Housebreaking

by Dan Pope

  “That’s cause they’re not watching little rich white girls like you,” said Billy.

  It was true, she didn’t need money. She could simply ask her father, and if he said no, which was rare, it didn’t matter; he and her mother left their wallets around the house. She would take a couple of twenties whenever she wanted, and they never noticed. She stole for the rush, not the money. She and Billy made a deal: He could keep whatever they got except for the pharmaceuticals.

  Pharmies were her department.

  She kept stashes in her closet and school locker. Douglas, her pal from Denton, sent her pills in ancient cassette cases every couple of weeks. Billy Stacks smoked weed all the time, but she didn’t like the mellow, hazy way it made her feel. She liked coke and scripts: painkillers and tranquillizers. She could go the day, sometimes, without opening one of her bottles, but she couldn’t fathom the notion of not having some medication on hand. When her stash got low, she became panicky. How did people do without? Pills to get going, pills to fall asleep, pills to ward off bad thoughts. At friends’ houses, she raided parental medicine cabinets: Ambien, Vicodin, Xanax, even Viagra (which all the fathers seemed to have), which she would trade or sell. One time, a few years back in Greenwich, she’d cleaned out the bathroom cabinet of some friend of her dad, after her parents had dragged her and Daniel to a law firm Christmas party, with about fifty guests. She’d disappeared upstairs and found at least twenty brown bottles, the best haul ever, a zillion Xanax, the two-milligram kind. Take one of those and you entered the outskirts of heaven.

  Billy Stacks appeared in his driveway wearing a dark tracksuit, carrying a backpack. “Fucking cold,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you wear a coat?”

  He shrugged. “Come on.”

  They went back the way she had come, crossing the street by her house. She glanced at her parents’ darkened bedroom window and pictured them sleeping with their backs to each other, illuminated by the green night-light from the bathroom, like an Edward Hopper painting. Her father snoring, her mother lying on her side, clutching a pillow in front of her face. Thinking of her parents—so helpless, so pitiful—could make her cry. Being in their presence infuriated her; only when she was away from them could she feel any sort of affection.

  Billy turned up Juniper Lane, the street parallel to hers. “It’s a private road,” he said. She raised the sleeve of her sweater and wiped her nose, which had begun to run in the night air. “You see or hear anything, you whistle. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know how to whistle, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just put my lips together and blow.”

  He went up the driveway of the corner lot, slightly crouched. A station wagon was parked in front of the garage. She watched as he opened the passenger door—the inside dome flashed on—and got in the car. No movement came from the house. Water trickled down the sewer in the middle of the street. She waited. Finally he appeared, creeping toward her with that catwalk of his, and she began to giggle.

  “What?”

  “This is fun.”

  “I got a wallet from the glove compartment,” he said, holding it up. “And some shades.” He put on the sunglasses, oversize pink ones, for an old lady. He slipped the loot into his backpack and zipped it up. “Come on.”

  The minivan in the next driveway was locked. But the SUV beside it opened and he disappeared inside. She no longer noticed the cold. The night was overcast, a long blanket of gray, obscuring the stars. The wind didn’t bother her. She liked when it gusted because the sound drowned out their footsteps and the opening and closing of car doors. He joined her at the end of the driveway, jiggling the pack. “Bunch of CDs,” he said.

  It was easy. Half the cars were unlocked. Twice he disappeared through garage doors. Each time she waited silently for him to emerge, watching his flashlight beam streaking across the darkened windows.

  When they reached the house at the top of the street, a cul-de-sac, he said, “Your turn.”

  “Really?”

  “Go for it, Little Miss Klepto,” he said, handing her the backpack.

  The driveway was long, curved, and steep. She glanced up at the house, toward the dark third-floor windows. The car was an old Mercedes convertible, unlocked. She opened the driver’s door and slipped in. The interior smelled like pine air freshener. She opened the glove compartment and the little bulb went on: CDs, owner’s manual, a ten-dollar bill, a scattershot of business cards, a pack of cigarettes, a pile of coins. She swept it all into the backpack. In the backseat, she saw a Vogue and a red teddy bear holding a heart that said I LOVE YOU, and grabbed them too. Suddenly a face appeared against the window—she nearly screamed—but it was only Billy, making a goofy smile. “You almost gave me a heart attack,” she said, getting out of the car.

  “Come on,” he said. “We can get in through the basement.”

  She eased the car door shut, barely making a sound. “Are you kidding? They’re home, dipshit. You can’t just—”

  “Suit yourself,” he said.

  He went around the back of the house. She waited, staring after him. Was he really going to break in? He was probably just screwing with her again. In a second he would jump out from behind the bushes and scare the crap out of her. She squinted after him into the darkness, holding her breath.

  Then came a shrieking—an enormous horn bellowing. The sound was shocking, incapacitating. A moment later she saw Billy scrambling down the lawn, waving for her to follow. She ran after him across the backyard. They vaulted over a wooden fence and disappeared into some woods, she falling behind, branches whipping her face. In the distance the alarm continued to roar, and unseen dogs joined in, howling and barking. Her sneakers slipped on the grass and she nearly fell. Ahead, Billy jumped over a low stone wall. She followed, scraping her hand on a rock and kicking over an empty planter. They ran along the dark side of a house and finally emerged into the street.

  “Come on!”

  He grabbed her hand and they ran downhill. They were making so much noise, their sneakers slapping against the asphalt, the rattling of his backpack. At the bottom of the street—her street, she realized with a shock; they were outside her own house—they crossed the intersection and kept running all the way to his house. He led her to a toolshed in the backyard and they collapsed onto the floor.

  “Who taught you to run?”

  “Fuck off,” she said, gasping for breath. She rolled onto her back, her chest heaving. There were bags of fertilizer, wood chips, and soil piled against the wall, smelling like cow shit. Faint moonlight streamed through the cracked window above the door.

  A car came along the street, its engine rumbling loudly. He said, “Shhh.” They looked at each other, eyes wide, as the noise of the car came closer, then very near, then slowly faded into the distance.

  “Cop,” he said.

  “How can you tell?”

  He shrugged. “You cold?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Check it out.” He unzipped the backpack and dumped the contents onto the wooden floor. A silver flask fell out, along with all the rest. He unscrewed the top and took a sip. “Whiskey,” he said, wiping his lips.

  “The pink sunglasses are mine.”

  “I’m keeping the wallet,” he said.

  “What happened back there?”

  “Fucking ADT, is what happened. I kicked in the door and two seconds later, screech.”

  “My heart’s still racing.” She placed his hand on her chest. “Feel.”

  “Feels good.” He ran his hands under her sweater and pushed her tits together.

  She pushed him away. “Your hands are fucking cold.”

  “Rest of me’s warm,” he said, rolling on top of her.

  Outside the wind whined. Miles away, trucks hummed along the interstate, like a far-off surf. All
those people going places in the middle of the night. It was just a few hours before dawn, and so perfectly dark. She heard the wind rattling the windowpane and her own voice, whispering the words guys liked to hear.

  * * *

  AT DAWN the skies opened and rain clattered on the rooftop. Back in her bed, Emily drifted in and out of dreams, knowing she was oversleeping but not caring. So what if she were late for school? Besides, it wasn’t her fault. Her mother woke her every morning precisely an hour before school. Then she would usually return a few more times to cajole and yell at her to get up. But this morning the door didn’t open, her mother didn’t appear.

  Finally Emily roused herself, went down the hallway, and peered into her mother’s bedroom. She was curled under the comforter, a pillow over her head. “Mom,” she called softly, then louder, and at last Audrey turned toward her, blinking. “Mom? Are you sick?”

  “What time is it, honey?”

  Emily went to the bed and slipped under the comforter. “Ten.”

  Audrey blinked. “How did that happen?” She moved to get up, but Emily draped her arm over her. She felt like a girl again, like when they were little and she and Daniel used to snuggle with Audrey after her dad went to work.

  “Chill, Mom.”

  “You have to get to school.”

  “I don’t have class till eleven.” A lie, but her mother wouldn’t question her. Emily lied to her all the time—about where she went, what she did, what she ate—but her mother wouldn’t want to know the truth about those things anyway.

  “Don’t you have to be in study hall or something like that?”

  “You can fill out a pink card.”

  “I’ve filled out too many of those pink cards already.”

  “Just one more hour, Mother. Then you can drive me to school.” She pulled her close, stealing her warmth. She was so tiny. Emily felt huge beside her. Why couldn’t she have gotten her mom’s body? Boys liked short curvy girls. Instead she’d inherited her father’s big arms and broad, Scottish ass.

  “Am I a terrible mother for letting you sleep in?”

  “Like I’m going to miss anything. That school isn’t exactly challenging. Denton was ten times harder. Besides, I’ve got all As and nearly perfect SAT scores, remember?”

  “How did you manage that anyway? The best I could do was twelve eighty.”

  “I can’t believe you remember your SAT scores.”

  “Does that make me a nerd?”

  “A nerd, Mom?”

  “Whatever the word is these days.”

  “The word is the same. It’s using it that’s problematic. Why are you so warm?”

  Audrey turned toward her. “Honey, are you planning to shower before school?”

  “Why?”

  “You smell a little.”

  “Mother!” Emily sniffed her underarm. “You’re right. I reek.” All that running around last night; then later in the shack, fucking on top of a bag of wood chips. She still had on the same clothes. She hoped she didn’t smell like sex.

  Audrey yawned. “Your father couldn’t sleep. He woke me up early today. Still, I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

  “You’re always tired when it rains. You and Sheba both.”

  “Thirty more minutes, sweetie. Then we get going.”

  “You said an hour.”

  “No, you said an hour.”

  “Fine, thirty minutes.”

  Her mother was asleep again almost immediately, her mouth falling open. Emily watched the comforter rise and fall above her. Every so often a sound came from Audrey’s mouth, like a distant seagull squawking. The rain on the roof was a drumming of hooves, a hundred horses running. All that rain, where did it go? Water in the gutters, funneling into sewer pipes, seeping underground. A soggy earth, sliding away underneath her.

  * * *

  WHEN HER mother dropped her off in front of school, Emily dashed toward the door, carrying her backpack, getting soaked in only a few seconds. It was mid-period, the hallway empty but still stinky with the student smell. The overhead fluorescent lights hissed like summer insects. She wiped the rain from her face.

  “You’re late.”

  She jumped. She hadn’t seen him, standing beside the lockers: B-Ray. He towered over her, eight inches taller, maybe more, his long, thick dreads pulled straight back.

  “Who elected you hall monitor?”

  He brought his mouth close to her ear, so close she could feel his breath, his hands buried in his pockets. “I heard you were looking for something for your nose.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “B. Stack.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  He smirked. “You really want to know?”

  “Sure.”

  “He says you give good head.”

  “What is this, junior high? I’d have told you the same thing if you asked.”

  She walked away, knowing he would follow, and he did, falling in step beside her. He played on the basketball team, she knew, although she never went to any of the games, not football, not basketball, none of that rah-rah crap. She’d heard other stuff about him too: that he was a rapper in a group that had played at the school dance last spring; that he’d been suspended for a week for having a knife in his locker; that he’d gotten into a fistfight in the gym and knocked some kid’s tooth out. In English, he sat in the back row and spent most of the time looking out the window. But she often caught him staring at her. She’d decided she would sleep with him a couple of weeks earlier when he’d stood up in class to read a poem, as they were all required to do that semester; he’d recited the lyrics to one of his own songs, which had a refrain she’d found herself repeating later in her head, remembering the musical way he’d said it. Because it is what it is what it is. He had expressive hands, forming the shape of the words as he spoke them.

  He said, “Every girl says that. I give good head. That’s just talk.”

  “You be the judge, then.”

  She stopped outside the girls’ bathroom. He scratched his neck, sizing her up. “All right. Show me what you got.”

  “Whenever you want.”

  “What about today, after school?”

  “What about that something for my nose? Or is that just talk?”

  “That depends how much you want to spend.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t pay for drugs. People give them to me.” She batted her eyelashes, her mall girl routine. “Don’t you want to give me something?”

  He scoffed. “All right then. Parking lot after last period,” he said, without looking back. His jeans were bunched below his hips, black briefs visible, boots untied, the laces dragging.

  She waited until he turned the corner, then slipped into the bathroom, her heart pounding. Looking in the mirror, she raised her eyebrows, the same expression she’d used on B-Ray. Leo’s dad’s boyfriend—the YSL designer—once told her that she had “perfect eyebrows.” They were okay, she guessed. Her eyes were good overall, maybe a bit large; she often looked startled. She dabbed some makeup on her nose, trying to tone it down. She had giant features—the long nose, the dark eyebrows, the wide mouth. Boys told her she was hot. But few kissed her during sex, and never afterward; they stared past her with that distant expression. She wondered what B-Ray would be like, what sounds he would make, how rough he would be, and she felt a surge of blood or adrenaline, something between fear and desire. She couldn’t believe she was meeting him after school. She’d thought about him so much, ever since that first day. Now she would be with him.

  A girl came into the bathroom, glanced at Emily, then went into a stall. A moment later came the sound of the toilet flushing—two, three times—to cover the sound of retching, Emily figured. She would do the same thing if someone were standing at the sinks. When the girl came out, Emily said, “
Hey.” She took the pill bottle out of her bag and swallowed a Xanax. “Want one?”

  The girl shook her head and hurried to the door.

  “Puke girl,” said Emily under her breath.

  At the end of the day, when the last bell rang and everyone swarmed toward the exits, she ducked into the bathroom. She took off her bra, stuffed it into her bag, and popped a Vicodin. She didn’t want to feel anything quite so vividly right now. She left her mom a voice mail, telling her she was getting a ride with some friends, she’d be home before ten. When she approached B-Ray in the parking lot, he turned without saying a word and got into his car. He drove an old station wagon, the back end raised high. The black vinyl seats squeaked beneath her jeans. There were fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror—a parody of a car her parents might have driven in the seventies. When he gunned the engine, the car gurgled like an outboard motor.

  “My cousin’s got everything you want,” he said. “He got his own place in the city. Man make you dizzy with his crossover.”

  He continued talking, but she zoned out. She couldn’t make him the person she wanted him to be if he kept saying stupid things. Finally he cranked the music to a deafening volume. He turned to her once during the drive, lowering the volume to ask, “You like it?”

  She nodded—easier than trying to speak. The bass seemed to be reverberating through her, beating like another heart inside her. “Who is it?”

  “Me. My group.”