The Tenderness of Thieves

by Donna Freitas

  So I told him. Soon, conversation was flowing easily between us. We moved to a couch set beneath one of the tree branches, the hanging lanterns floating and glowing above us, getting brighter as the sun dipped below the horizon and the evening grew dark.

  I was starting to enjoy myself.

  Miles picked up his beer from the coffee table. “So let’s see if I can recap what I know so far.” He took a long gulp and swallowed. “You’ve lived in this town your entire life and attend the local high school, where you’re going to be a senior this fall. Your mother is a seamstress. You hang out with those three”—he gestured at the girls, who were still over by the rail of the deck—“down at the wharf and the beach during the summer. Nearly constantly.”

  “Yes,” I said, laughing. Then I did my best to effect a haughty tone. “And you want to go to an Ivy League school, ideally, to play lacrosse. Because the girls go crazy over lacrosse where you’re from.”

  He smiled. “They really do. I wasn’t lying about that!”

  “And this is your first summer here,” I finished.

  “Right again,” Miles said. “So what else do I need to know about the mysterious and Italian Jane . . . ?” His eyebrows were a question. He wanted me to finish the sentence.

  “Calvetti,” I said. “Jane Calvetti.”

  “Wow, that is Italian.”

  I laughed. “I know.”

  “Wait a minute—I know that name. Calvetti, Calvetti. Jane Calvetti.” Then Miles stopped, his lips parting with surprise. His eyes clouded over. Suddenly he was looking at me differently, his expression serious, all that playfulness gone. “You’re not that Jane Calvetti, are you? The one from the—”

  “From the break-in. Yeah.” I said the words before he could get to them. The glass in my hand was frosty from all the ice. A shiver went through me, and I set it down on the table.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I clasped my hands in my lap, staring at them.

  “I mean it, Jane. I had no idea that was you.” Miles sounded shocked. Then he shifted, leaned toward me across the couch. “If you ever need to talk, I’m happy to,” he said, just like everyone else always did.

  I looked away. It was all I could do not to shrink from him, even though he was just trying to be nice. “Um, thanks, but no, thanks.”

  “Do the police—?”

  My head went left, right, left and right, saying no, no, no, let’s not do this—not now, not here. No more. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Okay. But I mean it, Jane, if you ever want—”

  “To talk, you’ll talk,” I finished for him. “Got it. And just so you’re not offended when I don’t, you should know that the police don’t want me talking to anyone but them,” I said, this mandate lifting me up from such weighty requests, lightening the burden. “New topic,” I pressed, when Miles hadn’t yet responded. I waited for him to go where I wanted. Willed him to.

  Miles looked at me then, trying to force the sadness from his eyes. I wanted to see that confident grin on his face, feel the relief of having this moment pass. I wanted to move on, to get to a place where we could relax, but I could already tell from the way Miles was looking at me that this wasn’t going to happen.

  Suddenly, I wished for Handel, wished for the boy who made me feel like I could be whole again, who knew my world inside and out because he’d lived in it his entire life, who didn’t push me into places I didn’t want to go and who looked in my eyes in a way that made me feel I was the only girl who’d ever existed. I realized right then how much I hated the thought of being a secret in his life. How I wanted Handel to keep up that conversation he’d started with his mother that spilled over into a conversation with his cousin that had somehow reached all the way to my mother’s sewing room.

  “You okay?” Tammy whispered softly from nearby. She was standing next to the couch. Maybe she’d overheard what Miles said. She sat down on the armrest next to me. Her fingers reached for mine and squeezed.

  I nodded, squeezing back.

  Miles looked at me guiltily. “I shouldn’t have been so cavalier, bringing that whole thing up.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It is.”

  “I’m not so bad, really,” Miles said, a bit pleadingly, and waited for me to respond. The hope in his voice was almost painful.

  “No,” I said after a while, looking up at him, trying to focus on Miles instead of Handel. “You’re really not.” Then I did my best to dial up pretend Jane, the girl who could have fun at the Ocean Club for a night, the one who belonged with a cute, nice guy like Miles, and who could exile painful memories far, far away, even if only for a short while.

  SEVENTEEN

  “YOU LOOK . . .” HANDEL stopped before he finished the sentence.

  It was late, almost midnight.

  Handel and I decided to meet up on the docks by the wharf after I left the Ocean Club, way out over the water where the fishermen kept their boats. There was no one around on a Friday night at this hour.

  I could barely wait to get there. Here. To see him.

  He was all I wanted.

  “I look what?” I asked him. “Like someone I’m not?”

  I followed Handel to the place where his father’s boat was tied up. My high heels dangled in my right hand. It felt good to be on solid ground again, heading along the boardwalk, that familiar rough wood underfoot, the type you had to know how to walk on so you didn’t get splinters. It was a relief to be with this boy who made me swoon just by standing there and looking at me. Handel got under my skin without having to try, and I think I got under his, too. I could tell, the way the electricity was flowing off him and reaching out to me, wanting me with such intensity, that this was true.

  “No,” Handel said, glancing at me. “You look beautiful, and you’re always beautiful, which means that you’re being exactly who you’ve always been.”

  My face flushed. I loved what Handel just told me. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Yes.” His reply was so blatant. So unabashed.

  “That’s new for me.”

  “What is?”

  “Someone saying I’m beautiful like it’s a given. A boy, I mean. Like you.”

  Handel held out his hand to help me step onto the boat. “How could that be new?”

  I climbed over the bow and hopped to the floor. His fingers were gentle but firm. “I haven’t dated too many people before.” I hesitated, then decided to keep going. “I’ve always flown under the radar, I guess.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  I gave Handel a skeptical look. “You can honestly say you knew of my existence before this year?”

  Handel busied himself arranging a place for us to sit on one of the benches that lined the side of the boat, piling lobster crates off to the side so there was more space, pulling out a couple of cushions from a storage cubby. “I might not have known,” he admitted.

  “See. I told you.”

  When the seat was ready, Handel settled himself onto it, and I settled myself next to him. “But once I did notice you, I couldn’t stop seeing you. Or thinking about you. You have that effect.” He took my hand into his, inspected it, drew his fingers across the lines on my palm.

  “I do?”

  He raised my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “Yes. It’s like you’re . . . fragile and unbreakable at once.”

  “I don’t feel unbreakable. But it’s a nice thought.” Handel’s mouth brushed my skin again. The feel of it stole my breath.

  Then he looked up at me with a grin. “So how was your date?”

  I laughed. “It wasn’t a date. Not really.”

  “How was your group date, then?”

  “Fine. If you insist. It was fun actually. Not as bad as I’d feared.”

  Handel’s eyes were amused. “You
actually felt fear? Now you’ve got to tell me more.”

  I elbowed him. “You would, too, if you were expected to show up at the Ocean Club.”

  He whistled. The sound cut low over the water and the dinging of the boats against the docks. “Fancy.”

  “Very.”

  “Did they pay for your beer at least?”

  “Yes. Though it was just a Coke. An expensive Coke,” I added.

  Handel nodded over at my heels, now piled one on top of the other next to an orange life jacket and a lobster crate. “So the shoes and the dress tonight were for them and not me?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Did they behave themselves?”

  This question got a look of disbelief from me. “Of course. What, were you worried?” I asked with a laugh.

  “I am human,” he said, laughing along with me. “Most of the time.”

  “And don’t forget, I’m part unbreakable, so you don’t have to worry so much.”

  Handel looked down at his hands. “It’s the fragile part I worry about.”

  “I want my friends to like you,” I said suddenly.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “If they got to know you better, they would.”

  Handel pushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen across his eyes. “You seem confident about that.”

  “I am,” I said, reaching up to shift it aside after it had fallen right back. Handel’s eyes were so steady, so full of feeling. He made me never want to look away. “How could they not, when I like you so much?”

  “I like you, too,” he said, so sincere.

  Those words washed over me like the tide, leaving me with chills.

  Handel reached over, his fingers grazing the tender skin just above the dip in my dress. He took the blue mosaic heart into his palm. Inspected it. “This is new.”

  I swallowed. Nodded. He placed it gently back against my chest. His hand lingered there a moment, eyes flickering up to mine again. I leaned in for a kiss, just a quick one, but just as quickly, the kiss turned into something else, something much more intense. Handel’s mouth parted, and his hands went to my face, gently pulling me closer. The light touch of his fingers along the curve of my jaw, then sliding down across my neck and over my shoulders, stole the air from my lungs. I don’t know that it was a conscious decision—I don’t remember there being a decision at all, honestly—but I found myself shifting positions, moving in such a way that I had one knee pressed into the seat next to Handel’s left thigh and the other pressed near his right, sitting across him. We never stopped kissing, not even for a moment, and now I was looking down at him from above, the blue heart of my necklace swinging and swaying between us, my long hair flowing around us like a curtain. The low back of my dress was gripped tight in Handel’s fists, as though he were afraid of where his hands would travel if he let go. His lips tasted of salt and the sea air and I couldn’t get enough of him; I could never get enough of him, so I pressed myself closer until there was no room left between us. I didn’t even care that the hem of my dress was riding up my legs, or that I could feel the fabric of Handel’s jeans rough along the inside of my thighs. It’s what I desired. It’s all I desired. Wherever this led was where I wanted to go.

  When we finally pulled apart, we were both gasping for breath.

  My heart pounded and pounded in my chest.

  Handel’s eyes were wild. Then he said, “You make me want things, Jane.”

  I felt a sudden burn in my cheeks, laughed nervously, a little shocked at myself, at whatever possessed me to act the way I just had, so uninhibited, as though I was a girl with far more experience. As gracefully as I could manage, I extracted myself from Handel’s lap and returned to the seat next to him, adjusting my dress, tugging it lower.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he backtracked. “Though you make me want those things, too.”

  I combed my fingers through my knotted hair and tried to steady my breathing. “What did you mean, then?”

  Handel was silent awhile, and I let him think. It was so quiet out here. Just the sound of the waves against the dock, the activity along the beach by all the bars too distant to interrupt all this peace. The moon shone bright over the water, shimmering and sparkling with the gentle movement of the boat as it rocked.

  Handel took my hand again. Ran his finger in circles across my palm, and I felt the electricity of it in my core. “When I’m with you, I think I could have a different life.”

  This answer surprised me. “Do you want one?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why?”

  “I wonder what it would be like to have been born into a different family.”

  “Speaking of, I met your cousin today,” I said, his comment reminding me. “Jenny.”

  Handel seemed startled. “What?”

  “Jenny Nolan. She was at my house for a fitting with my mother. I guess she’s getting married?”

  “Jenny Nolan,” he repeated. “I guess she is. Yeah, she’s my cousin.”

  “She’s pretty.”

  Handel just nodded.

  “Was it her father who died? Your uncle?”

  “No. Her father’s brother,” Handel said. “How’d you know she was related to me?”

  I smiled a little, feeling a tad smug about the fact that members of Handel’s family would find me important enough to gossip about. “She told me straight out.” I leaned into him. “Apparently, your mother liked the idea of us going on a date. She told Jenny about it, and how she was disappointed we didn’t work out.”

  Handel shook his head. “God, my ma is always talking.”

  “Everyone’s ma is always talking,” I corrected.

  “True enough.”

  I watched Handel. There was a look on his face that made me sad. He was like a lost boy in that moment, the bad-boy mask fallen away to reveal the lonely boy who’d seen enough tragedy in his life to have it change him forever. “Sometimes I think you’re more vulnerable than you give off,” I said. “That you’re completely different from what people think you are.”

  “Nah. I’m probably just the way they say.”

  But I shook my head. “I don’t buy that. And if you don’t want to be, you don’t have to.”

  “If only it were that easy.”

  “It is, though,” I said. Closed my eyes. The circles Handel was still making on my palm lulled me into a swoon. I wondered if that’s what he’d intended.

  “I wish that were true,” Handel said.

  Then I felt his mouth on mine again, and that was the end of our conversation.

  EIGHTEEN

  MY MOTHER LOOKED UP from her sewing machine. It was early in the morning, and her eyes were still weary. This time, pale yellow chiffon covered every available surface and the floor like a layer of butter. Despite the air conditioner humming in the window, she was sweating. It was the only room in the house that had one. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  I placed her iced coffee in the only available space, right against the wall behind the giant red pincushion. “Talk about what?”

  She pushed aside the chiffon. “Jane, don’t play dumb.”

  I sighed. “I’m not.”

  “I’m worried about you, and we haven’t had a real talk in a while. Then Professor O’Connor comes over and says the police have a lead. You didn’t know anything about it? Nothing at—”

  “It’s not like I remember anything else,” I cut in. Walked away from her. Stopped only when I stood in the doorway, ready to disappear down the hall.

  My mother took a sip of the coffee. “All right. I’m not going to push you.”

  The dark cloud lifted. “Thank you.” I wanted to change the subject. I took a step forward, now that the conversation could go somewhere safer. Glanced at all the fabric everywhere. “Who’s forcing br
idesmaids into yellow chiffon?”

  My mother closed her eyes a moment. Like she was trying to forget her worry. Then she took a deep breath and opened them again. “Lizzie McCreary.”

  “The oldest McCreary sister?”

  My mother nodded.

  “All that fair freckled skin and she couldn’t have chosen another color?”

  My mother made an ick face. “I know. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  I grabbed a yard off the floor, held it up to my body. Even my olive skin looked washed out. “It really is.”

  My mother took some of it into her hands. “The fabric is lovely, but that color is death to anyone who wears it, regardless of how pretty they are. I tried to convince Lizzie to choose blue or green to go with her sisters’ pretty strawberry-blond hair, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Something about her bridesmaids matching the center of the daisies in their bouquets.”

  “Wow. How horrible.”

  “Truly.”

  “Promise me something,” I said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “When I get married, you will not allow me to inflict such trauma onto Tammy, Michaela, and Bridget. You’ll remind me what good friends they’ve been to me all these years and how a bride should always be kind to her bridesmaids.”

  My mother laughed. “I’ll do that.” Her face grew serious. “You’re not about to tell me you’re engaged, are you?” Her tone was half kidding, but only half.

  I put a hand to my chest. “Me? Getting married? Any time this century?” I shook my head like she was crazy. “Have you been drinking?”

  The look on her face lightened up. “Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “Though, the way Jenny Nolan was talking about you and Handel Davies, it sounded like she hoped you two would be married off already.”

  “Jenny Nolan has no idea about anything.”

  “You do, though. Care to share?”

  “Don’t you have work to do?” I dodged.

  “I’m here when you want to talk about it.”

  “I’m aware,” I said, halfway out the door again.

  The pedal of my mother’s Singer began its slow rhythm, then stopped. “Jane, one last thing.”