Stealing Heaven (20 page)

He doesn't say anything for a moment, just looks at me. "You
sure?" he says, and the expression on his face is the one I could never
quite name, except now. I finally know what it is. I recognize it from how I
look after I talk to Mom sometimes, a lot of times.

Worry.

Care.

I manage to nod and then I have to look back down at the table.
Eventually he leaves. I open the bag and

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pull out the sandwich. I try to eat it. It's hard for me to
swallow. There's a knot in my throat, in my stomach. I put the sandwich down on
top of the bag.

After a while another cop comes in and asks if I need to use the
bathroom. I tell her I do and she asks if I'm finished, pointing at the
sandwich. I nod, watch as she sweeps it into the bag. As we walk to the
bathroom she tosses it into a trash can. She smells like coffee too. No wonder
I've never been able to drink the stuff.

The bathroom is the same horrible green as the room I've been in.
I go and then sit there staring at my feet, at the hem of my yellow uniform
bunched up around my thighs. I can hear the cop outside talking to someone. She
laughs and then the door opens. She says, "Hurry up in there."

I say, "Okay" and stand up. The door opens and swings
shut again. I guess I'm not hurrying fast enough. I sigh and flush, walk out of
the stall. As I'm washing my hands I see a soda resting on the floor right by
the door. Regular, not diet. I know who put it there and suddenly I am biting
the inside of my cheek hard, and blinking as fast as I can, my eyes burning.

I go over and pick up the can. I open it. I close

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my eyes and lean against the wall. The soda is cold and sweet and
when I'm done I throw the can away and spit in the sink. A trail of brownish
pink snakes across it. I turn on the water and wash it away.

The cop gives me a long stare when I come out but doesn't say
anything. She doesn't take me back to the room, just motions for me to sit down
by a desk before she turns away to talk to someone. I watch people walk by and
look at me. For about half a second I wonder what they're thinking, but it's
totally obvious, and so I turn away from all the faces and look at the desk.
There's not much to see. Lots of papers, mostly.

My name is on one of the papers. I pretend to yawn, glance at the
cop. She's still talking, though her gaze does flicker to me for a second. She
probably wants me to read whatever this is--I know how cops are--and so I
shouldn't, but I can't help myself.

It's notes of some sort, and there's mention of time of arrival,
of people present. Joan Walter, Maggie Ramone, Allison Donaldson, Shelly
Stubbson... this is definitely about me. About--I look over at the cop again.
She's sitting down now, talking on the phone and snapping her fingers at
someone walking by. I

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turn back to the paper.

Joan, Maggie, and Shelly didn't see anything. Maggie volunteers
that I always said I didn't like my uniform. Shelly says I told her I quit and that
I "dumped her cleaning bag on me! Like I need to be carrying extra weight
around. Can I sit down now? My back is killing me." Joan says, "Well,
she can't clean a toilet to save her life, but she's an okay kid. You got any
cigarettes?"

Allison says she and I talked and that she saw me leave. She
didn't see me carry anything out. I read that last sentence again.

Miss Donaldson didn't see the suspect carrying anything when she
left.

I read more.

I said, "You sure she wasn't carrying anything? A bag, maybe?"

"No. She didn't have anything with her."

I can't believe she said that. I know she saw the bag. I know she
must know that I--and she didn't say anything.

I look up and the cop is off the phone, is sitting there watching
me. "You doing okay? You look a little upset."

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"I'm fine."

"You sure?" She gets up and comes over, squats down next
to me. "Look, you seem like a nice kid. I think you've got your mom to
deal with and maybe she was anxious about something or pressuring you, and if
you want to talk -- "

"The last person I'd ever want to talk to is you." I am
shaking again but it's not with fear. It's with anger. Anger at this--where I
am, what's going on. I'm angry at being asked if I want to talk by people who
only want to hear things I'll never say. I'm angry because I talked to Allison
with a bag full of silver that belongs to her family in my arms and wasn't even
nice to her, didn't try to be the friend I wish I could be. I'm angry because I
didn't want to take anything today but I did. I pretended I didn't have a
choice but I did. I did.

"Have it your way," the cop says, a scowl darkening her
face, and then I'm hauled back to the little green room and left there.

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26

The cop from before, the one who led me to the bathroom, comes
back after I don't know how long has passed and opens the door, flicks two
fingers at me in a "come on, hurry up" gesture.! get up and walk out
of the room, wait for her to tell me where I'm going now.

"They're waiting for you down there," she says with a
frown, and points to the left before walking off. I can see the sun, just
barely rising, out of a far window, which means I've been here all night.

I take a deep breath and head off in the direction the cop told me
to go. I pass one room with no cops, then another, and now I'm in a hallway
lined with offices. I don't look in any of them, just keep walking. So far, so
good. I'm not kidding myself--I'm sure I'm not going anywhere, figure this is something
to

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rattle me--but at least for a second I can pretend I'm leaving.

"Dani?"

I turn around. Greg walks out of an office I just passed, heading
toward me.

I open my mouth and then close it because I have no idea what to
say. I want to thank him for the soda. I want to ask him why he looked at me
the way he did when he gave me the sandwich. I want to go back to when we were
just two people standing in a grocery store, all the way back to the beginning.
I don't know why I want that. I don't know what I would have done differently.
I still want it anyway.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I have to say something. Anything. "I'm fine."

"You sure?"

Yes. That's all I have to say. But I'm just standing there,
silent, because I'm not sure. In fact, if there's one thing I am sure of, it's
that everything isn't fine. That I'm not fine.

"Hey," he says, and moves closer. "Dani, look, if
you want to talk ..."

If I want to talk. How many times have I heard

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that today? How many times have I heard that my whole life, always
from people who wanted to take Mom away from me? Something hot and painful
pinches behind my eyes, in my throat, but it's easy for me to speak now.

"If I wanted to talk I'm sure you'd be willing to listen. In
fact, I bet that you and everyone here would love to listen. But you know what?
I don't want to talk. Especially not to you." I walk off down the hall,
not even looking where I'm going.

I can't believe Greg turned out to be just like everyone else and
I'm so stupid for being surprised by it, for being hurt by it.

Someone touches my arm, stopping me. Another cop. "You can't
be wandering around back here," he says, and points at a door behind me.
"Go in there, take a right down the first hall you see, and then another
right."

I can't quite bring myself to say thank you--especially because I
still don't know where I'm going, but I nod at him and start walking.

"Hey," he calls out.

I knew it. I stop, wait.

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"Look," he says, and pulls out a business card. "If
you remember something or maybe want to talk..." He pushes the card toward
me.

Unbelievable. I wonder what he would say if I told him how many
cops have said this to me already. He snaps his fingers in front of my face,
impatient.

"Hey," he says, voice rising a little. "Look, I'm
offering you a chance to do the right thing, so the least you can do is--"

"This," I say, and walk away.

Mom and a lawyer are waiting for me at the end of the hall. I
recognize the lawyer right away. It's Dennis, who I remember from a trip Mom
and I made to New York when I was twelve. He starts talking--Dennis is very
good at talking, I remember that too--and after a moment I realize he's saying
that Mom and I can leave. In fact, we are leaving, the three of us heading
outside and walking toward Dennis's car.

We aren't being charged with anything. I start to ask why but Mom
shoots me a look and I fall silent, stare down at the ground so I won't have to
see everyone walking by staring at us.

Dennis takes us to breakfast. Or at least he says he

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is, but I bet the whole meal will end up being billed to us. Mom
doesn't seem very worried about it. In fact, she and Dennis are both in very
good moods, Mom saying, "I always knew you were brilliant, Dennis, but
tell us what happened again, will you? I want Danielle to hear this. Baby,
listen."

It turns out the cops didn't have a warrant when they searched the
trunk. And while cops can search a car if they think there's cause, they can't
search a trunk without a warrant or permission. The cop who arrested us didn't
know about the silver at all. He pulled us over because someone has been
selling coke in Heaven and he'd seen Mom earlier, driving around waiting for
me, and decided she was carrying drugs. When he stopped us, he figured we'd rat
on each other as soon as he found anything, and so he went ahead and looked in
the trunk.

Mom smiles. "He was such a nice man. So very determined. I
suppose he won't get that promotion he said he was hoping for."

"I doubt it," Dennis says, and they both laugh. I take a
bite of eggs I don't remember ordering and chew and chew and chew. I can't seem
to swallow though, finally have, to take a big sip of water and let

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the food wash down my throat. They're still laughing. I don't see
what's so funny.

"Baby," Mom says. "You were worried, weren't
you?"

"I --a little. I mean, people saw me leaving the house and
then the silver was there in the trunk--"

"But you didn't take it," Dennis says. "The bag
that held it didn't have your or your mother's fingerprints on it. Neither did
the silver. There's simply no way you're responsible for what someone else did
when you were at work and your mother left the car unattended to walk on the
beach. I know if either of you had seen whoever it was that put the silver in
your trunk or if you had opened it and found it, you would have notified the
police right away. But you didn't see anything, you left the only black duffel
bag you were known to possess with one of your fellow employees when you quit
your job, and you certainly didn't know what had happened. So you can't be
blamed for anything. Understand?"

I nod because I do understand--I understand that Dennis is a very
good lawyer and that I need to keep, my mouth shut--and go back to picking at
my food. It's hot in here, too hot to eat. I take another sip of

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water, think of Greg leaving the soda in the bathroom for me, and
want to weep. I don't know why he did it. He knows what I did, what I am--and
he still did it. Why? I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. It's tiny and
even hotter than the restaurant, pink seashell soaps melting in the real shell
that holds them. I wash my hands carefully, slowly, and then go back to the
table.

Dennis is signaling the waitress for more coffee. I realize
everyone is watching us. The noise my chair makes as I pull it out sounds
incredibly loud. Mom looks up from her breakfast--mostly untouched, I
realize--and smiles at me.

I smile back, say, "You should eat, you know, because if I'm
driving we're not stopping at any fast food places for at least a hundred
miles."

"What?" She's looking at me like I'm crazy.

"I'm kidding, Mom. We can stop whenever. I'm just... I'm
really ready to go, you know?" I want to be away from here so bad I can
taste it.

"Baby, we aren't leaving now. We're--" Mom stops
talking, her face turning bright red. I stare at her, wondering what's going
on. Has she seen something or someone? Is she choking? Even Dennis seems to

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realize something is wrong, looks up from the pancakes he's eating
and says, "Are you all right?"

Mom nods, shuddering, and after a moment, starts coughing, the
sound loud and wet.

"I think you might want to go to a doctor." Dennis seems
concerned. He must really cost a lot of money. I keep looking at Mom, waiting
for her to smile or say something that will make Dennis and maybe even me
laugh, but she doesn't. She doesn't say anything. She just keeps taking deep
shuddering breaths.