Sasha and Jamie were at my apartment. I recognised them standing on the lawn under the bright-orange streetlight, Sasha bent over her phone, Jamie kicking at the unmown grass. One of the men in long shirts who patrolled the street on a BMX bike was circling at the nearest intersection, probably made curious by the unfamiliar sight of Sasha’s Prius and now fascinated by the sight of my pimped-up Chrysler. Sneak and I exited the car to the familiar chorus of pit bulls behind chain-link fences and Chicano rap that heralded the fall of night.
Sasha took one look at us and her mouth fell open. We were desert-dusted and slightly sunburned, and Sneak had been picking at her amputated earlobe on the ride home, as much as I warned her not to. The wound had dribbled blood in a thin line down the front of her white tank top. Sneak had also ingested something from her handbag of mysteries as we reached the city limits and was nodding, her eyelids drooping unevenly.
‘My god,’ Sasha breathed, a hand to her chest, like a Southern belle startled in her parlour room by an unannounced visitor.
‘This is Sn— Emily, my friend. She’s fine, she just . . .’ My face was burning with horror, embarrassment. ‘She was mugged yesterday, that’s all. She’s also on medication.’
‘Mugged?’ Sasha looked at Sneak then me. ‘You were robbed and she was mugged . . . in the same week?’
‘Go inside,’ I told Sneak, giving her my keys. Jamie was wide-eyed with excitement at my side, watching her walk away. ‘What are you guys doing here?’ I asked.
‘We brought you cookies.’ Sasha gestured to Jamie, who held up a bag. ‘I made a batch of Captain Americas that were supposed to go to a bake sale and didn’t. And I brought you this.’ She thrust a wad of papers at me. ‘This is a little collection of materials I compiled on my neighbour five doors down, Roger Wardel. He’s an MIT graduate. Works in stocks. He’s looking for a housekeeper. Please tell me that’s not your new car.’
‘It’s Sneak’s car,’ I lied.
‘Sneak?’
‘Emily.’
‘My god,’ Sasha breathed again, shook her head. ‘Blair, honestly.’
‘You want to come in? I can make you a coff—’
‘I want to go in!’ Jamie announced. ‘I want to see the blood again. Mom, can I?’
‘No, Jamie, you can’t,’ Sasha said. She glanced at the man on the bike, who had been joined by a friend on another lowrider. ‘It’s not safe around here.’
‘He’s safe in my apartment,’ I said. ‘He’s safe in my street. He’s safe anywhere I am.’ I put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and guided him towards the apartment block. ‘You can come or you can stay out here, Sasha.’
My son had been to my apartment before, so knew about the box of chocolates on the shelf by the door. He went for them, but I grabbed his hand. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something I think you’ll like.’
We went to the kitchen. Sneak had left a pile of bloody clothes in the hall – Jamie ogled them as we went by – and I heard the shower running. The ice cream container was where I had left it on the counter. I pried it open. A whiff of animal smell met me, the dry, husky scent of the birdseed and grass Sneak had bought for the gopher to eat. The creature was propped up on its hind legs, looking expectantly up at me with oil-drop black eyes. I swallowed the prickling fear that rose in my throat and scooped the gopher into my palm.
‘Look at this.’ I presented it to Jamie.
‘Ohhhhh.’ His hands rose to his face and made fists of excitement over his mouth. ‘Oh wow. Wow. Wow! It’s a rat. You have a pet rat?’
‘It’s a gopher. A Botta’s pocket gopher, in fact. I looked it up.’
‘Who’s Botta?’ Jamie asked.
‘The guy who invented gophers.’
‘Maybe it was the guy who invented pockets.’
‘Could be.’
‘Can I hold it?’
‘Of course you can.’
I tumbled the warm little body into my son’s cupped hands. The gopher snuffled at its new fleshy surroundings, tiny pink paws gripping Jamie’s index finger. The gopher seemed to realise it was free to roam after being stuck in a box all day, and started walking up Jamie’s wrist, then forearm, towards his shoulder. He giggled and brought it back, only to have it do it again.
‘Jeez, he sure likes you.’ I folded my arms and watched, my heart big and heavy. ‘Look at him go. He wants to kiss you.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I don’t think he has one . . .’ I thought about it. ‘At least, not one that I’ve heard.’
‘Can I name him?’
‘Be my guest.’
The boy thought for a moment, looked at the bag of Captain America cookies he had dumped on the counter.
‘Hugh Jackman.’
‘You want me to call the gopher “Hugh Jackman”?’ I laughed hard. ‘Why?’
‘He plays Wolverine.’
‘So why not call it Wolverine?’
‘Because Hugh Jackman is way better.’
‘Not Hugh? Not HJ? Not Jackie?’
‘Hugh Jackman.’
‘All right.’ I shrugged. ‘You got it. Is he your favourite Avenger or something?’
‘Oh god.’ Jamie slapped a palm over his eyes. ‘Wolverine is an X-Man, not an Avenger. Jeez, Mom.’
My breath seized in my chest. Jamie didn’t seem to realise his mistake. He stroked the gopher on the top of its head.
‘Well, this is the most awesome thing that has ever happened in my whole life,’ the boy said.
‘That’s a hell of a claim. I’m glad I could be a part of it.’
Sasha beeped her car horn from the front of the house and I went to the door to wave at her. ‘All right, buddy, put Hugh Jackman back. Make sure you close the lid tight.’
I dug in the chocolate box for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, his favourite. As Jamie headed for the doorway he took it from me, turned, and wrapped his arms around my waist.
‘See you, Blair,’ he said as he bounded out into the night.
‘See you, baby,’ I said. I pressed the door closed and burst into tears.
I dreamed about Dayly. We were standing with the counter of the Pump’n’Jump between us, crowded closer than we had been in reality. The jumble of chips, candy, fried goods and magazines that stocked the store had somehow festered and grown like jungle vines all around us, almost blocking the windows. There was only a hole the size of a dinner plate in the window over the cash register through which I could see the parking lot. I knew someone was out there, looking at us from the darkness. Someone bad.
‘He’s coming,’ I told Dayly. ‘Hide.’
The raw panic ripped up through the centre of my chest into my throat as I was torn from dream to wakefulness by my phone. I grabbed it and answered in the still blackness of midnight.
‘Get. Your ass. Over here. Right. Now,’ Sasha growled.
‘What? What?’
‘Jamie has a rat in his room.’ The fury coming down the line was like nothing I’d ever heard from her before. She seemed to be forcing the words out through clenched jaws. ‘A rat! A fucking rat!’
‘What . . .’ I sat up, gripping my head. ‘What the hell does that have to do with me?’
‘He says he got it from you!’
A coldness flooded over me. I tore off the sheet and stumbled out of bed. In the kitchen, the ice cream container on the counter felt sickeningly light as I snatched it up.
‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘You gave our kid a pet rat?’ Sasha wailed. ‘Without asking me?’
‘No,’ I said, reminding myself to later celebrate her reference to ‘our’ kid. ‘No, I did not. He’s taken . . . uh. I don’t know. Something’s happened. There’s been some mista—’
‘I have Francine Readley over here,’ Sasha snarled. ‘Do you understand? Governor Readley’s wife. Everyone is here. Everyone who is fucking anyone from the neighbourhood is here and my son has a rat in his—’
‘I’m coming,’ I said. I grabbed the keys to the Gangstermobile. Sneak was collapsed on the floor between the coffee table and the couch, a pillow under her head and pills all over the table, snoring loudly. The stitches I’d put in her earlobe looked like tiny spiders in the dark. In the background of the call I could hear Jamie’s frantic voice, but not the words. ‘Listen, don’t do anything,’ I told Sasha. ‘The rat isn’t a rat. It’s a gopher and it’s not mine. It’s a very important animal, okay? It belongs to—’
‘You better haul ass, Blair,’ Sasha said. ‘I’m putting a rat trap in the room and blocking the door. You get here and it’s dead, that’s on you.’
Dialling, dialling, dialling. Too late for anyone to answer an unknown number. I crushed the caiman-leather steering wheel cover with one hand and dialled frantically with the other, the breath caught in my chest, refusing to go in or out. Night walkers on Jefferson eyed the car from the shadows outside closed clothing stores and cafes. I passed a homeless camp under a bridge, watched the shapes moving inside tents draped with clothes and towels. My thumb danced over the phone screen. Finally, an answer.
‘Wassup?’
‘Who’s this?’ I asked. There was a lot of noise in the background of the call. People laughing, the pop and tinkle of a bottle shattering on a road. The thumping of bass.
‘Huh?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Miranda,’ she said. Her voice high and crisp, a little slurred.
‘This is Blair.’
‘Bear?’ She laughed.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m outside the Pig Pen,’ she said, sniffed hard. When she spoke next, her mouth was away from the phone. ‘Get me a vodka! Ice! Ice! I said ice!’
‘Sounds like a fun night.’
‘Not so far, we’re stuck in the damn line.’
‘I hope you get in soon.’
‘What the hell do you want? I don’t even know who this is.’
‘I’m no one,’ I said. ‘I just wanted someone to talk to. Someone to listen to.’ I knew the Pig Pen in Culver City, had passed it on my bus ride to work a hundred times. The interior was painted all pink, pink neon signs out the front, pink shag carpet stapled to the front of the bar, worn and dirty from a thousand thighs and knees passing it by. A young people’s place. Chalkboards out the front advertised cocktails in colourful plastic cowboy boots. My eyes left the dark road ahead and I imagined Miranda standing in the queue with other girls in shiny miniskirts, pink lights making their platinum hair look like cotton candy. I felt the thump of the bass in my chest, smelled beer on the road, vomit in the bases of potted palms. The ringing of Sasha’s voice in my ears was replaced by security guards waving people back.
‘This ain’t a suicide hotline, Bear,’ Miranda said, and hung up as I climbed the winding hills into Brentwood. The night walkers disappeared, the only eyes peering from the shadows now the scopes of security cameras and motion sensors.
Sasha’s house was full of people. Women in form-fitting dresses and towering heels. I saw the faces of a couple of the women I’d known from the time before my great fall, pool-party buddies and ladies I’d jogged the streets with, lamenting the closing of our favourite boutique coffee-roasting house and the price of a good car detailer. A troupe of women bent in the window of the sitting room to watch me walk up the drive in my slippers and Walmart sweatpants, covering their mouths, holding their wine glasses to their breasts. Oh, what I had become. I didn’t have to knock on the front door. Sasha wrenched it open.
‘You have got a lot to answer for,’ she seethed. I put my hands up in surrender.
‘Go back to your party,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the gopher.’
‘No.’ Sasha followed me to Jamie’s room. ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ was playing on the Sonos system and people were singing along in the yard. My slippers slapped on the marble tiles. ‘I want you to tell me how the hell this happened.’
Jamie was sitting on his bed, wearing only Super Mario boxer shorts. I’d never seen my child look so beaten, so exhausted with shame. I gathered him in my arms as Sasha closed the door behind us.
‘What did you do, you silly little thing?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know it was stupid,’ he sobbed.
Despite everything, a laugh escaped my lips. ‘What happened, buddy?’
‘I put Hugh Jackman away in a shoebox before I went out the back . . .’ He was racked with sobs. ‘And when I came back he was gone. I just wanted a pet.’
‘We’ve discussed this.’ Sasha stood in the corner with her arms folded. ‘You can have a dog when you’re sixteen, depending on your grades. You don’t go stealing rats from people’s houses! Rats are not pets!’
‘I’ll find it.’ I stood and took Sasha by the shoulders and shifted her towards the door, trying my best not to shove her, though every fibre of my being told me to. ‘Get out, Sasha. Go back to your party.’
The rat trap wasn’t set. It was closed and unbaited, placed under the dresser, probably a baseless demonstration of Sasha’s anger serving only to terrify the boy. I picked it up and put it on the shelf, lay down on the carpet and looked under every piece of furniture. Jamie sat on the floor next to me while I searched, his head in his hands. I opened his wardrobe and began checking every shoe, wincing as I slid my hand into the toes. In the right shoe of a pair of Nike Air Max 1 Ultras, my fingertips hit warm fur.
‘I’ve got good news,’ I said. Jamie lifted his head. I shook the shoe until Hugh Jackman rolled into my palm, a flailing ball of brown with pink paws gripping for purchase. Jamie crawled into my arms and I kissed his head.
‘I’m so stupid!’ he cried.
‘You are not stupid,’ I told him. I held his cheek and looked at his eyes. ‘You just did a stupid thing. Everybody does that sometimes. Including me. Hell, I’m the queen of doing stupid things. You can’t compete with me on thoughtless acts, Jimbo, so don’t even try.’
He hugged me. I rocked him a little until his sobs subsided.
Sasha was standing outside the door when I left Jamie’s bedroom. There were women at the end of the hall staring at us. Erin Gaille, my old tennis partner. Willow O’Leary, a former fellow wine and cheese club member. The famous Francine Readley. I waved. They turned away, huddled together like startled birds. I slipped Hugh Jackman into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled the zipper shut on him.
‘I’m going to have to get Jamie a tetanus shot tomorrow morning,’ Sasha said.
‘Was he bitten?’
‘Does it matter?’ Her eyes widened. ‘This is not something you take chances with, Blair.’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I get it. Really, I do. I was freaked out by the gopher when I first held it. It’s very rat-like. And the feeling of it crawling on you takes a minute to get used to. But it’s kind of cute if you give it a chance. And think about it, Sasha. If it doesn’t bite you in the first thirty seconds, what the hell is it waiting for?’
‘You’re nuts,’ she sighed. ‘You’re just . . . ugh.’
‘I get why you—’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘See, this is what you don’t get. Parenting – real parenting – is all about this shit. It’s about saying, “Hey, bringing a wild, flea- and parasite-riddled piece of vermin trash into my house sounds like a fun idea, but I’m not going to do it because my kid might get rabies and die.”’
‘Have you looked at the recorded human deaths attributed to gophers?’ I asked. ‘I bet you have.’
‘What the hell was his plan?’
‘He didn’t have a plan,’ I said. ‘He’s a child. He wanted a pet, saw one and brought it home.’
‘And what the hell was your plan?’ She gestured to my pocket. ‘What is a rat doing in your house?’
‘I’m babysitting it. It isn’t mine. It belongs to a friend.’
‘The friend I saw you getting out of that hideous car with?’ she asked. ‘The one who was covered in blood?’
‘Where’s Henry? Maybe I can explain it to him.’
‘He’s away.’ Sasha glanced at the women at the end of the hall, tugged at the front of her dress. ‘On business. Just forget it. You can explain in the morning. I’m done with this.’ She waved her hands around me like a magician summoning a rabbit out of a hat, indicating me, my life, my friends, my gopher, the dense cloud of problems I presented on the horizon of her neat, perfect world. ‘Just go.’
The troupe of women at the sitting room windows was bigger when I left. Expensively sculpted bodies against the gold interior lights. I stopped halfway down the driveway and looked back at them, waiting for them to flee into the house in embarrassment, but they didn’t. They just stared. I flipped them the bird, and all their mouths fell open at once. I smiled as I walked to my car.