Candy by Kevin Brooks Page B

doing—washing her hands, fixing her makeup, making a phone call…? I didn’t have a clue. What girls get up to in restrooms is a complete mystery to me. Gina sometimes disappears for hours. I’ve often been tempted to ask her what she does in there, but it’s a tricky subject to talk about. There’s always the chance of stumbling into the kinds of areas that shouldn’t embarrass me but do, and that’s the worst kind of embarrassment there is. Because when you feel embarrassed about something that you know you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about, you end up in the vicious circle of being embarrassed by your embarrassment…and that’s really embarrassing.
    I looked over at the café again, willing Candy to appear: Come on…please…If you take any longer, I’ll have to do something. I’ll have to go and ask someone to check the Ladies for me…that woman behind the counter…the one in the apron, with the grease-smeared glasses…I’ll have to go up to her and explain what’s happened…
    A door slammed inside the café. I leaned to one side to get a better view. For a second or two, I couldn’t see anything…and then Candy was there, a vision in turquoise, walking through the doorway and adjusting her bag over her shoulder.
    I let out a sigh and looked away, doing my best to look casual. Hands in pockets, gazing around, just taking in the view, waiting happily—no worries at all. I was so cool and casual that even when the café door opened, I waited a moment before turning around.
    “Sorry I took so long,” Candy said.
    “That’s all right,” I told her, shrugging very slightly, just to let her know that I’d hardly even noticed.
    She stopped in front of me, looking down at the ground, and I could sense something different about her. It’s hard to describe, but she somehow seemed looser. The way she was standing, hanging her head…the strange little smile on her lips…
    “I was…uh…” she mumbled.
    “Sorry?”
    She raised her head and looked at me, struggling to focus on my face. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s all right…Do you wanna…?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then giggled. “Sorry…” she said. “Sorry…I didn’t mean…Do you wanna, you know…?” She waved her hand, indicating the zoo, then looked back atme again, covering her mouth to stifle a yawn. Her eyes were enormous, like pools of obsidian, but her pupils had shrunk to dim black dots, almost invisible within the darkness.
    “Come on,” she said, taking my arm. “I wanna show you something.”

chapter six
    W hatever Candy had taken, it didn’t seem to affect her too much…not outwardly, anyway. I mean, she wasn’t stumbling or staggering around, she wasn’t singing or shouting or laughing like a lunatic…she wasn’t doing anything. She was just walking along quite normally, leading me across to the other side of the zoo, as calm and steady and cool as you like. Apart from her eyes and a slight flush to her face, it was hard to tell any difference. Her pace was a little slow, perhaps, but at least she wasn’t rushing around like a maniac anymore. In fact, if anything, she seemed more normal now than she had been before. Her speech was a bit slurred, but it wasn’t too bad, just a bit sleepy-sounding, and after the initial bout of mumbling and giggling she soon settled down and got back to being herself again.
    Whatever that was.
    I didn’t know.
    As we walked along the pathways, I didn’t knowanything—what to think, how to feel, how to react. I mean, when you’re with someone you really like and you haven’t known them that long and they start sneaking off to take drugs…what the hell are you supposed to do? Ignore it? Say something? Run away?
    “Loosen up,” Candy said.
    “What?”
    She jiggled my arm. “Loosen up…You’re as stiff as a board.”
    I tried to relax my arm, but it didn’t seem to belong to me anymore. Not that I knew what to do with it, anyway.