Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 50: They're Planning Something

For the next week, Grifta and Kristina Kelly stick to us like glitter. If Shiv and I take recreation time, they're playing kickball right next to us. If we visit the library, they're suddenly avid readers.

"It's because Vapor got out," Shiv whispers one afternoon in the commissary.

My hands run along a selection of soggy cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers whose expiration date was November 1999. Grifta and Kristina Kelly hover in the next isle, pretending to deliberate over a pack of chips.

"They know we must have asked her to do a favor on the outside. Anyone would. They can't have guessed we've got her talking to Mike – actually, by now she's definitely done it. I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up to visitation tomorrow – but for all they know we asked her to bring us a weapon or put out a hit on Grifta. She probably thinks we've hired some weirdo to strike up a relationship with her and catfish her!"

"Is she really so foot-famous that she gets fan mail?"
"Oh sure, any girl who got her face on the news gets jail mail. Kristina Kelly doesn't, because she was a minor for her first offense, but–"

"I don't either!" I say, half-relieved, half-offended. "I hope I was at least mentioned in the local paper, though. My mom would be so mortified..."

"Must not have shown a picture, or at least, not a hot one. If your mug had been front page, you'd be getting inundated. It's part of the reason why Garda Girdle's always so done up. Are you getting those?" Shiv wrinkles her nose at the crackers. "Get something we can bring outside with us–"
I choose a banana – though it's a waste of commissary, I think – and follow Shiv outside, under the basketball hoops, where we continue our conversation in the weak, overcast sunlight.

"Garda Girdle gets fan mail?"

"Jail mail," Shiv corrects me, quietly, as Grifta and Kristina Kelly enter the courtyard, pretending it's a total coincidence their movements match ours. Grifta picks up a kickball and passes it between them. "Fan mail is for actual celebrities. But sure: there was some charity 4k here a few years ago, guards pretended to be inmates for a day and did all our jerry-rigged workouts, ran laps around the basketball court, things like that. Raised money for cancer or MS or homeless puppies or something. Huge photo of Girdle in the newspapers, she's been getting mail ever since."

"Why was Grifta so desperate to talk on the bowl with Steak, then – if she's got soooo many other options? And they could visit her more easily than the trustees do! Outsiders don't get in any trouble for visiting us!"

"She's a criminal, but!" says Shiv, helping herself to my banana. "Doesn't want the easy option, does she? She could invite one of her jail mail pen pals to visit, easy. But sneaking around with Steak... Right under the gardas' noses... That's the real fantasy–"

"Jos!"

From inside the building, Chet knocks on a second-story window. Shiv and I look up.

He presses his face against a crack in the glass and stage whispers: "Message from Steak. He said you're gonna ask Mike about–"

"Shhhhh!"

Grifta and Kristina Kelly look up, curiously. I wave for Chet to shut up.

"He told you about that?" I hiss. "Well don't talk about it!"
"Little jail birdies can't help twittering," says Chet. "Don't worry, I can keep a secret." He grins and I can tell how uneven his teeth are, even from a distance. "Listen, he's just anxious to know when."

"As soon as I can!" I whisper-yell back. "But don't–"

"He's been trying to set up a meetin' with you again but I'm too good of a wingman! I don't want you to see my boy stressed. Get it quick and you guys can have another library date, right? He's too much of a mess at the moment because–"

"Shhhhhhh!"

Chet shrugs and turns, disappearing into the shadows upstairs.

Shhhhhhhh – Kristina Kelly stabs her kickball with a long fingernail, letting all the air out with a hiss.