Sleight of Hand

by Natasha Deen

  Sleight of Hand

  Natasha Deen

  orca soundings

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2015 Natasha Deen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Deen, Natasha, author

  Sleight of hand / Natasha Deen.

  (Orca soundings)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1120-1 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1121-8 (pdf).—

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1122-5 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings

  PS8607.E444S54 2015 jC813'.6 C2015-902478-1

  C2015-902479-X

  First published in the United States, 2015

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015935533

  Summary: Javvan is on probation and struggling to stay out of trouble.

  Finding a job is even harder.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover image by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  18 17 16 15 • 4 3 2 1

  For my family.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  I see my chances for a new life die in the eyes of the interviewer. It’s always in their eyes. They go flat, lifeless. And it always happens toward the end of the interview. Doesn’t matter that I have work experience or that I’m willing to do any job and put in long hours. Doesn’t matter that I’m a good student and on the track team. They ask that fateful question, and I have to answer honestly.

  That’s when their eyes go dead. It’s all, “Thank you, Mr. Malhotra. We’ll call you.”

  They never do.

  This interview’s no different. Bike-courier job. After-school hours, weekend gigs. I could work around my mom’s schedule, make sure there’s always someone to take my little brother, Sammy, to his after-school stuff. I’d told all of this to the interviewer. She’d smiled, called me a good son.

  Not always, but I don’t tell her that.

  Then she’d laughed, said the job was mine.

  Just as I am breathing the tightness out of my chest, she says, “Oh, shoot. Last question.” She rolls her eyes, as though it is an annoyance to have to ask me. “Have you ever been arrested for theft?”

  “Yes.”

  The smile holds—she thinks I’m joking. When I don’t say, “Gotcha,” realization kicks in.

  End of smiles. End of her thinking I’m a good son.

  “What were you arrested for?”

  “I stole a car.”

  “And you were convicted.”

  “Yes.” I want to tell her more, but it’s complicated to explain. Plus, it would make me look like I’m trying too hard to minimize what I’ve done.

  She gives me a look like I just farted. “Thank you, Mr. Malhotra. We’ll call you.”

  “No. Please. I made a mistake,” I told her. “Got caught up with a dumb moment—” Stupid. Now I just look like I’m trivializing my choices. “It was a bad decision, and I regret it.”

  She’s standing, ready to shove me out the door. Glancing around like my presence is dirtying her white furniture, white walls, white suit.

  “Please. Mrs. O’Toole. Give me a chance.” I stay seated, unwilling to budge. This is my twenty-second interview. My twenty-second rejection. If I could go back in time and not steal that stupid Lexus, I would. One idiot moment. One stupid choice, and my life’s been screwed ever since.

  Mrs. O’Toole sighs. Takes off her red glasses and rubs her eyes. “It’s not me,” she says. “It’s our clients. There are sensitive documents that get shipped. We can’t take the risk.”

  “But I didn’t steal any files—it was a car—”

  “Javvan.”

  I stop. Use of my first name means it’s a for-sure no.

  “I have a ton of kids who want this job.” She gives me a pointed look. “A ton of kids who didn’t steal and didn’t get convicted.”

  Two more years, and my youth record gets wiped. It may as well be twenty years. This thing will never stop following me.

  “I have another interview.” Her expression is full of pity. “I’m sorry. Good luck—I’m sure someone else will hire you.”

  “Yeah,” I mumble as I stand and head for the door. “That’s what the last guy said.”

  If I could be a coward and wait until my record’s expunged before looking for work, I would. But gainful employment is part of my probation. Interviews suck. The disappointed looks of my never-to-be-bosses suck. And what I have to do next sucks more.

  It takes about an hour to bike the Calgary streets to my probation officer’s building, chain up, then head in. I sit in the room. It’s empty except for some cop in uniform. We wait in the dingy outer office with its 1970s decor and 1990s Reader’s Digest magazines. Fifteen minutes later, my probation officer comes out. Mary Stevens. In my head, I call her Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. She doesn’t believe bad kids can be good. Doesn’t believe that good kids can do bad things and still be good. Her favorite word is recidivism. That means “once a criminal, always a criminal.”

  Mary gives me the usual prissy smile. “Javvan. Good. You’re here.”

  The way she talks makes my eyes twitch. High-pitched. False. The dead-giveaway tone that adults who don’t like kids use. “Ms. Stevens,” I say.

  “Come in, sweetie.”

  She calls all of us sweetie when other adults are around. Ditto with calling us her kids. Yeah. Right. If that were really the case, she’d have tossed all of us into foster care.

  I stand.

  She stops. “And don’t forget about your phone.”

  “Right.” Mary has a rule about electronic devices in her office. I shut off my phone and drop it in the basket. Rumor is, some kid tried to sneak one in, but Mary had some kind of electronic-detection tech and caught him. Then she reported the violation of his probation. He got booted back to the remand center, where he promptly got his butt kicked and landed in the infirmary.

  “You have a job yet?” The nice-girl act falls away as soon as the door clicks shut. Mary gestures to a brown folder as she drops her skinny butt onto the wood chair. “It would look good for you to have employment.”

  By that, she means it would look good for her. The more first offenders that go straight, the better she looks. And the better she looks, the better her chances of getting promoted.

  “No, nothing yet.”

  She purses her lips. The cheap red lipstick cracks. “You can’t find anything?”

  “I think that’s what no means.”

  If her lips get any tighter, they’ll have to crowbar her mouth open. Or feed her through a straw. I try to hide m
y smile, but she catches it. Figures it’s a smirk.

  “If this attitude is anything to go by, then I’m not surprised.”

  “I’m doing the best I can.” I am. I’ve volunteered at the animal shelter, gotten—after a crap load of begging—letters of reference from my teachers. “I’m on curfew. I do my homework. I’m doing everything I can.”

  She sighs. “A couple of the interviewers called. Including”—she glances at the notepad— “a Penny O’Toole.”

  My spirits lift. She was the last interview. “And?”

  Mary’s shoulders lift and drop. “I gave you a good spiel. We’ll see.”

  I chew on the hope in her words.

  The chair creaks as she straightens. “In the meantime, how are your grades?”

  “Mostly Bs, a couple of Cs, one D.”

  “They need to be higher.”

  “I know.” I try to keep the impatience out of my voice but fail.

  This time it’s her turn to smirk. “Don’t give me attitude. I’m not the one who stole a luxury vehicle.”

  I don’t bother to say anything. This is how she starts her usual lecture.

  “You were always on the edge, Javvan. Hanging out with pot smokers, truants.”

  They weren’t the problem. I’ve tried to tell her this, but she never listens. Those guys were just a bunch of board heads. The problem was the same one most guys face. A chick. Tiffany. Who smelled like vanilla and tasted like chocolate. Her older brother, Dwayne, called me a wuss, said I didn’t have the balls to break the law. Made a racist comment about my parents being immigrants.

  What I’d wanted to do was punch him. But I’m five foot nine. He’s six foot three. And he’s got forty pounds on me. So when he bet me $200 I wouldn’t steal his neighbor’s car, I took him up on it. Figured it was date money. I liked the irony of him paying for dinner for his sister and me.

  He never said how far I had to drive the car. My plan was to crack the lock, drive it thirty feet and collect the cash and the girl. What I didn’t know was that as soon I went toward the car, Dwayne went to the neighbors, who called the cops.

  Outside the courtroom, Dwayne had pulled me aside and said white and brown don’t mix. Said I should’ve stayed with my curry-eating kind.

  That’s when I’d hit him. Hard. And it had felt awesome. Until I saw the look on my parents’ face and the officer coming at me with handcuffs.

  I hear Mary say, “That’s why so many of you reoffend. Why recidivism is such a problem.” There are a couple of sentences left in her weekly sermon, so I tune back in. Nod and grunt. Say I understand. Thank her for her time.

  She stands. “Keep trying for work. And stay away from that crowd. It’s part of your sentence.”

  I know. Until I’m off probation, I can’t talk to any of them. The last few months of school were crap. I’d see my friends, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to them. Tiffany was a bright spot, but her folks had taken the family to Italy for the summer. Not Dwayne. Their parents had sent him to some reform camp. But now I had two months with no friends, no girlfriend.

  “Your parents put a lot of money into getting you a good lawyer,” Mary adds. “Most kids charged with theft over $5,000 get juvie. You didn’t. That’s because your lawyer and the prosecutor think you’re worth a second shot. Don’t let your mother and father down. Don’t let the judge or the lawyers down.”

  I nod and step out of the office.

  A kid with a shaved head, tats covering her arms and part of her face, rises. She shoves her phone into the basket and takes my place.

  I notice the cop’s still there.

  She smiles. “How’s your hand?”

  I blink. “Huh?”

  “Your hand.” She points to my left. “Thought you might have broken a couple of your fingers.”

  I still don’t know what she’s talking about.

  “At the courthouse.”

  “Oh!” My head tilts forward as I stare at her. “You were there?” Think I would’ve noticed. She’s small and pretty, with light-brown hair pulled into a bun. I glance down, register the wedding ring.

  She laughs, and it’s a nice sound. Heck, it’s a bonus to have someone in law enforcement be nice to me. The judge had frowned. The prosecutor had scowled. Even my lawyer had given me the stinkeye.

  “I’m not surprised you don’t remember.” She winks. “Kind of had your hands full, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I laugh. “I guess I did.” Then my brain kicks into gear. I don’t remember her face, but her voice is suddenly familiar. “You’re the one who pulled me off Dwayne.”

  She nods. “I’m Andrea.”

  “You’re also the one who made sure I didn’t get charged.”

  The humor goes out of her face as she adds, “I heard what he said to you outside the courtroom.” She gives me a once-over. “How are you doing?”

  “Good.”

  “Wanna try again?”

  “No, really, I’m good.”

  “Uh-huh. So life as an ex-con is everything you’d hoped it’d be?”

  “I could do without the dancing girls every night, but I’m fine.”

  “It’s the high kicks, isn’t it? I’ve heard they can cause neck strain.”

  She says it so deadpan, it takes me a couple of seconds to figure out she’s joking. This gets her laughing. And the whole thing surprises me. Thought for sure I’d get lectured. “It’s definitely the high kicks.”

  “I read your file,” she says.

  I hide my frown, but I’m confused. Why would she read my file?

  My thoughts must show on my face. She smiles, says, “In this line of work, you learn fast which kids are here because they’ve made a mistake and which kids are here because they’re making a career.” She pauses. “You made a mistake, and I want to make sure you don’t make another one.” The smile stays on her face, but her voice takes a hard note as she adds, “I stuck up for you in the court building that day. I want to make sure I didn’t make a mistake.”

  “You didn’t—I won’t be back here again, not once my probation’s up.”

  She nods, satisfied. “I’m glad they didn’t give you jail time. Glad the judge understood the circumstances that led up to the theft.”

  I shift my weight, rock it to my heels and wait for her to continue.

  Her brown eyes flick to Mary’s closed door. “She treating you okay?”

  That gets my spidey sense tingling. She’s not my arresting officer, and she didn’t let Dwayne press charges. So why is she checking up on me? No way am I saying anything bad about Mary to anyone connected with the law. “She’s fine.” In case Andrea’s here to test my loyalty, I add, “She’s even putting in a good word with some of the people I’ve interviewed with.”

  An emotion crosses her face, too fast for me to name it. I think I said the wrong thing. “Uh…” I jerk my thumb at the exit. “I should go.”

  “Sure—just a second.” She digs into her blue uniform and pulls out her business card. “Here. In case.”

  I take it, shove it into my back pocket and forget about it. Bigger things are on my mind. Being turned down for a job sucks. Mary’s disapproval sucks. But going home and facing my parents sucks the most. What I have to do next sucks the most.

  Chapter Two

  Sammy lifts his head off the couch arm as soon I step inside. Gives me a nod, then goes back to watching tv. The smell of curry’s in the air, and I remember Dwayne’s slag. For a second, I’m ashamed of the scent of onions, jeera and dhania, of garlic and chicken. Then I shake it off, because Sammy’s asking how the day went. I give him a shrug, then change the channel to the Weather Network just to tweak him.

  He shakes his head good-naturedly and grabs the remote.

  Mom comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “How did it go?”

  “Fine. One of the companies phoned Mary. That’s good, right?” I fake a happy tone. Try to make eye contact. I don’t know what it’s like for other Indi
an families, but my family is all about community. A whole. What one person does reflects on everyone. My mistakes have shamed the entire family. It’s why I’m trying so hard to get a job. To prove I’m not a waste or a bad guy. I still don’t have a job. I still don’t have proof I’m good, which is why it sucks so bad to go home.

  She nods, forces a smile. “Come.” A life growing up in Mumbai lingers in her voice. Like Sammy and me, she’s worked hard not to sound too Indian, to be as Canadian as possible. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “I thought I’d eat in my—”

  “Set the table,” she says, then heads back to the stove.

  My shoes hit the back of the closet with a thunk as I kick them off. I notice Dad in the recliner. He doesn’t look up. I don’t acknowledge him.

  When he’d picked me up at the station, he’d started screaming as soon as we got in the car. He said I’d shamed the family. What was the point of them immigrating to Canada if I was going to be a hooligan? That this mistake would follow me forever.

  His voice had gotten more and more quiet as we drove, and by the time we were home, he’d gone submarine silent. He hasn’t talked to me since. If nothing else, I want a job to get away from the forced smiles of my mother and the icy quiet of my father.

  I follow Mom into the kitchen and set the table. Try not to remember when dinner was full of laughter and arguments. Sammy walks up, helps put the forks and knives in place. “Did you get a job?”

  I shake my head.

  He peers at Mom, sees she’s not paying attention. “Good. If you work, we can’t hang out.”

  That makes me feel a little better. Sammy’s almost thirteen, which should make him the annoying little brother. But when we moved from India to Canada, neither one of us spoke English. He was the only one I could talk to, hang with. It’s made us more than brothers. We’re friends too.

  It’s been six years, but that outsider feeling’s never left me. Not like Sammy. He fits in anywhere. I’m trying to learn how to be easygoing like him. But as my record proves, my emotions tend to get the better of me.

  “I learned a new magic trick,” he says. “I’ll show you after dinner.”