She'll Take It (28 page)

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Authors: Mary Carter

BOOK: She'll Take It
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I give him my best smile and lightly touch his arm. “It's not your fault,” I say. “The first half was wonderful.” He is holding the door open for me; we are stepping out onto the brick patio. He suggests a walk in the park before going home. In the end, some might say what happens next was purposeful. Some may say I wanted to be caught. It's a lie. I'm a klutz. It's that sad and that simple.
I trip in the doorway and land facedown on the brick patio. The recently fired waiter steps over me and shouts “See, see” as my purse tumbles out of my hands and snaps open. The sleek, silver salt and pepper shakers spin out from the depths of my purse and roll downhill like a wagon detaching from its horses. They travel underneath tiled patio tables, between Manolo Blahnik heels and Prada purses, rolling until they reach the edge of the brick patio floor and land in the dirt beside a large oak tree where a squirrel stops to sniff them.
I continue to lie facedown on the warm bricks, listening to the murmurs of the nearby diners as they gather around the vindicated waiter who is shouting, “I told you. I told you she stole them.” All the while, the outdoor lights of Tavern on the Green bathe our chaotic little scene in a warm, romantic glow. Sometimes losing your virginity isn't what it's cracked up to be.
“I'm sorry,” I say for the third time to the rehired waiter. He rolls his eyes and smirks at the manager. We are standing at the register and the young waiter is grasping the salt and pepper shakers in his hands like they're the Holy Grail.
“I'll just return these to the table,” he says as he flounces away.
The older host hands Greg our bill. “I'll get it,” I say, reaching for my purse.
“That won't be necessary,” Greg says, taking the bill.
I reach for it anyway. “Please,” I croak. “It's the least I can do.”
The manager looks back and forth between us.
“Melanie,” Greg says in a low whisper.
I back off. Humiliating him worse was not going to help matters. I was dying to know if they had charged us for the salt and pepper shakers (because if so, weren't we entitled to them?) but there was no way I could ask, and Greg was just handing the bill back with a credit card, so it was too late to peek.
“I assume we won't have this problem again?” the manager says, looking at me. I shake my head. We're quickly shown the door. I was hoping Greg would still want to take that walk in Central Park, but he was heading out to the street. He hails a cab, and by the time I reach him, one is waiting. Greg opens the door and gestures for me to get in. I do so, scooting over to give him room beside me. Greg leans in, gives the driver a twenty dollar bill, and shuts the door. Before I know it, the cab door is closed and I'm headed home alone. I turn around and look back. Greg is already gone.
Chapter 30
J
immy is waiting on the steps with all five dogs curled up in his lap sleeping. If I wasn't so miserable I would have thought it the cutest thing in the world. I sit down next to him.
“How did it go?” I whisper.
Jimmy smiles and looks lovingly at the dogs. “They like me,” he says happily.
I nod and bite back tears. “We should go in,” I say.
Jimmy looks up at me, clearly appalled at the idea.
“We can't wake them now. I've been sitting here forty-five minutes not movin'. No. They need their sleep.” And so we sit.
After another half an hour, the dogs wake and Jimmy reluctantly lets me take them inside. “How about tomorrow?” Jimmy asks. “Should I walk them tomorrow?”
“Why not?” I say. “I'm sure they'd love it.” Jimmy flashes me a grin and is gone. I head to my room. All I want to do is throw myself on the bed and pull the covers over my head. I kick off my shoes, throw my purse in the corner of the room, and dive in. I'm never coming out.
She would have made a terrible thief. First of all, she's wearing high heels, and even in my half-asleep state (the other half of me never did go to sleep; it tossed and turned and tortured me with thoughts of Greg and what he thinks of me now) I hear her clicking across my floor and I smell her perfume. Kim is a perfume addict; you can smell her a mile away. I never know exactly what she's wearing because she changes scents constantly, but you can count on it being new and expensive. Tommy is clomping after her, and as if their secret mission wasn't botched enough, here comes the dogs. All five of the dogs trip into the room after them with high-pitched yips. “Oh, they're so cute,” Tommy squeals.
“What the hell is going on?” I say, snapping on the bedroom light.
“You're home,” Kim says. “I thought you were on a date.”
“What are you doing?” I ask again, but this time it's a rhetorical question. My closet glows behind them like a lighthouse beacon. “How dare you!” I say throwing off the covers and jumping out of bed. Kim is holding something behind her back. I'm sure it's the key to my closet.
“How dare I?” Kim repeats. “How dare
I
?”
“What the hell are you doing sneaking into my room?”
“You come into my room all the time,” Kim says.
I'm surprised at how hurt and angry she sounds, given she's the one breaking and entering.
“I don't sneak in when you're sleeping,” I retort.
“I told you I thought you were out,” Kim says.
“And that gives you the right to go through my closet?” I yell.
“Your closet?” Kim says.
“Just give me the clown,” I say, holding out my hand.
“What clown?” Kim cries.
“Kim, just show me what's behind your back.”
Kim brings her hands out into the open. She's holding her baby blue cashmere sweater. The one I spilled coffee on and was supposed to dry-clean. I had forgotten all about it. I had left it lying on the floor with the rest of my mess. My stomach drops. “Oh,” I say. “Oh. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Kim.”
“You're sorry?” Kim says in a deathly quiet voice. “You promised to be careful with this—”
“I know. I know—”
“How could you?”
“I just forgot, Kim. I was going to get it dry-cleaned.” Kim turns and heads out of my room. “I'll pay for the sweater, Kim. I'll get it dry-cleaned and I'll pay for it. There's a scarf that goes with it—somewhere.” Kim suddenly stops and turns back around. “Kim, please,” I say. “Please let me explain.” Instead of answering she walks over to my closet and peers at it. She lifts the padlock and looks at me questioningly. What do I say? What is there to explain? That I'm a horrible friend? That all I care about is my next lift? That my closet is filled with a hundred and eighty-eight stolen objects?
“You take my things and trash them—you lie to me—you do nothing but talk about yourself—but locking your closet?”
“I don't lock it because of you,” I plead.
“Bull!” Kim yells. “We're the only two people who live here. Why else would you lock it?”
It's a secret. I'm so ashamed. I steal everything I can get my hands on. Help me.
“See!” Kim cries. “You're not even denying it. You don't trust me, do you?”
And there's nothing left to say.
“Obviously not,” I say.
We stare at each other. Kim looks like she's going to cry. Tommy gives me a sad look and leads Kim out by the arm. I slam the door shut and throw myself on the bed. This time I don't even pretend to sleep. This time I just cry.
“I don't understand why you took them to the city in the first place,” my mother repeats.
“I told you,” I say. “I had things to do. I still have things to do. Jimmy is going to bring the dogs back on the train, okay?”
She takes another long slice of silence and sighs again. “Does this have anything to do with a job?” she asks when the allotted guilt time has passed.
I take a deep breath. I knew the question would come and I knew exactly what I planned on saying.
It's none of your fucking business
. “Yes,” I say. “It does. Wish me luck.”
Three hours later I'm standing outside storage unit #128 at U-STORE-IT in Hoboken, New Jersey, with twelve boxes, two suitcases, and a backpack. I had to take a cab all the way here, and the fare alone cost more than the storage unit for six months, but at least the closet is empty and my things are safe. Fortunately, the units are like mini-garages and mine is only three-fourths full, so after I have the boxes neatly stacked in the corner, there is plenty of room to stretch out and sleep. It's a little cold in here because I have to keep the garage door cracked so I won't suffocate. I throw on a sweater from my suitcase and wrap myself in a blanket. I'll survive the night.
As I lie on my back on the concrete floor listening to water drip and trying to make out shadows in the dark, a tear slides down the side of my face.
Who am I?
my little voice asks. This is why I'm always so busy, always moving, always preoccupied, never thinking. I'm trying to barricade this silent, probing question from entering the recesses of my mind. Because I don't like the answer.
A thief, a thief, a thief
is what I am. It's not who I had set out to become. It doesn't feel like me, or rather it feels like a dead, third leg dragging me down. How did this all start? I blink, breathe into the floor, and let the memory come.
I'm eight years old. My brother Zach has just turned twelve, and the house is filled with noisy, stinky boys whom I desperately want to impress. Only nobody is paying attention to me. Not even my parents or Aunt Betty, my father's older sister who is visiting from Texas. I've never been to Texas, and I want to ask her if she has a horse and why she's not wearing a cowboy hat and boots, but she's not paying attention to me either. All day everyone has been huddled around Zach and his stupid, prized moon rock.
It didn't look that exciting to me, a dumb old black rock with a lot of holes in it, but he had won it in a national science contest and everyone was acting like it was the second coming. Of course I didn't think of it in those terms then, I just knew that a stupid old rock was getting way more attention than little old me. Besides sticking other kids' toys in my pockets as a toddler, I hadn't yet been bitten by the klepto bug. It was pure chance that the ice cream man drove by, pure chance that Zach didn't see me hiding in the bushes near their fort, and pure greed that made him drop that rock on the grass and run toward the seductive song of the ice cream man.
Leaving me alone.
With the rock.
At first I just crawled over to it and stared. Then I gently lifted it up and looked at it in the sunlight. This rock was on the moon, I thought. So what? I still didn't think it was worth all the fuss. I took the rock into the kitchen where my mother and Aunty Betty were poring over magazines and drinking tea. Neither of them looked up. I took the rock into the living room where the television was blasting football and my father sat with his feet propped up on the coffee table. He didn't look at me either. I felt like the girl on the moon. I brought the rock into my bedroom and put it under my pillow. I'd go down and ask Zach nicely if I could play with him. If he said yes, I'd give him the rock back.
They were in the front yard punching each other and wolfing down ice cream. “Hey!” I yelled. One of the boys looked over and stuck his tongue out at me. I spotted Zach in a headlock with his friend Brett. I walked over, leaned down to the ground where Zach's head was dangling, and tried to talk to him. “Hey!” I said again. “Show me your fort.”
“Go away, nerd!” Zach yelled, and the rest of the boys laughed.
“Let's go look at your rock!” I said, ignoring the insult.
“Go away, dufus!” he yelled, breaking out of the headlock and running away from me. They all piled on bikes and sped away. He was never going to get his rock back.
But of course I knew my parents would make me give it back. I went back into the kitchen and injected myself between my mother and Aunt Betty and waited for the axe to fall. Several times I thought about putting the rock back, but another plan was forming in my mind. Maybe I'd be the one to find it! That's it. While everyone scoured the yard looking for it, I'd pretend to help. When and only when Zach started to cry, would I pretend to find the rock. Then they'd pay attention to me. Then they'd let me in their stupid fort. I'd be the star of the family.
And one hour later, after having to endure listening to my mother and Aunt Betty cluck over chicken recipes, the moment finally came. A scream that could be heard blocks away suddenly pierced through the quiet of our tiny kitchen. Zach screamed like a girl. Even my father catapulted himself off the couch, running out the door after Mom and Aunt Betty to see what in the world was making my brother sound like a wounded animal. I ran out after them, tripping on the stairs and scraping my knee on the deck, but I was too excited to whine. Let the search for the rock begin!
I was the last one to reach the fort. Several boys were kicking the dirt and pawing through bushes while Dad, Mom, and Aunt Betty stood around Zach, who had tears pouring down his face. I slipped up next to him. “What's going on?” I said. “Lost something?”
“You took it!” Zach screamed, grabbing me by the arm. “Give it back.”
Stunned, I froze as he shook my shoulders. Oh no. This isn't fair. He wasn't supposed to guess it was me. I slid my eyes toward my parents, waiting for my punishment.
“Zachary, keep your hands to yourself,” my mother admonished.
“And apologize at once,” my father added.
What? My mouth opened in total surprise. So did Zach's, but he dropped his hands obediently.
“I know she took it,” he whined. “When we were getting ice cream.”

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