He’s the one who’s doing something stupid, I told myself. He’ll see. He’ll be sorry. I was his best chance and the best chance for his little brother and sister. He’ll regret not taking the money, I muttered under my breath, but before I left the mall, my anger turned to sadness and depression. I felt my eyes well up with tears. Even though it was a bright day with the sky a deep, rich blue and the few clouds looking soft and cotton white, I felt a heavy dreariness.
Instead of going to a taxi stand, I just walked and walked. Every once in a while, I felt another tear trickling down my cheek and flicked it off. I wasn’t even thinking about direction, so it surprised me to find myself on a street corner near a gas station, at least a good mile or so from the mall.
A young mechanic, his dark brown hair looking as greasy as his hands, bounced a tire on the garage floor and then rolled it over to the side. When he looked up, he saw me standing nearby. He smiled, wiped his hands on a rag, and brushed back the strands of hair that lay over his forehead. I should have just turned and walked away, but I was in a reckless mood. I smiled back, and he strutted out.
“What, ya lost?” he asked, looking around and seeing I hadn’t driven up and wasn’t with anyone.
“Maybe,” I said, and he widened his smile.
In the bright sunlight, the skin on his cheeks looked like gauze because of tiny pock marks. He was dressed in faded gray overalls and was about six feet tall. He wasn’t handsome by any means. His nose was too thick and his mouth too wide, but he had nice brown eyes that were fixed with interest on me. I smiled at how easy it was to capture and hold his attention.
“This your garage?” I asked him.
“Might as well be. It belongs to Benny Dodge, but he’s away more than he’s here. Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said.
“Well, you’re there,” he replied, and laughed. “Wanna soda?”
“Sure,” I said, and followed him back into the garage. He took a can of Coke out of an ice chest, pulled the tab, and handed it to me.
I took a sip. With his mouth slightly open, he stood there watching me as if I was doing something very special.
“It’s warmer than I thought,” I said, and undid the top button on my blouse. His eyes traced every move I made.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t want nobody sayin‘ I corrupted a minor.”
“By giving me a Coke? Some corruption. Is that all you have to offer?” I challenged, and he laughed harder.
“Wow.” He shook his head. “What else did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and picked up the air hose. I pressed it and blew some dust around the floor. “What are you working on?”
“Rotating tires. Why? You wanna learn how to be a mechanic?” he teased.
I stared at him and drank some more of my Coke. His eyes went from side to side and he fidgeted nervously.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Nobody,” I replied.
“Nobody going nowhere?”
I dropped the air hose and walked closer to him.
“Thanks for the Coke,” I said, and kissed him quickly on the lips.
His eyes nearly exploded.
“Since I’m nobody and this is nowhere, that didn’t happen,” I said. I smiled and started out, but he reached for my arm and seized me at the elbow.
“What are you, crazy?” he asked. He pulled me closer. “You’re a tease.”
“Let go,” I said, but he held on and then he kissed me hard and moved his hands over my shoulders and down over my breasts. I squirmed until I broke loose.
He looked like he was going to come after me again, but a car pulled up to the pumps and he hesitated.
“Stick around,” he pleaded. “I’d like to talk to you.”
“Sure,” I said. “I bet you’d like to just talk.”
I left quickly, my heart pounding. What’s wrong with you, Teal? I asked myself. That was like playing with matches. You want to start another fire, one that can’t be put out with a sprinkler system?
I hated myself for being so self-destructive, so angry that I would take it out on myself. Maybe I needed to go back to the therapist. Maybe I should be on some kind of medication. Before I knew it, I was crying. I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks as I thought about why lay ahead for me. At home it was all about Carson’s wedding. My mother had some purpose. And Del was filling himself with hope and treating our plans and dreams like children’s fantasies.
Why was it that I couldn’t hold on to anything, care about anything?
My father is right about me, I thought. He’s right to ignore me, to try to forget I exist. Maybe I could forget I exist.
I walked on and on. Cars whizzed by me, but I didn’t care. At one point a driver leaned on his horn because I had stepped too far into the road, but I didn’t move and he screamed something nasty at me as he went by. Finally, I reached a familiar shopping area and called myself a taxicab. It was getting very late in the afternoon, and I was sure Mother would be home by now and upset that I wasn’t. She was probably on pins and needles, hoping I would get there before my father.
The moment the taxicab turned into the driveway, I wished I hadn’t.
I wished I hadn’t come home at all.
There was a police car parked in front of the house, and without knowing why, I knew that it had something to do with me. I got out of the cab slowly and paid him. For a long moment, I just stood there, dreading going into the house. I even contemplated turning around and running off.
But to where?
Del wouldn’t want me, and as Carson said, I had no friends.
What difference did it make anyway? I thought. Even if I escaped from bad news here, it was sure to be waiting for me out there.
It was just part of who and what I was. Why that should be, I really didn’t know. All I knew was, it was true. Curses float around us and attach themselves to someone, I thought. It could be as simple as that. Born lucky, born rich, born poor, born sickly, whatever, it was just the way it was and would always be. Fighting it was futile.
Surrender, Teal, I told myself.
Give up.
Be who you are.
8
A Disaster Heading for Disaster
Carson, Daddy, and two policemen turned to look my way the moment I opened the door and entered the house.
“There she is,” Carson said, and shook his head.
Daddy stepped forward, the two policemen now on either side of him. One carried a clipboard. They all looked like they were poised to charge at me.
“What?” I cried, my hands out.
“Your mother,” Daddy began, “actually fainted when she heard about all this. She’s upstairs in the bedroom. I have called Doctor Stein, who wants me to bring her into the office to check her blood pressure.” He paused, glanced at Carson, and then added in a louder voice, “She could have a stroke, Teal. That’s how people get strokes.”
“What did I do?” I wailed.
“Tell her,” Daddy ordered the two policemen. The taller and darker-haired man on his left stepped forward. He lifted the clipboard higher and peeled away the top page.
“Do you know a Shirley Number?” he asked.
“Of course she does,” Daddy answered for me.
“Dad,” Carson said softly. “Maybe you shouldn’t have her say anything until you call Gerald Gladstone.”
“I’m not wasting good money on any attorney,” my father practically screamed.
Carson pulled his lips in and stepped back.
“I would like you to answer the questions,” the policeman said. “Not your father. Well, do you know her?”
“Yes, I know Shirley. So what?” I snapped back at the policeman.
Daddy’s face reddened until he resembled an overly ripe tomato. I thought he was the one who would get the stroke, not Mommy.
He pointe
d his right forefinger at me.
“I’d advise you to be contrite, Teal. Your only hope here is that people who don’t know you will take pity on you,” he said.
I looked away so the policemen wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. There was more love between Del and his estranged father who deserted the family than there was between me and my father, I thought. How many nights had he lain awake wishing my mother had gotten an abortion?
“Shirley Number had a diamond bracelet in her possession. What do you know about it?” the policeman asked. I could see from the look on his face that he already knew the answer.
So that was it. I felt the blood drain from my face. Shirley had given me up. Why couldn’t she come up with a story? Say she had found it, anything? Some friend she was. She had obviously led the police to me. She didn’t even qualify as a mere acquaintance.
When I glanced at Daddy, I saw that by the expression on my face and my silence, I was confirming whatever he had been told. He nodded as if he had expected no less.
“She knows everything about it, don’t you, Teal?” he asked me.
I looked away again. Should I lie? Should I pretend I don’t know anything? I could switch things around, maybe. I could put all the blame on Shirley. I could deny, deny, deny. Why should I do anything to protect her? I thought.
“Shirley Number’s father contacted the police department and we questioned her. She claims you gave her the bracelet,” the policeman continued. “She said you were all playing some sort of a shoplifting game, a contest to see who could steal the most expensive thing at the mall. Is that true?”
What didn’t she leave out? What a coward, I thought.
“For God’s sake, Teal, at least tell the truth when you have no other option,” Daddy said, grimacing.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s true. It was just a game,” I added to make it seem innocuous.
“Then you admit that you took the bracelet from Mazel’s jewelry store?” the policeman continued, now sounding like a prosecutor.
I didn’t respond. I had told him enough. Let him do some work, I thought. The policeman turned to Daddy.
“Once we heard the story, we went to see Mr. Mazel. He checked the bracelet case in question and discovered it wasn’t the right bracelet that was in it. He recalled your daughter coming in to shop for a present. He said the bracelet she switched was less than half the value.”
“You switched a bracelet? What bracelet was that, Teal?” Daddy asked me.
I folded my arms and stared at the floor.
“Well?” he shouted.
“The one Mommy bought me for my fifteenth birthday,” I blurted.
Daddy’s head was bobbing like the heads of those toy dogs people put in the rear of their cars.
“I knew it. Buy her expensive gifts. See what it gets you,” he recited as if Mother was standing right there.
“Then you admit you switched bracelets?” the policeman asked me.
“Dad,” Carson said, caution filhng his voice.
“No, we’re not protecting her, Carson. Let her pay the price,” he told my brother.
I could see it in his face. My brother wasn’t worrying about me so much as he was about the family name, especially now that he was engaged to the daughter of a well-respected and influential father. Newspaper headlines flashed across his eyes, filling them with shame.
“Yes,” I screamed at the policeman. “I exchanged the bracelets! Are you all happy now?”
“We’ll have to take her downtown,” the policeman told my father. “This is a pretty serious crime. It might be considered a felony,” he said, fixing his cold blue eyes on me.
He’s just trying to scare me, I thought, but Carson looked like he was turning paler and paler every passing moment. Most of the time he tried to ignore that he even had me as his sister. Now, he might try to deny it. Maybe he would tell his friends I was really adopted.
“A felony?” he said under his breath.
“The bracelet sells for ten thousand dollars,” the policeman told him. “It’s a serious theft.”
Daddy kept nodding as if he was enjoying the policeman’s evaluation. The more he nodded, the tighter the knot became in my stomach. I felt the ache spreading up my chest. He looked so self-satisfied, as if he could predict my whole life and had predicted this scene in detail.
“Take her and do what you have to do,” he told the police. He turned away as though he could no longer look at me.
I turned to Carson. He really looked sad for me now, the sadness overcoming any disgust.
“Come along,” the policeman ordered.
The two of them stepped between me and my father and brother.
“I want to see Mommy first,” I cried.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Daddy muttered.
“No. I won’t go until I see her,” I insisted. She would make him help me.
“You’re not seeing her, Teal. She’s taken one of her tranquilizers and she is resting quietly,” Daddy said. “I won’t permit you to risk her health another moment.”
“I thought you said you were going to take her to the doctor.”
“Later. Right now, no one feels like stepping a foot out of this house,” he added. “The disgrace is so thick we can feel it in the air.”
He nodded at the policemen, and the one with the clipboard seized my elbow and physically turned me toward the door.
“Mommy!” I screamed at the stairway.
“Dad,” Carson cried.
“Leave it be!” my father insisted.
I don’t know why I was so surprised, so shocked at my father’s attitude. After all, he was the one who had me picked up for stealing our car.
I was led out of the house and quickly down to the patrol car, where I was placed in the rear behind the cage, a place growing more and more familiar to me. The door slammed on me again, and moments later we were moving away from the house. I sank back in the seat, first cursing Shirley and then cursing myself for being so stupid as to trust someone like her.
When we arrived at the police station, the desk sergeant looked at me as though I was a career criminal.
“What happened, you missed your holding cell and just had to get back to it?” he asked through the right corner of his mouth. Then he grinned at the other policemen.
Once again I was put through the booking process and led back to the Spartan cell where there was now a woolen blanket on the bench. A man who looked like a homeless man was sleeping on the floor of a cell across the way. After I was locked in, I realized there was no point in asking for my one phone call this time. Who would I call who could help me? My father wouldn’t let me speak with my mother.
I crawled over the bench, put my head on the folded blanket, and closed my eyes. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I thought, I’ll fall into a permanent sleep like Rip Van Winkle or Sleeping Beauty and I won’t wake up until Del decided I had been right and had come to kiss me and take me away just like the fairy-tale prince. And of course, we would live happily ever after.
I spent all night and half the following day there before Carson came to get me. Daddy had sent him like some gofer to do some unpleasant chore.
“What’s going to happen to me, Carson?” I asked. I was stiff from being so uncomfortable, and very tired.
“Lucky for you, Daddy calmed down enough to realize nothing would be gained for the family to have you convicted of a crime and sent to prison,” he told me as we left the station. “He went over to see Mr. Mazel and got him to drop the charges.”
“He did?”
“Yeah,” Carson said, pausing at the car. “Do you know how he did?”
I shook my head.
“By buying the necklace. That’s right, Teal, it cost him ten thousand dollars to fix the mess you created this time, ten thousand dollars! And Mother doesn’t want to wear it. She says it will only remind her of the terrible thing you did.”
“You going to add this to the profit-and-loss sheet you a
nd Daddy are keeping on me?”
“Go on, be a smart aleck and see how much more it will get you now,” he said, getting into the car.
For a moment I actually considered just turning and running off, even without a cent to my name. I’d be better off living in the streets, I thought.
“Get in, Teal. We have a lot to do yet,” Carson ordered.
I got in and folded my arms around myself defiantly.
“He didn’t pay the ten thousand for me,” I said. “He did it for himself and for you, to keep things quiet.”
“Same thing,” Carson said, driving away from the police station. “We’re a family.”
“We’re supposed to be a family. We’re not a family, Carson, not by a long shot.”
“Oh, boy. What are we going to hear now, the poor neglected me song?”
“No. You won’t hear another word,” I said, and pressed my lips shut.
He rattled on and on about the sacrifices our parents had made for both of us, especially me, describing the great efforts they had made and were making to find a way to get me to behave, be mature and responsible, and have a decent future. As I sat there and his words went in one ear and out the other, I thought how much like each other my mother, father, and brother sounded whenever any of them spoke to me. Never before did I feel it was me on one side and them on the other as much as I did this particular morning.
“Dad said you should remain in your room until he gets home today,” Carson told me when we reached the house.
“What happened with Mommy?” I asked him.
“She went to the doctor and he put her on a new tranquilizer, but she had a meeting with Waverly Taylor and a wedding planner this morning and hasn’t taken any of her medication yet.”
“What a trooper,” I muttered.
“You know what, Teal,” Carson said, his eyes narrowed and dark, “I really don’t think anything Dad does will make a difference with you. You’re a disaster heading for disaster. It’s just a matter of time, a matter of what you will do next to destroy yourself, and frankly, I’m not going to get myself sick over it.”
“Like you ever did,” I said, and got out, slamming the car door closed behind me.