No Memes of Escape

by Olivia Blacke

  “Odessa?” Izzy called out. She appeared around the corner. “You coming?”

  “Apparently not,” I told her, trying not to move, lest the giant guard crush me by mistake.

  Izzy tilted her head, taking in the scene. “Myke?”

  He nodded at her. “Izzy.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. It came in handy, having a friend that knew pretty much everyone. Considering over eight million people lived in New York City, that was impressive. More than impressive. Supernatural.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “We need a sec to talk to Nadia,” she said, as if that explanation was enough.

  Apparently it was, because Myke the giant released his grip on my shoulder. “Make it quick.”

  “Sure thing.” Izzy reached past the angry tech, grabbed my hand, and propelled me through the open hatch toward the back of the pharmacy.

  We took a sharp turn and ended up in a bland employee break room. Two plain round tables took up most of the room, each with four simple stackable chairs ringing it. A small microwave balanced on top of a dorm-style refrigerator, squeezed between a soda machine and a snack dispenser. Considering the better selection of food and drinks available for purchase in the drugstore, I doubted either machine saw much action.

  The room was completed by a sagging couch that looked like it had survived through more presidential administrations than I had. Nadia sat in the center of the couch, clutching a coffee mug. Izzy sat down next to her. I pulled up a chair and sat in front of her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Izzy said, patting Nadia’s knee. “I thought you would have heard by now.”

  “I should have guessed something was wrong when Vickie didn’t call and light into me for standing her up.”

  “But y’all were Facebook friends, weren’t you?” I asked. I wasn’t directly connected to Vickie, but even I was seeing posts about her death on all my social media feeds. Salacious news spread faster than wildfire over the internet.

  “I’m taking a break from social media,” she said. Her phone chimed once, inside her lab jacket pocket. She didn’t even flinch, much less reach for it. She had a whole lot more self-control than I ever dreamed of having. “What happened?”

  “We were at the escape room,” I explained. “There were a couple of connecting rooms, and when the time ran out, they found her, still in the first room. Looks like someone hit her over the head with a trophy, and she was dead.” I didn’t mention that it was our trophy, or that Izzy and I had been among the first to discover her body. Frankly, I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Wait a second, she died in the escape room? How is that even possible?”

  “No clue,” Izzy said. “We were hoping you would know something about that.”

  “How could I? I wasn’t there. Like I said, Becks wasn’t feeling well. A migraine. I didn’t feel right going out with her friends without her, so I stayed home to keep her company.”

  “Becks was Vickie’s friend, not you?” I asked.

  Nadia nodded. “I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. Coworkers, more like it. Becks manages a bunch of buildings in Hell’s Kitchen. Vickie was one of her brokers.”

  “I thought Vickie only managed apartments?” Izzy asked. Hell’s Kitchen, despite the ominous name, was a popular neighborhood just west of Midtown. Historically, it had been filled with low-income housing but like almost every square inch of Manhattan, it had been gentrified into submission. The rent-controlled apartments disappeared, replaced by expensive condos and Airbnb units. “How many apartment buildings remain in Hell’s Kitchen?”

  “More than you might think,” Nadia said. “But most of Becks’s buildings are condos. Vickie manages those openings, too. She is . . . was a full-service agent.” Nadia bit her lip.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, leaning forward.

  Nadia shook her head. “I’m fine. Truth be told, I didn’t get along with Vickie all that well. But Becks is going to be devastated.”

  “Were they close?” I asked.

  “Not to speak of. But do you know how hard it is to find a good broker?”

  Izzy gave me a knowing look. I wasn’t sure she believed there was such a thing as a good broker. But I guess being on the property end of things, Becks had a different point of view. “You seem pretty upset for someone who wasn’t close to the victim,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t you be?” she asked. “I might not have been her biggest fan, but we saw Vickie all the time, and my fiancée works closely with her. So, yeah, I’m shook. Oh, I should call Becks.” She pulled her cell phone out from her pocket, then stared at it for a second as if she’d forgotten how to use it. “Will you two excuse me?”

  “Of course!” Izzy jumped up and pulled me with her. “See ya, Myke,” she said, waving at the enormous security guard as we made our way out of the store.

  “How do you know that dude?” I asked as the door closed behind us and I adjusted to the heat and brightness of the crowded sidewalk.

  “Myke? He works with Vince.” She glanced back behind us. “You know, he’s single. A bit of a gym rat, obviously, but a real softie. I could set the two of you up if you want. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

  “No way,” I said, grabbing her wrist before she could go back into the drugstore. “He’s so totally not my type.”

  “Oh yeah?” She looked back again, and I noticed that Myke was still watching us. “He’s cute, isn’t he?”

  “Cute? Sure,” I agreed. “But I keep telling you, I’m not interested in starting a relationship right now.”

  “Check,” she said. “What about that guy from the café last night? You liked him, right?”

  “Raleigh? He was nice. We get a lot of nice customers at Untapped.”

  “He asked you to his show, didn’t he?” she pressed. “And he came into the café just to see you.”

  “I’m sure he was just trying to drum up more people for the audience. Besides . . .” I thought about it for a minute. “What do you mean he was at the café last night to see me? How could you possibly have known that? And how did he know my name in the first place?”

  “Life’s a mystery,” Izzy said, shrugging.

  “Oh no, you don’t get off that easily. You know something. Spill.”

  “Okay, I might have set up a Tinder profile for you. And Raleigh might have been one of the guys who wanted to meet you. I know what you’re going to say, but he’s hot, right? And sweet. And tall. And in a band. You could do a lot worse.”

  18

  Dizzy Izzy @IsabelleWilliamsburg ∙ 15 July

  u can never go home again. wait, no, i meant you *should* never go home again. fight me. #homesweethome #statenisland #ferrylife

  I stared at my best friend in disbelief. “I can’t believe you did that!” I told Izzy. “All those weird text messages? The blue daisies? The expensive chocolates? The seemingly random encounters I’ve been having with Raleigh, those were all you? It’s bad enough you’re trying to trick me into going on a date, but pretending to be me online on a dating app? That’s crossing a line.”

  “It’s not like I’m catfishing them or anything,” Izzy protested. “I mean, sure, I told them I was you, but I’m not trying to scam anyone. I’m trying to nudge you in the right direction. I mean, if Todd can find someone online, why not you?”

  “I told you I’m not interested in dating right now. Even if I met Prince Charming, what’s the point, when I might be leaving in two days?”

  “I already said I’d take care of that. Don’t you trust me?”

  Five minutes ago, I would have said yes without any hesitation. But that was before I found out that she was pretending to be me online. “I know you have the best of intentions, you always do, but I’m not as adventurous as you are. You’d be perfectly comfortable living out of a tent in the middle of Times
Square, but I need something more conventional. Even if you found us something, how can we afford it?”

  Izzy clapped her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  I paused to think about it. Izzy knew New York like the back of her hand, and more importantly, she knew people. If anyone could pull this off, it was her. I couldn’t keep hedging my bets—hoping for a miracle while planning on being at the bus station on Wednesday morning. “All right, I’m all in. The apartment, not the online dating. Promise me this place is going to have electricity and running water.”

  “Nothing janky. I swear.”

  “And one more thing. Let me see your phone.” I held out my hand. She gave me her phone. I scrolled through the apps and pulled up Tinder. “What were you thinking?” I muttered. I know that internet dating no longer had the stigma it had held decades ago, long before I was even thinking of dating. More people met through the internet than in real life these days, and I thought that was great.

  For other people.

  People who were actually looking to date.

  Not me.

  “Seriously?” I mumbled to myself when I opened the app and saw that I had 257 new matches. “What did you put on here to get so many responses? Let me guess, you said I was a Vickie’s Secret model?”

  “Nope,” Izzy said, grabbing her phone out of my hand. “Your profile is accurate. Hundred percent.”

  “Except that I didn’t write it,” I pointed out.

  She ignored me. “Look at this guy. He’s a transplant, too. From Tennessee. He works on Wall Street, in IT. So he’s smart.”

  “Says here he’s ‘family oriented.’ He’s probably got a wife and kids back home,” I said.

  Izzy swiped his profile away and another popped up on the screen. “What about this one? He’s cute and likes dogs.”

  “And he’s fifty,” I said.

  “Nothing wrong with an older man.”

  “He’s more than twice my age. Swipe left.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes skyward. On either side of us, pedestrians streamed past us, hurrying from one destination to the next without so much as noticing us other than as a minor obstruction. “And this guy? Employed, twenty-four, even lives in Williamsburg. Oh, never mind.”

  She started to swipe, but I stopped her. “What?” I peered over her hand at the screen and recognized Parker’s face staring back at me. “Oh, great. Now Parker thinks I’m on Tinder, too.”

  “Yeah, well, he matched with you.”

  “That’s even worse!” I felt a blush creep up my cheeks. “Now I’m gonna have to explain to him that this was all your doing and it’s gonna embarrass both of us.”

  “How is it embarrassing? He’s totally your type, right? I see how you guys act together. You should go out with him.”

  “We’re friends,” I protested.

  “So what?”

  “And he’s dating that Hazel girl,” I said. I wasn’t about to ruin a perfectly good friendship by going out on a date with Parker.

  “It can’t be that serious, if he matched with you on Tinder,” Izzy pointed out.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “What about the other person who RSVP’d to Vickie’s party but didn’t show up? Nadia’s fiancée, Becks. Think we should talk to her?”

  Izzy closed Tinder. “Even if I thought she had any information, it’s too soon. She just found out that Vickie’s dead. I don’t see much point in talking to her and making things worse. Do you?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t see how it would help. Obviously, they weren’t there, so it was a stretch even talking to Nadia, not that she had anything helpful to add. What about Gennifer? Shouldn’t we talk to her?” Granted, I don’t think that Izzy had ever met a stranger, but it was a little weird that we were running all over Manhattan talking to Amanda and Nadia, who wasn’t even in the escape room, and we hadn’t interviewed Izzy’s friend Gennifer yet.

  “If she knew anything, she would have already told me,” Izzy said.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to sit down with her. Maybe she knows something she doesn’t realize that she knows.”

  “You’ve got a point.” She scrolled through her contacts and sent a text message. Less than a minute later, her phone beeped. “She’s home right now and says it’s okay if we drop by. Come on, if we time this just right, we might not even have to wait on the ferry.”

  “The ferry?” I asked, eyes widening.

  Izzy gave me a toothy grin. “Hey, it was your idea to talk to her. Hope you don’t get seasick.”

  I didn’t. At least, I didn’t think I did.

  Staten Island was an island that sat in the harbor south of Manhattan Island. There were bridges connecting it to Brooklyn on one side and New Jersey on the other, but the only direct route from Manhattan was the famous orange Staten Island Ferry.

  According to the Wikipedia article I read on the bus ride downtown, something like seventy thousand passengers used the ferry every day to travel between the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan and the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island. During rush hour, the ferry was packed shoulder to shoulder as people pushed and shoved their way onto the boat, but now that it was creeping toward noon, the only people on the ferry with us were folks that rode the free ferry as long as they could for lack of anything better to do, a school trip group that clustered around the open-air balconies to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, and a handful of off-hours commuters hiding behind oversized headphones and e-book readers.

  I followed Izzy as she picked out a bench she liked and plopped down on it. She didn’t seem to notice the gentle rocking of the boat or the gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline out the back windows. Over the roar of the engines, I could hear a smattering of giggles from the assembled schoolkids as salty spray blew into their faces.

  I stared out the windows, taking in the scenic views. When that got old, I turned to Izzy. “So, Staten Island,” I said.

  “Yup,” Izzy replied.

  “What was it like growing up there?”

  She shrugged. “Same as anywhere, I guess.” She gestured out the window at the unassuming view as we neared the island. “There’s a pretty good mall, or at least it used to be. A couple of movie theaters. Some of the best diners on the East Coast. A real scenic landfill. And of course, the whole Sleepy Hollow thing.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Sleepy Hollow?” she repeated. “You know, the headless horseman? Ichabod Crane?”

  “Yeah, of course I know the headless horseman. I just didn’t know that was Staten Island.”

  “Not exactly. The town of Sleepy Hollow is up north a ways, but the original Ichabod Crane is buried right here on Staten Island, and there’s a Sleepy Hollow Road, too. Not sure if it’s really haunted. We used to go down there every Halloween, but I never saw any ghosts.”

  A chill ran down my back. I was pretty sure I didn’t believe in ghosts, but the legend of Sleepy Hollow always gave me chills. “Ichabod Crane was a real person?”

  “Sure enough.”

  The ferry lurched and the engines whined. We bumped against something, and I grabbed the back of the seat in front of us to brace myself. There was a loud scraping sound as the boat swayed hard to one side. “What was that?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Did we hit something? Are we sinking? Please tell me we’re not gonna sink.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, silly,” Izzy said, standing and stretching. “We just docked. Welcome to Staten Island.”

  The inside of the Staten Island side of the ferry terminal could have been any generic bus station in any city in America. There was a large holding area ringed with seating and newsstands that probably did a brisk business in the morning. The terminal could have used a coat of paint to brighten things up, but I was too busy trying to keep up with Izzy to see much. We passed signs for buses, taxis, and par
king before heading down a long hallway. I could imagine during rush hour that this place would be packed with people, but now we were practically the only ones in sight.

  We swiped our MTA cards at the turnstile, and Izzy muttered something about getting ripped off as we walked down a short platform and boarded a waiting train. Similar to many of the subway lines in Brooklyn, the Staten Island Railway was an elevated train. But unlike the tangled lines that serviced the rest of the city, the SIR was a single track stretching in a straight-ish line from the ferry terminal to the far side of the island.

  We rode for several stops, with me plastered against the window the whole time. I didn’t know what I was expecting to see—a headless ghost riding an enormous black horse perhaps—but instead, the train rocked along a track through a pleasant suburban neighborhood of modest, well-kept homes. Yards were mowed and kids played basketball in driveways. In many ways, Staten Island looked more like Louisiana than it did New York.

  “Come on, Odessa,” Izzy said, yanking me out of my reverie. “It’s our stop.”

  I followed her off the train to a narrow platform overlooking a sea of roofs of two- and three-story homes. We took the stairs down and wound around a steeply sloped street. Izzy pointed to the right. “The beach is a few blocks that way. I spent pretty much every summer there as a kid until I was old enough to just go to flirt with the lifeguards, at which time my dad decided I needed to get a summer job to keep me out of trouble. Didn’t work, of course.” She winked at me. “But it did keep me away from the lifeguards. More or less.”

  We came to a stop sign, and Izzy walked across the street without hardly glancing around for traffic. Not that there was any. She gestured to a house with pale green siding. “My best friend lived there. She married a wise guy and moved to Trenton.”

  Izzy slowed down in front of a cream-colored house that had been converted to a duplex with two entry doors side by side. The grass was neatly trimmed. Oblong topiaries flanked a cast-iron mailbox in the shape of a horse-drawn carriage. “This is where I grew up. We had the left side. There used to be a shed out back that I transformed into a clubhouse. I used to charge neighborhood kids a dollar to hide out there if they wanted to run away from home. When it got dark, they’d get scared and ask my dad to walk them home, but one guy, Brad Maplecourt, stayed three whole days before his aunt came and dragged him back home.” She grinned at the memory.