I couldn’t sleep for shit, thanks to the dueling snores of Jenny and Johnny Cash making my life hell in tandem. If I was honest with myself, there were a million other reasons preventing any shuteye. For one, we were totally unequipped to rob a bank tomorrow. Especially since it wasn’t just a rinky-dink bank run by some hee-haws like we’d hit before, but an actual one with huge safes, with multiple security guards and cameras, and a ton of other ways our asses could wind up in jail. If I was doubly honest with myself, Heidi also wouldn’t leave my skull, rattling around and making me feel guilty for the way things ended. I’d been a class-A dick, no respect for what she was going through, and she probably had a voodoo doll with pins in its eyes and my name on it.
Jenny choked on another snore, and I’d had enough. I flung off my sheets and bolted out of the RV, marching back into Grandma Bernice’s place. I needed something to help me get some winks, Ovaltine, or whatever she’d have in her cupboards besides stale matzo.
The condo was soupy and humid, a tiny fan doing nothing to circulate air around. The lights were off in Grandma Bernice’s room, but not in Barry and Mom’s. I tiptoed up and put my ear flush against the door. Luckily, the walls were thin and easy to hear through.
“I’m coming down finally,” Mom said. I pictured her running her hands through her brown hair, massaging her scalp.
“Me too.” He was likely rubbing her neck. She always had a sore neck.
“Barry, I don’t know…”
“Wait, did your mother get in your head? Tell me she didn’t.”
“It’s not just her. I feel…untethered, like the wind could blow us any which way.”
“Which way do you want it to blow?”
She blew her nose. It sounded extra snotty.
“Back to our old lives.”
He gave a sigh, one that made me feel for the guy, the sigh coming from the depths of his stomach.
“They don’t exist anymore.”
“I’m scared.”
“What of?”
“What if tomorrow doesn’t turn out like we want it to?”
“Impossible.”
She was crying now, softly, tears she tried to hide.
“Judy, my Judy…it’s your mother, her evil hooks.”
“She’s not evil.”
“She’s a danger to us. To what we believe in. What we’re trying to accomplish.”
“What is that?”
“Freedom, baby. From the preordained prison we’d been stuck in. I didn’t see it then, but I was miserable…not, not with you and the kiddos, but with my own acceleration. Life had lost its spark, but I feel it again, in my loins—”
“Barry.”
“In my loins, Judith. You, above all people, can attest to that. Our nookie sessions, they’d been struggling before this jaunt. Tell me that the sex hasn’t been on another level since we left.”
I puked up in my mouth and swallowed it back down.
“We have been connecting,” Mom said in a sing-song way.
“I predict we do this job, and if it goes well—which it will, then we do an even bigger one, and we’re done. We go out on a high note before it catches up with us. That’s the biggest problem with a lot of the greats—”
“The who?”
“The greats! The robbers we’re aspiring to be, well even more than that, that we’re aspiring not to be exactly like. Take the best of ’em and discard the rest. Don’t get greedy. Pull in just enough to live comfortably for the rest of our lives. Never rely on your fucking mother or my shitty brother, disappear off the grid. We could live internationally. Gay Paree?”
“Ooh la la,” Mom said. She was starting to come around like she always did with Barry, his ability to persuade, knowing no limits.
“A little apartment along the Champs-Élysées, or Spain! Gazpacho every day, a balcony in Barcelona overlooking Park Güell?”
She said something so low I couldn’t make it out.
“Yes, with the kids, of course, with the kids,” he replied, and I froze in place. The very thought of the two of them considering life without us, even if it was only bringing up the fact that they would never consider life without us, got me scared. That simply being a family didn’t mean we were locked together forever. These relationships, fleeting. There would be a time in my life when I didn’t see them all day. And then days would pass without contact, even months. I’d have to find my own new family, maybe with Heidi, if she could ever forgive me.
“My point is, we create our destiny, Judy. We write these next chapters. And tell me you didn’t get wet when we robbed that bank in Virginia?”
She snickered. I’d heard enough.
As I was about to turn around, Steph blocked my way, a shadow in the hallway in Slouch socks. An oversized T-shirt of a melting boom box in rainbow colors. Blonde hair in a side ponytail that reached toward the ceiling. A scowl on her face.
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus with Grandma,” she yell-whispered.
“What are you talking about?”
We heard giggling coming from Barry and Mom’s room and an “I’m gonna get ya,” growl coming from him.
“Gross,” she said and grabbed my hand to whisk me down the hallway. We reconvened in the kitchen, which was the furthest away from the bedrooms. She got down a box of egg matzo and munched.
“This really does taste like wallpaper dipped in ass,” she said, but kept munching.
“You’re pissed from when I told Grandma I believed in God?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m fucking pissed about.”
“I don’t not not believe in God.”
“What?”
“I mean, I don’t know what I believe. Like I believe in something.”
She took out the rubber band, holding her ponytail high, and shook out her hair.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“You believe in God like I have a dick.”
“Well, so nice to meet you, Mister Gimmelman.”
She threw an egg matzo at me.
“It’s true, I do believe in…I mean, not so much a god, like some higher power with a big flowing beard that sits up in heaven and judges all of us, but something to look up to. Makes me feel less alone and shit. I just prayed before I went to bed.”
She let out a snort. “You prayed?”
“For a successful day tomorrow. Do we really want to get into this now? Shouldn’t we be getting some sleep?”
“I don’t think Mom and Dad are. Besides, we have Troy with us this time.” Her voice tickled over his name. “The two of us are gonna run away together.”
An anchor dropped in my stomach. What little this poor peasant knew. Troy had sold her a tall tale. I must have been making a face.
“Fuck you, Aaron. He loves me.”
“You’ve known him all of two minutes. What about Kent?”
“Kent and I…we weren’t meant for one another. Kent is beige, he’s khaki pants, he’s boat shoes, he’s white-painted walls, I’m vibrant and shining, and Troy makes me feel like there’s a firecracker in my vagina.”
“Okay,” I said, plugging up my ears. Between Mom and Dad’s coitus and now picturing Steph’s nether regions, I’d had enough. “Just don’t fall for him too hard. You’re sixteen.”
“And you’re twelve, Aaron. As smart as you think you are, you don’t know anything about love.”
I could’ve slapped her.
“Hey! I kissed Heidi and felt it in my toes, and if it wasn’t for this stupid family, I could be with her.”
I made my way out of the kitchen, but Steph caught my arm.
“You made out with Heidi?”
I wrenched out of her grasp. “Yes.”
Steph’s eyes danced. “Was that your first kiss?”
“No. Well, yes. It was.”
“Awwwwww.”
She took my hands and led me in a dance.
“Baby’s all grown up, baby’s all grown up.”
“Stop.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “Truce. Please? I don’t want to fight with you.”
I touched my nose with the tip of my tongue. “I don’t want to fight with you either.”
“We’re the two sanest ones in this bunch of apples,” she said, winking. “We’re all we got.”
This was true.
“I hope things work out with Troy,” I said, holding back the truth I sadly knew. “He’s a really good guy.”
“The best.”
She hugged herself, this deluded bird. Troy was set to love her and leave her.
“Promise you’ll invite me to the wedding,” I said, and she picked up a couch pillow to whap me.
From out of Barry and Mom’s room, their lovemaking reached a crescendo, like they wanted us to hear. Always the stars of their own show. Steph made a retch sign, then turned glum.
“You think it’s okay they got so high earlier?” she asked as Mom’s wail rattled the foundation. I shook my head and went outside, Steph following in her socks.
“Dad says he needs it to take the edge off.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. “They seemed more out of it than ever before.”
“Yeah.”
“Like not just pot. Or coke.”
“What else is there?”
“A lot, Aaron. Like, a real lot.”
Tucking her arms into her T-shirt, she blew at her bangs. “It’s like you and me are the mom and dad.”
“Jeez,” I said. “That’s kinda true.”
“And what about Jenny? She killed that guinea pig.”
“They kill guinea pigs all the time in South America. Eat them, too.”
“That’s so grody.”
“Maybe we could pay more attention to her. Like after tomorrow, figure out a game she likes to play?”
“She likes to play murder, Aaron.”
“I dunno, maybe hunting? Dad would actually be all for that.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t be worried.”
Her teeth were chattering. “What if you all don’t make it out of the bank? What do I do then?”
“You drive. No matter who isn’t there. You’re our closer. You get us out of there.”
She tugged her lip even more. “Okay.”
I went to hug her because I could see she needed it, and because it had been a long time since we hugged. She put out her hand like, no, thank you. I’m good.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
She spun into the condo, the screen door flapping.
I went back to the RV, where Jenny’s snores still reigned. It was that weird time of night when the sky looked blue-black. Morning, not too far away. The chaos of tomorrow was like a thrum in my bones. I could eat my excitement with a spoon. Despite everything going on, the thrill of it, still a delicious cherry pie. I gravitated toward the glove compartment, as if what might be inside called out. Popped it open, and there sat a vial half filled with white powder. Like Barry left it for me. So I could get on his wavelength. To not believe in his genius meant we’d fail. If I didn’t continue with stars in my eyes, we were headed for surefire destruction.
The first shot up my nose, a carnival: freaks and ghouls and tilt-a-whirls. I whipped the gun out of my waistband, let my eyes roll to the clouds, and entered a trance where the entire heist spilled out before me in all its wretched glory. The cool steel in my hands and drool, dripping down my chin. Ready to wake with the birds first thing and explode.