Smash & Grab (11 page)

She laughs a little and looks at the chessboard, shaking her head. “Coward,” she says. After a moment, she declares, “Checkmate.” She moves her knight, and suddenly I see it. My king is trapped. She winks at me and I laugh out loud. This girl surprises me in the best way. If we'd met under any other circumstances, I'd ask her out for real, but I can't take this any further. Going for doughnuts was risky enough.

“Good game. So why come back to the bank this morning? I mean, Bank of Americas are everywhere. You coulda hit about a million other ATMs. Why return to the scene of the crime?” I ask. I start putting the chess pieces back in the box.

Her smile drops a little.

“I just figured why avoid the place? It's the safest it'll ever be, right? The day after a robbery? What thief would try to hit a bank that
just
got robbed? Kinda hard to get one over on someone twice in a row.” Her face gets serious. I wait for her to tell me what she's thinking, but she goes quiet and then gets up from the table and brushes the doughnut crumbs off her jeans. “I gotta go. Thanks for the doughnut and the game, Christian.” She gives me a little wave. Before I can figure out a way to stall and ask her some more questions about yesterday, Lexi is out the door, pulling her hair back into a messy bun and weaving through the stream of people walking past the shop.

I clean up our trash and then leave the shop, too. As I turn up the block, she rolls out of a parking garage on a Ducati racing bike. She slips her helmet on as she waits for an opening in the traffic, and before I can remember to close my mouth, she gives me a nod and accelerates into the street fast enough that her tires squeal. And all I can think is that it's a good thing I won't see this girl again, because I really,
really
want to.

“I want to spy
on Harrison,” I tell Quinn once I'm back home.

I plop onto his bed and lie back against the pillows, my hands over my stomach. I passed LL National after I left Christian at the doughnut shop on my way out of the financial district. Harrison happened to be out front, leaning against the building. Every good feeling lingering inside me dried up at the sight of him. For one irrational moment I thought about aiming my motorcycle at him and driving it right over his smug face. But then I realized that the best way to get back at him would be to expose him for who he is. And now it's all I can think about.

“Well, hello to you, too, Lex,” Quinn says, his eyes never leaving his computer screen. “What do you think I've been doing? Been trying ever since yesterday.” His fingers tap the keys furiously. “So far I'm batting zero. Either we got it all wrong and he's a saint, or he's some kind of criminal genius with formidable cover-up skills. I can't find so much as a damning email. He's squeaky clean.”

“Maybe he's one of those old-school types. You know, Internet-averse, still does everything on paper. Maybe the only way we're going to get anything on this guy is to search his office or his house or both.”

The doorbell rings, an uptight sequence of
bing-bong
s that my mother loves and that makes me crazy.

“Lexi? Quinn? Up for some visitors?” my mother yells from the foyer. I peek over the banister to see Oliver, Leo, Whitney, and Elena huddled by the door. Elena's holding a pink-and-white box from Sugar High Cupcakes.

“I brought comfort food,” she calls. Doughnuts and cupcakes in one day. I'm going to gain ten pounds overnight.

“Come on up,” I say.

Our friends sprawl out around Quinn's room, Whitney and Elena across his bed with me, the boys on the floor. Oliver turns on the TV, and he and Leo start playing a video game.

“So how you guys holding up?” Elena asks, passing the cupcake box to Quinn.

“Weaver is a first-class idiot. I still can't believe she let the board muscle you guys out.” Whitney stares at her phone, taps the keys. “The gossip is rampant, by the way. I'm handling it, but you should know that Bianca's been telling everyone that you got kicked out and that your dad's guilty.”

“Girl's on a revenge trip, man. You shoulda never dated her,” Oliver says to Quinn, his fingers flying over the controller in his hand. “Get my back; get my back. I need to reload,” he says to Leo. Leo gives me a look, rolling his eyes, but he covers Oliver as his shooter reloads.

“Speaking of revenge and retribution, Lexi's on a trip of her own. She wants to spy on Bianca's dad.” Quinn stops typing and swivels around in his chair. “So, sis, tell us. How do you propose to do it? He knows who we are. We get within a ten-foot radius of the man and he'll sic the bank's security on us. Even if we wanted to, we have no in. Bianca hates my guts since I dumped her, and yours by default because you're my sister. So using her to get dirt is out.”

Everyone stares at me expectantly.

I haven't thought it all through. Quinn's right that we can't just waltz into Harrison's house or the bank. We need an excuse. Or help. I think about when I went into the bank for Christian to get his medal back. Except I can't exactly ask some random stranger to go into Harrison's office and ransack it….

“What if I don't look like me?” I ask. An image of the robbers' masks pops into my head. “I could get a disguise and, I don't know, change my eye color. Hair. All that stuff. Ooh! I could apply for a job at the bank….You could create a résumé or something for me, right?”

I'm getting carried away, but I can't stop myself. This is what happens when we begin planning a BAM; my brain starts going a hundred miles an hour. “If I get inside, we can figure out how to get access to his office. Bug it. Bug his phone. He's bound to slip up sometime. I work there until he does.”

“Why you? Why not me? Why do you always need to be the one sticking your neck out?” asks Quinn. He gives me an exasperated look. “I'm older. I should be the one to do it. And besides, it isn't that easy. How are you going to pass for a bank employee? Even if I can manage to hack into the system, the minute you're inside you'll give yourself away. Harrison's office'll be up with all the other VPs'. You don't think they'll notice that you don't belong?”

I flop back on his bed. “Oh, come on, you're older by one year, not ten. Besides, it'll be harder to disguise you. I mean, you dated his daughter. He knows you better. Anyway, I can figure out how to fake it. Admit it—I'm a brilliant actress. That BAM where we broke into the Staples Center during Katy Perry's concert proved that. Those security guards believed I was one of her posse.”

“I could get her a wig,” says Whitney, excited about the prospect of a good makeover. “Some colored contacts and different makeup, and
you
probably wouldn't recognize her.”

Quinn leans back in his chair, balances it on two legs. “You can't pass for a twentysomething, Lex. Even with all that stuff. You look too young.”

“Well, okay, then I pretend I'm on the cleaning crew or something. Emptying trash cans.”

Quinn snorts at the thought of me as a janitor, but I can see his wheels turning.

“Oh, come on, Quinn. Let her try,” Whitney says, winking at me.

“What have you got to lose? You guys are already out of school.” Oliver looks up from the video game long enough that his guy dies. “You have to at least try.”

Quinn rocks back and forth. “Let me check something.” He starts typing again in earnest, his fingers flying over the keys, most of which don't have letters on them anymore. He's actually tapped them off. Not that it matters; he rarely looks at his hands when he types. “Here. This. This could be your in.”

Elena, Whitney, and I peer at the screen. He's got it open to the bank's website, to a page about community involvement and education. At the bottom is a link to an internship program the bank is running with UCLA.

“You want me to enroll in UCLA so I can apply for this?” I ask. “That seems sort of overcomplicated, don't you think?”

“No. I want to use a UCLA student's records to get you into the program. Under someone else's name. It says the internship rotates through each department, so you'd get to be in the business offices, right where Harrison is.”

“So what do we need to do?” I say. My blood starts humming through my veins. I want this to work. I
need
this to work. It'll give me something to do, something to control, so I'm not sitting here worrying about my family's future every minute.

I can do this. How hard could it be to pretend to be a college kid? I'm only two years away from being one now. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and find a way to clear my dad's name completely. “Come on, spill,” I say, ready to roll up my sleeves and do whatever it takes.

“
I
need to hack into the UCLA student records and find someone whose profile fits the usual intern applicant's. Then I make you a fake student ID, we forward your new records to the internship coordinator at the school, and I make sure it gets accepted.” He glances up at me. “New interns start every three months, and it looks like the next session you could be a part of starts in…less than a week. Which is crazy soon.” He stares at the computer some more. “Or there's another one in the fall.”

“The first one. We can't wait three whole months to start!”

“You have no idea how much work is involved in this, do you?” he asks. “Same old Lexi, ready to jump at a moment's notice. Screw the details.” He sighs.

I start karate chopping his shoulders the way I used to when I was little and thought that was how you gave a massage. But he's not laughing.

“I can't. There's no way.”

“You can do it,” I say. “Come on. Think of it as a challenge.”

“I'd be super impressed if you pulled it off,” Whitney says, coming up behind him. I move out of the way as she puts her arms around his neck and winks at me.

“Aw, come on. I'm not that easy,” he says, but he's blushing and his fingers are already flying over the keyboard again.

I get home after
four, same as any other school day, my backpack hooked over one shoulder, the Saint Jude medal on my neck, where it belongs. The house is quiet and dark, which is weird. Usually this time of day Abuelo's got the telenovelas on. He swears he watches them because it reminds him of my abuela, but that's not true. She told me once that
she
only watched them because
he
was hooked. The old man is a sucker for any story line with a pretty girl who's pregnant with her brother's friend's father's baby while also battling a rare form of blindness that a witch (the brother's father's wife) cursed her with….Dun, dun, DUN. Every time I see him watching, I want to laugh, but I don't dare.

“Maria? Abuelo?” I don't bother with calling Mom because she's never home until after nine anyway.
Where could they be?
I round the corner and peer into the darkened kitchen.

“Surprise!” The lights flip on, and suddenly there are people everywhere. All my tias, my cousins, Eddie, Gabriel, Carlos, Benny. Maria. Abuelo. Mom. Dad's here, too, looking sober for once. Half the neighborhood's behind him.

“Mijo, congratulations!” Mom tackles me with kisses on both cheeks.
What is going on?

“Uh, for what?” I ask.

Mom starts to laugh. “For
what
? What do you think? For getting into UCLA. With a full scholarship!” She yells the scholarship bit, jumping up and down as if she won the lottery. “They want you to start over the summer. Can you believe it? Some early program, the email said. But you'll know what that is, right? You got a full ride, baby! Mijo's going to be a college boy!” She is crying, literally bawling, her makeup running down her cheeks in black lines.

“Way to go, Christian!” Dad gives me an awkward slap on the back and wanders over to the refrigerator. I look away the minute he reaches for a beer.

She checked my email. Of course she did. Because I have no privacy. I am speechless. I look over at Benny and he shakes his head, his forehead creased with disappointment. I'd never let the boys know I applied. What was the point when I couldn't go anyway?

“Congratulations, white boy,” Eddie says all over-cheery, punching my shoulder hard enough to sting before he pulls me into a hug. “What are you playing at, son?” he whispers in my ear. He probably thinks I'm trying to bail on him, on all of them somehow, that I'm really, seriously leaving. My chest feels loaded down with rocks.

“It isn't like that, man. I'm not going,” I say a little too loud.

“Not going?” Mom stops midbounce and stares at me, fire in her eyes. “You absolutely are going. Even if I have to drag you there by your ear every single day. Don't think you're so old I can't do that.”

“Can we talk about this later?” I say quietly, willing her to just shut up about it.

“There's nothing to talk about. You're going,” she says, and then to everyone, “He's going!”

A cheer goes up and someone turns on the music. The women start taking off plastic wrap and shoving serving spoons into steaming dishes of tamales and birria. The men gather around, paper plates at the ready. Except for my dad, who wanders into his bedroom with his beer. Five seconds of being happy for me seems to be his limit before he has to go get wasted.

The worst of it is when Abuelo says a prayer over the meal and then over me, thanking God for blessing the family. I can feel the guys staring daggers at me the whole time.

“Christian, make up a plate, come on. You have to go first. You're the guest of honor.” Tia Iliana pushes me toward the food, and I halfheartedly take a scoop of everything, fully aware that all the ladies are watching to make sure I get some of whatever they made, but there's no way I can eat any of it. I got into UCLA. Full ride. It finally settles in, and it hurts way more than I expected it to. I can't go unless I can get out of the jobs, and yet I really, really want to. Why did she have to go through my email? I can barely breathe, I'm so disappointed.

I walk back to my room with my plate, and it isn't long before the boys show up carrying plates of their own. Gabriel is last. He shuts the door behind him. “What's going on, Christian?”

“I just wanted to see if I'd get in. That's it. Curiosity. Plain and simple,” I say.

“Except now your mom's out there makin' plans. Now you gotta tell her, because no way you're skipping out on this next job. When she finds out about how deep you're in, it's gonna kill her, vato.”

“Soldado's gonna straight up lose it if he hears, and the Eme, man, if they find out…,” Carlos says around a mouthful of food. He wipes some cheese from his lips with the back of his hand.

“Except I'm not going!” I drop my plate onto my dresser and lean against the wall. “I was curious. That's it. How would I go? Leave my mom with my dad's debts and my sister to take care of? The bills? Nah, man. I ain't leaving. You know that. I'll figure out a way to get out of it without my mom finding out about the jobs,” I say, my chest all tight so I can barely breathe. Up to now I realize I didn't really believe it. For a minute I can't speak. I can't go to school. Not yet.
I'm not leaving. I'm probably never leaving.

“You sure?” Gabriel asks.

“Hundred percent,” I lie.

The guys start going over yesterday's job, recounting it like it's already an old, funny story now that it looks like we aren't in danger of getting caught anymore. I try to join in but can't. I look out the window instead. The blinds remind me of prison bars.