On the Block

Apt. 5B

So, this was it. Their new home.

Lila stared up at the yellow building. It was pretty. Plenty of plants around. And lots of interesting stores nearby. But their new home was an apartment building, and she had never lived in an apartment before. She had no idea exactly how many people lived in the Entrada. That was the name of the building. Who even knew that buildings had names? Back in Trinidad she could count the inhabitants of her house (which did not have a name) on one hand: her mum, her dad, herself, and their dog, Padna. Padna couldn’t come to the United States with them. Padna was too old to travel and had to be left behind. Now she belonged to Lila’s cousins, Derryk and Naima, and Lila belonged in an apartment where any dog was going to be unhappy, because where were they going to run around or do their business?

She sighed and followed her parents up, up, up to their new apartment, 5B.

“Well, this makes sense,” Lila said.

“What does?” her dad asked.

Lila shook her head. “Nothing!”

The nothing she wanted to keep to herself was that the number of their apartment, 5B, seemed to be part of a theme. B for better, her parents’ favorite word since they announced they were going to be moving. Not to another house. Not to another town. But to another country. Which meant that everything Lila knew, she was about to leave behind. Including Padna. None of that was better. It was very much the worst.

Her parents had tried to be reassuring.

It’ll be better once we get everything packed up.

Things will be better after we get over there.

Everything will go better when we have our own place and we’re not staying by Tanty Veronica.

That last one was true. Tanty Veronica’s had been a squeeze. She was her mother’s aunt, and had lived in the United States since she was a teen. By the looks of it, everything she had ever acquired since she moved to the United States was stuffed into her very small house. At least Tanty Veronica had a house. The Entrada apartment building was something a whole lot different.

It took them about an hour to unpack because they had barely anything. They’d sold most of what they had, even some of Lila’s old toys. Now they were starting again from scratch.

“It’s an adventure, right?” her mum said. Her voice echoed around the empty living room. “It’ll feel better once we get some furniture.”

Then the sun sank behind some of the buildings, and the room slowly went dark. Dad reached over and flipped the nearest light switch. Nothing happened. “Looks like we’ll need some bulbs,” he said.

“I guess it’ll be better when we get some lights,” Lila said.

Her dad laughed, then her mum, then she couldn’t help laughing, too.

That weekend, her mum took them on a crowded cross-town bus to a flea market. It was in a large, open parking lot. Tables were spread out, covered with things that looked like discards from people’s lives. Old furniture pieces, paintings in well-aged frames, bookends, needlepoint pillows, scraps of fabric and yarn, plenty of vintage clothing, and several old toys waiting to be re-loved. Behind them, the sellers looked out, eager to pass off what they had. It reminded Lila of the open markets in Trinidad, where people sold fruit and vegetables. The difference was that stuff was fresh. Everything at the flea market looked worn, rickety, and dusty. Definitely not better.

“This is amazing!” her dad said. “Where else can you find homemade portraits of movie stars made out of individual kernels of corn, right next to vintage teapots?” He pointed at two neighboring stalls. Lila could not tell if he was joking or not.

Her mum handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “Get anything you want,” she said.

Lila wandered through the stalls but kept an eye trained on her parents. In Trinidad she could always find her way, but here she couldn’t even figure out which way was north. The idea of getting lost made her queasy and extra cautious.

“You okay?” A girl with a pink streak in her hair stopped near Lila. “You look lost,” she continued.

Lila laughed nervously. “I’m trying not to be!” She glanced at her parents, who were eyeing a very tall lamp.

The girl smiled. “I know, right? This place is very distracting.” She pointed to the far end of the stalls. “Have you seen the booth with the restored dolls? It’s amazing.”

“Oh, not yet,” Lila said. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”

“See ya!” the girl said as she moved on.

About two hours later, Lila and her parents struggled to get onto the bus with the floor lamp and several full tote bags. The bus driver scowled at them as they tried to angle the lamp through the doors. But he waited until they were seated in the back row before he pulled off again. Lila planted her feet on the brass base of the lamp as the bus lurched all the way back to the Entrada. The metal pull string for the light swung and hit the pole, tinkling each time it wrapped and unwrapped around.

That night, the three of them huddled under the lamp and ate Chinese takeout. Afterward, Lila stood a tiny doll walking an even tinier dog on the floor next to her sleeping bag. The toy dog was the same shade of brown as Padna. It was the last thing Lila looked at before she fell asleep.

The next morning, her dad’s cousin, Uncle Blessing, was meeting them with his van to go furniture shopping. Her parents were giddy at the prospect of new furniture, but there wasn’t any room for Lila. She didn’t mind.

“You sure?” her dad asked.

“I’m going to explore the building more,” Lila said. “Find out what all the sounds are.”

“She’s not joking,” her father said. “This building real loud.”

“Wat kind of loud?” Uncle Blessing asked.

“Like, playing-love-songs-at-top-volume loud,” Lila said. “Or talking-to-an-imaginary-boy-in-the-stairwell loud.”

“What kind of spy business is this?” Uncle Blessing asked.

“It’s not spying if the whole building can hear it,” her mum said.

“In truth, eh?” Uncle Blessing agreed. “Anything else, Sherlock Holmes?”

“The building might be haunted,” Lila said.

“What?” Uncle Blessing’s high-pitched exclamation echoed around the room. “Nobody told me anything about coming inside a haunted building!” He looked at the front door like he wanted to bolt.

“A boy next door has been talking about a ghost,” Lila explained.

Uncle Blessing skittered away from the wall that separated the two apartments as if it were infected.

“Don’t tell me you ‘fraid ghosts, Blessing,” said Lila’s dad.

“I don’t play with them things, nah?” Uncle Blessing said. “Let we go and get your furniture, please.” He went straight out the door, and before it even closed behind him, Lila and her parents heard him pushing the elevator button several times.

The three of them looked at each other with silent surprise for a moment, then burst out laughing.

First, Lila decided to get to the bottom of the banging that seemed to be coming from every direction at once. She couldn’t explain it, but the sound was almost . . . rhythmic. Plus, something about it reminded her of carnival. She sighed, thinking about how she’d never get off from school for carnival ever again. She suddenly realized that last carnival might have been her final time seeing beautiful costumes dancing down the streets of Trinidad in person.

“That is definitely worse!” she muttered as she left the apartment.

“What’s worse?”

Lila yelped as the boy next door stuck his head into the hallway. His messy dark hair flopped over his eyes, like he was hiding from something.

Lila’s heart raced. “You scared me!”

“Oh. Sorry. But did you see something unusual?”

A boy suddenly sticking his head out of an apartment seemed unusual. “I was trying to figure out what that noise was.” She gestured everywhere.

“Oh, that!” The boy relaxed. “That’s just music. But if you see or hear anything else weird, let me know?”

“Sure.” Lila nodded.

The boy slipped back into the apartment, silent as a shadow.

Lila stared at the closed door. Next time, she’d have to remember to introduce herself. She followed the banging rhythm up the stairwell to the sixth floor. As soon as she opened the door to the hallway the sound was louder. She snuck up to the apartment and pressed her ear to the door to listen. She and the boy next door were right. The sound was definitely some kind of music, but she couldn’t identify it. She liked it, though. Even if it didn’t sound like calypso. She hung around trying to get a feel for the rhythm until the elevator dinged, and the doors began to slide open. She ran back to the stairwell and ducked through the door just as a tall man in gray coveralls got out. He was always around the building doing various things. She was sure he spotted her, but he seemed focused on something else as he walked to the end of the hallway.

Lila hurried down the steps and stopped short just above the fourth floor. There was a boy with dark hair on the landing below. He was chewing the finished end of a Popsicle stick while drawing and erasing and muttering to himself. What was it about this place that everyone used the stairwell to talk to themselves? she wondered. Lila peered at his project for a few moments before backing up to her own floor. This time, she took the elevator down.

The first-floor foyer had a bulletin board with a few notes posted. One was an announcement about opening up the back of the building and that construction was about to begin. The rest were past their date, so Lila took them down and arranged the pushpins in a heart shape. That was for the person playing all those love songs.

At the back of the building, Lila discovered a heavy metal door. She tried the release bar, and the door opened with a light click. It led out to a small, neat garden. It looked like someone took care of it. Probably the man in the coveralls. He had opened up the double doors for Lila and her parents when they were moving in. Then he’d closed them as soon as he realized they didn’t have any furniture. He barely spoke, and moved quietly. Like a ghost. Maybe he was the ghost the kid next door was looking for. Maybe she would knock on the kid’s door and tell him that it wasn’t a ghost, just a regular guy. But she wouldn’t tell Uncle Blessing. Watching him react to even the idea of a ghost was just too funny.

She stepped into the little garden. There was a stone large enough to sit on, so she did. Her backyard in Trinidad was huge and dripping with fruit-laden trees. Here, she had a small, shared outdoor space that was mostly scrabbly grass, a tree she couldn’t identify, and a few equally unfamiliar border plants. She missed home. She rocked her head back into the sunlight and soaked it up like a hibiscus.

When she’d done enough photosynthesizing, Lila went back to the door. Only the knob seemed to be stuck. Lila jiggled it. She pushed on the door and tried to turn it. She tried to look into the crack to see if she could find the problem. No luck. Her heartbeat picked up speed. She stepped back and looked at the door, and at the wall that loomed up six floors. There were, amazingly, no windows on this side of the building. No wonder they were going to do construction back there! She should have known this would be trouble.

She was locked out. She’d never been locked out of anywhere before. This was for sure not better. This was worse. A worst-case scenario, in fact. Because her parents weren’t around and she didn’t even know anyone. In her old neighborhood, she knew everybody. One of their neighbors would help. Or she could wait in the shade of the tamarind tree for her parents to get back home. Here, who could she count on for help? And whatever this tree was, there wasn’t much shade in it.

Lila knocked on the door. “Hello?” she called. “Hi! Someone?” She pounded harder with her fists. “Hello! I’m stuck outside!” Her voice became rough and panicky. Her throat tensed. Her everything tensed. She stepped back again to assess her options.

The garden area was fenced around with black iron posts, and each one had a pointy spear tip. She was for sure not going to climb over. There was a gate on one side, but it was padlocked. Lila breathed hard and ragged. Why hadn’t she checked to make sure the door would open from the outside? Why had she come out here at all? Why was she even in this country and not in Trinidad where everything was obviously better?

The large metal door clicked and opened.

“Hey! You stuck?” It was the girl Lila had met at the flea market the day before. The one with the pink streak in her hair. “It’s you!” the girl added, smiling.

“Yeah!” Lila said. It came out with the huge breath Lila had been storing up as she got ready to scream for help. “I’m so glad you heard me!”

The girl pushed the door wider. “It looks like the knob is stuck,” she said. “I bet I can fix it, though.”

“Oh,” Lila said as the girl knelt in front of the door and examined the lock. “I didn’t think to check.”

“It’s okay,” the girl said. “Old buildings like these always have things falling apart. You have to check everything. You’ll know better next time.” Lila snorted.

“Was that funny?” the girl asked.

“No,” Lila said. “Yes. I mean, it’s funny because since we moved my parents keep telling me things are going to get better.”

“Right,” the girl said with an eye roll. “Like they even know.” She used her fingernail to tighten something.

“Exactly,” Lila said. She stepped inside and noticed the girl wore pink sneakers that matched her hair. “I’m glad you were nearby. It’s so noisy around here, I could have been banging on the door for hours.”

The girl stood up. “The knob was loose. I fixed it.”

“So, thanks, uh . . .”

“Emi,” the girl said.

“Lila,” Lila said.

“I have flip-flops just like yours at home,” Emi said.

“I like pink too,” Lila said, pointing at Emi’s hair and sneakers. She pushed the elevator button a few times. The girls chatted until the elevator came.

“I hope I run into you again, Lila!”