by Mary Carter
“You’re sorry?” Kim says in a deathly quiet voice. “You promised to be careful with this—”
“I know. I know—”
“How could you?”
“I just forgot, Kim. I was going to get it dry-cleaned.” Kim turns and heads out of my room. “I’ll pay for the sweater, Kim. I’ll get it dry-cleaned and I’ll pay for it. There’s a scarf that goes with it—somewhere.” Kim suddenly stops and turns back around. “Kim, please,” I say. “Please let me explain.” Instead of answering she walks over to my closet and peers at it. She lifts the padlock and looks at me questioningly. What do I say? What is there to explain? That I’m a horrible friend? That all I care about is my next lift? That my closet is filled with a hundred and eighty-eight stolen objects?
“You take my things and trash them—you lie to me—you do nothing but talk about yourself—but locking your closet?”
“I don’t lock it because of you,” I plead.
“Bull!” Kim yells. “We’re the only two people who live here. Why else would you lock it?”
It’s a secret. I’m so ashamed. I steal everything I can get my hands on. Help me.
“See!” Kim cries. “You’re not even denying it. You don’t trust me, do you?”
And there’s nothing left to say.
“Obviously not,” I say.
We stare at each other. Kim looks like she’s going to cry. Tommy gives me a sad look and leads Kim out by the arm. I slam the door shut and throw myself on the bed. This time I don’t even pretend to sleep. This time I just cry.
“I don’t understand why you took them to the city in the first place,” my mother repeats.
“I told you,” I say. “I had things to do. I still have things to do. Jimmy is going to bring the dogs back on the train, okay?”
She takes another long slice of silence and sighs again. “Does this have anything to do with a job?” she asks when the allotted guilt time has passed.
I take a deep breath. I knew the question would come and I knew exactly what I planned on saying. It’s none of your fucking business. “Yes,” I say. “It does. Wish me luck.”
Three hours later I’m standing outside storage unit #128 at U-STORE-IT in Hoboken, New Jersey, with twelve boxes, two suitcases, and a backpack. I had to take a cab all the way here, and the fare alone cost more than the storage unit for six months, but at least the closet is empty and my things are safe. Fortunately, the units are like mini-garages and mine is only three-fourths full, so after I have the boxes neatly stacked in the corner, there is plenty of room to stretch out and sleep. It’s a little cold in here because I have to keep the garage door cracked so I won’t suffocate. I throw on a sweater from my suitcase and wrap myself in a blanket. I’ll survive the night.
As I lie on my back on the concrete floor listening to water drip and trying to make out shadows in the dark, a tear slides down the side of my face. Who am I? my little voice asks. This is why I’m always so busy, always moving, always preoccupied, never thinking. I’m trying to barricade this silent, probing question from entering the recesses of my mind. Because I don’t like the answer. A thief, a thief, a thief is what I am. It’s not who I had set out to become. It doesn’t feel like me, or rather it feels like a dead, third leg dragging me down. How did this all start? I blink, breathe into the floor, and let the memory come.
I’m eight years old. My brother Zach has just turned twelve, and the house is filled with noisy, stinky boys whom I desperately want to impress. Only nobody is paying attention to me. Not even my parents or Aunt Betty, my father’s older sister who is visiting from Texas. I’ve never been to Texas, and I want to ask her if she has a horse and why she’s not wearing a cowboy hat and boots, but she’s not paying attention to me either. All day everyone has been huddled around Zach and his stupid, prized moon rock.
It didn’t look that exciting to me, a dumb old black rock with a lot of holes in it, but he had won it in a national science contest and everyone was acting like it was the second coming. Of course I didn’t think of it in those terms then, I just knew that a stupid old rock was getting way more attention than little old me. Besides sticking other kids’ toys in my pockets as a toddler, I hadn’t yet been bitten by the klepto bug. It was pure chance that the ice cream man drove by, pure chance that Zach didn’t see me hiding in the bushes near their fort, and pure greed that made him drop that rock on the grass and run toward the seductive song of the ice cream man.
Leaving me alone.
With the rock.
At first I just crawled over to it and stared. Then I gently lifted it up and looked at it in the sunlight. This rock was on the moon, I thought. So what? I still didn’t think it was worth all the fuss. I took the rock into the kitchen where my mother and Aunty Betty were poring over magazines and drinking tea. Neither of them looked up. I took the rock into the living room where the television was blasting football and my father sat with his feet propped up on the coffee table. He didn’t look at me either. I felt like the girl on the moon. I brought the rock into my bedroom and put it under my pillow. I’d go down and ask Zach nicely if I could play with him. If he said yes, I’d give him the rock back.
They were in the front yard punching each other and wolfing down ice cream. “Hey!” I yelled. One of the boys looked over and stuck his tongue out at me. I spotted Zach in a headlock with his friend Brett. I walked over, leaned down to the ground where Zach’s head was dangling, and tried to talk to him. “Hey!” I said again. “Show me your fort.”
“Go away, nerd!” Zach yelled, and the rest of the boys laughed.
“Let’s go look at your rock!” I said, ignoring the insult.
“Go away, dufus!” he yelled, breaking out of the headlock and running away from me. They all piled on bikes and sped away. He was never going to get his rock back.
But of course I knew my parents would make me give it back. I went back into the kitchen and injected myself between my mother and Aunt Betty and waited for the axe to fall. Several times I thought about putting the rock back, but another plan was forming in my mind. Maybe I’d be the one to find it! That’s it. While everyone scoured the yard looking for it, I’d pretend to help. When and only when Zach started to cry, would I pretend to find the rock. Then they’d pay attention to me. Then they’d let me in their stupid fort. I’d be the star of the family.
And one hour later, after having to endure listening to my mother and Aunt Betty cluck over chicken recipes, the moment finally came. A scream that could be heard blocks away suddenly pierced through the quiet of our tiny kitchen. Zach screamed like a girl. Even my father catapulted himself off the couch, running out the door after Mom and Aunt Betty to see what in the world was making my brother sound like a wounded animal. I ran out after them, tripping on the stairs and scraping my knee on the deck, but I was too excited to whine. Let the search for the rock begin!
I was the last one to reach the fort. Several boys were kicking the dirt and pawing through bushes while Dad, Mom, and Aunt Betty stood around Zach, who had tears pouring down his face. I slipped up next to him. “What’s going on?” I said. “Lost something?”
“You took it!” Zach screamed, grabbing me by the arm. “Give it back.”
Stunned, I froze as he shook my shoulders. Oh no. This isn’t fair. He wasn’t supposed to guess it was me. I slid my eyes toward my parents, waiting for my punishment.
“Zachary, keep your hands to yourself,” my mother admonished.
“And apologize at once,” my father added.
What? My mouth opened in total surprise. So did Zach’s, but he dropped his hands obediently.
“I know she took it,” he whined. “When we were getting ice cream.”
“She was in the kitchen with us,” my mother said. “I’m waiting for that apology,” my dad added, putting his arms on my shoulder.
“Where is it?” Zach yelled, turning to me.
My father stepped toward Zach. “Apologize or go to your room.”
Zach kicked the dirt angrily. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I can help you find it,” I added.
“See?” Zach raged, jumping up and down. “I told you—she stole it!”
“That’s it,” my father said. “Go to your room.”
“But—”
“Now.”
I had to sit down on the grass and catch my breath as Zach stalked off to his room. My parents had defended me. They sent Zach to his room. On his birthday. It was too much for my little brain to take in. I had my first taste of the thrill of “the take,” and although I couldn’t help feeling bad for Zach, another feeling was edging its way in, pushing out the guilt and laying the groundwork for a long love affair with what I would start to call “the taking.” The feeling was pure, unadulterated power. And I was positively swooning in its wake.
I waited two weeks and then left Zach’s moon rock out in the driveway one Saturday morning as we followed my father out to the car for a trip to the hardware store. “Well look what we have here,” my father said, picking up the moon rock and tossing it to Zach, who again screamed like a girl and accused me of having something to do with its disappearance all over again. But I could care less. I was too busy gripping my Barbie backpack and shaking with sick excitement over what I had decided to do.
You see, I hated going to the hardware store. But my mother had discovered something she called “me time,” and so every Saturday we were forced to follow my father into these horrible stores with lumber and nails and lightbulbs and other things too hideous and dirty to mention. I usually sulked all the way there and all the way back. But this morning I was dying to go. This morning I was going to see if my superpowers would work on more than a rock. This morning I was going to practice “the taking” at the hardware store.
I followed my father and Zach up and down aisle eleven, dragging my purple backpack along the dusty concrete floor. My heart was beating so loud I had to look around to see if anyone else could hear it. No one sees me, I thought. I am a superhero. I have the power to take. With my new, laser-like eyes and lightning-quick fingers, I scanned the bottom shelves as I walked, and the moment I spotted the pile of shiny, crystal doorknobs, I shook with love. I had been practicing for this all week in my room, taking objects off my toy shelf and dropping them into my backpack until I had it down to three seconds start to finish. I was ready for the real thing.
Dad and Zach had already rounded the next corner, not once glancing back at me. A man with overalls was behind me, but he was facing the other shelves. It was now or never. I dropped to my scabbed knees, grabbed a doorknob, and held it in the same fist as my backpack as I walked. I looked over at the man whose head was bent down. No one could see me. I quickly dropped the doorknob in the backpack and sped up to find my father. My suspicions had been confirmed. I had the gift for “the taking.”
By the end of that year I was stealing two items a month and hiding them under my bed. At age thirteen I began showing off for a few select friends, and a small but appreciative group of girls had begun to gather around me, admiring me, inviting me out, begging me to pass on my special powers.
And even when I started lying awake with massive headaches and a queasy stomach, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I waited, instead, to get caught. I imagined all sorts of scenarios about how it might happen. In some daydreams, I sobbed and begged for forgiveness; in others I fought like a wild animal while a dozen cops dragged me away in handcuffs and took me to jail. But until then I continued to steal.
Then one day when I was struggling to get my books out of my overstuffed locker (I couldn’t fit any more objects underneath my bed and I had begun selling a few things here and there to friends), my high school guidance counselor, Mr. Clements, happened by as a waterfall of stolen objects careened out of my locker and spilled onto the floor. My parents were called in, and we all sat in his little office and stared at the desktop where the counselor had arranged every single item for my parents to see. My mother gasped.
“She’s a compulsive shopper,” she cried, clutching my father’s arm.
“Is this where your babysitting money goes?” my father yelled, picking up a vibrator.
“I’ve always wanted a neck massager,” I said, quickly taking it out of his hands and hiding it underneath a box of Tide.
“You think she’s buying all of these things?” the counselor asked incredulously, picking up a set of plastic straws and a package of lip gloss. He stared at me, daring me to fess up. “Melanie? Are you telling us you purchased all these items?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said, breaking eye contact with him and turning to my parents. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t help it. Money just—burns a hole in my pocket,” I said, borrowing from a favorite phrase of my father.
“Mr. and Mrs. Zeitgar,” the counselor said, slowly looking between them, “have you considered the possibility that Melanie may be a compulsive shoplifter?” My mother cried out and dug her nails into my father. The two of them sprang out of their seats like they had been ejected.
“That’s preposterous!” my father boomed. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
“Yes, Mr. Zeitgar—”
“I’m a lawyer,” my father said, gathering himself up. “My children have a deep and abiding respect for the law, Mr. Clements.”
“Perhaps she could show us the receipts,” Mr. Clements started to say, but my father cut him off at the pass.
“I’ve already told you my daughter would never break the law. And unless you want an up-close-and-personal lesson in the law then I’d strongly suggest you stop lobbying false accusations against Melanie and curtail any further damaging and prejudicial remarks.”
“Yes, curtail yourself,” echoed my mother, who always needed to hide behind someone else to stand up for herself. “However, we thank you for bringing our daughter’s shopping problem to our attention.”
My father nodded curtly to the counselor and took me by the arm. “We’re cutting off your allowance,” he said sternly as he guided me out of the room. “And you’ll hand over all your babysitting money to us for the next three months.”
I nodded my assent, not daring to look back and see what I assumed was a dumbstruck look on Mr. Clements’s face. Denial is a family affair.
Chapter 31
I’m having a nightmare. “No, no, no!” I’m screaming inside my head. I wake up in a sweat. It takes me a few minutes to remember that I’m sleeping in a storage unit in New Jersey and another minute to remember why. I turn over, touch the side of my nearest box, and feel a sense of calm wash over me. I wonder which objects are in this one. All of the items in my boxes are brand new, everything is still in its original packaging, and every object has a story.
A long time ago I divided my objects into three categories : Throwaways, Gifts, and Sacrifices. Throwaways are the items I allow myself to use. Lipstick, food, office supplies. Gifts are the things I steal for other people (bags of coffee from Starbucks, candles, wallets, gravy boats), and Sacrifices are the ones I never allow myself to open. The objects in this storage unit are all sacrifices. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to rip into them and use them; I’d love to light the scented candles, wrap myself in the cashmere scarf, and write with the Japanese quill. But I won’t. The stories behind them deserve to be honored. The thought of returning them causes me physical pain, as if I would be abandoning one of my children.
The stories call to me now as I caress the box. I remember the package of bathing salts I acquired after a particularly horrendous Visa bill, the silk pajamas I took the summer I gained ten pounds, the hand-dipped candles the time the saleslady was rude to my mother, the set of chopsticks the night I was followed by two guys on the Lower East Side, and the cashmere scarf I stole the day after I had a one-night stand with the guy from the Rebar. We didn’t use a condom, and I lifted it while waiting for the results of my AIDS test. Every object has a story. Every one of them I�
�ve earned like medals in a war.
Just thinking about them isn’t enough. I need to touch them. I lift the top box from the pile and open it. Touching each item is like flipping through a photo album, each package invoking a memory, a need, a longing. I stop when I reach the brilliant topaz ring I lifted from a holiday sale at Nordstrom. It’s beautiful, but I’ll never wear it. My stomach tightens when I hold it; this is one story I don’t like remembering. This is the button I don’t like pushed.
It was winter break and my third year at NYU. They talked about the party for months; it was going to take place on an entire floor of an apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and ho, ho, ho. It was going to be the place to be—the party they would talk about for years to come. I went with my roommate Jo Ella, and since we planned on getting as trashed as possible, we made an agreement we would take a cab home together and we would go whenever one of us wanted to leave. But she hooked up with some guy, and when it was time to go home, I couldn’t find her.
I remember vodka. A lot of vodka. I stumbled around the party looking for her. Someone tells me she’s gone. And then, there he is. I don’t know his name—he was sober, and his shirt was pink. He had not been at our party—I learn later that he lives in the building and drives a Porsche. That’s all I’ll ever find out about the man in the pink shirt. And who would ever think to be afraid of a man in a pink oxford shirt? I’ve given up on Jo Ella and I’m searching for my purse when he materializes in front of me. No, I’m sorry I wouldn’t like another drink. Can’t you see that I can’t walk a straight line? I walk out of the party and stagger to the elevator.
Where are all my friends? They’re too drunk to notice or maybe they think I know the man in the pink shirt. Either way he’s followed me out into the hall and guided me past the elevators. “I have to go,” I slur. “I have to get a cab.”
“We can call from in here,” he says, unlocking an apartment door down the hall and pushing me inside. The rest I remember in close-ups as if I’m watching a film. Close-up on his telephone. It’s white and it’s sitting right there on a little end table. I’m sobering up now; even swimming in vodka my brain is sending out faint warning signals. Don’t take candy from strangers, never hitchhike, and beware of helpful neighbors. I don’t scream. Why don’t I scream? Would things have been different? But I know why I don’t scream, and the reason haunts me to this day. I don’t scream because I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust my trusty little voice who is warning me of danger. I listen to the man in the pink shirt and ignore my voice. The man in the pink shirt is still pretending he wants to help me call a cab. What does my voice know? She’s drunk and unreliable.