The Tenderness of Thieves

by Donna Freitas

  “Not for me,” Bridget sang softly. “Never for me.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” said their leader, the light-skinned one and the tallest of the three, the one who looked like he must work out in one of those fancy gyms with machines designed to help sculpt muscles for athletes. Dark brows slashed over dark eyes and a bright broad smile. The lacrosse stick hung at his side. “Eric and I were playing fetch, and my last pitch went awry.”

  “Awry?” Tammy was all suspicion and distrust. I could practically hear her eyes rolling under those dark glasses.

  “What? Lacrosse fetch?” Michaela asked.

  “Your dog’s name is Eric?” I asked next, surprising even myself with a question that might easily be mistaken as an invitation for further conversation.

  “Jane, that’s his friend’s name, obviously.” Bridget had strategically positioned herself on her towel, one gorgeous leg outstretched, the other bent at the knee. She alternated her attention between each of the three boys now that the other two had joined their leader.

  The one with the dog grinned, his smile turned up to blinding. His father must be an orthodontist—he looked too rich for him to be a regular dentist. “Eric, come here. Stop flirting,” he said, patting his thigh. The dog, obedient and wagging his tail enthusiastically, returned proudly to his owner. Bridget’s eyebrows went up. “I’m Miles. This is Logan”—he nodded toward the boy on his left, the Irish-looking one who smiled on cue—“and this is Hugh,” he finished, nodding toward the boy on the right, the one with the darkest skin, who also smiled.

  Tammy laughed in disbelief. “Oh Jesus, you’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “What?” Miles asked, like he really didn’t know she was referring to their names, the kinds of names only the rich give their children.

  “Just ignore her,” Bridget said, trying to salvage the situation. “What brought you guys to this beach?”

  The dog dropped the ball at Miles’s feet. “Exploring the rest of the town. That sort of thing.”

  “We heard the girls were prettier over here.” This from Logan, in a tone of voice that dripped entitled asshole.

  Tammy got up from her towel, all confidence and sexiness and grace. “I don’t have any patience for rich boys slumming it over here with us townie girls.”

  “Ouch,” Miles said, but he never lost his smile.

  Bridget opened her mouth in protest but stopped short of actually saying anything when she saw that both Michaela and I were starting to get up.

  I brushed a few grains of sand from my legs. “I’m suddenly hungry.”

  “I’ve got frozen candy bars dancing in my little head,” Michaela said, her left hip jutted to the side.

  “Our treat,” Miles offered, in a voice that said he was sure he wouldn’t be refused. “It’s the least we could do after disturbing your peace.”

  “No, thanks,” Tammy said. “I’ve saved just enough pennies that I can afford some chocolate all on my lonesome. What about you girls?”

  I smiled. Tammy’s haughtiness could be annoying, but sometimes it was the best part about her. “I might need to borrow a penny or two, but I think I can manage.”

  Michaela shifted her sunglasses up so they pulled her hair back from her face like a headband, showing off her brown eyes. “I’m good for an extra dime if you need it, hon.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Clearly outnumbered, Bridget finally joined us, though reluctantly. “Maybe another time,” she said to the boys sweetly.

  The four of us headed toward the snack bar, taking our time, knowing full well those boys would stand there and watch us walk away, taking in our bodies, mostly bare except for the bikinis each of us wore, long hair swinging across our backs, side to side with every step. We may not be rich like they were and we might just be townies like everyone else around here, but we knew where our power lay, and we were doing our best to learn how to use it.

  It was in moments like these that I got a glimpse of the Jane I used to be before everything changed direction. The Jane who stuck with her friends no matter what, who would never let a bunch of boys come between us, who told and trusted her friends with everything. When you’ve done nothing wrong, it’s easy to act that way. Carefree and confident. It was good to see that girl again, that version of myself. To remember that she was still there after all these months, that maybe I could call her up if I needed her and she would respond as though she’d never left. I just hadn’t been looking in the right place.

  • • •

  Missy Taylor was coming out of my house just as I was returning from the beach. She was struggling with a garment bag that lay stretched across both arms. I sized it up quickly. Wedding dress. She was only four years older than me. Blond and perky. The cheerleader type in high school.

  “I didn’t know you were getting married,” I said, helping her with the door. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” she said, whether for the help or the congratulations was unclear. The freckles on her face were dark from time spent in the sun. “The wedding is next week. Your mother didn’t tell you?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, it’s nice to know that someone in this town doesn’t gossip.”

  I laughed. “My mother treats her client relationships like a lawyer or a doctor does. Total confidentiality. Whatever is discussed in the fitting room stays in the fitting room.” I paused, thinking about whether this was completely true, of if there were any loopholes in the policy. “Well, unless she hears something about me. Then client confidentiality goes down the drain.”

  Missy smiled. “Good to know. I think her exception is forgivable.”

  “Don’t know if I agree. Who’s the groom?”

  “Oh, he’s from out of town.” Her tone was almost apologetic. “He’s really sweet. Different from the boys around here, you know?”

  “I’m sure he’s great. I like the boys around here, though,” I added. Then I thought about Handel, how he hadn’t been in touch. Maybe I should take a nod from Missy.

  She cocked her head. Took me in with her big blue eyes. “There’s a whole world out there beyond this town, Jane,” she said, as if I might not have heard this before, as if four years and a proposal of marriage made her decades wiser. “You should go exploring. You especially.”

  “Hmmm. Well, good luck next week.”

  Missy stared at the thick garment bag in her arms like she’d just remembered it was there. “Right. I should go. So much to do in only a week. Tell your mom she’s a genius. Bye!”

  I gave her a wave. “Bye.” Then I went inside. Kicked off my flip-flops. Felt the comforting grains of sand on the floor underneath my bare feet. It was still summer. There was still plenty of time for things to happen. Good things. “Hello?”

  “I’m in my office,” my mother called back. “Come visit your beloved parent.”

  My bag made a soft thump when I dropped it. I continued to shed things on my way to the sewing room. Hair band. Sunglasses. As usual, my mother sat amid a sea of fabric. This time it was violet chiffon. “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re doing alterations for Missy Taylor’s bridal party.”

  She stuck a pin into the hem of one of the dresses. “You missed out. An hour ago I had eight girls in this house, all of them draped in violet chiffon. That’s not counting Missy.”

  “You fit nine people in here?”

  She laughed. “Not just in here. In the living room. On the porch. Sitting on my bed. There was a lot of giggling and a bit of complaining about being forced to wear violet or being forced to wear chiffon or, with one of the girls, complaints about both. All whispered, of course, while Missy was out of earshot.”

  “Out of earshot in this house?”

  “She was in the yard investigating our flowers and thinking about whether to switch the ones in her bouquet.”

&
nbsp; “I’m kind of glad I missed all of it.”

  “You would’ve gotten annoyed.” My mother looked at me, eyebrows raised. “There were comments made about the sandy condition of our living room floor. There was actually an offer to sweep it up while waiting.”

  I shoved a pile of fabric off a chair so I could sit, shin deep in a purple sea. “The nerve. What did you say?”

  “I said—politely of course—no, thank you. That the sand on the floor was symbolic of summer in this house and was a welcome guest until after Labor Day.”

  “And they said?”

  My mother shifted the hem so she could put in another pin. “Nothing really. Just an ‘Oh’ and a ‘Hmmm.’ Both of which were judge-y.”

  “Speaking of judge-y,” I said. The chiffon was silky along the tops of my feet. “Missy is sweet and she means well, but she basically told me to get out of town because life would be better elsewhere. Or at least the boys would. Oh, and she said you are a genius. That part was okay.”

  “She’s a nice girl. Awfully young to be getting married, though.” My mother glanced at me warily. Accusingly even.

  I gave her a wary look right back. “Who said I was getting married?”

  “Actually,” she said, shifting the dress from her lap to the worktable. “No one has. Not a single person has spoken to me about my daughter hanging out with Handel Davies over the last few days.”

  “So?”

  My mother looked at me pointedly. “Jane.”

  I lowered my eyes. Purple fabric swam across my vision. “What?”

  “The lack of gossip likely means you haven’t seen him since the night you two went out.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested,” I said. “You never asked me about it.”

  “Of course I’m interested! I just didn’t want to pry.”

  I crossed my legs, lifting them out of the chiffon. “Fine.” Settled some more into the chair. “Handel and I had a nice time. Better than nice.”

  My mother was trying not to smile. “Nice? Nice and a Davies boy don’t seem to go together.”

  “You sound like Michaela.”

  “Michaela doesn’t like him?”

  “She’s just watching out for me. Like everyone else these days,” I added, studying my hands and laying them in my lap. Trying not to fidget. “I liked hanging out with Handel. We clicked, or I thought we did. But I haven’t heard from him since.”

  My mother swiveled her way toward me in the chair, moving fabric as she went. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.” She put a hand on my arm.

  “I’m fine. We’re probably not right for each other, anyway. And it’s not like I need any complications this summer.” I looked up, and my mother was right there, so close. Her eyes matching my own. My throat grew tight. “I need everything to be simple. You know?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I do.” She leaned forward and brushed the hair away from my face. “There’s something else I’ve wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s time,” she began. Stopped. Took a breath and began again. “I think it would be good if we went to visit your father. You haven’t been since the funeral.”

  Immediately, my head swung side to side, no no no no.

  “It might be good for you. For both of us.”

  “I can’t I can’t I can’t,” I said on repeat. “I’m not ready,” I tried, but what little voice I had left was gone.

  “Okay. All right. But soon, Jane. I want us to go soon. You can’t avoid it forever.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t agreeing. Deep breaths. I needed to get out into the air. Out of this room so full of fabric I might suffocate. But my mother wasn’t done yet. Not done with me. She slid open the drawer of her desk. Removed a small white box.

  Held it out to me. “I wanted you to have this,” she said. “Take it.” She placed it on my lap.

  I lifted the lid.

  Inside was a thin gold chain, at the end of which was a tiny mosaic heart. All shades of ocean and sky. Just like the one I’d lost—just like it, but different, too. This one had a pale sliver of green running through the center. Tears pressed into my eyes. “It’s beautiful,” I told her. “Thank you, Mom.”

  “Let me help you put it on,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse.

  I got up, almost tripping over the fabric on the floor. Set the box aside. “Not now,” I said. “Maybe another time.”

  My mother blinked. She was nodding. “Okay.”

  “I’m going to go out for a while,” I said, glad I was still wearing my bathing suit underneath my clothes, thinking a swim might be in store for me tonight. Before my mother could say anything else, I grabbed my flip-flops and was gone from the house, staring up at the sky as it turned the red color of the evening.

  • • •

  I started to walk. Walk and walk and walk.

  At first I had no direction, then I realized I’d walked so far I’d crossed into the next town. I doubled back, and soon found myself heading to the only place I wanted to be when I was hoping to forget. The beach. The smell of the ocean air, briny with salt and sea life, always calmed me. There was something about the sound the waves made, the constancy of them, their broken rhythm, that could knit me together again when I was afraid things were coming apart. Even the pungent smell on the wharf where the fishermen brought in their catch was soothing. My whole life had been spent coming down to this place with my mother and father when I was small, and on my own when I’d gotten old enough to do things by myself or with friends. It’s where I always went when I wanted to think, even in the winter. The ocean provided the sound track to some of the most important moments I could remember. The best ones.

  I passed the row of fancy bars and restaurants at the edge of town that catered to the city people that summered here, the ones who built big houses where they could have ocean views and catered parties on wide rolling lawns and park SUVs in long driveways. Where they didn’t have to interact with the locals. These were people who typically never set foot on the town beach because they paid to go the private club far enough away from the wharf that the fishing boats going out for the day and coming back would never mar their view of the sea.

  They had their own little world over here.

  I passed the Ocean Club, with its big wooden deck looking out over the water and its glittering dining room, and the Pump House next door, all glass and minimalist white, its parking lot packed with BMWs. They looked like they belonged to another place, another town where bars like Charlie O’s and O’Malley’s Pub couldn’t exist just down the road. The owners didn’t even employ locals during the summer. They hired out-of-town kids looking for a quick buck or whose parents thought it would be “good for them” to find out what it was like to work for a change. No one would tell you that outright if you applied—that they didn’t hire local kids to bus and wait tables—but everyone knew the deal and stopped applying for jobs on this strip of oceanfront long ago. There was almost an unspoken agreement between townies and the city people not to mingle, even though we all lived right next door to one another.

  I stopped in front of Christie’s, a martini bar that boasted drinks out over the ocean and quaint twinkle lights on the deck, watching as a tall, elegantly dressed woman emerged from a sleek Mercedes, handing her keys to a valet who would whisk it off to some unseen parking place. She had a white leather clutch under one arm and was dressed in a short, tight white dress and four-inch heels. Everything about her said rich and glamorous as she tottered toward the entrance.

  “Hey, it’s you.”

  The Mercedes pulled up in front of me with the valet I’d seen taking the woman’s keys in the driver’s seat. He was the same boy from the beach the other day, the one with the dog named Eric and the lacrosse stick. I was surprised to find out he had a job. He grinned at me with those
perfect teeth, his crisp white short-sleeved shirt bright against his skin.

  Okay, so he was good-looking.

  I searched my brain for his name. “Miles, right?”

  “So I did make an impression,” he said over the soft purr of the car.

  “Are you always this cheesy?” I tried to be annoyed, but I couldn’t suppress a laugh. He was so different from the boys I was used to, so polite, all smooth lines and big winning smiles. His behavior was almost excusable. Almost.

  “Nah, I’m just confident.”

  “Oh, oh-kay.” I started on my way again.

  He gunned the engine lightly. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  “In some other lady’s car? No, thanks.”

  He looked at me strangely. “Don’t worry. She won’t care.”

  “Really, no,” I said. “I like to walk.”

  “Too bad.”

  I didn’t slow down. “Not for me.”

  He kept pace with me, the car nearly silent. “What if I came to pick you up one evening in a car of my very own?”

  “Is it an SUV?”

  “Why? Does that affect your answer?”

  “Maybe.”

  The car rolled alongside me, the gravel in the road kicking and popping underneath the tires. “Maybe what? Maybe you’ll hang out if it’s an SUV? Or maybe you won’t hang out if it’s an SUV? Or is the maybe more about just the general question of whether you’ll hang out with me?”

  I laughed again, but didn’t stop. Just shrugged.

  “You could come to one of my lacrosse games. I’m really good,” he added, with only a little irony.

  “Seriously?”

  “What? The girls where I’m from love lacrosse games.”

  I glanced his way. He looked so relaxed driving that fancy car. Like he belonged in a Mercedes. Like he’d never belong around here. “Yeah, well, you’re obviously not at home anymore.”

  “Come on, girl! Give me something,” he pleaded.

  I looked at him one last time. He was almost charming in his exasperation. “I did give you something. I gave you a maybe,” I said, then turned left, cutting across someone’s lawn so he couldn’t follow.