When good ideas go badly . . .

 . . . maybe you have to go back and ask yourself if the idea was really good to begin with.

Fritzy and I were ready. We’d prepped and gone over contingencies. She noticed my new confidence, almost arrogance, but put it down to the fact I was psyched about what we were about to do. The act itself was taking on greater significance than the reason behind it.

I stopped by Pirkle’s house just before Scolari arrived for Frankie’s lesson.

“I’m on my way to your neighbor’s house,” I said. “When I get there, I’ll look out the round window and call you on your cell phone.”

“You didn’t tell him anything?” Pirkle asked warily. He lived with the fear that any random person aware of his “problem” had the power to commit him to an asylum. Maybe back in the day they did, and nothing would convince him otherwise.

“No. I just said I’d stop by. There’s a bathroom upstairs, so I’ll tell him I have to use it.”

He gazed steadily at me and nodded.

“I’ll be waiting for your call.”

How easily I’d learned to lie.

>>>

We were standing in the kitchen so I could see when Scolari arrived at Fritzy’s, but she texted me anyway, and Plan B was set into motion. I left Pirkle’s house and walked around the block to Scolari’s street. I waited on the corner until Fritzy arrived.

“Can’t believe we’re doing this, Wheeler. This is so wrong.” She was breathing heavily even though she’d barely exerted herself.

“Not a good time for cold feet,” I said. “C’mon, we can do this. In and out in less than three minutes. No one will ever know I was there.”

“Remember, don’t touch anything. Anything!”

“I won’t. Relax. Let’s go.”

We jogged the rest of the way to his house and after looking around to make sure there were no passersby or curious neighbors, we walked to the front door. Fritzy tried a few different keys before finding the one that unlocked the door. She turned it carefully, and we held our breath, hoping an alarm wouldn’t go off. It didn’t. Then just as she turned to leave, we proved the old proverb that the best laid plans often go wrong. And ours wasn’t even the best laid.

“Shit,” Fritzy said. “How are you going to lock the door when you leave if I take the keys back with me?”

It was a deadbolt, so I couldn’t lock it from the inside and pull it shut behind me like we’d planned.

“Too risky to give me the keys. Just take them. I’ll pull the door shut and when he unlocks it, hopefully he won’t notice anything. If he notices, maybe he’ll think he forgot to lock up. Now get out. Go home.”

I slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind me. I surveyed the darkened room, curtains drawn against the light of day. I could make out a beautiful baby grand piano in a room obviously meant to be the dining room. I moved towards it and ran my fingers against its glossy black surface before remembering the fingerprint evidence I might be leaving behind. Too late to worry about that. I was the star of my own crime show, and Fritzy was going to want every last detail. I looked around, saw the stairs, and walked towards them.

Later I’d learn that Fritzy ran all the way home probably getting there soon after I reached the stairs. She didn’t hear the plinking of piano keys when she walked into her house. Instead she heard the murmuring of voices. Voices coming towards her. She quickly dropped the keys into the brass bowl.

“You’d better go see Mom,” Frankie said as he and Scolari walked towards the front door. “She’s in her room crying. The hospital just called and said Grandpa died.”

“I’m so sorry, Lauren.” Mr. Scolari put a gentle hand on Fritzy’s shoulder. I imagined him reaching up to do it when Fritzy later described it to me. “Frankie, you take care, and I’ll see you next week unless you let me know otherwise.”

He reached into the bowl for the keys and walked out of their house.

>>>

When Fritzy called me I was halfway up the stairs.

“Get out!” she hissed into the phone. “Scolari’s on his way home. My grandpa died, so they canceled the lesson.”

“I’m almost there,” I said. “When did he leave?”

“Just now. Get out. I mean it, Wheeler. I have to go help my mom; she’s really upset.”

I took “just now” to mean just now, but it really didn’t. There had been the seconds ticking away when Fritzy peeked into her mother’s bedroom. When she walked to her own room, shutting the door against Frankie’s helpless gaze in order to call me. There had been the seconds when she listened to make sure Frankie was in the room with their mom. Seconds. Everything we do in life strips away the seconds we have left. Even the little things we never think about. I thought I had a minute to get up the stairs and call Mr. Pirkle. It would take Scolari five to seven minutes to walk home. He wouldn’t be running like Fritzy. I double-stepped it to the top of the stairs, as fast as my legs could carry me. The window, by my calculation, was only a few feet away. My lungs were burning by the time I reached the second story. My heart was pounding and my skin and scalp prickling with primal fear. My eyes swept up and down the hallway. There it was. The round window I’d seen so many times from the other side, it almost seemed mythical. I started towards it, cell phone in hand, Pirkle’s number already ringing.

And then she stepped out of a room. A little girl with curly blonde hair. She looked at me fearfully but quickly composed herself.

“Shhh . . . don’t tell Mommy.” She brought a tiny finger up to her lips.