Klepto

by Jenny Pollack

  Mom and Dad’s voices were getting louder and angrier, and it was like they just didn’t care that people on the street were looking at us. Ellie and I were trying to act like we didn’t know them, and I felt this horrible lump in my throat forming. I knew the tears would be next, but I kept swallowing hard to stop them.

  “Bernie, would you just get us a cab!” Mom snapped.

  “Helene,” Dad said, his voice angry. “Please don’t start. We are two blocks from the subway. We’ll hop on the train and get home much quicker.” Please, Dad, I was thinking. Please don’t have the subway versus taxi argument now. My nice buzzy feeling from my Tom Collins was slipping away.

  Mom’s face was getting red, and I thought she might cry, too. “Bernie!” she screamed, and my chest tightened. “It’s my birthday, goddamnit! We’re taking a taxi! Here’s one!” She stepped into the street, but the cab drove right by her.

  “Listen!” Dad said loudly. “That dinner cost me a fortune, and the subway is right around the corner—do you think I’m made of money, Helene?”

  “I’ll pay for it!” she cut him off like he was just so stupid. I looked around for Ellie, but she was now halfway down the block reading the plaque on the gate of this church like she was fascinated. I knew she was listening. What a faker.

  Then Dad said something that maybe was meant for me, but it was like he was talking to himself: “Your mother”—he always started sentences like that when he was mad at Mom—“she thinks she’s the Queen of England and has to do everything top-of-the-line! Has to stay in five-star hotels, has to eat at fancy restaurants on her birthday, has to take cabs everywh—”

  “And what is so goddamned wrong with that?!” Mom yelled.

  Then he shouted back as if they were in our living room, something about Ellie’s tuition and going to college and how we can barely afford it. People were still passing and looking, and I was wishing the collar of my jacket would just swallow me up.

  I wondered if I should join Ellie down by the church. How could she have just left me there with these two? What was I supposed to do? I glared at Dad, like, Please can we just get out of here? Is that so much to ask?

  Then Mom said the worst thing she could ever say to Dad.

  “Bernie, you’re just so goddamned cheap!” Oh my God, I’ve never seen him get so mad as when she said that. Dad was the kind of dad who never yelled except when he really meant it. It was pretty scary.

  “GODDAMNIT, HELENE! IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF CHEAP!” Then Mom started crying. “JESUS CHRIST, WHAT CAN I DO TO JUST GET YOU TO BE A LITTLE PRACTICAL? WE ARE NOT RICH! STOP ACTING LIKE THE SPOILED LITTLE GIRL FROM PRINCETON.” That’s where Mom grew up—Princeton, New Jersey—in a big house where my grand-parents still lived. Dad grew up in the South Bronx with parents from Russia, and he was the first one in his family to go to college. He had to go to City College instead of Columbia, ’cause his family “didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”

  Just then a cab pulled up in front of the restaurant and Dad flagged it down.

  “Girls! Get in!” he barked. “Ellie!” he called down the street. “What are you doing? Stop wandering off. Would you get in the taxi, please?”

  “Thanks a lot, Bernie, for a wonderful birthday!” Mom sob-yelled, and I noticed the cabdriver’s head whip around as she got in the backseat. She began digging through her purse for her Kleenex pack. Ellie and I got in, and I tried to look Ellie in the eyes, but she kept her head down. Mom just sat in between us with the tears coming down her cheeks, and I thought Ellie was gonna roll down her window and jump out of it.

  Dad got in the front and told the driver our address. “On the corner of Broadway,” he said.

  “Tell him to take Amsterdam all the way up,” Mom said through the glass divider.

  “Helene! Stop,” Dad almost shouted. “I know how to get us home!” I could tell he was trying not to yell again. Mom leaned back against the seat and was quiet. I just sat there feeling the lump in my throat, the warm tears now sliding down the sides of my face, wishing I could say the one thing to make Mom stop crying, but even though I searched and searched my brain I couldn’t come up with it. Mom took my hand even though she was holding a balled-up Kleenex, and took Ellie’s with her other hand.

  “You kids are so terrific,” Mom said softly and sniffled. She handed me one of her Kleenex.

  I knew that Mom and Dad were seeing a counselor, Joyce Kazlick at Mt. Sinai, but I guessed it wasn’t helping at all.

  The next day at school I walked to the lunchroom with Natalie, the dancer. She, Julie, and I always talked in homeroom, and we all sat together at lunch, too.

  “Ugh! I have the hugest crush!” Natalie said dramatically. “Do you know Reggie Ramirez? He’s in drama, I think?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s in my acting class. He’s friends with David Wine.”

  “What I would do to lose my virginity to him!” Natalie blurted out. “Oh, that would be, like, a dream come true!” Then, lowering her voice, she said, “You’re a virgin, right?”

  “Yes!” I said, feeling totally embarrassed. “Are you kidding?” I lowered my voice too. “I haven’t even made out with anyone yet! It’s totally pathetic!” I looked around to see if other kids were watching us, but luckily no one was. Students were being noisy and running through the halls, up and down the stairs.

  “Oh,” Natalie said. “That’s not such a big deal. But doesn’t it just drive you crazy?” Natalie asked.

  “What?”

  Then she kind of half-whispered again, “Being a virgin! Ugh, what I would do to lose my virginity! I just want to get it over with, already!”

  “Yeah, but you don’t want it to happen with just anyone, right? I mean, dontcha want to love the guy?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Natalie said. “Sometimes I think having a huge crush is enough. It’s just so annoying to still be a virgin!” She lowered her voice again. “Do you think Julie B. is a virgin?”

  “She is,” I said. “But just barely. She’s done a lot.”

  “Lucky,” Natalie said. We got to the lunchroom, and there was Julie waiting for us. Before Natalie could continue with this whole virginity conversation, I launched into telling them about my mom’s annoying birthday dinner last night, my parents’ fight, and how horrified I was. Julie suggested that a little shopping after school would cheer me up. We spotted Daisy Curerri, Jennifer Smalls, and Gordon Pomeranian sitting on the floor in the corner looking at something secretly. The three of them were hunched around someone’s backpack. The backs of Jennifer’s and Daisy’s jean jackets faced us, but we could tell from Gordon’s face they were all laughing. We saw Gordon hold up a frilly red sleeve and Jennifer let out an “Uh-oh!” and they all cracked up, and Julie and I looked at each other and we just knew.

  “They’re looking at someone’s clothes,” Julie said in a low voice.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “I know that shirt,” Julie said. “I saw it at French Connection. It’s like forty-nine dollars or something!”

  “Wow,” Natalie said. We wolfed down our lunches because the bell was going to ring in a few minutes. We headed for the stairs; Julie and I had French, and Natalie had algebra.

  “I don’t think they bought that stuff,” Julie said, smiling.

  “I guess we’re not the only ones,” I said.

  After school Julie and I went to Bloomingdale’s, where we bought some Borghese magenta lipstick and plum-colored eyeliner. On our way to the bus stop to catch the 59th Street crosstown, Julie said, “Let’s just go in here for a sec.”

  It was this little accessories store called Whoopsie! or something stupid like that. The name was written in script on the canopy over the door. The window was full of these really cool hats and bags—kind of flashy and colorful. There was only one guy who worked there, standing at the cash register in the middle of the store. He had a moustache and a really hairy chest, which I could see ’cause his brown polyester shirt was almost
totally open to his belly button. Gross. I’d never touched a hairy chest—I doubted if the freshman guys in my class even had any hair on their chests at all.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said with some kind of accent, and we said hi back.

  Then, like a flock of chirpy birds, these three women about our moms’ age came in, looking so rich and Park Avenue. They were in navy and tan and looked like they were going boating. The moustache man got really flirty with the ladies and they were giggling, and I started checking out these really expensive knee-highs. I was thinking, Jesus, twenty dollars for a pair of knee-highs just because somebody painted some swirly colors on them? I mean, come on. Julie was near the window inspecting this opalescent white purse with tiny beads on it. She called me over.

  “Check this out,” she said under her breath. She opened and closed the purse a few times and the snap was kind of magnetic. It was fancy. Sixty-five dollars.

  “Very cool,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, and then suddenly, with her back to the guy at the register, she stuck the purse in the waist of her jeans, pulled her shirt over it, and whispered, “Let’s go!”

  The next thing I knew we were running down the street, my Chocolate Soup bag thumping against my side and the swirly-colored pair of knee-highs balled up in my fist.

  5

  Miss Silk Skirt

  Sometimes when I went to Julie’s after school and her mom was out, Julie said Mimi was at a meeting, and I didn’t really think much about it. Then one day, in early November, Julie and I were standing in her kitchen making popcorn with melted butter in the air popper and she said out of nowhere, “I have to tell you something that you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What?” I was totally thinking she was gonna tell me she stole, like, a TV or something huge.

  “You promise? I’m serious, you really can’t tell anyone,” she said.

  “I swear to God. Cross my heart,” I said.

  “Okay. . . .” Julie said slowly. “My mom’s a recovering alcoholic. So usually when she’s not here it’s ’cause she goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I just wanted to tell you ’cause I’m sure you’re wondering where my mom is all the time. I’m not supposed to tell anyone ’cause that’s called ‘Breaking Her Anonymity.’ But seeing as we’re practically best friends it seems so stupid to keep it from you. So please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t tell a soul,” I said softly. “Wow.” We’re practically best friends, Julie said. A part of me suddenly felt like jumping up and screaming, “Oh my God, Julie’s my best friend!” I wanted to hug her, to dance around, to tell her she was my best friend, too. It was almost like the same feeling I had when I got into P.A.

  But what did she mean by “practically”?

  “It’s not a big deal, really,” Julie was saying. “My mom hasn’t had a drink in, like, seventeen years or something. But once you’re an alcoholic, you have to go to meetings for the rest of your life.”

  “Uh-huh,” was all I could think to say. And now, knowing Mimi was a recovering alcoholic only added to her so-much-cooler-than-my-parents appeal. I mean, I always thought she was cooler than my mom ’cause she dressed so much better and didn’t seem so old-fashioned. Like, Julie’s mom met us one time at CBGB’s to see Mandy’s band. I couldn’t believe it; she could totally hang out with teenagers and not even seem like somebody’s mom or something.

  The Saturday before Thanksgiving it got cold. We went to Macy’s to see what we could get. We wore our puffy winter coats, which Julie pointed out gave you more places to hide stuff. We hooked up with Daisy Curerri, Jennifer Smalls, and Gordon Pomeranian. Julie and I had come to realize they were actually nice, not too cool or cliquey. Gordon was the only guy we knew who was into shopping. He usually smelled like coffee and clove cigarettes, and he was a really sharp dresser. The three of them were pretty experienced at stealing, Julie told me.

  Daisy said that Macy’s was the best of all the department stores in New York ’cause there were, like, hardly ever any salespeople around. Daisy and Julie agreed that what you had to do was bring a big Macy’s shopping bag from home with your sweater in it or something so you could walk around looking like a shopper. Or you could buy something small like some socks and ask for a big shopping bag and some tissue paper to hide whatever you were going to steal.

  So we headed to the junior girls’ department, and Gordon went to the guys’ department; we planned to meet him later. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, and it was so true: You couldn’t find a salesperson to save your life. We grabbed various tops, skirts, pants, belts, and whatever else, and headed for the dressing room where this older lady sat reading.

  Just in case she was gonna count what we took in, I rolled up a skirt in its hanger and squeezed it between several sweaters and shirts. Usually they just counted the tops of the hangers, Julie said. The skirt was totally hidden and my heart was racing. This is so strange, I thought. Kind of like watching yourself in a movie but you’re not really you, you’re someone else. Stealing was kind of like acting.

  The old lady waved us off to separate rooms without counting our stuff. Oh man, it was too good to be true. I was in a little room across from Jennifer, and the old lady barely got up from her stool and her National Enquirer. Now we could come and go several times with different clothes like at Fiorucci, ’cause she didn’t know how much stuff we had.

  Inside my dressing room, I tried on the skirt. It was charcoal gray, kind of shiny, almost silklike, with mother-of-pearl buttons down the front. It made a swishy sound when you moved, and the shape of it was very 1950s, like you’d wear to a sock hop. I totally loved it. I strutted out to the mirror to show someone. Jennifer Smalls was examining her chest in a tight angora sweater. At that moment, her name seemed pretty ironic.

  “Does this make my tits look square?” she asked me.

  “Um . . . a little. What do you think of this skirt?” I said, twirling.

  “Groovy,” she said. Nobody I knew said “groovy” like they did in the 1960s, except Jennifer Smalls. She examined the price tag at my hip and her eyes got big. Two hundred and fifty dollars. She smiled and nodded knowingly, and we went back to our dressing rooms. I neatly folded up the skirt in the extra tissue paper I brought from home, then I put it underneath my sweater in the bottom of my shopping bag. I brought the other clothes back to the old lady. Without even looking at me, she waved toward a rack and said, “Put it there, please.”

  I rapped lightly on Julie’s dressing room door. “Jule?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “How ya doin’?”

  “Done!” she said triumphantly, and flung her door open. She was fully dressed, shopping bag in hand, Chocolate Soup bag over her shoulder. Daisy and Jennifer said they’d meet us down at the Sixth Avenue entrance where Gordon would be.

  As we walked outside, I felt the cold air on my face, and I listened hard for an alarm or something to go off, or someone to come running after us. But no one did.

  At Aristotle’s Coffee Shop a few blocks away, we found a big booth in the back. As Gordon slid into the red vinyl seat, he asked for an ashtray. The waiter was putting down paper placemats.

  I ordered a tuna-fish sandwich on toast and a chocolate ice-cream soda. I just had to have something sweet to celebrate. Julie ordered turkey and cheese and a big order of fries for the table.

  The waiter had greased-back hair and a pencil-thin moustache. As soon as he took our order and headed to the kitchen, I said, “I can’t believe we just walked right out of the store like it was no big deal. Jesus, the people there are, like, totally asleep!”

  “I know, right?” Jennifer said as Daisy was saying, “I told you Macy’s is the easiest.” She unwrapped a straw as the waiter put a Tab in front of her.

  “Did you get that sweater?” I asked Jennifer, lowering my voice.

  “Nah, I got a different one. Orange and blue cableknit,” she said, half pulling it out of the bag to sh
ow us. “It fit much better. I think it was like fifty dollars or something.” She grinned and took a slice of pickle from the dish on the table.

  “Oh my God!” I said, giggling. “That is so cool!”

  “Check you out, missy!” Gordon said. “Miss Silk Skirt.”

  “Mr. Leather Gloves!” Julie and I said in unison.

  “Shut up!” Gordon said, looking around, trying not to laugh. “You’re gonna make me paranoid.”

  “What else didja get?” I asked Gordon, who took a long drag from his clove cigarette.

  “Calvin’s . . .” he said through his nose, then exhaling. He pointed to the pack of cigarettes on the table, as if to say, anyone who wants, take. Daisy took one and Gordon put a pack of matches in her open palm.

  “He collects them,” she said. “You’re up to thirty-three now, right?”

  “Thirty-four!” Gordon said, smiling big.

  “Oh my God,” Julie said. “I thought I had a lot.”

  “Do you collect Calvin Klein jeans, too?” Gordon asked.

  “No, Fioruccis,” Julie said, chewing on her straw. “Well, I don’t really collect them, I just have a bunch.”

  “Ooh, Fiorucci,” Jennifer said. “I’ve never been. How is it there?”

  “So easy!” I said. Then I realized I might be acting like this big professional when I’d really only gone stealing a few times. But no one seemed to notice.

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “No one counts the stuff you take into the dressing rooms there. It’s really good.”

  “Hey, are you guys doing ‘sense memory’ in Mrs. Zeig’s class?” Jennifer said. Jennifer, Daisy, and Gordon were all in Mr. Marat’s acting class, and so far they didn’t really like him. Sense memory was this acting exercise where you had to recall something like eating an orange or smelling your grandmother’s house and kind of act it out. The homework was to bring in some sense memory experience and perform it in front of the class.