“I didn’t think you were so stupid.” Her voice is very quiet, almost a whisper. “Your whole life, Danielle, your whole life you know what cops do. What they’ve done to your father, to me, to us, and yet I see you today and…” She shakes her head, disgust on her face.
“Mom—”
She stretches one hand out, as if she’s pushing my words away, and turns so she can’t see me, looks out at the water. “I don’t want to hear it. I just want to know how long it’s been going on.”
“There’s nothing—” I break off because she’s turned back to look at me and is calling me a liar without ever saying a word. She’s saying it in the way her mouth turns down at the corners, in the flatness of her eyes. “I’m not—we’re not like that.”
“You’re not sleeping with him?” Her voice is very sharp now.
“No! I was—” I look down at the ground. There’s no way I can tell her all the stuff I should have before. Not now. “I was just talking to him. He was at the yacht club thing, and when I saw him today I thought I’d see what he knows about the Donaldsons, about their security system. Just in case, you know? I was just—”
“If you say ‘doing what you’re supposed to,’ I—” I look up at her. She’s staring at me, and her hands are clenched into shaking fists by her sides. “Your father lied to me. He said everything would be fine, swore it would be forever, and then he was gone. He broke my heart, did it like it was nothing, left me alone, and…”
She shakes her head. “No one’s doing that to me again, not ever, so you look at me and you tell me the truth. First, does he know about me?”
“Yes. But not who you are. Just—he knows I’m living here with my mom.”
“Does he know where you work?”
I look down at the ground. “Yes.”
“Where we live?”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“Of all the—dammit, Danielle. What were you thinking? No, you know what? I don’t even want to know. Maybe you’ve forgotten all those times we had to put up with people like him hauling me around, hauling you around, threatening us—”
“I haven’t, I swear,” I tell her, and my voice is cracking, my eyes burning. “I would never—”
“Never what? Screw things up for us? You look at me—” She squats down so we’re face to face, her eyes looking directly into mine. “You look at me and you tell me this cop doesn’t know why we’re here. You—” She grabs my hands. “Tell me.”
I yank my hands away. “What? You know I would never do that.”
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at me.
“Mom, I owe you everything. You’re the only one who’s ever wanted me around, who—” I can hardly breathe. It feels like something inside me is broken. How can she think I would betray her like that?
“Shhhh,” Mom says, her expression softening, her gaze no longer quite so angry, and sits down on the stairs next to me. “You’re my girl, baby. That’s never going to change. I just—you know how much mistakes can cost, don’t you?”
I nod, wipe at my face, my still burning eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” She rests her head on my shoulder. “And it won’t happen again. I know that too. I know that—” She coughs twice, and I feel her wince.
“Mom?”
“Not now, Danielle.”
“But you—”
“I’m fine.”
“You need to go to the doctor.”
“What did I just say?” Mom says sharply. “We have other things to think about. Important things. Are you ready for them?”
“Y-Yes.”
“What was that?”
“Yes. I’m ready. I swear I am.”
“Good. Because I believe in—”
“I know. What you can hold in your hands, what you can sell.”
“That’s right,” she says, and squeezes my hand. “But I believe in you and me too, baby. We’ve got it all figured out. We’re winners.”
“We are,” I say, but I don’t feel like one.
23
I’m tired on my way to work in the morning and Mom is quiet, drives with the radio off and her window rolled down, the wind whistling through the car and making it impossible for us to talk. I know she isn’t mad with me anymore but I know Mom, and what she saw yesterday will stay with her. She will look at me differently for a while and I will be told even less than usual about where we’re going, what we’ll be doing. She won’t do this to hurt me. She’ll do it because it’s just how things are. How she is.
“You’ll call if you need to,” she says when she stops the car.
“I will,” I say, and five minutes after Stu has handed out the day’s assignments, I do. When I’m done talking to her I toss my cell in the Dumpster. Stu has it emptied every morning—he reminds us of it whenever he’s talking about planning and efficiency. He says it shows he’s always on top of things. There’s a lot of things I won’t miss about this job. Stu is in the number-two spot.
On the way to our first house, Joan tells me I look tired. Actually, what she says is, “You look like shit. Don’t think I’m picking up after your slack ass.” You can guess which spot she holds in “things I won’t miss about this job.” I yawn, ignoring her, and watch Shelly rub her stomach. Maggie reads our list out loud. The Donaldson house is last.
“I hate doing the windows there,” Maggie says. “Do you think that maybe we’ll get a break and…”
I stop listening, tell myself I’m ready for the Donaldson house. I’ll go in, do what I need to, and get out. Just like that. Just that simple.
I tell myself that, but I feel sick when we get there, on edge. It doesn’t help that when we pull in I see Allison and James out on the lawn with their parents and a few other people. James is surrounded by most of them, and clinging to his arm is a girl staring at him like he’s everything. Allison is off on one side smiling like she did when we were talking to the guy with the polo shirt collar problem, a bored, polite smile. She sees me and smiles, really smiles.
I duck my head and pretend I don’t see her.
Inside, Joan and I have to clean the downstairs, and she tells me I’m doing the bathroom, study, solarium, dining room, and kitchen and gets pissed when I argue with her. I actually want the rooms—or at least the kitchen—but I don’t want Joan to know that. She tells me to quit complaining and get to work already, and I sigh dramatically and say, “Okay, fine, I’m going.”
I look outside when I’m done vacuuming. The Donaldsons are all still out on the lawn. Closer to the house, Shelly is leaning against the car we came in, rubbing the small of her back with one hand. Joan and Maggie are there too—Maggie’s putting together the long brush we use to clean windows, and Joan is standing a few feet away smoking furiously. I put on my gloves, pull the second bag out of my cleaning duffel, and then head to the kitchen.
The silver is still in the pantry and I start putting it in the bag, moving as quickly and quietly as I can. This is the first job I’ve done by myself and what I take will decide if Mom and I get to live however and wherever we want for a while, or if we’ll be stopping as soon as we can. What I take—
I hear footsteps, then voices.
“I told you I don’t have time to talk about this now,” James says. He sounds very annoyed and very close. I stare at the silver I’m holding and then crouch down, push myself as far back into the shadows as I can.
“Why did you do it? You knew—you knew the only reason I hadn’t told Mom and Dad I was bringing Brad to the party was because I don’t care what they think, but you go and tell him it’s because I’m embarrassed? How could you? Do I run around asking you what happened with Janet or what’s going to happen to whoever you’re with today? Do I…”
Allison’s voice cracks. “Do I ever say anything? All the stuff you do, that you’ve done and I’ve never—”
“You’re not thinking,” James says softly. “If you were you’d see…look, don’t—Ally, don’t cry. You are who
you are and you just—you can’t ignore it even if you want to.”
“I’m not you. Don’t you get that? I’m not like you; I don’t want to be like you.”
I hear her footsteps race across the floor, then a door slam. I hear James sigh and then, after a few seconds, he walks off too. I wait a little bit and then stand up, move out of the pantry, and look cautiously out a window. James is back on the lawn, laughing and gesturing at everyone gathered around him, the girl from before standing there like she’s just waiting for him to see her. Allison is on the edge of the group, trying to smile. She looks miserable. I know how she feels. I know—my stomach knots up.
I know how she feels because I hate this.
I know how she feels because I hate this life.
The bag slides out of my hands and onto the floor. I stand there looking at it, at what’s inside it. The silver lying there isn’t mine.
I don’t want to do this.
I have to do this. Mom is waiting for me, counting on me. I zip the bag up. My hands, encased in gloves, look like they could belong to someone else. I wish they did. I know they don’t.
I drop the bag by my other one, take a deep breath, and then pick up the one with all my cleaning stuff in it. I find Shelly and tell her I’m quitting. She shrugs, says, “Right now?” and when I say “Yeah,” and drop my bag on the floor, she gives me a “So what?” look and then goes back to cleaning. I walk through the house, picking up the other bag on the way. I don’t see anyone. I’m careful not to. I walk out the front door. The bag is heavy on my shoulder.
Outside I head down the driveway. I avoid looking at the lawn, at anything but the road that’s waiting for me.
“Hey, are you leaving?”
I stop, don’t let myself close my eyes. “Hey, Allison.” I should look at her but I can’t.
“You’re not leaving with everyone else?”
“I quit.”
“Just now?”
I nod.
“Oh. I’m sorry. You’ve still got your gloves on. Did you burn your hands or something?”
“I’m fine. Just forgot to take them off.”
“Oh,” she says again. “Okay. I—well, the thing is I kind of need to talk to Brad and I don’t know what to say. I mean, I know what I want to say but—well, you know how it is—and I was thinking maybe we could go somewhere and you can tell me if what I want to say sounds okay or if it sounds—”
“Stop.” I shift my weight and the bag swings a little, the silver making a soft clinking sound. “I can’t, okay? I wish—I wish I could. But I can’t.”
I walk away. I tell myself I don’t feel bad for what just happened, for what I’m doing, for what I’m carrying slung over my shoulder. I tell myself this is how things are. How they should have been all along. How they always will be. It’s that simple and there’s nothing I can do to change it.
Even if I wish there was.
24
Mom is waiting for me just down the road.
“Baby,” she says when she sees me, and then slides on a pair of latex gloves. She takes the bag, puts it in the trunk. I hand her my gloves when she shuts it, watch her peel off her own and then disappear up over the hill she’s parked next to. I can hear, faintly, the roar of the ocean.
She comes back empty-handed. I’m already in the car, and when she gets in she leans over and kisses my cheek. “You did a good job, baby.”
I nod, look out the window. I watch everything blur as we drive, picking up speed.
“Hey, you okay?”
“I—” I’ll never know what I might have said because blue lights flash then, around and around and right behind us.
Cops.
Mom slows down, pulling the car over to the side of the road. “No matter what, you keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
I nod, scared by her voice, by what’s going on. This has never happened before.
Mom turns the car off. The blue lights are still on, still flashing. I hear the crunch of footsteps as the cop moves closer, and then it hits me, really hits me. We’ve been pulled over. We have stolen silver in the trunk. We’ve been caught.
Suddenly everything seems too loud, too bright. My hands are shaking. I try to press them against my knees and can’t. They’re shaking too hard. I look at Mom. She’s rolled her window down and is sitting relaxed, one arm resting on it, fingers dangling out for the wind to catch them. She’s looking at a cop who is looking back at her. At me.
“Ma’am?” the cop says.
He starts talking and I see Mom nodding, smiling. Maybe everything will be okay. She’ll get the cop to smile, to laugh. He’ll tell us to have a nice day as he walks away. He’ll do that and we’ll start the car again, drive down the road and away, away.
“I’m going to need you to get out of the car now, ma’am. And you too, miss,” the cop says loudly. It changes everything. I can tell because I see Mom’s hand, still resting lightly against the window, twitch once. Her hands have always been steady before.
We get out of the car. The cop asks Mom for identification. She smiles, all charm. “I seem to have left my license at home. I’m so sorry. Is that what this is about? I think it’s a good thing that you’re cracking down on this, I do, and I swear, normally I always carry my license with me but today I was in such a rush—”
“Miss?” the cop says, turning away from Mom like she hasn’t spoken at all. I watch her smile fade. “Do you have any identification on you?”
I shake my head. I have nothing on me and haven’t since I tossed my phone this morning. Mom will have mailed the few things we’ll need wherever we end up to our fence, who’ll hold it for us. Everything else—all the clothes, all the food, her phone, everything—has all been disposed of. We have nothing now except for what’s in the trunk.
The cop clears his throat. “I’m going to have to search your car.”
No. No no no no no no. I was careful, so careful, kept my gloves on the whole time, but the silver is in the trunk and there’s not going to be a way to explain it, not going to be a way—
“No,” my mother says, and her voice is soft but steel strong. “I don’t give you permission to search my car. In fact, I’d like to know why you pulled us over in the first place. I mean, since when is just driving suspicious?”
The cop ignores her and looks through the car. He’s methodical about it and keeps pausing to look at us, watching our faces.
His radio crackles. He goes back to his car for a second and says something into it, then comes back and reaches into our car, popping open the trunk. When he does that, Mom smiles.
I don’t get it. How can she smile?
The cop pulls out the bag. He says, “What’s this.” It’s not a question. He knows he’s found something. Mom is still smiling.
“Mom?” I whisper, and then she turns that smile toward me. It doesn’t reach her eyes, which are warning me to keep quiet. I close my mouth and watch as she turns away, still smiling. I watch the cop unzip the bag, see his eyes widen as he looks inside.
“Well,” he says. “Don’t suppose you have a receipt for all this?” When neither of us say anything he nods, smiling like he’s won the lottery. “Looks like I’m going to have to take you both in.”
Mom laughs. It’s the happiest I’ve heard her sound in ages and I realize she’s enjoying this. I watch her and know that no matter what she says, no matter what I do, I will never truly be like her. I’ll never want anything like this. I’ll never enjoy it. This—it could never make me happy. Not ever.
“My daughter and I both want a lawyer,” she says, putting an arm around me. “We have one, and I’m going to need to contact him right away.”
The cop’s smile fades. “Sure, though I have to warn you, I don’t think anyone will be able to explain this away. Maybe you’d like to say something now, help me—”
“I’m sorry,” Mom says. “I guess I wasn’t clear enough. I wish to contact our attorney immediately.”
The cop shrugs
and then he is saying things like “Do you understand?” This can’t be real, I think, but then he says, “felony burglary” loudly and I know it is.
“Are you ladies ready?” the cop asks when we’re cuffed and in his car. My mother laughs again, shaking her head so that her hair falls perfectly around her face. I stare at the floor, and as we start to move I feel sick. I scoot as close to her as I can, wanting to be near her, wanting her to tell me everything will be all right.
She doesn’t look at me. She’s talking easily, so beautiful and so charming. I hear the cop tell her his name is Joe and that he’s got three kids, all boys.
“Always wanted a daughter,” he says. “How long have you two lived here?”
My mother smiles and asks about his boys. She looks so calm and I can tell, by the way she is sitting, legs lightly crossed and head turned so the sun catches and shows the dark brilliance of her hair, that she is. She is sure everything will be fine.
I am hunched forward, conscious of every car we pass, of every rattle the bag makes as it shifts in the front seat. I watch the cop’s eyes flicker toward it once, twice. I watch him smile.
I’m not sure of anything.
25
I start to shake when we reach town, when the police station gets closer and closer, becoming all I can see. The cop parks and gets out of the car. He picks up the bag, and I hear the silver shift inside.
“Keep quiet and everything will be fine,” Mom whispers, comfort and warning in her voice. I press my hands back into the circle of metal that holds them, do it over and over until the skin around my wrists starts to hurt.
Mom’s taken out of the car first. I start shaking more. Even my teeth are doing it now, chattering like I’m caught in a snowstorm. It sounds weird. No one seems to hear it but I press my teeth together anyway, so hard I hear them click.