by R. L. Maizes
It irks La La that the homeowner thinks the compassionate burglar is a man.
“One of your professors?” Clem says, and laughs. La La tries to join him, but what comes out is more like a grunt.
“The bird was happy when we got home,” says the woman, who wears a yellow ski jacket and fiddles with a silver hoop earring. “He was singing that Wizard of Oz song.” She runs her fingers through her hair. “The thief took a diamond necklace I inherited from my mother.”
You’ll buy another before the insurance check even clears.
The woman turns away, but the camera and mic follow her. “My mother wore it every Christmas Eve. Just seeing it in the jewelry box would remind me of her.” She wipes her nose with a tissue she pulls from her pocket.
How was La La supposed to know that? If she did know, she wouldn’t have taken it, or she might not have. She bends to caress Black, who licks her hand reassuringly. She glances at Clem, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue. “Definitely one of my professors. Probably picking up some Christmas gifts. You know how crowded department stores are this time of year.” Clem laughs.
“Of all things,” the homeowner says, “he took a silver-plated yin-yang pendant. It was my college roommate’s. When she died of cancer, her mother gave it to me.”
La La’s heart beats erratically. Clem looks confused. “That sounds like the necklace you were wearing last night, doesn’t it?”
“They’re pretty common,” La La says, her face warming. “The store had a million of them.”
He touches his beard. “Where did you say you got it?”
La La tries to come up with the name of a jewelry store, and when she can’t, she invents one. “The Jewelry Basket,” she says. “It’s not far from school. There’s a gas station across the street.”
Clem looks absently at the TV. He shakes his head, and La La imagines the argument he’s having with himself. His face turns pale and the corners of his mouth crimp.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I’m great. My fiancée is a burglar. That was you breaking into the house, right?” He squeezes the remote control, his knuckles turning white. “Wait—before you answer that. Are you in veterinary school? Have you ever been in veterinary school?” He rakes his beard with his fingers, scratching so hard La La’s afraid he’ll draw blood.
“I told you I don’t do that anymore.”
Clem rises. “Let’s go to the jewelry store. Right now.”
“They’re probably closed.” Sweat runs down La La’s belly.
“Maybe they’re open late for the holidays. You told me you saw it in the window, didn’t you? Maybe they put another one in the display.”
La La tries to think of an excuse. She can’t tell Clem the truth without putting their relationship at risk. The mere thought of him leaving causes La La’s vision to narrow, dimming the room. Yet she’s reluctant to tell another lie that he’s unlikely to believe. She looks toward the dogs, but they can’t help her. “When I saw it, I thought if I had it, I’d feel closer to my mother.” She touches her chest, imagining the pendant. “So I took it.”
“Just like that? You took it?”
La La rubs her shirt against her stomach to absorb the sweat. “I was already in the house. For Zev.”
“Why?” he cries, startling the dogs, who scurry to a corner of the room and huddle together, tails tucked.
“He got arrested. His lawyer costs a fortune. I can’t earn that kind of money as a vet tech.”
Clem sinks back into the chair.
La La tells him about her father’s break-in. “He saved the guy.”
“He nearly killed him.”
“Actually, the guy’s recovering. Slowly. Zev’s lawyer said he’s even breathing a little on his own.” She leans toward Clem. “But this is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand. It was very courageous of my father to call nine-one-one. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because he would have gotten away. He’s very good at what he does.”
“Good at being a burglar?”
“Yes.” La La glares at him. The news has moved on to a story about child abduction.
Clem comes over and sits next to her on the couch. He pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry about your father. I really am. But you don’t want to throw away your life because of his mistakes, do you?”
“Sometimes you have to take a risk to help someone you love.”
“What about the people you hurt?”
“They’ll install better locks. Be more security conscious. Who knows, I might prevent something worse from happening to them.”
Clem looks toward the darkened window. “You don’t believe that. And you promised me you were finished with stealing.”
La La studies Clem’s profile. “I didn’t know he’d get arrested.”
“You could have asked me for help. I don’t like Zev, but I would have done it for you.”
“You can’t afford his lawyer. Besides, I’m not just stealing. I’m taking care of animals.”
“You’ve done this more than once?”
“A few times.”
Standing up, Clem towers over her. “You’re insane. You think you’re some kind of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to help animals. La La of Goldstone Forest. Where’s your bow and arrow?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I want you to hear how ridiculous you sound.” He walks to the window. “We’re engaged. You should have confided in me. Did you ever think about how this would affect me? What if you get caught?”
He’s shouting, which causes La La to lower her voice. “I won’t.”
“Your father thought that, too.”
La La runs her hand over the depression in the cushion Clem vacated. “I took a leave of absence.”
“What?”
“You asked if I was still in veterinary school. I was, but I took a leave.”
“What did you tell the school?”
“That my father is sick.”
“You lie to everyone.”
Joining Clem at the window, La La touches the glass and feels the cold, a fragile barrier away.
“Why can’t Zev rob a few extra houses and pay for his own lawyer?” Clem asks.
“He’s under house arrest. And it wouldn’t be a good idea while he’s awaiting trial.” She grasps his wrist, catching dark hairs beneath her fingertips, already missing the small intimacies of their relationship. “It’s only until his case is resolved. Then I’ll go back to school, and everything will be like it was.”
Clem pulls his hand away. “You really think you can get a temporary job as a criminal?”
“I love you.”
“You have to stop, or I’m moving out. I have a kindness blog, for God’s sake! I want people to be more loving. I thought you wanted that, too. That you showed it by helping animals. I don’t know what to think now.”
“My father took care of me.”
Clem closes his eyes. “What about us?”
Having made her choice, La La has no answer.
5
WINTER 1999
After La La quiets the barking dog during her first job with her father, Zev thrusts his chin toward a security decal in the window. “You see that?” he whispers. “Fake. Real ones have the alarm company name.” A blue backpack hangs from her father’s shoulder.
When no one answers the doorbell, they go around back. Zev pulls a crowbar from under his coat and shows La La how to insert it above the lock. He pries open the door, splintering the frame. Worry buzzes through La La’s arms and legs, sits like a helmet on her head. She longs to run but is afraid to leave Zev. Breaking into a house seems wrong, but how can it be if her father is doing it?
In the master bedroom, Zev goes through drawers carefully, dropping items into his backpack. An Irish setter observes them from his bed in a corner of the room, chin on his paws. La La scratches his ears, then stations herself next to a window that faces the front yard as if
by watching for trouble she can keep it away.
A mail carrier walks up the street, shoving envelopes through slots. Will the woman notice something amiss? Hear them inside through the narrow opening? La La tugs her father’s sleeve and points. Putting a finger to his lips, Zev continues searching the room. The mail carrier stitches a path from house to house, her cart scrabbling along the sidewalk. La La peeks from behind a curtain, fingers clenching the red muslin. When the woman turns up the walk, La La wraps herself in the fabric. Chunk chunk comes the mail. Frightened, La La wets herself, the first time since she was a baby.
In the car, soggy and cold, La La hides her condition from her father.
At a truck stop, Zev breathes on a diamond, fogging it. “See how it doesn’t stay misty? That’s how you know it’s real.” When La La barely nods, Zev shoves the diamond in his pocket. She can at least pretend to be interested, he thinks, after insisting he take her with him.
“La La’s too busy to come to the phone,” Zev says later that afternoon when his daughter’s friend Charlotte calls, though La La’s just watching The Price Is Right. When the two girls get together, they don’t shut up, telling each other the smallest details of their eight-year-old lives. After Zev hangs up, he fills a bucket and mops the kitchen floor. Then he finds La La in front of the TV. “You can never tell anyone what we do.”
“You told me that already. Who was on the phone?”
“No one,” Zev says. “Let’s play War. I’ll get the deck.”
Although La La usually loves to play cards, this time she’s slow to flip them over. “It had to have been someone.”
The next afternoon, La La’s friend Ananda appears at the door. “Can La La come out?”
“She has the measles,” Zev says, and he closes the door before Ananda can reply.
La La charges down the hall. “I’m fine!”
“Your life is different from Ananda’s now,” Zev says, still grasping the doorknob.
“She’s my friend.”
“I’ll be your friend.” He knows it isn’t the same. The girls play Cat’s Cradle, knitting strings over their fingers in elaborate patterns. They jump rope, chanting, “Cinderella, dressed in yella, made a mistake, kissed a snake.” Yet he can’t take the chance La La will slip and reveal their activities. He’s prepared to be vigilant to keep other kids away, but as soon as they hear La La’s sick, they stop coming.
When the school secretary phones a few days later to check on La La, Zev says he wants to homeschool his daughter. Soon after, a large manila envelope arrives in the mail from the school district. Zev completes the paperwork, surprised there’s so little to it. It seems just about anyone can teach their child at home if they want to. He studies with La La when they’re not on a locksmith call or robbing a home, hoping he’ll be more successful as a teacher than he was as a student.
At La La’s age, he was called into the principal’s office regularly for making off with devices he was curious about but couldn’t afford to buy: a teacher’s handheld calculator, an audio cassette player, bicycle and combination locks, and transistor radios belonging to his classmates. He intended to return each device after dismantling it and putting it back together but sometimes was caught before the reconstruction was complete. Then his father, a toll collector on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, was made to pay for the item, and the pieces were thrown away. Sputtering curses, his face as red as the tomatoes he grew every summer, Sam would beat him, but Zev’s curiosity was undeterred.
Over time, Zev’s skills as a thief improved, and he learned to evade detection. When six months passed without a call from the principal, his father, who had developed an affinity for the belt, found other excuses to thrash Zev: dust under his bed, dirty fingernails, a description of their family as poor to a cousin. His mother, who suffered from constant migraines, tried but couldn’t protect him. When she died in a car accident, Zev barely noticed her absence. He doubled his efforts to keep his room and his body immaculate, but even that didn’t stop his father.
At fifteen, tired of welts that burned along his ass and back and kept him on his feet all day, Zev ran away to Manhattan, where he slept in abandoned buildings, wrapped in newspaper. He picked pockets and broke into bus station lockers to survive.
A year later, after he had picked a coin-operated locker, someone slammed a hand on the locker door. “Nice work,” said a man in mustard coveralls, EMERGENCY LOCKSMITH sewn across the chest. He licked the bottom of his yellow mustache, then smoothed it with his fingers. “Who taught you?”
“I figured it out.”
“I’m Elijah.” The man’s voice, like his neck, was thick. “You have a name?”
“Stan,” Zev said.
“Well, Stan, mind the cop out front. Or if you’d like to put your skills to better use, apprentice for me. I’ve got more work than I can handle, and you seem like a quick study. Be at this address tomorrow at eight.” He handed Zev a card.
“Sure,” Zev said, never intending to see Elijah again. But when he woke the next morning stiff with cold, he realized it would be nice to have a regular job. One that would allow him to rent a room with heat.
Elijah taught him to pick common locks—cams and dead bolts and ratchet bars—and to install them. When locks defied picks, Elijah demonstrated how to open them with a bump key or by drilling through. He had Zev copy keys. The man took him out for hamburgers and milkshakes, letting Zev order as many as he liked. He bought him sturdy shoes and a warm winter coat. In Elijah’s eyes, Zev saw a measure of kindness intended for someone else, a measure of pain Zev didn’t cause but that his presence evoked.
On the days Zev wasn’t working, he stole. Employing his new skills, he broke into homes. He didn’t need the money, but he enjoyed the challenge, and it was more exciting than being a locksmith.
* * *
The cry of a kitten, like the sound of a hinge before Zev oils it, wakes La La. She shivers, and her nose drips as it used to on frigid winter mornings when she and her mother walked the three blocks to school, Elissa tugging on her hand, while La La struggled to keep up. She can still picture her mother, who has been gone a month: coffee-brown hair that fell into her eyes, pale cheeks, long fingers that were expert at removing splinters. But the room in La La’s mind that holds the image is growing darker over time, details disappearing.
The kitten squeaks again, a sound meant for a mother cat but that finds La La, instead. Hurrying to the entryway of her house, La La pulls open the front door and steps barefoot into the brittle cold. A foot of snow has frozen to a hard crunch on the lawn. In a basket on the landing, swaddled in a baby’s fleece blanket, the kitten trembles, her face—brindle fur and yellow eyes—and her pink tongue exposed. La La wonders who could have left her. She brings the basket inside to her room. As she lifts the animal out, she discovers a book, Caring for Your Cat, beneath the blanket. When La La dives back into bed, the kitten grazes her chin with a tiny, sharp claw. La La opens the book.
She’s read three chapters when the smell of pancakes floats into her room. La La wraps the kitten in the fleece blanket and carries her into the kitchen. She holds the cat up for Zev to see. “Someone left her for us. In a basket.”
He rests a plastic spatula in the hot skillet. “Like Moses in the bulrushes.”
La La doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “She was cold. She doesn’t have a collar.”
“We’ll bring her to the shelter,” he says, as he retrieves syrup from the refrigerator.
La La clasps her arms around the kitten. “I warmed her up.”
“You did a good thing.”
“Maybe she’s from Mom.”
Zev unscrews the cap from the syrup. He has no doubt that’s who the kitten is from, a twisted good-bye gift from Elissa, who knows he doesn’t like animals. The fleece blanket is one he purchased for La La when she was an infant that Elissa took to keeping in her car for rescues such as this one. The thought of Elissa hiding somewhere
in town a month after she left, setting the basket down on their landing but not bothering to come in to see him or La La, infuriates Zev.
“Mom loved animals,” La La says.
“Yeah, that’s all she—”
“I’m going to call her Mo.”
“For Moses?” Zev says, as he sets the table.
“For Mother.”
“The shelter will name her.”
“The pancakes!” La La says. But it’s too late. Smoke drifts toward the ceiling, setting off the alarm.
Zev turns off the burner and removes the skillet. “Cats cost money,” he shouts. He climbs on a chair and pulls the batteries from the alarm. “They shed.”
La La turns the kitten toward her. “She can be my friend.”
With the melted spatula, Zev scrapes burnt pancakes into the trash.
“I don’t have any friends,” La La says.
Zev stares at the ruined pan. It’s true. No one appears at the door for La La anymore. No one calls, inviting her to sleep over. He can’t remember the last time she asked him to buy a gift for a birthday party, but of course he wouldn’t let her go. It’s what he intended, but seeing her face pressed toward the kitten’s, her shoulders curled into her chest, he has second thoughts. Yet he can see no other way to ensure their work remains secret. He feels as he did when he used to find her standing alone in front of the cavernous, nearly empty school building because Elissa forgot to pick her up, except now he’s the one neglecting her.
La La raises her head. “The book says she needs shots.”
“What book?”
“The one that was in the basket.”
Zev retrieves a fat telephone book from the hall closet and opens it on the kitchen table. “My daughter found the thing half frozen,” he says into the receiver. “It’s an emergency.”
La La clutches Mo while they ride to the clinic. As she steps inside the brick building, a sharp pain runs down her belly, like the time she tripped and fell on the corner of a box of dominoes she was holding. Her left arm freezes, immobilized in an invisible cast. Her joints stiffen with age. Illnesses, half a dozen or more, ravage her small body, and her eyes itch and tear. She begins to shake and nearly drops Mo.