Brian felt foolish wearing the Tar Heels baseball cap, which Angelina had designated essential to Trevor’s marijuana delivery uniform—not Brian’s but she hadn’t changed her mind. If Trevor wore the cap, the police wouldn’t look twice at his white-boy Rasta head. But Brian didn’t need a uniform. No one could possibly mistake him for anything but an anxious graduate student. Which he was.
“Paranoid. Superstitious. Call it whatever,” Angelina said, “but my friends want to see the cap.”
“And the laptop bag and dress shirt? Am I supposed to pretend I’m there to talk about kitchen renovation?”
“No,” Angelina said. “My friends are lonely middle-aged people, who’ve only rediscovered pot because I asked them to. ‘Just try it,’ I said. And now they like it. And they like it best delivered by a friendly young man who makes them feel special.”
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
“I can’t be Trevor, Angelina. No one can. But I especially cannot.”
“No one’s expecting you to be Trevor. Just act friendly. And relax. You’re stopping by. Visiting a friend.”
Brian was all set to go, map, addresses, and laptop carrier hand-packed by Jacob (as carefully as a parachute.) Yeah, think of it like that. Brian was sky-diving, first solo run. No wonder he was scared: his nervous system threatening electrocution; all circuits scorching.
He closed his eyes to calm down before knocking lightly on Angelina’s door to discuss yet again if they really needed to risk jail by selling weed. In three weeks, the Arts Consortium would open with fifteen tuition-paying students. True, most of that money went to UNC, but everyone was getting a salary. Hadn’t Kaya arranged for Angelina’s stipend?
Brian already knew the answer. He’d worked on the spreadsheets. Angelina was taking a wicked financial gamble. Seeing him hanging in her doorway, she sighed in exasperation. “I’ve told everyone you’re the reliable brother. The PhD candidate. They don’t expect you to smoke with them, just be your normal, cordial self. That’s all, be yourself.”
Brian’s “self” didn’t break the law, but he didn’t say that. Resigned to jump from whatever height, he drove to the first house, which was L-shaped, concrete, and tucked inside a tangle of vines and shrubs. If he hadn’t been told it was there, at the top of a man-made reservoir, he would never have seen it.
Slowing down and backing up, he couldn’t find the driveway, which supposedly ran alongside the house into the woods. So he forced himself—ignoring his galloping heart, the buzzing in his head, and roaring in his ears—to park across the street. Aware of how the road curved, aware that an on-coming car might hit his old beige Honda, he set his headlights on flash mode. To him, it seemed responsible.
To the pink terrycloth turban-wearing woman peeking from behind a curtain perhaps it seemed odd. An FBI tactic or—he didn’t know—sure sign of a criminal? Because right away, through a closed window, she was yelling at Brian to go away. He yelled in response that he was Trevor’s brother. He patted the laptop carrier and smiled. He yelled that Angelina had sent him and touched the brim of the Tar Heels cap. The curtain fell farther open and he saw her on the phone.
A cold, thin wind swirled around Brian’s ankles. He teetered a moment and his own phone vibrated. Angelina said, “Go to your car, get in it, and drive away. Right away.”
Luckily, Debbie had called Angelina just after she called the police.
(Click here to read the next episode)
