“That’s good to know,” I say.
It’s such a huge disappointment that the only Sarah who seems committed to preserving a friendship with me at this point is the one Sarah I know I can’t trust and who may or may not have been exposed to a contagious and fatal disease.
I’m not sure how much Sarah C’s offer matters, because as we climb the stairs to the Aberdeen’s condo, I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to get voted out. I did my crime. And I’ve got money and an enormous horse victim to show for it. I just have this feeling that my crime is way better than anyone else’s. What could possibly top it?
Chapter 8
Sarah A swings open the door and the first thing I see is a drooling, tail-wagging, yellow dog.
“John Glenn,” Sarah B coos, reaching down to pet his head. “Doesn’t he look smart? He must have a high IQ. I bet if he wanted to, he could be an astronaut dog.”
I get the feeling that Sarah B’s comments are meant to flatter Sarah A. And from the smile on Sarah A’s face, I think it’s working. But as soon as John Glenn’s snout moves toward Sarah B’s crotch, she’s much less enamored by his stunning IQ.
“No,” she says firmly. “That’s a very sensitive area.”
Finally, Sarah A invites us all inside. I don’t think John Glenn looks smart at all. In fact, after sniffing all our butts, I watch him trot to the bathroom and insert his head inside the toilet bowl. That dog is never going to orbit the earth.
“I see we have a cat,” Sarah A says.
John Glenn returns to the entranceway with a damp muzzle.
“John Glenn, leave it. Good boy,” Sarah A says.
What he lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in obedience. John Glenn freezes, while Sarah A leads us back to her bedroom. The condo feels cool and quiet. Sarah A’s parents are rarely home. They’re both orthodontists, and apparently, Kalamazoo is the bucktooth capital of the universe. Because it’s Saturday and they’re off fitting braces and gluing retainers into mouth after mouth. Their profession is reflected in their paint choices. The walls glisten a soft white enamel color. Even the half wall separating the kitchen from the living looks like a pristine incisor. Even though it’s lucrative, I could never pursue a career in orthodontics or dentistry. I’m not even that comfortable looking inside my own mouth.
“Can’t we hang out in the living room?” Sarah C asks.
There’s a TV in there and that room has very comfortable couches.
“Vance is home,” Sarah A says.
We all pick up our pace. Luckily, Sarah A’s bedroom is an off-limits area. Ever since his brief stint in juvenile hall, that is something that the Aberdeens strictly enforce. Sarah A locks the door. Outside, I can hear John Glenn pacing in the hallway.
“Sit!” Sarah A yells at the door.
Even though she’s probably talking to the dog, the other two Sarahs and I immediately fold down to the floor. Sarah A claims her spot on her bed.
“Let’s start with you, Sarah C. Tell us about your crime,” Sarah A says.
“Well, my focus was on the crime’s victim. I selected Sunny Gwyn. Let’s face it, she’s a negative-attention whore. She doesn’t wear deodorant to choir for the sole reason that she wants people to smell her presence. She’s constantly injuring her arms in PE, so she can wear Ace bandage wraps and slings and have people carry her books. And when she’s on her period, she purposely bleeds through so that everybody will look at her butt. And I could go on.”
“So what did you do?” Sarah A asks. She bites her bottom lip, and leans over her bed’s precipice.
“I stole Digits, her precious eight-toed cat.”
Sarah C lifts the mostly white cat up beneath its belly and we all applaud. I remember when Digits was just a kitten and Sunny brought him to sixth grade show-and-tell. We were all impressed by his multi-toed, deformed paw. Even the principal came to take a look. Later that year, Digits made the local news. Along with a parrot that could sing “La Bamba.”
“How did you do it? I thought Digits was an indoor cat.”
Sarah C nods and sets Digits down in her lap.
“Digits spends a lot of time in Sunny’s bedroom window.”
“You broke into her house?” I gasp.
“No, I slit her screen.”
Sarah C pulls out a box cutter from her back pocket and rubs her thumb along its side, extending the sharp blade.
“Nice,” Sarah A says. “Let’s move on to me.”
Sarah A points to three large paper sacks stacked at the foot of her bed.
“I went beyond the call of duty,” Sarah A says. She flips her blonde hair over her shoulder and smiles. “I robbed the entire first floor of the Marlborough.”
We all start cracking up. Sarah A is a riot.
“How?” Sarah B asks. “You did it by yourself?”
She lifts her eyebrows up into the middle of her forehead.
“Mostly,” she says.
“Tell us everything,” I say.
“Relax. I’m getting there.”
Sarah A gathers the bags closer.
“First, I seduced the building’s maintenance man.”
She presses her upper arms against the outside of her breasts, squeezing her boobs together, making them look huge.
“After distracting him with my assets, I borrowed his keys.”
“Didn’t he notice that you took them?” I ask.
Sarah A rolls her eyes at me like I’m a dope for asking that question.
“Right before he left for the night, I popped into his office to ask him a generic question about space heaters. He went to get a pamphlet for me, and I took a spare set of keys,” Sarah A says.
“So you didn’t really use your boobs,” Sarah C says.
“What’s the difference? I got the keys,” Sarah A says.
Sarah A reaches into the first bag and pulls out a deep red chenille scarf.
“The first floor occupants are mainly elderly people who don’t like stairs. On Saturdays, a bunch of them attend a bingo tournament. So I helped myself.”
From another bag, she pulls out an alabaster vase. And a small radio. And several boxes of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. And eight bars of Godiva chocolate. And a pair of gold hoop earrings. And a stack of DVDs.
“Do old people even have good DVDs?” Sarah C asks.
“I took the first four seasons of The Rockford Files and Gunsmoke: The Director’s Collection and three DVDs of some show called Emergency!”
Sarah A sets them in a tidy stack.
“And I can always trade them in,” she adds.
We nod. She really thinks things through.
“And I took this steam iron,” Sarah A says.
She pulls a heavy silver iron from the last bag.
“Why?” Sarah B asks.
“It just looked really well-made,” Sarah A says. “And who doesn’t need a well-built iron?”
As I look at Sarah A’s haul, it’s clear that she’s not in danger of being voted out. She stole a lot of interesting crap.
“Where are the keys now?” Sarah C asks.
“Well, the key ring actually had keys to the office. So after I was finished shopping, I put them back.”
“You took some weird stuff. Why didn’t you take their electronics?” Sarah B asks. “That’s worth way more.”
Sarah A shakes her head back and forth and puckers her mouth like she’s disappointed in that question.
“I took things they wouldn’t miss right away. Stuff they might think they just misplaced. Once they realize it’s gone, they’ll probably accuse people they know of taking it. Nobody thinks a robber is going to break into their swanky condo and walk off with their chocolate. No old person is going to call the police about a missing iron. And if they did, the cops wouldn’t do anything about it. They’d think the old coot was senile.”
We all start applauding. At first, it’s just light and polite, but soon we’re really getting into it. Slapping our hands together and ho
oting for Sarah A in true admiration. She stands up and takes a dramatic bow, her long hair falls to the floor, and Digits comes to life and lunges at it.
“Get it off!” Sarah A yells.
Really, Digits isn’t being all that aggressive. He’s just pawing at the bottom wisps.
“That furball will totally cause split ends,” Sarah A says.
Sarah C scoops him up and sighs.
“He’s just a cat.”
“We’ll dump him at the shelter tonight,” Sarah A says.
I’m tempted to tell her not to. It seems like we’ve had our fun. Maybe we should take Digits back to Sunny. But I just think these things. I don’t want to rock the boat.
“Do you hear that?” Sarah C asks.
We’re all quiet. There’s a whirring sound followed by a dull thud.
“It’s Vance. He’s probably taking apart the coffee table again,” Sarah A says.
“He takes apart your coffee table? That seems destructive,” Sarah C says.
“Furniture disassembly is the least of his problems,” Sarah A says.
“But we’re safe, right?” Sarah C asks.
“Sure. You know how guys are. They always need to be doing something with their hands,” Sarah A says.
“I know what you mean. All my uncles smoke,” Sarah B says. “And they’re pretty chain about it.”
The whirring sound stops. Then Sarah A flips on the stolen radio.
“Let’s tune him out.”
We all nod in agreement, but I’m sort of surprised that the Aberdeens allow their son to use power tools.
“You can’t tune me out forever!” Vance yells.
“He has great hearing,” Sarah C says.
“I thought you said he had a breakthrough,” I say.
“You know how it is with the mentally deranged. Take one step forward. Take two steps back,” Sarah A says.
“What do you think he wants to talk about?” Sarah B asks.
“Do I care? With all that’s going on in my life, do I have the time to care?” Sarah A asks. “Besides, he’s almost thirteen, he’s still a tween. What could he possibly say that’s of any value to me?”
“One day we’ll have a meaningful conversation!” Vance yells. “We’ll have a sustained dialog. One where we’ll both be able to air our brains.”
“Vance likes to use a lot of therapy-speak when he’s not being kept in a mental health facility,” Sarah A says. “He doesn’t understand that he’s just too crazy for me to love.”
“Ouch,” Sarah C says.
Sarah A reaches for her Roman Karbowski pillow. She places it in her lap, leans into it, and takes a big sniff. I glance around her room. I can see my Doyle Rickerson pillow plopped on the other side of her bed.
“Hormones make guys so complicated,” Sarah A says.
“Women have hormones too,” Sarah C says.
“But we’re not complicated. We’re normal,” Sarah A says. She inhales deeply into her pillow a few more times and then sits up straight. “Okay. Sarah B, what did you steal?”
Sarah B stands up and unzips her pants.
“Mine is kind of show-and-tell. I stole a Brazilian bikini wax.”
The other Sarahs and I burst out laughing. Is she kidding?
Sarah B pulls her jeans down and then her underpants. Wow. No she’s not. Next thing I know, I’m looking at her bare pubic area. It’s very smooth and pink.
“Didn’t that hurt?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“I thought they left a strip of hair,” Sarah C says.
“No, that’s optional.”
“So after they waxed you, you ran out of the salon?” I ask.
“No. When I scheduled the wax, I went for the cheapest person. I figured she’d be the least experienced. Why else would she charge the least? So, when she got to the final strip, I started screaming as she pulled it off. I told her she took some skin.”
“So you just complained and got the wax for free?” Sarah C asks.
“No, I told them that I was using Retin-A.”
None of us say anything. We don’t know why that’s important.
“You’re not supposed to get a bikini wax if you’re taking Accutane or using Retin-A. They increase skin fragility and that can cause tearing when the wax is removed.”
“Gross,” I say.
Sarah B pulls her underwear and jeans back up and sits down again.
“Yeah, but I’m not taking that stuff. I only said that because it made them liable for any tearing. I could sue them for waxing me without asking me the proper questions.”
Sarah B has this proud look on her face and her smile is totally big, but I’m not sure that she actually committed a crime. If you still have to retain a lawyer to fully accomplish your theft, then you didn’t even complete it, right? It’s like partial robbery. I totally think she might be going home. But I don’t say anything.
“I also took these,” she says.
She reaches into her purse and pulls out six bottles of nail polish, three lipsticks, a pumpkin-scented candle, and a gift certificate.
“I stole all this stuff, but they gave me the certificate for my next waxing. But anyone can use it.”
She hands the certificate to Sarah A, who takes it and smiles politely. It’s hard to figure out how Sarah A feels about this.
“It’s for an eyebrow wax, too,” Sarah B says.
“They use the same wax on your face that they use down there?” I ask.
“Yeah, but it’s pretty safe. I mean, I did hear about a woman suing a salon in New York because she got herpes in her eye, but that could’ve been a fluke. And seriously, isn’t there a risk involved with anything that’s worth doing?”
I nod like I agree, but really, I’m thinking, Holy crap, it’s possible to get herpes in your eye?
“Aren’t you worried about ingrown hairs?” Sarah C asks.
“No. They gave me special lotion to use.”
“That was really interesting,” Sarah A says. “I have to hand it to you, for a tomboy, you did a nice job thinking outside the box. Well done.”
I’m surprised to hear Sarah A say this. Maybe she’s just trying to build suspense. Because it’s clear to me who should be voted out. I think it’s clear to everyone. Finally, Sarah A turns to me.
“It’s so good to have you back,” Sarah A says. “And keep in mind, if you need to use the bathroom, just go. You don’t even need to ask. We’ll understand.”
I force a smile.
“Thanks,” I say.
I clear my throat and pull the Plexiglas house out of the grocery sack.
“I stole this from a 7-Eleven just out of town. It’s got $118.95. Isn’t that wild? I mean, that’s so much money.”
Suddenly, things feel very weird. Nobody is saying anything. They’re just all looking at me like they’re stunned. They must be really impressed.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Sarah A says.
“Well, I know it’s pretty bold of me, but I really want to be a Sarah. I felt it was a pretty good crime.”
I smile big. But nobody else is smiling back.
“That’s a shelter horse. His name is Buttons,” Sarah C says. “We made those donation jars last week.”
“That’s impossible. How can it be this full? Nobody in this town is that generous,” I say.
“We poured the old change into the new box. We thought it would encourage people to donate more. Sarah C said it was a fact that people don’t like to be the first ones to put money in the jar,” Sarah B says.
“I don’t know if it’s a fact,” Sarah C says.
“Sarah B and Sarah C each put in ten-dollar bills,” Sarah A says. “I even put in a five!”
“At harvest time, Buttons pulls sleighs for hayrides at orchards,” Sarah B says.
“I didn’t know about that,” I say.
“Yeah, they let terminally ill kids ride the sleighs for free,” Sarah A says.
“I just didn’t know.
”
“Basically, you stole from us,” Sarah A says.
“No, I stole from Buttons. From the shelter.”
Nobody answers me and nobody will look me in the eye. Sarah C focuses on Digits and pets him behind the ears. Sarah B looks at her lap and scratches her crotch. And Sarah A has her eyes closed and is breathing really slowly.
“Real crimes have victims, Sarah T, but we should never be your victims. Your fellow Sarahs should never have to pay for your crimes.”
“I’ll return it,” I say. “I’ll think of another crime.” I’m starting to feel very panicked.
“It’s too risky to return it. Somebody could see you. You need to send a cashier’s check to the shelter for the amount you stole.”
“Okay, I’ll take the money to the bank and cash it in.”
“No. The donation jar stays with us. Why should we have to pay for your mistake?”
Admittedly, it doesn’t seem fair that I have to come up with $118.95 to send to the shelter while Sarah A gets to keep the jar, but I’m willing to do whatever is necessary.
“I’ll do it. I just don’t want to be voted out.”
Neither of the other two Sarahs are looking at me.
“This isn’t a small thing, Sarah T.”
I can feel tears forming.
“You know, letters of recommendation are pretty important for college. You just put all of that in jeopardy by what you did. Getting into the University of Michigan is tough. You get that, right?”
“I do. I know. We need to be well-rounded. We need school interests and charity interests and the shelter was our charity interest. I get it.”
“Do you think Mr. King will write us letters if he finds out we stole from the shelter? That we robbed from a maimed, kindhearted Belgian draft horse? Your fellow Sarahs and I have volunteered—have cleaned up after yapping and shitting dogs—for two years to get a good letter. Do you understand how big this is?”
“I get that now, but I didn’t know. When I stole it, I didn’t have a clue.”
“As a Sarah, you can never be clueless. Ever. You’ve always got to think of who you’re representing. It’s completely unacceptable to put us all in jeopardy like that.”
Crimes of the Sarahs Page 8
