the guy in the suit says. “Maybe have a conversation with your other neighbors and see if they’ve had similar issues with him?”
“Talk to the super!” the pregnant woman says. “Or the building owner.”
“Tried that,” I say. “Jack only tortures me. Gence, our super, says he can’t do anything. I suspect he thinks I’m to blame. Plus, he’s pissed at me because I opened that hole in the wall.”
“How about you hide something that reeks in his apartment?” the brunette says, and I clamp my mouth shut before I can tell her what I already did with those cans of tuna fish.
It occurs to me that the two high schoolers keep plotting vengeance, while the adults propose diplomacy.
Do I have the emotional IQ of a teenager? The thought is sobering.
“No, I think… I think the others are right. I need to figure out how to resolve this in a mature way,” I say.
“Glitter! Oh my God, yes. Put some in his shampoo,” the blonde says.
“What would that even do?” the brunette counters. “He’d just wash it out.”
“Um, trust me. Glitter is like an avoidant ex-boyfriend. The minute you think he’s gone for good, he shows up again to wreck your shit.”
“‘Seek revenge and you should dig two graves,’” the driver says, piping up suddenly.
“It’s glitter,” the blonde sasses. “Not an axe murder.”
“Is this your stop?” the driver asks me, and I’m surprised to realize it is. The pregnant woman files outside, and I clumsily stumble my way out of the third row behind the blonde. Once I’m on the street, I turn to thank the car’s remaining occupants for the crowdsourced advice.
“Good luck, honey! If all else fails, just kick him in his gonads,” the bloodthirsty, bespectacled grandma calls out from the front seat.
People around me on the sidewalk gawk in confusion. The car pulls away, lively conversation trickling back to me through the open windows.