Blind

by Francine Pascal

  TH# B#$T ⋆@MPUT#R $!MUL%T!@N$ !ND!⋆%T# TH%T TH# $UBJ#⋆T W!LL #XP#R!#N⋆# %T L#%$T $@M# M#NT%L DY$FUN⋆T!@N B#F@R# %G# TW#NTY.

 

  RED-BROWN GREEN-BLUE BLUE-GREEN RED-BROWN

  BROWN-RED GREEN-BLUE RED-BROWN GREEN-BLUE

  BLUE-GREEN BROWN-RED BLUE-GREEN RED-BROWN

  RED-BROWN BROWN-RED GREEN-BLUE BLUE-GREEN

  Hot Potato Gaia

  GAIA OPENED HER EYES AND STARED at the message. She was pretty sure she had enough to figure it out. 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. Her first guess was that the message was in English. If that was so, then she could look at letter frequency, symbol-pair relationships, common phrases.

  She held the note up to the light. The letters that she had already decoded might or might not be correct, but it looked like some words were already jumping out of the text. Subject. That word was in there twice. Symptoms. That was near the bottom. If both of those were right, then—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “I’m busy,” Gaia said. “Go away.” If symptoms was right, then the first word was two. This was going to be easy.

  “Gaia?” came Natasha’s voice through the door. “Can I talk to you?”

  “I said go away. Away.” Gaia picked up her pencil and moved it across the page. This wasn’t going to take minutes; it was going to be seconds. She could almost read the note right now.

  The bedroom door opened, and Natasha walked in. Gaia spun around in her seat and stared at her. “I thought you were a translator. What part of ‘go away’ did you not understand?”

  Natasha gave her a tight smile. The smile that Gaia thought of as the you’re-a-worthless-little-snot-but-I-promised-your-father-I’d-look-after-you smile. “Do you really have to be so rude, Gaia?”

  “Have to? No. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. Since you’ve apparently never heard of privacy, I’ll pass on manners.” She gathered up the papers from the top of the table and shoved them into a drawer.

  “Really, Gaia,” Natasha said with a sigh. “Tatiana and I are trying very hard to fit you into our life here.”

  Gaia swallowed sour laughter. “Sorry to be so inconvenient.” It was clear that Tatiana was working very hard. Working very hard to steal the one guy that Gaia had ever made love to. Gaia had seen Tatiana flirting with Ed at school that afternoon. Flirting With Ed 101 seemed to be Tatiana’s favorite subject.

  Since school Tatiana hadn’t made an appearance at the apartment, so Gaia figured the flirting was still in progress. Or maybe it was more than flirting now. Maybe Tatiana had al ready shown Ed what Gaia did wrong in bed. Maybe they were laughing about her right at that moment.

  “Yeah, poor Tatiana,” said Gaia. She ground her teeth together so hard that she could hear the bones in her jaw squeaking.

  Natasha tried to keep the smile on her face, but it was slipping quickly. She pulled out the chair in front of the dresser—a dresser that was covered with Tatiana’s makeup and Tatiana’s brushes and Tatiana’s jewelry. She sat down with a tired sigh. “Gaia, I’m doing my best to help you. Why do you always want to make it so difficult?”

  “Difficult?” Gaia pushed her hair back from her face and stared at Natasha. “Hey, I know! How about we drive down the street, pick out a house at random, and stuff you inside. While we’re at it, maybe we should kill the people you care about most.” She looked into Natasha’s deep brown eyes. “What do you think? Maybe you could write me a note after you’ve been living with strangers for a year or two. I’m sure you’d be so happy because everybody is working so hard to be nice to you.”

  “We are not strangers,” said Natasha. “Your father—”

  “You are strangers. All of you. Even my father is a stranger.” Gaia slapped her hand against the table with enough force to make the pencil she had been using jump and roll off onto the floor. “This is not a Hallmark special, and you’re not my family.”

  “Your father loves you,” Natasha said. Her voice was soft, and there was a hitch in her words, a roughness that surprised Gaia. “You are not the only one in this world who has lost someone, you know. You are not even the only one in this house. And you are not the only one who is away from the ones they care most about.”

  “I don’t care about my father.”

  Natasha made a soft sound that might have been the ghost of a laugh. “You are not as good a liar as you think you are. You care. So does your father. He is doing what he thinks is best for you. And I…” She stopped and lowered her head into her hands. “I am very tired.”

  Gaia felt a momentary touch of sympathy. Natasha did look tired. Her skin was normally pale, but tonight she appeared almost ghostly. She looked smaller somehow, fragile. But none of that meant she could get away with telling Gaia what to do. Gaia was through being told what to do. “If you’re tired of me,” she said, “maybe I should leave.”

  “Yes,” said Natasha, her voice muffled against her hands. “I think that might be for the best.”

  The words sent an unexpected shock running through Gaia. “You mean that?”

  Natasha raised her head and nodded. Her face still looked drawn and exhausted, but her mouth was set in a firm, hard line that Gaia hadn’t seen before. “I promised your father I would care for you, and I have tried. But I will not be the subject of endless abuse in my own home. I will not sit and watch you make my daughter miserable. I do not ask that you love us. I only ask for courtesy. If that’s too much for you to give, I’ll make arrangements for you to live elsewhere.”

  She stood up sharply, gave a quick nod, and turned to leave the room. Gaia was so stunned by the sudden turn in the conversation that she didn’t even know how to start on a reply.

  Natasha began to close the door, then stopped and turned back to Gaia. “Oh,” she said. “I almost forgot. This came for you.” She gave a flick of her wrist and sent an envelope looping across the room. “If you decide to move, you’ll need to tell me where to send your mail.” The door closed. The sound of Natasha’s footsteps slowly receded down the hall.

  For several seconds Gaia sat and looked at the closed door. Did that really happen? she wondered. I just bought my freedom.

  She certainly wasn’t going to let Natasha make “arrangements.” It was bad enough having her father toss her to strangers. She wasn’t going to let Natasha shove her farther down the line. Hot potato Gaia.

  “I can go somewhere else,” she said to the empty room. “There have to be options.” A minute passed. Her set of options wasn’t exactly longer than Santa’s shopping list. She couldn’t stay with Ed. Heather wouldn’t exactly jump at the chance to have Gaia move in. There were some youth hostels downtown. Or maybe the classic bench in Central Park.

  Finally Gaia got up and went to retrieve the envelope Natasha had tossed into the room so carelessly. She didn’t expect much. It was probably some note from the school.

  Dear Ms. Gaia’s Keeper,

  Did you know the filthy beast has been sleeping in class? Please poke her with a sharp stick and keep her awake so we can tell her many tedious things she already knows.

  Your School Administration

  But as soon as she picked it up, Gaia knew that this note hadn’t been written by some clueless guidance counselor with a master’s degree in how not to tell parents that their kids were hopelessly stupid. The envelope was made of gray paper. Pale gray paper with a crisp, linen texture. It was the same paper that had been used in the note that had led Gaia to her father’s apartment.

  She tore it open quickly and tipped the small note inside into her hand.

  Tonight. The Cloisters. Come at midnight.

  Unstoppable Urge

  AS SHE CAME THROUGH THE DOOR, Heather was careful to keep smiling. The truth was, she hardly felt like smiling. More like mainlining a few hundred CCs of aspirin and sleeping for a week. Even though the mo
rning’s monster headache was mostly gone, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired, so worn down, so wrecked. But she kept smiling.

  It wouldn’t be good for Josh to see her looking sad or tired. Josh was beautiful. And Heather knew exactly how the game worked. The best-looking guys only went out with the best-looking girls. That was an absolute, unbreakable rule. You couldn’t afford to let guys like that ever know that you were tired, or sick, or even sad. Good-looking guys, guys like Josh, they wanted only girls that were interesting and alive and always happy. Heather wasn’t about to disappoint.

  She bounced into the diner as if she had never felt better in her life. She scanned the tables for a moment and spotted Josh sitting at a booth toward the back. She flashed him a bright smile, gave a wave, and made her way through the crowded restaurant.

  Josh slipped out of the booth and stood up as she approached. It seemed like an old-fashioned sort of thing to do, but he didn’t stop there. He actually made a little bow and reached out to take her hand. “My lady,” he said in a voice that dripped with a fake British accent. “You look particularly lovely tonight.” He brought up her hand and touched it lightly to his lips. Then he let her fingers go and gave her a smile of his own. “Hey, how was school?”

  “Terrible.” Heather sat down and slid into the booth. “Horrible. The worst ever.”

  Josh dropped into the booth and frowned. “What went wrong?”

  “You weren’t there,” said Heather.

  Josh laughed. “I apologize for that. A terrible oversight on my part since it would have been a chance to spend more time with you.” His smile faded a bit. “Hey, I need to apologize for crapping out on you last night.”

  Heather tried not to look as confused as she felt. Had Josh left her? It was just one of a million things she couldn’t remember about the previous evening. “It’s all right,” she said, playing along. She didn’t want Josh to pick up on the fact that she had no idea what he was referring to.

  She felt a little more comfortable as they ordered their food. She laughed at Josh’s jokes, and the last jabbing pains of her headache began to dull a bit. Josh asked more questions about school and the other students there. Heather filled him in, taking a few shots at the stupidity of the teachers, the worthlessness of most of the students, how anxious she was to get out of high school and into college, where something really interesting might happen. She was relieved when their dinner finally arrived. She didn’t have to be quite as entertaining while Josh downed a burger and fries.

  After the food Heather began to feel tired again, and though she tried hard to fight it, the gaps in the conversation grew longer. She worked hard to think of something fresh to talk about, something provocative. And that’s when Heather remembered Gaia Moore.

  “Oh,” she said. “Remember that girl Gaia I told you about?” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She says she knows you.”

  “Knows me?” Josh said with a raised eyebrow.

  Heather nodded. “Yes. She says you’re a dangerous man. Extremely dangerous. In fact, she says you’re a killer.” She waited for Josh to laugh, but to her surprise, the expression on his face was completely serious. Heather pressed her lips together, afraid that she had said something terribly wrong. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s only crazy Gaia. She’s completely insane.”

  Josh looked at her. Looked down at his food. Then looked up again. The expression on his gorgeous face was unmistakably guilty.

  Heather allowed herself to frown. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I do know Gaia,” said Josh.

  “You … Gaia …” Heather stared at him in shock. “But you said you didn’t.”

  “I know.”

  “You even made fun of her name.”

  Heather took a few seconds to concentrate on breathing. She had been so sure that everything Gaia told her about Josh had been a lie. Something Gaia had made up just to make Heather’s life miserable. But if Gaia really did know Josh, then how much of what Gaia had said might be true? Heather couldn’t remember all the things Gaia had said about him, but certain words wouldn’t go away. Dangerous. Killer.

  Heather started to slide out of the booth, but Josh reached across the table and put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” he said. “I’m sorry I lied. That was wrong. Completely wrong. Okay? I do know Gaia. It’s just …” He gave a small, shy smile. “We were having such a good time. I didn’t want Gaia messing up things between us before we even got started.”

  Heather pressed her lips together. “How do you know her?”

  “Gaia and I knew each other a long time ago. We were …” He paused for a second, and his face took on an amused expression that Heather didn’t like at all. “You might say our families were in business together. Gaia and I were friends and then, for a while, more than friends.”

  “You went out with Gaia?” Heather felt another surge of shock, but this time it was layered with extreme irritation. Wasn’t there one guy in New York that Gaia Moore hadn’t been with? Just one? Okay, it was easy to believe Gaia was a slut; maybe she went after every guy that moved. But shouldn’t there be one guy in the entire city with actual taste? Why was it that every guy Heather ever liked had this fixation on a girl who looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in a week and who had the fashion sense of a cockroach?

  “It wasn’t for long,” Josh continued. “The thing with me and Gaia. We were together for a while, but it was bad news from the start. We’ve been split for a long time.”

  “She said you were a killer,” said Heather.

  “Oh, well, everybody knows that. Haven’t you seen my picture in the post office?” Josh laughed. He took Heather’s hand in his and gave her a reassuring glance. “Look, our little deal ended with some severe ugliness. I’m not surprised she’s going around saying bad things about me.” His smile got wide, and he rolled his eyes. “Though calling me a killer is pretty out there.” He took his hand away from Heather’s and leaned back against the padded leather of the booth. “I’m sorry she said all that crazy shit. I hope you didn’t take it seriously.”

  “Of course not.” Heather shrugged. “I mean, it’s Gaia, right? I know better than to take her seriously.”

  Josh smiled. “Good. Because that chick can get pretty dramatic. You should have heard some of the things she accused me of the day I broke up with her.”

  Suddenly the conversation was headed in a direction that Heather liked much, much better. “You dumped Gaia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She didn’t leave you? You dumped her?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “It’s been a while,” said Josh. “Maybe a year.”

  “And you don’t want her back?”

  “Want her back?” Josh seemed surprised. “Why would I want to be with Gaia when I’m with you?”

  Heather let out a relieved breath. He doesn’t want her. After another moment she became more excited. This was the way the world was supposed to be. For once, a guy had dumped Gaia and come to Heather. Okay, maybe it hadn’t been a straight dump-Gaia, beg-for-Heather deal, but it was close. This was the first hint of justice Heather had seen since Gaia Moore had showed up at her school. The best-looking guy Heather had ever met had dumped Gaia Moore. There was still hope for the male of the species.

  For a few seconds they were both silent. Then Josh put his hands on the table and stood. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to split,” he said.

  “Split?” Heather’s chest tightened. “You’re leaving? But we just finished eating. Don’t you want to hang out for a little while?”

  Heather couldn’t believe she’d let herself say those words. Being vulnerable was against Gannis policy. Then again, so was getting plastered. Not to mention having sex in public places. Maybe Gaia wasn’t the only one who was falling apart.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tonight,” Josh replied.

  Heather’s vision blurred. Josh was l
eaving, and he didn’t want her to go with him. Maybe he was already bored with her. Maybe he was even going to see Gaia. He had lied when he said he knew Gaia. Maybe he’d lied when he said he was over her. Maybe just hearing Gaia’s name had stimulated some unstoppable urge to kiss those big puffy lips of hers.

  Heather put her fingers to the bridge of her nose and squeezed. The Great Headache was making a return visit. “Why?” she said softly. “Why are you leaving?”

  “It’s something important.” Josh reached out a hand to her. “Something that will change everything.”

  “Are you… I mean, are we going to get together again?”

  “Of course,” said Josh. “This thing I’m doing tonight, it’s not for me. It’s for us.”

  “For us?” Heather blinked the forming tears away from her eyes. “What is it?”

  “Will you trust me?”

  Heather took his hand and gave her bravest smile. “I trust you.”

  Josh squeezed her hand and held it for a long, warm moment before letting go. He flashed another smile, dropped a twenty on the table without waiting for the bill, and hurried out into the dark streets.

  GAIA

  Back in that never-never time when I had parents, we used to take vacations. Sounds like science fiction now, but it’s one of those things that real families do. And no matter where we went, we always rode on the subway.

  I’m not sure who it was that was so into them. Maybe it was my father. Maybe my mom. Maybe it was me. That me from back then, that me-with-a-mom, seems like such a stranger now. I don’t always remember what that kid liked.

  I remember all those subways, though. The one in Washington, D.C., has these arched galleries made from red stone and tracks that cross over and under each other in intersections that pile up, one on top of another.

  The one in London is really old. I think maybe they built the subway first, then sat back and waited until the city settled over it. In some parts you get on subway cars that look pretty normal. In other parts you get on these weird little cars with curved tops that seem like definite Sherlock Holmes territory. And they’re made out of this ancient tile that gives everything this strange, hollow echo.