Trinkets

by Kirsten Smith

  Fortunately, he climbed out the window when he heard Aunt B, and she didn’t notice anything was up at breakfast. I arranged my eggs and bacon into a smiley face that looked like Noah, but Marc walked by and messed it up with his fork, so I had to punch him. Aunt B yelled at me, which was okay because I was in such a good mood that I apologized immediately and told her she was a very smart lady, so she went off to work in high spirits, feeling like I respected her, which could only be considered a banner way to start the day.

  Stolen Goods

  There’s a guy in the Hair Care section of Fred Meyer

  who’s looking at me like he knows

  what kind of person I am.

  Then I realize I’m being paranoid.

  There’s no way he—or anyone, for that matter—

  could know that I’m the kind of person who has

  three lip glosses,

  a Hello Kitty alarm clock,

  a packet of Red Vines,

  condoms (so I can see what they look like up close),

  and a box of Crayola markers

  in my bag.

  To top it all off,

  I slip a rhinestone barrette in there too,

  one that Rachelle might like.

  Nothing helps new friendships like surprise trinkets.

  Fortunately, Rachelle knows my parents have money,

  so she’ll never guess her gifts are stolen,

  but if she were a thief herself,

  she’d understand that a stolen present

  means way more than one that’s been bought,

  because of what you had to go through to get it.

  Out the Door

  I walk out the door,

  past the guy collecting money

  for some charitable cause or other,

  and I give him a dollar

  and a good-girl smile,

  and that’s when I feel

  a hand

  on my shoulder.

  I’m gonna need you to come back into the store.

  I turn around and there’s the creepy guy from Hair Care,

  and next to him is the nice old lady

  from the candy aisle.

  What’s wrong? I say.

  And the nice old lady says,

  We need to see what’s in your bag.

  For a sick second,

  I’m happy

  because someone realizes I’m not simply a good girl.

  They can tell I’m dangerous,

  not just some stupid wallflower waiting to bloom.

  Let’s go, miss, Hair Care Guy says,

  and I hold up my hand

  to say just one second,

  and then I turn

  and barf all over the sidewalk.

  Good Cop, Bad Cop

  In the holding room of Fred Meyer,

  they make me pose in front of my stolen goods.

  It’s like I’m getting my photo taken at Spring Fling,

  only instead of being half a couple

  posing in front of a cheesy cityscape backdrop,

  I have condoms, a clock,

  and licorice lined up behind me.

  Hair Care Guy thinks this is funny.

  Candy and sex—those are my vices too,

  he says with a grin.

  Nice Old Lady doesn’t laugh.

  That’s because she’s Bad Cop.

  She’s not even remorseful, she says,

  looking at me.

  I realize now might be a good time to act sad,

  so I think back to two years ago

  after my mom died and my dad had gotten

  me a dog for Christmas:

  a sheltie from the pound

  who was scheduled to die

  the next day.

  I named him Rufus and slept with him every night

  for a month until my father came to tell me

  that we were being transferred

  to Chicago, and we’d live in an apartment

  that didn’t allow dogs.

  I think back to the day we dropped Rufus off

  at a new family’s house,

  and I thought of the look on his face

  and his soft ears and his molasses eyes,

  and here come the tears

  in the back room of the drugstore

  as Bad Cop calls my dad

  and I bawl in front of all my trinkets,

  stupid things you didn’t know how much you loved

  until they’re taken from you

  and you can’t get them back.

  Meditation

  I had a hippie science teacher

  in the school I went to before this one,

  and she told us how she meditated every morning,

  and she said when you first learn to do it

  you hear all these sounds in the room

  you’ve never heard before

  like the air conditioner

  or people arguing next door

  or a plane above.

  It’s like you’re hyperfocused on everything

  because you’re trying not to focus on anything.

  That’s what I’m doing

  after my dad picks me up in front of Fred Meyer

  and drives me home.

  He convinced them not to call the cops

  and negotiated for me to go to group therapy instead;

  he closed the deal using his expert skills.

  I want to say thank you,

  but all I can do is

  try to breathe

  and block out the sound

  of his deafening,

  disappointed

  silence.

  “Guess I’m just another statistic with another set of clichéd motives.”

  The First Time

  The first time I stole,

  it was an accident.

  I walked out of the store

  with a pack of Starburst in my hand

  that I’d completely forgotten to pay for.

  My mom had

  been sick for months already

  and she was cranky that day.

  I could have gone back but

  I felt like I deserved a treat, a present,

  something that tastes good,

  because if there are forces that decide

  to randomly take people away,

  there should be forces that decide

  to randomly give things for free.

  Welcome to Shoplifters Anonymous

  A woman with gray flyaway hair announces:

  Welcome to Shoplifters Anonymous.

  We have some newcomers today,

  so bear with me if you’ve heard this before.

  My name is Shawn—

  and everyone says, Hi, Shawn! so loud

  I practically jump out of my seat.

  Shawn smiles and proudly says,

  I’m a kleptomaniac.

  I’m also a codependent and a child of alcoholics,

  but that’s a different story.

  She pauses for laughs,

  but there aren’t any.

  I want to tell all you newcomers

  my story from the beginning….

  She’s just about to start when who walks in—

  looking like she wishes she were dead

  or, worse, like she stole something

  and got caught doing it—

  but Tabitha Foster.

  ROCK BOTTOM

  How the hell did I end up in the basement of Saint Michael’s Church on SW Mill in a shit part of town with a boatload of losers? Thank you oh-so-much, Family Friend Jeffrey, for deciding this is my salvation from a criminal record.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” says the frizzy-banged woman standing in front of the room. “I’m Shawn. And you are?”

  Great. AA has already started.

  “Tabitha.” I sit in the back, scootch down in my chair, and try to be as invisible as possible. There are some tables, and frayed, grubby brown carpet, and a few dozen women in their thir
ties and forties, plus one really old man. I didn’t think there was going to be anyone my own age, but a few seats over, there’s a girl with purple combat boots and a cherry-red dye job that was clearly not achieved with professional input. Shawn calls her “Maureen,” and the girl looks up. “Moe. Remember?”

  She’s got something in Sharpie written on her arm. It’s probably a reminder to do drugs or beat somebody up.

  The other girl my age is sitting near the front. When Shawn asks her to introduce herself, she says, “I’m Elodie,” and when she turns her head, I see her little ski-jump nose and her wavy brown hair, and I realize it’s the girl who spilled daiquiri all over me at Derek’s party. What are the fucking odds of that? When she bends over to get something out of her purse, I see a camera peeking out of her messenger bag. That’s where I’ve seen her. She’s on the yearbook staff. A few months ago, she took a picture of me and Brady. He made some comment to her about how his photo should be on every page.

  “Can you pull some strings and make that happen?” he said. Based on the giggling and blushing she was doing, she’s clearly one of dozens of girls at LO High who dreams about being his girlfriend. Who wouldn’t? He’s hot. He’s tall. He’s famous. Lucky me. Now I get to sit here behind one of his superfans. Meanwhile, there’s a creepy homeless guy waiting outside so he can continue rambling at me about how I look Scandinavian. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, it goes and gets a little bit lower.

  MARCH 16

  Once I saw my fifth-grade teacher Miss Dobson buying douche at the supermarket. She saw me, I saw her, we made eye contact, and I tried to act like I didn’t see her vaginal supplies. Still, the shock of seeing Miss Dobson getting her Summer’s Eve on was nothing compared to the shock of seeing Tabitha Foster and some goody-two-shoes–looking girl from my school in Shoplifters Anonymous today. I don’t know about Goody Two-Shoes, but Tabitha Foster pretty much has everything: money, friends, popularity, a hot boyfriend who worships her. Why would she need to steal?

  Until now the most interesting person in the class has been Gina, the world’s unhappiest housewife, who loves to share her personal details. She has three kids, and her husband works all the time and probably cheats on her at night. I would steal stuff if I were her too. Today she talked about how she’s obsessed with stealing pantyhose. She said she has more L’eggs pantyhose than she’ll ever need, but she can’t stop—having all of those options makes her feel better. I wrote “L’eggs” on my hand in Sharpie. And then “Panties.” That’s how bored I was. Although now I am kind of pumped to hear about the shit Tabitha Foster steals, and I hope she unloads all her personal details the way Gina does, so I can collect them and make fun of her later.

  Dynamics

  Moe’s real name is Maureen Truax.

  I know because Rachelle had me photograph

  her and her friends last week,

  so “all the social dynamics of LO can be represented.”

  I finally found them under the bleachers getting high

  and they told me to “leave us the fuck alone,”

  so I did.

  I can’t believe

  I’m in the same room

  with her and Tabitha Foster—

  two more opposite people the world has never known.

  If this isn’t all the social dynamics being represented,

  I don’t know what is.

  SHALL WE, PEOPLE?

  “The reasons we shoplift are varied, but they’re tied together by the euphoria of getting something for free, the same euphoria any addict feels when getting a hit of a drug,” Shawn says, waving away a fly that is hungrily circling her frizzy ponytail. “For some of us, shoplifting is motivated by loss. Losing a person, or a job, or income. There’s a hole inside, and stealing fills it. For others, stealing is an act of rebellion against a world we can’t control.”

  As she drones on, I look down at the heart with the initials BW carved into the wood on the desk, next to KL and MK. Obviously a lot of people have sat in this desk before I did. Guess I’m just another statistic with another set of clichéd motives. “Some of us steal because it’s a justified payback for how much we give to others and how little they give back to us,” Shawn continues. “And for some of us, stealing is a relief mechanism for anxiety, frustration, or depression.”

  A Desperate Housewife raises her hand.

  “Yes, Gina?”

  “How do you know if you’re depressed?”

  “Uh, if you live in Hillsboro and have nothing to do but go to PTA meetings?” Moe offers.

  Shawn glares at her, then turns to the Desperate Housewife.

  “Depression is quite common, and there are a number of ways to identify it and treat it. We can discuss the symptoms privately, or I can refer you to a psychiatrist, if you’d like.”

  Gina nods, looking even more depressed.

  “Now, back to the topic at hand. Who here knows what percentage of Americans shoplift?” No one raises a hand. “Ten percent. And it’s rising every year. So I want to commend all of you in this room for being here and bravely addressing your addiction. Let’s stop the increase, shall we, people?”

  Yep, I’m officially trapped in a Lifetime Television Movie for Women.

  MARCH 20

  For some of these goobers, I think SA meetings are a way to complain about life, an attempt to make people feel sorry for them, and the chance to grab a free cookie on the way out. I myself find some of the stories and lessons amusing. For the first few months, I’m pretty sure Shawn thought I was taking detailed notes to better myself, but I was actually writing down people’s dos and don’ts of shoplifting. Like “Don’t act guilty” or “Don’t steal from people you know” or “Do steal from chain stores” or “If possible, steal cheese.” I’m sure these things will all be helpful to me later in life when I grow up and become a sterling member of society and a role model for humans everywhere.

  Montagues and Capulets

  Ms. Hoberman is obsessed

  with the Montagues and the Capulets.

  To prepare for our field trip to see Romeo and Juliet,

  she added the crests of Juliet’s family

  and Romeo’s family to the never-ending flood

  of Shakespeare-themed trinkets on her desk.

  Kids make fun of her obsession with Shakespeare

  the way my mom’s students

  probably made fun of her obsession with movies

  back when she taught Cinema Studies in college.

  She made me watch old black-and-white movies

  with people saying sparkling things and dancing

  and doing what she called a “meet cute.”

  It’s where the characters

  first meet in some cute, unexpected way:

  a hitchhike or a car crash,

  a blind date or a job interview.

  Although in my case,

  I guess, when you spill a drink on Tabitha Foster

  and she yells at you afterward,

  it’s really more of a “meet ugly.”

  THE MEMOIR I DON’T WRITE

  I’m doodling on my notebook in third-period Creative Writing in an attempt to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Miraculously, I’ve managed to avoid having long conversations with people since Derek’s party five days ago. However, I feel Jason Baines smirking at me from a few chairs over. This is one of those moments I wish life were a Final Destination movie and a random chain saw would fly from the hand of a gardener outside and smash through an open window to violently saw Jason Baines in half.

  Distracting me from my fantasy of carnage is Ms. Hoberman, loudly proclaiming, “Your parents need to sign your Romeo and Juliet field-trip forms by Wednesday.”

  Serena Bell is staring at me and whispering something to Kacey Madigan. I look back down at my doodles, which consist of a heart with an arrow through it and a small monkey face. Clearly, I have no artistic ability.

  “For today’s free-write, I want you to writ
e a short memoir about your family,” Ms. Hoberman continues. “It can be in poetry or prose, comedic or dramatic—obviously it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the Montagues and the Capulets, but I’d love for you to be creative and candid.”

  Writing about my family with candor or creativity does not sound fun. What is there to say? My dad hooks up with women who aren’t my mom? And that I once saw him on a date once with a brunette at Le Bouchon downtown as they sat in front of candles and ate snails on plates? Should I write that he was saying something that made her laugh? Because for an expert at making people miserable, my dad’s actually a pretty funny guy?

  Frankly, I’d rather get an incomplete than say any of that. I don’t need to dredge up any more reminders of my dad; I already get those a few times a week when I catch a glimpse of his briefcase in the front hall, sitting there like a fantasy of hello or a promise of good-bye.

  LUNCH

  I wish I could say our cafeteria wasn’t like a teen movie where there’s a whole by-the-numbers social structure and the dorks sit here and the pretty people sit there and the theater people sit over there and the lax bros sit there and who knows who else sits who knows where else, but it pretty much is almost exactly that way.

  “This corn dog is disgusting,” says Kayla as she tries to bite into the soggy, khaki-colored tube.

  I gag at the sight of it. “I don’t know why you eat that crap,” I say, opening my carrots and hummus.

  “I like pizza day,” Kayla says. “When is pizza day?”

  Patrick Cushman walks by. “I got the recipe from the lunch lady. If you ever want to try to make a pizza at home.”

  “You can do that?” Kayla says.

  “That’s weird. Who knows how to make pizza?” Taryn finally looks up, flicking a crouton crumb off the sleeve of her tight red shirt. Her boobs look like they’re going to fall out of it. Sometimes I wish this school had a dress code.

  “Apparently, he does,” I say, with a glance at Patrick.