Trinkets (7 page)

How the hell did I end up in the basement of Saint Michael’s Church on SW Mill in a shit part of town with a boatload of losers? Thank you oh-so-much, Family Friend Jeffrey, for deciding this is my salvation from a criminal record.

“Make yourself comfortable,” says the frizzy-banged woman standing in front of the room. “I’m Shawn. And you are?”

Great. AA has already started.

“Tabitha.” I sit in the back, scootch down in my chair, and try to be as invisible as possible. There are some tables, and frayed, grubby brown carpet, and a few dozen women in their thirties and forties, plus one really old man. I didn’t think there was going to be anyone my own age, but a few seats over, there’s a girl with purple combat boots and a cherry-red dye job that was clearly not achieved with
professional input. Shawn calls her “Maureen,” and the girl looks up. “Moe.
Remember?
”

She’s got something in Sharpie written on her arm. It’s probably a reminder to do drugs or beat somebody up.

The other girl my age is sitting near the front. When Shawn asks her to introduce herself, she says, “I’m Elodie,” and when she turns her head, I see her little ski-jump nose and her wavy brown hair, and I realize it’s the girl who spilled daiquiri all over me at Derek’s party. What are the fucking odds of that? When she bends over to get something out of her purse, I see a camera peeking out of her messenger bag.
That
’s where I’ve seen her. She’s on the yearbook staff. A few months ago, she took a picture of me and Brady. He made some comment to her about how his photo should be on every page.

“Can you pull some strings and make that happen?” he said. Based on the giggling and blushing she was doing, she’s clearly one of dozens of girls at LO High who dreams about being his girlfriend. Who wouldn’t? He’s hot. He’s tall. He’s famous. Lucky me. Now I get to sit here behind one of his superfans. Meanwhile, there’s a creepy homeless guy waiting outside so he can continue rambling at me about how I look Scandinavian. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, it goes and gets a little bit lower.

Once I saw my fifth-grade teacher Miss Dobson buying douche at the supermarket. She saw me, I saw her, we made eye contact, and I tried to act like I didn’t see her vaginal supplies. Still, the shock of seeing Miss Dobson getting her Summer’s Eve on was nothing compared to the shock of seeing Tabitha Foster and some goody-two-shoes–looking girl from my school in Shoplifters Anonymous today. I don’t know about Goody Two-Shoes, but Tabitha Foster pretty much has everything: money, friends, popularity, a hot boyfriend who worships her. Why would
she
need to steal?

Until now the most interesting person in the class has been Gina, the world’s unhappiest housewife, who loves to share her personal details. She has three kids, and her husband
works all the time and probably cheats on her at night. I would steal stuff if I were her too. Today she talked about how she’s obsessed with stealing pantyhose. She said she has more L’eggs pantyhose than she’ll ever need, but she can’t stop—having all of those options makes her feel better. I wrote “L’eggs” on my hand in Sharpie. And then “Panties.” That’s how bored I was. Although now I am kind of pumped to hear about the shit Tabitha Foster steals, and I hope she unloads all her personal details the way Gina does, so I can collect them and make fun of her later.

“The reasons we shoplift are varied, but they’re tied together by the euphoria of getting something for free, the same euphoria any addict feels when getting a hit of a drug,” Shawn says, waving away a fly that is hungrily circling her frizzy ponytail. “For some of us, shoplifting is motivated by loss. Losing a person, or a job, or income. There’s a hole inside, and stealing fills it. For others, stealing is an act of rebellion against a world we can’t control.”

As she drones on, I look down at the heart with the initials
BW
carved into the wood on the desk, next to
KL
and
MK
. Obviously a lot of people have sat in this desk before I did. Guess I’m just another statistic with another set of clichéd motives. “Some of us steal because it’s a justified payback for how much we give to others and how little they give back to us,” Shawn continues. “And for some of
us, stealing is a relief mechanism for anxiety, frustration, or depression.”

A Desperate Housewife raises her hand.

“Yes, Gina?”

“How do you know if you’re depressed?”

“Uh, if you live in Hillsboro and have nothing to do but go to PTA meetings?” Moe offers.

Shawn glares at her, then turns to the Desperate Housewife.

“Depression is quite common, and there are a number of ways to identify it and treat it. We can discuss the symptoms privately, or I can refer you to a psychiatrist, if you’d like.”

Gina nods, looking even more depressed.

“Now, back to the topic at hand. Who here knows what percentage of Americans shoplift?” No one raises a hand. “Ten percent. And it’s rising every year. So I want to commend all of you in this room for being here and bravely addressing your addiction. Let’s stop the increase, shall we, people?”

Yep, I’m officially trapped in a Lifetime Television Movie for Women.

For some of these goobers, I think SA meetings are a way to complain about life, an attempt to make people feel sorry for them, and the chance to grab a free cookie on the way out. I myself find some of the stories and lessons amusing. For the first few months, I’m pretty sure Shawn thought I was taking detailed notes to better myself, but I was actually writing down people’s dos and don’ts of shoplifting. Like “Don’t act guilty” or “Don’t steal from people you know” or “Do steal from chain stores” or “If possible, steal cheese.” I’m sure these things will all be helpful to me later in life when I grow up and become a sterling member of society and a role model for humans everywhere.