by Vicki Grant
I closed my eyes and breathed in deep. I just had to fix this as best I could, then move on. I’d moved on before. I could do it again.
“Where are Amy’s earrings?” I kept my voice flat.
I thought Dolores was going to fight me, but she didn’t. She put her hand out and opened her fist.
“Here—” She didn’t look at me.
I walked over and took them. Why? That’s what I thought. They were small, nothing-special drop-earrings. One of them had three diamonds. The other had two. Dolores would never wear something like this.
“Was the diamond on this one already missing?” I said.
She shook her head and kept looking out at the lake. “No. I didn’t know they were worth anything when I took them. They looked like junk to me. I put them in my bag. When I got home, a diamond was gone.”
My insides felt hot. I didn’t trust myself to say anything.
“I never meant to take anything valuable.” Her face was distorted from trying not to cry. “I didn’t know until Amy phoned and by then it was too late. I looked everywhere for it.”
I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming.
She inhaled a jittery little sob. “I don’t have anything in my life. I never get anything. I just wanted to have some harmless little things that nobody cared about—but I couldn’t even get that. I know you hate me and I know you think I’m stupid, but you don’t understand. I organized this whole thing. I made the T-shirts. I wrote the ads, built the website, e-mailed the TV station. And what happens: You get to be star of the TV show. You get the Mary Quant dress. You get the guy. You get to be Grace Kelly and I’m the Leprechaun. So hate me. What difference does it make? What do I care? I’m used to it.”
I did hate her, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that. “What else did you take from
Amy?”
“A bracelet. Some forks. That’s it.”
The sun was beginning to set. It was going down earlier these days. Summer was almost over.
“I don’t have any money,” Dolores said. “I mean, not enough to replace the diamond. I owed my parents some and I had to pay it back to them. So you see, killing myself was really my only option. At least someone else would have to deal with the problem then.” She gave this wet laugh.
It was the laugh that put me over the top. “Get up,” I said. “I mean it. Go home. I’m not going to have you on my conscience. I’ll fix the earrings—but you have to find everything else you took and put it in my mailbox. By tomorrow. At noon.”
She didn’t get up right away. I was just about to grab her by the collar when she rose on her own. She walked past without looking at me. The walk of shame, I thought.
“Leave a note explaining where everything’s from,” I said, and watched her go. I hoped it was for good.
Chapter 42
I got to the side of the highway and called a cab on Murdoch’s cell phone. I don’t know how Dolores got home. I didn’t care.
On the way back, I phoned Murdoch and apologized for missing dinner. I didn’t tell him what really happened. I just made up some stupid excuse about Dolores and me having a fight. He said it was okay. His mother understood. Families with crazy people in them understand stuff like that.
When I got home, I dumped the yogourt container out on my desk. I had $1,760. I had no idea what diamonds cost.
I called the Morrises and asked for Meghan. When Dolores got on, I told her that I’d divided the work schedule up, that we’d each do half. I gave her her list of names and reminded her to drop the stuff off for me. It was all very businesslike. I pictured her on the other end of the phone with beige hair again.
The next day at lunchtime, I brought the earrings to the jewellery store where Mom had bought my graduation necklace. The man said that I was lucky it was just the small diamond missing. He could replace it for $1,680. He wouldn’t be able to do it for another week.
“Please,” I said. “I really, really need it by tomorrow.” I made my eyes as big and green as possible. He tapped the counter with a finger. I could feel him softening.
“My mother’s Kristi Wickwire. She gets a lot of stuff done here.”
He looked up. “Oh. Mrs. Wickwire.” He turned the earring over in his fingers. “Let me see what I can do for you.”
*
That afternoon when I got home, there was an envelope for me in the mailbox. I took it upstairs and laid the stuff out on my bed. It was mostly junk. Even that picture from Frank’s place wasn’t one of the good ones. Other than Amy’s stuff, the ten-dollar Walmart gift card from the Oreskoviches was probably the most valuable thing there. I shook my head. Who’d even bother taking stuff like this? I didn’t understand Dolores. And then, all of a sudden, I did.
I pictured Dolores in Amy’s bedroom. I saw her look over her shoulder, make sure no one was around. I saw her take a breath, open the drawer to the bedside table. I saw her hand reach inside—then something happened and I felt sick.
It wasn’t Dolores’s hand I saw any more. It was mine. My hand in Amy’s drawer. My hand in Frank’s kitchen. My hand beside Mrs. Burton’s washing machine. My hand in the Mosers’ bookshelves.
I turned away from the things on the bed.
But I didn’t take anything!
I was different from Dolores. I wasn’t a thief! There was no comparison between stealing someone’s earrings and …
I couldn’t even say the words to myself. I knew I was wrong.
Dolores had only taken junk—or at least only meant to take junk. I’d been looking for something valuable. I’d wanted people’s secrets. I’d wanted proof that I was okay. I needed to know that all these people were just as defective as I was.
Dolores and I had both only taken what we needed to make ourselves feel better.
How much would Mrs. Burton care about her missing compact? Probably not a heck of a lot. How much would she care that I knew about the drinking …?
I was the thief.
The compact, at least, could be returned.
Chapter 43
I was sitting in the Rebel with my face in the crook of Murdoch’s neck. I loved that he didn’t smell of cologne or aftershave, that he just smelled of skin and hair and Murdoch.
“You can tell me,” he said.
I rocked my face back and forth. No, I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to rat Dolores out. That’s what I tried to believe but I knew I wasn’t that noble. I knew the real reason I didn’t want to tell him about the stealing was that then I’d feel obliged to tell him what I’d done too. And somehow that seemed so much worse than a little pilfering. At some level, I’d been looking to hurt people. Dolores hadn’t.
I’d managed to return everything she’d taken, except for Amy’s earrings. It was pretty easy. I just dropped the stuff off on my regular cleaning day. I don’t think anyone had missed anything.
The earrings were different. I’d gone to pick them up the next day at the jeweller’s. I gave him all the money I’d saved over the summer and I was still over $100 short. I hadn’t realized how much the tax was going to be. I promised to bring it later that day.
He put the earrings in a little black velvet box and said, “Don’t worry about it. Your mother’s a good customer.”
I thanked him and took the earrings, and thought about Dolores all the way to Amy’s. Nineteen hundred bucks was a lot of money to me—but it was nothing too. My parents would wonder how I hadn’t managed to save anything over the summer and maybe they’d get a little mad, but if I needed anything they’d write the cheques. Dad was a doctor. Mom had her own business. I was taken care of.
Amy was there when I arrived and she stayed the whole time I cleaned. I had the feeling she didn’t trust me any more.
Just before it was time to go, I took a deep breath and went downstairs. She was at the kitchen table, arranging flowers in a vase.
“Are these the earrings you were looking for?” I held them out to her and
her eyes went wide.
“I just emptied the vacuum cleaner and I noticed something shiny and …” She looked up at me. I stopped.
“Oh. What luck,” she said. She put the earrings on the counter.
I knew she didn’t believe me. I was just lucky to be Dr. Wickwire’s daughter.
“I’ll put the vacuum cleaner away and then I’ll get going,” I said.
“Sure. Thanks.”
I was down the hall when Amy added, “By the way, how’s your friend?”
“Oh. Uh.” I couldn’t lie again. “She’s better than I thought.”
Amy smiled. She was a nice person.
*
“I miss Dolores,” I said into Murdoch’s neck. “Then call her,” he said.
But I didn’t call Dolores. I couldn’t. Stubbornness was another one of my little secrets.
*
I came home from the Mosers’ a few days later and Mom said, “There’s a message for you.”
I kicked off my shoes and went into the kitchen. “Oh, yeah?” I wasn’t that interested. I was starving.
“Dolores called. It’s sad news, I’m afraid. One of your clients died. Frank … um … MacSomething.”
I froze with my hand on the cupboard door.
“Poor Dolores. She was there when it happened apparently. She’s pretty broken up about it … Oh, sweetheart. Don’t cry. He was an old man. I think Dolores said eighty-two? It’s often for the best …”
But that’s not why I was crying.
I hadn’t called Frank. I’d promised him but I hadn’t called. I hadn’t played cribbage with him. I hadn’t visited him.
Dolores had been there.
Chapter 44
There weren’t many people at the funeral so Dolores’s green hair stood out even more than normal. I sat in a pew at the back. I didn’t hear anything the priest said. I just stood or sat when everyone else did.
When it was over, Dolores walked out right past me. I wanted to stop her but I was too scared. I was worried she’d cause a commotion in the church.
Then it occurred to me: Frank would have enjoyed a commotion.
Dolores was already out the door by the time I realized that. I got up and followed her.
Frank’s daughter was shaking people’s hands in the lobby. I said to her, “I’m really sad Frank died. He changed my life.” His daughter was surprised by that, but I didn’t have time to explain. I’m not even sure I could have.
Dolores was half a block down Barrington Street by the time I got out. Murdoch was in the Rebel on the other side of the road. I motioned for him to wait—then ran after her.
“Dolores! Wait up!”
She kept walking. I ran faster. Not that it was particularly hard to catch her.
“Please,” I said and grabbed her shoulder. I had no idea what I was going to say next.
She didn’t turn around. She just wiped my hand away as if it was dandruff and kept going.
I stopped, my forehead pounding, and thought, Fine. Let her go. What’s the use? I’d tried.
I headed back toward Murdoch but I didn’t get very far before I sighed, turned around and started running after her again.
“Dolores! Would you quit it? Come on. Murdoch’s here. We’ll give you a drive.” I tried to keep my voice from sounding mad but I couldn’t do anything about my footsteps.
I was just centimetres away when she finally swung around. She was wearing a conservative black dress that looked like something my mother would wear to an important meeting.
“Why should I?” she said.
We stood there glaring at each other like two boxers in a publicity shot.
It was a good question.
Because I miss you.
Because you came and dragged me out of my room when all I wanted to do was die.
Because you made me get over myself. “Well?” she said. Because everybody screws up. Because everybody has dirty secrets. Because I know exactly how you feel.
There was no good answer, at least none that I could get myself to say. It was all so complicated and ugly and we were both just human. We’d both done things we shouldn’t have. I really didn’t want to get into it. Did it really matter? Who even cared? I just needed to say something that Dolores would understand.
“Because you’re being a douchebag,” I said.
She stared at me and tossed her hair back off her face.
“So are you,” she said.
“My point exactly.”
We both wanted to laugh but neither of us would. She reached down and adjusted the strap on her shoes. They were purple platform heels with orange glass butterflies on the toes. I knew she couldn’t have stolen those from any of our clients.
“Well, all right,” she said. “But only because these heels are killing me.” She tromped right past me toward the Rebel. “You can take me to Value Village on the way.”
Epilogue
Carly was leaning against the counter. Her hands were behind her back and her hair was swept over to one side. She was looking up at Nick. He was going to kiss her.
Betsy understood that immediately. It yanked her to a stop. She stood in the cafeteria doorway like a cardboard cut-out of herself—flat, motionless, feeling absolutely nothing except the roots of her hair, which suddenly ached like thousands of tiny bruises.
Oh, get over it, she thought.
She’d known this was going to happen sooner or later and that, when it did, it would be awkward. She grabbed a tray and got in line. “Hi, guys,” she said.
Carly’s hand flew up to her mouth. Nick jumped back.
Betsy laughed. “Relax.”
They didn’t. They pulled themselves together enough to natter on about McGill and Montreal and their residences and their courses, but they didn’t relax.
And the truth was, neither did Betsy. She wanted to be big about it and forgive them but she knew she never would. She wanted to like them too, but that wasn’t going to happen either. The whole time they talked all she could think about was how perfect they were—and how little that seemed to matter any more.
The only time her heart got involved in the conversation at all was when she noticed Carly wrap her finger around Nick’s. It made Betsy think of Murdoch. Two more weeks until the end of September and then he’d be in Montreal—provided, of course, the Rebel made it that far. If he was lucky—if she was lucky—he’d get one of the animation jobs he was applying for here.
The guy at the grill asked Nick for his order. Betsy used the interruption to make her escape to the salad bar. She piled her plate up with healthy green stuff and then, on a whim, threw in a big, unnaturally orange mound of pasta salad too, just because it reminded her of Dolores.
Betsy would Skype her after dinner. She wanted to see how the night class in set design was turning out.
A girl Betsy recognized from her creative writing course was seated at a table by the window. She’d volunteered to read her story in class the other day. It was this really weird fable about a 112-year-old woman, a singing meerkat and a gigolo named Ralph.
Betsy picked up her tray and went over to introduce herself.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the inspiration provided by Lynne Missen, Hadley Dyer and the long greasy hair coiled in Eliza’s bowl of pablum.
About the Author
VICKI GRANT has been called “one of the funniest writers working today” (The Vancouver Sun). Her comic legal thriller, Quid Pro Quo, was described as “John Grisham for the skateboard set.” Her most recent book, Not Suitable for Family Viewing, won the Red Maple Award, was named a Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award Honour Book and was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award, the Arthur Ellis Award and the Snow Willow Award. Visit Vicki online at www.vickigrant.com.
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Copyright
Be
tsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret
Copyright © 2011 by Post Partum Productions.
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EPub Edition © JULY 2011 ISBN: 978-1-443-40916-2
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