The People in the Mirror (12 page)

  I stumbled back up the sidewalk to the steps and climbed them as fast as I could, blinded by my tears, nearly tripping, finally gaining the outside world, now truly dark with night.

  I climbed in the car and pulled onto the road, trying to see through my tears, pain, and anger. I knew that was dangerous behind the wheel, and not only that, I could soon get lost. I pulled into the first gas station I came to and got out my phone. I started a text to Mom, but I just couldn’t think, couldn’t decide what to say. I couldn’t say I was on my way home, because I didn’t want to be around them right now.

  But I had to talk with someone. I felt I was about to explode. Then Alex popped into my mind. We’d become bantering, teasing pals at school, but maybe I could talk with him. I dialed his number.

  “Hey, Nikki,” he said, all happy-sounding.

  “Hi, Alex.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  “I... I just need to talk with someone.”

  “Well, come on over to the store and we’ll talk.”

  “But, the store’s closed.”

  “Guess what? I have a key. And I’ll have tea and cheese cake waiting for you.”

  How wonderful was Alex? “But... I’m not at home. I’m... I don’t exactly know where I am, but it’ll be awhile before I can get there.”

  “Strange. Where do you
think
you are?”

   I told him the name of the gas station I was at.

  “Oh! You’re right, that’s not close. What are you doing there? Never mind, we’ll talk when you get here. Come to the back and ring the buzzer.”

  Then he told me a simple route to get back to territory I was familiar with. Twenty minutes later, I saw the “Zingas” sign with huge relief, parked on the street, went around to the back and pressed the buzzer. Alex let me in. Without a word, he led me to a little table with a steaming pot of tea and a huge slice of cheesecake. He’d only turned on a small light, and it all looked so cozy.

  I sat. Alex poured me a cup of tea. “What’s up?”

  “Well...”

  “Wait. First, do you folks know you’re here?”

  “No.”

  “Call them.”

   “Right.” I got out my phone and texted Mom’s phone. “Home soon. Dont worry.” I shut off my phone then looked across the table at Alex. He was completely attentive. No goofy little boy now, but a real, listening, good friend. “Thank you for... this, for talking to me. I just didn’t know who else to turn to. I can’t talk about this with my parents.”

  Alex nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “Since our place was robbed, I really haven’t been too upset about it. I don’t know if you know this part, but the other night the police learned who did it, and it was our neighbor. It was Mitch’s – my neighbor? – his uncle. I was okay with that, because I thought, you know, that Mitch couldn’t help what his uncle did. But then he disappeared.”

  “Who disappeared?”

  “Mitch. My neighbor. The boy next door. Anyway, I haven’t seen him or heard from him since the police came and arrested his uncle. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, I had to talk to him. I had to tell him that I didn’t hold him responsible for what his uncle did.

  “Then I... I found him, and I told him I couldn’t be mad at him or hold him responsible for something he didn’t know about. I said that if he’d known his uncle was going to rob us, he would have told someone, so it wouldn’t happen.

  “Then he...” Much to my chagrin, I burst into tears. “He told me he
had
known about it. That his uncle had planned to rip our apartment off for months, before we even moved in. He’d intended to do it when the place was vacant. Instead, he did it when we went away for the weekend.”

  “That’s too bad,”Alex said. “You must feel like you’ve really been betrayed.”

  “Yes! Betrayed.” I wished I could stop sobbing, but I just couldn’t. “I mean, Mitch and I went out to a movie last week end, and he took me to a hiding place of his and I thought we were so close, I thought we were sharing something beautiful and honest. But he was making a fool of me and my parents. That’s the part that makes me
so angry
. My dad was even going to help him get into college. No wonder he said his education was unorthodox. I guess being trained how to rob your neighbors blind and make them love you in the bargain is an unorthodox education, all right.

  “And he acted so sweet. Really, he’s an incredible actor, saying he admired my family so much and wished he could be in a family like ours. But I think he was jealous and petty, and probably really hates us.”

  “Hmm.” Alex said quietly. “You really believe he hates you?”

  “Well, maybe not hate, exactly. But I think he wanted to hurt us because we have each other. He told me that he returned my grandmother’s ring to me. He snuck it away from his uncle and put it back in my jewelry box, like that’s supposed to make all the difference.”

  “He brought back your grandmother’s ring? When did he do that?”

  “The day after we came back from our weekend at the beach.”

  “How would he do that? Wasn’t someone home then?”

  “I don’t know how he did it. I suppose my Mom went out and did some shopping, I suppose he did it then.”

  “Are you saying he has free access to your apartment?”

  “So it would seem. I mean, they ripped us off without any sign of breaking and entering. That’s what the police were so mystified about.
Eugh!
  I didn’t think about that until now. He has some kind of access to our apartment, doesn’t he?”

  “Looks like. Had you told him how much your grandmother’s ring means to you?”

  “Well, ahm...
no!
That’s right, how would he even know it was my ring, or what it meant to me? There’s something very weird going on.”

  “There
are
some unanswered questions. But let’s look at it. Yes, my Dad has some problems with Mitch’s family. But I know Mitch a little bit. I’ve chatted with him a few times here in the store. He always asks me about school. Anyway, he seems to have quite a lot going for him. I’m not saying it’s not possible that, under his veneer, he’s conniving and immoral. But it doesn’t fit with him taking you out on a date and returning your ring. If he hated your family and if he was supportive of his uncle’s heist... well, it just doesn’t fit together.

  “He’s still a minor, and he’s living in his uncle’s home. His uncle really is kinda scary. Mitch may be frightened of him, especially if he feels he needs to protect his mother. And if
that’s
the case, he may have felt that he needed to protect his mother and also try to protect your family, too.

  “But what if doing the one sacrificed doing the other? He’d choose his mother over a few items being taken from your apartment, don’t you think? Plus, he returned something to you that would be worth a lot of money to him. If he didn’t care about you, he would surely not return a small, easy to liquidate, valuable item.”Alex poured me some more tea, as I’d pretty much gulped the whole cup down – it made me feel so much more calm. Well, the tea and Alex’s soothing, logical voice.

  “Tough spot to be in,” he went on. “I can understand his moral dilemma. But the biggest curiosity is how did he know the ring was yours, and how did he know it has such tremendous personal significance to you, if you didn’t tell him? And how did he return it without anyone knowing he did? I’d think you’d want those questions answered. Even if he actually is terrible, I wouldn’t want to alienate him until I knew more. Because it is decidedly all very odd.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re completely welcome. Finish your cheesecake and get home. It’s a school night, young lady,” he said in a mocking tone, but sounding uncannily like my dad.

  “You sounded just like my dad!”

  “One of my many talents.”

  I wolfed down the rest of the cheesecake, stood up, gave Alex a hug and hurried out to the car. When I drove into the parking structure, Homer, standing outside, saw me and pointed at me like, “there-you-are-thank-God-you’re-alive-and-are-you-in-trouble!”

  So when I flew through the front door I said, “Yes, I’m alive and I know, I’m in deep.”

Chapter XIII

  When I walked into the apartment, Mom and Dad were on the sofa, alarm printed on both their face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said before either of them spoke.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Dominique,” Dad said. “What is going on?”

  “So much has happened. Mitch never talked to me. He never answered his phone when I called, or my texts. I went and talked to his mother after school today and she said she hadn’t seen him for days, and didn’t know where he was. And I just kinda freaked out. She said if I was meant to find him I would find him.

  “I had an idea where he was and I went there. I mean, I just could’t stop myself, I went there. and he was there....”

  I’d spouted all this without a pause, standing in the doorway, the awful feeling crawling up inside me again, the calmness Alex had produced completely gone.

  Mom, who had said nothing, came over to me, wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to the sofa. She hugged me and said, very softly, “You scared me to death, Nikki.”

  I nodded into her sweater. I’d never seen Mom so scared that she was quiet. Right now, Mom and Dad had reversed their roles, with Dad ranting and Mom quiet. I saw the protector in Dad and real, true fear in Mom. I resolved never,
ever
to make them feel like that again.

  “I know, Mom. What I had to do was right, but the way I did it was wrong. I feel so many kinds of horrible and crummy and depressed.”

  “We’ll talk about your punishment later, but right now tell us where you’ve been.”

  “Okay. So Mitch’s mother said if I was meant to find him, I’d find him And I did. I told him he didn’t have to hide from me because I wasn’t angry with him. He couldn’t help something he didn’t know about.

  “But then... then he told me that he
had known
his uncle was going to rob our place. He’d intended to do it when it was vacant before we moved in. Then when we moved in, we messed up his plans. When he told me that, I became so furious. How could he possibly know his uncle intended to rob us and not do anything about it? How could he be so friendly with all of us, knowing his uncle’s plan? I ran away from him. I couldn’t bear how miserable I felt. And I wanted to talk with someone my age. I just... that’s what I felt I had to do. So I called Alex....”

  “Who’s Alex?” Dad said, all stormy again.

  “Mr. Zingas’ son. We’re in World Lit together, and we’re sort of pals. We weren’t close, but, still, he’s my closest pal here. And he met me at the store and made me some tea and talked with me. He is really remarkable.” I heaved the biggest sigh I think I’ve ever breathed in my life. “And then I came home.”

  “And then you came home,” Dad repeated, incredulous.

  “I know. If I’m grounded for life, so be it. I don’t have anything going on anyway, so  it won’t be different from life as usual.”

  “What did this Alex say that was so remarkable?” Dad asked.

  “ First, he really listened to everything I said, and then he said something like, Mitch was torn between his new feelings of loyalty to us, while having to worry about his mother. He said he’s met Mitch’s uncle and he’s really scary. He said that if he were in Mitch’s shoes, he’d be in a ‘moral dilemma,’ wanting to do right by us and having to take care of his mother. He said that the the fact that Mitch returned my ring means a lot about his trying to stand by his morals.”

  “Returned your ring?” Mom asked, amazed.

  “Oh, yeah. I left that out. Mitch told me he returned my ring because it means so much to me.”

  “But I found it in your jewelry box.”

  “I know, Mom. But even when you handed it to me, I knew it hadn’t been in my jewelry box. It
was
missing the night we got back from the coast. But it was pointless to argue with you about it.”

  “Did you ask Mitch if he returned it?”

  “I didn’t have to. He
told
me he returned it. Then Alex asked if I’d told Mitch about how important Grammy’s ring is to me, and I said no. And he pointed out that that was pretty strange. And he’s right. So it seems like they have access to our place....”

  “I had the locks changed the next day,” Mom said. “I didn’t leave the house until the locks were re-keyed. I tried the old keys myself, and they didn’t work.”

  “I know,” I said.

   “Well, that gives me the creeps.” Mom shivered involuntarily.

  “I don’t know the answer to all the questions,” I went on. “But I want to find out. Alex thought it’d be smarter to try and find out the answers before entirely cutting off all ties with Mitch.”

  “There is something really fishy here,” Dad said, a deep frown growing from his forehead to his whole face. “I’m not about to have my family at risk. I think we ought to go house hunting tomorrow. This is a beautiful place and we’ll never find anything like it for the same rent, but safety is more important. If your very neighbors pose a threat, well, there’s not much one can do about that other than move away from them. That’s why I was so pleased with Homer and the other doormen and the security guards here. But they’re seven floors away.”