Compromised

by Heidi Ayarbe

  I clear my throat.

  “What?” Nicole asks. “You have no interesting facts about belly-button lint?”

  I refrain from telling them that a professor in Sydney, Australia, conducted a thorough study of navel lint. He found that most lint migrated up from underwear as opposed to down from shirts. It has to do with the frictional pull of body hair dragging tiny fibers up to the belly button. I wonder who that character would be in Nicole’s mobster bar. Maybe I should tell her. Just to find out.

  Nicole laughs. “I know you do. That can be another theme of the day: Everything you know about belly buttons.”

  “Yeah.” I turn to Klondike. “And Capone, here, is a walking Mafia-freak tape recorder. And a kleptomaniac on the side.”

  Nicole curtsies. “I must say I’m pretty good.” She holds my locket in her hands. I touch my neck.

  “When?”

  “Ahh, that’s the beauty. You’ll never know.” She smiles and dangles the locket in front of me. “Your auntie Em.” She smirks.

  I snatch it from her. “Cute. Don’t take this, okay?”

  “Just trying to prove a point.”

  “Point proven.” I put the locket on and tuck it in under my shirt.

  The corners of Klondike’s mouth curl up. “I’m hungry,” he says, ending with just one cough. He looks more relaxed, like being weird is our normal. So that makes things okay.

  “C’mon. Maybe we can get something to eat,” Nicole says. We leave the diner area and stare at the grocery store across from the casino. “Lesson one, Jeopardy.”

  “Okay.”

  “You like magic. It’s like being a magician.”

  I glare at her.

  “Really. Just a different kind. Maybe you want to trick some cells in someone’s body. I want to do a little trick of the eye. You have to misdirect the audience. They’ll be looking at what you want them to look at while you lift what you really want, okay? Grocery stores are easy,” Nicole continues. “They’re big. Not a lot of security. And they have lots of small things, easy to pocket.” Nicole nudges me. “What are you waiting for?”

  I stare at the store and the people going in and out. It would be easy. No problem.

  Half an hour later I come out.

  “What’d you get?” Nicole asks.

  I shake my head and hand her the latest grocery store ads. “Look. With some of the money we had left, I got us a bag of generic cereal and powdered milk. That should last us a while. We still have some change left over.”

  Nicole rolls her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I couldn’t. I got scared…”

  How can I explain to her that I just don’t want to become my dad? It’s one thing when I can pretend the food is from a legitimate source, but another when I can’t.

  I shrug. “Maybe you could hone your teaching skills a bit. Or maybe I should do some practice shoplifting beforehand.”

  “Practice shoplifting? Christ,” Nicole mutters.

  I should construct a procedure. A procedure for stealing. I ask Nicole to go through the steps again.

  “There are too many scenarios,” she says.

  “Just humor me. Give me one.”

  She does, and then I construct the plan in my head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m making the plan—procedure. To steal.”

  “Huh?” Nicole asks.

  “Listen, you’ve got your bar. I’ve got my hypotheses. It helps. Just let me think.”

  Purpose: Steal food

  Hypothesis: The average human body needs between 1,200 and 1,800 calories/day. If we don’t get our calories over a period of a couple of months, our bodies will enter a state of starvation and irrevocable organ damage. And then we’ll die. Therefore, I need to steal food so we can eat and not starve to death.

  Materials: A big jacket, fast hands

  Procedure:

  1) Borrow Nicole’s jacket

  2) Go to the grocery store cereal aisle where there are all the fruit bars

  3) Slip fruit bars in coat sleeves

  4) Browse other aisles

  5) Leave with fruit bars

  6) Eat

  7) Starvation avoided

  Variables: Security devices: What kind of security does the store have? Cameras? Mirrors? People wandering the aisles? Identify and act accordingly. Me: How cool can I be? Will my face give me away?

  Constants: None (unless hunger counts)

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m ready.”

  “So your hypothesis and procedure make it okay now?” Nicole asks.

  “Kinda.”

  “Well, let’s eat first. You can steal lunch.” She laughs. It’s like she knows I can’t. “It’s not like you can go back into the same store.”

  “Oh. You didn’t say that. I could’ve, um, changed my plan.”

  “Common sense, Jeops. Open up the cereal.”

  We open the cereal and the powdered milk. I find an old coffee tin and pour in the powdered milk. Then I go to the grocery store bathroom for water. I pass by the cereal aisle and go through the procedure in my head. But I don’t have the jacket. I didn’t ask Nicole for it before coming in.

  Improvise, I think. I’ve got to stop being such a coward. I have to prove that I can do it. So I shove the bars in my shirt and tuck it in. Just as I’m to the door, a man taps me on the shoulder.

  I untuck my shirt and the bars spill everywhere. I turn to get away, sloshing the milk all over me, running out to Nicole and Klon. “Run! Run!”

  I try to run without spilling any more of the milk. When we get a few blocks away, my front is covered in gooky powdered milk substance. And half our cereal has fallen out because Klon ran with the bag open.

  Klon, Nicole, and I look back at the trail.

  “Hansel and Gretel,” says Klon.

  We nibble on the rest of the cereal, licking the crumbs from the palms of our hands. We take some side streets, backtracking, walking through Jackpot’s neighborhoods. “What happened back there?”

  “I dunno,” I say. “I tried.”

  Nicole says, “Part of success is getting over the initial fear. That’s good practice.” She laughs. “But God, I’m hungry.” We walk in silence for a while. Even Nicole can’t find anything to say at the moment. “Where are we going?” Nicole finally asks.

  “We need a map,” I say. “A road map.”

  “Yeah. Like that’s gonna be a real help with your sense of direction. What happened to the MapQuest paper, anyway?”

  I pull it out, soaked with milk. I’ve been keeping it under my shirt—a safe place. Now all the roads and numbers look blotchy. I take off my shirt and pull a warm sweater on. It’s like cold and lack of food have frozen my brain. I wad up the shirt and shove it into my backpack. “Stupid. Stupid,” I grumble.

  “Nice striptease, Jeops,” Nicole says.

  “I’m cold,” I say. “And we need a new map.”

  “Well, I can steal one from a gas station,” Nicole offers. “Or do you want to?”

  “Ha. Ha.” We walk for a while. The sun is up and it’s not as cold as before. I rub my arms, glad to have at least a sweater on.

  Then I see it. “That’s what we need.”

  The three of us stand outside the doors. I almost want to go and hug them.

  “Another library?” Nicole asks.

  “Yep. Maps. Internet. MapQuest. Google Earth. Warmth. Everything.” I turn to Klondike. “Do you think you can keep your croaks to a minimum?”

  He shakes his head, and his body jerks in a series of movements. “Probably not.”

  I shrug. Nicole sighs. Klondike croaks and says, “Tallywhacker, asswipe.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Ready to go in?”

  “Another library,” Nicole mutters and pauses at the door. “Goddamn, these places make me nervous.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Are you kids here for the program?”

  “Yeah,” Nicole says. She looks ar
ound the empty library. “We’re early.”

  The librarian smiles and peers over a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses. She has spiky purple hair and nose piercings. She turns to Klondike. “You’re not from the high school. Shouldn’t you be at Jackpot Elementary now?” she asks him.

  “Tallywhacker,” he croaks, and taps her on the shoulder.

  She bites her lower lip and says, “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.” I push Klondike behind me. “He’s a cousin from out of town. He has my teacher’s permission to be here. He just says stuff.”

  The librarian hesitates, her hand resting on the phone.

  I put on what I like to think of as Dad’s make-an-insurance-claim face—stoic with a touch of angst. It’s like I can physically see Dad and copy his expression perfectly. And that makes me kind of uneasy.

  She slips her hand off the phone and points toward a table. “Go ahead and help yourself to juice and muffins before the presentation begins. It’ll be a busy morning.”

  I don’t exhale until I’m way out of her range.

  “Score. Food,” Nicole whispers. “Who’d have thought?”

  The three of us head to the food table. “The muffins look real good. Asswipe,” Klondike says in that guttural voice.

  “Jesus,” Nicole groans. We turn back and see the librarian staring at us. She half smiles and goes back to working on her computer.

  Nicole licks her fingers and grabs a second muffin. “I think we should come to the library more often.”

  I roll my eyes.

  Klondike is on his third muffin before I even finish my first. “Let’s not try to look too hungry,” I say. “I’m going to find some maps.” Maybe I’ll look for a botany book, too. Maybe I’ll look for the flower. Aunt Sarah’s flower. I tuck the envelope with the flower in my jeans pocket. It’s my favorite letter.

  I scarf down the last bite of muffin and shove a second up my sweater sleeve. I look at the coat rack in the front hall of the library. There’s a heavy black coat hanging by the door. Maybe, I think. Maybe. I just hope it’s not the librarian’s.

  I find a highway map of the western states and trace Highway 93 to Twin Falls; then from Twin Falls, we can take Highway 84 to Boise.

  It doesn’t look too far away. Maybe we can get there today. Maybe today we can find Aunt Sarah.

  I tuck the map under my arm and head to the photocopy machine.

  A bus pulls up and a bunch of teenagers spills into the library, ruining the comfortable silence. They rush to eat the muffins and juice, stuffing the food in their faces. They probably aren’t even hungry.

  I look back and see Klondike’s body tense up. I try to wave Nicole down, but she’s filling up on another glass of juice. It dribbles down her chin a little. The acid in the juice has to be a killer on a cut lip. I look from Nicole to Klondike to where Klondike is looking.

  “Oh God,” I whisper. My feet feel like they’re stuck in drying tar.

  Klon is jerking his head and muttering something.

  “No!” I push through the crowd of students, but it’s too late.

  Klondike coughs, spattering muffin everywhere. “Tallywhacker, asswipes,” he croaks in his strange voice. “Stay away,” he says. “Just stay away.”

  “That’s her! She’s the one who burned Martin! These are the street kids who attacked us.” I can’t believe those kids are in high school. I mean who gets up early in the morning to go out and beat up homeless kids before school? What happened to sleeping in as late as possible? It’s like we’re stuck in some kind of vortex. Everyone whirls around us.

  Klondike’s body comes alive in a burst of movement. Nicole drops her juice and starts to back toward the main entrance, her face pasty white.

  The librarian moves toward us. “What’s going on?”

  “Those kids are the ones who burned Greer. Some homeless druggies who tried to kill us,” Cobra says. His eyes are nothing but hate. I look down and see his heavy boots and cringe, rubbing my sore back. “They stole Martin’s wallet, too.”

  My stomach clenches thinking about the stupid wallet I kicked into the puddle.

  “What’s wrong with him?” somebody says, pointing at Klondike.

  “Jesus, look at his face.”

  “Is that what reeks? Is that the stench?”

  “Oh my God. They’re homeless. So gross. I mean, totally gross. Like gonorrhea gross,” somebody says in a lilting singsong voice.

  “Somebody has to do something about them. I mean they’re, like, um—like gonna hurt us or something.”

  Everybody starts to talk at once. It’s like you can see all their brains turn into one group-think mass. Their neurons pulse rationalized conformity.

  The librarian and I lock eyes for a second before I pull Klondike out of the crowd and run toward the door. Nicole’s waiting for us outside, the beautiful black coat in her arms. “What took you so fucking long?” Nicole asks, tossing me the coat.

  I hesitate for just a second, then shrug it on. I need a coat.

  We run.

  A bunch of students runs after us, but halfheartedly. They’re probably afraid they’ll end up like Martin. Or like Klondike.

  After a few blocks, Klondike grips his side and stops running. Nicole and I slow down and walk with him. I take off the coat and hand it to Nicole. “Why don’t you take it? I’ll wear mine and Klon can have yours.”

  “What? So you can be clean from any sort of association with stolen goods? What the fuck?”

  “It’s just…It’s different stealing from a big corporation. But this is probably that librarian’s…” My voice fades.

  “What? You thought living on the streets would be like living in that posh little house of yours in Reno?”

  “It’s just. It’s not what I imagined would be happening, you know? It’s not supposed to be this way.”

  “Not everything in this fucking world is black and white, right and wrong, Jeopardy.” Nicole shakes her head. “It’s about loyalty, okay? Haven’t you ever heard the code?”

  “Code?”

  “We”—she sweeps her arm around to point us out—“we are together. We as a group come first—before birth, before family, before God. None of us are going to be like that leech Sammy Gravano. We come first—as a group. And when you worry about a fucking coat or wallet or what’s right and wrong, it’s like we can’t trust you.”

  “What?” I say. “We’re not the mob. We’re three runaways with no money chasing a box of my dead mom’s things.” I mutter, “We’re. Not. The. Mob. And somebody better worry about what’s right and wrong or—”

  Nicole clenches her jaw. “There’s no such thing as cosmic karma or whatever you’re thinking. Remember Capone? He got away with it all. He died of a fucking heart attack. You just don’t get it.” Nicole huffs and repeats, “Before birth, before family. Before God. It’s the code.”

  Klon squints and croaks. “Cappy,” he says, “nothing comes before God. Asswipe,” he squeaks. “Stop fighting.”

  I sigh. We’re like a bad joke. A preacher, a capo, and a scientist are going on a road trip….

  Klondike croaks and mutters things under his breath, only coughing a couple of times. “Tallywhacker, asswipe.”

  “Let’s drop it,” I say. “I’ll wear the coat.”

  “Fine.” Nicole walks ahead. “Just remember we stick together. That doesn’t just mean walking down Highway Eighty or wherever the fuck we are. It means more than that.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  Klondike jerks his head to the side and does his hop-skip, keeping up with Nicole’s and my pace. He croaks and says, “Sorry about your mama.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Me, too,” Nicole says.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. Probably a bit snippy.

  Nicole shrugs. “I’m just saying I’m sorry. Can’t you even take an apology? Jesus.”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch, Cappy,” Klon says. “Everything’s okay now. We’
re together.”

  I ruffle his hair, then shudder thinking about the state my knickers are in. Gross. Klondike stops to look at a dead bird in the road. He pulls on one of the feathers and tucks it into his pocket.

  “Cappy,” Nicole says. “I like that.”

  “Better than Capone,” Klon says. “More girly.”

  I’m starting to get used to the kid.

  I turn back to see the black silhouette of the librarian against the sun, her purple hair a splash of color against the desert backdrop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Nice work, Jeopardy. Your first act of thievery.” Nicole beams with pride, as if she were responsible for my accidentally stealing a map. “Where are we?”

  “Here. Jackpot, Nevada.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “His name is Martin Greer.”

  “Who?”

  “The kid I hurt.”

  “So?” Nicole bites her lower lip.

  “It’s just. His name is Martin Greer. It was better when he didn’t have a name, you know.”

  Nicole shrugs. “So what are we gonna do?” she asks again.

  I pause. “I think I’m going to turn myself in.”

  Klondike and Nicole gawk. “Turn yourself in for what?” Nicole asks.

  “That kid. Martin. He could be really hurt. And I need to go and explain what happened.”

  Hypothesis: If I go to the police, they’ll take me into custody. If they take me into custody, I’ll have a chance to tell them my story. If I tell them the story, maybe they’ll give me lunch and a bunk to sleep on. And they’ll have to call a relative. They’ll have to call Aunt Sarah because relatives in federal prison don’t count. They’ll search for her because I’m too expensive for the state to maintain. And I’ll have a family. And I can sleep. Inside. And be warm. Just until they find her. I’m just so tired.

  And my throat hurts.

  “Did you just walk off the stupid bus or something?” Nicole kicks at some gravel. “Have you taken a look at us? And they’ll believe the nice local boy was going to rape me? This isn’t Law and Order. This is real, Jeopardy. And you’ll be in the system forever.”