Page 71 of Queen of Nothing

He doesn’t like me much.

Not since I rejected his offer to show me around town… all ten streets of it.

Happens in every town we go to.

The shiny new woman looking for a job.

Losers like him flock.

And it’s been an adjustment.

The attention.

Serena is used to it.

But in our world, I wasn’t exactly fawned over.

So it’s new.

I don’t love it. Not from losers like him.

Still, I need this job for as long as we’re in town, so I do what I said I would do.

I stuff all the cardboard scraps into the bin out back, then find the manager at the till for my pay.

Monday is payday, and he pays in cash.

I head to my car parked on the street.

It’s a small enough town that I don’t need to drive back and forth from the crummy apartment and the general store, but I was running late this morning after a night of tossing and turning.

The drive is quick.

It’s just a few minutes before I’m pulling into my parking space behind the building.

As I wrangle out the old rusty key and kick open the creaky door, I arch my neck—and look all the way up the fire escape.

Sometimes Serena’s head is bobbing around the kitchen window. But the late afternoon glare catches on the glass, and I can’t see a thing.

I tug my lumpy, flaking bag out the car, then boot the door shut.

If Serena’s up there, awake, there’s no doubt she heard the car door groaning. It’s loud enough to cringe me before I start up the fire escape.

I think there was a goldrush here at some point in time. There are a lot of these old buildings, apartments above shops, but most of them are taken.

It was by luck we got this one.

Pulled over to eat at the diner after too long on the road and saw a sign for the rental tacked to the window.

Apartment is a generous word for a place that’s really a studio. A kitchen, a lounge, a bedroom—all in one.

The only thing that’s separate is the bathroom, but that’s through the front door, then down the corridor.

No bathtub, but a lot of mould.

I avoid the front entrance as much as I can.

The little antique store downstairs is too dusty, and I get stuck with the owner every time I try to pass by. She’s one of those people that will hold someone up for an hour.