Philadelphia Noir by Carlin Romano

Author:Carlin Romano
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Noir Fiction, Anthologies (Multiple Authors), Mystery & Detective, Philadelphia (Pa.), ebook, Fiction, American, Mystery Fiction, Crime, General, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781617750021
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART III

THE FAKER CITY

FISHTOWN ODYSSEY

BY MEREDITH ANTHONY

Fishtown

Megan stepped out of her fashionable red door in the trendiest part of Fishtown, drinking in the cold, clear afternoon air. She stood on the stoop, locked the door behind her, and turned, putting her keys in her handbag, juggling her Kenneth Cole overnight bag. She walked down the first of the three steps that led to the sidewalk and stepped on a woman’s hand.

Megan shrieked. The woman shrieked. Megan stumbled and, for a moment, thought she might fall.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” she said, apologizing reflexively as she righted herself. Luckily, she was wearing snow boots instead of her strappy high heels or she would certainly have fallen. And why she should apologize she didn’t know, since the woman, old and dirty, had no business lounging on Megan’s well-kept steps. She shrugged to settle the Michael Kors cashmere coat on her shoulders, pulling it together against the cold.

“That dress is too young for you. You’re not that young,” snarled the old woman malevolently, rubbing her injured hand, having caught a glimpse beneath the coat of the bronze metallic sheath that Megan had bought for an extravagant price the week before.

“Excuse me,” Meg muttered, losing all sympathy with the old crone. “I’m in a hurry.” She went down the rest of the steps, giving the woman a wide berth.

“You won’t be the prettiest one there. Or the youngest,” the old woman called after her.

“Jesus,” Meg breathed. “What a bitch.” But she shook off her irritation. Nothing was going to spoil her mood. Today was the high point of her year.

The Daggers’ New Year’s Eve extravaganza was, for Megan, the party to end all parties. First, it was a truly great, well-planned gathering. Drinks at seven, buffet dinner at nine, desserts and coffee at eleven for a little jolt of caffeine and sugar, watch the ball drop at midnight, karaoke and drunken dancing after that. The party ended with a hot breakfast the next morning, where bedraggled women avoided meeting the eyes of the friends whose husbands they had made out with in dark corners of the enormous suburban house. Second, it was a social coup to be invited to the best New Year’s eve party on the Main Line. Most important, for Megan, it was a taste of the life she wanted, the life she was working toward, the life she was destined for.

Megan had prepared like an athlete, sleeping in this morning, eating a big lunch, laying down a base. When she jumped on the subway at Girard Avenue and Front Street bound for 30th Street Station and then the Paoli local to Bryn Mawr, she was ready. It was only a one-hour trip but it was a journey to another world.

Megan had inherited her family’s home in Fishtown, a former blue-collar ghetto that was being steadily gentrified. She was renovating it, bit by bit, to improve its value, watching the real-estate market for the right time to sell. Many young professionals would

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