I was only interested in meeting Del Grant.
Mother left the house before I did, and Daddy, of course, had long gone to his office. He worked six days a week, sometimes seven.
I started to call for a taxicab and then put the phone down and checked to see if the keys to the Lexus were where they usually were in Daddy’s den. They were. I can be back before either of them return, I thought, and snatched them up. It would make more of an impression if Del saw me driving this.
Shirley was at the mall on time with Darcy Cohen, and Selma Wisner beside her.
“So how is life in the clouds?” Darcy asked immediately. She was a tall, thin redhead with patches of freckles on her cheeks and lips so orange, she never needed lipstick.
“I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” I said.
“What?” Selma asked, grimacing like she had a toothache.
“That’s something my father is always saying when he’s unhappy. Someone named W. C. Fields had it written on his tombstone.”
“In other words,” Shirley told her, “Teal hates it.”
“Oh. Well, why don’t you just say you hate it?” Selma asked me.
“I did.”
I looked through the window and saw Del preparing a pizza. He caught sight of me and paused. I smiled and he nodded. Darcy caught our exchange.
“You know they might take his brother and sister away from his mother,” she said.
“Really? Why?”
“She’s so drugged out most of the time, they don’t even get fed,” Darcy said. “His house is such a mess, even the rats are deserting it.”
“I feel so sorry for Del,” Selma moaned, looking at him. “It’s ruining his life.”
“I bet you feel sorry,” Shirley told her, “so sorry you wished he would ruin yours.”
“I do feel sorry, and not for those reasons!” she cried, but stole another quick glance at Del.
“Forget it,” I said, pretending to have no interest. “What are you girls doing for fun these days besides painting your toenails and dreaming so hard of lovers you might get yourselves pregnant?”
Selma blanched and Darcy laughed.
“It’s been very quiet since you left,” she said. “Same old, same old.”
“Why? What great things have you done at your precious private school where everyone is prim and proper?” Selma threw back at me.
“Actually, Teal was just suspended for being drunk in school,” Shirley announced. The two looked at me.
“Really?” Darcy asked. “Suspended already?”
“Big deal,” I said. “This place is so quiet,” I added, looking around. I kept stealing glances at Del, who looked like he was stealing glances at me. “I tell you what. Let’s play shoplifting.”
“Oh, come on,” Selma said.
“Scared?”
“No, it’s just that we haven’t done that since we were twelve, have we, Darcy?”
She shrugged.
I looked at my watch.
“Okay, here’s the deal. In a half hour we return here and compare. Like always, whoever has the most expensive thing gets her every wish and command and the rest of us are her slaves for the remainder of the day.”
“I hate this game,” Selma said. She looked at Shirley and Darcy, who weren’t agreeing with her, and then said, “Oh, all right.”
“Go,” I said, and they fanned out. I watched them for a moment, and then I went into the pizza parlor.
“Hey,” Del said. “I thought you moved away or something.”
“Something,” I said, happy he had started the conversation. He laughed. “My parents forced me to attend this private school where everyone thinks she’s better than anyone else.”
“You don’t have to go to a private school to meet people like that,” he said, and returned to the pizza he was preparing.
“I heard you left school,” I told him when he drew close again.
I didn’t think he was going to respond. I stood there, waiting. He served another customer and then he returned tome.
“I left it years ago,” he said, “only I was the only one who knew.”
I smiled.
“Where are your friends?” he asked.
“Oh, doing my bidding as usual,” I said. His smile widened.
“And what exactly is that?”
I told him our game, and he shook his head and walked off to serve some other customers.
He thinks I’m kidding, I thought. I decided to show him and hurried out. I went directly to Mazel’s jewelry store because I had a good plan. Mother had bought a number of pieces there, including the bracelet I now wore on my wrist, and Mr. Mazel knew my father well. Everyone here did. Daddy had built the mall.
Mrs. Mazel was catering to a customer, and Mr. Mazel was in the rear working on repairing a watch.
“Oh, Teal,” Mrs. Mazel said, “how are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling. “I’m just thinking about what I’ll buy my mother for her birthday this year.”
“That’s nice,” she said, and called to her husband, who came out with a forced smile on his face.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I’m just looking to see what would make a nice birthday present,” I repeated.
He nodded and tightened his lips as he perused his own jewelry case.
“Bracelets are nice, especially with matching earrings,” he suggested.
I looked into the case.
“Yes. Could I see a few?” I asked.
“Which?” he returned.
“This one, that one, and that one,” I said, picking out three randomly.
They looked like they all weighed a ton as he put them on the counter.
“The ones you have chosen are expensive,” he warned.
“Oh, and those earrings and those,” I said, ignoring him and pointing.
He looked at his wife and then brought them out.
Another customer entered the store. I pretended to really be considering the bracelets, taking each and trying it on my own wrist, holding it up and studying it. To do so I removed the cheaper bracelet Mother had bought for me. When I had the opportunity, I put it in the box containing the one that most closely resembled it and kept the more expensive one on my wrist.
Mrs. Mazel had made her sale and was preparing to wrap the gift box. Mr. Mazel was very involved with his new customer now.
“Thank you,” I called out to him. “I have a good idea. I’ll talk it over with my father and be back.”
“Okay,” he said, now looking like he believed I would buy something.
“Thank you,” I repeated at the door and left. I hurried back to the pizza parlor.
Darcy was waiting.
“How did you do?” she asked quickly.
“You’ll see,” I said. “Come on inside. Del wants to see what we’ve done. Where are the others?”
“There’s Shirley,” she said, and nodded to our left. She was hurrying along, a smile on her face.
“I’m going to win,” she declared.
“We’ll see,” I said. “Come on inside.”
We entered the pizza parlor. Del saw us and meandered over.
“You can be the judge of who has the most expensive thing,” I told him. He squeezed his lips in the corners, still skeptical.
We all turned as Selma entered, her brow furled.
“I nearly got caught,” she moaned. “I had to pretend I forgot and then I had to pay for this,” she said, pulling a silk scarf out of a bag. “It took my whole allowance! Fifty dollars!”
“That beats me,” Darcy said. She revealed a fountain pen. “This was only thirty-nine.”
Shirley’s smile went from ear to ear. I looked nervously at Del, who was shaking his head.
“Voila!” Shirley said, and produced a PalmPilot from her jacket pocket. “Four hundred and ninety dollars. And it was on sale. It’s worth a lot more. It’s the newest model.”
“Sorry,” I said, raising
my wrist slowly. Mouths dropped.
“How much was that?” Selma asked, breathlessly.
“Ten thousand dollars,” I revealed as nonchalantly as I could while looking at Del.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“I simply exchanged my cheaper one for this one in the box. There was a close enough resemblance so that Old Man Mazel won’t notice until someone else looks at it. Maybe they’ll buy it anyway and he won’t lose a cent,” I added.
They were all speechless.
“That’s pretty serious shoplifting,” Del said, impressed.
“It’s not important,” I said.
“It’s beautiful,” Shirley moaned, practically swooning.
“Big deal. It’s just a bracelet,” I said, and unfastened it. “Here. Consider it your birthday gift,” I told her, and gave it to her.
She didn’t move to take it. She looked from me to the other girls to Del and then at the bracelet.
“Really?”
“I’m not impressed by expensive things,” I said, my eyes half on Del.
“I am!” she declared, and snatched it out of my hands.
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’ve all still lost. Can I borrow a pen, Del?” I asked him.
“A pen, sure,” he said, and handed me one.
I took a napkin and wrote a list of things I needed at the drugstore and at the department store, and a CD I wanted for the car.
“Here,” I said. “Take this list and this money,” I said, handing Shirley five twenties, “and get me these things. Bring them back here while I have a piece of pizza. And hurry,” I ordered.
They left, Shirley practically hypnotized by the bracelet on her wrist.
Del laughed. He got me a piece of pizza, and I sat at the counter and picked at it. I really wasn’t hungry.
“I guess you have them wrapped around your little finger,” he said, standing back, his arms folded.
“I get bored, that’s all,” I said. I could see he was looking at me harder and with a lot more interest. “Don’t you?”
“All the time. That’s why I like to work. It keeps me from thinking.”
“Sometimes I think I’m years older than all my friends. It takes so little to impress them.”
He shook his head.
“That bracelet wasn’t so little.”
I shrugged.
“It was to me.”
“I know a used car I could have bought with it.”
“How do you get to work and home?” I asked.
“The bus and some walking,” he said.
“I can take you home today. When are you off?”
“Oh, I have another four hours here yet,” he said.
“No problem,” I told him. “I have all the time in the world. I’m trying to avoid going home.”
He smiled.
“You and me both,” he said. He went back to work, and I thought he had forgotten what I offered. Later, after the girls had returned, he came over again and said, “Four-thirty.”
“I’ll be here,” I told him, and left the parlor, the girls trailing along.
“What was that all about?” Selma asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just giving him a ride home later. That’s all.”
“That’s far from nothing!” she cried.
I stopped and looked at her.
“Never let a boy think anything is big or important to you. Always make them feel inadequate. That way, when you do show some appreciation or excitement, they will be so grateful. Your trouble, Selma,” I added, “is you give it all away too easily and too quickly.”
“Me! You just gave away a ten-thousand-dollar bracelet like it was bubble gum.”
“That’s all it is, Selma. It’s just going to take you longer to find out than it took me,” I said.
She stopped grimacing and looked at the others, who were looking at me.
Was I really so different after all?
Why, I wondered, do I feel like I’m drifting away from everyone, even the friends I thought I liked?
Where was I drifting to? Where was I going?
4
Pushing String Uphill
I left the girls a little after four o’clock and waited for Del outside the pizza parlor. He looked surprised I was still there when he was ready to leave.
“You really want to take me home?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“I don’t live in the best of neighborhoods. I’ve seen your house from the outside.”
“It’s just a house,” I said.
“A very big house.”
“Forget about my house. Let’s go,” I said sharply. He pulled his head back as if I had slapped him, but he walked out of the mall with me, a small smile on his lips.
I paused outside the entrance and turned to him.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. People think it’s difficult being poor. Well, it can be difficult being rich, too. Everyone has so many expectations. You’re supposed to act this way and do this and be this.”
“So you’re the original poor little rich girl, huh?” he said, not much moved to be sympathetic.
I glared at him, and then I started to laugh at myself.
“Okay, okay, forget it,” I said, and led him to the SUV.
“Nice car. It looks brand-new,” he said, getting in.
“It is. My father bought it for my mother to use for her daily errands, but she won’t give up her Mercedes. She thinks it makes more of an impression when she pulls up to valet parking in a Mercedes and that’s important, even when she’s shopping at a department store.”
He smiled and looked out the window.
“I always thought there was something about you that was different from the other girls at school,” he said, still looking out the window. My heart began to thump harder and faster.
“What do you mean?”
He turned to look at me.
“You seemed… older, like you have had more experience, and I don’t mean just the kinds of things rich people can do. I guess I’m not that good at explaining things,” he concluded when I continued to look at him, keeping one eye on the road ahead. “Forget it,” he tagged on, almost angrily.
“No, I like that. I know what you mean, too.”
“Yeah? What do I mean?”
“You knew how much I hated being thought of as that poor little rich girl you just accused me of being.”
He laughed.
“Maybe, but give me the chance to hate being rich,” he said.
He followed that with more specific directions to his house. We drove into the city and to the very run-down neighborhoods. Many buildings looked like they had been condemned. They were obviously empty, their windows boarded or broken. Finally, in the midst of the garbage-laden empty lots, there was a small house with not much of a front lawn left, just some weeds and patches of wild grass. The driveway was broken and pitted. The house was a faded brown, with rust stains from the broken roof gutters streaking down the siding.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
I pulled into the driveway. He sat there staring at the house’s front windows.
“Looks like my mother’s not home,” he remarked, and then added, “Damn her.”
He got out angrily, seemingly forgetting all about me. I shut the engine off and followed him.
“You oughta just go,” he said at the door, waving behind himself as if he wanted to shoo me off. “Thanks.”
“It’s all right,” I told him.
He hesitated, and then he opened the front door. I couldn’t help grimacing at the smell. It was a combination of neglect, stale food, something that had burned in the stove, and cigarette smoke that was so embedded in the old, threadbare curtains and worn thin carpets and furniture, it would take a hurricane to wash it away.
There were toys scattered over the small entryway and hallway.
“Shawn,” Del screamed. “Where are you?”
A thin, dark-h
aired seven-year-old boy with sad and frightened brown eyes appeared in the living room doorway. Evidence of a recently eaten chocolate donut was smeared about his lips. His shirt was out of his pants, his fly wide open.
“Where’s Patty Girl?” Del asked him.
“In the bedroom playing with Cissy,” Shawn replied.
Del turned to me.
“Cissy is her imaginary friend,” he explained. “Ma’s not here?”
Shawn shook his head.
“Didn’t I ask you to clean up the house, get all your toys and Patty Girl’s back in your toy chests before I got home from work every day?”
Shawn nodded.
“Forgot,” he said.
“Well, get going,” Del ordered. “C’mon, or I won’t be buyin‘ you anything more.”
Shawn began to gather the toy cars and little soldiers.
“Gotta check on Patty Girl,” Del muttered, and I followed him to the first bedroom on the right.
There we found his sister sitting on the floor, her overly bleached pink dress spread around her, her feet shoeless, and her light brown hair hanging limply down the sides of her pretty little face. She had Del’s hazel green eyes and petite facial features. The moment she saw him she lit up, and when she saw me, she became intrigued.
“Patty Girl, did you leave your toy teacups on the living room floor again?”
“Cissy did,” she said.
He swung his eyes at me.
“Well, didn’t I tell you to be sure to tell her to clean up every day?”
“She doesn’t listen good,” Patty Girl said.
“If she doesn’t listen, you can’t have the toys to share with her anymore.”
Her face quickly saddened.
“Go help your brother clean up the hall and the living room and I’ll start making your dinner.”
“Can Cissy and I set the table?” she asked quickly.
“If you clean up,” he told her and she jumped to her feet enthusiastically.
“Say hello to Teal first,” he ordered.