The checkout of Will's Deli and Grocery is abnormally busy for a Wednesday afternoon.
Will Whistle has plenty of talents, most less-than-admirable, but managing a store isn't one of them. I can't say when the last time was that I saw an actual customer buying anything other than over-the-counter drugs and cigarettes from inside the dinky little market, with no more than a couple of aisles and a row of refrigerators for meat and dairy.
By abnormally busy, I mean nothing more than to say that one other person is at the front counter with a basket looped around her arm. A moment before entering, I see her through the surprisingly-clean glass door: cropped blonde hair, ripped leather jacket, and loose blue jeans.
When the bell rings as I open the chintzy door to the shop, she glances up from the counter and offers me a curt nod. I return the gesture but am more focused on her eyes—stern, piercing blue eyes that look ancient in spite of her age. Twenty-two, twenty-five at the oldest.
"Never seen you here before," I say to her, coming closer. I rarely purchase food from Will for worry that it's expired or ridden with mold, so instead of roaming through the cramped and stout aisles, I get into line behind the woman, who must be six feet tall.
"Name's Diana. Don't trust you enough to give you my last," she muses and turns toward me.
My heart skips a beat at her bluntness, and then several more afterward, but I will my face to be calm, uninterested, even as I notice that there's nothing inside of her shopping basket.
Everything about her is hard. Rough. Aside from her torn up clothes and black boots, her mouth is curled into a permanent frown, and a long pink scar runs down the side of her jaw. If not for those things, she might be pretty, with her straight nose and round face.
"Mare Barrow. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you," Farley echoes, and holds out a hand.
Before I can take it, Will comes out from behind the curtain covering his closet of a backroom, amusement written on his features. "And nice to see that you two have met. What can I do for you, Miss Farley?" he asks with a smirk.
Diana Farley. Now I know her full name.
Will's beard, the color of snow, extends to his forearms, covering the bottom half of his wrinkled face. In his scrawny arms, he carries shallow crates of canned food, and his pathetic tennis shoes make sounds against the floor with each step. Prior to going behind it, he plops the crates on the counter, which vibrates a little with the impact.
"You know what I'm here for." Farley angles her chin towards me roughly. "You should leave." As she says it so bluntly, her jacket shifts, and I notice ink at its edge.
Scrawled at the base of her neck is a tattoo, a black circle with red lines that make up a jagged flower bursting from the inside. A very, very torn up and dilapidated flower. It looks like some artsy gang symbol.
Hell, it probably is.
I'm really not surprised to run into someone like Farley in this part of town. I've encountered plenty of sketchy characters within this little grocery store—and at this point, I'm immune to every one of them. East Harlem's notorious for its gangs and drugs, and Will's the kind of person who doesn't mind capitalizing on illegal things. It was only a matter of time before he moved from scamming and credit card fraud to the cold-hard business of drug dealing.
I blink at the woman stupidly, shifting my weight from foot to foot. Farley tilts her head as if to ask, what are you still doing here?
I'd excuse myself and come back later, but Will starts talking.
"Miss Barrow resides in an apartment right above us. She favors the police no more than me or you." Will turns to me, scratching the top of his bald head. "She can trust you, yes, Miss Barrow?"
On instinct, I blurt out, "Yes," without thought.
Farley watches me with the precision of a feline, and the store becomes quiet. Will scribbles on his inventory sheet as if he's not part of this, and Farley's lips shift side-to-side, weighing her options.
The quiet leads to my own doubts. She shouldn't trust me, and I don't trust her. Besides for having met Diana Farley two minutes ago, she casts off a bad vibe, worse than anything her clothes or face says. The tattoo . . . her few words . . . this woman is bad, but if it isn't drugs, I don't know why.
Will's right. The police are a group of bastards who favor the rich and powerful, whether or not people believe it, never giving people like me the benefit of the doubt. It wouldn't serve me any good to call in—it's not like I have any grounds to report Farley in the first place—and if I were smart, I'd go upstairs to my apartment, and act like I never met this woman.
The tall woman and Will split a gaze as if their eyes can communicate on their own.
A moment later, Farley taps a set of fingers on the plastic case, filled with all variety of drugs and cigarettes.
"I'd come back later, but I'm a busy woman," Farley says, sighing. She looks past Will to the window behind him. The view's nothing spectacular, just some stacks of apartments across the street. She continues. "I need the file, Will. About that family. We're not letting another one out of our grasp. Not this time. Do you have it or not?"
Not drugs, then.
However: what did Will get himself into this time?
She's awful vigilant with her words, not contributing names or deeds aloud. And I can't exactly be offended when I don't mean my promise. Maybe it's best, with me blissfully ignorant of this woman's plots.
Will smiles lazily, like an old man who has all the time in the world. Farley's eternal scowl broadens, and she narrows her eyes.
Will relents. "Of course I have it. As you asked, I dug up all the dirt I could about the family," he says casually, that last word with an ineffable quality, plainly secretive and dark. Without turning from Farley, he reaches for a manila file on the ledge of the window. "I reached out to as many sources as I dared to this week. Nothing in them will send him to prison, but it's a start."
Farley angles away from me with the file, flipping through it quickly. Her mouth makes inaudible words, eyes scanning photocopied documents I can see the corners of.
"Best of wishes to your conquests. Tell the others I said hello," Will says, leaning against the counter. "Don't forget that you owe me."
Others?
"Doesn't everyone?" Farley asks, gripping the thin collection of papers in her hand as she closes the folder. She turns to me again. "I don't think that you will, but don't bother looking up my name when you go home. You won't find it anywhere."
I'm careful to keep my face neutral again. Farley might as well be the bluntest person I've ever met. "Wasn't planning on it," I mutter. I know better than to get mixed up in gang affairs, unlike some people.
Will rounds the corner so that he can pat my back. "I wouldn't worry, Diana. Even high school dropouts are not foolish enough to search for the invisible." My shoulder blades clench under his palm, silently reprimanding him for telling her that.
The academic life wasn't for me, but I used to try, used to try for the sake of my family . . . yet after Dad, after Shade left to do whatever the hell's he's been doing these last months, I gave up on any college aspirations. The school a couple of blocks west of here is crappy anyway. I have better things to do than spend hours than at a desk that would've led nowhere.
"The Scarlet Street Fighters cannot be found."
I swear my heart gives out.
Not fifteen minutes ago was I arguing with Kilorn over that very gang.
Oh, the damn coincidence . . .
I raise my arm to slap Will's fingers off of my shoulder, but he pulls away before I can sting him. I start forward to act on my sudden rage, but she just watches, doesn't start toward or away from me. "You have a grudge against the Fighters?" she simply asks.
Kilorn, so hazed by anger at the world, wants to become a member, wants to have one of those garish tattoos on his neck. If these people weren't in New York, Kilorn wouldn't be out there trying to find them and get himself killed.
But it's not Farley's fault that he wants in or that's he's heard of them at all. If Kilorn couldn't get into this gang, I'm sure he'd find himself in cahoots with another.
Attacking a woman who looks double my weight isn't going to end well anyway.
"You have to promise me something," I huff out, always annoyed like this when I have to plead for things rather than take them.
"What could you possibly want from me?" Farley drops her basket on top of the counter and crosses her arms. Just a little bit of intrigue crosses her voice.
My words are quiet, desperate. "My friend, Kilorn Warren. He wants to join the Street Fighters, but he's a lanky teenager who's never stared death in the face. He's not cut out for it. If he comes to you . . . turn him away."
I have to take advantage of the opportunity with everything that's just happened. As far as I know, I've never come across a Street Fighter, much less on the same day my friend admits he wants to become one. And if my intuition's right, she's a high-ranking one.
Farley tuts, clucking her tongue. It's her chance to intimidate me and doesn't fail, taking a daunting stride closer. "I don't blame you. Though you're unaware of how potent we're becoming, how respected we are in some parts of New York. What have you heard about us that's so bad? We might be assassins and hitmen, but we're only trying to make this city better."
I raise an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes, continuing. "You think my men and I are callous enough to let someone who can't hold their own out in the streets? No one's born a fighter. If he were to join, he'd have training." She says it like it's the most evident thing in the world, now backing towards the exit.
I match her footsteps. "Good. He's impatient; he'll only be a hindrance—"
The Street Fighter puts up a hand, showing roughened skin and chewed fingertips. "Members join of their own accord and cannot be prevented by others. Sorry, but I make no promises."
"But—"
"With all due respect, Miss Barrow, I have better things to do than argue with you on this Wednesday afternoon," Farley says, offering a tight, emotionless smile. She advances toward the door, and only her warning look keeps me from following her. "Good day to both of you."
She nods to Will and turns on her heel, and like a brusque wraith, she's gone.
I stand there dumbfounded, attempting to process what just happened as her blonde hair flashes in the window.
Within the same hour . . . Kilorn and Farley . . . what just happened?
Not processing any of it, I whirl on Will. "Who the hell was that?" I seethe, my fists bunching up. Though both of us know I have no intention of following through with anything.
"You are my most valuable customer, Barrow, but not my only customer," Will says, striding past me and returning to the counter. These days, it seems that everybody I know—or thought I knew—is going wayward. "She's just another client of mine."
So, uninterested in talking to this man, who apparently does business with people far worse than petty thieves, I turn to go after Farley, but through the windows, the blonde-haired woman is not to be seen.
Remembering something at the threshold of his shop, prepared to enter into the deafening July heat, I stop. To remove the phone from my pocket, glossy and unmarked. Completely different from my family's communal phone, five years old and hogged by Gisa. "You can pay me tomorrow." Tossing him the phone, I don't bother waiting for a sound to indicate if he caught it or not.
I'd honestly rather see Will fumble for it and embarrass himself than earn a small fifty.
"Anything interesting out on the job?" Bree eyeballs me as I tiptoe through our door. Dad's usually napping in the afternoon, and I do my best not to disturb him.
Like Mom, like me and all of my siblings save for Shade, Bree's eyes are dark brown, hair a rich chestnut color, and skin golden from the summer sun. Gisa's the only one that looks any different from the bunch of us, with her curling red hair and high cheekbones. And Shade was the only one who inherited our father's eyes: pretty honey.
"Nope," I say after a beat of hesitation. My brother doesn't need another weight to bear and knowing that Kilorn and his grocer are or aspire to be in a secretive and violent gang would hardly help. If Bree notices my pause, he doesn't explain his suspicions as he returns to watching our box television. "Have you had success in your job search yet?"
He rolls his eyes. "Have you?" he snaps back, an answer in and of itself. My brothers, sister, and I used to be closer, though money has permanently been a sore issue. Before Shade left, before Dad had to quit work, it felt like we were a family, not a heap of jaded people who lived together and nothing more than that.
At least I don't spend all the time that I'm awake in front of the TV. At least I do my damndest to support this family.
I want to yell at him my thoughts, to see pain on his lazy face, but I dig my nails into my palms. After three breaths, impossibly shallow for how long they last, I grit my teeth. "Have Mom make you a list to take to the store today," I say after a while. "Get out of the house, Bree. It's not healthy to mope around here twenty-four seven." I push my stolen bill into his hand and head for my shared room with Gisa.
I've heard some say that they wouldn't trade their homes for mansions. That home is home, no matter how rich or poor you are. But if I was awarded a choice, to stay in this shabby apartment or leave New York altogether for a fresh start, I would choose the latter without a wasted breath.
Our house, as Mom calls it, is comprised of three bedrooms, a small dining room, a living room that leads into an outdated kitchen, and three-quarters of a bathroom. The furniture that we own was left here by the previous renters, and a few items were thrifted from a store a few blocks from here. The wallpaper is curling in on itself, our kitchen lights flicker, and the dripping of faucets is a constant.
Dad used to be more handy, eager for something to break just for the pleasure of fixing it. Not anymore.
My sister shouldn't be home for a while since she offered to walk herself home when I called her seamstress shop from a payphone. I'll get an earful of it later from Mom, but it would've taken too long to get to Kilorn had I waited around for her lessons today. That lecture will end up being worth it.
She purchased her new fabrics and threads, and then she went over to her sewing lessons. Money's stretched thin, but that's always been the policy: Gisa continues with her lessons, no matter what. Though I suppose that's not the case anymore: starting this summer, Gee's lessons became an apprenticeship. Free of cost and something that will get my sister into the best design schools in the country.
My feelings towards the subject are a mix of annoyance and unfortunate sisterly love. If one of us gets to live out our dreams, it should be her.
Why does Gisa get to take the lessons she likes but I can't dance anymore?
I remember hissing those words at Mom and Dad six months ago. The argument was single-sided, final, but I made it anyway, practically in tears when I was told they couldn't afford my classes. But let's be real: they hadn't been able to afford them for years. Nonetheless, Mom made it work with overtime and bland food. But there are so many hours in a day, and now with Dad out of the decent-pay workforce, it's pointless.
Gisa's sewing lessons were practical, unlike dance, according to my parents, though they don't like to repeat it. She's always made a profit in selling her designs, though she's barely fifteen. I'm nowhere near the top of the dancing chain to make a cent.
My collection of shoes is tucked neatly behind a plastic storage bin under my bed. My family bets I threw it all out in rage, but I did not. Every moment I have alone in my room, I lock the door and tie on my pointe shoes. I go through the stretching routine I've followed since the day I entered my studio in bubblegum pink hair ties, then I do my strength training, and so on.
It's a cramped space, but I exploit it well. I use my dresser and walls to stretch my legs, do my splits on the strait between my bed and Gisa's. Her side of the room is a mirror of mine, with a bed and a dresser, a shared desk doubling as a nightstand between our beds.
If my bedroom was soundproof, that would be preferred, so that I could tap without causing my parents to go into cardiac arrest. In this part of town, it wouldn't be so odd to hear a gun go off. Instead, I shuffle my feet and shift my weight soundlessly, musicless, in my socks.
I often wonder, too much for my own wellbeing, what it would've been like if some happenstance had allowed me to continue dancing. Mom was working two jobs at the time, Dad was a telemarketer, and Shade was working at the gym. Shade.
It was inevitable. Whether it had been that day or the next, they would've at some point told me what my classes were doing to our family. Slowly killing it from the inside, depleting them of money and time.
My toes are ugly things, with bruises and red marks from practice. And I tell myself, there's nothing to gain from doing this; throw out your shoes and get over this useless obsession. I've come close, dangling my taps over the dumpster outside. They'd make such a loud sound, metal on metal, but it might just set me free.
I focus my thoughts back to the task on hand, pirouetting between the beds.
Enough. First thing tomorrow, I'm going pickpocketing on Wall Street. To collect however much money it'll take to pay off Farley to keep Kilorn at bay. It's the most profitable area of New York, and if I'm careful, I could make a couple thousand, between the money, credit cards, and jewelry I'm able to snatch.
But also the riskiest. The last thing I need is to get caught, end up in a police station for another overnight stay. But I'll do it anyway. I'll do it for Kilorn.
Because he will not share a life of forgotten dreams with me.