Miles set the letter to the side—it was much easier to write than poetry—and lay back on the bed waiting for Ganke to come bursting in, a barrel of braggadocio, going on and on about how whatever poem he shared at the open mic turned the quad fountain into a geyser and everybody cried and clapped as water came misting down onto them. Or something like that. Blah-blah-blah. But Miles wouldn’t make it. He wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes open long enough to laugh at Ganke, which would then turn into Ganke laughing at Miles once he found out that Miles punked out, once again, with Alicia. Because five minutes after Miles hit the pillow, he was asleep.
Miles woke up drenched in sweat, his heart jackhammering and his muscles tight and strained, as if they’d become ice beneath his skin. The only thing he remembered from the nightmare was that there was a cat. A cat he had never seen before. Matted white fur, its tail split into multiple tails all coiling like snakes. But Miles couldn’t remember where he was and why the weird cat was there.
Miles sat up, stretched the stiff out of his joints, rubbed his eyes until they adjusted to the sunlight. He tried to remember what or who else was there in the dream. Was it Uncle Aaron? Maybe. Probably. But he wasn’t sure.
He got up, crept past Ganke, who had his covers yanked over his head, and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash up. When Miles returned to the bedroom, Ganke pulled the blanket back from his face.
“What you doing up this early?” Miles asked.
“Not sleeping. Lot on my mind,” Ganke replied.
“You and me both.” Miles grabbed his jeans off the back of his desk chair.
“What about you? What you doing up?” Ganke asked, then went straight into a yawn.
“I have to go to the store to get a stamp and envelope so I can mail this off.” Miles picked the letter up off the desk. “It’s a letter to Austin.”
Ganke nodded. “And you sure you wanna do that?”
“I mean, what bad could it do? If he’s telling the truth, I get to have a cousin. If he’s lying, I get to be a friend to somebody locked down. And it only costs me a dollar.”
“A dollar, huh?” Ganke said, sitting up clearing the sleep from his throat. “I’d argue it’s cost a little more than that. You think maybe you’re doing this because of what happened with Aaron?”
Miles dabbed deodorant under his arms. Then, without responding, he grabbed a black T-shirt from a drawer and pulled it over his head. He went to the mirror. White skid marks down the side of his shirt from the deodorant. Of course. Ugh. He licked a finger and started scrubbing the fabric clean. After that, he brushed his hair, rubbed his thumbs across the stubble growing in around his hairline. Then, he snatched the letter off the desk and picked his backpack up off the floor. “I gotta go.”
Miles was never outside that early, and he was surprised at how peaceful it was. The leaves on the trees were fading from green to reddish-orange, like nature’s new color scheme for army fatigue. There was a crispness in the air, a breeze causing a whir all around him. It reminded him of early mornings in his neighborhood before everyone and everything was awake. Before sirens, and bus motors, and old-school soca blared from open windows. And as Miles walked across campus to the store thinking about the disaster the day before—possibly the worst Monday of his life—he reveled in the peace.
Until he got to the store.
The door was propped open and the campus police were inside interrogating Winnie.
“Just so we’re clear, you’ve had no customers this morning?”
“Sir, I told you. I came in a little while ago. I opened the door, did my usual inventory check to see what needed to be restocked because that’s usually what I spend my time doing during my shift since nobody is shopping this early in the morning anyway.” Winnie scratched her scalp through the silk scarf wrapped around her head.
No one’s shopping ever, Miles thought, but his snark was interrupted by the officers noticing him in the doorway.
“Son, no one’s allowed in the store right now. It’s under investigation,” an officer who looked too young to be balding barked. He held up the Halt! hand.
“Investigation?” Miles asked, his voice seesawing between concern and sarcasm. Miles’s eyes shot from the officer to Winnie.
“Yeah, I came in and all the cans of sausage were gone. Like, all of them. So I pulled up the inventory report because I couldn’t believe we sold them, and I was right, there were no sausages sold, which meant they were stolen.”
“Or vanished,” Miles said, now half nervous, half joking.
The officer cut his eyes at Miles. Cocked his head to the side, unamused.
“Wait.” Winnie looked like she was connecting the dots to something, dots that Miles had no clue needed connecting. “Maybe y’all should talk to him,” Winnie said pointing at both Miles and the officer. “Miles, weren’t you working last night?”
“Yeah,” Miles said, the words needling his throat. He glanced back at the young baldy, caught his steely eyes, then looked away. “But nothing happened.”
“Oh, something happened,” the officer said. Miles was perplexed, watching the young officer lick his chops. Nothing happened last night. At least, nothing in the store. But something was happening now. Something bad.
With a pen and pad at the ready, the officer started in on a string of questions, each one making Miles more and more nervous. “What time did you get to work?”
“Four.”
“About how many customers would you say you had?
“None.”
“Any suspicious behavior?”
“From who?”
“Did you ever leave the store for any reason?”
No answer.
“Did you ever leave the store for any reason?”
“No.”
“Did anyone look suspicious outside?”
“I just told you I didn’t leave the store.”
“Just checking. What time did you leave?”
“I didn’t leave.”
“I mean, when was your shift over?”
“Around seven.”
“Cool. If we have any more questions, we’ll find you.”
After the officer left, Miles tried to remember if he noticed anything different about the store when he’d returned from the open mic. The truth was, he hadn’t checked. Why would he? For one, his mind was on a bunch of other things: Alicia. Austin. Furthermore, the store didn’t seem different. Nothing was ever moved or rearranged. The notepads were along the wall. The pens and pencils behind the register. The sausage in the back. The only reason Winnie did the inventory report was because she had to in order to keep her job, not because it made any sense. Miles racked his brain for a moment, standing smack in front of the counter, before Winnie finally snapped him out of it.
“Miles?” she said. Then repeated, “Yo, Miles?”
“Yeah.” Miles blinked out of his daydream.
“Did you need something?” Winnie was perched on her elbows the exact same way Miles was the night before. Like a yoga pose—bored-convenience-store-worker pose.