by Heidi Ayarbe
“And if one of us wants to back out—for whatever reason—we back out. No questions asked.”
“No questions asked. Whaddya say, Bonnie?” Josh says in the cheesiest Texas accent possible. We’re sitting across from each other in the cramped booth, knees brushing. His hand rests on my arm.
All feeling in my body has washed away except for where our knees touch and Josh’s hand rests on my arm. Every cheesy love song crashes through my mind.
“Well? Bonnie?”
I snap back to reality. “You do realize B and C were ambushed in their hideout and shot to death by cops from Texas and Louisiana. Super romantic.” I blush. “I didn’t mean romantic. Ah, hell.”
Josh kisses the inside of my wrist. Melting melting melting. “Ready to embark on a life of crime?”
“Haven’t we already?”
A step ahead of dragon’s fire.
We pay the bill and drive to the house, our first target. We park down the street. Josh has done his homework. He describes the family’s routines, the doggie door, the access from the garage to the main house. The house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. It feels trapped in. No escape. I count two sliding-door entrances on the ground floor, another sliding door on the balcony on the second floor. The windows next to the balcony have shades drawn.
Josh drops me off just before midnight. “Tomorrow morning? She leaves for work a quarter to seven. We’d have twenty minutes to get in and out and to school on time.”
Tomorrow morning.
Josh tucks my hair behind my ear. I turn to him. “Tomorrow morning. Okay.”
We both look at my house. There’s a light on in the living room—like a little yellow square has been pasted on our blackened neighborhood. “Will you get in trouble?” he asks. “For being so late?”
I shake my head. “To get in trouble, you have to matter,” I say.
Josh brushes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. He plays with the silver dice on my bracelet. “I can’t wait until you can see you with my eyes.”
I blush, the warmth filling me, relieved that with Josh I don’t feel like a leftover. I feel like now is everything, like I’m ready to toss the dice to determine my fate. Not worried about the odds.
I clear my throat. “See you in the morning.”
Holding infinity impossible. It slips away.
Chapter 29
IT’S 6:45. I PARK A FEW BLOCKS
away. Josh meets me at the corner, and now we’re here.
My glasses fog. I take them off, wipe them, put them back on. The rumble of the garage door jerks me back to the moment. I fumble with my glasses, push them on. Maybe I should get contact lenses.
Josh and I pull on the masks. “Babylonia,” he whispers.
“Babylonia.”
When the car reaches the bottom of the curved driveway, we roll under the door just before it’s about to close. The door stops midway down, hovers, then begins to go up. Josh quickly pushes a trash-can lid in the way, and we rush to the back of the garage behind a pile of bicycles and ski equipment, crouching under a heavy wooden table with a buzz saw on top.
The car returns. I listen to the click of heels. She mutters to herself, rolls the lid inside, standing for a moment before pushing a code and shutting the door all the way. We go into the house. Josh is ready with a box of dog treats. The professionally groomed shih tzu attack dog comes running at us, its piercing bark enough to shatter glass, tiny claws pattering across stone floors, long hair like a boutique mop. “Hello, Bijoux,” Josh whispers. He holds out a handful of gourmet dog biscuits. Bijoux’s tail goes into overtime happy mode and forgets we’re not supposed to be there. We work our way through the rooms, the first light of day seeping in the windows. My black outfit feels too black in the purple predawn light.
There’s better nighttime thief attire.
But at night, people are at home. During the day, people work.
Our rules: No one gets hurt. No one gets caught.
I’m pretty sure we can handle the first one. The second one, however, is the one that kept me awake all night.
Josh points to his watch, holds up ten fingers, then five.
Fifteen minutes before the maid arrives. Fifteen minutes.
Josh leads the way to the office. Every footstep we take sounds thunderous. Even my breathing feels loud, invasive. The house is creepy quiet. Lifeless. Just as I’m sure I’ve registered all the sounds, I notice the soft sound of music coming from a room down the hall. I point to my ear and shrug.
Josh nods.
We creep down the hallway, following the sounds of music until we’re outside the room that has the music. I press my ear to the door, listening for anything other than the sound of music when I hear a click and a soft moan. The music is turned off.
“Snooze alarm,” I mouth. “Who?” I point to the door.
Josh shakes his head and I follow him down the hall, back into the study. “Let’s move. Fast.” He pulls out a key from the desk drawer and motions to the closet. I close the office door with a soft click and sit against it, ear pressed to the door.
But all I can hear is the thrumming of my blood pumping through my body—a crashlike sounding in my ears. Just calm down.
Josh finds the safe.
No keyhole.
He stares at the key, squinting. He shrugs, takes out his backpack, and says, “Stand back.” He lights his blowtorch and melts the safe around the lock, popping the melted piece of metal inside the safe. It makes a heavy thud-clang sound.
He turns off the blowtorch. We listen to the house, the sound of metal cooling, Bijoux’s paws scratching at the door. Stupid dog.
I wait for someone to come running down the hallway. It’s silent.
The house doesn’t even breathe.
“A blowtorch?” I ask.
“I read it on eHow.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“The school shop. From Auto Body class.”
I stare at him and shake my head. “Unbelievable.”
Josh opens the cooled-down metal door. “What are the odds?” Josh asks, pulling out a wad of cash. He leaves the jewelry.
“What are the odds?” I echo. I could probably tell him, given the time to work them out, but I don’t work them out because of the niggling feeling everything we’re doing is like shooting for a Hail Mary.
We take all of it—almost four thousand dollars.
He shoves the money into his pocket. We listen at the door before opening it. We creep down the hallway. I stand behind a door and keep watch while Josh spray-paints BABYLONIA in big letters on the back of the door, underneath AND HER NAME MOTHER OF EXILES.
We tape the manifesto to the door.
Josh looks at his watch and holds up three fingers. “We’re fast. We’re good.”
We are.
We find Bijoux’s doggie door. Josh points to it. “You first,” he says.
I stare at the door, mentally measure my hips and butt, and shake my head. Josh’s escape plan didn’t factor in the size of my ass.
He nods toward the door and holds up his watch.
All I can do is picture the police showing up with me half in, half out. I can just imagine the calls across their radios, the stifled laughs, the “remember that time?” If I’m going to get caught, it’ll be with a little dignity.
Josh squeezes my arm. “Go,” he urges.
The muffled sound of clock-radio music reaches us through the door. I stare at the doggie door, shrug, and open the back door, stepping outside. I listen for the blare of sirens, some obnoxious house alarm. Nothing.
Josh pushes me forward, turns the lock from the inside, and pulls the door shut, the pitter-patter of Bijoux’s claws close behind us.
We work our way to the side of the house, peel off our masks and the black clothes that cover our school clothes. I undo the plastic bags that I’ve tied around my feet, stuff my clothes into the bags, and remove everything but my gloves. Josh does the same. He holds his hand up,
jumps the fence, and stands on the other side. “Clear,” he whispers.
I toss our bags over, take a quick look around to make sure we don’t leave anything behind, and scramble over the fence.
We take off the surgical gloves and shove them into the bags, too, working our way to the sidewalk toward our cars. The neighborhood is waking up: People are jogging; a man drinks coffee on the porch in his bathrobe, holding the newspaper in his hands.
They’re going to know. They’ll know we were there.
I feel like my fear will bubble up and spill out, like I’ll be the missing piece when the police question witnesses, canvass the area, the blotch on their custom-designed American perfection.
Nobody sees us.
We’re invisible.
My entire body tingles on a total epi high, like I’ve taken a bottle of adrenergics. This is walking on water, the calming of the sea, the blind man healed.
This. Is. Power.
“Hallelujah,” I mutter.
Josh winks at me, his hair curling at the back from sweat, cheeks flushed. He feels the thrill, too. “Amen,” he says, and pats the money he’s shoved into his pocket.
We walk to our separate cars and drive to school, making it just in time for first bell. Kids are hollering, laughing, fighting. Some girl’s crying. Two guys from band are playing “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts on their clarinets, passing around a baseball hat to collect some cash. I put in a dollar.
Everything sounds muffled. It’s hard to hear anything over the boom of my heart. I wonder if I’ll go blind and deaf from the adrenaline.
Josh catches up to me in the hallway, on the way to Mrs. B’s. “Good morning,” he says, handing me an ice-cold Starbucks latte. “Drink it,” he says, “as if it’s the hottest, freshest coffee you’ve ever tasted.”
I nod, taking a sip of the bitter sludge and choke down a few sips. I suck on a mint because there’s no way I’ll make it through the morning without some kind of intestinal rebellion. My whole body is on overdrive.
Then I see Moch—walking down the hall—sunglasses hardly disguising a bruised face and swollen cheek. It’s like watching a digital picture—the dots of color of who he is form on my retina. He’s wearing a crooked smile, one I know doesn’t reach his eyes.
I search for his chain, relieved to see the saint hanging from it.
“Moch!” I wave.
He brushes by me. The morning high is gone. All I feel is her absence.
I swallow back the anxiety and hold my cup up to Josh. “Babylonia,” I say, trying to hold on to the buzz from the morning, trying to make my life mean something.
“Babylonia.”
The tardy bell rings just as we slip in the door. Mrs. Brooks gives Moch one of those oh-so-sorry smiles. And the day proceeds as normal.
Time stops only for the dead.
Chapter 30
Babylonia Manifesto Leaves No Room for Interpretation
NCAA Finals Around the Corner: Who Are You “Betting” On?
Czech Line Dancing: The New Craze at Carson High
Sanctuary 7:15 courtyard
“I’VE MISSED SANCTUARY,
Mike,” Javier says, shoulder bumping me. “What’s to bet on this week?”
A few more come in. Curiosity, mostly. By the time it’s seven fifteen, there are about ten bettors. Small crowd. But reliable. I’ve missed them. This is my comfort zone, what I know.
“This is unprecedented, gentlemen. Well, unprecedented, no. It’s only happened three times since 1955, and none have been repeat offenders. The Tech is just one game away from having its second winless season. Let’s keep it basic. It’s just for fun.”
“Fun with money, though,” Javier says.
“Always with money,” I say.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Justin flashes The Gambler.
It’s the routine, the way things have to be. I randomly open a page and read:
I find myself taking no thought for the future, but living under the influence of passing moods, and of my recollections of the tempest which recently drew me into its vortex, and then cast me out again.
The words settle in. The guys laugh. I feel better, like I’m in control after taking the bets, writing them down in my notebook. The day feels normal.
I stop by Moch’s after school. Just to be there, to try to keep some of Mrs. Mendez with me. Babylonia is for her. For them.
The house feels different, shabby. It looks like the house Moch is used to seeing—rundown. Ugly.
Lifeless.
My phone beeps.
Josh: Homework. Your place.
I look at the time. It’s almost three thirty. I text Josh back: 4:00.
I sit on the porch, crooked aluminum steps. Winter slush has melted and now there’s a patchwork of ugly brown clumps. I close my eyes and try to find that place where things were easier. My phone beeps again.
Josh: @?
I look at my watch. 4:10. Oops.
Me: 10 minutes. Sorry.
Josh never asks where I go. Never wants me to explain why there are days I just don’t want to talk. After Mrs. Mendez’s funeral, Lillian went into Clinica Olé overdrive. She’s brought out the Virgen de Guadalupe, lighting the candle in the mornings, mumbling a quiet prayer in Spanish. I wish she’d talk to me instead of a statue. The only thing she says to me lately is “Let go, let God.”
God hasn’t really stepped up to the plate in my life, so I think I’ll just do my own batting from now on.
When I get home, Josh is waiting with a pizza in hand. “Thanks,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
“Did you make the deposit?” I ask.
“Yesterday.” He shows me the slip. A twenty-eight-hundred-dollar donation right into the account of Clinica Olé. It was easy to get the account information from Lillian’s desk. I don’t know what that will buy the clinic, but it’s something.
Lillian won’t be home this afternoon, so we go into my room and shut the door. I’m supposed to whittle back the twenty-six amendments to ten for Government. “Did you know that involuntary servitude is unconstitutional?”
“Define involuntary,” Josh says.
I shrug.
Josh lays his head in my lap. “Hey,” he says.
“We’re supposed to be doing homework,” I say.
“I didn’t mean school homework. I meant Babylonia homework.” He pulls out a list of names from his pocket and hands it to me. “Did you do yours?”
I nod and hand him my list.
Josh points to one of the names on my list. “No way. It’s like proving the existence of, I dunno, a Ziz . . . unreal.”
“Ziz?” I ask.
“Some biblical creature.”
Josh is always surprising me. “You’ve read the Bible?”
“I am a product of Saint Luke’s Christian Academy, Saint Theresa’s, Saint Michael’s, Saint Sebastian’s, ending with Saint Barnaby’s. After fourteen years of mind-numbing martyrdom and intellectual flogging, my parents decided it was best to unleash me on public schools; three years, five schools later, here I am.”
I stare at him. “Wow.”
“You?”
“Seven years of being immersed in the way of the Bible and its teachings sometimes creeps into my psyche. I lived with a church group in Nevada City until . . . until I moved in with Lillian.”
“What happened to your mom?”
“Oh,” I say. I forget that he’s not part of my entire history in Carson City—that it’s possible somebody doesn’t know my mom was a religious freak teenager who was buried in an avalanche in Great Basin National Park on a religious retreat. Even though it feels like I’ve known him forever, I realize he doesn’t know me at all.
And that’s okay. Because nothing from yesterday has defined how he sees me today—like when he started new at Carson High School, I got a chance to start fresh, too.
I could tell him anything. Mom could be anyone. But I just want her to be here. Alive.
A mom. “She died when I was little. So I’ve lived with Lillian since I was eight.”
“Sorry.” This is when most people would stop talking and we’d slip into awkward silence mode. But Josh is like one of those windup toys that chatter until their cord runs out.
“What about your dad?”
“Dead.”
“Geez. You’re like a Disney movie.”
“Without the wardrobe and fairy godmother.” I poke him. “Are you a fairy godmother?”
He laughs. When he does, it’s hard not to smile, like he has a way of making everything feel okay. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh about it. That’s rotten.”
“It is what it is,” I say. “It was a long time ago.”
“So do you miss them? Your parents?”
Every day. Missing never ends. “I never knew my dad. And my mom—it was a long time ago. It’s okay,” I finally say.
“And Mrs. Mendez?” Josh says, looking away.
“She was as close as I’ve had.”
Josh nods. “So”—he points to the Ziz name—“are you sure?”
I nod. “Positive.”
“Sources?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown up with a lot of these guys. I know I’m right. What about yours?”
His list is short. It has two names on it. Big ones. Like mega-ultra-big ones. “Her?” I point to the name. “I mean, she’s like eighty, right?”
“I’ve got my sources, too. And pretty close to home.”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“You ready for the next one?”
“We need to be more prepared,” I say.
“As in?”
“No more shih tzu doggie doors, for instance.”
He cracks up.
“Yeah. Real funny.”
“I’ve been studying. Watching—” Josh clears his throat. “Crmnl mds,” Josh mumbles.
“Who?”
“Criminal Minds.”
“As in the TV show?”
He nods.
“So basically you’re doing our home-invasion tactical research based on eHow and a TV show?”
“Well, I kind of figure they have more researchers working on it. I’ve watched all the seasons to date. It’s like a blueprint on how to commit a perfect crime.”
