Sister Mine

by Nalo Hopkinson

  “OK,” I said doubtfully. This was the experience I’d wanted, but now it wasn’t sounding so hot.

  In my pocket, my cell phone buzzed. Probably Abby, calling for the umpteenth time today. I ignored it. Let her fret. “And how much is the rent?” I asked Milo.

  He named a figure. I swallowed. It was decidedly more than I’d been contributing to the joint household fund that Abs and I split between us. “That’s fine,” I said, lying through my teeth. I’d have to see about picking up another shift at the restaurant. And about trying to subsist on the free food I got there when I was working. In a pinch, there was always Uncle.

  Milo was still peering at the sheet. “What do you do at Burger Delite?”

  “Dishwasher.” I looked down at my feet. I’d been so proud about holding down a claypicken job, but today, in the face of how inadequate my salary was going to be for just the basics, it felt as though I were confessing to some sort of character failing. I made myself meet Milo’s eyes. “But they say they’re going to move me up to waiting tables soon. I’ll get tips then.” Gods, that was even worse. Like I was begging him for shelter.

  He pursed his lips, studied the sheet once more. “You’ve been living at your last place of residence since you were… what? Sixteen?”

  “Yes, but—” All my twenty-four years on this Earth, actually, but I’d fudged that part of the form.

  “And the owner has the same surname as you? Who is that, your mother? You still living at home?”

  “No! Not exactly. Abby’s my sister. We’re co-owners.”

  He raised an eloquent eyebrow. “So why are you leaving your own home? If you don’t mind me asking. “

  “She and I, well, we aren’t getting along. I’d rather she didn’t know where I was living.” Damn. I hadn’t wanted to get into this. I’d hoped he’d think that I’d been renting my previous place and just happened to have the same surname as the owner. Guess that was dumb of me.

  “But it’s your house, too? I don’t get that. You walking away from your own property?”

  “She can have it.” His prying was starting to make me a little cranky. Was this how it would be, living whole-hog in the claypicken world?

  “You don’t owe her money or anything, do you? I don’t want to take on an unreliable tenant.”

  I laughed, trying hard to sound like someone who would never, ever “forget” for two months in a row to pay into a household fund. “God, no. That’s not why I’m leaving. She’s just always up in my business. Nosy.”

  He frowned. “Can’t have any drugs in here, you know.”

  Oh, no, he did not just say that. I growled, “I’m black, so I must be a dealer? That it?”

  He laughed an easy, non-defensive laugh. It threw me. “Hell, no. I was one at your age, though. And when my first wife started to get too curious, I told her to stop being so nosy. She didn’t like that one bit, I can tell you. We were divorced within a year. So the word “nosy” kinda sets me off sometimes.”

  Nonplussed, I said, “Don’t worry. Dope’s not my thing. Bottle of Guinness with dinner is more my speed. And early to bed when I can. Those shifts at the restaurant are brutal.”

  He perked up even more. “You drink Guinness? That’s the good stuff. Not like the dishwater the rest of the guys in here swill. You drink it cold?”

  I shook my head. “No. You hide the flavour that way.”

  “Good girl.”

  The word “girl” made me feel bristly all over again, but I wanted this place. If he wanted to make patronizing small talk, I could play along a little. Milo looked me over, considering. “Mak… Makeda? Listen. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t rent a place to someone…” He put the paper down on the table, pushed it away from himself. “I mean, no references, minimum-wage job. I notice you didn’t put down any previous employment, either.”

  “I’ve had other jobs! I just—”

  “Here’s the deal.” He sighed, set his shoulders as though he’d just come to a decision. “You seem like a nice girl. I’d like to make you an offer.”

  Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “You would, would you?”

  He smiled. “Oh no, my dear. Nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. I need a new assistant superintendent to help Brian out, fill in when he’s not around. Sounds like you’re pretty handy? Know one end of a hammer from the other? It’s easy work, doesn’t need more than an hour or two a week, sometimes not even that.”

  “So, how would this arrangement go?” This could work out after all. If Milo let me have the unit in return for replacing the occasional washer, I could maybe drop down to one shift at Burger Delite instead of two, still be making enough to get by. Not take handouts from Abby and Uncle for every little thing. Make a real go at having a claypicken life, since I was never going to have the other kind.

  “I’d reduce your rent by a couple hundred,” Milo said.

  My happy bubble fantasy popped, leaving a sting like liquid soap. “Two hundred? That’s it?” That wasn’t even a quarter of the rent he was asking for the unit. Which, it suddenly occurred to me, he hadn’t shown me yet.

  Milo nodded. “One-fifty, two hundred, something like that. You’d have your own bathroom.”

  Did the fool think I hadn’t noticed how the “couple hundred” reduction in the rent was turning into one-fifty? “Can I see the unit?” I asked coldly. Might as well, since I was there. But no way was I falling for this guy’s penny-pinching con job. There had to be plenty of apartments in this city, if you weren’t too fussy.

  He led me up the flight of stairs to the second floor. Iron railings, painted in peeling black enamel. The stairs were steel-reinforced slabs of concrete, worn down by years of foot traffic, each step canted at a slightly different angle from its neighbours. I liked that. I liked things that had been solidly made and that wore the evidence of hard use, of survival.

  The second-floor hallway was cool and dark. The walls were the same colour as the outside of the building. There was a musty, old-building smell. Only to be expected. Not like I was going to be living in the hall, anyway, right? There were doors lining the hallway on one side, an open doorway halfway down on the other side, leading to what looked like some kind of common room. There was a battered couch in there, an old Formica table, a couple of rickety chairs. And sure enough, posters tacked to the walls: some band playing at the Vault last week, old cartoon film fest at the library this weekend. That room was painted a deep pinkish red. The paint on one wall wasn’t just flaking, it was bubbling. Moisture beneath it. Milo noticed me looking at it. “Had a bit of a leak in there last week. Spring rains, you know? I’m having it fixed.”

  I’d heard about his kind. He was just your average slum landlord. I kissed my teeth in disdain. Milo blinked at the sound, but clearly didn’t know what it meant. Any one of my relatives would have, on either side of the Family. Hell, any black person pretty much the world over would have known it.

  Milo unlocked one of the units on the other side of the hallway. “Just had it painted,” he said proudly. “This is where the previous assistant superintendent lived.”

  He pushed the door open and went in ahead of me. “Oh,” he said, “I guess Brian hasn’t gotten around to painting it yet. Looks kinda cool though, right? Artsy.”

  A faint scent wafted out of the room. Spices? Was that nutmeg? And some kind of fruit? My mouth watered. I stepped inside. I asked, “Did the previous tenant like to burn incense? I can smell—”

  “No incense burning allowed in the units. No burning of anything.” He clearly wasn’t the least bit interested in what the previous tenant used to do in here.

  The space was big. The walls were a creamy white, reaching up and up to the high ceiling. A previous tenant had painted curling vines climbing up the corners. Probably the same someone had painted the Styrofoam ceiling tiles in a sky-scape of blue and massing white clouds. “That colour,” I said to Milo, delighted. I pointed at the ceiling. “It’s haint blue.”

 
He squinted up at the ceiling. “Is it? I scored a lot of tins of it in a closeout sale a while ago. Don’t think Brie’s used it all up yet.”

  I smiled. “No, it’s OK. I kinda like it.” More than that; I felt oddly at home. The blue of the ceiling was the same colour as the porch ceiling of our—of Abby’s house. Dad had done that for me ages ago. Ghosts can’t cross water without help. Plus they’re stupid. Get the right shade of blue, paint your floor or ceiling with it—doesn’t matter which, ’cause ghosts don’t have a right way up—and they’ll mistake it for the glint of light on water and be unable to pass. Paint your porch ceiling that colour, and your door and your window frames, and you have a haint-proof house.

  There was more. The nubbly concrete floor had been coated with a semi-gloss St. Julian mango yellow, layered on so thick it was like enamel. The building had looked a bit creepy from the outside, but looks could be deceiving. Now that I’d seen this part of its insides, I loved the place. “It’s cute,” I said, trying for nonchalance. The window in the opposite wall was open a crack, letting in birdsong on a ribbon of cool, sweet air that leavened the unit’s damp, musty smell. The street noises were a distant background rumble. With the vines, it was like a picnic in the park in here. My bed would fit nicely right over by the window, give me a bit of a view of the outside. Abby’d just bought a new microwave. I could take the old one off her hands when I went to pick up my chest of drawers. Hooks on the walls for any clothes that needed hanging, my workbench and chair. Maybe a card table and a couple more chairs once I could afford them. For when guests came over. I could have guests! That was the kind of thing that claypickens did, wasn’t it? But the rent, ouch. Boldly, I asked, “You said three hundred off the rent?”

  He frowned. “Two hundred.”

  Gotcha. I’d tricked him back up to the full discount he’d promised at first and then tried to welsh on. It was still more than I could afford, but I was enjoying playing with the bastard now. Lead him on, make him think I was going to take the place, then shake my head and walk out of there. “Two hundred. Could I get that in writing?”

  “Sure. And there’s a bar fridge around here somewhere you could have. I’d get Brian to put it in here for you.”

  That’d solve the problem of where to keep my meds, at least. If I were going to take the place. Which I wasn’t.

  “So. You like it? The bar fridge could go over there.” He pointed to a wall with an electrical socket.

  “I don’t know about this…”

  The hint of fruits stewed in honey and nutmeg intensified. Cinnamon, too? And maybe a bit of orange zest? It was like the scent was seeping from the walls. The Shiny building was flirting with me! Sometimes Shiny objects developed self-awareness, and something a bit like personalities. I smiled regretfully, shook my head. Milo looked at his watch. “Miss, I have to go. No rest for the wicked, and all that. Would you like the place or not? You’re not going to find a deal this good anywhere else.”

  Couldn’t I? I opened my mouth to tell him no.

  “Like hell you’re moving out. You know you’re going to stay right here, where the living is easy.”

  Abby thought she knew me so well. I said, “I’ll take it.”

  “Nay, take a seat with us,

  Honor and eat with us,”

  They answered grinning;

  “Our feast is but beginning.”

  It felt weird to hand over a cheque for first and last months’ rent. That was a lot of money for me. I hoped Milo wouldn’t try to cash it today; my bank account was a few hundred short of the full amount. I’d have to figure something out about the balance.

  It felt weirder to be heading back into the bright sunshine after the redolent darkness of Cheerful Rest. I hesitated in the doorway, midway between darkness and light, blinking like Orpheus exiting the land of the dead. My skin prickled. I looked back. No one behind me.

  Then the second-floor fire door banged open and the black guy I’d seen before came clattering down the stairs with Yoplait the cat beside him. I waved. “Hey.”

  He had the most wonderful grin. The guy, not the cat. “Hey. Milo says you’re my new assistant? Rockin’.”

  Yoplait slid past me, out into the world. I stepped back inside. The door sighed shut. “Looks like a neat place. You’re Brian?”

  He stuck his hand out. “Call me Brie. It’s my stage name.”

  I giggled as I shook his hand. “You’re Brie, and your cat’s called Yoplait?”

  He did a half-smile, shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah. It’s a thing.”

  “A dairy thing,” I deadpanned.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Funny. My si—I mean, I know someone with a cat named Butter.” I didn’t have to mention Abby just yet, did I? Keep her out of my life a little bit longer.

  Brie asked, “Want a beer? Me and the band are taking a break for a few minutes.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t know Brie well enough to take alcohol from him. How would a claypicken woman handle this? But shit, I could handle myself. He tried anything, I’d just sic my uncle on him. I nodded. “Sure.”

  I followed him back up the stairs to the second floor. Over his shoulder, he said, “Milo give you the gears about no pets, no cooking in your unit, blah, blah, blah?”

  “Yeah. And no table saws.”

  Brie snickered. “He says that stuff so that if anything goes down, he can tell the cops he told you, but you broke the rules. I got an extra hot plate if you want one.”

  “Cool. Thanks. Your cat gonna be OK out on the street like that?”

  “Yup. Where I found him. Swear I’ve seen that mangy old brute hitchhiking. So, whaddyou do?”

  “Nothing. I’m not like my… oh, right. You mean for money, don’t you?”

  He nodded, looking a little confused.

  “I work in a greasy spoon.”

  He glanced back at me. “And for kicks?”

  He opened the fire door on the second-floor landing. I followed him through it. “Today? Moving out of my sister’s place for the first time ever.” My heart jumped. I was letting Abby have the place all to herself. I was really moving out. So what if I’d just outed myself as having a sister?

  He chuckled a little. “Rockin’. Gotta break those chains sometime, right?”

  “Oh, hell yeah.”

  His voice had the rich timbre of a singer’s. I figured him for a tenor.

  Now that the band wasn’t drowning out the other sounds in the building, I could hear evidence of the other people who lived here: TV show theme music from behind one closed door, a rhythmic creaking of bedsprings from another. Brie grinned. “Hallam’s got himself a new boyfriend. They’ve been going at it since Thursday evening, I swear.”

  All those lives, separated from each other by nothing but the walls between the units. And was that hot dogs someone was boiling? I wrinkled my nose up. Didn’t living in each other’s laps like this make them crazy sometimes? Last thing I wanted was to move from one claustrophobic situation to another.

  A doorway a little farther down the dark hallway opened a crack. I squinted. I could just make out a pair of eyes, peeping over the jamb.

  “Oh, hey, Fleet,” said Brie. “Come meet the new super.”

  Four fingers crept over the doorjamb, but the person still didn’t leave their unit. A soft, sexless voice said to Brie, “But you’re the super.”

  “I know that, babe. Makeda’s going to be my backup.”

  “Like Gus is?”

  Brie gave a little sigh. “Gus quit the band, Fleet. Remember he moved to Berlin? And Makeda’s not in the band.” At his words, my heart thumped, dejectedly, once. “She’s going to be my assistant superintendent, though. Like Gus was. Got it?”

  After a couple of seconds, Fleet replied, “Gus… moved.”

  “Exactly. So now we have Makeda. She’s going to be your neighbour! Come out and meet her, OK?” He strode over to Fleet’s doorway and reached a hand out. “Come on, hon. She’s really nice. And she’s pre
tty.” He glanced at me, ducked his head away shyly. Sweet. I checked out the number on the partially open door. Two-thirteen. Where the crazy girl lived.

  Fleet opened the door a little more and shuffled out into the hallway.

  Wow. Why in the world had Milo called her a girl? She had to be in her fifties. She was pale and shrunken. Her head looked too big for her body. Her hair was a little thin on her head, some of it brown, some of it white. It had probably been curly when she looked after it. Right now, though, it frizzed out around her head like thistle fuzz. Her face was broad, her nose narrow. Her cheekbones stood out like razor blades. Her eyes were rimmed with pink. She was wearing low-slung jeans so big for her that she kept having to hitch them back up. Her shirt was a long-sleeved flannel pyjama top with mushrooms and brightly coloured toadstools on it. It was half-tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She peered at me, her eyes narrowed.

  I stuck my hand out. “Hey there, Miz… Fleet, is it? Pleased to meet you.”

  She looked at my hand. There was no expression on her face; none. She put her hands behind her body, leaving mine hanging. Flushing, I lowered my own hand to my side. My smile, un–responded to, had frozen in place.

  “I’m just Fleet,” she told me. Her voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear it.

  A head stuck out of another door farther along the corridor, right across from my new place. Short pink white-girl braids going every which way. A little impatiently, she beckoned Brie. “Dude, you coming, or what?” she called. She was signing as she spoke. Difficult to see with her hands moving that quickly, but it looked as though every fingernail was painted a different colour, all of them bright. “There’s almost no beer left,” she said. “Bring your friend.”

  “Be right there,” Brie replied, also signing as he spoke. Hot damn. I was already impressed, and I hadn’t even heard the band yet, except for some of the racket from their practice session. Brie turned back to Fleet. “We gotta go. Catch you later, OK?”