by Mary Carter
“Deborah,” I say. “Thank God. You have to let me up.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “And why do I have to do that?” she says.
When I tell her, her snippy attitude evaporates and you can see her adding up the ratings in her head. Seconds later, she hustles me into the elevator.
I’m waiting behind the wings. I can see wonderful, beautiful Greg sitting at the commentator’s desk. Deborah Green swivels her chair to face the camera. “We have a special guest today,” she tells America. “In fact, Greg—she came all the way here just to see you.” An assistant gives me a little nudge and I walk out onto the stage and into the bright lights. “Have a seat, Melanie,” Deborah says kindly.
“Is it okay if I stand?” I ask. I don’t trust my legs, which are shaking something fierce. Greg meets my eyes and then closes his for a second. When he opens them he has his television personality on.
“What can I do for you?” he asks professionally.
Lies are perched at the tip of my tongue, but the truth beats its wings against my chest and tumbles out like boxes stacked precariously in an old attic. “I need you,” I choke. “Help me.”
“Go on,” Greg says quietly, intensely.
“I’m a kleptomaniac,” I say. “I steal everything I can get my hands on.”
“Well this is quite a confession,” Deborah cuts in cheerfully, but Greg puts his hand out and stops her.
“Let her talk,” he says and nods at me.
I take a deep breath and let it all out. “Socks. Lipstick. Jewelry. Scarves. Tampons. Gravy boats, sandals, cordless phones, books, cutlery. Teddy bears, silk panties, cashmere sweaters, pens, boas, diamonds!”
As I speak everything disappears including the cameras and Deborah’s gaping mouth and the beautiful image of Greg burned in my brain. “Soaps, candles, candies, pillows, place mats, paintings!” I close my eyes and continue babbling until I feel someone’s arms around me. Greg holds me while I shake and cry. No matter what happens, he’s here now, touching me.
“Shh,” he says as a litany of stolen items roll out of my mouth. “Just stop.”
“I can’t,” I moan. “I can’t stop.”
Greg takes my head in my hands and pulls back enough so that I can look in his eyes. “You’ve just taken the most important step,” he says. “You’ve confessed your shameful secret, and you’ve admitted you need help. How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” I say.
“You’re the most beautiful piece of shit I’ve ever seen,” Greg says. It’s the most disgusting and most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. And then he kisses me in front of a live studio audience.
Later that night we sit on his Pottery Barn leather sofa and I cry into his lap for a full hour.
“Feel better?” he asks, playing with my hair.
“No,” I mumble.
“Would you like to steal from me?” he says.
I sit up. “What?”
He gestures around. “Take anything you’d like. I have way too many things.”
I start crying again.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a joke.”
I make a mental note to return the penguin. “I need another tissue,” I say and excuse myself.
In the bathroom I take a good look at myself in the mirror. I’m still shaky and I could use a little makeup, but otherwise, it’s me looking back. I’ve confessed my shameful secret to the world and it didn’t come to an end. Next to stealing, it’s the best feeling ever. I splash water on my face and reach for the hand towel hanging over his sink. I hold it on my face, inhaling its clean, comforting scent. When I go to put it back, I notice the object it had concealed while hanging.
“That’s what you want to take?” Greg says when I carry the mother of pearl soap dish into the living room.
“Where did you get it?” I ask.
“Steve Landon. He gave one to everybody in the firm last year for Christmas. Somehow I ended up with two, so you’re welcome to it. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I turn it over. Made in Taiwan. $19.99.
“Do you want to play with that soap dish or do you want to have last-person sex?” Greg teases me.
I toss the soap dish behind me like a bridal bouquet.
We kiss madly on the couch and then roll onto the floor. Greg gets on top of me and begins unbuttoning my blouse. He plants a kiss on me after undoing each button. Then he works his way back up. My neck, my cheeks, my lips, and when he opens my blouse and takes off my bra, my nipples are so erect I either have to enlist them as soldiers or make love to him. It isn’t anything like it was with Ray. Physically I enjoyed sex with Ray—but there was always a part of me playing an act or twisting just the right way so my thighs wouldn’t look chubby and sucking in my stomach—there was an entire Olympic judge panel in my head every move I made. (The East German judge always gave me a 3.5, the bastard.) But with Greg, he already knew the worst of me and he still liked me. I was even venturing to think maybe he was in love with me. But enough talking. Greg is about to enlist a soldier of his own, and we wouldn’t want to miss that, would we?
But let me be the first to tell you that he’s going down on me. South Town is no longer a ghost town and I didn’t even have to draw him a map. Oh God, oh God, Oh. God. But as incredible as this feels, I want him inside me. I pull him up and he doesn’t hesitate (by the way he has a lovely penis—I’m gobsmacked), and seconds later we’re doing it. We’re having unbelievable last-person sex that I pray won’t be anywhere near the last. He must have been thinking the same thing, for we’ve done it a total of three times and now we’re in his shower giggling and kissing and soaping each other in places we’d never met up until today—and then if two orgasms aren’t enough (the third time I faked it—what can I say—two is my limit) now he’s shampooing me.
But after all the sex and the shampooing, I get a lecture. We’re sitting at his dining room table and he’s made a pot of coffee. He has a list of psychiatrists for me to call in the morning. He says they’ll encourage me to join a support group. AA for shoplifters. He tells me there is even a Web site—kleptomaniacs.com. And if that’s not strange enough, they now treat kleptos with Naltrexone—a drug used to reduce the cravings in heroin addicts. So I guess it is an addiction. And that means—there’s help.
“And I’m sure they’ll tell you—you’re not to go into stores alone for a while—and when you do you should have someone with you who knows about—your proclivity to take things,” Greg says, taking my hands across the table. “I’ll follow you everywhere,” he adds. And although I was already three-quarters of the way there, I fall the rest of the way in love with him right then and there. Nothing could ruin this moment.
“Do you think your family saw the show?” Greg asks suddenly. A look of horror crosses my face like a line of geese waddling across a crowded freeway. “Sorry,” Greg says, squeezing my hand. “One day at a time, right?” I nod. The thought of telling my mother makes me wish I smoked. Sex, lies, and admissions. It’s a wonder we’re all not dead. At least now everything is out in the open. “And maybe after you’ve taken some time to confront your addictions and face your lies,” Greg says, looking into my eyes, “you can really concentrate on your clocks.”
CONTRACT WITH SELF
I, Melanie Zeitgar,
Oh, fuck it.
Josh Hannigan is much friendlier now that Trina has dumped him. He actually listens to my request with an open mind. “I can’t give you your own opening,” he says “but I will let you rent the studio for a few hours. Will that do?”
I grin. “Cuckoo,” I say, and I’m off to make beautiful art. I buy twelve clocks at a Target in New Jersey and then take a cab to my storage unit. Time flies as I lovingly glue every one of my stolen items onto my clocks. The first clock has a scarf, sunglasses, and a hat. The next one gets six bars of soap-teeth and candle-hair. The third one I call Juan’s, and I glue on every cactus salt and pepper shaker I ev
er stole from the Three Musketeers. It’s Christmas, it’s Mardis Gras, it’s good-bye. Everything gets glued on except for the Omega Seamaster watch that I apologetically took back from Greg. That I place in its replacement box and mail it back to the store with an anonymous typewritten note. Sorry, it says. Returned to you by: The Saint of Kleptomaniacs. There’s no need to give bird woman any more to go on than that.
My favorite is the grandfather clock. I’ve made it look like a woman with rhinestone-earring eyes, a wide cherry red lipstick mouth, and a floppy hat. But the best thing about it is the mother of pearl soap dish covering her vagina. I call it, “Ode To Trina.”
This is how I live. I attend a support group for shoplifters three times a week. My mother, who has finally recovered from the shock that her daughter is a kleptomaniac, now brags about me to her friends. “Melanie gives speeches at high schools throughout New York and New Jersey on the addiction of shoplifting. She’s going to be featured in Oprah’s O magazine next month. Isn’t that wonderful?” I think it helps that I’m also dating Greg Parks—her hero. I’ve begged him to do something to make my mom hate him, but he refuses to give up his image as most charming boyfriend ever, so I will have to deal.
I’m not completely redeemed of course. My family now requires a receipt for every gift I’ve bought them since the unveiling—but I’m okay with that. I haven’t stolen anything since the deli man’s heart attack—but I’m certainly not cured. Like Greg said, it’s a day at a time type of thing. Trina went wild with rage when she came to my show and saw “Ode to Trina.” She would have ripped it to shreds if Greg and Zach hadn’t been there to pull her off. “Family heirloom?” I whispered to her as they dragged her away. “I didn’t realize you hailed from Taiwan.” I added that I had a very good list of psychiatrists if she wanted any referrals.
The opening, which I called “Saint of Kleptomaniacs,” was a surprise hit. I guess I have the Saints to thank for that. The wonderful, helpful, silly little Saints who I was also putting to rest for now. I’ve started learning about the real ones—and there are almost as many as the ones I’ve made up. I’m still a vicarious Catholic, but I’m actually enjoying learning about Saint Katherine, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Jude, Saint Elmo—where there’s a want, there’s a Saint. And guest what? They weren’t all perfect. They were wonderfully flawed, complicated humans struggling to make sense out of their lives. Some of them were even reformed sinners. Now that’s my kind of Saint.
The End
But hopefully, just the beginning
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2006 by Mary Carter
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-6643-9
Notes
1 Exceptions: Breakups, weight gain, job losses, crummy auditions, great auditions where you don’t get a callback, high Visa bills, cavities, the trauma of using automated telephone menus, surprise visits from stalkers and/or muggers, surprise visits from Mom or Zach, no visits or phone calls from CLOML (Current Love Of My Life)—i.e., Ray—and henceforth any unforeseen tragic bouts of stress.
2 Exceptions: Research has shown that filing all day in a dark room may cause a Vitamin D deficiency that can lead to momentary lapses in judgment.
3 Exceptions: If it is Valentine’s Day and the love of my life has broken my heart and humiliated me in a public place, then the above is null and void and I may steal whatever I wish wherever I please.
Let’s rewind, shall we?
V-Day 11:30 A.M., Central Park West