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“Is he coming back inside?” Mrs. Levin asks.
I startle at the sound of her voice. I forgot she was here, actually.
“Oh, um…” I see the headphones sitting on the coffee table, and I grab them. “He will. When he does, you’re going to tell him you don’t know anything. Wear these.”
She looks at the headphones questioningly, but I slip them on her ears.
“You’re going to tell him you didn’t see or hear anything. The less you know, the better.”
None of this probably makes any sense to her, but hopefully she’ll listen anyway.
“Are you running away from him?” she asks.
Guilt twists my insides. I know Timofey is only doing what he thinks is best, but he needs my help. Whether he knows it or not. The only way I can do what I have to do is to leave him.
I nod. “Yeah. We’re running away.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Take care of Noelle for me.”
Mrs. Levin plugs the end of the headphones into the ancient stereo sitting on the desk next to her. After the press of a few buttons, music starts to play, soft and constant through her headphones.
I turn around and find Noelle standing in the doorway, holding a tote bag with a picture of an eggplant on the side. The sight of it makes me want to sob.
“It’s my farmer’s market tote,” Noelle said a few months ago when Ashley and I first saw the bag. We immediately fell over each other laughing.
“Do you go to the market for the food or the farmers?” Ashley teased. “Because that bag is solely for letting everyone know you’re there to fetch some dick.”
“What? What do you mean? I took this with me to meet Wayne’s parents.”
Ashley and I howled until tears poured down our faces.
Noelle stared down at the bag for ten full seconds before she pressed her palm to the center of her forehead. “The eggplant stands for a… There’s a reason it was on the clearance rack at the grocery store. I can never carry this again, can I?”
“No, you cannot,” we told her.
Now, here she is, running into the night in her pajamas with the penis tote bag.
God, life changes fast.
“Do you have everything?” I ask.
Noelle nods, and that’s all we have time for.
Timofey will be coming back any second. I don’t want to run into him on the stairs.
So I hurry out of the apartment and Noelle stays close behind me.
I remember seeing a back door propped open once when a new tenant was moving into the studio apartment on the first floor. The man and his friend were yelling at each other through the opening, a couch with more rips than fabric wedged firmly inside the doorway.
The door is closed and couchless now, at the end of a dark hallway. I press my hands to the metal bar and hesitate for just a second.
Is this going to set off an alarm? Will Timofey be waiting on the other side for us, having anticipated my plan?
Do I have to run away or can I forget this whole idea and go find Timofey? Can we do this together?
Before the doubts can creep in, Noelle’s hand falls over mine and she pushes the door open.
The alarm doesn’t sound. When I look back, she isn’t even looking at me. She’s staring straight ahead.
