Brooklyn thomas isnt her.., p.20
Brooklyn Thomas Isn't Here, page 20
“You always work this shift?” I ask.
“When I’m not clearing tables at Station Club.”
“You’re our only male employee.”
“No competition for college girls,” he deadpans.
Raj is not talkative the way all eighteen-year-old guys are not talkative with women they have no interest in. He sits with his phone, his thumbs moving rapidly. I pull a novel from my oversized purse and check the doughnut stock in the display case.
“We need to do some stuff for the bake team,” Raj says without looking up. “Mix some flour. Feed the starters. Make sure the icing doesn’t dry out.”
“Great,” I say. Another reason to hate working the Gastown shop. At the other location, the doughnuts arrive fully formed. There’s barely a kitchen. There is no prep, aside from filling up the coffee machines with beans and occasionally icing some plains if we sell out of a basic like Honey Lemon. Or slicing cheese for Matt’s newfangled doughnut sandwiches.
“Is it usually busy?” Raj’s lack of communication motivates me to prod and poke him with questions.
“Mostly shift workers and restaurant staff at midnight. A little rush around 2 a.m., when the bars close.”
“Super.”
Bored, I wipe down the long counter and benches along the window at the front of the store and stare at the street. This is one of the oldest parts of the city, which makes parking a nightmare because the streets are narrow and cobbled. A pair of girls in their club dresses walk past and trip on the uneven ground. I wince as an ankle rolls, but the legs belonging to the foot recover. My sore ankle twinges lightly in response, as if it empathizes. It’s nearly dark, and the old-fashioned cast-iron streetlights throw warm circles every few meters. As I gaze out the window, a hunched-over man with a clattering grocery cart containing his possessions rolls by. Gentrification hasn’t completely driven out people who are struggling with addiction or who are unhoused, but it has pushed them further from the places they used to call home, and made their situations more desperate. Gotta make room for those high-end furniture shops and stores selling BeaverTails to tourists, I guess.
I finish cleaning the tables and plunk myself down on a stool behind the counter, relieved to not be craving anything sugary. My waning appetite means I’m not putting away two or three doughnuts a shift anymore, and my skirt’s waistband is beginning to loosen. But I’m starting to miss wanting to eat. It used to be fun.
“We’re out of Lemon Lavender,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter,” Raj says, still texting.
“What do we do with the day-olds?”
“Put ’em in tinfoil and then drop them in the back alley by the door. Somebody will pick them up.”
Quiet descends, aside from the perky music coming out of the speakers. Matt picks the music. The only time he ever yelled at Kailey was when she put on her playlist.
He said, “This music is an affront to the vibe I’ve created.”
Kailey said, “Fuck off.”
He didn’t fire her. Now I know why. I want to throw a doughnut at his head and see what bounces off what.
Between trying to read a novel and serving the occasional customer, I examine my hands. They’re translucent, pale, and blue. When I hold them up to the pendant lighting above my head, I can see right through them. Raj doesn’t ask what I’m doing, although I probably look touched. Maybe he thinks everyone on the dark side of twenty-five is daft anyway.
“Gotta pee,” Raj says, hopping off the counter around 11:30 p.m. “Lock the door until I’m back. Matt’s rule. Nobody by themselves with the door unlocked. Mel had a bad scare a couple months ago. Probably why she quit.”
I start to ask what the scare was, but he slips into the gloom at the back of the store, beyond the kitchen and prep station. This location is triple the size of the Strathcona one because it has a large storage area along with the bakery itself. As I head to the front door to lock it, it swings open and two men walk in. I’m forced to take three steps back as they stand there, filling up the doorway, their feet covering the small welcome mat printed with a maneki-neko—a lucky cat. There’s a second ceramic maneki-neko on the doughnut case. I can tell in an instant that neither lucky cat is going to do me a damn bit of good.
There’s a sour smell coming off both men, and their clothes are ill-fitting and stained with house paint splatters. They look strong and wiry, like they spend their days doing physical labor. I scurry behind the counter as they prowl into the store.
“Raj,” I call over my shoulder, suddenly nervous. I should have gotten to the door faster and then I wouldn’t be alone with two strangers late at night.
The men haven’t done anything. Chances are, they’re just going to order. They’re hungry; they want a snack, they’ll leave, goodbye. That’s what my head says. My body doesn’t agree—their physicality, their stances, triggers something dark and ugly and afraid. They move deliberately, like Spencer before he strikes.
My hands start to shake, and a tingling sensation spreads from my fingers, up my arms, and back down through my chest to my knees.
“We’ll take four doughnuts,” the slighter, shorter man says, putting his hands on the counter in front of our till. His nails are ragged.
I clench my hands into fists and try to speak.
“What flavor?” I rasp. There’s a boa constrictor wrapped around my windpipe.
“Orange Creamsicle. Two Chocolate Banana. One of those Vanilla Swirls. You got any apple fritters?”
“No. We don’t do fritters,” I squeak.
“She doesn’t do fritters.” The bigger man spits a glutinous blob on the floor. His pupils are dilated. His hair is tied in a ponytail with a piece of string, and his T-shirt has a rip in the collar. Both men’s jeans are torn and grimy with oil and dirt. I can’t guess their age—they have that worn appearance people get when they spend too long outdoors, using substances, without regular access to healthy food.
Where’s Raj?
Calm, stay calm, I chant to myself. They’re probably from a few blocks over, where the gentrified streets quit and give up, giving way to tenements, single-room occupancy buildings, and homelessness, drug use, and poverty. Once, I was followed down the street only two blocks from here by a man looking for a hit. He looked like these guys and screamed profanities at me as I ran away. Nothing happened. I know that most of the people living on the street are too concerned with survival and immediate needs to interact with people who have the luxury of passing through the neighborhood.
There’s nothing to fear. They’re hungry. I can feed them. This shouldn’t be a big deal. They’re people, like me, and there’s nothing to get worked up over. My body doesn’t get the message, and the panic attack spreads down my legs into my toes, which start to contract and curl in my shoes.
“We want a box,” the small guy says. “Put them in a box.” They’ve edged closer.
Matt has rules about boxes not going to anyone with fewer than six doughnuts, but I’m not about to argue. If he complains, Kailey can tell him to fuck off.
“No problem,” I say, getting a box from the pile behind me.
“Add one of them bright green doughnuts,” the big man says, gesturing to the display case.
I add it and nearly drop the hot-pink box as I hand it over. They’re too close to me. Right against the counter. My eyes water from their smell—body odor long settled into the skin. Back up, my body screams. Get out of here.
“I don’t like the pink. You got something else?”
“No. Sorry. That’s the only box.” I tuck my vibrating hands under my armpits. Their presence is overwhelming. Familiar and menacing. He has stood over me, just like this. Spencer. Moments from the dark places in my memory start to burst open. Fists, feet, teeth, elbows, contact, torment. Every moment of shame, embarrassment, and pain I’ve spent years suppressing is welling up, and I’m drowning. I’m losing my hard-fought-for mental control and now is not the time, situation, or place. Flashes of light crest across my vision. Fear creeps through my body.
“You got any drugs? Weed?”
I shake my head, the room around me starting to pulse. If I could’ve, I’d have given Spencer whatever he’d asked for. If I’d only known what he wanted, I could have made it stop. There’s nothing I can do here now, either. I know these men are not the threat Spencer is, but my body has started the long drop down and there’s nothing I can do to stop it mid fall.
“Cigarettes?” the bigger one says.
“Don’t smoke,” I gasp. Where is all the oxygen?
“Beer? You got some beer here?”
“No beer.”
The bigger guy is looking over his shoulder out the window. There are few people on the street. It won’t be busy until the bars start to close. My bladder contracts, and I shrink away from the men, curling in on myself.
“Raj,” I call again, my voice tremulous and small.
“Why you keep saying Raj?” the little guy says.
“My coworker,” I gasp out. My throat is starting to close. I’m not sure I’ll be able to yell if it comes to that.
“Coworker?”
“Look. You’ve got your doughnuts. On the house. Please go.”
“You want us to go?” The smaller man’s watery, red eyes focus on my face.
“Yes. Please.” The world sways. I’ve lost control of my body and memories. Terror and the past are coalescing into these two men and this moment, as the small guy crowds the counter. My knees are starting to wobble. I suck in big gulps of air, trying to breathe despite their smell. Where the fuck is Raj? Smoking? Outside on the phone, talking to whoever he’s been texting all night? No one walks by the store’s front window. The overhead lights are blinding and I force my eyes to stay wide and focused on the men in front of me. It’s no good. Black spots crowd my vision, and the room is dissolving around me. Time’s blurring and Spencer’s face is taking the place of theirs.
“We don’t have to leave. This is a public place.”
Where the fuck is my phone? My hands scuttle under the counter. I’m not sure what I can do with a phone because my fingers aren’t working—they’ve curled into claws.
The retro cuckoo clock on the wall has never been as loud as it is now. The ticktock clanging in my ear. Tick. Tock.
“Maybe you’d like a seat.” My arm jerks in the direction of a table furthest from where I’m standing. I can’t move my legs and I need space, distance, to regain control.
“You know what I’d like?” the big guy says. His voice is Spencer’s—the same lazy vowels.
“What?” It comes out as a whisper from my pinched throat.
“The cash.”
They’ve clocked me and know I’m vulnerable.
“Right,” I wheeze, punching blindly at the iPad we use to control the till. I can’t remember the password. Shit. I keep pushing buttons. “There’s barely any cash. Most people pay with cards.”
The smaller man leans in and puts his face inches from mine.
“Hurry,” he says.
The big man looks impatient. His hands are dinner plates. His very fingers threaten. I start to sway as the black spots in my vision take over. I’ve never been so fucking alone. I’m going to die on the floor of an artisanal doughnut shop.
The world goes dark.
There’s nothing, except Penny. She’s fuzzy around the edges, but her short hair and heart-shaped face are unmistakable.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says. “You need to get up. I mean it.” She sounds desperate. “Brookie. Come on. Wake up.” She shakes my shoulder, hard.
Chapter 20
“Penny?” I say groggily.
Raj is right above me, his face where Penny’s had been, and he’s talking on the phone. His dark brown eyes are huge and his mouth is moving quickly. His fingers are around my wrist, searching for a pulse. I crawl backwards on my elbows, out of his reach.
“Oh my God! Brooklyn. Don’t move. Who’s Penny? One sec.”
He goes back to the phone.
“Her eyes are open. She’s breathing. Talking.”
He looks at me.
“You breathing?”
I nod.
He hangs up on whoever he was talking to.
“Police and ambulance are on their way,” he says.
Shit. “How long was I out?” I move gingerly into a sitting position.
“Four minutes.”
“Four minutes? I didn’t even hit my head.”
Raj hands me a paper napkin and points to my forehead. “Think again.”
I press the napkin against the side of my head, next to my hairline. It comes away red.
“Shit. Where did the two men go?” The tingling in my limbs dissipated while I was on the floor. Now I’m just cold and clammy and have a dull ache in my head.
“They ran when you collapsed.”
From my proximity to the floor, which is filthy, I can see a baseball bat propped on the soda fridge a few feet away.
“What’s that for?”
“I heard you call my name. It was in the back. I grabbed it and ran out here.”
“Where were you?” I demand.
“Bathroom. Why didn’t you lock the door?” There’s a flicker of guilt and apology on Raj’s face.
“I was about to when they walked in! I called for you a bunch of times!”
The shop fills with red and blue lights. Paramedics bustle through the door and around the counter. They mop the blood from my face and they ask how long I was on the floor. When Raj says four minutes, they frown and check me over again. They apply white tape and anti-infection cream to my forehead. Apparently, I don’t need stitches. I want to think about Penny, about what she’d said, but there’s too much going on around me to focus—and my head does hurt.
“I’m okay,” I keep saying. I bat the paramedic’s hand away when he tries to find my pulse. The last thing I need is for anyone to find out what a freak I am. I’ll have to go to the hospital if the paramedic can’t find a pulse. My mother will find out, and she’ll get Spencer involved. That’s all a big nope.
Eventually, the emergency responders let me stand. I wobble and sink into a chair. Raj talks to two burly police officers, who’d followed the paramedics in. The officers fill up the front area of the store; the female officer, who’s shorter than me, is imposing and serious in her uniform and gear. She looks like she could lift as many bags of flour as Hilary. The male officer comes into my usual store.
“I’m fine,” I say, as heads swivel to look at me. The woman frowns, and recognition dawns on the male officer’s face.
“They should have warned you it can get sketchy around here,” he says. “Not as quiet as Strathcona. Usually, it’s just bros blowing off steam, but sometimes we get residents popping in. Hilary takes care of them—they like her. They’re harmless most of the time. Just after something to eat and some change. But there have been a couple thefts on this street the past few weeks. Different crew. Not people from the neighborhood.”
“Didn’t feel safe,” I whisper, remnants of terror still coursing through my body. The cop is right, though. I did all the damage to myself. The head wound, the fainting, all of it. All me. I’d scared the men enough that they ran away the second I went down like a Douglas Fir at a Christmas tree farm in December.
“What happened?” he asks.
I describe the two men. In the retelling, fainting seems like an overreaction—a hysterical response to a minor threat. The panic and revulsion are already being shuffled to the back of my mind. Trying to explain why I fainted is tricky. I try to downplay how badly I was spooked and blame low blood sugar. Raj picks up where I left off, explaining how he’d only seen the men from the back as he exited the hallway brandishing the baseball bat.
“They grabbed the tip jar and maybe fifty dollars from the till,” Raj volunteers.
“Matt’s still gonna freak,” I say.
The male officer looks sympathetic, but the woman watches me thoughtfully, as though she can see old wounds on my skin and she’s tallying them up.
“You sure there’s nothing else?” she asks in a low voice as she crouches beside me.
I shake my head; the cut on my forehead pulls. “Nope. Of course not.” The words tumble out, and whatever attempt at a smile I paste on my face doesn’t seem to convince her.
She passes me a business card with her name and office number on it. “You call me if it turns out there is something else.” Her fingers lightly squeeze my shoulder as she stands.
Raj hovers anxiously over me, asking if I’m okay, and Matt topples in.
“You called Matt?” I yelp. “Raj!”
Matt is drunk and trying to not appear drunk in front of the cops.
“We’re closed,” the male cop says. He moves carefully toward Matt, his hand lingering above his Taser.
Matt flips the sign to closed and shuffles forward. He rubs his eyes.
“Who are you?” the female police officer asks as she moves in the direction of her partner.
“His name’s Matt. It’s his doughnut shop,” Raj says. He heads to the espresso machine, makes a shot, and gives it to Matt along with a large glass of water. “Get it together, man,” he whispers.
“Officers, can I get you anything?” Raj asks in his regular voice.
Raj is handling this pretty well. I want to be the one standing calmly at the coffee machine, not the one bleeding and shivering. I need to get my shit together before it kills me.
“Do you have any security footage?” the male officer asks.
“Never needed it,” Matt slurs. He keeps blinking, and the female officer glares at him with disgust. Too bad he’s not sober enough to feel the brunt of her scorn. He starts to nod off.
Before they leave, one of the paramedics suggests I have someone keep an eye on me tonight.
