When No One Is Watching

by Alyssa Cole

  “You like your job, man?” he asks.

  “I like it well enough,” I lie.

  “If you’re looking for something on the side, I can get you in at my agency. We have the lockdown on this neighborhood, and with VerenTech moving in? It’s gonna change everything.” He mimics an explosion with a loud kaboosh. “You ever see pictures of an atomic bomb drop? Not the mushroom cloud, but that energy rippling out, completely changing the landscape? That’s what VerenTech’s about to do here.”

  “You know that isn’t a good thing, right?”

  He chuckles. “Depends on who you ask. Get in now if you want that good money, bro. I can hook you up.”

  He hands me a card, which I take with pinched thumb and forefinger because he’s sitting here in tightie-whities and I don’t know where he pulled it from.

  The card has a weird font that’s supposed to be trendy but just makes it hard to read: William Bilford, Real Estate Master, BVT Realty.

  “Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  A couple of Black dudes walk in from their shower and William Bilford turns back to putting on his clothes, winking at me as he does. I guess this is what happens when you stop skulking in your room or walking the streets when no one is around—you run into some really weird people.

  I tuck the card into the pocket on the side of my gym bag, then make my way back toward Gifford Place, walking slow and taking everything in. It’s slightly less humid than when I went in—the telltale puddles show it rained sometime during my workout, and there’s a light breeze coming down the street, cool on my wet scalp. The sounds of this larger street amplify whatever feel-good hormones the treadmill has pumped into me: the squeal of a bus’s brakes as it screeches to a halt down the street, the flap of a pigeon’s wings as it takes off after stealing a bread crust from a small brown bird, the roll of tires on wet asphalt.

  I almost stop walking as it really hits me: I’m in a good mood. Despite the weird night I had and the fact that my maybe-ex-girlfriend/co-homeowner is clearly stepping out on me. The basic facts of my life haven’t changed, and even if I don’t feel like shit, I’m still a piece of it, but I don’t really care about that right now. Because—

  I spot Sydney through a gap in the foliage that clings to the chain-link fence in front of the community garden that I’ve passed countless times. I’d checked out its value, wondering how it still existed in an area where houses would soon be on the market for a million-plus, but now I really see all the bright beauty of it. Sydney is on her hands and knees, her hair styled in long, thin teal-tipped braids cinched in a twist atop her head and her ass encased, barely, in denim shorts.

  I should keep walking, but I turn into the open gate of the garden. Instead of approaching Sydney directly, I take a little turn around the place, checking out the various plots and what people are growing. Lots of tomatoes and leafy greens. A half-built henhouse. Flowers galore, and rows of cuttings waiting to be planted. I’m not super interested in plants, but it feels weird to walk up on her from behind. Now, as I make my way around a plot that seems to be growing some kind of frizzy lettuce, she glances up at me.

  I thought gardening was supposed to be a relaxing hobby, but her mouth is turned down in a grimace so pronounced that it’s almost comical. Her gaze is hard, underscored by dark circles beneath her brown eyes, and it doesn’t soften when she sees me. She takes a deep breath and stands, revealing that her shorts are the overalls she was wearing at the corner store, with both straps buttoned over a black T-shirt. She strips gloves from her hands and throws them onto the ground next to the box she’s been working in.

  “Your hair is different,” I say.

  “Is it?” she asks, then pats at her head and makes an expression of smug shock. “Wow, I didn’t notice. I guess it just did that by itself. Magic!”

  She smirks at me.

  Oh boy.

  “Did a rabbit steal your carrots or something?” I walk a couple of steps closer to her. “You have a real Farmer McGregor vibe going right now.”

  She rolls her eyes, but the hardness softens a bit in the millisecond it takes her to do it.

  “We have raccoons here, not rabbits. And they have nothing to steal from my garden because I’m killing everything edible.”

  There’s strain in her voice in that last sentence, even though she tries to play it off as a joke.

  “That sucks. Is it the weather or just a bad season? Those happen sometimes.”

  I have no idea what happens sometimes in gardens, but that sounds about right.

  She shakes her head and bends down to grab one of those travel coffee mugs—from the clink of ice cubes I’m guessing there’s iced coffee inside.

  “I’m not my mom. That’s the problem.” She sips almost angrily. “She started this garden when I was a teenager. I was so mad when I had to waste weekends toting trash and helping set up plant boxes while my friends were outside the gates riding bikes, or off at the beach or doing other fun shit. But now . . . well, she’s not here to take care of things now. So I have to do it. And I’m the worst.”

  Her mom owns a prime piece of land plus that fantastic house? I try not to be envious of what that kind of security must feel like.

  “I would offer my gardening services in addition to my research services, but I’m not really good at stuff like this.” I glance at the plot where she’s been working. It does look a little less vibrant than the others, but it’s not a total loss. “That seems to be growing well, whatever it is.”

  “It’s a weed,” she says miserably, then laughs a little helplessly. I recognize this laugh, the one you make when you feel like you’re just caught up in life’s gears, slowly getting ground to dust.

  My envy retreats. Mostly.

  “Some weeds are edible. Dandelions? You can make salad with that.”

  “Are you some kind of prepper or something?” she asks.

  “No. Just something I picked up as a kid. I was briefly fascinated with things you could eat for free.”

  Great. I guess that’s one way to reveal you grew up poor and hungry.

  “Look,” she says on a sigh. “You don’t have to do this research thing, you know. I got it. It was nice of you to offer, but—”

  “Are you firing me?” I place both hands over my chest. “Wow, kick me when I’m down.”

  “You haven’t started yet,” she reminds me. “A lot of this week’s research is focusing on . . . shit that’s going to make you uncomfortable. For example. All this land originally belonged to indigenous tribes, right?”

  “And then they sold it,” I say automatically. I know this history. “For some beads.”

  “Not really. Land sale didn’t work the same for them. Mostly colonizers took what they wanted. And that’s what keeps coming up as I research.” She bites her bottom lip, releases it. Sighs. “I don’t wanna have to worry about your little white feelings, okay?”

  “Wait. Do you think I’m racist or something?” My body tenses and my cheeks go hot, and Sydney throws a hand up in the air.

  “See? This is what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter if I think you are—even if you aren’t, you’re gonna need me to reassure you about it. Like, Preston got arrested this morning. I don’t have the energy to make you feel better.”

  “Okay. Okay, I get that.” I don’t get the connection between a teenager getting arrested and me helping her, but I can deal with that later. I look at her, try to figure out her mood. I smile. “I still want to help. I’ll try to keep my white feelings, which aren’t little, in check.”

  She purses her lips, and I can tell she’s trying not to laugh. “Fine. Whatever. But we need a safe word.”

  “Do we?”

  She looks at me sharply.

  “A safe word for when you’re being dangerously white,” she clarifies.

  I grimace, but say the first thing that pops into my head. “Hmm . . . how about ‘Howdy Doody’?”

  Her laughter comes out in a peal that makes h
er face scrunch up and her eyes close tight. I don’t even care if she’s laughing at me. It sounds so much better than the being-ground-by-gears sound, and I want to make her laugh like that again.

  “Perfect,” she says. “I was gonna go with ‘mayonnaise,’ but let’s be real, Miracle Whip really hits sometimes. ‘Howdy Doody’ it is.”

  The sounds of squealing children interrupt us and then she shrugs and points at the group of young kids streaming in through the gate, followed by Len, who waves at us. “Day camp kids, here for a visit. Can you come to my place at like five o’clock? We can go over what I have so far.”

  “Your place?” I feel like I just stepped off the treadmill all over again.

  She tilts her head. “Yeah. Directly across the street from you?”

  “Sounds good. See you then.”

  I head back to the house I live in, I guess what most people would call home. Kim isn’t there, but I wave at the new camera as I go inside. My phone vibrates in my bag, and when I pull it out it’s Kim.

  Make sure you lock the front door. You didn’t when you left last night. I know you think these people are harmless, but Josie’s friend a few blocks over said someone tried her doorknob a couple of days ago, and her tenant left his window open and had his photography bag stolen right off of his windowsill.

  I sigh and turn off the phone.

  Gifford Place OurHood post by Kaneisha Bell:

  The video graphic with this article on gentrification is alarming. Look at the way the brown dots disappear and get replaced with pink dots in historically Black and POC neighborhoods. Harlem, Jackson Heights, Bed-Stuy.

  Fitzroy Sweeney: Frightening!

  Kim DeVries: Gentrification literally means an area that was once in disrepair being improved upon. Why does it matter whether pink or brown dots are doing the improving?

  Jenn Lithwick: Hey, Kim, there’re a lot of studies about the harmful effects of gentrification on neighborhoods like ours. Jen and I read a lot about it before buying here, and we have links if you want.

  Kim DeVries: I don’t need to study sociology to be a good neighbor. And if I posted an article saying all the brown dots are bad for the neighborhood, I bet that would go over well!

  (30 additional comments . . . see more)

  Chapter 7

  Sydney

  THE PAPERS MR. PERKINS GAVE ME ARE SPREAD OUT OVER THE kitchen table’s scratched and scuffed surface. I’m casually leafing through them like Theo isn’t sitting there, waiting for me to explain the project.

  This all feels a little childish now. Mommy always treated me like I was so smart I could be anything. Could do anything. Instead, I’m a thirty-year-old divorcée working an admin job I hate and wasting time on a bootleg history tour sparked by pettiness.

  “So, whaddaya got?” Theo finally asks. I glance up, try to act like I hadn’t zoned out.

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugs, though his gaze is probing.

  “Are you going to talk about the history of the houses at all, like on the brownstone tour?” he prods. “Or are you going to talk about people who live here now, like you did?”

  “A little of both.” I tug a printout from the pile of papers and hand it over. At the top is an image showing an aerial view of Gifford Place from Google Earth—our street looks mostly the same for now, though the area around us is missing all the new condos and storefronts. There are numbers written in five colors of Sharpie labeling several houses. Beneath the photo is a key, giving a brief explanation for each color and number.

  “These are the ‘stops’ I have so far,” I say. “The green outnumbers everything because they’re the easiest—it’s what I did before, talking about some of the interesting neighbors we have now, instead of only the white people who lived here a hundred years ago.

  “I went to the Brooklyn library and found specific information on some of the white people who lived in the houses, and if they had anything to do with Black Brooklyn, good or bad.” I tap a pink number on the Jens’ house. “An abolitionist lived here in the old days. Things got so heated that they had to move, because a mob of angry men showed up and tried to kill him and his family.”

  “Whoa,” Theo says. “Here in New York? In Brooklyn?”

  “Yup. Here in Brooklyn.”

  “Okay,” he says. “So . . . what happened to the white people? Are you gonna talk about that? I’ve been wondering about that since the tour, actually. The tour guide talked about all these wealthy white families, but eventually the neighborhood became . . .”

  “Black?” I fill in.

  “Poor,” he corrects me. “I mean, everyone wasn’t poor. But whenever I used to hear about Brooklyn it was people warning me not to come here because it was dangerous and—”

  “Black?” I cut in again, and this time he runs a hand through his hair.

  “Well, they didn’t say Black.” He shifts in his seat. “I mean, it’s rude to just say it. But that’s what they meant, I guess.”

  “Rude. Rude?” I lean forward a little as something dawns on me. “Oh. Oh shit! Is that why you guys always whisper it? Like, ‘My friend is dating a—’” I look around furtively and then lean closer to Theo and whisper, “‘Black guy’?”

  He shrugs, embarrassed amusement dancing in his eyes. “You aren’t supposed to point out stuff like that. That’s what my mom told me, at least.”

  I bust out laughing, imagining white people chastising their kids for literally describing a person’s race. I guess if you think being Black is an unfortunate affliction, of course it would seem rude. I could push and ask why so many of them are eager to say the n-word if Black makes them squirm, but I’m not trying to have to ring the Howdy Doody alarm while alone in my apartment with him.

  “Okay, to answer your question. My tour is about Black Brooklyn, but I do go into why the white people,” I whisper the last two words and he laughs, “left. In more recent times, it was white flight to the suburbs. But back in the day, there was the Panic of 1837. Basically, the bottom fell out of the slave and cotton market, and then all the rich people had to sell their land to recoup their losses.”

  “Why would slavery affect people in Brooklyn?” he asks. I can’t even hate because I only learned this shit recently myself.

  “Slavery ended in New York ten years before the panic, but not completely. And New York was the banking capital of the U.S. Slavery was a business. Cotton was a business. Rum was a business. Sugar was a business. Banks handle money for businesses. So . . . boom. That’s why.”

  He has the nerve to smile.

  “What’s funny?” I ask, straightening in my seat.

  “I think your tour is going to do well. I never learned any of that, anywhere. And now I know, and I want to know more. And anyone who comes on your tour will know and want to know more. That’s pretty amazing.”

  “Oh.” I get a warm feeling in my stomach. Honestly, so much of this project has been fueled by pettiness and escapism, by a need to reclaim what should have been mine, that I’d forgotten there’s a joyful side to sharing knowledge, too.

  “Thanks.” I clear my throat and then tap the printout. “Anyway, pink text represents Black Brooklyn history topics. The purple numbers and text are things specific to Gifford Place. There’s stuff I got from my mother, and my own memory, but I want to talk to some older people in the neighborhood. And Gifford Place used to be part of a historic Black community that sprang up after the panic, so I need to look into that too. There’s a heritage center not far away I’ve been meaning to visit.”

  He nods, and I wonder if he’s judging me for not having done all this sooner. I thought I’d already done so much research, but it feels like there is so much to do in just a week if I don’t want to embarrass myself.

  “Want to go tomorrow?” he says. “To the heritage center?”

  I raise my brow. “Did you forget you’re the assistant and not the boss?”

  He grins. “Sorry. I’m just excited now. You only have your
self to blame.”

  This flirtatious motherfucker. I narrow my eyes at him. “We’re going to the Weeksville heritage center tomorrow. Bring your camera. If you want something to do in the meantime, look into the Dutch West India Company. They were the ones who funded the Dutch coming here, and played a big part in the formation of Brooklyn, but I haven’t done a deep dive on them yet. If you find anything relevant to the tour let me know.” He nods again, his eyes scanning over the paper I handed him.

  “I’ll email this to you, too, if you write your email address down,” I add. I’m kind of enjoying this tiny bit of authority—it’s been so long since anyone listened to me without giving me any shit for one thing or another. “You can take these papers and see what else you come up with. I just want to make it interesting for people.”

  I lean back in my chair as he jots down his email. My face is still kind of warm despite the fact that by next week Theo will go back to being a neighbor I occasionally peep through his window—except maybe not even that, because I’ll probably recommend he get some blinds.

  “I doubt you’ll have trouble with that,” he says as he slides over the paper. His phone number is on there, too, even though I didn’t ask for it, and it’s underlined. “You’re interesting even when you’re not being all passionate about history.”

  He smiles at me in that curious way again.

  Nope.

  “Okay, we’re all set here,” I say, hopping up from my seat and walking toward the apartment door.

  “Yeah, cool. Cool.” He gathers the papers up, but when I pull the door open, he stops at the threshold and looks down at me. “I appreciate you letting me help with this. If you need anything else, just text me.”

  I don’t think he’s flirting this time, but he’s staring at me like I’m fascinating, and I don’t have time for the way my body responds to that.

  “I’m not trying to air-condition the hallway,” I say, ushering him out.

  A flush spreads over his cheeks so quickly that it’s almost startling, but he steps out into the humid hallway and doesn’t stop until he’s outside. He jogs down the stairs, then turns to wave and trips over a raised corner of slate sidewalk and it’s cute.