Sticky Fingers (29 page)

For one thing, the place had as many security systems in place as the airport. I had to pass through a metal detector manned by a mouth-breather who packed a Taser, a nightstick, and breath so bad he could have killed a terrorist with it.

Eventually, I made my way to the school’s administrative office, where a former friend of mine was typing at warp speed on a computer. An open bag of M&M’s sat beside her coffee cup. She saw me and waddled over to the counter to chat. Sometime during the last decade, she’d added about a hundred pounds to the body she’d so easily squeezed through a locker room window to steal Girl Scout cookies from a coach’s desk drawer.

“Roxy Abruzzo,” Megan Schnorr said with a smile, planting both dimpled elbows on the counter. “What brings you here? Back to finish your detention at last?”

“Very funny, Megan. Seems to me we spent a few hours in detention together. No, I’m just making sure my daughter made it to school today.”

Megan made no effort to deny her own high school hijinks. “Sage? Just so happens I saw her in the hallway this morning. I noticed because she looked upset.”

“How upset?”

“Not crying, which is all part of an ordinary day around here. But she had a group of girlfriends around her, and they were all chattering like a flock of birds. My radar told me something was up, but not big enough for me to interfere. Want me to check to see if she’s in class like she’s supposed to be?”

I hesitated.

Megan must have seen something in my face, because her smile broadened. “It’s a stupid mother who trusts any teenager these days, Roxy. Why don’t I rustle up Sage, and you can see for yourself?”

I caved in. “Okay, thanks.”

“No problem. Wait here. School security rules.”

I hung around, keeping an eye on the school principal’s closed office door while Megan went looking for my daughter. I’d spent a lot of hours in that same office, sitting on the same wooden bench, waiting for the principal to come out and decree my latest punishment. In fact, I’d had time to carve my name into the bench. But somebody had sanded down the wood and refinished it. Either that, or so many girls had carved the bench that it had finally collapsed into a pile of toothpicks, and now a new one stood in its place.

At last, Sage showed up in her school uniform, carrying her backpack. She looked surprised to see me, but didn’t exactly throw herself into my waiting arms. “Mom! What are you doing here?”

“C’mon.” I pulled out the keys. “Let’s got for a ride.”

Sage held back. “I have class. An English quiz next period. It’s Emily Dickinson.”

“I bet you know enough about Emily Dickinson already. Let’s go. Megan, we’re going to go look at colleges this afternoon. That okay with you?”

Megan’s phone was ringing, so she waved us off and went to answer it.

I put my arm around my daughter’s shoulders and pulled her out to the parking lot.

Outside, Sage stopped dead on the sidewalk and gaped at the Escalade. In the passenger seat, Rooney sat looking green and smiley with his tongue hanging out. He spotted Sage and barked, happy to see her.

Sage saw the
SQUISHY
plate and cried, “That’s Brian’s truck! Where did you find it? He’s going to be so—oh, God, Mom, you didn’t steal it, did you?”

“No,” I said. “But if I see you skipping school with him again, I might. Get in. We’ll take a ride.”

I shoved Rooney into the backseat and used a scrap of McDonald’s napkin to swipe up the worst of the mess his bone left on the passenger seat.

Sage started talking even before she slammed the door. Her words tumbled out in a rush. “Brian came over this morning, Mom, but I didn’t invite him. He just showed up. I swear we didn’t do anything.”

“Why the hell did he come over then? To check on you? What is he, your stalker?”

“We had a discussion about that,” Sage said firmly. “I laid it on the line. He has to trust me, or we’re done. We had a big fight, but he saw it my way, honest. He was going to drive me to school, but when we went outside, the truck was gone! He was so upset. He called the police and everything, but I had to go to school and— Where did you get this? Did you find it? Did the police bring it to the house?”

“None of the above.” I turned the key in the ignition. “Fasten your seatbelt. What else do I need to know about Brian?”

“I should have introduced you. I know that, and I’m sorry. Loretta told me weeks ago I should make sure you met him. He’s really nice and— Okay, okay, I was wrong not to make sure you got a look at him. But Mom, you’re so— You’re very scary sometimes. Especially to my friends who are guys. You intimidate them.”

“Zack isn’t intimidated.”

“Zack.” Sage sighed. She snapped her seatbelt into place and sank back against the seat as if the weight of the world suddenly landed on top of her.

“Yeah, Zack. What are you doing, stringing him along while you date Mr. Squishy, too?”

“I’m not dating Mr. Squi—Brian.” She looked at me sideways to see if I bought that fib. “Not exactly. I’m not sleeping with him either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I put the truck into gear and concentrated on driving. It was easier not to look at her when I asked the next question. “Are you sleeping with Zack?”

“Not anymore. Honest, I’m not. I don’t want to get pregnant, Mom. I really don’t. I learned from my mistake.”

“Well, that’s progress.”

“Look, I know Brian’s a little nuts with the calling. He says it’s because he cares abut me, but it’s—”

“It’s a way of controlling you.”

“He can’t control me, Mom. I’m an Abruzzo, for crying out loud!”

“I can’t help being worried.”

“Do you think I haven’t noticed all the abused women you bring around? I’m not dumb, Mom. I can see how they got into bad situations. I know how to say no, and I know how to kick Brian’s butt if he keeps up the annoying phone calls. I’m your daughter!”

“Are you serious about him?”

“Serious?” she asked on another sigh. “I don’t know. He’s—he’s not Zack.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s not a yinzer, y’know?”

I knew, all right. A yinzer is a born and bred Pittsburgher with blue-collar values, maybe a few bad habits, and certainly a way of talking that sounds uneducated. A yinzer uses the word “yinz”—a word that might be “y’all” in the South—the plural of “you” with a Burgh accent. A yinzer drinks beer, rarely reads a newspaper, and throws his sofa into the back of his pickup once a year and drives it down to sit outside the hockey arena because he can’t afford a ticket to the game. But he wants to be where the action is.

Yeah, Zack was a yinzer in the making.

I drove, not caring where we went. What mattered was inside the truck.

“I just can’t see myself spending my life with Zack,” Sage said. “Mom, the last book he read was a biography of some football player. And that was back in high school for a book report.”

“Okay, so he’s not exactly sophisticated. Brian is?”

“No,” Sage said, sounding miserable. “He isn’t. But at least he can buy me lunch. Take me to a movie. Zack just wants to stay home and watch TV while we…”

Her voice trailed off, so I said, “I know what he wants. Look, why are you bothering with these two losers, anyway? You’ve got your own life to live.”

“Yes, but…”

“But what?”

“The Christmas dance is coming up. It’s just nice to have a real date, you know?”

“So? Ask somebody else. Ask anyone. Nobody’s going to turn you down. I’m thinking ahead, Sage. What about college?”

Miserably, she said, “I don’t know.”

“You haven’t filled out your applications, have you?”

She stole another look at me. “Not exactly.”

“Not at all. How come? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“I don’t— Okay, it’s just too much right now.”

“Right now is when they have to get done,” I insisted. “You can’t put them off any longer or you’ll end up at the community college.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s where Zack went, for one thing. You want to be a yinzer, too?”

“God, no,” she said with a shudder.

“Then you need to get those applications done. You can’t let Brian talk you out of going to college.”

“Where’d you get that idea? Mom,” she said, then stopped.

“What?” I demanded. “What’s the problem? Brian?”

Sage took a deep breath. “The problem is you can’t afford to send me to college.”

I hit the brakes and pulled over to the curb. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You can’t pay for college. It’s incredibly expensive, and you don’t have the tuition money.”

I turned sideways in the seat to face her. “Don’t worry about where the dough comes from. That’s my job—mine and Flynn’s. He said he’d help. And Loretta. There’s always Loretta.”

Sage was teary. “You won’t take money from Aunt Loretta. She says you never have, never will.”

I hadn’t. Borrowing anything from Loretta always felt like cheating. Like I couldn’t manage on my own. And now I didn’t know how I felt about Loretta at all. Turns out, she’d changed the course of my life by sending Flynn off to the Marine Corps. Life could have been a lot different for all of us if she had minded her own business back then.

But here was Sage, sounding both panicky and resigned to a dismal fate.

I said, “Maybe I’ve been stubborn about Loretta helping. But college is different, Sage. We’re going to get you there, no matter what it takes. If that means borrowing from Loretta, that’s what we’ll do.”

She didn’t speak.

“I mean it,” I insisted. “Let us worry about the money. All you have to do is the paperwork. Flynn and I will figure out the financial stuff.”

She peeked at me. “You talk to him about this? About me?”

“Of course I do.”

“You—I mean, the two of you really talked?”

“We talk a lot. What—you think all we do is yell at each other?”

“I don’t know. You don’t yell exactly. It’s weird. Sometimes you act like total strangers, and then suddenly there’s this look in your eyes, and I’m invisible.”

“You’re never invisible. Flynn and I go way back, that’s all. There’s history. Some good, some bad, but it’s us, you know? Right now, your future is the most important thing to both of us.”

“Do you love him?”

I grabbed the steering wheel and looked out the windshield.

“See?” Sage said. “That’s weird, what you just did.”

“It’s not weird,” I insisted.

“Then answer the question.”

“I love you,” I said. “That’s what counts. Family is the important thing.”

“Flynn is family. My family.”

“Yes, he is,” I said, trying to sound like an adult. “And he loves you like crazy. But me? And him? It’s difficult. For one thing, he’s with Marla now.”

“Marla.” Sage’s singsong had some ridicule in it.

I looked at my kid. “What’s wrong with Marla?”

“She’s a yinzer,” Sage said, and I laughed.

“So am I,” I told her.

“No, you’re not. Not exactly. But Marla pretends not to be. She wants to be a fashion model or something, and she’s just—okay, she’s dumb, I guess.”

“She needs help, that’s all. Or Flynn wouldn’t be with her.”

“Really?” Sage sounded curious. “He’s like that? Like you?”

“What?”

“You’re always helping people. If Sister Bob wasn’t living in Loretta’s house, you’d have some girl with a black eye staying in that room. Flynn does the same thing?”

“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly tired. And hungry. Disoriented, too. I couldn’t figure out my relationship with Flynn right now. It was all too damn complicated. “Let’s get some lunch, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom.” Sage lunged across the seat and gave me a hug. “Most of the time I don’t expect you to act like a real mother, but sometimes you remind me that you really are.”

“I hope that’s a compliment.” I messed up her hair. “Where do you want to eat?”

At her request, we drove through a Wendy’s and ate sandwiches in the truck in the parking lot.

Once, I saw a cop car cruise by, and I realized I needed to make a decision about Brian’s Escalade. At the very least, I needed to find a new license plate.

At that moment, my phone rang, and I checked the ID.

“Who is it?” Sage popped a French fry.

Carmine. Sage didn’t know much about Carmine. She probably saw him as the friendly old guy who waved at her in church and brought over Easter candy and Christmas mints.

I said, “Nobody important right now.”

Sage’s cell phone gave a chirp, and she checked its screen. “Text message,” she reported. “From Brian. He’s at the police station, reporting his stolen vehicle. Uh, what should I tell him, Mom?”

“Nothing yet. I have to decide some things first.”

“Did you steal this car?” she asked, flat out. “Tell me the truth this time.”

“No. But I’m in possession, and that’s all the cops are going to care about. So don’t answer, all right? Let me think about the best way to handle this.”

“Who did steal it?”

“Sage—”

“Oh my God!” The realization hit her. “It was Zack, wasn’t it?”

Rather than looking angry, Sage suddenly had pink spots on her cheeks and a glow in her eyes.

My phone rang again. It was Zack this time. I decided to pick up.

He said, “You need to get back here. These kids are driving me crazy.”

“Remember that feeling next time you don’t have a condom. Be there in ten minutes.”

I closed the phone to find Sage’s gaze on me again. Full of affection, she said, “Thanks, Mom.”

“For what?”

“Being cool, I guess.” She grinned. “I need to go to the bathroom. Then you better take me back to school, okay?”

“Okay.”

She grabbed her backpack and bailed out of the Escalade. I sat there for a while feeling pleased with myself. Turns out, I could be a mom after all.

That feeling didn’t last long. The next phone call was from Bug Duffy.

He said, “Where are you?”

I told him, and he said, “Stay there. I’m coming.”

I decided it would be smart not to be found sitting in a stolen car by a police officer, so I got out of the Escalade, left it unlocked, and carried my Coke over to a bench under a tree. A bus stop stood a few yards away, but it was obvious that a lot of public-transportation patrons had eaten their fast-food meals on the bench while waiting for their rides. Greasy bags and wrappers were mashed into the ground around the bench.