Gathering Dark, Candice Fox [inspirational books for students .TXT] 📗

BLAIR

Sneak looked terrible in the morning light. She sat on the stool on the other side of my kitchen counter, her chin on her folded forearms, watching me top up the gopher’s food. I rinsed out the bottle cap we were using for his water bowl. There were big, dark circles under Sneak’s eyes and a bloody crust at the side of one nostril, probably from a night spent snorting bad coke.

“We need a better arrangement for the gopher,” I announced, shifting the little animal from one side of the box to the other so I could take away the shredded mound of paper towel that served as a bed, and replace it with fresh stuff. “There are scrapes and scratches inside the container here as if he’s been trying to chew his way out.”

“Hmm,” Sneak grunted.

“It’s cruel, him being in a container all day, where he can’t see out. Must be like being in a padded room in an asylum.”

Sneak looked at the coffee I’d made her, but didn’t touch it.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“Is Dayly dead?” she responded. I picked up the gopher and held him in my palm. The animal took up a seed stuck to my thumb and pushed it into its furry mouth, sat crunching happily.

“Sneak,” I said. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“I’d have heard something by now if she wasn’t dead,” Sneak said. “I’m not her favorite person in the world, but she wouldn’t leave me hanging like this. Is she dead or not?”

“I can’t give you an answer,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I just need to say it out loud. It’s been three days. The question keeps rolling around in my skull. Is she dead? Is she dead? Is she dead? If I don’t say it out loud it’ll be me in the asylum.”

There was a knock at the door. Sneak sat upright on her stool. “Who’s that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not expecting anyone.”

I saw the badge immediately when I opened the door, hanging on a chain around her neck. County of Los Angeles Probation Dept. The image seared into my eyes like a blast of sunlight. I didn’t get a look at the woman. The clipboard and the badge hit me, left me blind, stunned.

This is what you wanted, isn’t it? a voice inside me said. You wanted it all to be over. You wanted to go home. Well, it’s happening now.

“Blair Gabrielle Harbour?”

“Oh god,” I said.

“Not god.” The woman smirked, flipped the badge on her hefty chest. “Jasmine Bahru, Probation. May I enter the premises, please?”

I held the door open, my limbs already seizing with terror and dread. When I turned, I saw that Sneak was gone from the stool by the counter. She’d disappeared like an apparition; her bag had vanished from the couch. I listened but heard nothing at the back of the apartment. There was no way out that way, no back door into the shared courtyard like other apartments had.

“I’m here to conduct a routine inspection of your living arrangements, Blair.” Jasmine dumped the clipboard on the coffee table and went straight into the kitchen. “Could you please sign here to indicate that you’ve permitted me access to the property?” I’d had routine inspections from parole officers before, but never an unannounced one, and never one so straightforward and determined. Usually there was small talk. An almost apologetic stroll around the kitchen, the offer and refusal of coffee. Jasmine started pulling open cupboard doors, shifting aside bottles and cans. She peered into my refrigerator, bent to see what was on every shelf.

I signed the document on the coffee table without looking at it. “There’s alcohol in the freezer. A bottle of vodka. Alcohol is not one of my restrictions.”

“I’ll check up on that,” Jasmine said. “Is there anyone else living here in the apartment?”

“No, just me.”

“So why are there two coffee cups here on the counter?”

“One’s from last night. I haven’t done the washing-up yet.”

Jasmine lifted my empty coffee cup and held it in her palm, testing its temperature. We stared at each other. An icy tension rung in the air, the unspoken knowledge that she had come here to get me, and that I could do nothing but allow it to happen, roll over like a dog and let her put her teeth around my throat. I wiped my sweating palms on my jeans.

“Anything you want to know?” I asked.

“Everything I need to know is right here.” She gestured to the apartment. “What’s with the birdseed?”

I went into the kitchen. The gopher’s box was not on the counter. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth.

“I like to feed the birds. At the park.”

“You feed them dried grass?” She picked up the container on the windowsill.

“Some birds like that,” I wheezed, thumped my chest. “Pigeons?”

“It’s a public nuisance to feed pigeons.”

I swallowed. “Is it illegal?”

“It’s a municipal code thing. Depends on where the park is. Where’s the park?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t remember.”

She stared at me for a while and then went into the bedroom. I winced as she opened the closet. I expected she’d find Sneak there, crouched behind a row of Pump’n’Jump polos. I stood in the doorway while Jasmine conducted a thorough search of my drawers, my dresser. She looked under the mattress, in the hall closet. I silently thanked past-Blair for refusing Ada’s gun. In the bathroom doorway she took a plastic cup from her bag and handed it to me.

“Let’s go.” She gestured to the toilet. I sat and urinated into the cup in full view of her, as I had a hundred times before in front of parole officers, police officers, prison guards, and a variety of other law enforcement officials. She slipped a drug-test strip into the cup on the counter and I watched the colors turn in my favor. The corner of her mouth twitched, red lipstick on dark brown skin. She headed for the door.

A rustle. Jasmine turned toward me.