The Tenderness of Thieves

by Donna Freitas

  “Hmmm,” my mother said, gently tugging along the edge of the fabric. She obviously didn’t believe I’d be spending the Fourth alone. She stood up and stepped back to admire her work. “Now, this is a beautiful wedding dress.”

  The fabric was ivory, a thick rough silk, so thick that when my mother worked her magic she could mold it almost like a sculpture. It was strapless, simple on the top, and fitted all the way down my body to below my hips, where it belled out. No beads were sewn onto this one, no pearls or buttons or lace. The simple beauty of the fabric and the style are what made this dress stunning.

  I looked at myself in the mirror on the far wall. “It really is.”

  “Mary is going to love this design when she sees it. I’m feeling proud of myself, I have to admit.”

  “You should feel that way.”

  The doorbell sounded.

  My mother put down her pincushion on the sewing table. “I’ll get it. Don’t move.”

  “Yup, I’ll just wait here,” I said sarcastically as she left me trapped in all these heavy yards of silk, flowing down off the pedestal into a train that trailed off a good few yards behind me. I was so pinned that if I tried to remove the dress, I risked serious injury. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine!” I yelled after her, a bit grateful for the interruption, honestly, so I had time to banish my sexy Handel thoughts before I had to look her in the eyes again.

  Then I heard voices.

  One of them was male.

  Maybe it was a fabric delivery.

  But when my mother returned to the sewing room, singing, “Jane, you have a visitor,” along the way, I knew it wasn’t the deliveryman approaching or the mailman. Oh God, I thought. It’s Miles. He’s found my home address and surprised me with a visit.

  But it wasn’t him, either.

  “Hi, Jane,” Handel said, hovering in the doorway of my mother’s office, smiling. “I got the day off.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand, unsure what to do. Unable to move.

  “Jane,” my mother said from behind him. He stepped aside so she could come in the room. “You didn’t tell me you were expecting company.”

  I removed my hand. “That’s because I wasn’t.”

  “Right,” she said.

  Handel’s eyes traveled up and down my body, then stopped when they met my eyes. “That’s a beautiful dress, Ms. Calvetti,” he added quickly.

  My cheeks burned.

  “And an even more beautiful model, don’t you agree?” she asked, glancing at Handel, who was still not quite inside the sewing room.

  I wanted to die. “Mom!”

  Handel laughed. “I thought that was already understood.”

  My cheeks were on fire, even though I was secretly pleased by Handel’s appraisal. I gave my mother a look that said we are going to have a serious chat about your behavior later. “Um, can I get out of this dress now?” I asked her.

  “I’ll go wait in the living room,” Handel offered. “Then maybe we can head to the beach?” he asked me.

  I nodded.

  “It’ll take a few minutes, just so you know,” my mother warned him. “These gowns are complicated.”

  “I’ve got time,” he called out, already gone from the doorway.

  My mother hadn’t moved. She studied me. One hand on her hip. “He’s nice, Jane.”

  The blood that started to drain from my cheeks with Handel’s departure immediately returned. “I know.”

  My mother began undoing the row of tiny pearl buttons all down the back of the gown. “And he’s very good-looking.”

  “Mom,” I protested. This was going to take forever. There must be a hundred buttons for her to undo, and she’d only gotten to about five. I was trapped in this conversation.

  “It was just an observation,” she said, the smile on her face audible in her tone.

  “I could probably do without that particular observation about my boyfriend,” I said, finally able to breathe now that my mother was more than halfway down the bodice. “And please lower your voice.”

  “So he is your boyfriend,” she said in a whisper. “Interesting. How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “It feels kind of private.”

  “Not private enough that he couldn’t stop by.”

  She finished with the last buttons, and I let out a long breath. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  Now she got to work on the bustle, trying to let it down without losing any pins in the process. “Interesting.”

  “You keep saying that,” I said.

  “Because it’s true,” she sang.

  My mother finished with the bustle and came around to the front of the dress again. Escape was in my near future. I could practically taste freedom. “Well, I’m glad I could add some excitement to your day.”

  She stood there, looking at me. “Jane, you know you can talk to me about anything.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Including about the . . . famous Handel Davies,” she added, in an exaggerated whisper.

  “Mom!” Maybe she was going to make me suffer in this gown all day. “Can you please help me here?”

  She laughed gleefully.

  “You know,” I said, about ready to step out of the dress on my own, yet finding I was still surrounded by so much fabric that this wasn’t about to happen easily and I didn’t want to ruin any of my mother’s work. “I always assumed that since you’re such a young mother that you would be much cooler than the other ones I know.”

  My mother got a look of concentration on her face and started fiddling with the hem of the dress, studying it. “Really.”

  “But suddenly I find that I am wrong.”

  She took out a pin and wove it through the bottom of the fabric. “Don’t hurt your mother’s feelings,” she said.

  “Right. Like you sound so hurt.”

  “No. You’re right. I’m not. I’m enjoying this.”

  “Mother!” She finally stood and gave me her hand so I could step out of the dress. When it was safely away from harm, I hopped down from the pedestal, threw on my shirt and shorts, and sprinted by Handel, who was standing near the screen door. I ran into my room and got dressed, gave myself a quick look in the mirror, and, satisfied, sprinted back to see my mother in the sewing room. “I’m leaving now,” I informed her.

  “Jane,” my mother said, stopping me with her hand.

  “What now?”

  “You are being safe, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Oh my God. I’m not even close to needing to be. Can we please drop this?”

  “Well, when you do get close, we should go to a doctor and make sure you have everything you need.”

  “I am not doing this right now. I love you, bye,” I added, my cheeks as red as the bolt of taffeta leaning against the wall. I shut the door behind me, took a deep breath, and walked the very short four steps into the living room, where Handel was still waiting. “Please tell me you didn’t hear every word of that,” I said to him.

  “I didn’t,” he said. But he was grinning.

  “You’re lying.”

  “It was a white lie,” he said. “I was trying to make you feel better.”

  I covered my face with my hands. “I’m mortified,” I said, my words muffled.

  “Don’t be. Besides, I told you the mortifying story about my name. Now we’re even. Your mother loves you. She just wants to know things about your life.”

  I still didn’t remove my hands. I couldn’t look at Handel. My cheeks burned like I’d stayed an entire day in the summer sun without any shade or sunscreen. The only thing that was even the least bit consoling was the familiar grains of sand on the floor of the living room under my bare feet. Slowly, I uncovered my eyes. “You sound like you speak from experience.”

  His grin slippe
d but only a little. “My ma wants to be a part of my life, too.”

  “And is she? Does she know about . . . me and you?” I still couldn’t quite bring myself to say “us.”

  Handel didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “Maybe we should head to a place where, you know, your mother can’t overhear our entire conversation.”

  “I can’t hear anything!” my mother called from the sewing room.

  “Yes,” I said immediately. “That’s a fantastic idea.”

  “Have fun! Don’t be home too late!” my mother yelled out.

  I slipped my feet into my flip-flops. “Come on,” I said to Handel, already opening the screen door. “Bye, Mom,” I called back to her.

  Once Handel and I were outside, even in the heat, I could breathe easier—at least at first. Then I noticed how patches of the grass in our yard were growing out of control and others were burned from the sun. My dad had always been the one to come over and maintain it. I pushed this out of my mind, deciding I’d deal with it later. “Where do you want to go?” I asked Handel.

  “I was thinking,” he began, then stopped.

  “You were thinking . . . what?”

  “That we should go public. Again.”

  “Public,” I said. “About me. And you. Like before.”

  Handel’s hand kept going to his back pocket. “Yeah. That we should stop hiding this. Us,” he added. “We started out that way, and I don’t think it makes sense to pretend we aren’t together.”

  I looked at him. “You want a cigarette,” I said.

  “How’d you know?”

  “You’re nervous,” I said. “You always want one when you get nervous. Well, that and the fact that you keep the pack in your jeans pocket and your hand reaching for it gives you away.”

  He hooked his thumb into his belt loop. “I’m not nervous.”

  “But you want a cigarette.”

  “Yes.” He glanced at the house. “But I’m not going to light one up in your front yard.”

  “All right. Let’s walk somewhere, then. In public. Together.”

  “Let’s,” he said.

  “Here we go,” I said, then stopped at the edge of the grass, like it was a line of demarcation I wasn’t sure we should cross. “You’re really not worried about your friends anymore?”

  Handel already had the cigarette out. The lighter poised. “I guess not.”

  I took a step forward. Crossed that line. “What changed?”

  “I don’t know. Things. Today life feels different for some reason.” Handel put the cigarette in his mouth. The flick of his lighter sounded. Then after one long drag, he crossed that line, too, joining me on the other side. “And it’s not right to hide. I want to do this right with you.” Handel’s eyes were serious. He took the cigarette from his mouth. “Jane, from the very first time I noticed you, really noticed you, I was sure you could only be good all the way through. I want that good to rub off on me, too.”

  I reached out to him. “I’m not that good.”

  “You are, though,” he said, and his hand closed around mine. “And I love it.”

  Handel and I began our walk through town toward the beach. Once again, we braved the stares of the neighbors, the way they stopped sweeping their front porches and put down glasses of lemonade, pausing conversations to take us in as we passed. The daughter of a fallen cop, hand in hand with the youngest son of one of the town’s most notorious families. I was sure my mother would get more gossip in her sewing room, but then, she could say she already knew about it, how her daughter’s boyfriend was none other than Handel Davies, who’d stopped by the house to say hello and meet her.

  Despite the attention, the nosy busybody-ness of everyone around us, my mind was elsewhere. It was stuck on the last three words Handel said before we started on our way. He’d used “love” among them, used it to refer to how much he loved how I am. He hadn’t said he loved me, not directly, but what he did say came awfully close. The very proximity of the two made me feel a little light-headed, like I was glowing brighter than the sun, everything about me lit up from the inside, or about to float away like a balloon. I could see it happening within Handel, too, from the way he couldn’t stop smiling as we walked along, even though he kept trying to. From the way he kept looking over at me, with eyes that reached right inside to my heart, and how he didn’t simply hold my hand—he couldn’t stop playing with my fingers, tracing circles at the center of my palm. Each time we turned down a new street, he’d lift my hand to his lips and kiss the tender skin just above my wrist.

  By the time we reached the path in the dunes that led to the beach, by the time we’d gone past all those staring eyes on the wharf, Handel had his arm around my shoulders. Then it went to my back, then my shoulders again, as though he couldn’t get enough of touching me. I leaned into him, my hair cascading down his side. Occasionally I looked up into his eyes only to see that he was looking down into mine. We held each other close, held on to each other like a real couple, one without a care in the world, enjoying the summer and romance and falling in love because that was all that mattered.

  TWENTY

  MILES’S FACE FELL the second he saw Handel and me approach. He’d set his stuff up next to the girls and was chatting away enthusiastically with Bridget.

  Suddenly I felt terrible.

  I loosened my grip on Handel’s waist. Pulled apart from him, a slight westward tug. I hadn’t been thinking about Miles when Handel and I were on our way here, that we might run into Miles and his friends at the beach. But that was the thing about Handel: I could hardly think when I was around him. I hoped Michaela and Tammy and Bridget wouldn’t mind that I’d shown up with Handel, unannounced. They wanted to get to know him. Now was their chance.

  By the time Handel and I reached everyone’s setup, Miles had plastered a grin on his face. It didn’t reach his eyes, and that nagged a little at my heart. I had no interest in hurting Miles, yet obviously I already had. I should have mentioned something about Handel to him on Friday night, that there was another boy in my life, but I didn’t, so now I was a jerk.

  “Heya, Jane,” Miles said enthusiastically, getting up from his towel to greet us. He must have picked up the local “heya” from spending time around here.

  “Heya, Miles,” I returned with a nervous smile, my public display with Handel suddenly awkward instead of thrilling. Everyone else was staring at us from behind Miles. The girls had their sunglasses on, so it was difficult to gauge their reactions, all except for Bridget, whose mouth was open wide in an excited sort of shock. No one else got up from their blankets. “Where are the rest of your friends?” I asked.

  “They’ll be here eventually,” he said to me, then looked at Handel. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  I cringed. Miles was extra polite. Formal. Which made him seem like a rich out-of-town guy. Which, of course, he was, technically, but a nice one all the same. “Um, Miles, this is Handel.”

  Handel’s left arm never left its place along my back, not even when he reached out his right to shake Miles’s hand. In fact I felt his fingers curl along the curve of my side. “Nice to meet you, Miles.”

  I swallowed. Looked from one boy to the other.

  Right there, with the two of them standing so close, it was clear Miles was no match for Handel, not as far as I was concerned. Miles with his nicely built body, his prep school–boy charm, his perfect tan and easy smile, easy because he’d grown up with money in a good home with a good family. Miles was attractive and could be smooth when he wanted, which was almost always. But Handel was something else. There was beauty in Handel, a rough, unpolished kind. I could see it all over him now, in the way his long blond hair was whipping around his face in the wind, the way his skin glowed in the sun, his dark eyes suspicious and vulnerable and deep and wanting. The strong bone structure, his jawline, the way he carried himself,
cigarette half dangling from his lips, the muscles in his arms and back and legs that came not from working out in a gym but from working out on the docks, which led to the kind of strength that has nothing to do with a person’s ability to lift weights and everything to do with his ability to weather the toughness of life. It was true that Handel’s last name gave him his reputation as a bad boy, but it was the rest of him that made a girl like me want to do anything she could to win him over from that dark side or, if this wasn’t possible, to join him there.

  I think Miles knew all this right then. We both did. How could I fall in love with Miles when there was someone like Handel to fall for instead? Despite this, Miles would be a sport, because that’s the kind of guy he was.

  “Why don’t we set up our stuff?” I said stiffly, half to Handel, half to Miles, not quite sure how to deal with both of them at once. My feet were burning in the hot sand.

  “I’ll make room,” Miles said, shifting his towel, tugging it with his foot, so that Handel and I could sit next to each other. So that he was just a little farther out from the rest of us, a lonely island in a great sea of sand.

  Bridget hopped up and bounced our way. “I’m Bridget,” she announced to Handel, putting out her hand.

  Finally, Handel’s smile was genuine. He extended his own. “Handel.”

  “Well, I already knew that,” she said, flirty and adorable, not in a way intended to make me jealous but instead to make me feel included, to make Handel feel included, for which I was grateful.

  “Hey, B. You’re the best.”

  She grinned at me. “Well, I already knew that, too.”

  Handel matched her grin. “Jane talks about me?”