Saturday Night
“Isn’t Gin back yet?” Paisley asked as we walked down the stairs to Alex’s basement.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “His flight lands sometime in the afternoon.”
“Are you going to meet him? If Benji left for over a week I know I’d have to meet at the airport. I don’t know how I’d survive for that long without seeing him.” She made eyes that reminded me of the cow’s from Marisa’s keychain as she looked across the room at Benji, except the color was wrong. He and Alex were looking at something together, their similar builds and identical coloring making them look like bookends. Benji snorted loudly and punched Alex on the shoulder.
“You’d probably live just like you did before you started dating,” I said. “Remember when you dated that one guy our Freshman year? What was his name? Silas?” I still had photos on my hard drive of Paisley sitting in Silas’ lap at a party, a can of beer in one hand while her other hand was tangled in his hair. Benji had stared at them for months, jealously clearly written across his entire body. He must have thought it was his lucky day when Silas was kicked out of the Academy for cheating and sent to some tough-love boarding school.
Paisley shook her head, causing her fluffy blond ponytail to whip from side to side. I stepped back so I wouldn’t get hair-whipped in the eye. “Don’t talk about Silas! I haven’t thought about him forever. At least a year,” she laughed. “And don’t try to change the subject. You’re so stoic, but you know you miss Gin.”
“If you say so.” I dumped my empty backpack down next to the doorway and dropped my black pea coat on top. My mother had bought me the coat for my grandfather’s funeral last year. I smiled to myself when I wondered what Mom would say if she knew I was using the jacket to further my life of crime.
“Should we go see a movie or something?” Paisley asked. She twirled a lock of her hair around her finger like she always did when she was bored.
“Nah, I have a plan,” Alex said. He looked around the room, watching how everyone reacted to his announcement. Benji snapped to attention.
“Ohhh, what?” Paisley perked up. Sarah joined us from her spot across the room, although she edged away from me. I smiled to myself; did she think I’d punch her again? I owed her a solid blow to the solar plexus, preferably when she didn’t expect it. I gave her a feral smile.
Benji tilted his head when he looked at Alex, the way a dog does when he sees something interesting. It was the same look Alex had given me the other day. The head tilt must be a family thing, coded deep into their shared DNA.
“Well, it doesn’t quite involve all of us.” He smirked in my direction. “So here’s the plan…”
I tuned out as he mentioned Marisa’s house, key, blah blah blah.
“So who’s going?” Benji asked. “You?”
“I’m thinking two of us should go this time.”
“So me and you.” Sarah flipped her hair over her shoulder and then smiled at me. A smile almost as cocky as Alex’s usual expression. I gave her a half-smile in return, just waiting for her expression to do a one-eighty. I’d give Alex the honors so I could watch her implode.
“Nah, just me and Harper,” Alex said.
“What?” Sarah screeched. “Are you kidding me?”
“Harper got the key. She earned it. She figured out the target. You can go with Gin next time.” Alex sounded like he was patting Sarah on the top of the head. I smiled openly; this was better than me punching her in the gut. The pain would last longer.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Benji asked.
Alex laughed. “Of course. We’ll scout out easy targets. It’ll be fun. Maybe we should have a getaway car just in case. Benji, you want to drive?”
Benji nodded like he was a getaway driver everyday. “Of course.”
Alex glanced at Paisley. “You and Sarah should stay here. We don’t want too many people in the area.”
“You sure? We could have multiple getaway drivers! Or if I was in the car with Benji, we could like, make out if we saw anyone looking at us. So we wouldn’t look suspicious.”
“You’d just look horny,” I said.
“Come on, Harper. You only YOLO once,” Paisley said.
I burst out laughing. Paisley blinked at me, and raised her eyebrows at Benji when he started laughing as well.
“This is stupid,” Sarah said. “I’m not hanging around for this.”
“Be a good sport,” Alex told her. My smile mocked her.
“Sarah?” Alex said as his girlfriend started to stomp up the stairs.
“What?” The tone of her voice made me think she hoped Alex was telling to her stop and that she’d get her way. She wanted to be the one to break into Marisa’s house with Alex. I wondered what was more important to her: keeping me away from spending one-on-one time with her boyfriend, or the act of breaking into Marisa’s house? I suspected the former. As if I’d let him into my personal bubble. I’d need industrial skank-remover to get the smell of him off of me.
“Remember, you can’t turn us in. You can’t tell. Unless you want to get thrown under the bus for breaking into Gin’s house.” Alex’s voice was cold.
“Maybe I’ll return the stuff I stole first.” Her retort sounded petulant, like the way I talked to my father when I was twelve.
“Good luck, since we already pawned it,” Alex said.
“Asshole.” Sarah’s stomping feet turned into the sound of the front door slamming.
“Maybe Paisley should sit in the car with you, Benji. But maybe she should just stay here. You two decide if Paisley wants to take the risk,” Alex said. He then eyed me. “You ready?”
I snorted. “I was born ready, jackass.”
***
We left Paisley and Benji almost three blocks away, parked in a dark spot. An entrance to the neighborhood trail system was maybe fifty feet away from their car, and we took the trail part of the way to Marisa’s house. Then we walked a block on the sidewalk to reach the Foret’s house, since the trail didn’t run behind it. My heart thumped in a marching rhythm faster than our steps.
Marisa’s family hadn’t left their porch light on, which was a definite faux pas in neighborhood etiquette. Everyone else leaves their lights on. Every night. Except maybe Halloween, and only then if you’re a crazy person who didn’t like to give out candy. Or if you go out of town on the best holiday of the year.
Focus, Harper. After a few more steps I was close enough to grasp the screen door handle and rotate it. Another step and I was up to the front door while Alex held the screen door open.
A few seconds later and we were inside. Three steps and I was in front of the beeping alarm. Four quick taps of the keypad and the alarm was silent. Thank God Marisa had the right alarm code on her house key. I slid the keychain back into my pocket, even though the cow dug into my hip bone. I slid the key into my pocket.
“So where should we start?” Alex asked as he flicked on the hall light and we were bathed in dim energy-efficient lights that promised to shine brightly. Eventually.
“You sure we should turn lights on? The neighbors have to know they’re out of town.”
“Good point!” The lights flicked off. Had he been this brilliant when he burglarized my house?
To the left was the office, with a living room to the right. I stepped down two steps into the office, remembering the golf trophies in Sarah’s house. There wasn’t anything as fun in this room, just books. No computer on the pine desk. Built-in shelves faced the windows to the front yard, but it was too dark for me to read the titles of the books.
“I’m heading upstairs,” Alex said.
“Be careful with your flashlight,” I called out after him. I paused by a diploma on the wall, squinting in the dark to read it. Masters in Social Work. Whatever.
I passed into the living room, careful to keep my flashlight off until I was in a room that didn’t face the street. I didn’t want to send up a strobe light that called out “Hey look! Someone is burglarizing the Forets’ house!”
The living room window faced out onto the street, so I ignored it and headed back to the kitchen and family room area facing the backyard. Same layout as my house, and Gin’s, although it was smaller.
I ran my flashlight over the bookcase in the kitchen nook. Whole shelf of books on baking. 1001 soup recipes. Like you need a so many recipes you don’t have to repeat a soup for almost three years. A wooden sign, really just letters cut out of a block of wood that said “Family” was on the top shelf, painted black. I rolled my eyes as I pulled the sign off the shelf and stuck it in my backpack.
The cut-out letters weren’t worth anything, but it was annoying. So lame and faux-inspirational.
The family room had giant oversized couches and fake-retro signs advertising Coca-cola for five cents.
“Speaking of drinks…” I muttered to myself. A quick scan of the room showed me the most likely target. Waist-high cabinet painted bright red to match the fake signs. I knelt down in front of it, putting my flashlight on the ground as I pulled on the door.
Locked.
The flat-head screwdriver from the front pocket of my backpack fit easily into my hand as I wedged it between the doors and twisted. A few quick pushes and turns, and I’d broken the lock. It was a cheap, flimsy cabinet. I bet Marisa breaks in all the time.
Bingo.
Two wine bottles, the two-dollar cheap stuff, was inside, along with half of a bottle of whiskey. “Why did they bother to lock this up?” My voice cut through the otherwise silent air.
I nestled the wine in my bag anyway, using the wooden sign to keep the bottles from clinking against each other. The discount whiskey remained by itself, visible through the broken door.
There wasn’t much else worth stealing. Nothing valuable. I headed upstairs, noticing photos of Marisa, her little sister, and parents on the way up. Most of the photos involved camping or birthday parties with—I paused and moved in closer to the photo, angling my flashlight so the glass wouldn’t reflect back into my eyes—homemade cakes. At least for Marisa’s third birthday. No self-respecting bakery would send out a cake with those misshapen lumps.
I paused. Still, Marisa looked happy with her dopey smile next to the candle with the number three on it. Her pigtails were tied to the sides of her head with ribbon and she wore some sort of pink smock. Very different from the elaborate party dresses found in all of my childhood birthday photos.
Upstairs wasn’t too exciting. Marisa’s room was painted pale blue and her furniture was all white and basic. Her little sister’s room was pink with lots of ruffles. So boring. I gave each a quick glance but didn’t bother going inside.
“Find anything good?” I asked Alex as he exited the master bedroom.
“Nah, crappy haul tonight,” he said, heading downstairs. “You find anything in the dining room?”
“Just some cheap booze,” I said, and stepped into the hall bathroom. There was only generic Tylenol in the medicine cabinet and cheap makeup from the drugstore. The same stuff Sarah, Paisley, and I had played with in middle school until Sarah’s mom took us shopping for real makeup.
“Harper!”
I stepped into the hallway. “What?”
“If you break a window from outside, the glass ends up inside, right?” Alex asked.
“Obviously.” Too many basketball suicides must have scrambled his brain.
“I’ll shatter the window by the door so cops will think this was a regular break-in.”
Okay, Alex, clearly you spent a lot of time planning this. Of course we should do something before we left to hide our easy entry. I’d planned on just leaving the door unlocked and alarm off, like maybe the Forets had forgotten the basics on their way out of the house. But if Alex wanted to break a window, we could.
I shone my flashlight into the master bedroom. The light didn’t show anything worth stealing, just basic white furniture and a small jewelry box that I was prepared to bet only contained costume jewelry. But I should check.
The sound of shattering glass from below me made me freeze.
“Oops, I should have waited until you were outside to break the window!” Alex laughed as he yelled. “Also, run!”
The alarm started to blare and I gasped.