Robin York - Deeper

“Will you stay for your exam?” He has a midterm at ten tomorrow morning.

“No, there’s no point. Listen, can you look up flights for me? See what’s the earliest I can get out of Des Moines.”

“I will, but maybe you should take the exam, at least. So when you come back—”

It’s how he glances away that stops me.

It’s the pain I see before he turns his face so I can’t see it at all.

“West?”

He grips the tabletop with both hands. I’m looking at him in profile, his braced arms, lowered head, the straight line of his spine.

I know before he tells me.

He’s not coming back.

“It was never going to work out, anyway,” he says quietly. “I never had any business thinking it would.”

“What wasn’t?”

“It’s not something I should have let myself think I could do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a lot. West?”

When he looks up at me, he’s so far away. He’s in a state I’ve never been to, a place I’ve seen pictures of but can’t imagine, can’t smell. A town by an ocean I’ve never seen.

Oregon. I can’t even pronounce it right. He had to teach me how to say it like a native.

“Come on. Talk to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But she’s my sister, and I have to watch out for her. Nobody else is going to do it, nobody ever has. It’s my fault for thinking … It’s my fault.”

The way he looks at me, it feels like goodbye, but it can’t be. We’re mixing up the bread. We’re going to be here for hours—firing the ovens, slicing into the loaves, venting the steam. After we get through tomorrow, it’s spring break, and I probably won’t see him much for the week, but then we have the rest of the semester. Junior year. Senior year.

We have all this time still.

This can’t possibly be happening.

“You can’t just leave. You have to at least go talk to your adviser, take a leave of absence, or—”

I’m just getting warmed up when there’s a sharp rap from the other side of the room. The alley door is open, like always, because the kitchen gets so hot. Standing there, framed in it, are two uniformed policemen.

“Mr. Leavitt,” the one in front says. He’s blond, middle-aged, nice-looking. “Officer Jason Morrow. We met in December.”

“I remember,” West says. “What do you want?”

“We have reason to believe you’ve been engaged in the illegal sale of marijuana from these premises. We’d like to have a look around.”

I move closer to West. He puts his arm around me and kisses the top of my head. Mumbles, “Keep quiet.”

To the policeman, he says, “This isn’t my property. I can’t consent to a search.”

“Is this young woman an employee?”

“No. She’s with me.”

“So you’re the only employee here, is that right?”

West steps away from me, toward the door, and blocks my view of the officers.

I’ve been here before, so many times, staring at his back as he puts himself between me and trouble. But this time the trouble’s come for him.

“Yes.”

“As the person in charge of the premises, you can consent.”

“You’re going to have to call Bob. He’s the owner. It’s up to him.”

“Mr. Leavitt, we have a team at your apartment right now with a trained dog. It’s in your best interest at this point to cooperate with our investigation.”

West takes the door in his hand and uses his boot to nudge away the wedge of wood Bob uses as a doorstop. “Until you come back with Bob or a warrant, I’m not opening this door.”

And then he shuts it and flips the lock.

“Call Bridget,” he says. “I’m calling Krish.”

“West, do you think—”

But he’s not even listening. He’s crouched down, rooting around in my bag. He finds my phone, puts it in my hand. “We have a god-awful mess and not much time to sort it out. If they’re in the apartment, I need to know what’s going on. Call her.”

My fingers do the work.

I feel as though I’m watching all of this happen from a few feet outside my body, like I can’t do anything but the task in front of me, and I don’t understand enough. It’s all swirling around in my head. West is leaving. The police are outside. He closed the door on them. They’re searching the apartment. He’s got to take care of Frankie. West is leaving. He could be arrested. So could I. I’m an accessory. I can’t do this.

It’s all so thoroughly, confusingly screwed.

The phone rings and rings, but no one picks up. West’s got his own phone by his ear, and he’s staring into the middle distance. “No answer?” he asks.

“No.”

Then my phone chimes with an incoming text. What’s going on???!!!

“It’s from Bridget.”

“Ask her where she is.”

I do, and she replies, At W & K’s. On fire escape. Police r here w/ drug dog!!!

West is right behind me, reading over my shoulder. “Shit. I was hoping they were lying about that. Find out where Krish is.”

The minute we have to wait feels like a lifetime.

In West’s room w/ cops & dog.

“Did you have anything there for them to find?” I ask West in a whisper.

“No. I haven’t sold all semester, you know that.”

“So there’s nothing to worry about.”

The look he gives me is almost pitying. “I wish that was how it worked. Ask if she can call you. We shouldn’t be texting this shit.”

Bridget says, There’s a cop watching me. Didn’t want me 2 answer phone.

A pause.

She tried 2 take it, but I asked if I was arrested, she said no, so I kept it. But text is better.

“Surprised she thought of that,” West says.

“She watches a lot of crime TV.”

After a few seconds, another text. They’re in Krish’s room.

West has his hand at my waist. He’s right behind me, right with me.

I don’t think I could stand it if he left.

They found something.

“Fucking hell,” he says. “That little wanker. I told him. I told him.”

“Told him what?”

“Not to keep weed in the apartment. Ever. Under any circumstances. But he’s a lazy little fuck, and he doesn’t think. God damn it.”

He takes the phone from my hand and starts typing with his thumbs.

“What are you saying?”

“Shh. I’m going to call her. I’m just telling her to listen to what I say when she picks up. She doesn’t have to talk.”

He must get Bridget’s okay, because after a second he taps a few times, puts my phone to his ear, and waits.

“Bridge, listen, I need you to do something for me. I need you to just do it, if you want to help Krish, and I know you do. In a few minutes it’s going to be too late, so this is the deal. I need you to barge in that bedroom and get right up in the middle of everything and tell the police the weed belongs to me. Act like you’re Krish’s girlfriend, like he’s being noble trying to take the blame and you hate me, you want me to go down for trying to pin it on him. Say whatever you have to. You might have to go to the station for questioning, but just keep acting like you don’t know shit—which you don’t—and keep saying that weed belongs to me. You’ll be fine, and so will Krish. They don’t want him. They want me. And if he gives you a hard time about it, you find a way to tell him, ‘West says to do this. He insists.’ You hear me?”

West glances at me, then looks up at the ceiling. “And after it’s all done and you get released, I want you to find Caroline and take care of her for me. Take good care of her. I know you can’t talk right now, but you promise me just the same. She’s gonna need you.”

A booming knock at the bakery door makes me jump. “Mr. Leavitt!”

They’re pronouncing his name wrong. Leave-it rather than lev-it.

For no reason at all, that’s the thing that makes me cry.

“Thanks, Bridge,” West says, and disconnects the call.

He taps open the address book on my phone.

Bang bang bang. “Mr. Leavitt!”

Bo, he types. And then a phone number with a 541 area code.

He hands me the phone. “I’m going to open that door,” he says. “I’m going to let them in here, because there’s nothing to find, and they’ll get a warrant and be back tomorrow bothering Bob, anyway. So they’re going to search, and we’re going to make bread, okay? It might take them ten minutes, it might take them three hours, but at some point they’re going to decide to take me to the station. You stay here and finish the shift. I don’t want Bob to get screwed over any worse than he has to. Then just lay low, Caro. They couldn’t have found more than half an ounce in Krishna’s room. Maybe a quarter. It’s a misdemeanor. It’s nothing.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“In the morning, you call Bo and tell him what happened. He’ll take care of whatever needs taken care of. Tell him I said if he’s got one more favor in him, I need him to keep an eye on Frankie until I get this all sorted out.”

“West—”

Bang bang bang. “Mr. Leavitt!”

They have his name wrong.

I can’t stand it. I can’t.

“I need you to do what I said,” West says. “I need it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

When he kisses me, his mouth is warm and alive, his arms tight around me, but something is over, something is dead already, I want to scream. I ball up his shirt in my fists.

“I love you,” I tell him, without planning to. It’s not the right time. It’s not the right thing. It’s only what happens when I open my mouth, when I try to say what has to be said, now, before it’s too late.