Blind

by Francine Pascal

  Heather rubbed at her aching temples and tried to think over the previous night. Everything seemed a little weird and shadowy. She remembered being with Josh and walking through the park. There had been some drinking, a few pink poodles. But they were just cute little drinks. Nothing she’d ever imagined could be the cause this level of damage. Nothing that could explain the chain saws and sledgehammers at work behind her eyes.

  Suddenly, an ugly image flashed before her eyes. She remembered that she and Josh were getting ready to have sex. Had he suggested they do it in the park? Had she gone along with it? She could hardly imagine ever agreeing to anything so trashy, yet she did have a faint recollection of them fooling around on a park bench.

  She must have been wasted. The mere thought of it disgusted her—letting herself get drunk enough to act like a complete dirtbag in public. Had they done more than get ready? Had there been sex? Remembering was so hard. But if there had been sex with Josh, wouldn’t she remember it? After all, sex with Josh would have to be unforgettable, no matter what you’d had to drink.

  The next thing Heather managed to pull out of her aching brain was an image of Gaia Moore coming up to her and saying something terrible about Josh. Heather couldn’t remember the exact words, but she knew it had been nonsense. Just another feeble Gaia move designed to screw up Heather’s life. This time it wasn’t going to happen. Gaia Moore had already stolen two boyfriends from Heather. Two was definitely enough.

  Heather sat up in her chair and pushed her hair back from her face. Could Josh have given her something the night before that caused her to feel so bad in the morning?

  Heather scowled. She shook her head swiftly, which made more red-hot torture swell up behind her eyes, but she didn’t care. Josh was good. She knew it. He was gorgeous. He was funny. He was perfect. The only thing making her nervous was that Gaia had said all those ridiculous things to her. Heather wasn’t about to let Gaia ruin her life. Not again.

  To her surprise, the headache began to ease. I’m seeing Josh tonight, she thought. No matter what Gaia says.

  Heather leaned back in her desk and watched numbly as the teacher wrote the list of characters on the board. All she had to do was sit through three more tedious hours of school, and then she could relax before her date. The thought took the edge off her pain.

  Someone at the rear of the room laughed softly. Heather twisted in her seat to glance backward and saw Ed Fargo smiling in the last row. Next to him was Tatiana, her blond hair pulled back into a thick ponytail. She looked well put together in her black turtleneck sweater and camel-colored skirt. Unlike Gaia Moore, the Russian girl knew where to locate the shower and how to wear clothes that hadn’t been stashed under the bed for a month.

  While Heather watched, Tatiana leaned over to Ed and whispered something in his ear. Ed’s smile turned into a laugh.

  “Do you find Oedipus that hilarious, Mr. Fargo?” the teacher asked from the front of the room.

  Ed shook his head. “Sorry, just thinking of…” His face tightened, and Heather could see that he was working hard not to laugh again. “Thinking of something else,” he finished in a choked voice. Tatiana looked at him with mischief in her blue eyes.

  Heather turned around in her seat. Before, seeing Ed flirt with Tatiana would have filled Heather with joy. After all, it had only been a couple of weeks since Gaia had taken away Heather’s second chance with Ed. But now that Heather’s new leaf had taken hold, she actually felt a pang of sympathy. From the way this girl was looking at Ed, it looked like tragedy had decided to take a break from Heather Gannis. It was Gaia’s turn to lose Ed.

  No wonder Gaia’s losing it.

  Another half-muffled laugh sounded from the back of the room.

  Poor Gaia, thought Heather.

  russian curse

  She was good with codes, probably as good as anybody outside of some crypto-nerds in the government, and she was still better than most of them.

  Pizza Ecstasy

  TATIANA LEANED HER HEAD BACK and drew in a deep breath. “I know that smell,” she said.

  Ed peeked at her over the top of a tall, narrow menu. “Tomato sauce and pepperoni?” He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. “That is the official smell of my dreams.”

  The answer made Tatiana smile, but she shook her head. “Not that smell. The other smell.” She searched her mind for the word. Her vocabulary was growing quickly, but this wasn’t a term she had ever used in English before. “It’s a black rock. You can burn it.”

  “You mean coal?” asked Ed.

  “Yes, that’s right. Coal.” Tatiana took another breath and nodded. “They didn’t use it around Moscow, not for heat, anyway, but in the summers my mother and I took several trips to the seashore. To the Black Sea, yes? In all the small towns we passed through, they still used coal for heating the houses.” She tapped the side of her nose. “It smells the same in here as it did in those little towns.”

  “I don’t think they heat this place with coal,” said Ed, “but they do cook pizza with it. Lombardi’s is the only place I know of with a coal oven.” He frowned. “Does it smell too strong? Does it bother you?”

  Tatiana wrinkled her nose. “It’s not the best smell in the world, but it’s okay. It’s like the smell of vacation. The smell you go past to get to the sea.”

  Ed put down his menu and folded his hands on the table. “Do you want to go back?” he asked.

  For a moment Tatiana didn’t understand. “To the Black Sea?”

  “No,” Ed replied with a shake of his head. “Or, yeah. If you want to, but I meant do you want to go home. Back to Russia.”

  “Oh. Of course. I have to go back.”

  “That’s good because… because…” Ed’s voice trailed off, and he looked at her with a blank expression. It took a few seconds for Tatiana to realize that Ed hadn’t expected her to be so positive about returning to Russia.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “New York is very exciting, but Russia is my home. Except for my mother, all my family is there. And all my friends.” She paused for a moment and gave his hands a squeeze before letting them go. “Well, maybe not all my friends. Yes?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I hope not.” He flashed a smile. “You haven’t even been to a Yankees game yet. How can you say you’ve even been to New York?”

  Tatiana nodded. She took Ed’s persistence as a good sign. Maybe he was beginning to let go of his feelings for Gaia. “I’ll make sure that we make it to baseball season. Anyway, as long as they need my mother at work, we can’t leave.”

  She studied him across the table. As usual, Ed’s hair was unruly, but his face was good. Strong. He was handsomer than he thought he was, and Tatiana knew that this was a rare thing. Most boys who were good-looking knew they were good-looking. It didn’t matter if they were in Russia or America. Maybe Ed had been more sure of himself once, before the accident, but Tatiana found that his modesty and kindness only made him more attractive. “I didn’t know it mattered to you whether or not I stayed.”

  Ed’s expression tightened. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then nodded. “Well, maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do,” he said at last.

  Something a little more affirmative would have been the preferred response. Ed did want her to stay around; she could tell that. But maybe not for the reasons she was hoping for. There was something else. Something he didn’t want to say. “And why would you want me to—”

  Her question was interrupted as the waiter brought their pizza. Tatiana leaned back from the table as the waiter quickly put down plates. The pie was wide, with only a hint of crust at the edges and a molten sea of sauce and melted cheese in the middle. “Enjoy,” the waiter said as he slipped the pizza onto a stone plate, flashed a smile, and strolled off to take another order.

  Ed leaned over the food, closed his eyes again, and inhaled deeply. “Ahhh. Dreaming now.” His mouth turned up in a smile that got wider by the minute. “It smells so good, I almost hate
to eat it.”

  “That is okay. We don’t have to—”

  Ed’s eyes popped open. “Oh, yes, we do.” He grabbed up a slice and bit off the drooping point without bothering to put it on his plate. “Not eating this would be like… like having some great masterpiece and never looking at it.”

  “Like keeping a Picasso in your closet?” offered Tatiana.

  “Worse.” Ed took a larger bite and closed his eyes again in pizza ecstasy. “More like keeping a Zorlac Old School under your bed.”

  “Zorlac?”

  “A very serious skateboard,” said Ed. “Please don’t compare it to a mere Picasso. We’re talking serious classic. Just like this pie.”

  Tatiana took a piece of pizza and carefully removed it from the plate. She raised it toward her mouth, then paused and gave the slice a critical look. “It’s burned.”

  “Nope,” said Ed.

  “It is black all over the bottom. I don’t care what country you’re in, black means burned.”

  “Try it.”

  “But—”

  “Just try it!”

  Tatiana was tempted to hold her nose, but she brought the slice to her mouth and took a small bite. At first she thought she’d been justified in thinking the food was ruined. The crust tasted sharp, smoky, bitter—burned. Then magic occurred on her tongue. The taste of the coal-smoked crust blended with the sweet tomato sauce and mellow cheese. Spices. Salty pepperoni. The combination was better than Tatiana would have believed. “It’s very good,” she said after swallowing the bite.

  “Of course,” Ed said. “Trust Lombardi’s. Trust Ed. Have I ever lied to you?”

  Tatiana smiled across the table at him and started to say something more, but there was a sudden twist in his expression that made her smile fade. “What?” she said. “Is something wrong, Ed?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s only that a second ago, when you were frowning at your pizza, you looked a lot like—”

  Until that moment the evening had been about the two of them. Now Tatiana felt a certain pesky third party creeping into the equation. “You thought that I looked like Gaia,” she said. “That’s what you were going to say. That’s what you were going to say when we were walking last night, too.”

  Ed winced but nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  Tatiana sat silently for a moment. “Is that why you want to hang around with me?” she said at last. “You can’t be with Gaia, so you settle for me? Am I your substitute Gaia?”

  This time Ed looked like he had been slapped. “No. Hell, no. I wouldn’t do that.”

  Tatiana leaned back in her chair. She liked Ed. When her mother had first told Tatiana that they were coming to America, she had promised that Americans would be nice. That Tatiana would make new friends. That it would all be exciting and fun. But Tatiana had found New York a cold place. Not cold in temperature—Moscow won that contest easily—but coldhearted. The people didn’t look at each other in the streets. The students at the Village School all seemed to have their own friends, and they showed little interest in making new ones. Until she’d met Ed, Tatiana had found the city a lonely, frightening place. Ed had been the first person to make her feel comfortable in her new home.

  Ed was wonderful. He was funny. Helpful. He knew all the good secret places to go to. He was the perfect tour guide.

  And was that all Tatiana wanted from him? A guide? If she wanted more, she was going to have to push past a large obstacle. A large, obnoxious obstacle that was sharing her mother’s house.

  “You and Gaia,” she said calmly. “You had sex.”

  Ed’s eyes went wide, and his face turned a color very close to the same shade as the tomato sauce. “Uhhh…”

  “I think it was your first time,” said Tatiana. She picked up her piece of pizza and nibbled off another cheesy bite.

  For a moment Ed only stared at her with a blank expression. Then he shook his head. “It wasn’t. I—”

  “Your second time, maybe?”

  Ed didn’t reply.

  Tatiana shrugged. “So, before you had sex, was Gaia as mean to you as she is now? Was she such a bitch?”

  “Ummm…” Ed blinked a couple of times. “No.” For a guy who was usually so quick with funny answers, Ed seemed to be having a hard time remembering how to operate his vocal cords.

  “Did you date?”

  “Not…” Ed picked up his glass and took a long swallow of soda. He sighed, drew in a breath, and tried again. “Not so much,” he replied at last.

  “So you just met and then had sex.”

  “Do people talk all the time like this in Russia? Is this a normal conversation?”

  “Don’t interrupt. What were you and Gaia like before you had sex?”

  Ed rubbed a hand across his face. His skin was starting to return to a more normal color. “We were more like friends. We hung out together.”

  “Like you and me?” said Tatiana. “Like what we are doing tonight?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “And then you had sex.”

  “Tatiana!”

  She laughed. “I’m only saying that sometimes sex is not as good as you think it will be. Especially when you don’t have much practice.”

  “The sex was good!” Ed said loudly. “The sex was freaking great!” Several people from neighboring tables turned to look their way. A fresh coat of red came back to Ed’s cheeks. He lowered his voice and leaned toward Tatiana. “Gaia and I didn’t break up because of the sex.”

  “Then why did you break up?” Tatiana asked.

  “I…” Ed paused, pulled in a deep breath, and shrugged. Still looking off into the shadows at the corner of the room, he went on in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.”

  Tatiana studied his face in profile. She didn’t know what had caused things to end between Ed and Gaia. She had her own ideas, of course. The worst idea was that things weren’t ended at all. “You still want her.” Ed only frowned in response and took another bite of pizza, but Tatiana went on. “It’s all right. I know that you do. You can’t change your feelings so quickly. After all, you are…” Tatiana waved a hand above the table. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “In love?”

  “No. An idiot.”

  Ed gave a sudden laugh that quickly turned to choking as he struggled to swallow a bite of pizza.

  Tatiana waited until he recovered, then leaned across the table to bring her face closer to Ed’s. “Gaia treats you like… like…” She tossed off a Russian curse and wished that her English were up to the level of swearing she needed. “She treats you so much worse than you should be treated. She really is a bitch.”

  “She’s not,” Ed said. Then he frowned. “Okay, so maybe she is. Sometimes. But she’s not like that all the time. You don’t really know her.”

  “Gaia is living in my house,” said Tatiana. “I know how she treats my mother. I know how she treats me. I’ve seen how she treats you. From what I have seen, I don’t think I want to know her any better.”

  “Gaia is different. Not like most people.” From the tortured expression on his face, Tatiana could tell that Ed was also searching to find the right words. Even though they were speaking his language, Ed couldn’t seem to explain how and why he loved Gaia Moore.

  “Gaia is very pretty,” said Tatiana. “I can see that. Is it only because she is so pretty that you like her?”

  “No. It’s—”

  “But she is pretty.”

  “Of course, but—” Ed shook his head. “It’s not like that. Gaia’s… alive. Intense.”

  “I see,” said Tatiana. She paused while the waiter came past and refilled their sodas. “I think I understand this now,” she said when the man was gone.

  “You do?” Ed gave a weak grin. “That’s good. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

  Tatiana gave him back a smile of her own. “In Russia, I knew many girls who liked to date boys who were alw
ays in trouble. The handsome boys that wore black and frowned all the time. The boys that talked about crimes and how they’d hurt people. Even girls from good families do it.”

  “Bad-boy syndrome,” said Ed. He put on a mock sneer. “The guys who might not be in gangs, but want you to think they are. They get a lot of girls here, too.”

  “And this is Gaia,” said Tatiana.

  “What?”

  “I think you like Gaia because she is a bad girl. She is dangerous.”

  Ed shook his head sharply. “No, that’s not right.”

  “I think it is.” Tatiana sat back in her chair. She brought the straw to her lips and took a long sip of soda while she studied him across the table. “I think that Gaia is always in trouble. You’re not. She’s hard and mean to people. You’re not. I think that you love Gaia because she is so much of what you’re not. When you are with her, you feel dangerous. That’s what makes her so exciting.”

  Ed’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at her across the pizza. “That’s not true.”

  “I think it’s very true,” said Tatiana. She picked up her slice of pizza and nibbled off another small bite. “I know it has been only a few days since you were with Gaia. You’re too close to see the truth.”

  The expression on Ed’s face still looked like shock. “I love Gaia,” he said finally. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Bad-girl syndrome. Think about it.” Tatiana turned her attention to the pizza.

  NOTE FROM TOM MOORE’S APARTMENT

  (partially decoded by Gaia Moore)

  TH# $#QU#N⋆# H%$ B##N !N$#RT#D %ND %LL T#$T$ !ND!⋆%T# TH# ⋆@D# H%$ B##N !N⋆@RP@R%T#D !NT@ TH# $UBJ#⋆T’$ @WN DN% $#QU#N⋆#.

  T@ D%T# !ND!⋆%T!@N$ %R# TH%T TH# R#V!$#D ⋆@D# W!LL PR@DU⋆# TH# D#$!R#D R#$ULT$. TH# F#%R R#%⋆T!@N %PP#%R$ T@ B# T@T%LLY %B$#NT. ⋆%R#FUL M@N!T@R!NG W!LL B# R#QU!R#D T@ $## TH%T TH# $UBJ#⋆T’$ !N!T!%L ⋆@D# D@#$ N@T R#%$$#RT !T$#LF !N TH#$# #%RLY W##K$. H@W#V#R TH# ⋆H%NG# $H@ULD B# P#RM%N#NT.

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