Christy absolutely hated moments like this! She had never been good at making split-second decisions. She hated the feeling of being an outcast, yet she knew they shouldn’t leave the hotel by themselves at night.
“Listen,” Janelle said quietly to Christy while Brittany looked in the closet for some shoes. “This is a way we could really help Brittany. You’re the one who said we should try to be her friend and help her.”
“I know, but …”
“Come on. It’ll be fun. The drugstore is right next door. Isn’t that what she said? It might even be part of the hotel.”
“She said it was a block away.”
“Okay, a block. Christy, we should think of Brittany now, not ourselves.” Janelle slipped on her sandals and went over to the door next to Brittany.
“We’re going,” Janelle said. “Now are you coming with us or not?”
“Oh, all right.” Christy spit the words out and jumped up from the bed. “Where’s my purse? I don’t want to get locked out. You sure it’s only a block away?”
“Maybe a block and a half. It’s not far. Trust me,” Brittany said, opening the door.
Janelle imitated their antics of the night before, looking up and down the hallway before exiting. “Come on,” Janelle whispered to Christy. “The coast is clear!”
Christy reluctantly stepped into the hallway. The door automatically locked behind them.
“How much farther is it, Brittany? We’ve already gone over two blocks!” Christy felt as panicked as she sounded.
“It’s down this street here,” Brittany said calmly. “You surprise me, Christy. After we papered Rick’s house, I thought you were a professional at late-night adventures on dark streets.”
Christy clenched her teeth. Am I being a baby? She shot a glance at Janelle.
Janelle’s usual carefree look had disappeared. Anger now spread across her face. “I think it’s too far,” Janelle said. “Let’s go back and ask Christy’s uncle to drive us.”
“Hey, if you guys want to go back, that’s fine with me,” Brittany said. “But I’m going to the drugstore. Look. There it is.” Brittany stepped up her pace, and the other two trotted along beside her.
Inside the brightly lit store, Christy felt a little more secure. The trip actually seemed rational once they could see other people, normal people, standing in the checkout lines, buying normal things. Still, her heart pounded with the fear that if her parents ever knew she had done this she would be in big trouble.
Why didn’t I chicken out? she thought. I wish I’d stayed back at the hotel. Why am I doing this?
“Over here,” Janelle called from one of the well-stocked aisles. “What kind of antacid do you want? Hurry, so we can go back.”
“I don’t know. You look at what they have. I’ll be right back.” Brittany shot like an arrow to the back of the store.
“Where’s she going?” Christy asked.
“I don’t know, but we’d better find out.”
Janelle and Christy found Brittany at the pharmacy window, reaching for a small bag the clerk held out to her.
“What’s she doing?” Janelle asked.
“Oh, no!” Christy felt a rush of horror through her veins. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”
“What?”
Christy stepped up to Brittany as she turned to walk away from the counter and boldly confronted her. “Are those your mom’s diet pills?”
“What do you mean?” Brittany returned a blank stare.
“Brittany!” Janelle reprimanded. “You don’t even have a mother! What are you trying to do?”
The window to the pharmacy area was still open, and the clerk stood there, casually observing the girls.
“Janelle, it’s not funny when you act like this. I don’t appreciate it at all. You know my mom asked me to pick up her medicine for her.” Brittany’s eyes opened wide as she coaxed Janelle to go along with the story. “Come on. We’re going to be late, and she’ll be really mad.”
Janelle looked as if she might explode with anger at any moment. “Come on, Christy,” she said, turning and pulling Christy by the arm. “You and I are leaving. I can’t believe she did this to us!”
“I just figured it out,” Christy said as they marched down the hair-care aisle. “Brittany must have left the empty prescription bottle here this morning when she said she went jogging. This whole scene tonight with the stomachache was to get us to go with her to pick up her diet pills.”
“Right. And we were dumb enough to fall for it. We’re going back to the hotel—now.”
“I can’t believe she lied to us. I can’t believe I didn’t just tell her no!” Christy moaned.
“We don’t have to tell anybody,” Janelle said over her shoulder as they neared the front of the store. “Let’s hurry back to our room and wait for Brittany. If she gets caught, we’ll say she snuck out without us.”
“Janelle, we can’t lie!”
“Why not? She lied to us! Do you think we should wait here and help her pay for her pills or something?”
Just then Brittany rounded the end of the next aisle and met them at the front of the store. She looked as if she’d run to get ahead of them but other than that seemed unaffected by the whole scene. “You guys ready to go?”
Christy and Janelle exchanged looks of confusion. “Aren’t you going to buy something?” Christy asked.
“No,” Brittany answered calmly. She stepped toward the exit, and the glass doors opened automatically for her.
Christy felt completely flustered and confused. All she wanted to do was get back to the hotel so this whole night could be over.
Suddenly a voice boomed behind them. “Ladies, hold up a minute there.”
A large man dressed in a security guard uniform towered over them. “Would you young ladies come with me?” his voice demanded.
Numbed and silent, they followed him back into the store to a small office. Brittany hung behind at first; then all of a sudden she tugged at Christy’s purse and hung onto the strap. Christy could feel the purse strap dig into her shoulder as Brittany whispered, “We don’t have to take this, you know. We have rights. Remember what Ms. Archer is always telling us?”
“Forget it, Brittany. This is the last time I let you talk me into anything, and I mean it!”
The guard pushed open the door to a small office. It felt unbearably hot inside the small room.
“Have a seat,” he commanded, pointing to a narrow couch in the corner. They squished next to each other while the guard swung open the back door to let in the evening air.
“Stupid air conditioner,” he mumbled. “I need to ask you girls a few questions.” Turning his back on them, he adjusted the thermostat on the air conditioner.
“Come on!” Brittany hissed. She grabbed Janelle’s arm, and the two of them vanished out the open door.
Christy jumped up, then sat down, then jumped up again.
“Sit down,” the guard bellowed.
Instantly she obeyed.
“Stay where you are!” the guard ordered and dashed out into the darkness.
Christy trembled. Everything within her fought the urge to run. It’s just like the night we papered Rick’s house! They ran off and left me again. What am I going to do? What’s going to happen? Christy drew in a deep breath, her chest pounding. I can’t believe this is happening! What am I going to do?
In the stillness a sudden thought pierced her. Something she had read: “Do not be afraid.”
It was part of the verse in Tracy’s letter! Christy grabbed the envelope from the side pocket of her purse and pulled out the card.
She read it slowly: “ ‘The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.’ ”
Christy felt a quietness trickling over her like a warm shower. She read the verse again and again. The comforting sensation continued to calm her. It was as if Jesus were sitting right beside
her, putting His arm around her, talking softly to her. She never heard a voice or anything, but it was the closest she had felt to the Lord since last summer.
Suddenly the guard appeared in the doorway, perspiring and heaving deep breaths. “Your friends must be experienced at running away.” He pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and then positioned himself on the edge of the desk.
“Don’t make this any harder on yourself. First of all,” he began, “how old are you?”
“Fifteen.” Then she added, “Sir.”
He pulled out a notebook and began writing. “Okay, that’s one. Violation of curfew. Not something you want to mess with in Palm Springs. What’s your name?”
“Christy Miller, or, well, Christina Miller, sir.”
“Your parents’ name and address?”
She rattled off her address and then went into a jumbled explanation of how she was in Palm Springs with her aunt and uncle.
“Where are you staying? What hotel?”
“Um, I think it’s the West something.… I don’t remember. Oh, maybe it’s on my room key.” With sweaty hands, Christy pulled her purse up to her lap and reached for the key.
Suddenly she froze. The first thing her hand touched was a crackly paper bag—a slick, white pharmacy bag.
“May I see that?” the guard asked, reaching for the bag that Brittany had so slyly slipped into Christy’s purse.
“It’s not mine,” Christy said defensively. “I didn’t take it.”
“Where’s the receipt for these?” he asked, pulling out three boxes of laxatives.
Christy gasped. “I-I don’t know. They’re not mine!”
“You’re saying these aren’t yours either?” He held up the prescription diet pills.
“No! No! They’re not mine! Really!”
“We’ll let the police decide about that.” He continued to go through her purse, dumping the contents on the table. He flipped through her wallet, fanned through her color swatches, and then lifted up a prescription bottle, held it to his ear, and shook it. Two pills rattled inside.
Oh no! No! Christy screamed under her breath. No! No! Why didn’t I throw those stupid pills out the day Brittany gave them to me? I can’t believe they’re still in there!
The guard read the prescription, then opened the bottle and examined the tiny pills in the palm of his hand. Christy’s eyes burned with tears as he opened the new prescription bottle of the same diet pills and compared them.
“I suppose these aren’t yours either?”
“No, sir. They were given to me. They’ve been there for weeks.” The words jerked their way out of her throat in spasms.
“I see,” he said, writing furiously in his notebook. Then he picked up the phone and talked to somebody named Pat.
“Yeah, Pat,” he said. “I’ve got a curfew violation with a possible illegal possession. Tourist. Sure. I’ll have the report finished by the time you get here.” He hung up the phone and continued writing.
“Can I go now?” Christy asked meekly.
“Can you go? I don’t think so, missy. You’re caught, young lady. The jig is up, as they say. Your whole life is about to change. You sit tight. The police are on their way.”
Police! Why? I told the truth. They’re not my pills. Christy couldn’t sit still. Her body throbbed with the drumming of her heart. She felt the perspiration rolling down the front of her, soaking her shirt, forming a river around her waist. Her mind pulsated as each terrifying thought rode on a different vein, shooting wildly through her head. Why is this happening to me? Where did Brittany and Janelle go? Why did they leave me?
The door of the office opened, and in stepped a short, thickset police officer with a wide, bushy mustache. “Yeesh! Sure is hot in here. Air conditioner broken again?”
“Yeah, Pat. How you doing?”
“All right. Is this the suspect?”
“Right. Her name is Miller, Cathy.”
“Christy,” she corrected him. Her voice came out squeaky like a screen door closing.
They both ignored her. The security guard handed the police officer the report forms he had been filling out. “There are two others. Females, same age roughly. They bolted. This one had enough sense to face the music.”
“I see. Cathy, what are your friends’ names?”
“Christy.” She still sounded squeaky.
“One of them is Christy? And the other?” The officer pulled out a pen and began writing on the report forms.
“No, see, my name is Christy. Christy Miller. Or, well, Christina Miller. You called me Cathy.”
“I see. Okay, Christy. What are the names of the other two girls?”
“Janelle Layne and Brittany Taylor. They live in Escondido.”
“And who is Merriah Jasmine Taylor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure?” The officer held up the diet pill bottle to read the name on the label again.
“Oh, that must be Brittany’s mom. I’ve never met her. They’re divorced. Her parents, I mean. Brittany’s parents. She lives with her dad. His name is Hank Taylor.”
“Okay, okay.” The officer stopped her. “That’s fine. Let’s go down to the station and finish this. These charges are rather serious. Did you know that?”
Christy shook her head and looked at him blankly.
“Miss Miller, you have the right to remain silent. Should you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.…” The officer continued reciting her rights as if she were a crook or something. It all seemed like a bad scene from some TV rerun.
“Come with me,” the officer said. He took her arm and held it all the way to the police car. People in the parking lot were looking at her. She bent down and slid into the backseat. Straight ahead of her the grille between the front seat and the back made her feel caged in and helpless. They drove the mile or so to the Palm Springs Police Station with only the crackling messages on the police radio breaking the dead silence of the night.
Christy trembled all over. Her lower jaw shivered until her teeth chattered. She kept trying to repeat the verse over and over again: “ ‘The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.’ ” Every time she said it she felt a little stronger, a little more clear-headed.
They entered the police station lobby. The officer went up to the front desk, and Christy tried to ignore the other people around her and keep her knees from shaking so much. She focused her attention on a picture on the wall. It was a print she had seen before of a small boy and a large police officer sitting beside each other on counter stools at a diner. The boy looked as though he had tried to run away from home, but the officer had found him and was treating him to a little snack. Christy never thought she would be living out the part of the runaway. And her officer didn’t look as if he were about to treat her to anything.
“Follow me,” he said, leading her down a hall to a small room with a table and three chairs. “Have a seat. Now tell me about the laxatives and pills found in your possession. Where did you get them?”
“My friend Brittany stuck them in my purse. They were hers.”
“But the prescription was made out to Merriah Taylor, not Brittany Taylor.”
“I guess, I mean, they were originally her mom’s, or at least the prescription was her mom’s, but Brittany got them refilled today and picked them up tonight. That’s why we were out after curfew. But we really thought she was sick. Janelle and I. Brittany was sick, I mean. We didn’t know she was just using us.”
“Let’s start over,” the officer said.
Christy slowed down and carefully told him the whole situation, starting back with how they came to Palm Springs with her aunt and uncle. She explained how Brittany had given her the diet pills weeks ago and how she had only carried them around but never took them.
“Do you realize that you were in possession of illegal
drugs that whole time?”
Christy shook her head. “No, sir. She told me they were just diet pills.”
“Prescription diet pills. Prescribed for someone else, not for you. That’s nothing to mess with. It’s a health and safety code violation. Drug-related violation. This will go on your record.”
“But, but, I—”
“I want you to know I believe you’re telling the truth about holding the drugs for your friend and that you never took any. However, you were in possession of the shoplifted items and prescription drugs, obtained through falsification. We’ll have to hold you until we can contact your aunt and uncle.”
Christy sat perfectly still, yet her mind jumped and twisted and hopped at a frenzied pace. She thought of the illustration in Sunday school when Peter Pagan so easily yanked Katie Christian down to his level.
It can happen so fast! What if I’d taken the laxatives and diet pills like Brittany wanted me to? If only I’d said no tonight. If only I’d stayed at the hotel room—none of this would have happened.
Then Christy remembered Leslie saying that you could go crazy trying to live in the Land of If Only. I’ve got to believe God is in control, even now.
An officer took Christy to be “printed.” Each finger was rolled in black ink. As she stood there looking at her ten blackened fingertips, she felt dirty.
What was that verse from Sunday school? Something about bad company corrupting good character? Christy felt corrupted as she tried to wipe the black ink off her fingers with a rough paper towel.
A woman officer, the keys jingling on her belt, led Christy down a hall past a row of cells. They stopped in a small room with a camera. Christy was directed to stand on a mark on the floor while a mechanical arm moved in front of her. She trembled all over when she realized that the mechanical arm displayed a number—a jailbird number, black and white.
She looked forward, and the camera snapped with a blinding flash. She turned to face the wall, and a second picture was taken. Never, ever in her life had Christy felt like this—so utterly humiliated and completely misunderstood. She felt dirty and ugly and bad. And to make it worse, this whole painful experience was being recorded, kept on file, captured with a picture.