Vintage Veronica (7 page)

Gonna be that nail, I am the nail, I am the nail …

My confidence plummets with every step.
What if it’s not even the same pajamas?
I mean, that seems impossible, but you never know.
Or maybe there’s some perfectly good reason he needs them
. Some reasonable and perfectly innocent reason, like … Okay, I can’t think of what that might possibly be.

Slowly, slowly, slllloooooowwwwly I stalk him. I walk behind him for eight long blocks, hanging back to keep out of sight. The Nail walks so slow, it isn’t funny. You’d think he was somebody’s grandfather, for chrissakes.
Maybe he is actually old
. Or he could have some weird aging kid disease, like a kid I saw on TV once. Walking behind him, I notice that his hair is so pale, it is almost white.

Finally he comes to a three-story house. While I wait behind a minivan parked across the street, he carefully navigates the steps and goes inside. After a minute, I go stand in front of it and squint at the front door. On the right-hand side, there are three buzzers, the middle of which reads L. CASTOR. I have arrived at the lair of The Nail.

O-kay
, I say to myself.
Now what?
I step back and survey the building. It’s gray, with aluminum siding and some dead petunias in window boxes on the third floor. The second floor, which I’m guessing is Lenny’s, seems to have dark curtains drawn, despite the fact that it is July. It looks like a house that your grandmother would have and you’d think of any excuse in the book to avoid visiting. And if you weren’t actually able to get out of it, you’d spend every minute inside shifting in your seat, looking forward to being anywhere but there.

I notice that there’s a drip, drip, drip, and I realize that there are air conditioners—one on the first floor, one on the second—hanging out of the windows on the side of the house. If I wasn’t wearing a gigantic, fluffy tulle skirt—and if I was someone like Catwoman instead of her lumpy sidekick, Fat Girl—I’d be able to climb on the car in the driveway and hoist myself up the side of the drainpipe. I almost laugh out loud at the thought. I have not scaled anything since I shredded my palms attempting to pass the rope-climbing requirement for seventh-grade P.E. My pits stain at the very thought of this. That’s so not happening.

So I wait a while longer. There’s no other way to say this: The Nail’s house looks trashy. Like his family is on welfare or something.
Oh God. Maybe that’s it
. Maybe he’s stealing to feed his family? Could that be it? How much could reselling vintage stuff—even really top-quality stuff—possibly make? Especially swiping it one item at a time. Maybe there’s more to it somehow. Maybe if I stay a little longer, I’ll find out.

I am the nail, I am the nail, I am the nail …

But on the off chance that Claire has actually shown up at work and is wondering where the hell I am, I abandon the stakeout and head back to the store.

“Hey, Veronica?” Bill calls after me as I tiptoe in and start to make a running dash for the stairs. Bill is adept at foiling my attempts to enter Employees Only! without engaging in conversation with the Florons.

“Yeah?”

“Can you check if there’s anyone in the girls’ john? I have to go, uh, clean it.”

I narrow my eyes and shoot him a look. But I do it anyway, since I have to go myself. No one is in there.

“Yeah, actually,” I tell him when I come out.

“Oh,” says Bill, disappointed. I don’t know why he likes to spend time in the ladies’ room, nor do I really want to know why.

“I think one of them is sick, too,” I tell him. “It could be a while.”

Bill sighs, taking a bag from a Picker and weighing it.

“Seventeen dollars,” I hear him say.

“Say what?”

Bill digs through the bag. He pulls out a pair of bowling shoes and shows them to the guy. “Shoes, man—they’ll get you every time. It’s like a salad bar. Shoes are the cherry tomatoes.”

“You got that right.” The man tosses the shoes back into The Pile. While Bill is reweighing his bag, I tiptoe up the stairs. Thankfully, I make it all the way up to Employees Only!, where—surprise, surprise—there’s still no sign of Claire.

I’m at my desk for two seconds max when the phone rings.

“Claire?” I say.

“Paging Spy Girl!” chirps Ginger. “Come in, Spy Girl! Report to Spy Girl Headquarters for a full interrogation, immediately.”

“Yeah, um, I can’t leave right now,” I tell her.

“Yes, you can.”

“If you’re not down in five minutes, we’re coming to get you,” booms Zoe, who has clearly just grabbed the phone from Ginger.

“Over and out!” I hear Ginger yell in the background before Zoe slams the phone down.

Once again, not a lot of choice with Zoe.

I go downstairs and find them at the counter by the dressing rooms. Zoe is behind the bar, tending, perched high on her stool. Ginger stands in front of her like a cocktail waitress or something. Ginger grins and waves when she sees me. Zoe’s head is down, eyes closed as she shakes her head from side to side and sings along with a track on the store’s sound system.

“Jet Boy, Jet Girl
.

I’m gonna take you round the world
.

Jet Boy, I’m gonna make you penetrate
,

I’m gonna make you be a girl
.

Ooo-woo-ooo-ooo. He gives me head.”

“Shut up, shut up, Zo, Vee’s here.”

Zoe glares at her.

“So?” she snarls. To me, she demands, “How’d you do?”

“Uh, not so good. I kind of lost track of him.”

Ginger guffaws, like she thinks I’m kidding. I shrug.

“Seriously?”

I know how stupid I sound, but I really don’t know what to tell them. “I just … I mean, he got to his house and everything, but there wasn’t really anything to see.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Ginger and Zoe look at each other.

“So … what did his house look like?” coaxes Ginger.

“I mean, like a house. It was, um, kind of old.”

“Uh-huh, like how?” They’re both leaning in, hungry for details.

“I dunno … it looked like it hadn’t been painted in a while. The paint was all, you know, dirty and flaking off? And there were all these blinds on the windows, so I couldn’t see in or anything.”

“Totally,” breathes Ginger. I’ve come to notice that it is her favorite word.

“It was kind of gross,” I add quickly. “A total dump.”

“Did you see Claire?” asks Zoe.

“Nope, didn’t see anyone but The N—” I catch myself. “I didn’t see anyone but him.”

“Oh, this is great!” crows Zoe.

“Totally,” chortles Ginger.

“What?”

“You totally have to go back!” urges Ginger.

“I—what?”

“To blow the lid off their whole operation, don’t you see?”

“Uh, I don’t really …”

“It’s perfect. He’s their eyes and ears at the store, taking the stuff, bringing it back to their hideout, while she’s managing everything from behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, well, count me out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m not going to do it.”

“But you have to! You saw him take the pajamas. You have evidence of a crime being perpetrated.”

“Yeah, but what am I supposed to do, ring the doorbell? And be all, ‘Hello, I’m here to bust you for stealing. Have a nice day.’?”

“Noooo,” says Ginger, looking to Zoe for help.

Zoe tilts her head, considering. Suddenly she claps her hands together. “I know!” she says.

“What?”

“You could make a
suggestion
,” Zoe says.

“Hey, yeah!” says Ginger.

“I don’t …” I look from Zoe to Ginger. “A suggestion?”

“Follow me,” says Zoe. Leaving the dressing rooms unattended, she walks all the way across The Real Deal. We cross the yellow brick road. We pass the decade racks and the Wig Wall. We duck under the Harley-Davidson hanging from the ceiling.

“Presenting,” says Zoe, using her arms to make a frame in the air, “the feedback box.”

“Ta-da!” adds Ginger.

I look through Zoe’s arms and see a pink birdhouse nailed to the wall. It is marked
FEEDBACK BOX
! in large black letters that closely resemble those on the
EMPLOYEES ONLY
! sign and virtually every other sign in the place. I’ve never noticed the birdhouse before, probably because I spend so little time on The Real Deal. Also probably because it is partially obscured by a much bigger sign that reads
DUDE, WHERE’S MY CART
?, which I’m guessing is the spot where the Florons relocate
carts of merchandise that have been abandoned on the retail floor.

The roof of the Feedback Box! is adorned with a very realistic sparrow or lark or something. Given the obscure location and tiny size of the box—not to mention the even tinier size of the hole for inserting comments—the extent to which management values customer input seems pretty obvious. There isn’t even a pad of paper for “feedback” to go on, although a long string hanging off the birdhouse suggests that once upon a time there was a pencil.

“I … I don’t get it,” I say.

Zoe smiles indulgently. “This is where you put suggestions. About, you know, anything. For example, you could
suggest
that all songs by Bob Marley be put on the no-play list, for example.”

“We did that,” admits Ginger. “Didn’t work.”

“It was just a
suggestion
,” says Zoe, shrugging, like
no big deal
. “Do you see?”

I nod.

“Another
suggestion
might be that a certain extremely deceased boy be investigated for stealing. For example.”

I cringe at the thought. “I dunno,” I say.

“What?” says Zoe. “It’s just a
suggestion
. Nobody has to know that it was your suggestion. It could have come from anyone. That’s the beauty of the feedback box.”

“Yeah, I just …”

“Got a pen?” interrupts Zoe.

“Uh, no.” I buy myself a moment. I mean, what’s the harm? It’s not like he’s going to get fired or anything. The
worst that might happen is he’ll have to answer some questions, maybe get watched more closely. Right? Besides, the truth is, he IS stealing. Although now that I’ve seen his house, I’m pretty sure I know why. And I’m not entirely sure I blame him, even though he could have chosen something else to steal. If anyone was going to have those pajamas, it was going to be me.

“How ’bout an eyeliner?” offers Ginger, plucking one off a rack displaying several next to a rainbow of false eyelashes.

“Purrrrrfect,” says Zoe, ripping off its packaging. “Now all we need is paper.” She digs through her furry purse and finally produces a Mookie’s Donuts coupon, which she hands to me. One side reads
TASTES BETTER IF YOU CALL IT A S’MOOKIE. 20¢ OFF
. The other side is blank. Then she uncaps the eyeliner.

“Look, it’s your shade,” she says, winking and holding it out to me.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Vee, honey,” scolds Zoe, her voice dripping with concern. “When are you going to stop being a scared little girl and stand up for yourself?”

“I … what?”

“This
boy
… this total freaking loser … he goes to where you work and he sees your nice stuff and he snags it, just like that. Stuff you care about. Are you seriously going to tell me that’s okay?”

“No! I mean, it’s not like that. It’s just …”

“What’s not like what? He’s not a freak? He didn’t steal your stuff?”

“No, no. It’s just …”

Zoe puts a hand on my shoulder. “Sweetie, come on,” she says, her voice soft as a marshmallow. “You
know
we’re your friends, right?”

“Um, I guess.”

“Well, then wake up. Guys pull this crap all the time. Especially with the girls they know won’t call them on it.”

“Yeah,” adds Ginger, nodding knowingly.

“Come on, kiddo,” says Zoe. “It’s time you learned how to speak up for yourself.”

“By making an anonymous tip?”

Zoe smiles ruefully. “You gotta start somewhere.”

I look to Ginger for help, but she only nods.

“Oh, all right,” I grumble.

“Attagirl!” crows Zoe.

I take the eyeliner and try to disguise my handwriting by printing in all caps. I keep it short and to the point:

“Good,” says Zoe, reading over my shoulder. “Don’t crumple it up or they might think it’s trash,” she instructs.

While Zoe watches, I carefully fold the coupon twice and thread it into the little hole. As I do, the real-looking fake bird scrutinizes me suspiciously, like it is worried that I might be disturbing its eggs by poking a foreign object inside its nest. I half expect it to fly down and peck my eyes out.

“Well done,” pronounces Zoe, once the note is tucked inside. “I told you she had potential.”

“Totally,” agrees Ginger. “You should see about getting transferred downstairs.”

“Uh-uh,” I say. “I am strictly an upstairs girl.”

“You are SUCH an upstairs girl,” agrees Zoe.

“Uh, thanks … I think,” I say.

“Oh, shut up, that’s why we love you.”

Zoe is looking me straight in the eye when she says this, and it’s like looking directly at the sun—I actually have to turn away. I realize for the first time that she can be just as disarming when she’s being kind as she can when she’s being cruel.

“We’ve got to make a pact, though,” adds Zoe suddenly.

“What for?” I ask.

“To stay on him. I mean, he’s going to keep doing this, right? It’s up to us to make sure he doesn’t get away with it.”

“Right,” I say.

“So here’s the deal. We keep an eye on him when we see him. We maybe follow him again?” She gives me a look, making it clear that by “we” she means me. Ginger and I nod. “And if we see anything
unusual
, we’ll report it immediately.”

“To who?” asks Ginger, wide-eyed.

“To each other, duh!” snaps Zoe. “It’ll be … our Secret Spy Girl Pact.” She holds out her hand, palm down. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I say. Ginger nods. We pile our hands on top of Zoe’s.

Immediately, Zoe yanks hers back. Ginger and I pull back our hands like we’ve been burned.