‘No Moscow for You’

Imagine thousands of people hoisting up a huge bell. Then after all the effort and money spent on it, it suddenly falls and is smashed to pieces.—masha prozorova

I longed for the release of sleep, but I’d slept too long and too drugged the night before. An hour later, I pushed my desk back into place and cautiously peered into the darkened condo. All was quiet. I crept to the kitchen, filled a glass of water, drained it, and filled it again. Sipping this second glass of water, I collected my shower things. Cool water rinsed away my nervous sweat.

Once I’d dressed myself in a matching outfit and applied a little makeup, I started to feel itchy, as if I’d explode if I stayed in that stupid condo for another minute. I grabbed my purse and ran outside. Chris’s car was gone, but then I couldn’t remember whether it had been at our house this morning or not. Maybe it was still on 820 North by Brick Oven.

I looked at my phone—two missed calls from Jared Washington, one from Janice Wilburn, and several from a BYU number. Jared lived nearby, I knew, for I’d walked to a Halloween party at his apartment last semester. One block north and two blocks east—The Colony, if I remembered correctly. He lived in a red-orange building on the east side of 750 East, in the left apartment. Without thinking any more about it, I headed for the mountains.

After standing outside the door I hoped was the right one for a couple minutes, I knocked. If I was wrong, they’d tell me which one Jared did live in. No one answered. I rang the doorbell. Still nothing. Feeling foolish, turned around to walk back home, but Jared Washington was on the steps behind me.

“Bekah!” His tone suggested that I was the last person Jared ever expected to find on his porch this afternoon.

“Iwantedtotalkabouttheplay,” I blurted. “If you have time, of course.”

Jared waited for me to move aside and then unlocked his door. He invited me in.

I settled on the scratchy blue couch in his pleasant, open living room while Jared finished his getting-home routine. He dropped his heavy messenger bag next to the coffee table, ran his coat upstairs to his bedroom, washed his hands, drank a huge glass of water over the sink, and then poured me and himself full glasses of orange juice from the fridge. Juice is rarely shared among students—we guard it jealously, drinking tap water in company and soft drinks at parties—so I appreciated his kindness.

He handed me the cold glass and sat down on the other end of the couch, his body angled towards me. “I guess you already know about Jeff . . . and Christian Miles.”

Little bits of pulp swirled in my glass. I nodded. “Yeah, Chris is my best friend’s brother, so I definitely heard about it.” The orange juice was high quality—sweet and soothing.

“Oh,” Jared stared into his own orange juice, “oh!” He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Is that it?”

I swallowed and tried to sound casual, “Yeah, that’s how we know each other.”

“Everyone thought you two were—”

“Yeah, I kinda got that,” I smiled back. “I can’t imagine why though,” I lied.

Jared shook his head and took a long drink.

“Do you know what’s going to happen now, with the play?” I asked.

He considered me. I hoped my eyes weren’t still puffy. “Well,” he began, “yesterday evening Professor Allred basically decided to scrap the play. She was really upset, so maybe she’ll change her mind, I don’ know. But last night she gave everyone there the grades they had had before the final—the play.”

I hid my face with my glass and drank orange juice to push back the panic. “W-what’s going to happen to me?”

He knew. He was not trying to remember whether Professor Allred had said something about my fate, he was deciding whether or not to tell me. “I don’t really know,” he shook his head. “You’ll have to talk to Professor Allred. I don’ even know if she knows what she’s gonna do.”

The apartment’s unlocked door burst open and five rowdy young men tumbled into the room. “Jared,” they shouted, “come play basketball with us!”

Jared stood up and entreated with his palms out, “Look, guys—”

One of the intruders, an exceptionally tall and string-bean–like specimen, crouched down so we were eyelevel and touched my arm. “What’s your name?” he asked me.

“Um, Bekah?”

“Bekah,” he threw his sweaty pink arm over my shoulders and stared me down. “Jared’s our only black guy. Please let him come play basketball with us!”

Surrounded as he was by the other four making personal pleas, Jared caught my eye and made a face at String Bean’s back. He stepped away from the mob and flexed for my benefit. “Whaddaya say, Bekah? Should I show these white boys how it’s done?”

Picking up the sketch as we’d been trained to do, I smiled wide and stood up with my purse, “You whup ’em good, Jay Dub!” Amid cheers and whoops, I waltzed out the door.

* * * *

I walked home the long way, through several tree-lined streets of shabby forties cottages. A dirty yellow dog followed me for a block and a half. When I approached the condo, I slowed down even more. Chris’s car was back in the side yard, and a late-nineties navy sedan was parked in the driveway. Chris himself was in the driveway too. He was wearing sunglasses and talking to a plump, brown young woman with heavy-lidded eyes and long black hair streaked with caramel. Her clothes were much too brief for BYU standards, and her espadrilles were much too high for walking. Now they were shouting. Somewhere a baby screamed.

As wrong as I knew it was to listen, I couldn’t resist stepping quietly as I approached. If they saw me, they saw me; if they didn’t, well . . .

Chris pushed the woman away, and she shoved him right back. He stumbled away a pace and sucked air through his teeth—she must have hit one of his bruises.

“Things are different down there, Crash!” She bit the air at the end of each sentence. “Charles is dead. Zeke and Tito just got out, and they want to see you.”

“So they sent you?” Chris snarled.

She brushed a piece of hair off the shelf of breasts bulging out of her bright purple top. “Maybe I wanted to see you too, have you ever considered that?”

“Oh, please, you hate my guts. Your whole family does.”

A baby screeched again. “Oh, Gabby, not now,” the woman pulled open the back door of her car, reached in, and extracted a chubby little girl dressed in neon pink. The baby quieted. The woman ruffled the girl’s curly ginger hair. “Crash,” the woman settled the child on her hip and looked up at Chris, “you’re a part of the family. Gabe’s dying doesn’t change that.”

Suddenly I did not want to be anywhere near this conversation. I backed up slowly, as sudden movements attract attention, until I was out of their sight. Then I hurried around a corner and stood by a tree, heart racing. An eternity later, I saw the navy car drive away towards University.

Chris was no longer in the driveway. I entered the condo and found him at the table chomping away at a mixing bowl full of strawberry-granola cereal. “Hi, Chris,” I squeaked.

He made a welcoming noise at me as he chewed. He swallowed while I dawdled in the kitchen. “Bekah, would you like to go to Albuquerque with me this weekend?” he asked casually, as if he hadn’t bared his soul to me a few hours ago.

What else could I say? “Sure, I’ll go pack.”