Page 46 of The Progressions

Iva had been turned away, looking out into the yard which she had kept up by mowing, edging, and weeding. But it was stupid Dominic’s yard, not hers.

“Don’t cry,” I’d begged, but had those words ever worked to stop someone’s tears? They sure didn’t stop Iva’s. I also would have been crying if I were in her position, and I had done enough of it in the past to know what actually would help her now. “I thought we could all watch the game together today, you, me, my dad, and Miss Gail,” I said. Iva had met her and liked her a lot,but this would be even more of an opportunity for them to make friends. “I’m going to make the blue cheese dip that you like.”

“You hate blue cheese. You’re sour cream and onion all the way,” she’d said, but she’d smiled in a trembly way.

“Football is the answer,” I’d told her, because that was true. You could watch a game and forget about everything else, like that you were moving out of your house, the one you loved, because the guy who had been your boyfriend didn’t feel any love for you. You could forget that you were in a hospital room and that, pretty soon, social services people were going to make you go into foster care because your only living parent was incapacitated. You could sit in front of the TV and not even remember all the bills that you hadn’t been aware of but were now piling up…yes, football was a constant, a comfort, and the Woodsmen were the best team in the world.

We had watched the away game together at Tyler’s house, the four of us eating dip (three of us eating dip) and cheering and whistling every time number sixty-two ran onto the field. It was loud enough to bother the neighbors through the thin walls, but they were cheering too, and didn’t seem to care. I did, however, field a call after the game from the tenant in Building B who said that her gold bracelet was missing, but maybe her sister took it, and anyway, she thought I should contact the FBI. I let her know that she should look again, talk to her sister, and then call the police herself. She didn’t like that answer.

“I forgot how much I miss my job,” Iva had said as I hung up. “I was really good at it.”

“You’ll be back doing it soon enough,” I had encouraged, which had made her burst into tears because I was saying that she would be leaving her baby, and where was he supposed to go?

“Sorry,” I apologized. “Please don’t cry.” And again, that hadn’t worked, but I’d put on game highlights which had.

Thank God for the Woodsmen.

Tyler played great, although he’d limped to the sidelines in the third quarter and then, when he subbed back in, we could all see that he wasn’t moving and cutting on his routes as well as usual. I watched Miss Gail get nervous, and honestly, I felt the same way.

That was why I’d wanted to see him on Sunday, but I’d spent more time packing at Iva’s and then, when I’d taken a few loads over to his condo, he had been gone. I figured that he was probably at the stadium for treatment and I knew that Miss Gail was at church. There was no way to get an accurate assessment of his injury since I wasn’t able to use my eyes or talk to his mom, and his texts of “it’s fine” and “no problem” could have been lies.

That was why I was watching for him now. I had missed him leaving because I’d had class, and his yellow car was already gone from the parking lot when I’d arrived at the complex. I was keeping the office door open, in fact, since it was a beautiful fall day and the fresh air felt so good. It was good to have that breeze blowing in because it helped to keep me awake, which I would definitely need since I already had homework, but before I did that, I had work to do here.Then later, I would go with Iva torent a trailer so we could move the rest of her stuff. It would be a busy day—and now my phone was ringing.

“This is Kasia, how can I help you?” I answered. And damn, this wasn’t a condo problem, and my intense feelings of disappointment told me a lot about how much I dreaded doing my second job. It turned out that I couldn’t help, and the whole time that I was talking to the customer, I kept getting messages from Iva. I was frantically trying to find the right script that would help this poor guy who had spent so much money on this calculator, so much money (he kept telling me), as she wrote.

My suggestions about the input mode went nowhere and, as usual, I had to escalate the problem to my manager. I was getting fired for sure but at least there was nothing wrong with Iva, which I finally saw when I was able to look at her texts. Per her directions, my next step was watching Shay Galton’s latest video.

“Royaux,” she purred at the camera as fancy letters spelling the word flashed over her chest. “It’s a dating app for the right people.” She did her lip-lick, that perfect swipe that didn’t dislodge even a speck of her gloss. I’d tried so many times and it had never, ever looked so sexy. Her tongue was just cuter, I decided.

“It’s where I met my new guy,” she told us, and two hands encircled her waist as a man stepped from the darkness behind her, smirking at the lens.

Wait a minute. Him? He’d been a Hollywood actor forever. I remembered him from when I was a little kid, which I thoughthad been the height of his popularity. And that was a weird thing: their ages were pretty divergent. He had to have been sixty, or maybe sixty-five? But there was Shay Galton in her new post, making out with him. His hands slid up under her breasts, very close to cupping them, and he kissed her neck with an open mouth. He seemed to stretch a lot to accomplish that, since his head didn’t rise much above her shoulder. How short was he? And his hair had a funny tint to it, not really the color that it had been in his last big movie. I had gone to see that with my dad, so it must have been before the stroke. I recalled that I had successfully argued for a child’s half-price ticket. I had been my current height (which confused the box office person) but I had still been a tween, which meant that his last major blockbuster had been about ten years before.

“He’s still very famous,” I said to Iva when I called her back. “He was the most famous actor ever, for a while. I saw him in that movie with that woman who sells hair extensions now, and he was very handsome back then.”

“Back then, he was. Now he’s old!” she told me. “And how famous can he be, if he’s appearing in Shay’s videos? She’s not that big herself, and they’re shilling a dating app. I downloaded that and it says it’s for the crème de la crème of society. It’s supposed to be for rich, famous, beautiful people,” she explained.“Maybe that guy is rich but he’s not that famous anymore, and I sure wouldn’t call him beautiful. And she broke up with Tyler for him?”

“Tyler broke up with her,” I corrected, and Iva told me that wasn’t what all her followers were telling each other. She had sent the video to Oisín—

“Who?” I interrupted.

She meant her new online friend, the Irish guy. He had said that in his scientific opinion, the actor’s hair was definitely dyed.

“I’m not saying that I disagree, but I thought his area of expertise was mollusks,” I answered.

“It is, but Oisín is very smart in a lot of ways,” she assured me. “He’s actually one of the foremost experts on unionid mussels. Those are found in fresh water around the world.” She told me more about unionids as I answered emails, and then I told her about my concerns regarding college. She wasn’t a fan of my plan to drop out and wanted to argue, but she also wanted to return to the hospital so she let it go for now.She hadn’t said anything I hadn’t thought of myself, and I got even more convinced about the right side of the debate.

I yawned at my screen as I typed a response to the couple in Building B, who had one email address that they shared. We’d had enough communication that we were now firmly on a first-name basis. “Dear Hilary and Stu,” I typed. “Thank you for letting me know that you’ve identified the nighttime prowler that you’ve emailed and called about on so many occasions. I’m certainly relieved that it’s a raccoon family outside your unit and that no one is actually stealing your prescription medications from your bathroom. I hope that you have now completely removed all the lures you had set up on your patio.”

By “lures,” I didn’t mean food or scented bait for animals. I’d walked around the side of their block of condos (where, apparently, the lawn service hadn’t ventured in a while) to check on their complaints about intruders, and I had seen their display. They’d made a trap for burglars by laying out tiny baggies of white powder and plastic jewels from the dollar store. The “cocaine” wasn’t real either, they’d assured me, it was just baking soda.

I was very glad that they hadn’t reeled in an actual criminal, but I had spotted another big problem back there. The reason those raccoons were on their patio was that Hilary was secretly maintaining a giant and uncovered compost bin, which also explained the odor complaints coming in from their neighbors. I’d asked Oren to check before, but somehow he’d missed the problem.

“I’ve attached the portion of the homeowners’ covenants (signed by Stu) that stipulates that your rear patio must be properly maintained and free of any items except furniture and gas-powered grills with a cooking area of under 200 square inches. This means that you must remove the compost bin, and I’ll check next week to confirm that you’ve taken care of it. As I’ve explained before, this is not an attack on your desire to help the environment. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding the rules for outdoor areas.”

Blah, blah, blah. I shot off a quick response to the woman who was still insisting that I had to find her bracelet (“call the police”) and when I got to the next one, I’d had enough. I went up to the units with a stepstool and a toolbox to check the damn bathroomfan myself. After that, I decided to take a moment to rest and the corner of the office, behind Iva’s old desk, was the perfect place to do that. She had always vacuumed back there very thoroughly but I had to admit that in her absence, I had let things go a little. I sneezed but settled in. I would close my eyes, just for a moment.

“Kasia.Kasia?”

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