Stealing Heaven

by Elizabeth Scott

  Oh, this is so beyond bad.

  “I’m sorry about that, by the way,” she continues. “I mean, there I am blabbering away, and I’m such a loser because I didn’t even realize it was you until you were walking away and then I was like, oh my God, that’s Sydney!”

  Okay, this is fixable. I just have to say the right thing. I can do this. “Look, I know you must be mad about me being…” I point at my uniform.

  “What, a maid?” She gives me a look. “Why would I care about that? Is that why you didn’t say anything to me?”

  “Well…”

  She rolls her eyes. “Silly. Is your head okay? Do you need some ice?”

  “I’m fine.” She doesn’t really know why I didn’t say anything to her. She thinks I’m embarrassed about being a maid, that I was clumsy and dropped silver on myself and that’s it. Nothing more. She believes me. She doesn’t look at me and see—she doesn’t see what I am.

  “So what have you been up to?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “You totally ran out of here the other night and I haven’t seen you since. So I’m just wondering why you left, what you’ve been up to. You know, friend-catching-up type stuff.”

  “I…I guess I got kinda freaked out about everything, with me having this job and all,” I tell her, which is sort of the truth because right now I am totally freaked. I mean, first she sees me as I’m checking out the silver, and then she believes my lame story. And now, in spite of the uniform, in spite of everything Mom has always said, she’s still standing here wanting to talk to me. She’s saying we’re friends. The only people who’ve ever said they were my friends before were cops who’d try to butter me up to get me to rat on Mom. “You didn’t—did you tell your mom I’m working here?”

  She shakes her head. “She’s kind of like—well, you know how some people just assume things about other people? My mom is like that. Actually my whole family is like that. It’s embarrassing. Besides, she’s totally obsessed with this party and wouldn’t hear me if I said I was going to light myself on fire.”

  Okay, everything seems fine. I should tell her I need to get back to work, stop talking because Mom and I don’t need any more information from her, but instead I find myself saying, “How’s Brad?”

  She grins at me. “Yesterday I went back to the little market. You know the one I saw you at that day? And he was there! I was”—she holds one hand out and wiggles it—“shaking just like this, and totally forgot everything I was going to say. So we’re just standing there and we’ve already said hi and I’m like, now what? And then…I don’t know how I did it, but I told myself okay, I have to do this, and so I asked him if he wanted to go out sometime. And do you know what he said?”

  “Hmmm…yes?”

  She laughs. “Yes! I still can’t believe it. We went out to dinner last night and…” She spins around in a circle. “It was amazing. He’s amazing.”

  “Are you going to see him today?”

  “I hope so. He’s calling later. What about you? What have you been doing?”

  I shake my duster at her. “Nothing interesting.”

  “Oh, please. I know everyone around here, and they’re all freaks. You’ve totally seen tons of stuff in their houses, and you’ve got to share details. All of them!”

  “Well,” I say, and end up telling her about the Walker house, and how Mr. and Mrs. Walker have separate everything. Which they keep locked. They even have two fridges, both of which have huge padlocks on them.

  “I knew it,” Allison says, laughing. “They never go anywhere together. Like, if there’s a party or something, one of them shows up first and then the other one shows up like ten minutes later. But they always act like everything’s fine. It totally proves people around here are so fake. That’s why I like Brad. He’s just—he’s so real. You know? Like you, Sydney.” She grins at me. “Even if you have a name tag on that says you’re Rebecca.”

  “Rebecca’s my middle name,” I say immediately, habit, and then feel like crap because I can tell Allison means what she said about me and she’s wrong. “I figure it sounds more maidlike, don’t you? And hey, I’m really glad about you and Brad.” I know I’ve been lying nonstop but I really mean that last part.

  “Rebecca!” Joan bellows, and from how loud she’s yelling, she’s clearly desperate for a nicotine fix. “Grab your stuff and let’s go already!”

  “I gotta go,” I tell Allison.

  “We have to hang out soon, okay?”

  “Sure,” I tell her. That I don’t really mean. I can’t mean it. She smiles at me and I wish that I could. I wish I could be her friend, a real friend. But I can’t.

  18

  The next day is brutal. I spend a couple hours cleaning up puke at our second house—sick kids, I’m told, as if that makes some sort of difference. Then, at our third house, as I’m scrubbing a bathroom that belongs to a small boy who’s being potty trained, Joan comes in and says, “Don’t go in the master bedroom,” before stomping off to smoke.

  After I finish Little Mr. Pee-a-Lot’s bathroom, I go out in the hallway to vacuum and a strong smell makes my eyes start to water and my lungs start to hurt. What has Joan done? I go outside and find her. She says, “Mixed ammonia and some other cleaner by mistake,” and then offers me a cigarette, as if that will make my lungs hurt less.

  I’m pretty sure things can’t get much worse after that, but then we stop at our last house of the day. It’s a small one, a little cottage tucked on a side street at the very edge of Heaven. Maggie and Shelly moan as we park the car, and Joan says, “I keep hoping the damn place will burn down.” I don’t get what the big deal is—after spending all day in houses the size of small countries, how hard could it be to clean a normal-size house?

  Very hard, as it turns out, because the owner, who is on the phone with Stu when we walk in, yelling that we’re late, follows us everywhere. We’re not allowed to split into our cleaning groups, and all four of us have to clean each room.

  And the owner, who looks like a sweet grandmother, is actually demon spawn because not only does she follow us, she makes us clean everything over and over again. In one room, I dust a ceramic dog twelve times before she is satisfied. I also lose my name tag, but don’t mention it because I have a feeling she’d make me stay until I found it, even if it took all night.

  “God, I hate that house,” Maggie says afterward, putting her feet up on the dashboard. Joan, who is busy lighting one cigarette off another one, nods, and swats at Maggie’s feet. In the backseat, Shelly rubs her stomach and stretches out, knocking my cleaning duffel into my legs.

  “Can you move over a little?” she asks. “I’ve hardly got room to breathe.”

  I grit my teeth and wedge myself closer to the door.

  After we’ve gotten our assignments for tomorrow, I tell Stu I need a new name tag and listen to him yell, then get Joan to drive me to the strip mall where Mom said she’d leave the car. I can’t drive to work—it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to be connected to the car—and so Mom drives me to the edge of Heaven every morning and I walk to Stu’s office, then have Joan drop me off someplace where Mom can either leave the car or come get me.

  The car isn’t there. I don’t tell Joan that, of course, just say, “See you tomorrow!” and get a grunt and a puff of smoke blown in my face in return. This crappyass “job” I’m stuck with can’t end soon enough. I dig out my cell and call Mom.

  “Oh no,” she says as soon as she hears my voice. “I totally forgot! Don’t be mad, but I’m using the car right now. I’m on my way to meet Harold.”

  “So call and tell him you’ll be late. My feet are killing me.”

  “Tonight is very important, baby. Just get a cab, okay?”

  “Mom—”

  “Oh, there he is. I gotta go. Cross your fingers for me!” She hangs up. I’ve got exactly three dollars on me. Great. That’ll get me a cab ride to nowhere. I guess I’ll have to walk.

  I thought Mom wo
uld have dumped Harold by now, but she hasn’t. I’m starting to think she’s got other plans in mind, especially since she told me this morning that Harold keeps telling her about some huge place in Florida he’s “watching” for friends who are in Tuscany for a year.

  “All I have to do is listen to him talk about it, and how he’d love to take me there, and before you know it, I’ll know exactly what kind of security the house has,” she’d said. “Stuff like this falls into your lap for a reason, you know?”

  “I know,” I’d said, because it was too early to argue and because I noticed she was taking cough medicine without me nagging her to.

  I walk into the shopping center’s one restaurant, a pizza place. By the time I get home there’s no way I’m going to want to do anything but sleep so I’ll just eat now, have a couple of slices of pizza—no, not for three bucks. I guess I’ll have a slice of pizza and then start walking. This really has been a crappy day.

  The pizza place is deserted, but the gum-chewing girl working behind the counter tells me it’ll take half an hour for a slice of cheese pizza.

  “Half an hour?”

  She snaps her gum between her teeth and stares at me like I’m stupid. I sigh and go outside to wait, lean against the wall and look out at the street. I guess it must be what passes for rush hour around here, as there’s actually more than one car on the road. I start watching them. Car, truck, car, van, car, car, truck, car—car stopping suddenly and turning in to the parking lot. A station wagon. Greg’s station wagon. I am suddenly really glad West Hill is a small town, the kind of town where you can’t help but bump into people.

  But he’s a cop. I have to remember that.

  “I thought that was you,” Greg says when he gets out of the car. He’s wearing a baseball cap that has a police logo on it. “What are you doing here?”

  I point at the pizza place. “Half hour wait for a lousy slice of pizza.”

  “Is that what they said?”

  I nod.

  “Then it’ll probably be more like an hour. They’ve been having problems with their oven.”

  “Great. Nice hat, by the way.” Makes it very easy for me to remember he’s a cop. Or should.

  He leans against the wall next to me. “Funny how we keep running into each other.”

  “I wouldn’t call me standing here minding my own business and you stopping to bother me running into each other.”

  He laughs. “I should have known you’d say that. So, what’s wrong with my hat?”

  “I said it was nice.”

  “I have an extra one in the car if you want it.”

  I look over at him, and he’s grinning at me. Grinning at me and he took me to Edge Island because he wanted to, because he wanted to spend time with me, but he’s a cop wearing a stupid hat with a cop logo on it, and all I want is one lousy slice of pizza and for Mom to actually think about something other than stealing and plans for stealing for five minutes and—I look away, stare back out at the road.

  “Bad day?”

  “Sort of,” I say, glancing at him. He nods—I realize he has a few freckles on his nose (and I thought he couldn’t get cuter)—and then takes his hat off. His hair is almost totally gone, cut so close that all that’s left is pale fuzz.

  “What happened?” I ask before I can stop myself.

  “I had to get a haircut.”

  “Why?” Stupid question. How many cops have I met over the years trying out the “shaved-head badass” look? “Never mind. Cop thing, right?”

  “Yeah. My shift sergeant told me to go to his barber and ask for the special. So I do, and this is what I get. Everyone thinks it’s hysterical. You should have heard Ruthie. And, just so you know, feel free to jump in with ‘oh, it’s not that bad’ anytime now.”

  I look over at him. I miss the crazy mess it was before. It suited him better somehow. “You look like more of a cop now.”

  “I look like a gnome.”

  “A gnome?”

  He points at his ears.

  “They look like ears to me.”

  “Really? Is that a compliment?”

  “If you think me telling you your ears look like ears is a compliment, then sure.”

  He laughs. “I had a nice time the other day.”

  I stare at him.

  “What? I did. You should be a cop, you know that?”

  I laugh. Weakly. “Oh yeah. It would be perfect for me.”

  “You’ve got the stare for it.”

  “That’s just from years of watching—” I catch myself at the last second. Why can’t I remember to think before I talk when I’m around him? “Watching cop shows. So it’ll really be more than half an hour for a lousy piece of pizza?”

  “Yeah. There’s a place up the road that’s not too bad as long as you order a sandwich. I was on my way there to grab something when I—well, you know. Saw you. You wanna go?”

  “No.” Yes.

  He blushes, looks embarrassed and sad, and I hastily add, “I mean, I can’t.” It’s true. I can’t. I really can’t. Mom would maybe forgive me the trip to Edge Island if I told her—maybe—but going out with a cop a second time? She’d kill me.

  “Oh. I guess you’re waiting for a ride to a costume party fund-raiser or something?”

  “What?”

  He motions at my uniform.

  “Right, this is my party dress. Who doesn’t love bright yellow polyester?”

  “Well, the only guy I know who does is Stu, but—”

  “Yeah, the color-blind jackass. I can’t believe I have to pay for this thing out of the crap he pays.”

  “You’re working for him?”

  “What gave it away? The uniform or the uniform?”

  “Actually, I never would have guessed. I really thought you were waiting for a ride to another yacht club party. I mean, people who hang out there don’t usually work, you know?”

  Oh hell, I walked right into that.

  “Yeah.” I laugh, or at least fake something close to it. Right now if I could kick my own ass, I would. “Look, I crashed that party. I thought it would be fun. You know, I scrub their toilets so I figure…” Best to cut my losses and get out of here before I screw up more. “Anyway, I’m gonna go. Long walk home and all that.”

  “I can drive you.”

  “That’s okay. It’s really not very far.” And I really can’t have him drive me home.

  “Seriously,” he says, and puts a hand on my arm. “You look tired and I’d…I’d really like to.”

  “Okay.” I mean to say no, I do, but I’m really tired and my brain is probably still a little scrambled from Joan’s cleaner-fume creation earlier. Plus his hand is warm on my arm and I just…I like being with him.

  In the car, he runs a hand over his head and sighs. I guess he misses his hair. I miss it too.

  “You really got a shitty haircut,” I tell him.

  I figure that should get me thinking properly (and not about things like his hair, or him) and maybe even get me kicked out of the car, but instead he laughs as he pulls out onto the road and says, “Yeah, I know. So, what have you been up to?”

  “Nothing much.” There’s a piece of paper sticking out of the glove compartment. It takes me a second to realize what it is, but it’s the receipt for the ferry tickets. I wonder why he kept it. I mean, it’s a strange thing to hold on to.

  I flick the receipt with one finger. “Is this whole ride home thing a ploy to make me pay for my ticket from the other day?”

  He laughs. “Are you insane? No, never mind, don’t answer that. It’s just…I don’t know. I wanted to keep it. The whole day was…good. Special.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That okay?”

  Yes. It’s more than okay. It’s amazing. I like him, and I think he actually likes me. Really likes me.

  But he’s a cop, and I can’t do this. I have to stop this…whatever with him. For real, this time.

  “It’s fine. But I—look, just drop me
off here.”

  “You live at”—he squints at the road sign we’re passing—“mile marker forty-six? Behind the sign or in front of it?”

  “Just pull over, will you?”

  “Dani—”

  “Pull over,” I tell him again, almost shouting, trying to sound angry because this really can’t go on, it can’t, and start to open my car door.

  He looks over at me, eyes wide, and does.

  “Don’t follow me or anything like that,” I say, and start to get out of the car.

  “Look,” he says, just as I’m about to slam the door. “I’m not—I get that you don’t want to go out with me, okay? I didn’t mean to make you feel like you have to get out of the car on the side of the road to get away from me. I’m sorry.”

  I stare at him. “You—?”

  “I really am sorry,” he says again. He looks miserable. He had a good time with me when we went to Edge Island. He thought it was special, and now he thinks I don’t want to be around him.

  This is the end of whatever is going on between us, or will be as soon as I walk away. I know that, just like I know I should be proud of myself, or happy, or something like it. But I’m not. I feel as miserable as he looks.

  “You don’t have to apologize, okay?”

  Now it’s his turn to stare. A car drives by, honking at us for not being far enough off the road. “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t.”

  “So you’re getting out of the car on the side of the road because why?”

  “Just…just because, okay?”

  He grins at me, wide and sunny and sweet in a way I didn’t know grins could be. “You are absolutely the most logical person I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh, shut up.” I start walking away from him, heading down the road.

  “No, seriously,” he says, driving along next to me, window rolled down. “Is it just that you don’t like questions or you don’t like me?”