[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
I saw the cherry red fabric of her sweater first, then a hand that was blue
and gray flopping tranquilly from the bottom of the blackberry bush. Her skin
looked faded, as though it were about to become part of the surroundings;
color, flesh and all, disintegrating back to where it came from.
I don't remember running back to the station or the phone call that followed
it. The cops arrived, and then Danny, my boss, who glared at me. Danny is a
short, hairy man who has perfected the Napoleon thing with his eyes those
dirty looks hurt.
I remember telling the stiff, dark-haired police officer that the smell made
me look under the bushes. It was a lie. I don't know why I told it. I remember
telling him that I knew her from high school, Kim something or other. It was a
half truth. I don't know why I didn't tell the full truth. I said that she'd
been in the station a month before. He asked me how I remembered that long
ago, and I shrugged my shoulders weakly and asked what killed her, and if I
could go. He told me drug overdose, possibly, and malnutrition, which I mostly
believed, then he asked me the same questions five thousand times.
He kept me there until 9:00a.m. I was frantic and claustrophobic and nauseous
with the need to leave. Didn't he understand that the guy who ran my class
wouldn't give me any fucking mercy? The officer (whose name was, appropriately
enough, Johnson) smiled blandly, with no sympathy, and told me there'd be
other classes. He not only didn't understand, he didn't give a damn.
Fabulous just fucking fabulous. I need a hero, and I get an automaton.
I got to school at 9:30, still in my stupid blue polyester smock that I hated,
just in time to watch the rest of the class stream from the room. The
professor gave me a superior look over his coffee and his cigarette and
wouldn't let me turn in my paper.
I almost cried, and I never cry. "It wasn't my fault." I squeaked, feeling
lame and defensive, even though this was perhaps the most truth I'd told in
the last twelve hours. "I found a body, near my work, and the police wouldn't
let me go...
He looked disdainful. God, I hated that look he would level it at us, the
girls in the class whenever we'd try to say something really insightful and
all our intelligence would just shrivel up and die screaming in front of
thirty other people. Something hot ran down my face and into my mouth. It
tasted like mascara and foundation and now my eyes hurt really bad because I
wear too much mascara anyway and it made it even harder to talk or to meet
that damned superior expression.
"If you don't accept my paper, I'll have to take the class over again, and I
won't be able to graduate this semester." I was trying for dispassionate and
reasonable. I sounded pathetic.
He shrugged. "That's not my problem, miss..." Christ. This asshole didn't even
know my name.
"Kirkpatrick." I croaked. "Cory Kirkpatrick." He looked surprised, masked it,
shrugged again.
I don't remember in my entire life feeling as desperate as I did looking at
his cold, colorless eyes and that practiced, I'm-so-European-not shrug.
Something from the evening before pricked my memory. Gracelessly I sank to one
knee and bowed my head, looking up at his surprise from under my brow.
"I've worked so hard Professor Jenkins." I said, feeling the dignity seep back
into my voice. "Please don't punish me for something that is not my fault." I
Page 17
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
lifted my hand that held the crumpled up piece of pink triplicate I'd begged
from a uniformed police officer at the station. "The case number and the
attending officers are written down here, as well as the name of the officer
in charge of the investigation. They promised they'd vouch for me if you
wouldn't accept my paper I've worked so hard, Professor. You've seen me at my
night job I work forty hours a week, I take fifteen units a semester, and I
still make the Deans list every term. I don't deserve to not graduate because
of this. It's just not fair.
For a moment, just a moment, he looked moved. And then he turned around
without a word and left me there on my knees, holding that damned piece of
triplicate. I heard the classroom door close behind me and grabbed on a desk
to pull myself up, feeling numb. The desk toppled, bringing me down on my ass,
and I stayed there, sobbing, rocking back and forth and wondering what in the
hell I was going to do now.
As I stormed away from the campus my brain shut down and my despair kicked in.
Something had to have happened, because in retrospect there were a lot of
other options than the one I chose. I could have taken the English class again
in the summer. Costly, yes, but worth it. I could have gone to my advisor and
contested the grade I still had proof that there had been circumstances beyond
my control. I could have spent another semester at Junior College taking the
electives I'd mourned not having the time to take during my degree-or-nothing
term of the past two years while I made up the class. I could have not
graduated and just transferred after all, I had been accepted to the State
colleges already I could have just gone and made up the class there. I could
have done any one of a dozen things that I was too devastated to see, weeping
on the dirty tile of the old classroom. So I didn't do any of them. What I did
do that day was walk blindly back to my brown Toyota, ditching my other
classes even though that was not the only paper I had due that day. I had no
intention of seeing any college campus ever again.
That night at work I was a big fat surly bitch, if I say so myself. It was
getting warmer it was almost May but I felt cold all night, and clutched my
sweater over myself and said nothing that wasn't nasty to any approaching
customers. They were used to me by now it wasn't as though I were a ray of
sweetness and light on my best days, and now I was clutching my tough chick
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
