Tonya opened the freezer like she was afraid of its contents. She wanted to avoid the unmistakable pop of the air-seal breaking, the sound that would announce to Imani that her illegal tenant was making a withdrawal from the communal food bank. Tonya had gone grocery shopping earlier, filling a small freezer drawer with items that Layla would recognize: chicken nuggets, frozen mixed veggies, premade peanut butter and jelly sandwich packs that would defrost in her bookbag by lunch. Unfortunately, Imani had been at work when she’d returned with the Gristedes bags. Her landlord wouldn’t know that Tonya was taking her own stuff.
She removed one of the sandwiches. Walking through aisles of fresh produce had worked up her appetite. She needed something to tide herself over until her shift started and she could eat whatever one of Banque’s cooks whipped up for the staff “family” meal.
Tonya flipped over the package, reading the instructions. It said to microwave for thirty seconds or wait two hours to thaw. In two hours, she’d be getting ready for work.
Tonya resigned herself to making noise. She ripped open the plastic package and then popped it in the microwave. The machine’s buttons beeped with every press before whirring to life.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Imani in the neighboring sitting room, dark curls cascading onto a couch’s roll arm. Sneaking around was silly, Tonya told herself. The home’s size and her subservient relationship to the man who owned it was unnecessarily intimidating her. If she was going to be living here for any length of time, she’d need to work out the kitchen-share situation with the mistress of the house. What part of the pantry did her off-the-books-work-for-rent agreement entitle her to? Would it change after her first unemployment check came and she was paying them?
The microwave blared that her sandwich was ready. Tonya removed it, batting it between her palms until it cooled enough to easily hold. Steam clouded the plastic covering. Peanut butter oozed from a seam in the sealed bread. The unmistakable smell intensified her hunger. Tonya worked the sandwich up over the lip of the packaging and sank her teeth in.
Hot peanut butter and jam scalded her tongue. Tonya didn’t care. There was something so delicious about a PB&J. It was the taste of her youth on the farm. The flavor of childhood.
She took another bite as she headed into the sitting room, swallowing it moments before speaking. “Hi, Imani.”
Philip’s wife looked up from her cell phone. Her nostrils expanded like she’d whiffed garbage. The expression quickly vanished behind a strained smile. Still, Tonya had clocked it.
“I was hoping to talk to you about the food situation,” Tonya said, overenunciating to cover the remnants of backwoods Pennsylvania that occasionally crept into her speech. “I purchased some groceries today and put them in one of the freezer drawers. I stored a few other things in the pantry.”
Imani nodded. A noncommittal gesture. I understand, it said. Not, Oh, sure, mi casa es su casa.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t expect you to share anything in your fridge,” Tonya continued. “I can label my groceries with a marker if you want so that we don’t get the food mixed up. I know I’m renting rooms, not room and board.”
Imani’s nose wrinkled as she said “rent.” The woman pointed at her sandwich. “Is that a peanut butter Hot Pocket?”
Tonya waved her food. “Frozen PB and J. They’re great for a quick snack.”
Imani’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I should have mentioned before. Philip and Jay are highly allergic to peanuts. It’s genetic, apparently. We try not to have it in the house.”
Tonya’s earlier conversation with Philip came back to her. He’d said he was allergic, but he’d also said that he used peanut oil in the fryer. Clearly, his allergy didn’t preclude peanuts being in the vicinity. “Oh. Philip had mentioned a sensitivity to them, but I thought it was only dangerous if he ate something containing peanuts.”
Imani fingered the neck of her cream cashmere sweater, as if the lush fabric were making her itch. As if she, not Philip, had the allergy. “Unfortunately, even the steam from cooked peanuts or peanut products can cause reactions. When Jay was about four or five, he broke out in hives in school. Peanuts weren’t allowed, so I didn’t understand. Turned out that a kid in his class had eaten peanut butter and crackers before school and then held his hand with the oil residue on it. Just like that”—Imani snapped her fingers—“hives all over the back of his hand and wrist. Some on his face too. I guess he touched it after the kid’s hand.”
Tonya forced herself to nod. As a fellow mom, she could understand how scary it was for Imani to pick up a toddler having a full-blown allergic reaction. But Jay was in middle school and older than Layla. Both he and Philip knew not to eat peanuts or go around holding hands with near strangers. Surely she and Layla having a PB&J wasn’t a big deal. Moreover, Tonya had just spent eleven dollars on a case for Layla’s backpack.
“I’ll make sure not to cook this anywhere around him,” Tonya said.
Imani’s brow pinched, finally adding an age-appropriate wrinkle to her smooth brown skin. “I know allergies are a pain. Philip plays his down because he’s in a kitchen. A chef with a food allergy is kind of taboo. But it’s serious.”
Death and cancer were serious, Tonya thought. Losing a job was serious. Getting thrown out of an apartment during a pandemic after your child support was abruptly cut off was serious. A peanut allergy was an annoyance, easily managed by reading packaging and not eating food that she’d already agreed to label.
“Well, I’ll try to avoid buying anything to cook with peanuts. These are all prepackaged in plastic, in the freezer, in a box separated from the other food, which I’ll slap my name on. I don’t need to microwave them. I usually pop them in Layla’s bag for school and let them defrost during the morning session.”
Imani’s eyes narrowed. She held Tonya’s gaze as she placed her phone on the coffee table. “So, Philip tells me you were an actress.”
Tonya examined Imani’s expression. Was her landlord simply switching the subject or fishing for information about her connection with Nate and the scholarship? Or was she being bitchy because of the peanut butter? Imani had used the past tense concerning her prior career, hammering a nail into the coffin of Tonya’s acting profession. Tonya didn’t think of her acting in the past tense. Once an actress, always an actress, she thought, even if twelve years of taking orders instead of auditions had long erased any illusions of her being a working actress.
“I did a few off-off-Broadway productions. A couple commercials,” Tonya said.
Imani’s dark eyelashes fluttered. “Anything I’d know?”
Her voice was friendly, but Tonya detected notes of strain. “One of the commercials was to advertise a gym. I was running on a treadmill. In another, I’m stressing about a college loan. I think my line was, ‘How am I ever going to pay for this?’”
Tonya delivered the question using the same ingenue inflections she’d employed during the actual shoot. The reenactment made Imani flinch. Was she surprised how quickly her tenant could get into character? Tonya wondered. Or had the query simply hit a nerve? No doubt Imani was wondering the exact thing: How would a waitress ever pay them for anything?
“Did you ever audition for films?” Imani asked. “Or was it mostly theater?”
Philip’s wife asked as though she was making casual conversation, but Tonya knew not to trust the tone. Imani wasn’t needling. She was digging.
“Mostly theater,” Tonya responded. “I auditioned for Nate Walker once or twice. I didn’t know him the way you and Philip did, so I didn’t think it worth mentioning. Philip said that you’d found the recommendation that he wrote for Layla, and the scholarship info.”
Imani sat back in her chair. For a moment, she reminded Tonya of a kid who’d been caught stealing sweets. “He seemed very impressed by both you and Layla,” Imani quipped.
Tonya felt her own polite smile press into a pout. “It’s hard not to be impressed by Layla.”
“She seems like a bright young lady.”
Tonya didn’t like the addition of “seems,” as if Imani were simply waiting for the curtain to fall, revealing the intellectual dullard she probably expected a woman without a sophisticated career would raise. People like Imani and Philip—the progeny of middle-class if not wealthy parents—didn’t understand what it was like to chase a dream living check to check. They didn’t get that poor people didn’t abandon bad jobs for the possibility of better ones, that they picked up double shifts in dead-end careers rather than took time off for interviews or extra classes or even auditions. Tonya’s lack of success wasn’t due to some deficiency of brains or talent. She’d suffered a string of bad luck and was still paying for a few poor choices. For people without generational money, a few poor choices were enough to become permanently stuck.
“She is a wonderful kid,” Tonya corrected.
“Nate definitely thought so. She made quite an impression.”
Tonya raised her sandwich in a mock toast, bit a hunk off, and headed to the stairs. She chewed angrily, letting the peanut butter glue her mouth shut so she couldn’t whirl around and ask the questions on the tip of her tongue. Why did Imani keep bringing up Nate? What did she know? What information was she really angling for? It was clear that Imani’s conversations were not simply polite small talk. Folks did not engage in casual conversation about the recently murdered.
By the time Tonya exited onto her floor, she’d finished the sandwich and fished her phone from her pocket. This arrangement with the Bankses wasn’t going to go well if Nate kept coming up. She needed living options.
She needed Layla’s money.
Tonya dialed Kelner. As usual, the lawyer’s secretary answered in a tone that didn’t promise help. Her boss was not available, the woman explained. Tonya could leave a message. “Tell Kelner that I need to see him,” Tonya said.
“Mr. Kelner is not conducting in-person consultations at the moment,” the secretary said.
“Not Kelner,” Tonya shot back. “Him.” The secretary cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Who exactly should I tell Mr. Kelner you’d like to see?”
“It’s not ‘like to see.’ It’s need.” Tonya spoke directly into the speaker. “As in, if it doesn’t happen, I’ll need to explore my other options. And don’t worry about the name,” she added. “Kelner will know.”