Across the Deep

by Lisa McGuinness

  But before that came a long and irretrievable journey into isolation and hell. She would never forgive Nick for stealing her life from her. For using her, humiliating her, beating her. She had felt like an empty person for so long that she wasn’t sure whether she was capable of happiness or love anymore. Protectiveness maybe. That’s how she felt about Suda.

  She had been annoyed by Suda’s presence at first, but she was so skinny and pathetic that Claire couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her, too. Then she was always so relentlessly cheerful. How could that be? Claire had no idea. Like getting up at the crack of dawn and making bread was God’s gift to her.

  Maybe it was, Claire realized, contemplating the alternative.

  Still, Suda jumped at the slightest provocation and was constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for someone to grab her, but Claire could tell that she was so incredibly appreciative of being somewhere safe, it was becoming just the smallest bit contagious. And bread. That girl loved bread even more than Simone did. But the very fact that she could love anything, even a type of food, didn’t escape Claire’s notice. How could she be so resilient? And she smiled big, genuine smiles. Claire didn’t think she, herself, had genuinely smiled in years.

  After school let out the day she’d woken up to her new reality, Claire had hidden in the library. She’d crouched in the stacks at closing time and had fretfully slept, hugging her backpack under a table that night. But she was cold, hungry, and frightened all night, and she knew that wouldn’t be a long-term solution. And Nick had relentlessly texted her. He promised that it had been a mistake and that he truly had thought she was having fun and wanted to be with them. He insisted that he hadn’t drugged her, and she got so confused that after a while she started to believe him. Finally, exhausted, hungry, and tired, she let him pick her up and bring her home.

  He’d been on his best behavior for a few weeks after that, and Claire was almost lulled into thinking it would never happen again when Nick came home late one night, hopped up on some drug, and grabbed her out of bed. He’d thrown open the door, and before she even had time to sit up, his fist hit the side of her face.

  “You selfish little tease,” he’d screamed at her. “You think you can pull something over on me?”

  Claire screamed and held her hands in front of her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I haven’t done anything,” she cried.

  “You expect me to feed you, take care of you, put a roof over your head, and you give nothing in return. I should throw you out.”

  “I …” Claire didn’t know how to answer.

  “Give me your phone!” Nick yelled. “You don’t pay for this phone. I do. You don’t deserve a phone. You think you’re so precious.”

  Claire’s instinct was to hide it at first, but Nick saw her phone on her desk, grabbed for it, and jammed it in his pocket.

  “You don’t deserve to live here, sponging off me.”

  Nick grabbed her arm and yanked her out of bed. He pulled her out of her room, opened the front door, and shoved her out into the hall.

  “Nick!” Claire cried. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Exactly,” Nick said and then slammed the door in her face.

  Claire stood in the hallway of her building, stunned, face pounding with pain where his clenched fist had contacted her cheekbone. She put her palm to her face and felt the blood on her fingertips. What had happened?

  She didn’t know what to do. She was barefoot and wearing only a sleeping shirt and undies with no phone, no money, and nowhere to go. The tears streamed down her face, and she sat down hard on the dingy carpeting. She tucked her knees into her sleeping shirt and hugged herself tightly.

  Time passed. She didn’t know how many hours she’d been in the hallway because she hadn’t known what time it was when he grabbed her out of bed. How long had she been asleep before he came home? She curled herself into a tight ball in the corner and tried to rest while simultaneously trying to stay alert to anyone coming. Their apartment was in a dicey neighborhood, and she was only marginally less afraid in the hallway than she would have been outside. If she had been dressed, she would have left and tried to walk to Kate’s apartment, but there was no way she was going outside wearing only a nightshirt. She might as well pin a sign on herself saying, “Rape Me!”

  She was fitfully sleeping when Nick opened the door the next morning and looked at her. She sat up and averted her eyes, not knowing what to expect.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  Claire nodded.

  Nick opened the door, and Claire stepped inside.

  “Here,” he said and handed her a white pill. “This will make your face stop hurting.”

  She reached out, and he placed it in the palm of her hand.

  Lately, Claire had been thinking about the feeling of contentment that pill had given her. She’d been trying to write a poem about it, but so far the words she needed had eluded her.

  And now Hailey. She knew she’d been sneaking pills. She even suspected Hailey realized that Claire knew she was taking them. Once, sitting at the table before dinner was served, she had looked at her with an expression both pleading and defiant. But Claire had done nothing. She hadn’t talked to Hailey about it, and she hadn’t told Grace or Simone. She hadn’t gotten involved.

  How could she have not said anything? The remorse almost overwhelmed her. She slid into bed facing the wall and tucked her head beneath the covers. Her throat tightened, and she clenched her jaw against allowing tears to slide down her face. She tried to push away the vision of Hailey slipping unconscious onto the floor, but it replayed in her mind over and over again, forcing sleep to elude her.

  Aanwat

  Sunlight barely making itself known, Aanwat hunkered down, hidden in the shelter of the doorway across from the bakery—a blanket obstructing most of his face so he appeared to be a homeless man still at rest in the early hours of the day. He found it to be a good way to become invisible and stay warm at the same time.

  His goal was to learn about the place where Suda was sequestered. He wanted to discover when employees arrived and left each day, but to his surprise, no one came in or went out before the “open” sign was turned in the window. Did they all live there? Was it a brothel that covered as a bakery? Aanwat didn’t know, but he wanted to find out more before he initiated a plan.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to get Suda out of the place and wondered when Tea would come through with the gun he’d promised him. Worst-case scenario, he thought, was to just go in and point the gun at whoever was at the counter and insist that she take him to Suda. He would then get her into the car and take off before the police could be called. He wondered how long it took the police to show up to a call in San Francisco. Hopefully at least five minutes, but probably more, he guessed. Maybe ten minutes. That should give him a long enough lead time to get away.

  As he lay on the cement in the doorway, contemplating how he was going to steal a car, he glimpsed a familiar figure walking up the street and shrank back, stunned. It was Tea.

  Aanwat’s heart started to race. Was he coming for him? How had he known Aanwat was there? Had Tea been following him? For how long? Aanwat tried to steady his breathing and slipped further into the shadow of the doorway’s overhang. He peeked out, hearing his footsteps nearing. Should he be ready to run? Would Tea grab him? Aanwat had no idea what was about to happen, but what occurred the next moment was the last thing he would have imagined.

  Instead of coming for Aanwat, Tea crossed the street and went into the bakery. Aanwat sat up. He didn’t notice the blanket falling away in his amazement. That terrifying thug was in the bakery ordering coffee and getting food.

  Aanwat was mystified and stared intently at the window. What was going on? He had no idea.

  As far as he could tell, Tea seemed to know the woman behind the counter. They were
smiling at each other, talking. That in itself was a shock. Aanwat had never seen the man express anything other than a chilling stare.

  The woman handed him a cup and a plate with some food he couldn’t make out, and he walked to a table and sat down. In a few minutes, the woman joined him.

  What was happening? Maybe he was right. Maybe the bakery was a front for a brothel, and they were all taking him for an idiot. They knew Suda was there and had been lying to him about her being missing. But why? What would they gain from it? He would have to tell Gan. He would know how to handle it. Those smug Americans. They had something coming. Aanwat gritted his teeth, thinking of the weeks he’d spent searching for her when they’d known all along exactly where she was.

  Aanwat continued watching and saw Tea take the hand of the woman who sat across from him. It was the woman with the light brown hair who had helped him the first time he had gone into the bakery. What were they up to? He didn’t know, but they seemed like a couple. Maybe they were in on something together that Chakrii didn’t know about.

  Aanwat ran his fingers through his hair, stunned. The offhand comment he’d made to Chakrii in his hotel room had been correct. He’d blurted the first thing that had come to his mind in the moment, but he now realized it was true.

  It changed everything.

  He was suddenly in the power position and Tea, whom he’d feared from the moment he’d met him, was the one who was vulnerable. Knowledge was power. He just had to figure out how to play it.

  Aanwat stayed in the doorway, hidden until long after Tea left Hope Bakery. Aanwat didn’t dare follow him for fear that he would be discovered. Until he understood what Tea was up to, Aanwat knew it was a good idea to keep his distance. They were due at a meeting down at the dock later. Aanwat was interested to see if Tea would show up and wanted to observe how he acted. Aanwat believed in his bones that Tea wasn’t who he said he was, but he certainly wasn’t going to go in and start pointing the finger until he found out what was going on.

  Or not. Maybe, he told himself, he should just get the gun he’d been promised, get Suda, and then escape. What was the difference really? Either way, the guy was dangerous. But now, he had a bargaining chip in his pocket, in case he needed one.

  Chai

  Chai had decided not to mention to Simone and Claire that Aanwat had asked for a gun. He didn’t want to scare them more than they already were, and his plan was to give him a faulty one that wouldn’t fire anyway. In the meantime, he would behave as if he knew nothing but keep a closer eye on Aanwat until he figured out what he was up to.

  How had he found Suda? Chai had no idea. Simone said he’d first gone to Hope Bakery weeks ago. That meant Aanwat had been playing it cool with all of them, telling them he had no idea where she was. Chai realized he’d underestimated Aanwat. If he was capable of making them believe he’d had no luck in finding Suda, what else was he capable of? And why hadn’t he told them? What was his play? He would try to find out more at the meeting Chakrii had called for that afternoon.

  Chai walked into the warehouse and found Aanwat already seated at a table, apart from the others. He looked up when Chai approached and, for the first time, looked him in the face. Chai stared back at him impassively. His light brown eyes locked onto Aanwat’s darker ones. Finally Aanwat looked away for a moment but then turned back and ushered Chai over to him.

  “Tea,” he said putting his palms together and bowing.

  Chai gave a small bow in return.

  “Do you have the gun for me?”

  “I do, yes,” but Chai made no move to hand anything to him. “Do you know how to use it?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Aanwat assured him.

  Chai passed a package toward him. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said before releasing it into Aanwat’s hands.

  Aanwat laughed nervously. “I won’t.”

  “How is your search for Suda going?” Chai questioned.

  Aanwat shook his head, “Badly. She has disappeared. I think she’s maybe dead.”

  “Hmmm,” Chai grunted. “Maybe she is. How long are you going to keep looking?”

  “I’m not sure. I have to check in with my boss in Thailand.”

  “You do that, Aanwat,” Chai said and put his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. He turned and went to sit with the others.

  Aanwat looked around nervously, feeling dismissed and being angry for it. He was tired of being intimidated and treated like a nobody. He had a gun now. And information. While the rest of the group was talking about strategically moving drugs, Aanwat stared out the window at the loading docks. It was time to get Suda and go. He just had to finalize his plan. It was ugly here, he thought. Shipping containers upon shipping containers stacked up on faded, cracked asphalt. The water beyond was blue, but as he understood it, prone to having sharks swimming in its depths. There were small islands off in the distance, including the famed Alcatraz. It looked disturbing, even from across the bay.

  His eyes once again alighted on the containers, and then he had an idea. He looked at the man he knew as Tea and smiled coldly.

  Simone

  Early morning was one of Simone’s favorite times of day. The kitchen was warm and smelled of fresh coffee, baking bread, and sweet scones. The radio was cranked up just enough to keep the girls energized while they went about kneading dough and cutting layers of butter into flour in order to create perfectly flaky croissants. Tendrils of fog heavily blanketed the city, but the oversized bakery windows allowed in the emerging sunlight.

  She hadn’t seen Chai in a couple of days, but his texts assured her that he was working and just couldn’t get away. She was surprised to realize how different the mornings felt when he didn’t stop by. She had to admit she was becoming attached. She took a pan of baguettes out of the oven while she contemplated that fact.

  She stacked the warm loaves and shuffled through the items on her mental to-do list. It was a farmers market day at the Ferry Building, and she planned to head there soon. She went religiously to get the best fruit for her scones and tarts. The market stalls were bursting with fresh-smelling stone fruit, berries, jams, jellies, local honey, vegetables, and all sorts of organic miscellany. The tourists often joined in the shopping, but the earlier part of the day was usually given over to the locals and chefs. First, though, she had to run by the bank.

  “Hey,” Simone said to Claire. “I’m heading out to do some errands. Will you head to the front and flip the sign to “open” when it’s time? You’re in charge of covering the front, okay?”

  “Will do,” Claire said, pulling her apron over her head and walking toward the display counter. Simone had noticed that Claire had become much more agreeable of late. “I could use another cappuccino to get me going,” she told Simone. “Hey, Suda,” she turned, “want me to make you a Thai tea while I’m up there?”

  Simone smiled. She thought it was interesting the way Claire always spoke to Suda as if she were a fluent English speaker, neither slowing her speech nor simplifying it. Yet, somehow Suda usually got the gist of what Claire said.

  She looked over her shoulder in time to see Suda nod, confirming her belief. The two women seemed to have formed a strong bond. She wondered if Claire felt protective of Suda and guessed that she did. They all did, Simone realized. Suda was small and looked delicate and vulnerable. Simone hated knowing what Suda had been through. What all the women at Hope House had been through. Sometimes when she thought about it, it almost overwhelmed her. She tried not to allow visions of it into her mind and instead focused on keeping them safe and allowing healing.

  Simone closed the door of the bakery behind her, turned, and walked up the street toward the bank, intending to deposit the receipts from the previous day at the ATM. She deeply inhaled the foggy air and saw the first thin rays of sunlight through the breaks in the mist. The street was quiet as it was so many mornings. The Haight w
as a funny neighborhood: late to bed and late to rise. It didn’t get going until the tech workers and the corporate crowd sleepily emerged from their apartments and houses and headed for the bus stops. But the wee hours were for the few hale early risers. The calm before the frenzy of a city day. She smiled, thinking about what fruit she would choose for the scones this week.

  Her attention suddenly shifted to a sound that caught her ear. A shuffling right beside her, and she turned, startled, just as the metal gun impacted the side of her head, and she went down.

  Disoriented and lying on a cold surface, temple painfully throbbing, Simone woke in darkness. She looked around, frantically trying to understand what had happened. Fear and confusion ran unchecked across her heart. She got to her knees to feel around for something familiar, and a wave of nausea passed through her as searing pain engulfed her shoulder when she tried to move her left arm. She moaned and lay back down for a moment. She cradled her arm across her stomach to keep it stable and then gingerly worked her way to her knees again.

  “Hello?” the sound echoed back quickly in small space. She yelled more loudly, panicked. “Is anyone here?”

  She could see small lines of light around what she assumed was a door, so she got to her feet and tentatively shuffled toward it.

  She felt her way with her right hand to a wall but found that it wasn’t a regular smooth surface. It was metal and ridged. Where was she? She felt all around the door for a handle or any way to open it but her searching fingers came up empty. She went back to her knees, crawled along and felt for her purse, her phone, anything that could help her, but there was nothing, and a sob escaped her.