Short Story

Supplemental Resources - -Andrea Chapela

The Grey Quarter

We chose to wear our new black heels – mine identical to yours – in honor of our coming adventure. By the time we arrived at North Station, where we’d never been, our feet – used to traveling by car – hurt. Arm in arm, we

waited for the subway, ignoring the cold winter air, which swirled around our feet, reminding us that it was a terrible idea not to wear tights in December. But we were above things like the weather because that night, after

lying to my parents and telling them that I’d sleep at your house while you said you’d sleep at mine, only a forty-minute ride separated us from downtown.

The idea of going to a party downtown was yours, of course. By our senior year, you were already sick of waiting for life to begin. You were also the one who recognized all the opportunities in our parents’ trust, in the fact that

they saw us as nice girls, with good grades, in private school, well-educated, already allowed to sit at the grown-ups’ table, but, above all, they believed that we had good heads on our shoulders, and that we knew by heart

the risks haunting downtown, that place taken over by the Grey Quarter and its promise of other people’s dreams, bottled up for sale.

Waiting for the subway, that steady head of mine was rethinking our plans for the fourth time that night, but you didn’t give me much time to consider my fears. With our arms still intertwined, we stepped into the first subway

car that came by and we stood there, ignoring the seats and the pain in our feet. As soon as it stopped at the next station, you gestured with your head towards a guy who was looking at us. You flashed me a conspiratorial

smile. I knew you well enough – there is no childhood memory of mine that isn’t also yours – to know that you wanted him to look at us, you had even expected it since that moment in the changing room when you imagined

us transformed.

We looked good. After weeks of saving, we bought those secret dresses in the most fashionable blue – for me – and red – for you – that barely covered our thighs. For you, the dresses had the same effect as the make-up

and the high heels, of inviting stares and admitting us into that adult world that awaited us in just a few months after graduation.

“Quit tugging at your dress,” you said, when we were at the fourth stop.

I let go of the hemline I hadn’t even notice I’d been grabbing. You understood my nervousness because – I like to think – you felt it, too. Back then, we had no room for emotions not felt at the same time.

“I can’t stop thinking about everything that can go wrong.”

After I said that, you decided to distract me by starting a conversation about our names for that night; you went over the fictional background we’d invented. We would be two students at the local university, freshmen,

undeclared, looking to experiment. You had looked over the general courses for the first year, to give us an idea of what would be believable. Calculus was harder than we’d thought it'd be, although in school we’d been

very good with numbers, but literature was amazing. The National and Contemporary Issues class had impressed us. With so many different perspectives on the Grey Quarter and its disappearances, we hardly knew

what to think.

We repeated the names of the authors we’d read and the popular places around the public university, which you knew by heart, because you could not wait to study there and get out of the safe neighborhood where we

had been raised.

At that moment, we weren’t thinking about the arguments with our parents over their plans to send us overseas to study, plans incompatible with our dream of living downtown. The subway emerged from the underground

while we fantasized about the apartment we’d share near Central Station, still ten stops away.

We shut up so our eyes could look at the lights and at the dark shapes of the trees and buildings; both were passing by too quickly for us to really focus on them. We recognized the difference in the scene that welcomed

us. The buildings were taller and closer to one another, leaving no room for breathing, for parks, or for a life that was not squeezed between concrete and other lives.

When we got out of the subway, you pulled out the map to the party. I never knew who had drawn it for you on the napkin, nor when the idea of going downtown had begun. I just knew that a couple of weeks back, you’d

become obsessed. Arm in arm, I was ready to mimic your confidence as we crossed Central Station.

The bodies running from the cold shoved us onto the street and away from the station, into the music of the bars, each song booming louder that the last. We swayed together toward the main avenue, assaulted by the

smell of the city, a mixture of greasy food, sweat, and humanity; blinded by the red and yellow beams of the cars and the fluorescent lights that kept the night at bay; accosted by the noise of the horns, the tires, the city. I

lost my balance, but your arm steadied me and guided me as we zigzagged through the depths of downtown, which until that moment we had seen only during the day from behind the tinted windows of a car.

There was an oversaturation around us, an urgency in the movement of people that blocked our path, like another wall in front our destiny. You dealt with it by quickening your steps, while I, assaulted by the fear of what

we were doing, couldn’t stop repeating to myself, like a mantra, the signs to identify the Grey Quarter’s domain. You stopped at a red light. I asked if you wanted to go back and you laughed. After coming this far? Of

course we would continue.

“You aren’t going to back out now, are you?”

“No! Of course not.”

And I returned to my mantra, the one I’d memorized since childhood: first lights, then pavement, when the buildings change it is too late and you are in the middle of the Grey Quarter. So I looked at the streetlights

around us to make sure that the shadows weren’t mixing, that the illuminated corners were still well defined and not blending with the darkness. You hurried farther away from the main avenue, into smaller, adjacent

streets, which were quieter and emptier.

The lack of noise hit me, and I noticed that we had stopped talking. Once again we paused at a red light. I saw that you were looking around, for the numbers and names of the streets, with a frown, wrinkling your nose.

You looked at the map one more time.

“Are we lost?”

You looked at me, annoyed, but admitted that we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. I suggested that we go on until the next corner, where I could see a convenience store, we could ask for directions there. I knew

that you hated admitting that you were wrong, but you accepted my idea, probably because of the cold. We entered the store, and heat enveloped us, making me aware that I couldn’t feel my ears.

They noticed us first, but you noticed their stares before I did. I don’t know if you locked eyes with the guy with green hair, but one second you were by my side, and the next you were taking firm steps with a sway in

your hips that I could never imitate, towards the two guys obviously older than us – standing at the counter. There was nothing particular about them, other than the green hair of the one you were talking to. Nothing

that could have warned us.

I stayed by the door, without knowing what to do under the new stares and the white lights of the store, which were making me realize how cold I was, how uncomfortable my shoes really were, how much my feet hurt

and the absurdity of the mess we were in. I stopped my hands before they tugged at my hemline again.

I don’t know how long I stood there, by the door, surely just a few minutes, before you noticed my absence and called me to join you. I walked slowly, looking at my shoes, avoiding everyone’s eyes. You briefly

acknowledged me when I stopped beside you.

“They’re going to the party, too.”

I frowned. I wanted to tell you how that seemed all too convenient, but you silenced me with just one look. You begged me with your eyes not to ruin this for you. In my clumsiness, I raised my head and looked at the green-haired

guy, who was looking at me intently, as if examining me. One of your smiles distracted him, and I found myself free again. They bought cigarettes and a soda, and we followed them outside. You took me by the arm; I was dragging

my feet.

We walked again, this time northwards. You wouldn’t shut up. You introduced us, with the names we had decided earlier, on the subway, at a time that felt like days, not hours, ago. I don’t remember their names because I was too

worried about keeping my guard up. You told them the story we’d prepared and they responded with the right questions: how old were we? Where did we study? What were our majors? Cool, did we know that coffee shop, that

book, that professor…? I walked behind, troubled. I’m not sure which I feared most: Green-Hair and his friend, or the Grey Quarter.

We slowed down, a couple blocks later. We stopped before a little alley between two tall buildings – to see where they ended, I had to raise my head – darkened, with a couple of broken windows and the doors sealed by wooden

boards. His friend entered the alley and we waited for him on the street. You squeezed my hand – did you notice I was shaking? – and I tried to tell you with my eyes, we’re done for, they’re going to kill us for sure. Your cheerful

smile made me think that you didn’t get my message. Your conversation with Green-Hair continued while you pretended that we knew all those places we’d never been to. When he asked me something, I looked at him like he had

two heads, avoiding his eyes. My frightened face made him laugh while you frowned. Then the friend returned.

“Was there any?” Green-Hair asked.

The friend nodded and pulled out a brown bag that quickly disappeared into a jacket pocket. I saw you follow it with your eyes. At the next corner, you asked to be shown the contents, as if we could have judged its quality. You

looked inside, smiling.

“I told you they were good,” the friend said.

They passed the bag to me before you could stop them. I peered inside, compelled more by politeness than actual curiosity. At first I didn’t understand. I thought about how weird those miniature pool balls looked. The friend must

have thought that my confusion actually meant disapproval because he made me step into the light so I could see them better. The image lasted for just a moment before you snatched the bag from me and gave it back to them.

You moved nervously before my eyes. I knew in that moment that you had been waiting for – even wanting – a meeting like this.
The image is still fixed in my head to this day. At the bottom of the bag were three glass spheres filled with silver smoke circling around with more weight and consistency than it should have; it was something between

gas and liquid with undulations shining like metal under the light.

I grabbed your arm to stop you; you looked at me, exasperated.

“Don’t even say it.”

Your voice was barely a whisper. You looked at the guys, signaling them to go on, and smiled. You didn’t want them to know that we’d never seen dream beads.

“Are we going to the Grey Quarter?”

You opened your mouth, but I hadn’t let you lie to me.

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “I know perfectly well the best way to do dream beads is in the Grey Quarter. Do you know what you’re getting us into?”

My questions sounded more anguished and high-pitched than I had wanted them to.

“Don’t be like that.” Your eyes travelled to the corner where they waited. “You know just once isn’t a big deal. There’s no proof they’re addictive the first time.”

“Are you listening to yourself? The issue isn’t addiction, you know that. A dream for a memory. You know that. Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Don’t be a prude. It’s just a memory. I’m sure you’re curious. Haven’t you wondered what it’s like? Can you imagine what we’d be able to tell everyone if we go to the Grey Quarter? Don’t you want to know?”

The tone of your voice sent shivers down my back, doing what the weather hadn’t.

“No.”

“Everything okay?”

Green-Hair interrupted us. You shot me an angry look before turning towards him.
“Yeah,” you said “She forgot her phone. She wants to go home and get it.”

Without a word, I allowed you to lie and to cut our discussion short. I knew you were giving me a chance to back out in a way that didn’t make you look bad. If I wanted to go, I could just take it.

“It won’t even work there and we aren’t far. A block away tops.”

He turned around. You did the same and I followed. I didn’t have time to think it through because we hadn’t even reached the next corner when I felt the change. I had stopped looking at the lights and the sudden lack of firm

ground took me by surprise. My heel pierced it, sinking into it. The sidewalk seemed to change from concrete to gum. I felt my ankle bend and I fell, letting out a small squeak that brought you to my side. You made excuses for

me, telling them how clumsy I was. I don’t know how you walk without falling.

You helped me up. My knees shook so hard that I had to lean into the wall to stay balanced. The guys had crossed the street and were already waiting for us in the Grey Quarter. When I looked over at them, I recognized the

Quarter’s edge, because of the change in the light and the colors. The menace that had always been on the margins of my life, like a place that happened to other people or a possibility out of reach, was now just a few steps

away. That night, looking at the guys across the street, I understood the colloquial name for the phenomenon that would take over parts of the city, invading them, transforming them.

In that place, all color disappeared, even the green of his hair had faded, losing all intensity; the light didn’t bounce back like it had just a minute ago. Every edge had been smoothed out, blurred together; there were moments

were I could not distinguish between the boy’s bodies and the light post beside them. I grabbed you by the arm before you could walk away.

I ask myself why I didn’t say anything back then when I wanted to ask you so much. There was a second in that last look where the possibility still existed of us turning back towards the subway together and continuing as an

intact twosome. If I’d spoken, would you have stayed? Could I have convinced you? A moment later, you smiled towards the other side of the street, disentangled your arm from mine and looked back at me, exasperated.

“Are you coming, or not?”

The tone of your voice upset me. I looked over at the other side, where the shadows and light were fused together. I was told so many times what happens beyond that point: the ground continues to lose its firmness the deeper

you get; in the core of the Grey Quarter, the houses melt into each other, the glass of the windows seems to drip like hot wax onto their wooden frames; between the greyish light shrouding every corner, every possibility is

hidden, but unlike you, there was none that I wanted to try. You had taken me to its border searching for the dreams of others, wanting to feel everything that had been denied to you. Your thirst for knowledge, for the real

experience of our country, consumed you. Why did you take me with you? Did you think I would follow?
I took a step back.

You seemed to feel the change, my absence behind you, because you looked at me tiredly before rushing to the middle of the street. You probably knew that if I spoke, I could convince you. You turned towards me, already

wrapped in the Grey Quarter’s halo, illuminated by its ghostly light made of shadows and darkness, that same substance in the dream beads. You lifted your arm, as if beckoning me, waving to me.

“See! Everything’s fine.”

The sound of your voice made me take another step back. It came to me distorted, as though you were surrounded by denser air.

“You’re really staying?”

I wanted to beg you to come back, but I couldn’t find the words. I recognized the irritated look on your face. You finally grew exasperated by my silence.

“Fine! Then go. I’ll see you on Monday.”

With a final turn and a few steps, you reached your green-haired guy. Rooted in place, I looked at you for a long while, as you disappeared into the Grey Quarter arm in arm with him. In his other hand I could make out a smoky

bead; dreams glowing inside it, dancing gleefully at being back where they belonged.

When the half-light swallowed you, I finally turned around. I ran in spite of the heels and the pain in my ankle, undoing the steps we had taken before until I reached the main street. When I got to the subway, it had already

closed, so I went into the first open diner I found. Seated in the hard, yellow booth, with my back towards the door and a coffee mug in front of me, the pain finally hit me. The waitress tried to calm me down. She asked me if I

wanted to call my parents – tear-streaked makeup turns anyone back into a little girl. I said no.

I took the first subway back; the sun came out while I was crossing the city. I spent the quiet forty-minute journey seated in the half empty car with my legs covered by my coat to hide every stain left behind by the night, feeling

like fear had left its mark on my skin and anyone could see it on my knees. I avoided the eyes of strangers; even the window where that girl, her face streaked with makeup and tears, her heels ruined, and her back weighed

down by the burden of your absence, obscured the city beyond the glass.
Of that journey I only remember the slowness of time and the weight of the phone between my hands, waiting for your call. Were you all right? What memory had you given up in your search to try it all? Monday at

school, would we, would our classmates, recognize the obvious and, probably, unavoidable difference between you and me?

When I got home, my parents asked why I returned so early. I told them you and I had fought. They still trusted me. They assured me that we’d make up soon, while looking with some doubt at my bare feet that hadn’t

endured the heels on the walk back.

On Monday, you didn’t say hi, and I didn’t look for you. During the break, you talked to me like nothing had happened, and I understood that we’d never speak about that night. We’d been torn apart, and there was no

way to fix us. I didn’t know how to be us anymore –it used to be second nature. How could I ignore what now lay between us? I resigned myself to never talk about it and to exist around that night like it didn’t bother me.

Not even when I left to study abroad did I confide in anyone about the night I left you in the Grey Quarter. After all these years without hearing from you, I can still see you on the other side of the street, with a dream

bead in your hand, fading in the agglutination of the Grey Quarter. It’s an image that will never be a shared memory –not even a real one– of the night I decided to lose you and you, to forget me.

THE END