Chapter 1
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Hildy
Iget ready the way I live here: quietly, efficiently, and without touching anything that isn’t mine. The apartment is technically a two-bedroom but has been subdivided, informally, into four separate lives by a combination of necessity, hope, and the shared willingness to ignore New York rental law. The walls are a color I call Accidental Eggshell, and the landlord calls “newly painted.” The floors creak in Morse code, and the pipes, despite years of complaints, still conduct a symphony of their own, so that every night is a duet between the radiator and the neighbor’s TV.
I keep my side of the room like a crime scene, every item lined up for later analysis. My half of the closet is arranged by sleeve length and emotional utility, so at a glance I can tell if the day will require hard edges or camouflage. The far wall is a grid of sticky notes and index cards, updated nightly, because it’s the only way to keep the details from swimming in my brain like overfed goldfish.
Sharing the room is Maribel Torres, who is either a genius or a contradiction—or both. She has an infinite tolerance for ambiguity, which is what you need in public health or in this apartment. Her side of the room is a living document: piles of articles, tote bags with cryptic event slogans, coffee mugs that get cleaned only when she can’t find new ones. She wakes up every morning at six, then falls back asleep on top of her laptop. On more than one occasion, I have had to shake her awake so she wouldn’t be late to teach first-year undergrads basic statistics, which, based on the mutinous groans from her phone’s group chat, is an ongoing act of public service.
Her attention span is weaponized, and when she gets on a subject, she can lecture for hours without oxygen or apology. I once asked her about epidemiological models, and she answered for thirty-seven uninterrupted minutes, pausing only to accept a slice of pizza I handed her in self-defense. But she will never, under any circumstances, put away her own laundry. We’ve reached a silent agreement where I ignore her piles, and she ignores the fact I label my leftovers. It’s a compromise, and it works.
The other bedroom houses Cassidy O’Rourke and Jules Park, who I can only describe as the world’s most codependent platonic couple. Cassidy is a blonde soprano with vocal cords forged in the fires of underfunded Catholic school musicals; Jules is a ballet dancer on a gap year, or maybe a gap decade, who believes in both the transformative power of movement and the healing properties of ramen. Their schedules are unpredictable, their sleep cycles worse than toddlers, and their combined ability to generate chaos should be studied by scientists. They are both sweet and incurably optimistic, and I am both fond of them and quietly in awe of their ability to survive on so little.
Cassidy keeps a calendar on the fridge, where she annotates every gig or callback in different colors. There are weeks when the fridge door is more neon ink than appliance. Jules hangs their leotards on the shower rod, and they migrate through the apartment like rare birds. They eat in shifts, but always manage to leave a communal trail of cereal, half-zipped protein powder bags, and precisely two forks in the drawer.
I don’t pretend to understand how three adults can generate this much laundry, or why there are always at least two shoes per person in the entryway, none of them a matching pair. The answer, I suspect, has something to do with entropy or trauma or both. I have learned to step over, around, and through, like a figure skater over thin ice.
I move through the morning routine by muscle memory. Before I make any decisions, I do a full-room scan, catching the details my roommates wouldn’t notice if it was on fire. I catalogue the new mug on the shelf, the flyer slipped under the door (another “urgent” building meeting I will not attend), and the unmistakable smell of instant ramen and dry shampoo. I sweep my side of the room for anything out of place, which today just means realigning my desk caddy and refolding a sweater I tried on and rejected. Control is an illusion, but I like to keep mine finely tuned.
I’m so practiced at compartmentalizing that I don’t even register the emotional spikes: the acid of envy when Maribel mentions a fellowship interview, the flicker of resentment when Cassidy lands another rehearsal, the pang of nostalgia when a song Jules dances to is one I remember that gave me false hope. I acknowledge these things only the way a scientist notes background radiation: present, but not urgent. They are simply the background hum.
I pivot to the mirror, which is streaked with someone else’s toothpaste. In the glass, my face looks fine, if a little tired. Ihaven’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks, but there’s a trick to disguising it: a thin veil of foundation, a mascara that claims to last all day and really means it, and lipstick in a shade I call “Competence.” Hair pulled back in a way that suggests I might let it down, but never do. The effect is intentional dignity—unremarkable, but unassailable.
My outfit is a study in insulation: oversized charcoal sweater, thrifted from some richer and taller woman, the sleeves pushed up just enough; black tailored trousers, hemmed by a laundromat seamstress who always said I should wear a skirt next time; leather ankle boots, scuffed from the subway, but still solid. The coat is my armor, heavy, lined, expensive-looking, but not actually expensive. My bag is a simple satchel, containing as many forms of ID as one person can legally possess, several granola bars, and a portable phone charger.
As I’m buttoning the coat, Maribel appears in the doorway, holding a mug that I suspect is mostly sugar and milk with a hint of coffee. Her hair is a dark halo around her head, and she’s wearing a sweatshirt from her undergrad, even though she’s a snob about her Ivy League grad program. She looks at me over the rim of her mug with the kind of flat honesty I appreciate.
“Just so you know,” she says, “they’re both in shows again.”
I don’t need to ask who. “At the same time?”
She nods, and the movement nearly shakes coffee onto her hand. “Opening nights, two weeks apart. Cassidy’s is some kind of post-modern Annie, and Jules is in a contemporary ballet about climate change. I think.”
“Leads?” I ask.
Maribel shrugs. “Ensemble, but Cassidy says the role is ‘pivotal for the narrative arc.’” She uses her free hand for air quotes. “Jules is… a weather pattern? Or a metaphor for migration. I stopped listening.”
I smile because Maribel’s delivery is always deadpan, and because she knows I secretly enjoy these updates. “I’ll root for them both. Even if I have no idea what I’m rooting for.”
She blows on her coffee and glances at my bag. “You working tonight?”
“PR,” I say, and even though she doesn’t ask, I know she wants to. “It’s a game night.”
Maribel nods, satisfied. “You doing the social feeds?”
Due to the NDA I have signed, I cannot share that I am actually working on a PR project for friends of my bookstore boss, Noelle. A couple who needed strong PR to avoid a custody battle. Sofie Fairfax is running the production, and all myself and a few others have to do is catch great videos and pics to see them as an amazing couple, one that people who love social media love stories would support and root for. It is not hard to sell them; they are deeply in love, gorgeous, and now married, so I assume this gig will be ending soon. Which is good because I am starting to feel worn down with working on my dissertation, TA-ing for two professors, and working twenty hours a week for Noelle Pembrooke at her bookstore. But I’m going to miss being in Fairfax Media’s VIP box for hockey games, the food, the company, and the cash Sofie hands over every time she calls us to show up to get footage that she then edits and shares on socials for them.
“Mostly.”
Maribel arches an eyebrow. “You have a knack for it. You’re great with people.”
I don’t say thank you. I just close my bag and slide the strap over my shoulder.
She follows me to the entryway, where the shoes are still mismatched but now have been joined by a wet umbrella and a pile of junk mail. She leans against the wall, sipping her coffee, while I tie my boots.
“You’ll be late if you take the A train,” Maribel says. “There was a signal issue at Nostrand.”
