“I got those shirts at Macy’s,” I said. The tears started, and I didn’t try to stop them. “But I didn’t pay for them.” We were sitting facing each other, but I could only look down at my lap.
I braced myself for the yelling to start, but then she said quietly, “You stole them?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Last weekend. I was with some other girls from school.” I told her that everyone I knew at school did it. Even some boys. But I didn’t mention Julie. That would have been a betrayal, I thought. I didn’t tell Mom that I did it practically every weekend, that I thought I was a klepto. Or that I couldn’t go back to Bloomingdale’s for the rest of my life.
“Is this the first time you’ve done it?” she asked. I took another deep breath. Oh God. I wanted to lie again so badly. Yes, Mom, I wanted to say. This was the first time. It was a dare. Some kids at school dared us. I swear I’ll never do it again, I promise.
“No. I’ve done it a bunch of times.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. She didn’t ask me how many times was “a bunch.” Did she know that “a bunch” meant so many times I couldn’t even count? Maybe thousands of dollars by now?
“Do you want to tell me more?” she said, like she didn’t know what else to say.
I shrugged. “Are you gonna tell Dad?”
She thought for a second. “No. Not if you don’t want me to.” Why was she being so cool?
“Are you gonna punish me?” I said.
“I think you know what you’ve done is wrong. What if you had gotten caught, Julie? Do you realize what could happen?” Her face looked really worried, and she shifted a little on my bed.
“Yes.” I blew my nose and continued to look down in my lap. Oh boy, did I. There was no way I was going to tell her about Bloomingdale’s. Was not telling the same as lying? Mom took a deep breath.
Suddenly I thought about how when I was little and I had a bad dream, Mom preferred that I scream for her from my bed instead of coming to get her. The time I just showed up at the side of her bed in my feety pajamas, holding my teddy with no mouth, she nearly hit the ceiling. So she told me just scream “Mom-my!” as loud as I could when I had a bad dream. Then she’d come in my room half asleep in her white nightgown smelling powdery and like Mom-sleep-smell—a smell I loved—and she’d pull back my covers, get in bed with me, and say, “Tell me all about your dream. It’s only a dream.” She’d say, “I’m listening, I just have to keep my eyes closed.” And I’d tell her about how I dreamed I was falling, or some shadowy gray man with no face was chasing me, or I was stuck in a fire, or whatever. When I woke up in the morning, I’d be alone in my bed but I wouldn’t feel scared anymore.
“Do you talk to Joyce about this?” Mom was saying. “I know that’s private, what you talk to Joyce about, but—”
“Yes, I do.”
Then we were silent for a few moments.
“Please don’t tell Ellie, either,” I said. “She won’t understand. She’ll just make fun of me.”
“It’ll be our secret. Will you promise me you won’t do it again?” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I promise.”
“You can talk to me, you know. I know you think I’m some kind of ogre,” she continued. “But if you need to, you can talk to me.” She lifted my head so that I had to look at her. She smiled at me, but it was too hard to smile back. Then she got up and returned to the kitchen, closing my door behind her. No, don’t go, Mom, I was thinking, but I couldn’t say it out loud. Stay here. Stay here with me on my bed. Let’s get under the covers and I’ll tell you about my bad dreams.
Why didn’t she yell at me and punish me? I was so ashamed; I deserved to be punished for all the awful things I had done. All the stealing. All the lying. All the pretending.
16
Only a Misdemeanor or Something
The next day at school I was totally dreading telling Julie about the talk I had with my mom. Like she’d think I was such a goody-goody for confessing. But I had to tell her this was it, once and for all—I wasn’t going to steal anymore. Maybe I would tell her that I just decided to stop, but not ’cause I promised my mom. I had to wait to talk to Julie until homeroom, which I knew would be good timing ’cause homeroom was really noisy with everybody talking and being loud. Sometimes music students practiced there even though they were supposed to wait until music class. All morning I felt nervous, waiting for homeroom. Josh Heller smiled at me in the hallway, but I was so distracted I didn’t even get excited. I got a ninety-seven on the quiz in Voice and Diction, and I had a pretty good acting class with Mrs. Zeig, but I still felt depressed.
“Hi!” Julie said, at the door to homeroom. She adjusted her Chocolate Soup bag over her shoulder and seemed out of breath from running up the stairs. She noticed my face. “Are you okay?”
“Um. I told my mom,” I said, just flat out like that.
“What?” Julie said like she was shocked, but knew exactly what I was talking about. She stuck her arm in mine and pulled me to the back of the classroom where there were two empty seats. In front of us, this kid Tyrone was loudly playing scales on his trumpet.
“She asked me about some shirts I got at Macy’s,” I said, sitting and noticing a heart that was carved in the desk. “And we ended up in my room having a talk. Julie, I never saw my mother so serious, oh my God!”
“Really,” Julie said quietly, watching me closely.
“But the weird thing was she didn’t even yell or punish me. I couldn’t believe it. I kept waiting for her to start screaming, but instead she just, like, asked me questions and she had this really concerned look on her face.” I shuddered, remembering it. “I wanted to lie and tell her some girls dared us, but I just couldn’t.”
“Us?” Julie asked.
“Don’t worry, I never mentioned your name. She doesn’t know who I was with.”
Julie sighed and then was quiet for a second. “Wow, she didn’t yell?” she said, letting her bag drop to the floor. “Here!” she shouted over the noise when Mr. Werner called her name for attendance.
“Nope,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it, either.”
“Maybe your mom is cooler than you think,” she said brightly.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘cool,’ ” I said. “I mean, she seemed really worried about me, and angry—and actually, it makes me kind of worried, too.”
“C’mon, Jule, there’s nothing to worry about—that’s just moms for ya, they worry! It’ll probably never come up again.”
I swallowed hard. “Actually,” I said. “I’m gonna stop.”
Julie started laughing. “Seriously? ’Cause your mom found a couple of shirts?”
“Yeah, that, and ’cause we could get caught again,” I said, lowering my voice even though everybody around us was chatting away.
Julie had a look of disbelief on her face. “Julie, I told you Bloomingdale’s was totally abnormal! I bet the odds of that happening again are like . . . like the chance of getting hit by lightning twice!”
“What? Are you saying we’ll never get caught again?” I tried to keep my voice down, but I felt it catching in my throat.
“Probably not, no!” Julie sounded defensive.
“How do you know that? I mean, like, I don’t see how you can predict that!”
“’Cause we’re good!” Julie said like, how could I forget?
“All right,” I said, kind of sharply. “But I’ve really been giving this a lot of thought. Let’s just say we did get caught again. I mean, I know we’re only fifteen so the consequences wouldn’t be so—”
“Exactly!” Julie interrupted. “Why are you getting so—” “But what if they didn’t let us graduate high school or something? What if we couldn’t go to college?” I said.
Julie just looked at me, stunned. “Oh, Jesus. You have way too active an imagination!”
“It could happen,”
I said solemnly.
“No it couldn’t! That’s crazy! For stealing a pair of jeans or a couple of shirts? It’s, like, only a misdemeanor or something; it’s not even a felony—”
“Oh my God, listen to what you’re saying!” I said. “You sound like a criminal! I don’t even know what those words mean!”
“Have you ever heard of a fifteen-year-old going to jail?” Julie wanted to know, like she was some big authority on teenage crimes.
“No, but I have heard of reform school!” I said.
“That’s only on, like, Happy Days and Diff’rent Strokes, or whatever. There’s really no such thing as reform school—”
“Are you high?” I said, trying to whisper again. “Of course there’s such a thing as—”
“All I’m saying,” Julie said, “is that you’re not gonna not be able to graduate or go to college! That’s just impossible!”
I felt so frustrated, like someone was holding a pillow over my mouth, refusing to let me speak. It didn’t seem to matter what I had to say. Julie would find a way to disagree. I looked away, trying to calm down.
“What?” Julie said, sounding pissed. “What are you getting so upset about?”
“What am I—? What about you? Why are you so pissed? You’re acting like, like—”
“Like what?” Julie said.
“Like you’re so offended, or something—”
“I’m not offended!” Julie interrupted. “You’re just making a big deal out of nothing! I just don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal—”
“But it is a big deal! Why isn’t it a big deal to you?”
“I don’t know!” Julie almost shouted, and I felt a few kids looking at us. “Maybe I just don’t worry like you do. Jesus Christ!”
“I’m just telling you I can’t do it anymore! Is there anything wrong with that?”
“I can’t believe you’re gonna let one little talk with your mother change you—”
“Change me? How have I changed? I haven’t changed!” I said, now hearing my voice get squeaky. I tried to ignore the kids around us who were acting like they weren’t watching our fight.
“I don’t know,” Julie said softly. “You’re being such a fucking priss!”
Then we sat there next to each other not saying anything. I could feel myself breathing heavily and I just kept thinking, I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe she just called me a fucking priss. I was sure Julie was wishing the bell would ring so she could get away from me. I wanted to scream, “I am not a priss! You are a fucking kleptomaniac and you won’t even admit it,” but I could never shout that in front of the whole homeroom.
Then I remembered we had plans to go shopping after school on Friday. Julie must have been thinking about that, too, ’cause she broke the silence and said, “I guess we won’t be hanging out on Friday, then.”
“Well, we could do something else—” I started to say.
“Enjoy your new life,” Julie said nastily, and got up from her seat just as the bell rang. “Natalie! Wait up!” she called to the front of the room, and I knew she did that for my benefit—Natalie would go shopping with her.
I just sat there in disbelief as everyone around me got up to go to their next class. The lump in my throat was enormous. I didn’t even try to hide the warm tears running down my face. The room cleared out, but before Mr. Werner could notice me sitting there all alone, I got up and ran down the hall. I purposely pushed passed Julie and Natalie walking together so they could see me crying—I was hoping it would make Julie feel really bad for being so mean. I flew up the stairs to the third floor as fast as I could. I passed Reggie Ramirez and saw him do a double-take, but I just pretended I didn’t see him. I ran until I got to the girls’ bathroom, closed myself in a stall, sat down, and threw my head in my hands, sobbing, letting myself finally make sound. I didn’t care if the dancers at the mirror doing their lipstick heard me crying. I didn’t care if I was late to algebra. I was good at algebra and Ms. Gersh-Bonime liked me. I knew Julie had gone off in her own direction; she had English.
How could this have happened to us?
17
Trying to Sound Normal
It was just a miracle that I made it through my study period, global history, and English without bawling my eyes out. I found Ms. Gersh-Bonime to hand in my homework and say I was sorry for not being in class but I wasn’t feeling well, and I held it together through my rehearsal with Demaris in the basement. I couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing that I didn’t run into Julie. I was so scared this was the end of our friendship. Would this mean I’d be totally unpopular now?
When I got home, I barely said hello to Mom, who was sitting at her desk in the living room paying bills. Dad was probably in their bedroom reading or grading papers.
“Hi, pussy cat,” Mom said, but I went right to my room and closed the door. I didn’t even care what she was thinking; I just had to throw myself onto my bed and push my face into my pillow and cry. How would I ever get over this? No one could possibly understand the way I felt. Talking to Joyce didn’t seem to be helping me or curing me from stealing or anything. She asked questions, but she never gave me any answers or advice. How was I supposed to know what to do? Even Julie didn’t understand my feelings, and she was supposed to be my best friend! If Mom came into my room to ask what was wrong, I’d make up some lie about I didn’t know what. Then thinking about what a liar I was made me feel even worse. And Mom didn’t come in, anyway.
I stared at my red phone praying it would ring and it would be Julie telling me how sorry she was, begging my forgiveness, saying I was the best friend anyone could ever have and she didn’t mean to hurt me. But my phone just sat next to my bed like it was staring back at me, going, Tough luck.
Then, all of a sudden, it rang.
“Hello?” I said, trying to sound normal.
“Julie?” a guy’s voice said.
“Yeah. . . .” My heart stopped.
“It’s Josh. Heller. How are you?”
Oh my God! Josh Heller! Josh fucking Heller was calling me!
“Uh . . . good, I’m good,” I said, sitting up.
“Whatcha doing?” he said. Um. Crying like a baby?
“Nothing much. I just got home.” I had a fight with my best friend about shoplifting, Josh Heller. How are you? Shoplifting is my obsession and I’m totally out of control. Could he hear in my voice that I had been crying? I tried to sniff quietly. Oh my God, why was he calling me, what could he want? Probably he forgot the French homework or something. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience or something.
“Uh-huh,” he said. His voice sounded deep and just . . . great.
Then there was this pause that seemed like an hour. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt like such an idiot.
“I just felt like calling you,” Josh said, just as I said, “What are you up to?”
“What?” I said. “Sorry.” We laughed a little. Oh good, we were both nervous.
“No that’s okay, I was just saying . . .” he started. “I just felt like calling ’cause it was fun that day. In French. You know, speaking French . . . or trying to speak French, right?”
Oh my God! Is this happening to me? Josh Heller thinks I’m fun to speak French with.
“Oh . . . yeah . . . me, too. . . . I mean . . . it was . . .” Suddenly I heard my parents fighting. I heard my Dad shout, “Goddamnit, Helene!” Then I couldn’t really make out what my mom shouted back. I just heard her high-pitched voice like she was far away in the kitchen until I realized she was screaming at me.
“Julie! Time to set the table!” she hollered outside my door. Fuck! The one time I got a call from a guy and suddenly my parents were having a fight and I had to go out there and set the stupid table.
“Um, can you hold on for a second?” I said to Josh, feeling totally embarrassed. I hadn’t heard the last few things he said, anyway.
“Sure,” Josh
said. I shoved the receiver under my pillow.
I opened my door and said into the living room, half shout-whispering, “I’m on the phone. I will be there in a few minutes.”
“It’s almost dinnertime—” I heard Mom say as I slammed my door.
“Hi again,” I said, a little breathless. “Sorry about that.” I decided to totally ignore my parents’ fight. Josh Heller was calling me. This was too great, too rare an opportunity not to relish every second. Who knew when a boy might call me again, let alone Josh Heller? I tried to imagine his bedroom. I wondered if he was lying on his bed like I was lying on mine. Did he have brothers and sisters? Who did he live with? I didn’t know anything about him.
I took a deep breath and said, “Um. I’m just curious. How did you get my number?”
“I got it from the phone book,” he said. “You were the only J. Prodsky. I figured it had to be you. I’m at Tim Haas’s house right now, by the way. Did you know his mom lives in the same building as Julie Braverman? So we were just out in the park and on our way back, and we ran into Julie’s sister. Her name’s Mandy, right? We talked to her for a little while and I remembered Julie’s your friend so Tim and I were talking about you and he said why don’t I call you now. I hope that’s okay.” Julie’s my friend, yeah, right.
But wait, They were talking about me? Oh. My. God.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
“Hey, T!” Josh suddenly screamed to Tim, who I guessed was in the room with him. “Turn that up! Can you hear that?” he said to me.
“Sort of. . . .” I said. “What is it?” The radio in the background got louder.
“It’s one of my favorite songs. ‘Africa’ by Toto,” Josh said.
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