Intentions (16 page)

CHAPTER 21

A LITTLE BOMB

Morrison’s department store is crowded with Christmas shoppers.

Alexis and I are not Christmas shoppers or even Hanukkah shoppers.

We are two teenage girls pretending to be friends.

This is what I think as we make our way through the men’s department. We have come to Morrison’s together dozens of times; since we turned eleven our parents have let us ride the bus alone. We look like we are still those friends. Alexis’s mom, Ginny, used to tell us that when you are feeling sad, you smile until your inside catches up with your outside. So maybe if we act like friends, we’ll be friends again.

But later, in the dressing room, I realize we are way beyond that. I snap shut these jeans I really like and Alexis says, “Those are too small for you. Unless you’re going for the ‘fat slut’ look. Which—I guess …”

She gives me a withering look, a look I have only seen on her face once or twice, directed at her mother. When she was hating her.

We have gone into a different zone.

The zone of destruction. But why?

I want to say, Yeah, that’s exactly the look I’m going for, how’d you know?

I should say this in as sarcastic a tone as I can manage. But I’d cry if I opened my mouth. I have an awful feeling this is just the beginning of her attack.

I take off the jeans and throw them onto the floor. I am too tired. Tired of betrayal. Tired of idols crashing to the ground. Tired of disappointment. Tired of myself.

I can’t believe I did that last night. What is the matter with me?

I forced myself to look at Jake’s texts before I got out of bed this morning.

The first one said,

I’ll be right there. Can’t wait to see you
.

The second one:

I’m here. Where ARE you?

Good question. I am here! I could have said. If only …

There was a third text from Jake:

I’m leaving
.

How am I ever going to explain to him why I did what I did?

“By the way,” Alexis says as we leave the dressing room to look for the same jeans in the next size up, “those weren’t pot brownies. Those guys kept the pot ones all to themselves.”

Wait a minute. What?

I did that with Adam and I wasn’t even stoned? I felt stoned. Sort of. But not really. Not actually stoned, now that I think about it. I am an even worse person than I thought. Oh, Jake.

“Here they are, in a bigger size,” Alexis says loudly, cheerfully, and drags me back into the dressing room.

I unzip my pants, think of Adam unzipping my pants last night, how we almost—

“Oh, and too bad you left early last night,” Alexis says.

I don’t answer. I put on the new jeans, zip them up easily. Turn, look at myself sideways in the mirror. Not bad.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

I shake my head. I don’t. I really don’t.

Nah. These jeans are too big. I take them off. I’m going to buy the other ones. I grab them and leave the dressing room. Maybe they’re too tight. But I don’t care. What the hell. My hand shakes as I pay for them, Alexis hovering nearby. Why doesn’t she just leave?

As we are riding the escalator down to the first floor, she turns to me.

“Oh. Yeah, so,” she says, yawning, “I hung out with Jake after you left the party. Told him you slept with Adam.”

“You told Jake that? Why would you tell him that? Why would you do that to me?”

Alexis shakes her head. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Well it’s not the truth, anyway, Alexis! I did not sleep with Adam!” I hiss.

“Yeah, not much
sleeping
going on,” she says.

“I did
not
,” I say again. But what’s the use? I can never prove it.

But why would she tell him?

We get off that escalator, walk around to the next one.

“Oh, and, Raebee—” She looks at me, makes sure I’m looking at her. “Your Jake is a really good kisser. I wouldn’t have thought so, but he
is
.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, my heart sinking into the floor.

“We hooked up.”

“No way!” I shout at her. She’s lying!

“What, you think I’m such a dog he wouldn’t want to fool around with me? That you’re so much better—?”

“NO! He likes
me
! Why would he do that with you?” Even as I say it, I hear the irony. “Why would
he
do that?” People passing us on the up escalator look at me and then look away.

She shrugs. “Um, gee, I don’t know, Ms. Perfect. What do
you
think?”

“No way! There is no way Jake would have done
that
with you.”

“Oh, way,” she says to me in her best sexy voice. “How could he resist me?”

“And you, Alexis, how could you … do that?” To me.

She looks past me, shrugs. “Me? Bored.” Then she looks straight into my eyes. “He’s got such a great back, doesn’t he? So strong, so hard …”

She gets off the escalator before me. I have to hold on really tight so I don’t fall off. Alexis turns around and gives me a look that says, I
wanted
to hurt you, and I’m glad I did. But what her mouth says is “Let’s look at jewelry,” as if nothing just happened.

I follow her.

I follow her because I want

to

kill

her.

I have never hated anybody so much in my whole life. I don’t think I’ve ever actually hated anyone before. Not even His Holiness.

She goes to a jewelry counter, and while she’s diddling with this and that, I force myself to stare at her. Alexis. My best friend. The only best friend I’ve ever had.

She seduced Jake. She told him I slept with Adam. As if what I did wasn’t bad enough, she made it so much worse. I was going to talk to Jake, explain, and now …

She slept with him? He slept with her?

Rage courses through me, venom in my veins.

The saleslady, a tight-lipped, tight-assed, tinted-haired old lady—
MRS. ELLIOT, YOUR MORRISON’S FRIEND
, it says on her nametag—is fiddling with her keys to find the right one to open up the locked case so Alexis can look at an expensive watch (as if she is really going to buy a Movado).

Jake’s beautiful back. Alexis’s hands on it. Jake kissing her. Alexis kissing Jake. How the hell is this possible?

I pick up a silver bracelet and two pairs of silver and turquoise earrings that match. I hold them in my hand. Feel the smoothness of the silver; admire the blue of the turquoise.

“You serious about this?” Mrs. Elliot asks Alexis. I can tell she does not trust teenage girls. You got that right, lady.

“Yesss,” Alexis says.

“I have a lot of real customers,” Mrs. Elliot says. “Christmas shoppers.” She points around with her head.

“My money is good,” Alexis says loudly.
Bitch
is implied, but she holds back.

“You’d better not be wasting my time.”

“Just open the case,” Alexis says.

And as the saleslady puts the key in the lock, I very slowly and carefully, hiding what I’m doing with my body, drop the bracelet and both pairs of earrings into Alexis’s open bag.

I feel better immediately. I go to the perfume counter and buy a bottle of Charlie for Grandma.

As I pay, I keep my eye on Alexis and the saleslady.

The bomb is ticking.

Alexis doesn’t buy anything, of course. By the time we leave, Mrs. Elliot is seething. She lost at least five customers while Alexis was pretending to be serious. And Alexis has jewelry in her bag she hasn’t paid for. I pray to the God of Revenge that she gets caught. I pray with the most impressive
kavanah
I have ever had.

“Let’s go,” Alexis says, still as if nothing is wrong. And I obediently follow her.

As if nothing is wrong.

We’re making our way through men’s shirts and suits, toward men’s underwear and socks by the door, past men’s cologne, when I hear Mrs. Elliot shriek, “That little thief!”

There it is.

Alexis keeps walking. So do I. But
I’m
not at all surprised when, the minute we walk out of Morrison’s, a man in a suit, with an obvious earpiece, comes up next to us.

He grabs Alexis’s arm and says, gruffly but quietly, “You will have to come with me.”

“What, what?” Alexis says, pulling away from him. “I didn’t do anything! I didn’t. I swear. Not this time!”

A woman in a security guard’s uniform comes up to me. My
heart is pounding wildly. I try to look shocked. Also upset. Shocked is hard. Upset, not hard at all. “What?” I manage to say.

The woman takes a look in my bag, sees my jeans with the receipt and Grandma’s perfume with that receipt. I am shaking all over, but I guess that seems normal even if you are innocent, because Security Guard Lady says, “You can go. But we’ll be watching you next time. We have your picture on surveillance now.”

“OK,” I say. And then, because I can’t help it, “What about Alexis? What are you going to do to my”—uh—“friend?”

The woman raises one eyebrow at me, looks as if she’s about to talk, but then doesn’t say a thing. Instead she turns away and takes Alexis by the other arm.

The two of them lead her away, Alexis saying over and over, “I didn’t take anything, I swear I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t take anything.”

I turn my back and slowly walk down the street.

CHAPTER 22

TABLE FOR ONE

I do not run. Somehow I know not to run. Maybe they’re watching. If I ran, they’d realize I am not the innocent girl I pretended to be.

Will I get away with it? Do I want to get away with it? Was it
just
revenge?

I hate her. Of course I want to get away with it.

I don’t run. But I also don’t look where I’m going and I bump into something—uh-oh, someone.

Oops—I’ve run right into a big lady, a Pennsylvania Dutchie in a puffy lavender jacket and a pink scarf, probably in from Lititz or Carlisle, to buy things she can’t find in her small town. Why don’t these people go to a real place, like Philly or New York?

Her big shopping bag starts to tip, and soon everything is going to fall out—but I grab it and I stop that forward motion; I stop the mess that is about to happen.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Really, I didn’t mean to—”

I’m sure she is going to yell at me for being careless, but instead she says, “It’s no big deal.”

I look up at her. “Really, I’m sorry.”

“It’s
really
OK. Hey,
you
OK, honey? You look like you seen a ghost!”

I have, lady, I have. I look into her nice, open face. Her arbitrary kindness makes me well up, and I want to confess all.

“I’m fine,” I mumble, and walk on.

Within steps I have an ache in my heart, and I wonder if years from now I’ll think I should have crawled into her plump lavender arms right then and there and let her make everything all right.

I can’t believe I did that to Alexis.

No. I can’t believe she did that to me.

What is happening to her right now? Are they calling the cops? Are they handcuffing her to a table? She deserves this. I swear she does.

But.

No.

No buts.

I could go back to Morrison’s, make it right, but I don’t. I keep walking.

I go to the Red Eagle Diner.

Shopping makes me hungry.

(So, apparently, does shoplifting.)

(Also, betraying my former best friend.)

(Also, finding out my former best friend betrayed me with my—boyfriend. Jake, how could you? Oh.)

I think of what
I
did last night and I start to lose my appetite. And yet … the smell of frying fat and salt lures me in.

I stand in line behind a mom and two little boys. After the hostess seats them, she comes back to me and asks, “How many?”

I say “two,” because I am too embarrassed to say “one.” I never eat alone. Especially after committing a heinous crime.

“You have a preference? We’re not that crowded yet. Everyone’s still shopping.” Or being put in handcuffs.

“Could I—I mean we?—sit over there?” I gesture toward the window.

“Sure,” she says, and leads me there. She puts me in a corner near the front, where I sit with my back to the restaurant, facing the window.

When she leaves, I have a fantasy. They let Alexis go, she comes to find me, and we laugh about this stupid joke I played on her. And the stupid joke she played on me.

Here’s another fantasy: none of this really happened. Not what I did with Adam, what Jake did with Alexis, what I did to her. I didn’t really shoplift and plant it in Alexis’s bag. I only
think
I did it—like in a dream where you find yourself naked and you keep saying, I’m not really naked; I didn’t just take my clothes off in the middle of the hall at school, did I? Oh, please, God, no! And then you
will
the bad dream to end and it does and you wake up and you are so relieved.

I pinch myself. I’m quite awake.

I see the waitress walking over, and I take out my phone and pretend to be on a call. She is about twenty, sweet-looking. No nose rings, no tattoos. The name badge on her pink waitress top tells me her name is Luanne.