The Classy Crooks Club

by Alison Cherry

  I act like a complete idiot at the beginning of the drive, fidgeting and laughing too loudly at Stanley’s jokes and repeating myself. But he doesn’t seem to notice, and about halfway through the drive I finally manage to calm down. It’s starting to feel like a normal trip to soccer when Stanley turns onto a side street and pulls up in front of a green house with a wraparound porch. “This isn’t the mall,” I say.

  Stanley laughs. “Well spotted,” he says. “We have to pick someone up first.” He taps lightly on the horn to signal that we’re here.

  Relief and disappointment hit me at the same time as I realize I’m not going to be shopping alone with Stanley after all. “Who’s coming with us?” I ask. It’s probably Cookie; when she heard her grandson was taking me to the mall, she probably decided to tag along. She’s pretty fashionable for an old lady, so maybe it’ll be good to have her around. I watch the front door for a flash of red.

  But when the door opens, there’s no sign of Cookie. Instead, a tall girl about Stanley’s age with a dark ponytail comes out and locks the door behind her. She’s wearing jeans, a striped tank top, and flip-flops, but she makes them look elegant somehow. Looking at her makes me feel more like a kid than I ever have in my whole life.

  “That’s my girlfriend, Talia,” says Stanley, making everything five hundred thousand times worse. “Your grandma told me you need to buy a dress, and I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff, so I asked her to come along and help. I think you’re really going to like her.”

  I open my mouth, but no sound comes out, and before I manage to say anything, the girl slides into the backseat. “Hey, you,” Stanley says, and he smiles at her the same way the girl smiled at the ghost boy in Sweetness and Sorrow. It makes me feel sick.

  “Hey, babe.” The girl leans forward and kisses Stanley on the cheek like it’s no big deal. Before I’ve had time to recover, she turns to me. “Hey, you must be AJ. I’m Talia. It’s really nice to meet you. Stanley’s told me all about you.”

  Talia has a dimple in her chin and a smattering of freckles across her nose, and she’s so pretty I want to puke. “Hi,” I say. I have to force it out, like there’s a hard candy stuck in my throat.

  “Thanks so much for helping us,” Stanley says.

  “No problem,” Talia says, and then she turns to me and lowers her voice like we have a secret together. “Stanley’s hopeless with fashion stuff. His idea of dressing up is wearing Converse instead of flip-flops. You’re much better off with me.”

  It seems like the part of my brain that makes words has totally shut off. “Cool,” I finally manage. I almost suggest we switch spots—she obviously belongs up front with Stanley. But Talia scoots back and buckles her seat belt like she’s totally content where she is, and Stanley pulls away from the curb.

  Fortunately, Talia launches into a long story about her friend’s birthday party, so I don’t have to talk. As she and Stanley laugh together about people I’ve never heard of, I turn my face to the window so neither of them will see how my cheeks are flushing with anger and embarrassment. How could Stanley never have mentioned he has a girlfriend? Has he been hiding it from me on purpose? It doesn’t seem fair that she already knows about me but I know nothing about her. What kind of stuff has he been telling her, anyway? When he goes home from Grandma Jo’s, do the two of them snuggle up together and laugh about all the stupid things I’ve said?

  I’m so lost in thought that I don’t even notice we’ve arrived at the mall until Talia reaches forward and squeezes my shoulder. “Ready to shop till we drop?”

  “Um, I guess,” I say.

  “Come on,” she says. “We’re going to get you something beautiful.” She hops out of the car and goes around to Stanley’s side, where she gives him a big hug and another kiss, this one right on the mouth. “You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to, babe. We can meet you back here when we’re done if you have other stuff you want to get.”

  Before I can decide which is worse, spending time with the two of them together or shopping alone with Talia, Stanley says, “Nah, I don’t really need anything. I’ll hang out with you guys.” Talia looks relieved, and I realize she probably doesn’t want to be alone with a totally uncool twelve-year-old any more than I want to be alone with her.

  “So, what kind of thing are we looking for?” she asks me as we start walking toward the mall. She and Stanley are holding hands now, and her nails are perfect, painted the same light pink as the inside of a seashell.

  My only plan had been to wander around until I saw something the Bananas might wear. “Um, just, like, a summer dress, I guess? Not super fancy. It’s for this girl’s birthday party . . . it’s not a dance or anything.” I kind of want to say, I want something like what you would wear, but I don’t want to sound like a total dork.

  “Sure,” Talia says. “Let’s start at Nordstrom. They’ve got a great juniors’ department.” I’m pretty sure she’s not trying to remind me how much younger I am than her, but that’s kind of how it feels.

  She leads Stanley and me into the massive, air-conditioned department store, and I’m suddenly glad I’m not here by myself; I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to start. We make our way through a maze of makeup counters, and one of those perfume ladies sneak-attacks Stanley with her spritzer so he ends up smelling like the potpourri in my grandmother’s bathroom. Talia leads us up the escalator and through a bunch of suits and workout gear, and finally I start to see some clothes that look like the stuff in the Bananas’ pictures. There’s a wall of TVs in the juniors’ department, and it’s playing a music video with lots of shirtless guys and girls in bikinis prancing around. It’s super embarrassing to watch with Stanley standing next to me.

  “Ooh, ooh, baby, I’ll always be true! When will you see that I’m the one for you?” croons the singer, and I want to die right there on the spot.

  Stanley seems bewildered by the whole situation, but Talia’s right at home. “Any favorite colors?” she asks, raising her voice over the music.

  “Blue, I guess,” I say. “Green, too. Anything is fine, really, if you think it would look good.”

  “Blue would be perfect with your eyes,” she says, and I wish Stanley had been the one to say it. “What size are you?”

  That feels like something I should know, but I have no idea; my mom buys most of my clothes. “I’m not totally sure,” I say. “I’ve grown a lot since the last time I needed a dress.”

  I wait for Talia to make fun of me, but instead she smiles. “That’s okay, we’ll figure it out.” I almost wish she’d laugh at me or make a snarky comment. I want to hate her so badly, but it’s hard to hate a really nice person just because she’s super pretty and gets to date the guy I’m crushing on.

  Talia takes the lead as we wind through the racks, pulling off dress after dress and heaping them into my arms. She always asks me if I like them first, and even though most of them aren’t things I would’ve picked out myself, I always say yes. When I’ve got so many options I can barely see over the pile of filmy fabric, Talia steers me toward the fitting room. “Do you want me to come in with you?” she asks.

  I think about the Wonder Woman underwear I put on this morning and shake my head. “I’ll be fine,” I say.

  “Cool. Shout if you need a different size or something. I’ll be right outside.”

  “Okay,” I say, and I shut myself into one of the little white rooms. I can hear the rise and fall of Talia’s and Stanley’s voices, but I can’t hear what they’re saying over the music, which has changed to some guy singing about how his girlfriend’s eyes are shy goldfish in a pond. (What does that even mean?) I suddenly get paranoid that they’re laughing about me now that they’re alone, so I open the door as quietly as I can and listen hard. But all Talia’s saying is, “. . . got so sick the last time we went to that Chinese place, remember? How about burritos?” I close the door again and start changing into the first dress.

  None of the first
six looks that great on me, and I remember why I don’t like wearing dresses; I always look so gawky and uncomfortable in them. I really like the bright blue color of the seventh one, but it zips up the back, and I can’t reach the zipper no matter how I stretch. Why would you even make clothing that’s this hard to put on? As I’m bending and reaching and hopping around, I hear Talia’s voice right outside my door. “How’re you doing in there, AJ?”

  I stop hopping, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. “All right,” I say.

  “Need any help?”

  I don’t really want to ask her for anything, but none of the remaining dresses are as pretty as this one, so I say, “Um, yeah. I can’t get this zipper.” I open the door a tiny bit, then hug the dress close to my body and scoot into the far corner of the fitting room. I don’t want Stanley to catch a glimpse of me.

  Talia slips inside and shuts the door behind her. “Oh, that color is so nice on you,” she says. “Here, turn around.” I do, and she brushes my hair out of the way and zips up the dress in one quick, efficient swoop. She smells like pineapple and coconut.

  “What do you think?” I say. Locking eyes with her in the mirror is a little easier than looking straight at her.

  “It’s beautiful. Have you done the spin test?”

  I seriously know nothing about shopping. “What’s that?”

  “Spin around and see if the skirt flares out. It’s a very important thing to know about a dress. Go ahead, try.”

  It sounds so much like something Maddie or Amy would say that I find myself smiling. I spin a few times, and the skirt bells out around me in a really satisfying way.

  “Ooh, it definitely passes,” Talia says. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You want to show Stanley?”

  I wonder if it’s obvious to Talia how I feel about her boyfriend. “It’s okay. I think I’m going to get it.”

  “No, no, we should get his opinion first. He won’t mind.” She opens the door. “Babe, come here and tell us what you think.”

  I hear Stanley’s footsteps coming toward the fitting room, and when he sees me, he smiles widely. “Looks great,” he says. “I think this is the one.”

  “Thanks,” I say.  And when I really inspect myself in the mirror, I realize it does look kind of great. It’s certainly not the kind of thing I’d want to wear every day, but I do look feminine, and surprisingly enough, I don’t hate it.

  If Grandma Jo buys me a dress for Christmas this year, I might actually try it on for once.

  16

  I’d always thought “My mouth dropped open in shock” was a figure of speech, but when Stanley and I pull into the driveway of  Westlake Manor that Saturday, my mouth literally drops open. The house is huge and white, and the front is covered with ornate pillars, like what might happen if a wedding cake and a Greek temple had a baby together. It looks like it could eat Grandma Jo’s house for a snack. The security system on this place must be insane, and I wonder how Edna is ever going to get past it.

  “You okay there, Miss AJ?” Stanley asks when I don’t make any move to unbuckle my seat belt.

  “Yeah,” I say, but I don’t sound very sure, even to myself. I clear my throat and try again. “Sure, yeah, of course.”

  “Well, you look very nice,” he says, and my stomach does a backflip and sticks the landing. Now that I’ve met Talia, I know I need to get over Stanley, but it’s not hurting anyone if I like him a little longer.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Have a great time, and I’ll be back to get you at eight, okay?”

  Stanley starts to get out to open the door for me, but another guy gets there first. He’s wearing a uniform with brass buttons up the front, and he reminds me of the frog butler in this book I had when I was a kid. I wonder if his only job is to open people’s car doors—judging by the size of this house, the Westlakes are probably rich enough to have a separate staff member just for that.

  “Hello, young miss,” he says to me, like we’re in the eighteenth century or something, and I think about how hard Maddie’s going to laugh when I tell her about this. Then my heart twists as I realize I can’t ever tell her; if she finds out I went to this party, she’ll hate me forever. But I can’t think about that now, because I have a job to do. I concentrate on getting out of the car without flashing my underwear at the frog butler.

  “Please proceed through the foyer and turn right. You’ll find the other young ladies in the solarium at the end of the hall.”

  “Okay,” I say, even though I have no idea what a solarium is. “Thanks for the ride, Stanley.”

  “No problem,” he says, and he winks at me like he finds the butler guy as ridiculous as I do. I have to bite my lip so I won’t giggle.

  I climb the steps, and by the time I get to the top, I’m so nervous I have to pause on the threshold and take a couple long, slow breaths. I’ve never been on a spy mission before, unless you count reading Maddie’s sister’s diary. I tell myself this is much less scary than breaking into someone’s house; I even have an invitation that proves I’m supposed to be here. But I can hear Brianna’s practiced laugh echoing from somewhere inside the house—she always lets out exactly the same number of “hahs”—and this suddenly feels much more daunting. No matter what my invitation says and how good my girly-girl costume is, I know I don’t belong here.

  “Down the hall to the right, miss,” the butler guy reminds me. I nod and hurry inside.

  The entryway has white marble floors so shiny I can see my reflection, spindly tables supporting enormous flower arrangements, and a domed ceiling with a chandelier that looks like it belongs in The Phantom of the Opera. I look around for Edna’s painting, which is abstract with lots of streaks of blue and green, but I don’t see it anywhere. I do see a small white box that looks like part of a security system, though, so I flip open the cover and take a picture of it with my phone. I hear a dog barking somewhere in the house, and I make a mental note to tell the grannies about that later. I wonder how they handle houses with dogs? Maybe Edna will bring a steak full of sleeping pills with her when she comes in to disable the security system.

  I’m trying to decide whether to snoop around now or wait until later when a voice behind me says, “Are you here for the party, miss?” I jump about fifteen feet in the air. There’s a sleek-looking woman standing there, dressed in a black shirt and black pants that are so perfectly creased, it looks like she ironed them when they were already on her body. For a second I think this might be Brianna’s mom, but then I notice she’s wearing a small apron, like the people who served the appetizers at my great aunt’s eightieth birthday party a few years ago. She’s probably a caterer.

  “Um, yeah?” I say. “I was, um, taking a picture of the flower arrangement because it’s so pretty? I wanted to show it to my mom, because she, like, loves flower arranging?” I don’t know why everything I say suddenly sounds like a question.

  “The solarium is straight down the hall,” she says. Since it’s the third time the staff has told me that, I figure I better actually go before someone drags me there by force.

  The solarium turns out to be a large octagonal room with giant screens in every wall, like a really classy gazebo attached to the house. Tall potted ferns stand in each corner, and there are baskets of exotic-looking flowers hanging everywhere, making it smell fresh and green. In the center of the room is a small fountain shaped like a mermaid, circled by about twelve matching wicker loungers with flowered cushions. I know most of the girls here from school, and some of them look a little confused when they see me. But then they smile politely, like they’re willing to accept that I have a right to be here as long as Brianna has given her stamp of approval. I hover in the doorway, biting my lip, and I reach out to twist Maddie’s bracelet around my wrist before I realize it’s not there anymore.

  Finally Sabrina spots me, and when she smiles, it looks totally genuine. “Hi, AJ,” she calls. “I like your dress.”<
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  Her compliment gives me the courage to step into the room. “Thanks,” I say. “I like yours, too.” I really do—it’s patterned in cream and tan and brown and has gold threads all woven through it, and it looks great against her dark skin. Several of the other girls are also wearing summer dresses, and mine blends in perfectly. I grudgingly feel grateful for Talia’s help.

  Brianna turns at the sound of my voice, but she doesn’t get up to greet me or anything. “You can put your present over there,” she says, gesturing toward a corner.

  I move toward a table piled high with brightly wrapped packages and curly ribbons. Now that all the other girls are watching me, I’m suddenly super conscious of how I walk. Are the steps I’m taking smaller than usual? What do I normally do with my arms? Do I always have this many arms?

  Calm down, I tell myself. You don’t have to impress anyone. You just have to fit in long enough to find Edna’s painting. You’re here on a supersecret spy mission, and it makes no difference what these girls think of you. I desperately want to believe that little voice, but it’s really, really hard not to care what they think.

  “Grab a chair,” Brianna says to me. “Victoria will bring you some punch.” She doesn’t say “please” or address anyone directly, but another lady in an apron springs into action and pours me a glass of fizzy pink stuff. There’s another uniformed woman in here as well, standing next to the door and waiting for instructions, and it seems incredibly weird that there are this many staff people working at a party for kids. Is this what rich-people parties are always like? And where are Brianna’s parents?

  I want to sit by Sabrina, but the chairs on either side of her are taken, so I sit next to a redhead named Olivia who’s a grade ahead of me at school. She shoots me a quick smile, but then she turns right back around and keeps talking to Jasmine Sato about a bonfire they went to on the Fourth of July. I sip my drink and try to keep a smile on my face, pretending I’m enjoying myself and not feeling unbelievably awkward.