Handcuffs

by Bethany Griffin

  “Yeah.” She doesn’t sound optimistic either. I close the door and she drives off. My dad pulls back into the driveway and rolls his window down.

  “Parker, do you need anything from the grocery?” As far as I can remember my dad has never, ever gone to the grocery store before, and especially not at eight-thirty p.m. Being unemployed has some weird consequences.

  “No, Daddy,” I say.

  “Okay, I’ll see you later, then.” I stand in the driveway and blink and he pulls away. Could that envelope in his passenger seat really have said coupons? No way.

  I look directly at the for-sale sign as I walk toward the house. I have to look at it, because my eye-foot coordination isn’t that great, and as I pass it, I kick the crap out of it. Did you know that those signs are metal? It makes this high-pitched noise as the thin metal bends back and forth for a minute. Then there’s nothing but a slight pain in my foot.

  Paige is sitting at the kitchen table talking to Mom. I don’t know what her deal is. She was never around this much when she lived here. Preston is running from one end of the hallway to the other. He yells “Marco!” at one end of the hall and “Polo!” at the other.

  “Did you get any good information at the library, honey?” Mom asks. I remember after they caught me, when I was sitting in my room, my mom said that there wasn’t anything about me to know, suggesting that I’m just some kind of blank teenage idiot, but I wonder, what is a person going to learn about their teenage daughter from a question like that?

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “What, did you write it all in that spiral notebook?” Paige asks. I’ll bet she thinks that I didn’t go to the library at all, and this notebook is just for cover. Why does she have to try to sabotage me? I feel defensive now, like I have to watch out for an attack here in my own house. How is it fair that she’s such a bitch, but her hair looks so great?

  “No. I sent the research to my in-box so I could print it here. Did you know you have to pay ten cents for every copy you make at the library?” And I emptied all the change out of the bottom of my purse weeks ago. Does Mom not realize that no one has given me any money in weeks? That I can’t get a Coke from the machine after school or, well, anything?

  “You girls are so smart on your computers,” Mom says. As if she’s a doddering old grandma who knits doilies all day. I mean, she is constantly on her computer at work. She even sent Dad an IM once. Really.

  Paige smirks at me. I hate her sometimes. Actually, I hate her most of the time.

  “I saw Kyle Henessy today,” I tell them. When I look at my sister my eyes feel squinty and hard. We should be on the same side. I should be used to the hostility, but it hurts that she is automatically against me.

  “Again?” Mom sounds worried. “Is he following you now, Parker?”

  “Yeah, Parker can’t even score her own stalker.” Paige laughs. I glare at her. She is so full of herself. What kind of idiot is she?

  “I think he’s tutoring Erin Glasgow.”

  “Did you guys know that he’s working at the computer place, that he makes over a hundred dollars an hour? They pay for his college classes too.” Paige’s voice is dreamy, like she’s fantasizing about making a hundred dollars an hour. I think how shallow and disgusting she is. And yet the other day in history class I was fantasizing about winning the lottery, how lame is that?

  “How do you know that, Paige?” Mom asks, her voice going high with alarm. She gets worried whenever anyone mentions Kyle Henessy.

  “I just heard it,” Paige snaps. “I wish West could make that kind of money. His parents are complete tightwads.”

  “Well, West is set up to inherit a good amount of money one day, and I’m sure that his father just wants to teach him the value of that money.” Mom always takes up for West, no matter what. It makes her nervous when he and Paige seem to be fighting.

  The pitter-patter of my brother in the hallway has gotten louder.

  “Marco!” Thud, thud, thud. “Polo!” Pant, pant, pant. “Marco!” Thud, thud, thud. “Polo!” Pant, pant, pant.

  “Shouldn’t he be wearing his helmet?” I ask.

  My mom sighs. “His head is getting to be shaped like the helmet. I thought he could go without it for a few—”

  “Marco!” Thud, thud, thud. “Poloooooo.” Crash.

  “What’s he doing, anyway?” I ask Paige as Mom grabs the first-aid kit and sprints to Miracle Child’s side.

  “Who knows? I brought him some of those sugar cookies he likes, but he hasn’t eaten one yet, so I know those aren’t the reason he’s so hyper.” Paige is clueless to anything that doesn’t have to do with her. It seems to have completely escaped her that he has ADHD, and the H stands for hyper. It was nice of her to bring him cookies, though. Cookies with M&M’s on top.

  “Take one, Parker,” she says, scooting them toward me. I take two. We sit there with nothing to say to each other. The only sound is Mom’s voice, soothing, as she tries to console Preston in the hallway.

  “I guess I’ll see you later,” I say. I have to step over my brother, who is getting SpongeBob Band-Aids down his leg where there is a faint scratch, and over the fourth step because it squeaks. Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in with these people. I wonder if other kids look at their family and feel a fuzzy warm sense of belonging. I feel like a cold frozen alien from outer space. I don’t belong.

  I really do have to write this essay. I really do want to keep my grades up. I haven’t had a B since eighth-grade music class when we had to play “Pop! Goes the Weasel” on this recorder thing. I need to stay at Allenville regardless of whether we have to go live in a tiny little house or, God forbid, an apartment. I am desperate, all of a sudden, to get some sort of scholarship. Even financial aid. Security for the future would be great. Getting away from my family might be even better.

  I go straight to Dad’s office because I want to use his laser printer, but I get a shivery feeling looking at the leather office chair, the very chair in which I sat wearing the handcuffs. The chair in which (had things been different) I might have . . . The chair where I could have . . .

  There’s an ugly paperweight on Dad’s desk. I made it for him at Camp Little Creek six years ago. The kind with an oak leaf under glass. Under the glass dome, beneath the oak leaf I so carefully placed there, and where my name is etched on the bottom, is a piece of paper. I pick it up.

  Christopher Prescott,

  Your mortgage is in default. Unless this bill is paid in full, your home will be repossessed.

  I don’t read any more. I can’t. I fold it carefully and put it back under the paperweight. I open my notebook. My hands are shaking. Mostly, right now, I am imagining my dad reading this letter. I can see him taking off his glasses and wiping them on his shirt and putting his head in his hands. I can imagine how this must’ve made him feel, and I feel awful for him. Maybe if he didn’t have all these financial problems to worry about he could go back to being happy and forget about catching me in the handcuffs. At least if I could fix it I might be able to negate some of the hurt I caused him. I’ve always been a big fan of making things better, never like to accept that something is just irrevocably broken or ruined. I scoot the paperweight and everything underneath it back and put my notebook on the desk.

  Figure out how to make a bunch of money.

  Make Marion Henessy Pay.

  What if I could do both of these things at once? According to Paige, Kyle Henessy makes one hundred dollars an hour. His family has plenty of money too. That’s one reason our families stopped being friends. The Henessys could afford to go places and do things that we couldn’t. That and our having Kyle taken in for questioning and convicted of stalking my sister. But even before Kyle started peeking in our windows, the Henessys were taking Mediterranean cruises, and the Prescotts were lucky to go to Grand Bahama Island, which isn’t even as nice as Nassau.

  Last year I could’ve asked Raye to loan me some money, but she emptied her bank account to buy her
car. Since he knows how much she gets from her real dad, her stepdad is kind of tight with money, so I know she doesn’t have a huge surplus. And even though everybody says my ex is loaded, after this whole lava lamp thing, there’s no way I would even mention money around him, and on top of that, you can’t borrow money from your ex.

  But Kyle Henessy is loaded. All I need is some way to get him to give me some of that money. I guess pictures of Paige in her swimsuit won’t do it. What do I have on Kyle Henessy? The only thing that comes to mind is the restraining order. If I can trick him into violating it, I can threaten to tell someone; then the restraining order will be renewed. He’s not going to want that to happen, and I’ll bet he would pay to keep it from happening. He can get the money from his parents, if he doesn’t have his own. He still lives with them, right? I know it’s a crazy plan. I’m not really thinking that I’ll go through with this. And if I do, eventually I’ll find a way to pay him back. It isn’t really like stealing.

  I look at the letter from the bank. If we pay two thousand dollars they won’t repossess the house. Two thousand dollars isn’t that much. If my parents had that out of the way, then they could concentrate on paying the electric bill and whatever else they’re behind on. Then maybe they won’t fight and Dad can find a nice job and Mom can go back to working part-time and not hating life so much.

  Two thousand dollars isn’t that much money, not to most people. Not to Kyle Henessy’s family. But it’s enough to stop Dad from stressing out, to get him out of the house, to keep him from looking at me like I’ve become someone he doesn’t recognize anymore. I realize with a little bit of shock that I haven’t thought about my ex in nearly half an hour. Not that my thoughts have been happy ones, but still, it’s better to be doing something than just worrying about everything.

  I go up to my room and e-mail Raye as if nothing has happened and nothing is different, even though suddenly everything is.

  25

  School is the same as ever. I didn’t want to come here today. I don’t ever, really, but I force myself to walk out the door, get into Raye’s car, and walk into the building. One step at a time. The quietly ignoring anything that might be a hateful comment thing works pretty well with the general school population. No, it didn’t work with the guys in my lit class; with assholes like that you just have to endure, tattle, or wait for a knight wearing faded Levi’s, a black T-shirt, and a trench coat to save you.

  And now there’s the story about the bet in addition to the pictures that everyone saw. They saw me with him, nearly naked, and they think he got paid, that I was a pathetic bet. It really sucks when someone has a personal vendetta against you and your family. I am so tired of taking all this crap from Marion Henessy. It seems like she’s posting something about me every week now. I don’t know if it’s because her pseudo-pal Kandace Freemont has set her sights on my ex-boyfriend or because the restraining order is due to expire soon and her resentment at our family is boiling over, but I’m sick of it.

  I’m pretty sure that posting those pictures of me violates some right of privacy or something. Only, to fight something like that you have to have lawyers, and parents who can hire lawyers. Parents who would then become aware that their beloved daughter was close to naked in a hot tub with a young man that they despise. And really, Mom and Dad don’t need to see something like that, not again, not after what they saw in the study. I’m already scared that they’ll never trust me again. One more thing and my dad’s hair will go completely gray.

  I have a horrible thought. What if the staff at Allenville saw those pics? I know for sure that Mr. Dawson and Ms. Miller read the blog, I could tell from the things they said in the melting locker-slush interrogation. Oh my God. What if they not only saw the pictures but also saw the thousand-dollar-reward story? What if they think it’s true? I can’t think about it right now. I won’t.

  I’m resolved. I’m going to go totally vigilante on their asses. If Marion Henessy thinks I’m going to let her ruin my entire high school experience because my sister didn’t want to date Kyle (and who would, really?) and didn’t want him peering in her window (again, no potential takers) and sneaking around following her (do I even need to say this?) . . . I’m ready to stop this BS, and to get two thousand dollars. Robin Hood style. Take from the rich and give to the, um, not so rich.

  The Burbery Coffee House is about ten minutes from school and not far from the computer place where Kyle works (looked it up in the Yellow Pages). It’s kind of grungy, with wooden tables that seem a little bit soaked-into, if you know what I mean. The lighting is dim, from chipped probably fake Tiffany lamps.

  Kyle is sitting at a table by himself drinking what looks like a plain coffee. In a coffeehouse! I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but I know you’re supposed to choose some exotic flavor like amaretto and get skim milk and whipped cream and chocolate shavings. I plan to add every sweet thing I can think of so that I won’t have to taste the coffee. If I stay here long enough to order, that is. I have three dollars in quarters clanking around in my pocket, taken from Dad’s bureau where he always empties his pockets.

  He’s sitting at a table for two. A tiny two-seater where, if I pull my chair all the way under the table, I imagine our knees will touch. An intimate little table. I don’t like this.

  Today Kyle Henessy looks like the kind of person who would sit alone in a coffeehouse. The stained glass from the overhead lamp illuminates half of his face with purple, casting dramatic shadows on his sharp cheekbones and making it hard for me to see his eyes.

  “Parker,” he greets me, standing and shaking my hand. He has a surprisingly firm handshake, for a deranged binocular-carrying weirdo, I mean. “It’s nice to see you.” He has a thoughtful voice, wistful.

  I stand there flabbergasted, not sure what to say to him. We have a long history, what with our families and all, but it isn’t exactly a friendly history. Prescott vs. Henessy and all that.

  “I think I know why you’re here. It was wrong of Marion to post those pictures of you on the blog. I’ve already talked to her about it, and they’ve been deleted.” Then why did you take them? I want to say. Why give her more ammunition against me? Instead, I thank him. I mean, he did just say that he made her take the pictures down. How am I supposed to react?

  I’m totally on edge. Here is this guy who used to be like an older brother to me who has been recast in the role of sexual predator. I don’t know how to treat him, and it makes me nervous. I feel my leg shaking under the table, with this tip-tap reflex thing that I can’t control.

  “I wish—I wish you could talk to Marion about . . . these things.” He stammers a little here, and for a second I can see him as a gawky overeager boy who took my sister to a dance in middle school and stepped all over her feet. I always felt a little sorry for Kyle. I suddenly remember how when I was younger I kind of wished he would forget about Paige and focus his attention on me. It seemed like a great thing, the unquestioning adoration. Now I’m not so sure.

  We are the only people in this place. I can’t help wondering how it stays in business.

  “Well, the thing is,” I begin. I feel I might need to explain myself a little bit. “Marion doesn’t talk to me. She won’t. She names Barbies after me and torches them. She’s always writing about me. We aren’t friends anymore.”

  “She does seem angry at you. It isn’t like you had anything to do with”—he pauses and looks around—“the situation. But everything has been hard on her.”

  “No, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m glad somebody realizes that,” I say too forcefully.

  “I don’t mind meeting with you, but I’m supposed to be at work, and there’s the, the restraining order.” He chokes restraining order out like it’s a dirty word, which it certainly is in our house.

  “I’m sorry that you’re missing work. You must have a pretty important job.”

  “Not really. Why would you think that?”

  Because my sister is green wit
h envy that you make so much money? I feel bad about wasting his time, and that’s dumb. Sure, I could just e-mail his sister and tell her to leave me alone, but that would ruin my plans to blackmail him. I know I’m a hypocrite; I don’t want to waste his time, but I do want to steal from him. I feel guilty, but also weirdly powerful.

  “I don’t know. You do things with computers, right?”

  “Yeah.” He smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up. He looks kind of old.

  A waitress wearing jeans and a tight Abercrombie T-shirt comes and takes my order. At the Starbucks on my side of town you have to go to the counter to order, but this place is kind of old-fashioned.

  “You want something, darlin’?” she asks.

  Kyle Henessy looks at me and raises his eyebrows almost in challenge.

  “I’ll have a plain coffee too. With cream,” I tell her, suddenly chickening out of my fancy order.

  “So, um, how is your sister?” His voice is very, very soft now, and sad. I guess I would be sad too if I were a total nerd who got rejected via the police by some girl I thought I loved, even if the girl turned out to be completely shallow and self-centered. Paige kissed him on Valentine’s Day when they were in the seventh grade. She told me about it too. Maybe that’s when the whole obsession started, who knows? A kiss doesn’t mean much to Paige, but it probably meant a lot to Kyle, with his quiet voice and sad eyes.

  “West is going to trade in her car,” I say. Why did I say that?

  He takes a long slow sip of his coffee. So long and so slow that by the time he’s done sipping the waitress has delivered mine.

  “Don’t ever be alone with West,” he tells me, looking at me with his sad eyes. Now that I’m used to the purple light and the shadows, I can see how blue they are. I never trust people with blue eyes. So he thinks perfect West is really an asshole, I can tell by his voice. But then he’d have to think that; West stole Paige away and married her. If he had a West voodoo doll he’d totally be sticking pins in it and torching it.