Page 1 of Eyes in the Shadows

1

Eleanor

But hey, at least it'll be an adventure...

I don’t live in a good part of town.

I may be poor, but I’m not stupid. I know that the guys meeting on the corner at 2 AM are making some kind of illegal exchange. I know that the bar across the street from me has gang affiliations, and not just because of how weird everyone got when I tried to get a beer there after my shift once. I know that the women out on the street dressed in spandex are coatless in January in New Jersey because they don’t want to cover up what’s for sale. I know there’s a reason that the only bench on my block without graffiti is the one with the picture of smiling realtor and biggest slumlord around, Jay Rossi.

I don’t for sure know the reason, but I know there is one. And I suspect it’s related to the rumors I hear about how he’s involved in some shady shit.

Calling Ulysses a city is a bit of a stretch, but it’s big enough and close enough to create a New York City-Philadelphia triangle that means we get what spills out past the boundaries. It’s got your requisite strip malls with liquor stores, tattoo parlors, cheap stuff outlets and Chinese food restaurants, strip clubs standing alone on the side of the road, and parks where no one walks at night without a good reason or pepper spray. It’s also got gated communities, neighborhoods with town homes, hospitals, museums, libraries, churches and a community college.

Like most urban-adjacent places, the wealth distribution in Ulysses is wild. I’m in a rent controlled apartment building near the city center, and just a few miles away is an area full of mansions so enormous and beautiful, all I can think about when I see them is how long it must take to clean one of those bad boys.

Seriously, if you go top to bottom, I bet by the time you reach the first floor you’d have to start over again.

But I’m so far away from Mansion Row that I can’t picture myself ever stepping foot in one. Again, this is the wrong side of town. So, it’s not really surprising when I find a note taped to my apartment door about evacuating our units so they can fumigate the building. It’s not even that surprising to read the words “out of control” and “poses a health risk” to describe the infestation.

What is surprising is the lack of notice. We have to vacate tomorrow morning by 10 AM, and can’t return until Friday morning at 8 AM, a full three days later. There’s a half-assed apology for the short notice and something about a $5 gift card for the inconvenience that I know for a fact the property manager, Ed, will pretend to forget about if anyone approaches him for it. I think he knows most people won’t fight him for $5 if he doubles down on the ignorance act.

I glance each way down the hallway and confirm that the other doors have the same note, and shove my key into the lock with a sigh.

I’m comfortable in the middle apartment on the top floor. Sure, my walls are so thin that I can hear the Paulsons arguing about how opening their marriage is going way better for her than it is for him, and it’s sweltering in the winter when the heat seeps in through the wall from ancient Mrs. Parker’s apartment on my other side. She’s a half-blind Louisiana transplant who can’t handle the snow. They’re fine neighbors otherwise, and they keep to themselves. The people on the other side of the hall—3D through F—are much the same.

One of the most tried and true methods for staying out of trouble in a neighborhood like mine is to keep your head down.

I pull off my hat and scarf immediately upon crossing the threshold and toss them onto the end table next to the couch like they’ve done me a disservice. I run warm, so while the wool helps keep out biting wind and the cute pattern of honeybees makes me feel whimsical and stylish, half the time it’s too much. I usually warm up enough from my walk home from the restaurant that my bangs are plastered to my forehead by the time I get to the top of the second staircase.

My bag falls over onto the entry table with a heavy thunk, scattering the few items I carry everywhere—wallet, keys, phone, lip balm, pepper spray—and I write it off as something to take care of later. I cross the small living space to throwopen my window, nearly bumping into the ugly wooden coffee table I found next to a dumpster.

The view is nothing to write home about, mostly some buildings across the street with first floor businesses and apartments above. The bar directly facing us, The Lucky Goat, is one of the only places on the block with signs of life at this hour. A few people are smoking outside the door and I can hear the muffled music and chatter.

I shuck off my coat, which joins the ranks of the scarf and hat, and head to the kitchen to grab a beer. It’s a sad state of affairs in the “space saver” fridge, with three IPAs left in the six pack, a thawed package of salmon filets, a few lemons huddled together in the back corner, an experimental batch of homemade yogurt and several half-empty sauce bottles. The lack of freezer space is really the only thing I let myself be annoyed about with this apartment. I abhor food waste, so I only shop on my day off and try to use everything up by mid-week. It’s getting to be that time.

Trying to enjoy the cold beer in spite of the chill outside, I sit down in the wobbly chair at the table that bisects the single space into a kitchen and a living room. My dining room, I often joke.

It’s not much, but it’s cozy. I’ve got a futon that doubles as my bed, facing a small TV that I never turn on because I don’t want to pay for cable or streaming services, a bright rug that the previous tenant left, some light-blocking curtains I make sure to draw every night so I can sleep in late enough to offset an 11 PM shift conclusion, and colorful drawings from my niece and nephew on the walls.

Hunger gnaws at my belly and I check my phone screen. It’s been a long time since shift meal, and I have too much energy to sleep for a while yet. So, though I’ve been on my feet, preparing food for seven hours, I grab everything edible from the fridge and a box of pasta from my cupboard.

30 minutes later, I text my friend, Harrison, in 3E, and the response bubbles are instantaneous, so I don’t even bother putting my phone down.

Lemon yogurt salmon and pasta?

I’ll bring dessert.

I’ve always loved feeding people. Stuck back in a kitchen, working mostly on prep and final assembly, there’s a divide between me and the customer. I don’t get to see peoples’ reactions when they try something for the first time. I don’t get to watch their enjoyment. I don’t get to learn from my mistakes directly.

For a while I’ve entertained the idea of starting a business and becoming a personal chef for one of those people who live over on Mansion Row. But no one hires a personal chef with no education or credentials. So, I bust my ass in the third nicest restaurant in town, pad my resume and experiment on my own time and dime.

There’s a cursory knock before the door opens, revealing Harrison in the doorway. He holds up a tin of cookies in lieu of a greeting. I eye the note on the top of the container and as I approach.

“Double chocolate chip, huh? How’d you swing that?” I whistle, knowing they’ve got $20 of the good Dutch chocolate in them. In spite of what Harrison thinks, I can taste the difference.

He hands me the box, then pulls the sleeves of his bulky sweater down over his thin forearms to protect against the cold air wafting through my apartment. “As usual, by doing my job. She’s convinced that what I do is some sort of IT magic, but she just kicked the power cord out of the socket again. I think she thinks double chocolate is my favorite.”

I grin to myself, recognizing a flirting attempt from a shy girl when I hear one. Harrison is cute in a nerdy-guy way—about my height at 5’9” with dark skin and eyes and a friendly smile. He’s rail thin, which makes his afro seem even more voluminous, and leans towards a button-downs-and-chunky-knits style that gives off student teacher vibes.

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