Page 23 of You'll Love it Here

Carmen Thurston 1D (Old White Perve) has been here for seven years. His occupation is listed as Outlaw, which I’m sure is normal and nothing to worry about.

Jane Brando (Weird Girl Beside Me) is an administrative assistant. Not what I expected. The other morning, I spotted her leaving for work in bright pink tights, a wrinkled beige trench coat, anda purse that didn’t quite hold the giant paperback novel stuffed inside.

It made me feel bad.

Norman Olivers (A1 Incel) has a name so generic it borders on familiar. His listed occupation is IT, which I could’ve guessed. He seems like the type who’s constantly glued to a computer screen for one reason or another. It probably doesn’t matter where he lives—his life would just keep rolling down its flat, grey road, unchanged.

All these people will have to move in a few weeks, if I do my job well.

But that’s just how it goes, right? It’s like Lana said; this part of town has been gentrifying for years. Buildings up and down the street have been bought to be refurbished. None of us can fight that.

Next, I move on to the list of tasks Lana sent. The electrical inspections are the most pressing, given our recent fire scare, so I’ll need to book someone ASAP.

As I do some basic arithmetic, tallying up the monthly operation costs, it becomes abundantly clear: Irene isn’t charging nearly enough in rent. This place is sinking faster than a pebble in Alice’s bowl.

It’s an odd kind of relief to know that Lana wasn’t full of shit. These evictions really are inevitable, no matter what. If anything, I’m actually helping save Irene from herself.

Right, time to do a walk-through. Lana wants photos of the building to begin gathering interest. I close my laptop, pick up my phone, grab a bottle of flat Perrier from my fridge to take a big swig, and head for the halls.

I’d almost forgotten how grounding it is to deep focus on a task. I realize just how much a few days of idleness messed me up. I’m suddenly thankful to have something like this to do, small as it may seem right now.

I start on floor three, the level below me. Being on a level of thebuilding I’ve lived in for five years but never having had a reason to go to feels like an odd breach. It looks exactly the same as floor four, paint chipping on white floorboards, but the feeling is all bizarro world.

The hum of a vacuum scrapes across the ceiling above, competing with the muted chatter of some anonymous daytime show echoing through a door at the end of the hallway (3D: the apartment of Fancy Widow, who I now know from her tenant profile is named Lorna Frank).

Lana shared in her not-so-patronizing instructions that it’s important to keep the buyer focused on “potential” and to eliminate anything that distracts from that. Apparently, “shitty carpet and wallpaper” (the main features of the floors I’ve walked through so far), aren’t as much of a concern as, say, “weird mysterious odor seeping into hallway from 1A Incel’s unit that could be a body and might be impossible to remove.” (The first thing I noticed when I reached the ground floor). I suppose a normal amount of tidying up won’t be enough to deal with that. According to Irene’s papers, cleaners come by once a month—and they’re apparently responsible for the random bursts of cinnamon in the air.

When I get to the lobby, a dozen midsize cardboard packages are piled up precariously high next to the lobby door, as usual. Naturally, we don’t have a doorman, so the mail carriers tend to just throw down the boxes in the landing. There are so many right now that they’re spilling across the floor and blocking the way in.

I pull out my phone and attempt to take some pictures of the hall while artfully trying to avoid the mess. But it seems obvious that part of the hallway is cut off compared to the other floors.

Just then, the door to the stairwell creaks. I shove my phone away as the dad of Uniform Family walks out, hair combed back, ready to start his shift. As he passes by to go to the mailboxes, he respectfully doesn’t acknowledge me.

I suppose I’ll have to come back later to get a better snapshot.

I take the stairwell into the basement area next and am greeted by the usual musty, concerningly earthy scent. The basement truly shows the building’s age, with its low ceilings and cinderblock walls.

I’m standing under the always-flickering light when I notice the tiny rice-shaped brown specks. I wish I hadn’t inhaled so hard when there are freaking mice droppings in the zone. Great, I will have to get an exterminator to deal with this.

“What’s your problem!”

I jolt as, out of nowhere, a loud thump sounds.

It’s Old White Perve’s voice, coming from the lobby.

My heartbeat skips with the flicker of the lights. Does he know what I’m up to already? Visions of my murder in this dank basement flicker behind my eyes. I can imagine the interviews my mom would give to the media: “She tried so hard at everything. Always got straight A’s but had mini breakdowns earning them.”

“It was blocking the door from closing properly!” Jane’s voice is sterner than its usual fluttery tone. A creak sounds from above.

Something’s going down in the lobby above me.

I tiptoe back up the stairwell as Carmen’s voice drawls, “Look, I ain’t here for no drama!”

The shadows move against the propped-open doorway above me. Jane lets out a frustrated screech. “It’s unsafe! Anyone could walk in here.”

I finish making my way up the stairs, until I’m close enough to see the back of Jane’s head. Her red hair is bouncing with the sound of her voice, her head shaking with the power of her words coming out. “Doesn’t it bother you some vandal just broke into the building?” She’s got a large crunchy Ikea tote bag propped under her arm. She points in what I’m guessing is Carmen’s direction, her chewed fingernails holding on to the last few chips of bright green nail-polish. “I’m going to talk to Irene about this.”

Shit. Normally, this is the kind of situation I’d get the hell awayfrom without a second glance. But since I’m supposed to be keeping the tenants calm and out of Irene’s hair, I guess this is my fucking rodeo now—whether I like it or not. I inhale. Time to go shut this mess down.