At Risk of Being a Fool (15 page)

She went back to Kherra. “I’ve got to leave the Nest early. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Bad news?”

“Mackie called to say class was cancelled today.”

Kherra studied her face. “I bet she said more than that. You’re not lookin’ too good.”

“You’re right. A woman I know was hurt by a pipe bomb.”

“My word. She going to be all right, poor thing?”

“They think she’ll be all right. Anyway, some of my kids—” She ran her hands through her hair, disordering the neatness of the last hour. “I’ve got to hit the phones, find out some things. I don’t want them railroaded into anything.”

“Good idea. They could use a good advocate. Hey, Jeanie? You be damned sure you keep your windows locked, hear me?”

“Sure,” Jeanie said, not hearing. “I’ve got to go.” She paused mid-step, glancing at Edward’s closed door.

“Move it, girl,” Kherra said, smiling. “Your kids need you, even if they don’t think so.”

“Right.” Jeanie was trotting by the time she got to the door.

CHAPTER
NINE

Sorrel sat upright in the cracked, hard plastic chair. Her pounding headache fought the Excedrin and won. Even the pills were out to get her. She was out of coffee, too. She held the empty Styrofoam cup in one hand, and set a perfectly arched fingernail close to the rim. Painstakingly, she rolled it against the cup, leaving an arch in its wake, and then another. Double arches, like McDonald’s.

Randy’s office was small, hot, and stuffy. Where the hell was he? Mrs. Mahoney had walked her right to the damned door, and called him on her cell phone. Five minutes, he’d said, so she’d left. Cuthbert, Mahoney, and the two temps were all twitchy over Torrez, and the fuckin’ cop interviews. So far, Tuesday’d been crappy.

She turned the cup, adding overlapping arches. Pain stabbed through her temples, as the familiar pattern struck home. Concertina wire looked just like that, when you looked through the barred windows of the pen’s so-called rec room. She punched a curve into the side of the cup, a second, and a third, in time with the throbbing in her skull. Three curves formed a perfect circle. She extracted the bit and placed it on the desk. She returned to her cup, punch, punch, punch, keeping time, marking time. Killing time.

The narrow window beyond the desk was stuck. She’d nearly broken a fingernail trying to get the damned thing open. What the hell, she didn’t work here. Besides the institutional plastic chair, swiped from the County cafeteria downstairs, the office held a desk and a rickety swivel chair. The desk, if you could call it that, barely managed to support the ancient computer. A limping fan stirred the loose papers on the desk. The air lay heavily, beyond the fan’s muscle power.

Huh. You wouldn’t catch
her
working in a dump like this, if she had Randy’s chances. He’d been to college, and done all that geek stuff. Going to college was stupid, a waste of time. Still, if she’d done that, she’d want a helluva lot better office than a dump. Randy said his office had a locking door and a closet with a refrigerator, and beyond that, it didn’t matter. Probation officers were screwy.

Randy crossed behind her, opened the closet, and disappeared inside. “Hot enough for you, Sorrel? I’m getting a Coke. Want one?”

“No.” She looked up for a moment. A bird swooped past the window. Her eyes caught on it, sailed with it for a split second, and stuck on the window frame. The bird was gone. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, and turned back to her cup. Punch, punch, punch. Nice neat circles, lined up on the edge of Randy’s desk.

“I thought I was going to die out there. Ninety degrees at the end of September, in
Oregon
, with this humidity. I can’t believe people pay good money to go to saunas.” Randy stood behind the desk. He popped his Coke open, letting a tiny puff of cold air into the room. He threw back his head and drank in long gurgles. He rolled the cold can across his forehead, the moisture melting indistinguishably into his sweat. He reached across the desk, and plopped a second can in front of her. “Have one anyway. How can you drink coffee on a day like this?”

Sorrel kept her eyes on the cratered coffee cup.

Randy sat down, effortlessly countering the chair’s attempt to throw him onto the floor. “So,” he said, “what’s up?”

The cup developed another pit.
Potholes
, she thought.

“Sorrel, you called me, remember? I didn’t call you. Surprised the heck out of me, too. First time you’ve ever called me, and asked for help.”

She broke the silence with a jagged voice, bumping over the words. “I gotta get out of there, Randy.” She had to get away from Bright Futures, away from
Salem
, away from that fucker who turned her dreams into nightmares.

“Yeah, well, you know how to do that. We’ve been all through it, Sorrel. It’s up to you.”

Sorrel glanced at him, calculating her odds. Randy was in his thirties, but he looked way older with all those lines in his face, the sagging on his neck. She’d asked him once, pretend-innocent, why he was a probation officer. He’d joked, said he was out to save the world one criminal at a time. She’d screamed at him, and he’d laughed, but he hadn’t reached for a form to record it, as Torrez would have.

She’d given up trying sexy stuff on him. He must be gay, or else his wife had him by the balls. Randy never even gave her a look. She could say a lot to Randy, she’d learned, but she had damned well better do what he said, or the shit hit the fan at high speed. Grudging respect tempered her resentment. A sense of safety grew within her, hidden where she didn’t have to see it.

“Come on, Sorrel, talk to me. Is this something to do with Torrez’s car bomb?”

“No.” Their eyes locked. “That bitch, I never touched her. I got more brains than that.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“The cops were all over us, every girl at the house. Do you think they’d have let me come see you, if they thought I done it? Yeah, like I just said, sorry officers, can’t talk now, gotta go see my P.O. like a good little girl.” Her tone dripped with disdain.

“Ease up, Sorrel. It’s too hot for this. If they’d found a single minute of your time unaccounted for, they’d have you locked up. You know it, and I know it.” He took another drink. “Of course,” he said, lazy-eyed, “there’s always the phone. Probably, somebody got it done that way. Word has it, Torrez came to, gave the cops a list of license plates a yard long.”

Her heart skipped a beat, then thumped hard and fast. “I want,” she said, with biting emphasis, “to get out of there. Not to kill Torrez, not to get slammed back into the court for murder as an adult. Give me credit for brains, you bastard.”

Randy’s face twisted into a grin. “Well, you got Jeanie’s vote of confidence. She’s rattling a lot of cages. I’ve heard from Dolores Cuthbert, and Dorrie at the courthouse so far. Also a policeman who wanted to know who the hell she was.”

“She’s a fool,” Sorrel snapped.

“How’s that?”

She dragged her eyes away from him. “No reason. Forget it, will you? I didn’t come here to solve the damn case for you.”

“No, you came to hear the same thing I’ve told you before,” he said. “Apparently.”

Sorrel looked back at her cup. Punch, punch, punch. Another little circle, extracted, placed in the line. Randy reached unerringly for a fat folder midway down a stack. He shoved the others back into a rough pile and flipped the folder open. He tapped the paper stapled into the left-hand side.

“Three parts. First, satisfactory work experience, good reports from an employer. Fine, you’re doing that. I talked to Carol this morning, she says you’re fine, a good, willing worker. She did ask that you modify your attire—her words. Seems those tight blouses of yours attract a little too much attention from some of the lawyers.”

“Bummer.” The word was flat, off-key.

“Cool it, Sorrel, it’s a valid request. So, assume you do that. There’s one down. Second, good effort at your place of residence to assume responsibilities related to . . .” Randy slid a glance at her, and half a grin, “let’s call it civilized behavior, shall we?” His grin faded at the lack of response. “Basically, that means Bright Futures has to sign you off as a reformed character. I talked to Estelle Torrez a week ago, before her fiasco.” He grimaced. “God, that’s a hell of a thing. Looks like she’ll be gone quite a while.”

“Good.” Another white foam circle joined the others on the edge of the desk.

“Sorrel.”

“You want me to lie? Sure, no problem. Gee,” she said, in a little girl’s singsong, “it’s really too bad she got hurt like that, and I really miss her, and hope she’ll come back soon. Like shit.”

“You don’t sound much like a reformed character.”

“I didn’t do it, Randy. I didn’t get it done, and I didn’t know nothing about it. Am I supposed to get all upset about it, if she’s gone for a while? No way.”

“Hmm. Well, as it happens, I talked to Mrs. Torrez, and she had a few things to say.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, well, for Mrs. Torrez it wasn’t too bad. Pretty good, actually, in spite of your wedding story. I’d say you’re on the road there, too. So that’s two down, or at least it will be in a couple of months, I’d say.”

Sorrel’s head jerked upwards. “Couple of months.”

“Maybe. Of course, there’s also the third one.”

“Education. Progress to the GED. I’m doing it.” Sorrel gripped the edge of the desk. Her knuckles turned white. “A couple of months, you said.”

“No, Sorrel. Complete the GED. All five tests. Jeanie says you’re three down, two to go, and almost ready for number four. One more after that, and you’re home free.”

“Randy.” Sorrel’s makeup stood out in mismatched blotches. “I’m making progress. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“It’s not me, girl, it’s the judge.” Randy tapped the paper.

“I’m never,” her voice scaled up an octave. “I’m never going to pass that fuckin’ math test, not in a million years. Randy, you gotta hear me, I gotta get back to Mama, and Tiffy.” Her voice was ragged with panic. “I’ll run, I’m telling you, I’ll run the hell away from here. You’ve got to get me out!” She heard her words echo off the walls, heard rejection before he said a word. Her face twisted in despair. The cup crumpled into a tiny ball, strangled by fingers with blood-red nails.

“Sorrel. It doesn’t work that way. And I can’t see you hauling Tiffany with you, while you’re on the run. She’d hate it, all that driving, and hiding. You’d always wonder who’d seen you. You’d never see your mom or grandma again. Think it through, girl.”

She dropped the cup and covered her face with her hands. A dry, racking sob shook her shoulders. Randy shoved the box of Kleenex in front of her, and developed a sudden interest in the many pages of her folder. A sullen gratitude surfaced in the girl. Tears were not her weapons; she scorned them. Sorrel blew her nose and wiped her face. She wadded up her tears, snot, makeup, and hopes into a ball of paper. She picked up the crumpled cup and each mangled bit of Styrofoam, and dropped them in the trashcan by the door. She sat down, reaching for the Coke can. The sharp icy feel against her cheek cooled the fever. She popped the lid. The sweet acid taste brought her back, reminded her of many things, like childbirth, like men. Sweetness and acid.

“Sorry,” she muttered. She brushed at her cheeks. “I must look like hell.”

“It’s not your lovely face that brings me back to you. It’s your charming personality.”

“Shut up.”

Randy leaned back. “It’s going to be okay, Sorrel. You’re doing all right. It just takes time.”

“I’m going to be there, in residence, until I’m twenty-one and the sentence ends. I’m not going to make it through that math test. I can’t even multiply, for God’s sake. Twenty-two more months, Randy.”

“Looks like you can add and subtract all right.” There was a pause. “Sorry. Bad joke. You’re wrong, Sorrel. You’ll study and you’ll make it. In a couple months, maybe Esperanza will have an opening. You could go back there, if they’re sure you won’t louse it up again. Linda said they’d take you, if Estelle passed you.”

Sorrel’s eyes shot to his face. Two months. She shook her head, and her shoulders slumped. “Even then, I’d be stuck for the rest of the sentence. Two more years. You think I’m trying to con you,” she said intensely. “Okay, I tried before, but that was before I knew you. This is not a fake. You’ve got to believe me.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a fake or not. How hard do you want to study? Because the whole thing is in your hands. And I’m not kidding.”

~*~

She got through the rest of Tuesday, in spite of cops, suspicious eyes, and a dozen girls ready to nark on her for being in the bathroom for an extra minute, or not separating the silverware.

Wednesdays were a bitch. She’d have thought, with Torrez gone, Cuthbert would ease up, take a break for once. But no, Cuthbert was afraid to step out of Torrez’s little hopscotch squares. Wednesday morning came, and rain or sun, she was out policing the grounds before breakfast. Weeds, cigarette butts—where the hell did they all come from? Nobody around here got to smoke—papers blown in from the street. The regulation three girls swarmed the kitchen. Three more vacuumed the life out of anything that didn’t move. Two polished all the Venetian blinds in the building, except in Torrez’s office. Four of them manicured the grounds.