Undercovers 2.0
It’s been three days since my sick day with Sami, and I’m finally back to feeling like myself by Monday morning. We’ve been
texting all weekend, and yesterday Abu came by to take Ernest from me.
The only outside contact beyond that was the email from Lana that came first thing this morning. I reread it in the elevator,
mentally running through all the areas I’m to take photos of. The attachment read:
Lobby (from each corner of room for full scale and view)
Front of building from across the street
Basement fuse box
Parkade
Storage area
The elevator reaches the main floor with a jolt and a ding. The smell of stewed cabbage carries through the lobby today—it
must be cabbage and sausage night at Fighting Couple’s place—and a weird kind of nostalgia tugs at me. I’ve become so familiar
with the rotating smells, the little moldings on the ceilings, the whiteboard that I wrote on that day after my breakdown
(that seems so long ago now). Without Irene leaving writing on it, someone has added a drawing of Ernest and Irene with a
caption: Get Well Soon! I note that Sami’s added his petition to the wall next to the whiteboard.
I send a new text to Sami:
Me: I’m back on my feet. Saw you running with Ernest this morning.
Sami: Come by the diner when you can!
I swipe his message away and start on my task of capturing the lobby from all corners. I’m taking my third shot, which really
seems to be a picture of the gross chair—
“What are you doing?”
I startle at the voice behind me. “Jane!” I smile heartily while her eyes flash to the phone in my hands in confusion. She
must be heading to work. She’s in a ruffled blouse with pink and blue dots and the type of slacks that can be washed in the
laundry without wrinkles. “I like your hair.” I grin brightly. It’s now black and really shiny.
“Thanks, I dyed it yesterday.” She runs her hands through it, tousling the strands. “Why were you taking a picture of that
gross lobby chair?”
I instinctively throw my hands behind me to hide my phone, then realize how shifty that looks and force my arms to loosen
to my sides. “Oh, I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were . . .” Her eyes point toward my phone screen. “I can still see the picture you took right there.” I hit the
button with my thumb to turn my screen off. Jane gives me a strange look, then shrugs. “You know, Irene told me she can’t
even remember when the chair appeared here. She reckons it was this weird-ass tenant she had in the 2000s named Billy who
left it in the lobby; says nobody should sit in it too long. You know how fucked up you gotta be compared to the rest of us
to have Irene call you ‘weird ass’?” Jane shifts on her feet and narrows her eyes once again. “So why were you taking a picture of it?”
“I wasn’t taking a picture of the chair,” I blurt before thinking, then realize I will need to clarify. “It was a picture
of the lobby.”
Now a different question flashes across Jane’s eyes. “Did Irene ask for that?” Already, a curious twist in her expression.
“Not at all.” Shit. I can’t have Jane going to Irene with questions. In fact, I can’t have Jane telling anyone I was taking these photos—that could raise suspicions among the tenants.
I have to think fast. My eyes shift around the room.
The elevator dings and Divorced Dad steps out and nods once to both of us before rushing out in his bouncy fucking sneakers.
He’s off to go get a coffee from Sami before his shift, no doubt.
Somehow, I’ve gotten all these people’s routines down pat.
An idea hits.
“Okay, you got me.” I lower my voice and lean closer to Jane. “I was taking secret photos of the lobby—as part of the panty-thief investigation.”
Jane’s brows pull together in confusion.
I hold up my palms in a hear-me-out gesture. “I’ve been trying to gather more evidence after we ran into a dead end—and everyone
I’ve looked into so far has not given much away.”
Jane nods for me to continue like this might actually be going somewhere.
“So I was surveying possible areas where the panty thief might lurk before he acts. This chair seems a good, subtle place
to wait. Right across the entrance to the basement. He might even rev himself up for the crime here.”
I force myself to lock eyes with Jane, who unfortunately looks back at me with genuine concern.
“Mona, I appreciate all this, but I don’t think this is going to .
. .” She shakes whatever train of thought she has away.
“Maybe we should just do another undercover tonight? I’ve been thinking about it, and the idea behind it was right, but maybe we missed an angle.
Maybe we can set up two cameras—one that captures the lower area?
” She pauses, her eyes trailing over me with concern.
“It would save you from having to do . . . this.”
“Great idea!” I say, because what choice do I have?
“Tonight?” Jane asks. “Monday is my usual laundry night, anyway.”
“Yeah.”
Jane grins back and her Apple Watch flashes. “I’m off to work, but come by my place at six.”
We make a plan to meet back up this evening. As Jane leaves, I keep my phone tucked into my back pocket, shifting to give
the chair a wide berth.
This time I don’t even try to knock on Jane’s door. As soon as I’m outside, as predicted, she’s waiting to let me in.
But when I enter the apartment, it’s like I’ve never seen it before. All the crochet stuff, paints, and puzzles are put away,
the clothes she’d had strewn about are gone, and all the counters and tables are bare and glistening. There’s even a diffuser
giving off a lavender scent. It’s still a full house as far as decor goes, but it’s tidy. “Wow, it looks great in here,” I
can’t help but say aloud.
As I make my way past her white kitchen cabinets—identical to mine—I notice her vintage coffee table is set up with plates
of charcuterie and vegetables and a bottle of wine. Her cat eyes me from its usual chair, unimpressed.
Her eyes spark at my compliment. “Last time we didn’t do it right. We should enjoy the time while we wait.”
“Jane, this is amazing!” I mean it. It’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me since, well, since Sami brought all those
supplies on our sick day. But I think of Jane going through all this trouble just because she busted me taking pictures of
the lobby, and a pang of guilt draws in. “You really didn’t have to do all this.”
“It was fun! And this was the kind of thing I always wanted to do when I moved here.” Her temples redden as she smiles softly. “It’s just, finding people to have over is harder than expected.”
“Yeah, it is,” I say, but I eye her with newfound curiosity. I guess it can be kind of tough moving somewhere with no ties,
but still—I feel bad she’s been here a year without really seeming to have anyone to hang with.
Jane checks the screen of her phone. “I set up the wash about ten minutes ago with a camera that’s slightly lower, so we can
see the floor too, in case the thief crawls in.”
I nod. That’s certainly something we didn’t think of last time.
“We have twenty minutes until it’s time to change.”
She takes a seat on the couch and begins pouring the wine into two glasses. I sit beside her and take the glass closest to
me. “So . . .” I start, twisting the stem between my fingers, “what’s it like back home?”
Jane takes a big sip from her cup. “The best way I can describe it is cold and small. But apparently they have a Boston Pizza
now, so maybe I should’ve stuck around.” Her words are laced with sarcasm.
I take a sip of wine too—it’s citrusy and semisweet. “What made you leave, if there were such big things in store?”
“Oh, you know. A bitter divorce.” She lifts the glass, tilts her chin high, and swallows another long swig of wine in a long
gulp.
Something about her—those bright, mismatched outfits and her animated, almost cartoonish energy—gives her such a green quality.
It’s hard to reconcile that image with the idea of her as someone who’s weathered heartbreak and hard decisions. “Really?”
She gulps down another big swig of wine as she nods. “I know I look too hot and young for it, but that’s the point. I was
too young for it all. Trevor and I were together since high school and instead of moving away for college like a normal person,
I became a small-town housewife.” She laughs once, bitter. “Pathetic, right?”
Jane’s eyes flicker to the floor, her fingers twisting the edge of her sleeve.
“We all do things for love,” I say—because it feels like the sort of thing you’re supposed to say. The truth is, I’ve never
been in love. I’ve usually had to step back before things got too deep. Or if his laugh was really wonky; or if his apartment
was really messy; or when he offered me a drawer at his place for my things. It’s for the best, though. My life should be
perfect before compromising to fit someone else’s needs in.
“No, my ex was”—Jane hesitates, chewing on her lip as she considers her words—“well, he was a huge dick.”
Her face twists, like she’s caught a whiff of something foul just thinking about him.
“I believe you.” I nod automatically and take a citrusy sip of wine.
“I’m not just saying that as some embittered housewife,” Jane hastily adds, like she’s trying to defend herself before I’ve
even had the chance to react. “I guess there were signs before I married him, but I didn’t have a lot going on, never made
it to college, so I chose what I thought would be an easy life.” Her eyes squint as if it pains her to remember. “Trevor didn’t
like me going out, and I hated arguing—I grew up in a house of arguing. So I didn’t do shit but watch TV with him and bake,
while he constantly put me down.”
Once again, I have trouble picturing the version of Jane she describes—quiet, deferential. She said she just wanted to “be”
for a while. I guess that means, for a long time, she couldn’t. “Oh, that sounds terrible.”
Jane shrugs, her gaze distant. “Honestly, it was like a low-grade shitty life but not horrible. He didn’t hurt me, not physically.
He didn’t expect very much of me. It was easy to shut down, just exist. I could’ve done it forever.”