Crimes of the Sarahs

by Kristen Tracy

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  for Julie Tracy Belnap, my big sis

  You taught me the important stuff, like how to wear belts properly and put on mascara. And, for the record, you are the most noncriminal person I know, exceedingly virtuous in every way. (Sooner or later, I know your kids will read this.)

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am incredibly thankful that my second book got published. First, I’m grateful to my agent, Sara Crowe, who is truly the best. Big thanks too to Jen Klonsky, who used her incredible smarts to help make this book better. There are many, many kind people at S&S whom I’d like to thank, Michelle Nagler, Bethany Buck, and Michelle Fadlalla among them. Of course, I want to thank my mom. And I’d also like to thank my good friends and readers: Michelle Willis, Ulla Fredericksen, Fred Bueltmann, Linda Young, Scott Dykstra, Jackie Srodes (and family), Adam Schuitema, and Sarah Gessel Rich. Special thanks to Chris Sherlock and Ian Stamp, my Kalamazoo neighbors. And Curtis and Kathy Curtis-Smith, who gave me a delightful tour of their Frank Lloyd Wright home. I’m also grateful to Stu Dybek, my Kzoo mentor. I’m also very grateful to all the nice people at the Kalamazoo Public Library, especially Kevin King and Cory Grimminck. And I’d also like to give double thanks to my dad, the funniest person I know, who has supported me through thick and thin, and never insisted that I drive the big tractor when I come home to visit. Because when it comes to farm equipment, I’m a big chicken. And my dad is kind enough to respect that.

  And yet, as there is no retreating from the moment, the only art left to me is understanding how I can accept the consequence.

  —Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace

  Chapter 1

  Just like mayonnaise, Raisinets, and milk, every criminal has a shelf life. Either you get caught or you evolve. Much like the amoeba, the other Sarahs and I plan on evolving. Of course, since we’re in the middle of a job right now, we’re obviously not there yet.

  “Should I go?” Sarah B asks.

  I view this as a rhetorical question. I’m not the leader. That’s Sarah A’s position, but she’s already inside the store. Sometimes, because I’m the driver, when Sarah A is absent, the other two Sarahs defer to me. Though I don’t know why. Among the four of us, I’m the least alpha. I’m not headstrong or decisive or anything. As far as the pecking order, I’m the shortest Sarah. Plus, I struggle with anxiety.

  “Give her a few more minutes,” Sarah C calls from the backseat.

  Had I said something, that would’ve been my answer too. I always favor inaction over action. Sarah B leans back into the passenger seat and smacks her gum. Then she blows a bubble so big that its circumference eclipses her face. Pop. She peels off the pink film and pushes the gum wad back inside her mouth. Bubbles never stick to Sarah B’s face, because every minute of her life, her T-zone is aglow with oil. It’s what I call a Teflon complexion. Except I don’t say that to her actual face. Pop.

  A fact that sucks: Sarah B breaks out more than any other Sarah. Another fact that sucks: Her oily skin will age better than my dry skin. When she’s eighty, her skin will be the least wrinkly of all the Sarahs. That is, if we all live long enough to reach that geriatric benchmark.

  “Now?” Sarah B asks.

  I shake my head. It’s not just that I favor inaction; in the beginning, we learned quickly that it was best to enter our targeted stores one at a time. It’s blatantly unfair, but salesclerks absolutely stereotype teenagers. Even a group of presumably innocent, Caucasian-looking, female teens browsing the aisles of a bookstore on a Sunday afternoon can send up a red flag. Agism is alive and well, even here in Kalamazoo.

  “Now?” Sarah B asks me again. “I feel like it’s time.”

  I nod. I don’t know if it’s time, but there’s so much tension and perfume overload in the car that I’m getting a headache and it would improve the atmosphere immensely if the apple-scented Sarah B left.

  “Remember, take the clerk to the board-book display beneath the huge toad cutout. Ask a lot of questions about Sarah Stewart and David Small. Keep the clerk in one area,” Sarah C says. She’s leaning forward, wedging herself into the rectangle of open space between the driver’s and passenger’s seat. Her shiny red hair is so close to my mouth that I think I can taste her conditioner.

  Sarah B opens the car and slings her purse strap over her neck. For as long as I can remember, Sarah B has feared being mugged. I guess being a thief lowers your threshold for trust.

  “I thought it was a cutout of a lizard,” Sarah B says.

  “He’s a toad,” Sarah C says.

  “How do you know it’s a guy? Is it anatomically correct? Did you inspect its crotch?” She blows another bubble and sucks it back inside her mouth.

  “First, he’s wearing pants. Second, he’s a character from The Wind in the Willows. It’s a guy toad. Trust us.”

  Sarah C kicks the back of my seat.

  “Yeah, The Wind in the Willows is about a male toad,” I say.

  Sarah B tilts her head and squints at us, like she’s thinking really hard. Her soft lips turn downward, which usually means that she’s confused.

  “I bet some cultures consider lizards to be a form of toads,” Sarah B says. “They both have reptile brains.” Not everything Sarah B says makes perfect sense.

  She slams the car door and enthusiastically walks through the strip mall parking lot, her brown hair bouncing around her tan, bare shoulders. Until last week, Sarah B always wore a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. But after she almost got caught shoving a box of Oreos down her pants at a Sunoco station, Sarah A was adamant that the cap had to go. She claimed that the bill shaded Sarah B’s eyes, making her look boyish and deceptive.

  Sarah A was the only Sarah who saw it this way. Sarah B has very big boobs. There’s nothing boyish going on with that rack. But immediately following the Oreo incident, while we sat around Sarah A’s bedroom indulging in our looted booty, Sarah A grabbed the cap right off of Sarah B’s head and doused it with lighter fluid. I was really surprised that an incoming high school senior kept lighter fluid in her bedroom. Then, Sarah A ran to her bathroom and torched the hat in the tub. At that point, the cap became a moot point.

  But we’ve all moved on from the flaming cap episode. That’s clear as I watch Sarah B bounce right through the front doors of the Barnes & Noble. But what else would I expect? She’s a resilient Sarah. We’re all resilient Sarahs. So while it may be true that we’ve reached a criminal level of boredom with our city, to the point where we’ve considered committing much more serious crimes with actual weapons, we’re sti
ll a very plucky bunch.

  “I’ll go in ten,” Sarah C calls from the backseat.

  She’s the only Sarah among us who had to legally change her name. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. She and her parents had to petition the family division of the circuit court and pay almost two hundred dollars. Sarah A made Sarah C bring the paperwork to prove she’d done it. Because if you’re going to become part of an elite club, there’s got to be some standards. Sarah A was very clear about that. So, our freshman year, Lisa Sarah Cody became Sarah Lisa Cody. A bona fide Sarah. For the most part, she doesn’t seem to regret it. But who wouldn’t want to be one of us? The benefits are stellar. The Sarahs are popular, crafty, goal-oriented, and have loads of unsupervised time. My parents aren’t expecting me home for hours. And when I do show up, it’s not like they’ll pepper me with probing questions about my afternoon. A few years ago, after I joined the school choir, they assumed I was on a good path in life. I look like a good girl, and around them, I act like a good girl. Which is cool. I may be passive, but I do care what people, especially blood relatives, think about me.

  “Hey, don’t you ever worry that we’ll get caught?” Sarah C asks.

  She finger flicks the back of my head. I rub the area and keep my hand there to shield myself from a second flick.

  “Are you speaking hypothetically?” I ask.

  “No, like right now. Don’t you worry some hyperaware clerk will spot us?” Sarah C asks.

  “That’s not what I was thinking about at all,” I say.

  “Even if we do get caught, I guess it’s not a huge deal because we’re minors. We’d probably be sentenced to make restitution and pick up roadside trash. But after we turn eighteen, we might want to rethink this lifestyle.”

  “Lifestyle?” I try to glance at her in the rearview mirror, but her head is tucked down. “This is more than a lifestyle. It’s who we are. We’re the Sarahs.”

  “Yeah, I know, but once we’re eighteen, once we’re in college, we should probably rethink it. I mean, theft is kind of immature. We want. We take. Is it really worth it?”

  “Of course it’s worth it. Look around. We’ve got a close circle of friends and a ton of free crap.”

  Sarah C leans forward again. This time she angles her body so she can face me. I don’t look at her.

  “But doesn’t all the free crap ever weigh on your conscience?” she asks.

  “My what?”

  Sarah C lowers her voice to a whisper.

  “Sometimes, I picture myself handcuffed. Actually, I imagine all four of us in handcuffs, being trotted out to a squad car, the lights flashing, broadcasting our guilt to everybody driving by.”

  Sarah C mimics a siren by emitting a wha wha sound. Then she puts her hand over her mouth to dim the noise.

  I’m so shaken up her pessimistic outpouring that my jaw drops open. A light breeze blows into the pocket of my mouth.

  She stops the siren sound.

  “It’s not about the theft,” I say. At least that’s what Sarah A always says. “It’s about the bond. The sisterhood.”

  “We could get tattoos.”

  This idea makes me frown. I’m not sure that I want a tattoo. And because Sarah C has the highest GPA out of all the Sarahs and also scored 2300 on the SAT, sometimes her suggestions carry weight.

  “Why would we want to put identifying markers on our bodies?” I ask.

  “Good point,” Sarah C says. “In a lineup we’d be so screwed.”

  “A lineup?” I ask.

  “Yeah, don’t you watch cop shows?” Sarah C asks.

  “You have time to watch cop shows?” I ask.

  I’m surprised to hear this because being a Sarah takes up all my free time.

  “This probably isn’t the best time to ponder cop shows,” Sarah C say. “The criminals usually get locked up.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Let’s ponder something positive.”

  There’s a long silence.

  “Can’t you think of anything positive?” I ask.

  “Stealing stuff all the time is a lot like driving a race car,” Sarah C says. “Drivers are warned not to look at the wall when they’re losing control, because you tend to steer yourself toward what you’re looking at. For criminals that’s a very appropriate life metaphor: In order to avoid colliding with the cops, don’t think about them.”

  “I never think about the police,” I say. Neither the topic of law enforcement or car crashes strike me as positive pondering.

  “Besides the Sarahs, what do you think about?” Sarah C asks. I don’t like her tone; it’s accusatory. Or her question; it’s a little too insightful.

  “I think about life,” I say.

  Sarah C leans into the backseat again, but this time threads her long legs through the center console. Her sandals reach the gearshift. I get the feeling that she doesn’t believe me. She crosses her ankles and I watch her toes curl incredulously against the brown suede pad of her shoes. I feel goaded into elaboration.

  “I think about life all the time,” I say. “It’s like a hallway.”

  “A hallway?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Like at school?” Sarah C asks.

  “Okay, but there’s no lockers,” I say. “It’s just a hallway and there’s all these doors. But they’re closed. So you’ve got to decide which ones to open and which ones to walk past. But you never know what you’re missing or what you’re getting until you’ve already gotten it,” I say.

  Sarah C doesn’t say anything right away.

  “That’s a very interior metaphor. I spend a lot of time outdoors. That comparison doesn’t really work for me,” Sarah C says.

  “My life is like a hallway,” I say.

  “That’s tragic. I really dig trees,” Sarah C says.

  I turn and look at Sarah C in the backseat. She’s twisting a small section of her red hair around her pointer finger.

  “Didn’t Sarah A tell you to keep your hair pulled back into a ponytail?” I ask.

  “She did, but it makes my neck look so long.”

  “Aren’t swan necks considered attractive?” I ask.

  “Maybe. But I like my hair down.”

  “Sarah C, remember the Oreos,” I say.

  I turn back to face the front and look out the windshield. I’m thirsty. But I never consume any fluid for at least four hours before a hit. Too much anxiety triggers my pee reflex. I can hear the sound of an elastic band snapping itself into place. Sarah A thinks ponytails look wholesome. She thinks it’s the right message to send.

  “You’ve got two more minutes,” I say.

  “I know. I’m going to ask for help in the magazine section. I’m interested in buying a Spanish copy of People.”

  “But you’re not going to buy it,” I say.

  “I know. I’m going to act extremely disappointed by the cover and pretend that I wanted the issue containing los cincuenta mas bellos.”

  “I thought Sarah A said to trill your R’s,” I say.

  “There aren’t any R’s in the phrase los cincuenta mas bellos,” she says.

  She makes a valid point.

  “Maybe you should follow up by saying muchas gracias and trill that R.”

  “I’m not trying to sound like I’m an actual Spaniard. I’m supposedly buying it for a summer school report. Overdone inflection might make a clerk suspicious.”

  “Don’t get mad at me. These are Sarah A’s instructions,” I say.

  She doesn’t respond. We sit in uncomfortable silence. Sometimes I think Sarah C misses the bigger picture about being a Sarah. It’s as if she mixes up the idea that we’re good people who sometimes do bad things with the idea that we’re deeply flawed people driven to commit deplorable acts on a daily basis. I might have to talk with Sarah A about this again. Last time I brought up Sarah C’s negative attitude with Sarah A, I was left with the impression that Sarah A was growing concerned about our group of four.

  I got this impression when sh
e ended the conversation by saying, “Sarah T, I’m concerned about our group of four.” I don’t know exactly what she meant, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Sarah A decided to purge one of the remaining three Sarahs from the group. That’s the sort of power she totes around. She’s a real decider. She even makes decisions for other people. She makes mine all the time. And you never want to cross her.

  That’s how we lost our fifth Sarah, Sarah Dancer, during the middle of our junior year. But it’s not like she was wheelchair-bound forever. Just like three months. And they flew by. And she’s totally fine now. Mostly.

  Sarah A, our ballsy blonde leader, our thievery guru, our governing Sarah, aka Sarah Aberdeen, has been in the targeted bookstore for roughly ten minutes. It’s the job of the remaining Sarahs to keep the clerks away from the Self Help section while Sarah A finds the title she’s looking for, What Color Is Your Parachute?, and takes it from the store. A typical Sunday afternoon.

  Sarah A has the money to pay for the book, even if forced to buy a hardback edition. But if an item she desires is smaller than a toaster, Sarah A prefers utilizing the five-finger discount. It’s much more exciting than making a legitimate purchase.

  After a few more quiet moments, Sarah C squeaks open her back door and says something haughty under her breath. I can’t hear exactly what it is, but it’s probably related to her ponytail. Sometimes, her attitude is the worst. Who brings up the possibility of getting caught in the middle of a job? Talk about a fatalist. And what’s so hard about wearing a ponytail? Does she have an overly sensitive scalp?

  I watch her long bare legs stride to the store. When Sarah A doesn’t wear heels, Sarah C is the tallest Sarah. She also looks the best in shorts. Before us, she played on the volleyball team. She might’ve been the setter. I can’t remember. Now she does Pilates and jogs. Being a Sarah is the only team sport of which she’s currently a member. It takes up more time than you’d think.

  Being a Sarah is pretty much a sixty-hour work week. We’re not running around Kalamazoo willy-nilly, ripping off fashion magazines from Walgreens. Of course, we do rip off fashion magazines from Walgreens. Usually the one at the corner of Kilgore and Westnedge. But we’re not spontaneous criminals.