by C. J. Skuse
I dropped my bags on the ground, too. “Paisley, that whole thing was shit.”
She turned around, one leg on the top of the fence. “That whole thing was … fu-larious! That M&M did not see you coming.”
“You’re not listening to me. This ends now.”
“What does?”
“This whole effed-up situation. You pulling guns on families. Kids. Old people.”
“Not guns, Beau. A gun,” she panted, straddling the fence and then jumping down to the other side. I scowled at her through the holes. “What’s up with you?” she asked blankly. “You keep doing this brow thing….”
“I’m pissed, Paisley. If you can’t see that …”
“I told you what we were doing. I gave you an out; you didn’t take it. You’re in this up to your neck now.”
“Not this. I didn’t sign up for pointing guns at kids, Paisley.”
“I didn’t point it at the kids.”
“No, you pointed it at their parents.”
“But did you see those kids with their cell phones? We’ll be all over YouTube this time tomorrow!”
“I don’t care, all right? I don’t fucking care.”
I looked away from her. I’d heard a siren in the distance. I looked back. Paisley had barely raised her eyebrows. She turned and started walking across the lot to the motel. Then she stopped. She walked back to the fence. I hadn’t moved.
“What, are you embarrassed because you tripped over an M&M?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then it’s about that girl, isn’t it? The redhead. You’re pissed because you wanted to hook up with her and I wouldn’t let you.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“I think we’ve got to.”
“Paisley …”
“Beau, she was a cooze. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Wha …?” I couldn’t see straight, I was so mad. “I just wanted …” I kicked the stack of boxes again and again until my foot went straight through the side of one.
Her eyebrows arched up. “All better now?”
I pouted. “Leave me alone.”
She hesitated, then came closer to the fence. “No.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was just grabbing at words as they came to me.
“I just … It’s so damn … All you can think about is Dad, Dad, Dad. Finding Dad. Gotta get to Dad. Even if it means we terrorize people. Steal their stuff. I hate it. I hate this.”
“There’s no alternative.”
“Yeah, you made that pretty clear.”
Paisley sighed, scuffing the broken glass and crumbs of concrete at her feet. “Don’t you wanna find him?”
I didn’t answer. I thought about the redhead. “I didn’t sign up for this….”
She scratched her head and laughed. “Why did you come with me, Beau? You thought about that? What was the alternative? Staying in LA as Grandma’s little house elf? Getting beat up by kids at school? Shutting yourself in your room, reading weird French books and writing poetry? Hiding away?”
“Well, you pretty much burned all those bridges for me anyway!”
“You could’ve gone off on your own. I didn’t force you. You willingly came along with me.”
“Yeah, more fool I.”
“Beau …”
“I just wanna be normal, Paisley. I want … a girlfriend. I want to go to a good college. Study. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Just … simplicity.”
“Yeah, well you’re shit outta luck, ’cause you’re my twin and I hate simplicity.”
I backed away from the fence and folded my arms.
Paisley hooked her fingers through the wire diamonds of the fence. “If you had gone over to that redhead, she would’ve ignored you, laughed at you to her friends, and you would’ve walked away feeling like the biggest loser in the world. She was a butter face anyway.”
“A what?”
“You know. Okay body, but her face …”
“Seriously, Paisley …”
She pressed her forehead against the wires. “Maybe General Custard’s will make the news and we won’t have to do any more stings. We can get on that screen and Dad’ll see us and somehow we’ll get to him.”
“How? How are we gonna get to him? All right, so he might see us. What then, huh? What do we do then?”
“He’ll know we love him….”
“SO?” I shouted. I didn’t mean to. It just came out. “He won’t know where we are, and we’ll be on the run. The longer we keep doing this, the more people who’ll be after us. We’ll have to leave. Go on the road. And we’ll never find him.”
“I have to let him know that we still care,” she said, her finger going around and around inside one of the wire holes in the fence.
I thought about Dad’s letter. The one I kept in my back pocket.
Beau, I still think of you as this quiet little boy. You’re probably totally different now. I’d give everything just to see your face. Just to know how school’s going. I remember you were so good at reading, even at five years old, and I wonder if you ever tried out for Little League. You were a great little pitcher! I think you took after me. Your brown eyes and dark hair. It’s the Italian in us Argents, or “Argentos,” as we were known once upon a time. Paisley takes after your mom’s side—blue eyes, blonde. We had the best of both worlds with you two …
“All right, so it’s a shitty plan,” Paisley was saying. “But it’s the only one we’ve got. And when we get on TV, then it’ll be over. We can go out somewhere and celebrate. Whatever you want. Make some friends.”
I couldn’t help smiling. The idea of Paisley making friends was just funny. I tried not looking at her, but it didn’t help.
“What’s so fu-larious?” she said, all offended, pulling back from the fence. A little wishbone-shaped crease appeared between her eyes.
“Nothing,” I said, stacking the boxes again to climb over the fence. It took me a while. I wasn’t as nimble as my sister, and I was struggling. She offered to help me down, but I didn’t let her.
She stood there, one hand resting in the front pocket of her dress. “Still best sister?” she said. We always argued the same way. Like a mini volcano going off and then nothing, nothing but ashes. She never apologized, just always said that. Still best sister?
“I guess,” I said to her, keeping a little distance.
PAISLEY
SEVENTEEN
THE SHOPPES AT MANDALA Y PLACE,
SOUTH END OF THE STRIP,
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Our next week in Vegas was hard and fast. It had to be. If all went according to plan, our black-and-white uniforms would soon have us sticking out like two zebras trying to get into a parrots-only party, so the idea was to do as many holdups as possible, then ditch our outfits. We bought another week at the Lucky Inn and mapped it all out.
And then we just did it.
We hit the Chronic Chocolate Company, Jellies from Heaven, a couple of chichi cupcake places, Cookie Lookin', a churro stand, and another ice cream parlor, all on different blocks jutting off the Strip. We’d do one a day, and when we were done we’d head back to our motel the long way around, through the back alleys, and lay low until the next morning. We steered clear of all the obvious places, like M&M’s World and Krispy Kreme, figuring they’d have super-duper alarm systems and automatic door locks, and only did one store on the whole Strip—Mandie’s Candies in the Mandalay Bay mall.
The joint looked like Candy Land on acid. Fluorescent pink throughout, it had this annoying little squirrel mascot everywhere with speech bubbles coming out of its mouth saying stuff like, Try ’em, you’ll like ‘em! and Don’t forget to brush your teeth! The store was near the back entrance to the complex, and the nearest security guard was stationed at the far end of the neighboring casino, so by the time whoever was on staff had rung the alarm, we’d be long gone. It was an easy raid.
Claire the Candy Girl was pink, too, and sweet-natured, and helpfu
l, and the store was empty, probably because it was eight thirty in the morning.
She got all upset when she saw the Eclipse, so I tried to make her feel at ease, I really did. “My, that fudge smells yummy. Can I get a bag of that, too? Fresh, though. Don’t try to stick me with yesterday’s leftovers.”
She helped us shovel little white bags full of chocolate-covered peanuts, raisins, and raspberries; Jujubes; Lemonheads; Laffy Taffy; Tootsie Rolls; Mike and Ikes; Rainbow Twizzlers; Dum Dum Pops; soft chunks of rum fudge and caramel squares. We got Pixy Stix in cherry, grape, and orange; Swedish Fish; gummy worms, gummy cola bottles, and gummy bears that looked like little rubber jewels; wax lips; Gobstoppers; Pop Rocks; bubble gum. We got fun-size Kit Kats, Snickers, Milky Ways, Butterfingers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Peppermint Patties. Licorice shoelaces in black, green, and yellow. Containers of flavored hot chocolate mix labeled The Best in the West, and for good measure sweet Claire even threw in a couple of T-shirts saying Mandie’s Candies. Pink for me, blue for Beau. Guess what, Beau didn’t want one. I stuffed it down his rock n’ roll tote bag anyway.
“It’s free, Beau, just take it,” I told him.
“Yeah, except it’s not really.”
As Claire was putting all the little white bags into two big white bags, a tear fell from her eye and splash-landed on the counter.
Beau headed for the door.
I leaned in. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I told the girl. “You’re doing great. Would you like a sticker?”
She looked at me, then nodded. I told her to put her hand out, and pasted it down on top. “There,” I said. “Tell Buddy we love him.” She gave me the customary look of confusion, and I followed Beau out of there with the bags.
On our way out the back entrance, we bumped right into this shock-headed rock dude in shades. I dropped one of the candy bags.
“Sorry,” he said, scratching his head behind his ear. I thought I recognized him. I think he was famous. He had on a sleeveless vest, and there was a really cool tattoo of a burning rose on his shoulder. It reminded me of the rose tattoo mom had on her ankle.
He picked up the candy bag I’d dropped and handed it back to me. I didn’t feel like being nice.
“Get a guide dog!” I snapped at him, pushing past. I didn’t even hear Beau apologizing on my behalf like he usually did. I don’t think he said one word.
I felt bad then, and I didn’t know why. I’d been in a pretty good mood while we were robbing the crap out of that candy store. But now I felt all at sea again, and that ain’t easy when you’re in the middle of the desert.
It was the final day of our planned heists. Outside Sin City Bakes, west of the Mandalay resort down Ali Baba Lane, I had another flashback, like the one I had about Dad when I smelled the cologne. This time it was about Mom. The front of the cake shop was full of the most unreal specimens I’d ever seen. A three-layered carrot cake with tiny little frosted carrots dancing in a chorus line all around the edges. Huge chocolate cream cakes with roulette wheels made out of spun sugar on top. Sparkling fruit pies, their lattice crusts cut to form the shapes of diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts. Someone had worked damn hard on making every single one just perfect. And in the back was the wedding cake section. A “Love Me Tender” special with an Elvis statuette on top, standing with a prayer book before a little plastic bride and groom. Another cake, designed like two big red dice, had Take a chance on me! written across the top in swirly icing. Others were made to look like huge poker chips or horseshoes. One like a cowboy hat, another like the MGM gold lion.
The cake I zoomed in on was at the bottom of the window in the corner. It was on sale, I guess because it wasn’t as popular as Elvis: a one-tiered angel-food cake with pink frosting, covered in tiny marzipan strawberries.
It was our sixth birthday, one of the few days I remember our mom being our mom, not just some psycho drunk woman—at least at the start. Mrs. Wong’s kids came over, and so did some other randoms from school. Dad wasn’t there, so Mom was in charge. She managed to make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like we’d asked, and she even baked a cake. We helped her frost it, and put on the letters that spelled our names, and stick a big “6” candle right in the middle.
Me and Beau played in the backyard with our friends, wearing our Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker costumes, and we looked supercute. There was a photograph of us dressed like this somewhere, but I guess all that stuff got left behind at the Jersey house. Mom had tried doing the Leia buns in my hair, but she couldn’t get them to stay put so I just had pigtails instead. We got some really cool presents from our friends. Beau got a microscope, and I got this Barbie hair accessory kit with a mini hair dryer and stuff, and a Moo Box that made everyone laugh when I kept turning it over—the way kids do, taking a good joke and stoning it to death. I ran inside to show Mom.
She was in front of the open drapes in the living room, head back, downing the dregs of a glass. She poured herself another. The banner above the door frame had come down at one end.
“You two opened your presents already?”
I nodded.
She went over to the mantel and put down the glass. “What’d you get?”
“Barbie hair stuff. And this …” I tipped the box upside down and it made the moo noise. Mom didn’t laugh. She just nodded and picked up the glass.
“And Mikey got Beau a detective kit with an invisible ink pen….”
“Go cut the cake now,” she said, looking at me over the top of her glass.
“Dad says we’re not allowed to touch the knife drawer.”
“Dad’s … not … here … is … he?” She said it very slowly.
I hesitated. I shouldn’t have, because she started yelling.
“JUST GO AND CUT YOUR GODDAMN CAKE!”
I ran into the kitchen. The back door was open. Everyone was gathered under the tree, around Beau’s microscope. I went to the knife drawer and took out the largest one I could find. My hands were shaking so much I had to use both to hold it. I cut everyone a raggedy little sliver and set them down on seven paper plates.
I cried when our friends went home. I get the same feeling every birthday.
“So are we doing this place today, too, or what?” said Beau from the doorway, where he was putting on his sunglasses.
“No,” I said. “I don’t wanna do any more today.” And I started walking back down Ali Baba Lane. It was hot. Damn hot and damn dirty. Flyers and candy wrappers clung to the soles of my shoes as I walked. About a block down was a thrift shop, and we took the bags of candy and chocolate in there and dumped them down on the counter. The place was big and jumbled, like a garage sale, but gray and stinking of moldy vegetables. I held my sleeve up to my nose and breathed in the almost-Dad scent I’d sprayed there.
We approached the desk. “Can you take these to some homeless shelter, please?”
“Sure,” said the little hobbit guy, standing on tiptoe to peer inside the bags. “Ooh, candy. All this? Thank you.”
He’d lucked out. He’ll be dipping into that candy the second we leave the store, I thought.
Beau piped up. “Is the homeless shelter nearby?”
“Yeah, there’s one not too far from here. Between Paradise and Pebble. Would you like it all to go there?”
“Uh, yeah,” Beau said. And I could see the cogs whirring behind his eyes. “You know what, we’ll take it ourselves, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, well, if you’re sure….”
“Yeah. Thanks anyway.”
On the way out, Beau was suddenly Beau again. After days of pissing and moaning over the robberies, he was almost giddy.
“This feels good, Pais. This actually feels like a lead. There’s a shelter less than a mile away from where we saw Dad. He could easily be there.”
“He’s not there, Beau, I’m telling you. He wouldn’t be.” I rummaged around in the Mandie’s Candies bag for a Dum Dum Pop and pulled off the wrapper. Lemon.
Beau put his arm
around me and squeezed, like that would inject me with some of his glee. I’d gone all emo since since my birthday cake flashback at the bakery. I didn’t miss Mom; it wasn’t that. But that night, our birthday night, Dad had come home after work, and he took us out for pancakes and we played kickball in the street. And it made everything okay again. That’s why I’d forgotten Mom’s outburst; Dad made me forget it. He was like magic. The thought of finding him in some homeless shelter with all these rejects was disgusting. But the thought of not finding him there made everything feel so much worse.
It was a long walk to the shelter, but I knew we were getting closer to it because there were progressively less and less tourists and more and more homeless people. Men bundled in blankets lying in doorways. A guy with no legs lying on the sidewalk by an upturned wheelchair. Some crackhead having a fight with an invisible man in an alley, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was a kid, the crackhead. About our age.
Typically grim and grimy, the entrance to the shelter looked like the box office of an old movie theater. A woman in a Plexiglas booth was reading People magazine, all dolled up like she was Cinderella in some shitty-assed pumpkin carriage. She looked up. She had large eyes and even larger eyelids to cover them, caked in glossy purple eye shadow.
“Women’s check-in is at four forty-five; men’s at six o’clock,” she drawled. I took it she thought we were checking in.
“No, we’re here to donate some candy,” Beau said, holding up one of the bags to show her. He was sucking on a Dum Dum Pop, too. He’d gone for strawberry. “And we’re looking for somebody. Our dad. He might be here.”
“You don’t want beds? If you just want a meal, dinner’s served at seven….”
I pulled out my Dum Dum Pop. “No, we don’t want beds, or dinner. We just wanna make a donation and see if our dad’s here.”
“You can’t just go in, miss. Women’s check-in is at …”
I scowled at her and nudged my brother to the side so I could speak through the hole in the Plexiglas. “Four forty-five, yeah, you already said so. I don’t want to stay here. I have a bed for the night.” I breathed out, trying to get rid of the poisonous anger that was building up in my lungs. I tried again. I even tried smiling. “Do you have a list of inmates or whatever you call ’em? Could you just look up a name? Please?”
