The Small Crimes of Tiffany Templeton

by Richard Fifield

  “She wouldn’t be the first,” said my dad out of nowhere. “My mom went to college.”

  At this, my mother snorted. “Hippies,” she said. “Your mother helped ruin America.”

  “She wasn’t a hippie,” said my father. “She got a degree in civil engineering.”

  Ronnie and I swiveled our heads, shocked, desperate for my father to continue, admit a success for his side of the family. He said nothing.

  “Secrets.” My mother hissed the word. “You know I hate secrets.”

  “It’s not a secret,” said my dad. “She had the diploma on our wall. In a frame and everything.”

  This made my mother livid. For once, my dad was actually making things worse. “Here’s a secret, kids. I wanted your father to homeschool you. He refused.”

  “Thank god he didn’t,” said Ronnie. “Homeschool kids are freaks.”

  “They win all the spelling bees,” said my mother.

  Ronnie stood up and pointed a finger at my mother. “You are a terrible person,” he said. “Selfish and mean. I hope you die before you retire.”

  I guess the idea of homeschooling struck a nerve in me, too. I jumped up from my chair, and it fell back on the linoleum, and the clatter echoed through our kitchen. My mother just stared at me, as I thought of something mean to say. My father put his head in his hands. Ronnie nodded encouragingly.

  “I hope your stupid gas station blows up!” This was the best I could do.

  Ronnie winced. I was just as embarrassed. In heated moments, I was much better with my fists. I couldn’t come up with something hurtful, even though I could fill an entire notebook with hateful things. For now, they would remain unspoken, and I stomped to my bedroom and slammed the door.

  I seethed in my room for a half hour, until there was a soft knock on the door. My dad put his finger to his lips, and we snuck from the house. He drove me straight to Fortune, and it was my first time at the pawn shop. I picked out my first leather jacket, and then he pulled me to the rear of the store, and we regarded a shelf of typewriters.

  “If you’re going to be a professional, you’re going to need one of these.” I was too excited to point out that a laptop computer would probably be more efficient. He let me choose the Remington. He also let me buy an empty case, gray tweed, with a working lock and key. He knew that I needed to keep some things from my mother. I didn’t need diet pills to tell the truth.

  The next week, things began to arrive in the mail. My mother said nothing. My father had won this war. Each box that arrived was another shot fired. Stationery, extra ribbon, Hoppe’s No. 9 Lubricating Oil, six small bottles of correcting fluid. He left the bottles of Wite-Out on the kitchen table, the counter, made sure my mother would see.

  Even then, my father knew that I would make mistakes.

  Chapter Nine

  I ARRIVED TEN MINUTES EARLY, but those stupid boys were already there, and I had to stand in Mr. Francine’s doorway like an idiot.

  Once again, Kelly called in the Sweets as a team. I didn’t notice their T-shirts until they stood. It seemed weird that they would both wear matching red T-shirts, but then I saw the Confederate flag emblazoned across their chests. These were probably the first new clothes they had ever owned. As they approached Kelly, she rolled her eyes before ushering them inside her office.

  I sat next to TJ, and the body odor seeped out of the neck of his jacket, zipped all the way, all those boy juices marinating.

  As usual, Kelly could not break the Sweets. The door swung back open after four minutes, and they shuffled past, and Kelly was flustered. She called for Rufus with a sting in her voice.

  “Aren’t you hot?”

  TJ swung his shaggy head toward my voice and stared at me, blurry-eyed.

  I tried again. I was trying to be casual and friendly, but my words were straight out of a prison movie. “How much time do you got?”

  “No fraternizing,” said Mr. Francine without looking up. “This. Is. My. Workplace.”

  TJ spread his giant hands on his knees and folded one hand, except for a thumb. Six months, I thought. But knowing the McMackins, it could very well be six years. His right hand disappeared in a flash, and TJ was so hard-core that he didn’t carry around the little plastic cup. He was good at this. He took a swig and tucked it back in his massive coat just as Rufus pushed open the door.

  With TJ gone, it was just me and Mr. Francine, in our ghost town. The file cabinets towered around us, and the tile was spotless, no chance of tumbleweeds.

  Kelly had relaxed a little bit. I sat down in the folding chair, and she sprayed the air with a can of aerosol freshener, and the room smelled like fake laundry instead of real teenage boys.

  “I would like to spray them directly,” she admitted as she sat down. “But that would be unprofessional.”

  “I brought some stuff,” I said. “I think I explained some things.”

  “Good,” she said. I pushed my typewritten pages across the table, and she pressed them open with her hand, smoothed them into submission. “You have nice penmanship,” she said and folded them closed. She waited for me to respond. “That was a joke,” she said finally.

  “Aren’t you going to read them?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But I need to spend this time talking to you, not reading about your teenage crushes.”

  “Gross,” I said. “I double-checked the spelling.”

  “Mysterious,” she said and slipped the pages into her backpack. “I can’t wait.” Again, a cloud on her face, and she resettled herself in the chair, and I think she was trying to look professional. “I’m really easy to talk to, Tiffany. I’m not as old as you think. I’m sure we’ve got some things in common. Rufus and I talk about serial killers, and TJ and I talk about rap music. The Sweets don’t talk. Ever. Maybe it’s because I’m black.”

  “My mom says they’re all heathens,” I said. “That’s the word she uses.”

  “Tell me about your parents,” she said. “I’ve called your mom several times, but she always says she’s busy and hangs up. She’s supposed to be a part of this process.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said. “She works nonstop. She won’t leave the gas station. She was born in that gas station, and she’ll probably die there.”

  “She was born in the gas station?”

  “Not literally.”

  “I’d like her to be included,” she said. “I drove by the gas station, but I chickened out. The gas prices confused me, I guess. I couldn’t figure out what that last number was. Is it for chainsaws or something?”

  “No,” I said. “My mom posts her current weight on the board, so everybody in town can see it. Her surgeon was concerned that she didn’t have a team to support her at home.”

  “There are support groups on the internet,” said Kelly. “Forums and groups for bariatric surgery.”

  Kelly didn’t know about the internet in Gabardine. In addition to being a dead zone for cell phones, we had the slowest internet connection in America. This was an actual fact. My mom took me to the city council meeting where they passed around the report. We even saw a map of the world, red flares of communication hotspots, and I swear to you that Antarctica had more red dots. There were parts of Africa that were the same gray as Gabardine, so we were basically a third-world country, without the tsetse flies and cholera. We didn’t have aid workers, either. Libertarians would probably shoot them. Supposedly we were waiting for a grant from the federal government to build the infrastructure. Until then, we had dial-up that worked occasionally, depending on the weather. “We get by without the internet,” I said. “We get by without a lot of things.”

  “You said she didn’t have a team to support her at home.”

  “She’s been trying to lose weight since I was born,” I said. “At some point, I just got tired of hearing about it. I think I felt ba
d for my dad.”

  “What about him? Was he born here?”

  “Pocatello,” I said. “That’s in Idaho.”

  “I’m aware,” she said. “Did he have family there?”

  “We don’t have a big family. All my grandparents are dead, and I don’t think I have any cousins or anything like that. I mean, that’s what I was told. They don’t have a reason to lie. My mom got the gas station when her dad died, and he was a horrible bookkeeper. That’s all I know. My dad never talked about his past. He just said Idaho was the worst place on earth, and he complained about the sales tax. He said that his life really began when he met my mother, but when I ask my mom about it, she always said he was a hobo that fell off a train. I don’t know the real story. She burned all the wedding pictures when she started losing weight.”

  “Your mom sounds like a real character,” she said.

  “He got stuck here, and he got stuck with her. I guess he was an unlucky hobo.”

  “Don’t you want to know the truth?”

  “I’m sure it’s boring,” I said. “I always just figured that when two really fat people find each other, they figure out how to make it work.” I stopped myself. I knew it sounded terrible and mean.

  “It’s okay if you cry,” she said. Again, she ducked down to her backpack, unzipped the front pocket, removed two shrink-wrapped packages of Kleenex, travel size. One pack was pink, and the other blue, and I thought it was really sexist when she chose the pink, and attempted to open the plastic wrapping. I was angry, so I let her struggle, and eventually she used her teeth to rip one end. I was glad that her lipstick smeared. Before she could remove a tissue, I waved it away. I knew I was just being passive-aggressive. At Dogwood, they taught us to say our emotions out loud, to name them, because it made things less scary. When you name something, that means you own it, like emotions are stray dogs or something. I didn’t feel like telling Kelly I was being passive-aggressive. She had enough clinical hours to make that diagnosis.

  “I’m not going to cry,” I said.

  She let go of the package reluctantly. “I bought these when they told me I was coming here. They’ve been sitting in my backpack for months. My professors told us to always carry Kleenex. And pepper spray.”

  “Pepper spray is better than a pipe bomb,” I said. “More accurate. Can I go?” She nodded, and I got up from my chair. She probably spent her own money on all that stuff, and it never did any good. If she hung around the bars in Gabardine, she might use the pepper spray, though.

  “I’m going to get through to you,” she said. “The tough-girl thing is an act, Tiffany. It’s okay to cry. I cry all the time. Heck, I cry every time I think about my student loans.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Kelly stuffed the Kleenex back into her bag. “Nobody cries here. Not one of you.”

  “It’s this town,” I said and walked out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  I SPENT AN ENTIRE SATURDAY driving David all over the county to post flyers for the auditions. According to the sign, my mother had dropped down to 179, but the cost of fuel remained the same. I think the weight loss is why my mother gave us three rolls of change. Instead of food, David spent all our money in Fortune on a Rihanna CD. For once, I wish he would shoplift, because by the time we returned to the trailer court, I was starving. Despite posting flyers on every bulletin board, despite scotch-taping them in the windows of every business that was not terrified of us, we showed up at the fire station on the last Saturday of April and it was nearly empty aside from the lawn chairs we’d borrowed for seating. Maybe Principal Beaudin’s professional secretary had gone door-to-door, warning of salacious content, convincing all 21,000 residents of the county. She was good at her job, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

  The only women that showed up for the audition were the senior citizens. The van from the senior center had pulled up fifteen minutes early, and it was crammed completely full, old people wedged in like the worst clown car ever, no way they had enough seat belts. Betty Gabrian had found an activity for her new friends. We stood in the open garage door and watched as the double doors of the white van sprung open. The occupants removed the winter coats and purses from their laps and gingerly dismounted onto the sidewalk. Thankfully, the driver had steered the van up onto the pavement, which made it tilt like it was at sea. The women all wore the same white pants and American flag T-shirts, but I knew there wasn’t a uniform at the senior center. Peer pressure, apparently. The driver doubled as the nurse, which David deduced by her choice in footwear.

  “Nobody wears shoes like that on purpose,” he declared. “Now I know who buys all those clothes at Shopko. Why are old people so patriotic?”

  “They fought in wars, David.”

  “It looks like it.” He pointed his head at the trio of old men, who immediately distanced themselves from the eight women and gathered in the very back corner of the room, near the giant hoops of rolled-up fire hose. I knew those old men—they attended every city council meeting in Gabardine for as long as I could remember. I knew they were not going to audition. At least they were dressed normally. I didn’t want to comment on anybody’s fashion choices, as David was wearing a lemon-colored beret. I hoped that this would not be a permanent thing.

  David hissed at me. “I’m afraid they are going to pee on the lawn chairs,” he said. “We’re going to have to put some pads down or something.”

  “I’m sure they have control of their bladders,” I offered. “They have a nurse with them. I’m sure she will take care of it.”

  “Why do all old people smell like pee?” He was trying to whisper, but that was an impossible thing for him.

  I smelled them as they filed past us, and I didn’t smell pee. I smelled White Diamonds perfume and menthol rub. I studied the nurse. I didn’t think she would be much help. Her nose was buried in a crossword puzzle, and even though she had a pen in her hand, I could see that the boxes were still blank.

  Betty Gabrian had conquered the septuagenarian clique and probably sat at the head of the jigsaw table. Her new friends carefully lowered themselves into the lawn chairs at the front of the room, but Betty Gabrian stopped to address me. She waved my script in the gloomy light.

  “Historically accurate,” she said. “Minus the ending, of course.”

  “So you approve?”

  “You don’t need my permission, my dear. I’m sure it will be a smashing success.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I pointed at David, who was pacing back and forth, wringing his hands. At least he had removed his beret. “All this is scary. I think it would just be easier to put on a puppet show.”

  “You have a tin ear when it comes to dialogue. Puppets might be a viable option.”

  I didn’t know what a tin ear was, but I thanked her anyway.

  “Please come back and visit me,” she said. “I want to hear your jailhouse confessions. I’m quite looking forward to it.”

  The other women were listening, and they nodded. Entertainment was in short supply.

  “I hope we can play some part.” She looked around the garage, and it was empty, no hubbub of young women clamoring to audition for the roles. I had a hard time imagining the elderly ladies portraying teenage hookers. Teenage hookers didn’t use walkers, so we would have to figure something out.

  Waterbed Fred stepped through the open bay of the fire station and stood behind the row of old ladies, steadying himself on the metal rail of the lawn chair. I think he’d had a few, even though it was ten o’clock in the morning. At least it was a Saturday.

  He looked up in the great expanse of the roof, like there were spotlights. When nothing happened, when he wasn’t cast in dramatic lighting, he righted himself and launched into a full-throated version of “Abilene.”

  His voice was deep and strong, warbling and breaking in just the right spots. He had practiced this in
his Frito-Lay truck, I was sure. I watched a row of American flags swoon; one woman grabbed her purse and brought it to her face, perhaps to keep from sobbing.

  David exhaled beside me. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he confessed. “He’s got star power. He should play the villain.”

  “There is no villain,” I said.

  He jabbed me with one finger, right next to the armpit. “Write one.”

  Waterbed Fred finished to great applause. He bowed and almost fell over.

  David leapt to his feet. The old men in the corner watched this sudden explosion of energy, suspicious. Maybe they did have trauma from the war.

  “Wonderful. Just wonderful!” David’s face lit up. He turned to me and attempted another whisper. “This is just like a white trash version of A Star Is Born. I have discovered a great new talent.” He stopped and clarified. “The Judy Garland version, of course.”

  “Well, he probably is an alcoholic,” I said. “But the Kris Kristofferson kind.”

  “Thank you,” said Waterbed Fred. “Can I sit down now?”

  “No,” said David.

  “No!” shouted the old women.

  “Your voice is glorious,” said David. “Unfortunately, this isn’t a musical.” At that, there was a commotion among the ladies, as several grabbed their purses, ready to leave.

  “Wait!” David turned to me. “You could write a few songs, right?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I’ve got it,” said David. “He could just sing ‘Abilene’ at the beginning, except we’ll change it to Gabardine.” He was very pleased with this.

  “I don’t think that’s okay,” I said. “I’m pretty sure there’s copyright laws and stuff like that.”

  David turned to me, completely serious. “I would break the law for that man.”

  At this, the old women applauded. Waterbed Fred looked sheepish, his mustache twitched. I don’t think he was used to this much attention. My mother barely looked up when she signed invoices. He probably hadn’t been such a hot commodity since 1985, the year waterbeds peaked.