City of Eldridge (Maplethorn Hill Neighborhood)
Sarah’s apartment: Tucked into the western edge of Eldridge, Maplethorn Hill is a tree-lined, ivy-draped neighborhood where brownstones sit shoulder to shoulder, cafés are full by 10 a.m., and every bookshelf seems to have a copy of Baldwin, Beauvoir, or Joyce — because people here read what matters.
The streets hum with the quiet confidence of writers, artists, professors, architects, and string quartet musicians who still leave handwritten notes in bookshop windows. Local cafés double as poetry reading spaces. Conversations overheard at wine bars spiral from Nietzsche to Jack Kerouac without missing a beat. Everyone owns a scarf—not for warmth, but for emphasis.
There’s a feeling here that ideas matter, that beauty isn’t a luxury, and that if the world is going to be rebuilt, it might begin in places like this — one espresso, one manuscript, one midnight argument at a jazz bar at a time.
Before I wore a badge, I wore jeans, Ramones T-shirt, black boots, red lipstick, and delusions of grandeur. I was the girl with hair that never decided if it wanted to be blonde or something darker, eyes the color of an overexposed summer sky, and a frame that always landed me in the back row of every group photo—close enough to see the hoop, never tall enough to reach it. I thought I was going to be a journalist. Not the kind that chases down crooked cops (although, foreshadowing), but the kind who sits in cafés and writes longform essays about fashion, art, culture, or the existential loneliness of subways and the poetic significance of abandoned umbrellas. I didn’t want to report the news. I wanted to narrate heartbreak like it was breaking news.
I used to think I could fall in love with someone based on their bookshelf alone. If he had Catcher in the Rye, Crime and Punishment, and On The Road, I assumed he was sensitive. Turns out, some people just steal books from girls they’ve dated before.
I dated a guitarist who only knew three chords but played them with unbearable passion; a poet who said capitalism was a prison; a screenwriter who wrote beautiful dialogue but couldn’t hold a real conversation, and one performance artist who claimed he was ‘post-language’ and tried to woo me using only interpretive dance.
I had a rule: if a man didn’t appreciate Brando, we had nothing to talk about.
The Streetcar Named Desire was sacred. On the Waterfront made me want to punch something and then hug it. Sayonara made me cry. Last Tango in Paris made me question reality (and the existence of editors).
My favorite was The Wild One. When someone once asked me what I was rebelling against, I said:
“Mediocrity. Deadlines. Emotional unavailability”. Take your pick.
They never called me back.
I wanted to tell stories that mattered. I used to picture myself with a press badge, notebook in hand, trench coat blowing dramatically in the wind. In reality, I had a blog with six followers (four of whom were definitely bots), and my most-read post was titled: “Dating a Brooding Man is Just Gentrified Babysitting.”
I miss that blog sometimes. I miss the version of me who believed life could be art if you edited it hard enough.
Now I write and edit police reports, search warrants, and follow-up investigative reports.
But back then?
Back then, I was still a romantic. Still foolish. Still thinking I could save the world by writing the right sentence.
I still haven’t found that sentence.
But I haven’t stopped looking.
