Trinkets (3 page)

“It does?” She looks down at her navy-blue sheath as if seeing herself for the first time. I feel a little guilty for preying on her insecurities, but I guess on the plus side she looks happier now than she did five minutes ago.

“Jean, there’s someone on line three for you—Eric?” a woman from the Clinique counter calls over.

From the look on Jean’s face, it’s obvious Eric has been dodging her for weeks. His favorite activities are probably Nintendo, drinking Coors, and not returning the calls of women he’s had sex with. Jean is obviously one of them. Seeing her happy face, I remember feeling that excited when Brady used to call me. Now I just feel stuck in a loop of bad chitchat and sloppy make-out sessions. Sometimes, yes, we do the actual deed, but we’re usually drunk, so I don’t even know if it qualifies. It’s basically a formula of grabs, gropes, and insertions, all leading to an inevitably brief conclusion. I wouldn’t rank it as one of my all-time favorite activities. This trip to the mall would score way higher.

“I’m with a customer. Tell him I’ll call him back,” Jean says reluctantly, casting a disappointed eye my way.

“No, it’s cool.” I give her a knowing smile. “Go ahead. I’m fine.”

“I’ll be right back.” Jean nods appreciatively and goes to take the call. Jackpot.

“Hey, stranger!” Jean blurts into the phone. “I love Ruth’s Chris!…” Then her shoulders slump. “Yeah, I think I still have the gift certificate. It was only for fifty dollars, though, so I’m not sure how big a dinner it will get us….”

He wants her to take him out to dinner with
her
gift certificate? Jesus. Jean needs to hang up on this guy and delete his number. But whatever—her low self-esteem is my good fortune. When she hangs up, I give her a little wave and say, “Thanks! I’ll come back later!” and stroll off. Leaving everything behind but the Maya Brenner bracelet.

Walking your trinket out of the store is the worst and best part, where you’re about to become either a brilliant con artist or another juvenile-delinquency statistic.

I force myself to slow down and supposedly admire a pink sundress, but underneath the sleeve of my sweater, I’m covertly ripping off the price tag and tiny bar-code sensor from the bracelet, which is fastened on my wrist. I drop the tag and sensor on the floor and walk on through Sporting Goods.

Ninety seconds later, I’m at the street exit. I take a deep breath and make the final plunge through the electronic gates by the front doors—which, 87 percent of the time, are for show, but still they’re the final, exhilaratingly scary hurdle—and I push open the door. The winter air hits me like a slap of freedom.

I quicken my pace as I beeline to the parking lot. I figure I’ll make a hard right in thirty feet, walk around the building, and reenter the mall near Yopop. I pull out my phone to text Kayla my ETA, and move faster and faster, freer and freer. I pick up speed and round the corner of the building, and that’s when I walk right smack into a security guard.

Blood bolts to the surface of my skin so hard it feels like my face is being pricked by a hundred little pins.

I have no freaking clue what to do, so I cover. Badly. “Oops. Sorry. I’m such a spaz—”

He smiles a slow, casual smile. A tattoo of a bobcat or some kind of jungle lion peeks out from under his collar. I stare at it. Was he my age when he decided to permanently ink himself? Was it something he did with his friends? I wonder if he regrets it.

“I’ll need you to come with me,” he says.

“Why?”

He chuckles a little bit. “I think you know.”

“I do?” I ask. There is literally no oxygen going in or out of my body.

“Girls who steal three-hundred-dollar bracelets aren’t as dumb as they look.”

“I didn’t steal anything.” I try to make my Mirror Face, my model face, my “you are the most charming person I know, and your arm around my shoulder makes me happier than anything in the entire world” face, but he doesn’t buy it.

“I need you to come back inside and show me what’s on your wrist.”

I have no choice. So I say, “Oh, shit! Is this what you’re talking about?” I hold out my wrist. “I totally forgot I tried it on! I’m retarded.”

He smiles at me. Just beneath his smile, I can see the tattooed point of the bobcat’s claw, poised above his jugular.

“You may have ‘forgotten’ ”—he stresses the word, obviously not believing me—“but you still walked out of the store without paying for it, which means you broke the law.”

When we head back inside, I try to look like nothing’s wrong, but then I see Jean standing there by the big glass doors. She’s pointing me out to her coworker and wearing a smug smile on her face. Ten minutes ago, Jean was the loser and I was the winner. Now it’s a completely different story.

“Eric is just using you for a free steak,” I snipe to Jean as we pass. Her smug smile disappears. The guard holds out his arm for me to take, and it’s almost the way a gentleman leads a lady onto the dance floor—or a bobcat drags its prey into the forest after the chase is over.

“This is what happens to princesses in real life.”

Okay, question of the day: What’s the big deal about Spring Fling? People waste hundreds of dollars on one night for a cheesy photo with a backdrop full of stars. I’ll admit the prospect of dancing around to pop songs with Noah Simos isn’t the worst thing I can imagine, but it’s never actually going to happen, so there’s no use wasting time thinking about it.

Aunt B keeps telling me stories about her high school dances, which are fully boring. She keeps insisting that if I don’t go to Spring Fling I’ll regret it. She’s big on “living life to the fullest” and having “no regrets.” I always feel that’s what people who peaked in high school say. Not that it’s her fault—she didn’t plan on having to give up her life because my parents died in a random car accident and she
had to become guardian, but still. Of course I have regrets, like not paying more attention to my folks when they were right in front of me, but I try not to spend too much time dwelling on it, because I was only seven when it happened. I have a few special memories I keep to myself and a few things I wish I’d done differently, like not whining about wanting a skateboard for my birthday. If I hadn’t asked for it, they probably would still be alive. But the more you think about stuff like that, the worse you feel, and the more you talk about special memories, the less special they become. Marc and I actually agree on this topic, and last year for Christmas, he gave Aunt B a T-shirt that says “No Regrets” as a kind of joke. She didn’t laugh. He said he regretted giving it to her, but she didn’t laugh at that either.

After the Mr. Bobcat calls the police, my mother shows up, pale-faced and with her usually perfectly coiffed ash-blond hair mussed up on the sides. Clearly, she was in the middle of an afternoon-cocktail–fueled power nap.

But I have to hand it to her—she barely flinches when she sees me sitting in the dank little chair in the back of the Customer Service Center.

On the drive home, my mom calls Jeffrey, an attorney and “old family friend,” on speakerphone. They went to college together at UW, and once when I asked her if they ever dated, she just shrugged it off. Two Christmases ago at our house, I walked in on them having drinks in the kitchen. He was telling her a story that had her doubled over laughing, which is weird because she’s not really a big
laugher. When she saw me, she straightened up and tried to collect herself, but he just stood there staring at her, like he wished he could live in that kitchen with her forever and not have to go home with his plus-sized wife and their super-annoying five-year-old twin sons.

Apparently, she’s already given Jeffrey the lowdown, because he comes on the speakerphone full of confidence and calm. “I’ll handle the paperwork,” he says. “I’ve had my assistant enroll you in a counseling rehabilitation program.”

“I’m going to
rehab
?”

“You need to show the judge you’re addressing your problem,” he says.

“I don’t have a problem.” I roll my eyes.

“I’ll e-mail your mom the information.”

“What if I don’t want to go to a program? I’ve never been arrested before. It’s not like they’re going to send me to jail if I don’t go to a program, right?”

“Actually, the state’s been cracking down on shoplifters. Statistically, thirty-five percent of first-offender shoplifters are high-risk repeaters. If we show them you aren’t one of the thirty-five percent, we have more ammo to plea-bargain,” he says.

“She’ll do it,” my mom interjects. “We really appreciate all your help, Jeffrey.” She grips the steering wheel tightly and shoots me a sharp glance. “Don’t we?”