charlie harris , with her friends jan parker and caroline larocque , was sitting in the shade on the front steps of jans building , which was not much different from the one charlie lived in down the street or the one caroline lived in across the street : three stories with a worn front porch , old asbestos shingles from the sixties , pale green above on the third story , gray below , six mailboxes for the six families , two to a floor , all of them working class and tottering on the edge of poverty .