I tell myself if Hana hasn’t called me back by this evening, I’ll go to her house. I tell myself that in the meantime there’s no point in worrying, but all the same the guilty feeling keeps worming around in my stomach.
The old guy is still hovering over the freezer compartments and paying me absolutely no attention. Good. I slip on the apron again, and then, after checking to see that Jed isn’t watching, reach up and grab all the bottles of ibuprofen—about a dozen of them—and slide them into the apron pocket.
Then I sigh loudly. “Jed, I need you to cover for me again.”
He looks up with those watery blue eyes. Blink, blink. “I’m reshelving.”
“Well, we’re totally out of painkillers back here. Didn’t you notice?”
He stares at me for several long seconds. I keep my hands clasped tightly behind my back. Otherwise I’m sure their trembling would give me away. Finally he shakes his head.
“I’m going to see if I can dig some up in the supply room. Grab the register, okay?” I slip out from behind the counter slowly, so I don’t rattle, keeping my body angled slightly away from him. Hopefully he won’t notice the bulge in my apron. This is one symptom of the deliria no one ever tells you about: Apparently the disease turns you into a world-class liar.
I slip around a teetering pile of sagging cardboard boxes stacked at the back of the store and shoulder my way into the supply room, shutting the door behind me. Unfortunately it doesn’t lock, so I drag a crate of applesauce in front of the door, just in case Jed decides to come investigate when my search for the ibuprofen takes longer than usual.
A moment later there’s a quiet tap on the door that leads out into the alley. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
The door feels heavier than usual. It takes all my strength just to yank it open.
“I said to knock four times—” I’m saying, as the sun cuts into the room, temporarily dazzling me. And then the words dry up in my throat and I nearly choke.
“Hey,” Hana says. She’s standing in the alley, shifting from foot to foot, looking pale and worried. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
For a second I can’t even answer her. I’m overwhelmed with relief—Hana is here, intact, whole, fine—and at the same time anxiety starts drumming through me. I scan the alley quickly: no sign of Alex. Maybe he saw Hana and got scared off.
“Um.” Hana wrinkles her forehead. “Are you going to let me in, or what?”
“Oh, sorry. Yeah, come in.” She scoots past me, and I shoot one last look up and down the alley before closing the door behind me. I’m happy to see Hana but nervous, too. If Alex shows up while she’s here . . .
But he won’t, I tell myself. He must have seen her. He must know it’s not safe to come now. Not that I’m worried that Hana would tell on me, but still. After all the lectures I gave her about safety and being reckless, I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to bust me.
“Hot in here,” Hana says, lifting her shirt away from her back. She’s wearing a white billowy shirt and loose-fitting jeans with a thin gold belt that picks up the color of her hair. But she looks worried, and tired, and thin. As she turns a circle, checking out the storeroom, I notice tiny scratches crisscrossing the backs of her arms. “Remember when I used to come and hang out with you here? I’d bring magazines and that stupid old radio I used to have? And you’d steal—”
“Chips and soda from the cooler,” I finish. “Yeah, I remember.” That was how we got through summers in middle school, when I first started logging time at the store. I used to fabricate reasons to come back here all the time, and Hana would show up at some point in the early afternoon and knock on the door five times, really soft. Five times. I should have known.
“I got your message this morning,” Hana says, turning toward me. Her eyes look even bigger than usual. Maybe it’s that the rest of her face looks smaller, drawn inward somehow. “I walked by and didn’t see you at the register, so I figured I’d come around this way. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with your uncle.”
“He’s not here today.” I’m beginning to relax. Alex would have been here already if he was planning on coming. “It’s just me and Jed.”
I’m not sure if Hana hears me. She’s chewing on her thumbnail—a nervous habit I thought she’d kicked years ago—and staring down at the floor like it’s the most fascinating bit of linoleum she’s ever seen.