Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi (best manga ereader .TXT) 📗

a rock all these years?” Ava turned to us with her arms spread, stage musical ingenue style.

Xavier began edging out of the compartment without a break in his musings regarding financing options for the bazaar. “I do have some hard currency—euro and pound sterling, and I always carry some Korean won, for sentimental reasons …”

Laura and Allegra had already moved aside for us, and I would have followed Xavier if only Ava hadn’t been looking at us with … I’m not sure what, something like drunken amazement. As if she was trying really hard to get us into focus but the situation was really out of her hands and would therefore depend on us. Stay there … I mean here … please just stay.

“But cards are probably better because we might not be … in a place where pounds or euro or Korean won are in circulation,” Xavier muttered. He stayed where he was, out in the corridor with Laura and Allegra, and I stayed where I was, with Ava, who swayed on her feet and said: “I think we’re all just tired, aren’t we? Do you think it’ll be OK with the merchants if I shop lying down?”

Laura said: “It’s your bazaar, Ms. Kapoor. If the merchants mind you lying down, they can get lost …”

Allegra tilted her head, observing, then moved past Xavier and reached for Ava. I wasn’t sure of her intentions—probably tender? But Ava very clearly baulked at this advance, so I gave Allegra a little tap with my elbow to keep her away. The chain reaction to this: Allegra walked backward until she bumped into the furthest wall. Laura tutted with disgust and stepped forward to administer a chop to my windpipe. Xavier, probably finding that a bit of a disproportionate response to what I’d done, took firm hold of Laura’s wrist. I raised my own hand and gave my best impression of someone who had no qualms about slapping his attacker silly. Xavier grabbed the hand I’d raised with his other hand. Laura, Xavier, and I crossed arms and palms in a textbook Baroque dance figure, only with more glowering. Ava tried and failed to suppress a giggle. Laura peered at her, then stepped back with a shrug. And then we all got out of Ava and Allegra’s way.

Allegra cleared her throat. “Ava … we’re so close,” she offered finally. “Just one more day. Could you—”

Ava’s laughter got noisier, and the file on Přem slid back down her jumper in bits and pieces. Paper poured down her legs and covered her feet. Allegra looked down and read some of her own words; her gaze travelled back up to Ava’s face eventually, but it was a very halting process.

“It might have been OK if you hadn’t mentioned the doctor,” Ava said. “God! It feels like you’re obsessed with the optics of sanity.” She knelt and gathered up sheets of paper. More paper rained down. She shook the rest out of her jumper and started all over again. She took deep breaths; the laughter died. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about it anymore. I already passed the evaluation.”

Allegra moved towards her again, and Ava’s cheeks twitched, but she maintained her composure, concentrating on reorganizing the file.

Very softly, Allegra said: “Ava? What are you doing, beb? Can you tell me what’s happening?”

“Everything we wanted is happening,” Ava said. “Everything we wanted. We’re going to be rich. Dr. Zachariah boarded a few hours ago … we talked for ages … just ask her …”

Allegra’s gaze swiveled to Laura, who lifted her clipboard, flipped some pages, and said: “No. The doctor will join us at ten a.m. tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, ten a.m. tomorrow?” Ava giggled. “There she is.”

“Where?”

“There. Right behind Laura.”

We looked where Ava was pointing; we looked at Laura’s shadow waxing and waning amid the motes of sunlight that flickered all along that otherwise vacant corridor. We looked at each other looking at Laura’s shadow and satisfied ourselves that there was in fact a We, a We for whom the corridor was empty. A We that Ava Kapoor was, for the moment at least, not part of. And for the duration of that group mind illumination we kept silent, since none of us had the faintest idea how to proceed.

“Well?” Ava asked, still pointing.

Allegra swallowed hard. “That’s a different doctor,” she said, turning from us so that she was looking only at Ava.

“Different? Different how?”

Allegra shook her head, still refusing to look our way. We had a bit more silence, then Laura ventured: “To be more specific, Ms. Kapoor—it’s a different Dr. Zachariah.”

“Again … different how?”

“The main thing,” Allegra intervened, “the main thing is that the pressure’s off you now, beb. Our plan was too … heavy. I should have seen that. Can we—”

Ava gave a huge, horsey snort. “Ah … I can’t keep this up. I was only fucking with you, sweethearts. Your faces, though! If you could all see yourselves right now …”

Her smile disappeared the split second Allegra swung for her. The first punch flew wide, but the second grazed her temple, and she scrambled to her feet and took the advice Allegra was doling out with additional blows: “Run, Ava! RUN. Get the fuck out of my sight right now. If I catch you I’m gonna tie you to the train tracks …”

Ava bolted for the library carriage, braid and ribbon whirling about her ears. We heard unrepentant whooping once she’d reached a safe distance. Also: “No, stop following me! Go away.” Those words were for Xavier, but he paid no attention to them. We’d come back to it later, but I was reasonably sure of his take on Ava’s little prank: some of it was just for laughs (her own, if nobody else’s), and some of it was not. Now we had the beginnings of an inkling of what it’s like to look on as everyone you know is all Oh hiya, Přem, and What’s the goss, Přem, chatting away to