“How do you know abou—” Shar says to Candace, and then stops talking.
It’s a shame, because I’m deeply curious about the end of her aborted question. Candace has some dirt on Shar. It’s not surprising, considering the way Candace weasels around, eavesdropping. I know this from highly personal experience. What is surprising is her long game—she’s held this secret to herself, but now she is deploying it on my behalf.
Candace spins her biscuit, nibble nibble nibble, and Shar shoves her abandoned chair out of her way and walks off. Kim hurries away in her wake, already asking questions.
“What happened in that closet?” I whisper to Candace.
“A lot. You know how Karice goes with that tall boy, Arly? Well, Shar got with him in there when they was broke up,” Candace whispers. Her biscuit is barely the size of a silver dollar now. “Karice is back with him and still don’t know.”
“And what do you have on Karice?” I ask. It has to be big, to make Karice abandon Shar mid-intimidation.
“Nuthin’,” she lies. Her eyes go wide and round, telegraphing innocence.
“Yes, you do,” I say. It’s something worse than boy thieving.
Candace changes the subject. “Did you see Shar’s face when I set down?” She snickers and peeps at me again, spinning her tiny biscuit coin. She pops it in her mouth and sucks on it, as if it were a particularly savory lozenge.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. I’m feeling warmly toward her. It’s as if we came through an actual fight together, and we won. Not warm enough to see her all rosy. I know Candace doesn’t have friends. She has quid pro quos. I say, in my nicest tones, “Is there anyone you don’t have dirt on, Candace?”
“Kim, but only ’cause she’s boring,” Candace says. “People aren’t careful, and we all live real close up on one another.” She swallows and looks right at me. “People tell each other things, like you would not believe. They get distracted, like, they’ll get in a big fight. They won’t even think about who might have come on in the building. They’ll say all their darkest things out loud.”
I feel my stomach drop, dizzy sick. She’s looking almost through me with those eyes so light blue they are barely darker than the whites. Cold trickles up my spine.
Did she hear me telling Joya about that 911 call? I think of Candace creeping to kneel by my bed. She can move in such silence. Her big ears seem to pick up sounds from space. Is she bluffing me, the way I bluffed Shar by picking up on her reaction to the word closet? I can’t tell. She’s better at this kind of fight; I’m new to it.
“Want a piece of my bacon?” I ask, sweet as I can.
Candace smiles at me and takes it. She folds the whole thing into her mouth. She drops her gaze, her lashes in demure, pale fans across her cheeks. Every atom in me whirls and clenches. She knows. She knows. She owns me in this moment.
She picks the second piece of bacon off my tray and bites the end off without asking. A bold move, testing the pecking order.
I consider my options, but they are limited. Maybe I should concede? My time here is finite, after all. Kai’s release date is set, and if everything goes right, I could be home with her in a couple of months.
Watching Candace chew my bacon like a cud, I realize I will not make it.
“You know what I like about you, Candace?” I ask, reopening negotiations. “You didn’t rat out Karice to me just now. That’s pretty cool. Not many girls know how to keep their mouth shut, like me and Joya. It’s why me and Joya were so tight.”
She peeks at me, still in profile, but I can see her eyes gleaming. I have changed the stakes. I am offering my willing friendship for her silence, and my currency is valuable. She can make me be her bodyguard and hold my heartbeat in the bed beside her, but she can’t make me like her.
As she thinks, I jerk my bacon out of her hand. She spins toward me, indignant, only to find my face is very close to her face, and my eyes are hard. Friendship is on the table, sure. But I will not be her dog. If she doesn’t bend a little in her style of fighting, I will go back to mine and bend her all the way in half.
Her mouth twists. I can practically hear the crafty machinery of her mind spinning and whirring, reworking calculations. Her currency can be spent only once, but I can beat the living shit out of her endlessly. I tell her so with my eyes and the insolent, openmouthed chewing of my own damn meat.
She drops her gaze, demure again. When she speaks, her voice is tentative, almost a whisper. “You want to sit beside me on the bus?”
“Sure I do,” I say.