Week 16: Neighbors

I've been spending a lot of time with my resume lately.

I compulsively applied to every full-time position on Aldi's website, I haven't seen the bar this low in years.

And so, I've been thinking about my old job, two jobs ago. The job I quit, to work at my dream job, from which I was fired.

Two jobs ago was a toxic work environment. One girl was fired for drinking at work, another was a fully-functioning alcoholic. The money was great but I couldn't stay.

Two weeks before I left that job, I moved off of South Avenue and onto Park Avenue. Turns out, one of those toxic coworkers rented from the same landlord two houses down.

I think of her whenever I pass that pink house, hoping I never run into her again.

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Two weeks before I left South Avenue, the apartment across the hall welcomed a new roommate. But I was half moved out and half moved in all through August, so I never met the new tenant.

After turning in the apartment keys, my partner and I went for sushi in the restaurant two stories below my new "old" apartment. We got food poisoning.

Then I got a new job! A dream job.

My boss realized I had been his "new" old neighbor from South Avenue, the one I never met.

I thought maybe the universe was putting us into each others path, that this was a good sign.

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Two weeks ago, today, off Park Avenue: the number 8 apartment adjacent to my number 9 gained new tenants.

I hadn't met them yet, everyone in the building seems to come and go at opposing hours. This "no-vacancy" motel feels abandoned at times.

One of the new voices I heard through the walls sounded familiar, but I convinced myself I was being paranoid.

Although I wasn't being paranoid, her voice was familiar. Yesterday, we bumped into each other in the hallway.

I used to work with her at my old job, two jobs ago.

My mind flooded with the memory of her, in the back seat of a car, stopped in a liquor store parking lot, five minutes before dinner shift, doing a line of cocaine.

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The universe wasn't putting anyone into my path, Rochester is just too fucking small.

xxoo Ten