Page 55 of Of Literature and Lattes
“Bottom line, I think you’re clear, and when they contact you again, just let me know.” She turned toward the bookshop.
“When? Not if?” He felt his voice pitch high.
She turned back with a small smile. “Yes, when. You’ll be called to testify at the very least, and that’s only after all questions regarding you are laid to rest. I can’t say there won’t be more. They’ll probably reach out to Ryan too, if another officer didn’t already call him today. Let him know I’m happy to walk him through it too, if he has questions.”
“Thank you. What do I owe you? I never asked.”
Madeline raised a hand. “Let’s talk about that another day.”
“Yes, of course, you have to be exhausted.” Jeremy looked around and noticed the light. The sun had dipped beyond the buildings, and the alley was draped in evening’s gray. He slid his phone from his back pocket. “I took your whole day.”
“No worries.” She unlocked the door.
Jeremy felt his pulse race again. It’d been going up and up all day. He began to wonder what a normal heartbeat felt like. “But it’ll be okay?”
Madeline turned. “Do you have anything to hide?”
“Nothing.”
She smiled. It looked worn but genuine. Jeremy felt himself take a full, even, calming breath in response.
“Then I’m not worried, but I will stay on top of it. Now go have a cup of decaf. It’s late.”
She pushed though the alley door into the bookshop, and Jeremy walked to Andante. He expected the shop to be empty, and was surprised to be met with light.
“You’re still here?” He looked around ready to find the kitchen in disarray. If they hoped to recoup the day’s disaster, there was work to do. They were now down one employee, and muffins needed to be made, the area prepped for tomorrow, the accounts reviewed from the day—not to mention a long discussion about those accounts. Yet all was quiet. Still. And clean.
“Did you close out the day? Already prep? Was it horrible? I figure you had to give away coffees after all that, right? Keep customers happy? I mean, could that have gotten any worse?”
Questions raced through his brain and out his mouth just as fast, but Ryan answered none of them.
Jeremy asked one more. “Did you know?”
Ryan pressed his lips together so tight they disappeared, and the edge of his jaw worked a full minute before he opened his mouth to speak. “Something was clearly wrong. I tried to tell you.”
“You did.” Jeremy propped himself against the desk. “And the money?”
“I handled the books through the renovations, remember? I got them a little confused and jumbled, but I also understood them. When you said you were lost, I looked.” Ryan mirrored Jeremy’s posture and crossed his arms. “You thought it was me. You actually thought I stole from you?”
“No. I thought... I...” Jeremy stopped prevaricating. “I’m sorry.”
Ryan watched him a beat again. “Tell me one thing... When did you stop trusting me?”
Jeremy winced. He cycled back through time to give an honest answer. Ryan deserved it. There was nothing left anyway. “When I started failing.”
“You trusted some kid because he looked good and said the right things. You got played and I warned you. I’ve stood by you, came out here to help because I believed in you and in this place, and you think nothing of me.”
“That’s not true.” But as Jeremy said the words he realized that, to a degree, Ryan was right.
He thought back to the men’s group a couple weeks back and the discussion about the plank in the eye or, as one man put it, the beam that held him up. Jeremy had trusted what he imagined right would look like, not what it was—that kid who acted so sure, who had the charisma at eighteen to look you in the eye, shake your hand, and sell you the world—sell you drugs. He’d chosen the counterfeit over the genuine, again and again. He had missed what was going on right in front of him, because he was sure he knew better, sure he could see clearly, and to some degree, because he needed his perceptions to be true.
Jeremy stepped forward. “I was wrong. But it wasn’t as much about you as it was about me... I wasn’t sure, I’m still not, that I can do this. That we can do this.”
“I can’t do anything about that, can I? And don’t use ‘we.’ It’s insulting.” Ryan looked around the kitchen. His gaze passed through the open door and into the dark coffee shop. “I closed up a few minutes after you left this morning. Once the police led you out—”
“Arrested me,” Jeremy cut in, trying to lighten the mood.
Ryan continued as if nothing had interrupted him. “The tenor got pretty jazzed with gossip in here. You were on Instagram within seconds, but no one was buying anything. A pack of teenagers approached and hung around in the town square all morning, watching the place. No one came in. I don’t know if they were curious or they were Brendon’s customers, wondering if they were gonna get hauled in too. It wasn’t good. I hope you don’t mind I shut down.”
