Chapter 1: Meet the Neighbors
Published 18/1/14
There's something sort of funny about cities. Something special that's just out of reach in terms of my ability to articulate the English language. Cities, especially old ones, have the power to hide things away. They take these magical people and places and things and tuck them into corners, basements, and alleys.
It's easy to fall out of love with a city. Traffic alone can send any sane person running for the hills. Factor in the noise, smog, and unreliable public transportation systems and it's practically game over. Don't even get me started on food costs.
On any given day, a city can chew you up and spit you out for absolutely no reason, but it's those little secrets that keep us on our toes. The city's hidden gems that wait to be discovered, pulling you right back in like a lovesick fool.
Not everyone has such a romantic relationship with cities, but not everyone knows their city like I know mine.
That's what I was thinking about that morning.
Well, maybe not exactly that. I've never really been that good with words (unless I'm insulting somebody or calling them out on their shit). As far as I'm concerned, there was nothing else think about on what was going to be the warmest day of an already mild April.
I sat in my truck with the windows cranked down and the beat up speakers squeezing out smooth blues rhythms, just reflecting on the past few months as I drove to work. I turned right, sneaking past a mail truck into the alley that led to my shop.
I was so caught up in my inner monologue about the beauty of the city that I almost didn't notice the bright colors on the ground and the two people crouched in the alley in front of me.
"Woah! Shit!" I cursed, bringing my foot down hard on my truck's well-tightened breaks. I snapped out of whatever daydream I had been in and peered down at the two women on the smooth cobblestones and cement patch-jobs.
They scrambled to pick up the brightly colored sticks that lay practically everywhere and shove them into a box. Almost killing two people who had just been standing in the way of my truck had really shattered my good morning mood.
My temper tends to be short; Sebastian always says that my alter ego could kill a horse just by looking it in the eyes.
I squeezed hard on the cracking leather of the steering wheel, trying to be as cordial as possible. "Sorry guys," I said as I twisted the volume knob down on my truck's stereo, "wasn't expecting company in the alley at this early hour."
"No problem," laughed the younger of the two as she dusted off her shorts, "we were in your way. Had to get an early start for an arrow this big."
I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and as I jumped between anger and total confusion I guess my face must have made my thoughts pretty clear because the other woman, the one with the relaxed posture and the blonde hair hanging in her eyes smiled smugly at me and pointed to the ground.
I stared blankly at the ground for a couple of seconds as my eyes adjusted to the transformation of the stones in front of my truck. Although it obviously wasn't complete, the ground was covered in a thick layer of brightly colored chalk, blended and outlined carefully to make it look as if a lit arrow sign fit for a flashy club was rising out of the normally dark red cobblestones.
"Impressive." I shrugged. It was cool, but I was on a schedule this morning. "Bye now." I mumbled, slowly driving off.
The alley is long. I used to think of it as "my" alley but eventually I realized that other people use it too. I think that sometimes I don't realize that other people exist in the same dimension as me, or that having a different way of seeing things doesn't make you a dumbass.
My shop is at the end of the alley. I like that because it lets me pretend that I have a great location on a busy corner and that there aren't sometimes bums peeing on the brick wall next to the window displays.
That's the downside. I'd be more upset about it if it weren't so funny to make people go out and hose it off when they show up late to work.
Being a cool, young boss isn't easy. I'm not afraid to mess with my employees, especially since most of them are my best friends.
"Are you gonna sit in the cab all day or are we actually going to make it to the recycling center this week?"
I sighed, looking to my left to see Sebastian leaning against the wall sipping some type of greenish juice and looking every part the douchey little hipster that he is.
"Slow your roll, asshole. I'm just waking up." I cut the engine and hopped out of the truck while calmly flipping him off. He laughed as I tossed him the keys to open up the employee entrance.
I still don't understand why I decided to hire Sebastian. His resume was fantastic: college educated, downtown-raised, well-off white boy who had internships at business offices and came highly recommended by some relatively big names. For some reason, he decided to work for me and now he's probably the most over-qualified bicycle mechanic in the entire city.
He's also fabulously gay, and in a constant state of starvation due to his excellent taste in clothing and fine food, and inability to ask "Daddy" for money. I tend to buy him lunch.
As Sebastian jimmied open the lock and turned off the shop's alarm system, I climbed up on a back tire and hoisted myself into the back of the truck. Grabbing my bike from where it rested on top of a cushion of tarps, I unlatched the gated back of the flatbed and carefully climbed out.
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's driving to work. Even after opening the shop and being surrounded by them all day, I've never gotten sick of bikes. They're fun to ride and they keep me in shape, and they can look damn sexy when designed well.
The last Thursday of every month was recycling center day. Sebastian and I always came in early and loaded up the back of my truck with all of the worn-out tires and tubes, bent rims, and other bits and pieces that piled up next to the bike rack by the back door.
If we got to the shop by five thirty we could make it to the RC and back in time to grab breakfast from the bakery down the street before anyone else even got in to work. It was a good routine, and I genuinely liked Sebastian. He and I were sort of kindred spirits. We could both be bitchy as hell, but our senses of humor were usually in synch and we worked well together.
I wheeled the bike in the back door and leaned it up against the nearest work bench before locking out and heading back outside to load up the junk.
By lunchtime the light was streaming through the windows that wrapped around the front and side of the shop. Before I bought the place, the shop was an old-school grocery store with giant display windows that covered the front and half of the side that faced the alley. The old guy who works at the bakery that used to supply them told me that those windows had some of the best displays of food he'd ever seen.
A couple of years ago, or so I've been told, the family that owned the grocery got into some big feud over an inheritance check. When I first saw the empty windows and the "For Sale" sign last year, I jumped at the opportunity.
Whatever happened, those people were trying to get out of there quick, and the space was unbelievably cheap. I counted the day I signed the check to buy the building as the luckiest day of my entire goddam life.
When I moved into the shop we stripped out all of the shelves but kept the hardwood flooring and bright factory lights that were fixed to beams high up on the ceiling. The hardwood flooring can be a bitch, but it looks great. What used to be the food storage in back turned into a large workshop for my mechanics, though sometimes it also gets turned into Nerf gun World-War Three.
I kept my favorite part of the building the same, though. The guy that had owned it before me built a loft over what was once a deli. He put in a balcony so that he could stare down over the store and watch the aisles carefully because he seems to have been a penny-pinching prick, but what I loved the most was the office and kitchen that I could escape to whenever I wanted.
Half of my office is full of boxes with merchandise samples and the other half contains a couch that is usually being slept on by one of my lazy employees, but it's comfortable and I see it as my home-away-from-home.
I was leaning against the railing of the balcony and watching a man as he helped his young daughter try on a lady-bug helmet when I heard Sebastian yell up the stairs to me. "Yo! Lunchtime! Santana! Food! Now!"
"Coming!" I called, wondering why I let my employees yell at me like that when customers were around, and I headed down the twisting staircase. "Did you have any particular place in mind or are we in a hurry for absolutely no reason?" I asked, grabbing my sunglasses from the pocket of the jacket I'd worn to work.
"I didn't really have a plan, no. But you're paying." Sebastian said, grinning as I rolled my eyes.
I shouted a quick goodbye to Jake, who was standing behind the sales counter looking as bored and broody as usual, and headed out the back door behind Sebastian.
As we walked down the alley, Sebastian was chattering excitedly in my ear. I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, focusing instead on kicking a loose bit of brick, keeping it in front of me while matching his pace.
"…it looked so cool when I walked by, plus I've basically been waiting for that place to open forever. Aren't you excited to see how it turns out?"
It took a few moments for me to realize that Sebastian was actually talking to me. My attention span has always been a bit lacking.
"Repeat everything you said in the past three minutes, Seb, because I wasn't even on this planet."
He groaned, rolling his eyes again (signature move) and going on to explain to me that he'd been trying to discuss the opening of the new studio at the other side of the alley.
"What building is it in?" I asked, curious to know where this even was. "I didn't know that anyone had moved out, let alone moved in."
"Nah, dude," he laughed, pointing a little ways down the alley to where a couple of familiar figures were crouched, "it's in the alley. Where that brewery used to be, remember? You bitched for days when they moved to a bigger building."
I did remember. I had loved that goddam brewery. They had the best microbrews in the region and literally every person that worked there had been young and attractive. I tried to model my hiring strategy after theirs, because discrimination aside, what they had going was working.
"So, what's so exciting about this studio?" I asked, wondering when Sebastian had taken a sudden interest in places that made you pay for art. He had fantastic taste and a penchant for nice stuff, but he usually spent his money on nice clothes and expensive alcohol.
He shrugged and adjusted the backwards cap that he wore on his head, fixing his hair until it was perfect and returning the hat to what I call "the douchebag angle".
"Nothing's really exciting about the actual place, but they've got these two girls doing some sweet art on the sidewalk to promote the opening."
I groaned, realizing I knew just who he was talking about. "Them?" I questioned, pointing to the two girls who didn't seem like they'd moved since five that morning, "I actually almost hit them with my truck earlier. I thought they were just some fellow neighborhood hipsters trying to 'make our city beautiful'." My voice had a bit of scorn in it.
I wasn't really that mad at them for being in the alley, but I was embarrassed that I hadn't been paying attention. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans and kept kicking my piece of brick.
I tend to lose my temper more easily in the morning. I'd left for the Recycling Center in a totally crap mood, but I was feeling a little more carefree now that the sun had fully risen.
Sebastian laughed half-heartedly. I guess my humor wasn't really on point today. "I have no idea who they are or where they actually work," he replied, "but when I asked them about it this morning they told me it was to promote the studio. I dunno, seemed pretty cool."
"I dunno, seemed pretty cool." I sing-songed, kicking the piece of brick at him as we approached the two blondes I'd encountered earlier.
"Wassup ladies?" Sebastian called, exaggerating the vowels as he launched into what I expected was a game of "Flirt with Straight Girls and Rob Santana of a Fighting Chance".
He does this a lot. I don't know why I feed him.
Both of them looked up from where they were crouched with what looked like volleyball knee-pads on their knees. At this point in the day, it was starting to get pretty warm. The alley spent most of the day in shade, except for a few hours in the afternoon when the sun was high in the sky.
I decided that I would refer to them as Blonde One and Blonde Two. They had their hair up and they were obviously overheated. Blonde Two seemed to be more around my age. She was the one with the choppy, shorter hair. Despite the weather, she looked calm and put-together. Her sweat didn't even look gross. Not fair.
Blonde One was struggling a bit more, poor girl. I can relate to that. My people don't usually show color, but if I was cycling through traffic on a day like that I'd probably be the doppelganger of a tomato.
"Hey," they said at the same time (creepy).
"Hey yourselves," said Sebastian (asshole), "how are things in the fancy arrow-chalking business?"
Both of them laughed, and Blonde One stood up to talk to us. Blonde Two went back to work on some fancy lettering.
"Business is booming. And we're basically done." She smiled and dusted off her hands. "I'm Tess", she said as she pointed to her face, "this is my boss, Quinn".
Quinn raised a hand and waved without looking up. Her brow was furrowed in a funny way as she used a stencil to fill in what seemed to be one of the last letters.
I think that Sebastian introduced us and told Tess where we worked, but I was staring at Quinn, mesmerized by her concentration. I'm a big fan of details, and the letters she was stenciling looked great. They were perfectly even and well-colored. "Q. Fabray Studio and Fine Art" was what I assumed would be the finished name of the studio once the last couple of letters were stenciled in.
"….Satan here is going to feed me, and we'll totally come by to see the finished thing."
I looked up, hearing Sebastian's voice use the stupid nickname that one of my friends from high school had given me.
"Stop calling me that." I said, growling at my carefree employee. So far, I was pretty sure I'd come off as rude and distant. First I almost hit them with my truck and now I was zoning out while being introduced.
Before I realized it, I was asking them if they needed anything in an attempt to seem like I wasn't a total bitch. Sebastian's mouth hung open in mock-horror as he most-likely prepared to make a joke about the outrage of me doing something neighborly.
Luckily, Tess cut him off.
"Actually, if you don't mind, our new sinks aren't really hooked up yet in the studio. We're kinda thirsty and we ran out of water about an hour ago. Is there any way we could get some water from your shop?"
She pointed to a crate that held all of their chalking materials and couple empty plastic bottles. I'm not a fan of disposable water bottles. I think it's probably because I own a bike shop, and we bike shop people are big on selling water bottles. Cyclists tend to collect them like playing cards.
"Yeah, for sure." I pulled out my wallet and handed Sebastian my credit card. Grabbing him by the chin, I held his face still and looked him in the eyes as I gave him his marching orders.
"Go to the deli and grab sandwiches while I get some water. Four sandwiches. Ask the ladies what they want." I turned towards Tess, who looked like she was about to protest. "Housewarming gift."
She nodded and smiled as she thanked me. She seemed like she smiled a lot. Off to the side, her boss plopped onto her butt next to the finished letters. She glanced up at me and slid her sunglasses over her eyes to protect them from the sun above my head. I just managed to catch their color before they were covered. Hazel.
"That's very kind of you, Santana. Tess can go help you while I clean this mess up. Wouldn't want anyone to run over my chalk with their truck." She smirked, and I caught another glint of hazel as she pushed her sunglasses up to wink at me. I blushed, feeling like a jackass for the umpteenth time that day. I don't know what it is about blondes, but they make me all kinds of nervous.
Quinn returned her sunglasses to her face and began to pick up the pieces of chalk. The rest of us went our separate ways but I walked backwards, pretending to yell at Sebastian but really just staring at Quinn's ass. I decided that I was allowed because I was doing a nice thing. Dat ass.
After I was done with my ogling sesh, I turned around to talk to Tess. "You look a little young to have a day job on a Thursday." I hoped I didn't sound like an old lady. Being twenty-seven and owning your own business makes you feel high and mighty sometimes. This girl looked like she was either still finishing or just out of high school.
She explained that she was taking a gap-year, and that Quinn was a family friend who she'd been working for over the past ten months. She had planned on going to art school starting in the coming fall semester, but Quinn's assistant would be taking a maternity leave and she was going to fill her position. I guess the girl was in no big rush to go to college, which I understood.
I'd been in and out of school as fast as possible. I regretted it a little bit, but that was only because college had been a three-year experience for me. Majoring in business wasn't easy. When you're a woman wearing jeans and a tank-top in classrooms full of immature smart guys in suits, college sort of sucks.
I'd wanted to own a bike shop ever since my father made me do a summer of work experience at the end of high school. He wanted me to spend all day filing papers in an office. I ended up spending half the day fixing bikes, and the other half fucking around with my co-workers. That was also the first time in my life I was comfortable being openly gay around other people, and I was really glad to have had that experience so young.
As we reached the back door of my shop, Tess was telling me about how excited she was for the shops new location.
I felt sort of nauseous. The kind of sick you feel when you're helplessly awkward. I was nodding and playing along pretty well, but I'm not really a people person.
I found out in college that there's a difference from being great at having sex with a lot of people, and being great at actually having friends. I don't excel at the latter. That's why I was sort of pissed at Sebastian for deciding to make two new friends.
When we got to the back of the shop I stood awkwardly in front of the employee entrance for a couple of seconds before I realized I was supposed to open the door. My blonde companion stared at her feet and laughed again.
Entering the back door was always hit-or-miss when it came to figuring out if someone had left something leaning in front of it, waiting to tumble down on top of an unassuming employee returning from a break. Luckily, there wasn't anything blocking the way when we entered.
I could see Puck standing with his back to the door as he assembled some new floor models. I looked between him and Tess and wondered if the two of us would be able to make it past him before he noticed and either made a joke about me being back so soon, or started hitting on Tess.
Luckily he was in his own little world as he pried a tire off a shiny new rim with some plastic levers. I gestured for Tess to follow me as she stared at the mess that was the back room.
When we got up to the kitchen I pulled out a cooler and started filling it up with ice from the freezer and water from the sink. I gestured to a bunch of the shop's custom bottles that were sitting in a drying rack by the sink.
"You can fill up a couple of those."
"Diablo Cycles. Nice name."
I laughed "Unoriginal as fuck, I know. My friends used to call me Satan, I'm a Latina, it worked."
"I like it."
"Thanks. Water filtration system's in the fridge."
She nodded and got to work. There was an awkward silence. I could sense her looking around and taking in the room.
"Do you live up here?"
I laughed and shook my head. "No, no. There's a kitchen and an office. Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch, but I do have an actual home."
"Well, this kitchen is pretty sweet."
I explained that all of the matching appliances were part of a gift from my family when the shop opened last year. I could never have afforded some of this stuff. The kitchen in my apartment wasn't even this nice.
As we headed back down the alley to the studio, I started to get sweaty. It was the gross, nervous kind of sweat. I was wondering what the hell I'd been thinking when I decided to buy these girls lunch. They probably thought that Sebastian and I were creepy, overly friendly neighbors. I usually go for the opposite impression. I hadn't really been able to get a good read on Quinn, but Tess seemed really friendly.
I guess Quinn was at least enjoying Sebastian's company, because when we walked up to where the two of them were seated in folding chairs, her head was tipped back in laughter.
"So I told him, if you're going to try to steal my wallet every time I close my eyes, I'm not gonna let you suck my- "
Sebastian stopped telling whatever nasty, nasty story he'd been in the middle of when he looked up to see us standing there. Tess had turned bright red from embarrassment and I was trying not to turn purple from wanting to rip his head off. I had known Quinn for about twenty minutes, but I could already tell she had too much class for Sebastian to be telling her about whatever he did last night.
"He's gay!" she laughed, wiping a stray tear of laughter from her eye "He's so fabulously, unexpectedly gay! I love it!" Her choppy hair was falling out of it's tiny ponytail, and her bangs were hanging over her sunglasses. She suddenly looked a lot younger than she had seemed earlier. More relaxed.
"He's a fairy princess." I said, and immediately regretted it when Sebastian replied.
"And she's a great big bull-dyke. And singleeee!"
I groaned, somehow managing to not turn red. Quinn flipped her sunglasses up and gave me a once-over.
"Eh, I'd go ahead and say chap stick lesbian. Too cute. Nice grease stains."
I glanced at my bare arms, only just noticing the black smudges that I must have picked up from recycling old parts at the RC that morning.
"Oh."
Sebastian smirked at my awkward response and help up the bag of sandwiches.
"Let's eat. Lunch break's almost over and my boss can be a real bitch."
We all laughed and helped ourselves to a large sandwich. The deli made them stacked with toppings, each one wrapped in butcher-paper to keep the heaping contents from sliding out. There was silence as everyone ate hungrily.
I looked down the alley from the glass double-doors of the new studio to the rusty back entrance of my shop. The distance was maybe a couple hundred feet.
I'd started the day thinking of this alley as my own. I was starting to think that maybe sharing it wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Author's Note:
Hit me up with a review.