“Yeah.” She looked up quickly from her paperwork. “We’ll grab food down there.”
She finished proofing the last document and then flipped the file shut and squeezed her eyes closed to ease the soreness. Wine, bath, bed. That was what she wanted now. Not to be gallivanting into another part of the city just to see what some internet reporter had to say about one of her clients. Sighing, she headed home, quickly changed into warmer clothing, and then went back and met Cari outside the office. True to form, she was wearing a baseball cap over her thick blond hair, but it was too cloudy for sunglasses.
“Love the coat,” she said, lightly touching the butter-soft leather.
“Nice hat.” Marina flicked the tip. “Let’s go.”
They took Marina’s Audi, and the trip to South Shore took less than fifteen minutes. In that time, she learned that Cari’s dog, Patootie, had an infatuation with a purple-haired troll that meant it never got put away, that she was originally from a flyover state, and that she collected garden gnomes in the hopes of one day having a garden. She and her boyfriend had been together for six years, and she had no intention of letting him move in with her, ever.
Marina took all the information in but had no idea what to do with it. Fortunately, she found a parking space in frontof a business that was closed, probably permanently, and they started toward Rainbow Park.
“Huh.” Cari’s head was on a swivel as they joined the group of people heading the same direction.
“What?” Marina said, scanning for pickpockets or buses about to jump the curb.
“It’s just…I guess with all the talk of the area being gentrified and crime rates and stuff, I thought it would be all torn up and a mess. But it’s actually kinda nice.” She motioned toward a pretty brick house with a faux turret at the front. “And there are some cute boutiquey places too.” She peered in the window of a closed shop and cooed over a big, pink, straw hat.
Marina ignored the comment. She knew the facts, and those facts had big, ugly statistics attached to them. But as they walked down 79th, she began noticing the murals. Vibrant colors came together to depict pride, hope, family, community. They were stunning, and they gave the neighborhood a beauty she hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t unlike her own childhood neighborhood, with the murals everywhere depicting her own cultural roots. Unbidden, her eyes began to water and she blinked furiously. Stupid to get sentimental over street art.
They finally made it to Rainbow Park, with the lake shining in the evening light beyond the pale sand of the beach in the distance.
“Wow,” Cari murmured. “I wish this many people came to my karaoke night.”
Marina took a minute to turn in a full circle. There were easily more than a hundred people around them, with more coming down the street. She skirted the edge of the crowd, with Cari occasionally grabbing her hand to keep from losing her, and made her way toward the front of the gathering, where Adriana stood talking to…River.
Marina stepped behind a couple and then peered around them. River, in a thick black jacket, black jeans, and a gray and black scarf, looked as much like some psychic as a cantaloupe looked like a rose. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets, and she laughed at something Adriana said, her smile lighting her face.
“Pretty sure lawyers are supposed to have a good poker face. You look like you want to fuck or fight, but I don’t know you well enough yet to know which it is.” Cari looked from Marina to the pair at the front. “Maybe both?”
Marina couldn’t help it. She laughed and felt the tension ease. “Maybe. The person standing next to Adriana is River Rigel, one of the tenants we’re trying to get to sell. She lives here and owns a business, so she’s pretty entrenched.” She pointed. “And that lady there threatened to whack me with her cane because I work for the bad guys.”
The old woman with white hair and ebony skin had a gaze that seemed to take in everything, and Adriana looked smitten. A couple of other people joined them, and Marina saw some of the kids from River’s workshop standing in the crowd opposite her. Every one of them held a sign with some quippy thing about gentrification being a terrible slight against humanity.
Adriana climbed onto a picnic table and waved at the crowd, who cheered. “Okay, folks. We’re going live in about two minutes. If you could keep the chanting and shouting to a minimum while I’m reporting I’d appreciate it, then you can give it your all!”
The crowd cheered as she got down from the table and her crew got into position. “For fuck’s sake. She’s got two people on phones and one actual camera person.” Marina had a feeling this was going to be far worse than she’d anticipated.
Adriana held up her hand and counted down from five, and the crowd miraculously went silent. “What do you know aboutgentrification?” She paused. “We’ve all heard the word, right? We know it has something to do with changing neighborhoods, and there’s a lot of debate about it from every angle. Today, I’m here in South Shore, Chicago, where the residents are facing not just the concept of gentrification, but the very real issues of displacement, rent increases, and the potential of increasing pressure from a corporation that has no problem tearing entire communities down to replace them with new buildings that only the top earners in the city could possibly afford.”
She went on to talk about the definition of gentrification and what both sides of the arguments were, in broad terms. She was relatable, friendly, empathetic… She was dangerous.
“But let’s put a face on this, shall we?” She motioned, and River moved to her side, looking for all the world like she was just chatting with a friend, not discussing something seriously political in front of millions of people. “This is River Rigel, owner of the local business Echoes and Insights. You live here too, right?”
River nodded. “Born and bred. It’s my home.”
“And Mrs. Crabtree, how long have you been in South Shore?”
“I drove up here from Mississippi with my son when I was twenty-six. I’ve been here for sixty-five years, and I’ve seen this neighborhood change over and over again. It’ll keep changing. But taking homes away from people and just letting them sit empty till you can get a good price for them? It’s wrong. Bullying people like me into selling just so you can have some fancy condo and a coffeehouse that sells ten-dollar drinks? Wrong, wrong, wrong.” She struck her cane against the grass each time for emphasis.
“Last year, nearly 40% of the one hundred and forty-one single-family homes sold in South Shore were purchased by businesses rather than individuals,” Adriana read from herphone. “Many of them, as Mrs. Crabtree said, have been left derelict. Businesses are buying cheap and then waiting until so much of the area has sold out that they can rebuild and charge the kind of rents that will bring in an entirely different population. Part of this is likely because of the new Obama Presidential Center, which is scheduled to open in this area soon.”
Was that in this area? Marina thought about the articles she’d read, and she’d pictured it closer to downtown. And Adriana was right. That was very likely part of why Sheila wanted a piece of this area, though she’d never said so.
“You want to know more?” Mrs. Crabtree lifted her cane. “You can ask her real estate lawyer. She’s standing right there.”
The cane pointed straight at Marina.
CHAPTER 18
