The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen

by Catherine Lloyd Burns

  Cricket was ecstatic. They weren’t getting locked up. She took out the huge chocolate-chip cookie Bryant had bought and put it on a napkin for Dodo.

  “What kind of situation?” Dodo asked, holding her cookie.

  “A misunderstanding. We had a misunderstanding with someone at Barneys. But it’s all worked out.”

  “That’s exactly right, there was a misunderstanding, Mrs. Fabricant. But you don’t need to worry about anything. Your granddaughter’s got the whole thing under control and I bet Officer Bryant will be back soon. He’s taken quite a shine to you. I’m going in the back to get those cards.”

  “Thank you,” Cricket said. She wanted to hug him. He left through the little gate. He walked down the hall, past the room where the other officers had locked up the man. So far she and Dodo had been lucky. They hadn’t even been handcuffed. They’d been fed. The officers were treating them like they were good people who had gotten themselves into a mix-up.

  “This is some adventure, Cricket,” Dodo said.

  “You can say that again,” said Cricket.

  28

  THE WAITING GAME

  Officer Coolidge brought out a deck of cards and a stool, which he set up for Cricket and Dodo in the waiting area like a card table. He also brought over a notebook and a pen in case they wanted to keep score.

  “Don’t cheat,” he said, smiling, “or we’ll have to bust you.”

  Cricket shuffled and dealt the cards. The sound of the cards fluttering past one another was very comforting. Cricket arranged her hand the way Dodo had taught her. All the cards of the same suit went next to one another first. She put all her spades together, and then all her hearts. She had two clubs and a pair of diamond face cards. Lastly, she arranged her cards in order of their value.

  Dodo picked up her cards.

  “Do you want to go first?” Cricket asked.

  “What?”

  “Do you want to go first?”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to go first,” Dodo said. She put her cards down and wiped her eyes. She was crying. Cricket put her cards down and put her arms around her grandmother.

  She took Dodo’s hand. It was old and oddly soft, covered with giraffe spots from the sun. Dodo’s fingers were thick and twisty and gnarled like tree roots.

  Cricket caught the sergeant looking at her. She couldn’t read his expression, but he made her nervous. People in charge usually did.

  She looked around in Dodo’s purse and found some hand lotion. She squeezed some out and rubbed it into Dodo’s hands. Dodo used to do that for her. They’d set up a spa in the bathroom and do each other’s nails and give each other hand massages.

  Dodo willingly turned one hand over and Cricket pressed on her grandmother’s palm with her thumbs. She worked her way out from the middle of Dodo’s hand to the ends of her fingers. Dodo closed her eyes.

  “Oh, Cricket, I wanted to go first. How did I end up here instead?”

  Cricket wasn’t sure how to answer. Did Dodo mean how did she end up in the Nineteenth Precinct, or in New York City, or old?

  “Life, I guess,” Cricket said. That seemed like the right answer.

  “Yes, life. I can’t keep it all organized. It’s too long. Will Bunny be mad at me?”

  “No,” Cricket said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Yes, I did. I got old. I am a burden.”

  “Dodo. You’re a person. You are not a burden. Everyone gets old. They have to.”

  “I wanted to be different. I wanted to be the exception,” Dodo said, smiling.

  She looked wise again. Like she had a complete grip on her predicament.

  Cricket imagined that the inside of Dodo’s mind would be dented and scarred. Marks left from the people and the things she missed; imprints, created by loss. Dodo had lost her husband. She had lost her youth. Now she was losing her independence.

  Two new officers walked in the front door leading another handcuffed man. They walked right by Dodo and Cricket. Cricket squeezed Dodo’s hand.

  The cuffs were scary.

  Officer Bryant reappeared. Cricket was very glad to see him.

  “How are we doing? Everything okay? My boys treating you well?”

  Dodo perked up at the sight of her gentleman friend. So did Cricket.

  “We just saw another criminal,” Cricket whispered.

  “Well. Not everyone we bring in here is as classy as you ladies.”

  “What will happen to that young man?” Dodo asked.

  Bryant looked over at the prisoner behind the gate, who was being fingerprinted, and shook his head. “I don’t know, he’s not my collar. But I’m sure he’ll get what he deserves. I see my partner brought you the good cards. Did he tell you we reached your daughter, Mrs. Fabricant? She’s on her way.”

  “Yes, he did,” Dodo said. She dug in her purse and put on some lipstick.

  “All right then, I’m gonna go back to my desk and if I don’t get called out, I’ll be here when she arrives. I’d like to meet her, to tell you the truth.”

  He left and Dodo fussed with her hair and fixed the collar of her coat. The boring golf program continued on the TV. Cricket remembered the shawl from Barneys and wondered what had happened to it. Barneys must have kept it. She was about to ask Dodo where it was when Bunny burst through the front door. Cricket wanted to yell after Officer Bryant, “My mother, my mother is here. Please come back!”

  29

  BUNNY’S BIG MOMENT

  Bunny flew into the precinct repeating “Oh my God” over and over so many times Cricket wondered if she’d ever hear her mother say anything else. Finally she asked what had happened and if they were all right. She hugged Cricket so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Cricket gasped. He was the lawyer, after all.

  “He’s parking the car. What happened? Where is your phone? I tried to reach you all morning. Cricket, you’ve got to answer your phone!”

  In all the excitement of nearly being sent up the river, being part of an international spy ring, going in a police car, and watching criminals be booked and processed, Cricket had forgotten that this part was coming. The Bunny part. The part where she got in trouble for not having a charged cell phone and not doing as instructed. She found herself thanking some invisible force above when the sergeant called out from his island.

  “Mrs. Fabricant?” he said.

  Dodo, Cricket, and Bunny looked over. Then up. Cricket pushed her mother toward the sergeant. She had to answer him, it was the law.

  “Do you mean Mrs. Cohen, officer, or Mrs. Fabricant?” Bunny asked. “I’m Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Fabricant is my mother.”

  “I apologize,” the sergeant said. “Mrs. Cohen. Mrs. Fabricant, you’re good. Mrs. Cohen, why don’t you step up over here, please?”

  Now that Bunny was here, she’d have to do the talking. Dodo and Cricket could relax, finally. Maybe they’d get back to their card game. They had half a cookie left, too.

  “How was your drive in, Mrs. Cohen?” Cricket heard the sergeant ask her. She knew that Bunny hated this kind of small talk when she was tense.

  “Fine,” Bunny answered. “No, it wasn’t. Discovering that my mother and my daughter were being held up in a police precinct was very stressful. Luckily we were already halfway to the city when we got the call. I don’t understand why they were brought here. Shoplifting, the officer said on the phone?”

  “You’re upset.”

  “Yes, I am! I’m very upset.”

  “I hear that. Let me talk you through the day’s events, Mrs. Cohen. This hasn’t happened before?”

  “No!” Bunny said incredulously. “My mother is a lot of things, but she has the money to buy whatever she wants, why would she be shoplifting? She isn’t a shoplifter. Where are the arresting officers? I demand to speak to the people who are responsible for this.”

  When Bunny didn’t like what someone was telling her, she accused them of patronizing her. So did Dodo, come to thin
k of it.

  “Mrs. Cohen, let’s have the officers in question come up here and walk you through what happened. We’re going to work this out. We’re here to help, I promise.” He picked up his phone and called for Coolidge and Bryant.

  Cricket felt bad for her father. He was probably driving around in circles and feeling really tense about how the minute he walked in he was going to get an earful from Bunny about how long it had taken him to find a parking space.

  The gate opened and Officers Bryant and Coolidge entered the waiting area. Dodo was focusing on her cards. She discarded a jack of hearts. Cricket picked up her grandmother’s discard and went through the motions of her card game, but truthfully she wasn’t paying much attention. She’d gladly lose every hand if it meant she could continue to eavesdrop on what Bunny and her new friends the police were saying.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cohen?” Bryant said, extending his hand and introducing himself. Cricket saw Bunny take notice of his mustache immediately. She hated mustaches, too. “I’m Officer Bryant, and this is my partner, Officer Coolidge.”

  They all shook hands. Since Coolidge was taller and the more polished of the two, Cricket was sure her mother preferred him.

  “Hello,” Bunny said. She looked over at Cricket, who quickly went back to her card game and discarded a two of clubs.

  “How was your drive?” Officer Coolidge asked.

  “It’s a beautiful day for driving,” Officer Bryant said.

  Cricket knew there were only so many times Bunny could answer the asinine question about her drive into town before she blew her top. “Can you please explain to me why my mother and my daughter were brought here?” Bunny said.

  Officer Coolidge took the blue pad out of his back pants pocket. He flipped through his notes—Cricket was surprised how many pages—until he got to the beginning.

  “At 12:43 p.m.,” he said, “your mother, Mrs. Fabricant, was apprehended by security at Barneys. She was wearing a shawl not yet paid for.”

  “Apprehended? My goodness.”

  “She was wearing merchandise she hadn’t paid for.”

  “Maybe she was going to pay for it,” Bunny said, looking over at Dodo.

  Dodo kept her eyes on her cards.

  “According to the security footage, she had been wearing the shawl for over an hour and had eaten lunch in the restaurant with the shawl.”

  “But she hadn’t left the store,” Bunny said.

  “Correct. That is true. But each store is responsible for setting its own policy, and Barneys’s store policy is that once unpaid merchandise is removed from its original department, the store has the authority to detain the person who removed it. This was the case with your mother.”

  “So,” Bunny said, trying to follow, “my mother took this shawl from the main floor to the ninth floor? Why would she do that? She loves shopping. She has a Barneys charge card. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Coolidge looked through his notes.

  “If she was shoplifting she would have hidden the shawl, wouldn’t she? Isn’t that what shoplifters do?” Bunny looked around, wondering where on earth her husband was.

  “I understand it’s hard to wrap your head around this,” Officer Coolidge said. “Your mother was very insistent that the shawl was hers. This was when we were called in.”

  Now Richard, clearly agitated, walked in the door of the precinct. He hugged Cricket and kissed Dodo. Cricket wondered if he lingered there to avoid the wrath that was about to be unleashed by Bunny.

  “Oh my God. Richard!” Bunny said. They embraced like they had been separated by a world war and at least five life-changing misunderstandings. They reminded Cricket of characters from one of Dodo’s movies.

  Richard addressed the officers. “I’m Richard Cohen,” he said.

  He was still squeezing Bunny tightly. As a lawyer, Richard had had some dealings with the police. He’d once represented a friend who’d gotten into some trouble. He said the most important thing was not letting things escalate. Cricket didn’t trust her mother not to let things escalate. Bunny usually fired first and thought later. She was a loose cannon.

  Officer Bryant and Officer Coolidge introduced themselves to Richard.

  “I was just going over the events of this morning with your wife,” Coolidge said.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” Richard said.

  “Well, as I was just explaining to your wife, your mother-in-law was confused at Barneys.”

  “Confused?” Richard asked. “Now I’m confused. I’m sorry to interrupt. But was shoplifting involved or not?”

  “Good question. As I was explaining, Mrs. Fabricant took a shawl from a display on the main floor to the ninth floor. She wore this item to lunch and to the bathroom. She did not pay for it. She was apprehended by security and asked to produce a receipt. She said that she had no receipt because she had bought the shawl in Italy many years ago.”

  “Were charges brought?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, were there charges brought?” Bunny asked, beaming. She smiled at Richard like he was the most intelligent man on earth.

  “No. The store chose not to press charges.”

  “Then why are they here? Why were my mother-in-law and daughter brought here? If there aren’t any charges, why were they arrested?”

  “They haven’t been arrested,” Officer Bryant said. “They’ve been kept here until we could find a responsible party to whom we could release them. Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, coming to terms with the confusion of a loved one can be very upsetting. It’s a lot to process.”

  “Gin,” Dodo said to Cricket. She turned one card facedown on the stool and displayed her winning hand. Three queens, four fours, and a five, six, and seven of spades.

  Cricket collected the cards and put them in a pile to shuffle. She’d probably lose the next hand, too. She was too busy eavesdropping on Coolidge’s account of the events. He spoke in a very level tone.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Bryant said.

  “You want to take a break before we continue? Can I bring you something cold to drink?” Officer Coolidge asked.

  “I don’t need to take a break,” Bunny said. “I don’t want something cold to drink.”

  Richard placed his hand on Bunny’s shoulder, but she shrugged him off. If only she knew how hostile she sounded when she was this upset. Richard knew it was best to tread lightly.

  Cricket dealt a new hand while the sergeant leaned over the bull pen and suggested they all have a seat by the window. The four of them relocated to a bench in front of the window, a few feet away from Cricket and Dodo.

  Maybe because she was now visible from the street, Bunny pulled herself together almost immediately.

  “How we doing? It’s a lot to process. I know. My mother has Alzheimer’s,” Officer Bryant said.

  “Alzheimer’s! What does that have to do with anything?” Bunny snapped.

  Everyone seemed a little surprised by her outburst. Even she looked a little surprised. She never lost control in public.

  “But I’m sorry about your mother,” Bunny added, as if she could recolor the shade of her earlier aggression.

  Dodo was either not paying attention to their conversation or pretending not to. Cricket would put money on the latter. People were talking about her as if she weren’t there or wouldn’t understand. It was awkward. It actually was patronizing and by listening, Cricket felt like she was betraying Dodo a little. Everyone was talking about Dodo a few feet away from Dodo, saying things she didn’t think Dodo would like to hear.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cohen,” said Officer Bryant. He was graciously going to let Bunny’s rudeness go. “It’s a hard thing to accept, believe me. I fought it for a long time. My mother had it for about ten years before we really knew. But once me and my brothers did get the diagnosis, I have to say, life got a little easier. You know, the person does weird things and you kind of write it off as part of their personality or whatever. But wh
en you realize later that they couldn’t actually help it, well, you feel bad.”

  Dodo put her cards down and looked around in her purse. She found her mirror and started fussing with her hair again. It was like she was about to lose something fundamental and she was surrendering. But her appearance wasn’t something she’d let anyone take away. She focused on that. She reminded Cricket of herself. How often things seemed unfair to her. Like she had fewer rights because she was a child.

  “Has this happened before, in another store?” Officer Bryant asked.

  “No!” Bunny said.

  Richard put both arms around his wife and everyone else took a collective breath. The officers had pushed things further than Bunny’s emotional legs could carry her. Cricket had never seen her mother look so upset about something—about something that Cricket actually understood. Usually her mother was furious about things that didn’t make any sense, like mud on the bottom of your shoes tracked into the house or rings on the table because you didn’t use a coaster. But hearing that your mother might have a serious illness, well, it made sense that that was upsetting. Cricket felt bad for her mother. She never felt bad for her mother.

  “Shall we continue? You want to take a break?” Coolidge asked.

  “Bun, you want to keep going?”

  “Yes!” she said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  “Okay. In this case the store did not press charges. They took your mother’s picture. It’s on file and they’ll watch out for her if she comes in again.”

  This part was news to Cricket. She wondered if they’d taken her picture as well.

  “In the meantime,” he continued, “they did exactly what they are supposed to do. They looked out for your daughter. Your daughter was a minor in the care of a somewhat incapacitated senior. In a situation like this, legally, they have two choices: turn your mother over to Adult Protective Services and give your daughter to Child Protective Services or turn them both over to police until a relative can be found.”

  “Protective Services? What for? I don’t understand why they weren’t allowed to go home.”

  The sergeant appeared with two bottles of cold water. Richard gladly took one and opened it for his wife.