Lifted

by Wendy Toliver

  “Just a moment. I’ll see if she’s available.” A moment later, the lady hung up the phone and said, “If you’ll just go up the escalator and take a right, her office is beside the gift-wrapping booth.”

  Since stepping foot into the department store, Mom hadn’t given me a cursory glance, let alone spoken to me. I would’ve sworn she didn’t even know I was there. However, once we stood outside the door with MALLORIE LIVINGSTON, MANAGER on the nameplate, she squeezed my hand. A small gesture that told me she still loved me.

  Mom rapped on the door twice. I wasn’t sure if her inhale or mine was deeper.

  “Come in,” a woman’s smooth baritone voice called.

  A dead ringer for Queen Latifah—only younger and with short, curly hair—peered at us over her funky reading glasses and inclined her head toward two small armchairs in front of her desk. “Please, ladies, have a seat.” Before resting her elbows on the desk, she moved a 32-ounce Coke cup to the side. Pink lipstick coated the top of the straw. I wondered if she always drank out of a straw to keep her teeth from being stained by cola or tea. Like Mary Jane and Whitney.

  I caught a whiff of pizza and noticed a personal-sized pizza box in the tiny wastebasket. Usually, I adored the smell of pizza, but it didn’t play well with the butterflies in my stomach.

  “So what can I do for y’all?” Mallorie asked.

  Mom leaned back and crossed her legs, her foot flexed in what appeared to be a very awkward position.

  I set the shopping bag on the Oriental rug and sat down, feeling like the Tin Man before his WD-40 spa treatment in the Land of Oz. I swallowed, unable to generate enough saliva to speak without croaking. “My name is Poppy Browne. I came here today . . . I shoplifted from your store, and I’m here to bring everything back. I wore some of it, and I will work like crazy to make enough money to pay back every penny I owe.” I gnawed on my lower lip for a second or two, then added, “Plus, of course, any punishment you feel is appropriate.”

  I lifted the shopping bag onto her desk, its weight straining my muscles. Mallorie’s brown eyes grew even bigger as she peered into it. She smacked her lips and blinked. I sunk into my chair, expecting the worst. For some reason, though, I wasn’t afraid. Whatever happened happened. I’d live through it and go on many more years, though my life would be decidedly different.

  Finally, Mallorie spoke. “Poppy, how old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  She nodded contemplatively and pulled out a few of the things in the bag. “Old enough to know better . . .” She examined the True Religion jeans, then refolded them and lay them on her desk. “I have to admit, I’ve never had a shoplifter turn herself in.”

  I scratched my ear and said, “Yeah, kinda defeats the purpose.” Mom shot me a death glare. “Er, I’m just kidding. I make jokes when I’m nervous. What I meant to say was, I’m very sorry I stole these things, and I feel horrible, and I want to make things right.” I gave Mom a little smile. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  It seemed like forever before she addressed us again. “There’s a lot to be said for a young person who takes responsibility for her actions, I hand you that. And I have a feeling that you won’t ever shoplift again. With that in mind, you are banned from Hamilton’s for an entire year. Also, you will pay Hamilton’s the cost of the merchandise that can’t be sold. I will have to do some figuring, but I estimate the total to be around five hundred dollars. The items that cannot be sold, whether they’ve been damaged or washed, will be donated to the local women’s shelter.”

  I nodded along with each of her commandments, and when she seemingly finished, I asked, “So you’re not pressing charges?”

  Mallorie folded her hands on the desk. “Don’t make me regret my decision, Poppy.” I sucked in a breath and gave her a big smile.

  “That went surprisingly well,” Mom said once we were back in her car. “I wouldn’t expect every store manager to be that easy on you.”

  A dark cloud still hovered over my head, but I got the feeling that a ray of sunshine was trying to gain enough strength to break through. Then Mom said, “Now we’d better hurry home. I have some research to do.”

  Something gnawed at me, something beyond the accountability of raising hundreds of dollars and the possibility of another store manager pressing charges. I couldn’t get Mary Jane out of my head. She had a point: Why would she tell her mom about my shoplifting? It was too risky; it surely would come back to bite her in the ass. It made no sense. But if she didn’t tell her mother I was shoplifting, who did?

  While Mom spread the Indian food on the kitchen table, infusing the house with scents of curry and steamed rice, I helped myself to a cold Dr Pepper and unloaded my backpack. I briefly glanced at the newspaper article about the GOV Club Whitney had given me on Tuesday.

  “That’s Mary Jane’s mother, isn’t it?” Mom pointed at the newspaper with her chicken-loaded fork. Sure enough, a color photo of Abigail Portman in a preppy golf outfit holding a huge, shiny gold cup graced the front page of the Pleasant Acres Examiner sports section. “Looks like she won the Magnolia Cup Open,” Mom said.

  I couldn’t bear to look at Mrs. Portman’s sunny, gorgeous face without despising her for calling my mom. Why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut? Or at least talked to me about it first?

  But Mom was reading the stupid golf article, so while I waited patiently for her to finish, I scanned the first few lines.

  “Mom? What time did Mrs. Portman call you on Monday? You know, when she called to tell you I shoplifted.”

  Mom shrugged and wiped her lips with a paper napkin. “I don’t recall. Why?”

  “Think hard, Mom. I need to know.”

  “Let’s see. I came home for lunch at noon, so it would’ve been around one, I guess.”

  Which would’ve been in the middle of the golf tournament.

  Mom picked up the phone and scrolled through the caller ID. “Hmm. I don’t see the Portmans’ home number on here that day.”

  I shook my head over and over again, trying to splice it all together. I snatched the phone from her. The only phone number it could’ve been was one that appeared to be a cell number.

  “Can I see my cell?”

  She took a bite of curry, swallowed, and then took a couple sips of her tea. “I’m afraid not.”

  “I’m not going to call anyone. I just need to see something real quick. Please?”

  “I’m going to heat this one up in the microwave,” she said, indicating the bowl of chicken curry we were supposed to be sharing but that I hadn’t sampled yet. And while she was up, she fetched her purse and laid my phone in front of me.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I powered it on. A picture message—one from David—waited for me. Excitedly, I opened it, hoping Mom wouldn’t notice. It was a snapshot of a poppy. I couldn’t tell what it was on; but on second glance, it looked like a swing. Yes, definitely a swing. So cheesy yet sweet. It meant the world to me that he was thinking of me. Next I noticed an old text message that Mary Jane had sent. Quickly, I clicked on it. Mom’s having a soiree at our house Sat. night at 7 and wanted me to tell you your mom must come. Oh, and remember the Midnight Madness sale! Yay!

  Ah, yes, Hamilton’s biggest sale of the year, promising crowds and chaos and the perfect opportunity to lift the gold-and-diamond watch Mary Jane had her heart set on. Would they still go for it, after all that had happened?

  The microwave beeped. “What are you doing?” Mom asked.

  I deleted the message. “Um, nothing. Just getting to my contact list.” I scrolled through the numbers programmed in my cell phone, my hands shaking as I highlighted the number Bridgette Josephs had given me on the first day of school. An exact match. Oh my God. I lost my balance, but luckily a barstool caught me.

  It was as if all the lights in the world turned on at once, and I could finally see through all the confusion. I wasn’t dog-paddling, and I wasn’t drowning, either. I was swimming. Against the flow, for sure, but at least I wa
s getting somewhere.

  “Mom, Mrs. Portman’s voice . . . was it musical ?”

  She sat on the barstool and set the steaming bowl of nuked chicken between us. “I guess I could describe it as such. . . . Poppy, what is going on?”

  “Bridgette totally set me up, Mom. She knew that Mary Jane, Whitney, and I shoplifted.”

  “Wait. You’re telling me Mary Jane and Whitney do it, too?” Her voice wavered with disbelief.

  “Yes.” I knew that in the last thirty seconds, Mom’s impression of my two best friends took a drastic fall from grace into a sticky puddle of imperfection. I could only hope she would allow me to keep hanging out with them. That was, if they even wanted to hang out with me.

  Mom’s forehead furrowed. “Your friends got you into it? The shoplifting was peer pressure?”

  “Maybe a little, at the very beginning. But, Mom, that’s not the point. It’s Bridgette.” The lying, conniving little monster! “Mary Jane and Bridgette used to be best friends until a musical and a boy and money came between them. Bridgette hates Mary Jane for that, and she hates Whitney for being her replacement, and now me for letting her go ahead and ask Gabe to the dance when he’d already said yes to me. Bridgette hates all of us and formulated this evil plan to get me to hate them—to get us to hate each other. Which, of course, began with a call to you”—I was almost shouting by then, but I couldn’t help it—“pretending to be Abigail Portman.”

  Had Bridgette banked on me being grounded for Sadie’s, leaving Gabe up for grabs? And had she predicted I’d have a mega come-apart with Mary Jane and Whitney, subsequently betraying them and totally destroying all three of our reputations? Was this her big plan to give Mary Jane a taste of her own medicine, to make her suffer in the way she’d made Bridgette suffer so long ago? My head spun. I had so many questions, and I wanted to pin Bridgette down and demand to know the answers. How dare she toy with my life—our lives—like this!

  And what about Mary Jane? An avalanche of emotions blindsided me: pure joy, followed by relief that Mary Jane had told the truth—she had no idea her mom called because her mom hadn’t called. All that rage I’d felt toward her—totally unwarranted since Mary Jane hadn’t ratted me out after all. And the anguish on her beautiful face when I’d called her a bitch. Remembering those things made me feel sick. Nausea set in—so intense, I could hardly see straight. Then, it felt as if the sky was falling and there was no escape.

  I grabbed Mom’s hands, my entire body trembling. Forcing myself to speak slowly and clearly, I said, “Mom, I know I’m grounded, but can I please use my phone? I need to talk to Mary Jane. And then to Bridgette, to tell her just how unimpressed I am with her evil scheme.”

  “You can talk to them at school.”

  “I know, but it’s important. It can’t wait that long. I’ve got to let her know what Bridgette did and that we’d been deceived and that I’m sorry I ever doubted her.”

  She blinked several times. “You know, Poppy, I’m not condoning what Bridgette did, but I have to admit I’m glad she did. Otherwise, I might have never found out about your shoplifting problem. Now, please eat your dinner before it gets cold again.”

  She had a point, though it was unpleasant to my ears. Maybe being out in the open about my problem wasn’t such a terrible thing after all. Perhaps Mom knowing about it was my best ammunition to stop shoplifting once and for all. Regardless, it killed me that I’d called the best friend I’d ever had a two-faced bitch.

  Thunder crashed and rattled the whole house. It was crazy how quickly storms rolled in around there.

  “Mom, I called Mary Jane a bitch. I’m pretty sure other people heard, too. I was awful. I really want to apologize to her. I know you think Mary Jane and Whitney are terrible people because they shoplift, but they’re the best friends I’ve ever had, and—”

  “I don’t think they’re terrible people.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I just want what’s best for you, Poppy.”

  “I know. You always say that.”

  I sunk onto the barstool, trying not to look as disappointed as I felt. No one said anything for quite a while, and as I picked at the goopy rice, I watched the rain out the window.

  Mom took a few bites of her dinner and then stared down at her plate. “Maybe I should step back from time to time and let you have a say in what’s best for you.”

  “You mean it?” I asked, astonished.

  “I do.” She sighed as she handed me the phone. “All right. Hardened criminals are given one phone call, so I might as well extend that formality to you. One phone call.”

  “Cool, thanks, Mom.” I pondered for a few minutes whose number to dial. Which mattered most—giving Bridgette a piece of my mind or giving Mary Jane a much-needed explanation?

  I dialed Mary Jane’s cell number, grateful to Mom for giving me the opportunity, yet nervous to actually speak with my friend. Her voice-mail message came on, and I felt disappointed. Not that I was surprised. She probably saw it was my number and decided not to answer. I couldn’t really blame her. I left a message anyway: “Hi, Mary Jane. I’m kinda wondering what you’re doing. And I’m kinda thinking some of what you’re doing is hating me. And I kinda feel bad about that. No, I mean, I do feel bad about that. Really bad. I’m not really allowed to use the phone when I’m grounded. Mom just made an exception ’cause she gets how important it is that I talk to you. So I guess I’ll just have to talk to you at school. Okay, bye.” I knew it sounded like I was shit-faced or something, but I didn’t feel like rerecording it, especially with Mom right there, so I just hung up and handed over the phone.

  “That went well,” Mom said.

  “Liar.” I smiled for the first time in a while and then took a bite of chicken. “Oh, I almost forgot. Mary Jane’s mom invited you to a party she’s having this weekend.” I jotted the details down on a sticky note. On one level, I knew it was a waste of ink and paper. I’d been trying to get Mom to do something social since we’d moved with no success. But then again, I didn’t want to give up. “It’ll probably be really fun, and you can meet your own fancy friends. You should go.” I passed her the sticky note.

  “Hmm. Maybe I will.” She folded the note in half and smoothed it out.

  After slinking back to my room, I powered on my computer and halfheartedly worked on my European History homework. About thirty minutes later, I thought I heard Mom’s voice so I turned down my stereo and wandered into her room. She’d lit her green tea candles and lowered the lights, creating an atmosphere that was at once revitalizing and peaceful.

  Mom was sprawled across her chaise lounge in her terry cloth robe. “Thanks for the invitation, Abigail,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I look forward to getting to know you, too. And I’d like to bring one of my famous apple pies if that’s okay.” She chuckled at whatever Mary Jane’s mom said. “Sounds good. Okay. Good-bye.” Leaning backward, she dropped the phone into its charger and then stretched out her arms. She looked borderline happy, borderline panic-stricken.

  “It’s going to be fun, you’ll see,” I said in an upbeat tone. I thought about saying, “I’m proud of you,” but that sounded odd coming from her daughter. Hopefully she’d make some friends and shake up her work-study-sleep routine. “I’ll help you find something cool to wear,” I offered.

  “You don’t have to do that . . .”

  “It’s not like I have anything better to do. I’m grounded, remember?” I perched on the edge of her chair and then wiggled up to her. “Are you going to tell Mary Jane’s and Whitney’s parents about shoplifting?” Surely she’d see them at the party Saturday night, and I wanted to warn my friends.

  “Do you think I should?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Well, hopefully they’ll tell their parents of their own accord, and I won’t have to worry about it.”

  “Okay.” It was out of my hands, and for that, I was glad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 
When I hurried to my closet to get my shoes the next morning, something hard and sharp poked into my foot. My cross necklace. I stooped to pick it up and then fastened it around my neck. The charm dangled just above my heart, feeling warm against my skin.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” Mom asked once we were in transit.

  “I’m really nervous,” I admitted, picking at the polish on my thumbnail. “What if they’re so pissed at me, they won’t even listen?”

  “I have a feeling they’ll listen. And before you know it, you three will be best friends again.”

  I bit my lower lip. “I hope so.”

  “And if not, you can tell your therapist all about it, and he’ll help you get through it.”

  “My therapist?”

  She nodded. “That’s just my way of letting you know I made you an appointment with Dr. Linkin, a highly respected psychologist who specializes in addiction.”

  “Oh, great.” I didn’t want her to know that I actually thought seeing a therapist was a pretty decent idea. With all that had been going on, I was trying to keep myself distracted. However, every so often, I found myself craving a shoplifting adventure in the worst way. I didn’t want to be like this forever.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you for moral support?” Mom asked as she pulled up to Calvary High School.

  “What? No.” I gave her an “are you crazy?” glare and her greenish-blue eyes twinkled.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Good.” I smiled, and my smile grew when I spotted David Hillcrest in a group of kids over by the flagpole. He threw back his head when he laughed at something, and then he slapped a really short guy on the back.

  “Who’s that handsome fellow?”

  “Which handsome fellow?” I asked, playing dumb.

  “The one walking straight for the car, waving at you.”

  “Oh, that one. He’s a senior. Actually, he’s the preacher’s son.” She raised her eyebrows, and I was glad she was too into him to notice my dorky blush. “Oh, but don’t worry,” I said. “It’s not like he’s all goody-two-shoes and straitlaced. He’s funny and crazy and even kind of crude sometimes.”