Stealing Heaven

by Elizabeth Scott

  Not that I’m very good at making them. Distractions, I mean. Mom is, but that’s because she’s gorgeous. She’s got really dark hair that always looks perfect and she has lots of curves. I’m like a very pale copy of her, my hair not as dark or as shiny, my curves a lot less curvy.

  I look over at her. We’re back in the car now because she’s decided we’re going shopping. She’s singing along with the radio as we drive through a mall parking lot. I wonder what she looked like when she was eighteen. She probably caused car wrecks.

  “What did you look like when you were my age?”

  “What?” she says, distracted as she waves to someone who is—of course—letting her take his parking space.

  “Nothing,” I mutter. “I just wish I was pretty.”

  “Oh baby,” Mom says. “You are pretty.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are.” Mom pulls into the parking space, turns off the car.

  “I’m not.”

  “Danielle,” Mom says, and I can tell she’s angry. She never uses my name unless she’s angry. “Will you please ask yourself if this is what we want to be doing right now?”

  “It’s what I want to do right now.”

  “Fine,” Mom says, and looks at me. “Are you pretty right now? No, because what you are right now is a pain in the ass.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Look, we’re here to go shopping. There are things we need to get.” She reaches over and gently nudges my arm. “New clothes for someone…”

  “So I’ll be a pain in the ass in new clothes.”

  “Baby, quit it. We’re gonna go in there”—she points at the mall—“and you’re gonna be able to get whatever you want. What’s better than that?” She opens her car door. “Come on. Anything you want.”

  “All right.” I sigh and get out of the car. Mom grins at me and loops her arm through mine as we walk.

  When we’re done at the mall we hit the road again, the latest and greatest from the magazines Mom read earlier stashed in the trunk. Traffic is awful, and I look out the window, watch as we slowly pass a convenience store and a strip mall. An apartment complex is next, then a church of some kind. It has a sign that asks, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?

  Mom snorts at that. “Anything I can hold in my hands. No, better yet, anything I can sell.” It’s what she always says when we pass signs like this. I look over at her and she winks at me.

  I wink back and she smiles, pats my knee. “So how do you feel about the beach?”

  My mother tells people she’s sorry all the time. She never means it, of course. But this, this hint of what’s to come—I know what it means. It’s a little gift from her to me, a way to make up for calling me a pain in the ass before, and I smile back at her.

  “It sounds good,” I tell her. “It sounds great.”

  4

  Now I know people think that thieves, when they hear the word “beach,” head straight for Long Island or Cape Cod or Newport, but the thing is, those places are where the police expect you to go and so—well, it’s obvious, right?

  Plus the rich—the real rich, the rich that have had money for so long they’d probably bleed gold if you cut them—they have other places by the sea. Out of the way places. Places like Heaven.

  I laugh when Mom passes me a map and taps a finger against it because places called Heaven are usually filled with boarded-up houses or worse, dippy types who own bed-and-breakfasts adored by other dips.

  “I know,” she says with a smile, “but trust me. This place will live up to its name. I can feel it.”

  She always can.

  We pass through a tiny town called West Hill and then reach the beach. It’s much smaller than I thought it would be: one public beach, a couple of private ones, and a one-street tourist strip filled with local places. There isn’t even one chain restaurant. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m used to beach towns full of sprawl and noise and places to hide.

  I look over at Mom. She’s grinning. “Hard to believe places like this are still around. And just wait, it’ll get better.”

  I sure hope so because the beach houses we’ve passed are very small and obviously rentals. We drive down a bunch of narrow roads—a good sign—pass a few more tiny houses and a volunteer fire department, and then turn a corner. The second we do, I hear Mom suck in a breath.

  In front of us is a wide, green, and very well-kept lawn, the gentle slope of a hill. At the top of the hill, hidden by landscaped boulders and trees, is a house. An old house. A huge house. Our kind of house.

  There’s lots more of them. We pass a country club with a very small and tasteful sign, the kind of place that is definitely never open to the public, and then there are homes everywhere, all very old and very well preserved. Every single one is worth a second look, and then we are winding our way down into another town.

  Heaven, a cutesy but not tacky sign proclaims, and though there’s another tourist strip—even smaller than the first one we passed, and definitely more moneyed—the main attraction is the houses. We must pass a dozen, each one larger and older than the one before, and all of them practically screaming, “Money! Lots of money!”

  “Wow,” I say, and Mom laughs, smacks the steering wheel with one hand.

  “This is even better than I thought it would be. It’s…” She pauses, stares at a huge house perched on a cliff right by the ocean. “This is perfect. Hell, we won’t even have to run title searches. These places…” She slows down as we drive by another home.

  It’s three stories, probably at least twenty-five rooms, and sits just waiting for us, the security gate propped open with a brick. A brick! On the lawn three blond children run around shrieking while a tired-looking Asian woman sits in the grass watching them. Two older kids climb into a huge sports utility vehicle and barely miss a group of cleaning people as they drive off.

  And what are the cleaning people doing outside? Standing around a table that’s clearly been set up for a party. And they’re polishing silver. A whole tableful of it.

  “Oh baby,” Mom says. “We’re going to be very happy here.”

  There’s an inn in Heaven, but it’s smack in the middle of the tiny tourist strip and way too obvious. We drive back to West Hill and Mom finds two real estate offices. She picks the second one because it’s a little shabby-looking, the kind of place where they’re more than happy to take your money without asking many questions.

  I take a walk while she’s doing her thing and she finds me as I’m heading back to the car. “This town really is small,” she says with a slight frown, and I nod. It is, and that’s a definite downside to being here because if Mom asks me to meet anyone, avoiding them when it’s time to drop out of sight could be a problem.

  “Still, there’s lots of summer people here,” she says, “so that’ll be a help. New faces around all the time and everything. Plus, we’re all set to move in.” She waves a set of keys at me.

  The house she’s gotten us is outside West Hill, on the edge of a much poorer town. This is the kind of place I know well, the kind of place where people keep to themselves and keep their mouths shut.

  The house is okay, I guess. It’s furnished, but everything is old and crappy-looking. And the bathrooms are awful: one is bright green, and the other is, for some bizarre reason, dark pink.

  “Ugh,” I say, and close the pink bathroom door.

  “We’ll move somewhere nicer soon,” Mom says. “But for now, while we’re getting a feel for the place, this is good. Plus I got a great deal.”

  “How great?”

  Mom grins and tells me about Sharon, the person she talked to at the real estate office. Sharon was desperate, an overworked woman with three kids, two divorces, and a—Mom makes a drinking motion.

  “Didn’t even look at the paperwork I filled out,” she says. “I don’t think she noticed much of anything other than the fact I was willing to pay a month’s advance rent plus a security deposit in cash.” She chuckles.
“Plus she kept grousing about this other place, one that’s got ‘all the good beach rentals.’ So now we know where to go when it’s time for that.”

  We bring the rest of our stuff in—the important stuff—when it’s dark, and then celebrate by going to a nearby casino. Well, Mom celebrates by doing that. She says I should come, but I can tell from her face she needs to blow off some steam and I’ve seen her making out with guys she’s just met plenty of times. I drive her out there, tell her to be careful.

  “Baby, I always am,” she says, and kisses my cheek before sliding out of the car.

  I drive back and unpack everything, then realize there’s nothing to eat. Figures. Mom never thinks about stuff like that. We’ve each got ten pairs of new shoes from our earlier trip to the mall (we’ll have to ditch them at some point, but for now they’re all ours) but no food, no laundry detergent, and—after a check of the pink bathroom—no toilet paper.

  I drive around looking for a supermarket but don’t find one, just a bunch of bars. So I head back into West Hill and go to the one supermarket, which is just past a weird traffic circle thing that marks the middle of town.

  It doesn’t take long to get everything. Mom eats nothing but frozen food for whatever diet is currently popular, never mind that it’s full of chemicals that will preserve her from the inside out, so getting her stuff is easy. I grab some real food for myself and then stop at the seafood case and look at the shrimp. I like shrimp but they really look gross. I didn’t realize they were gray before you cooked them.

  Plus, now that I think about it, I don’t have a pot to cook them in. I look over at the lobsters. They’re just sort of lying in a big display case of murky water, their claws bound with bright blue rubber bands.

  “They’ll steam one for you if you want.”

  I look over and see a guy standing next to me, motioning at the woman who’s working behind the counter. “You got any mussels back there?” he asks when she looks at him. She rolls her eyes but turns around and heads into the back.

  “Seriously,” he says after she goes, glancing over at me. “It doesn’t even take that long. And I know the guy who catches them, so I promise they’re good.”

  “Uh huh,” I say. A local. A local with bad hair, what was once a buzz cut grown out enough to be at the stage where it can’t be combed into any sort of style. It’s just sort of everywhere. He probably spends his free time sitting around drinking beer and plotting ways to date his cousins. I look back at the lobsters.

  “Okay, so I don’t really know who brings them in. I just feel bad for the guys. I mean, look at the water they’re stuck in. Who’d want to swim around in that all day?”

  I look over at him again. Nice green eyes. And I was just thinking the same thing about the lobsters myself. But still. “So why don’t you get one?”

  “I spent a summer working on a lobster boat once. Worst three months of my life. Haven’t touched one since.”

  “So you want me to eat one because you feel sorry for them? Or you want me to eat one because it’ll be payback for the worst three months of your life?”

  He grins at me. Nice smile too. “Both.”

  “Well, the next time I feel like wasting”—I look at the sign above them—“a whole lot of money, I’ll keep it in mind. Or not.” I turn my cart around, head toward the checkout.

  I hear him laugh, which surprises me, but I don’t bother to look back. Nice eyes, nice smile, but that hair? No way. Besides, guys just aren’t worth the trouble.

  5

  Mom doesn’t come home that night but she’s back in the morning, lying on the sofa with her eyes closed when I come downstairs. There’s a hickey on her neck. I pretend I don’t see it.

  “Hey, baby,” she says. “Taxis around here suck. Also, I really need some coffee. Why didn’t you buy any?”

  “Because we don’t have a coffeemaker.”

  “Oh.” She’s silent for a moment, then opens her eyes and gives me a big smile. “There’s a fifty in my bag upstairs. Take it and go get yourself some breakfast, okay?”

  “And coffee.”

  “And coffee,” she says, still smiling. Even after being up all night she looks great. Makeup, perfect. Hair, perfect. I don’t even want to think about what I look like right now. I go get the money, then grab the car keys and head for the door.

  There’s a donut place down the road, and I buy Mom a jelly and a plain plus a large coffee. I buy a cream-filled donut for myself.

  “Another coffee?” the woman working the counter asks.

  I’ve never been able to drink coffee. It smells great but that’s all it’s got going for it.

  “Can I get a soda?”

  The woman laughs until she realizes I’m serious. After that I’m sent to a display case by the wall, and have to grab a soda while everyone watches me. Great job fitting in. I’m glad Mom isn’t here to see this. Next time I’ll order orange juice or something.

  When I get back, Mom is still lying down, but she sits up as soon as I come in, coughing a little and eyeing the coffee like it’s made of gold. I think the hickey has gotten even bigger while I’ve been gone.

  “Here,” I say, and pass her the coffee and donuts.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  She sighs. “It’s just a hickey, baby. You shouldn’t be so uptight. You’re young, have some fun once in a while.”

  “Mom.”

  “Oh, right,” she says, and rolls her eyes at me. “I forgot how you are.”

  “Drink your coffee,” I tell her, and nudge the donut bag with a finger. “I got you something to eat too.”

  “My favorites!” she says, and grins at me. We eat on the sofa and I listen while Mom talks about what she did last night. She liked the casino, tells me it was new-looking and very large. “So many people!” she says. “I had a great time.”

  “So how much money did you lose?” I ask, and she laughs, rolls her eyes at me.

  “Oh, everything we had, of course.”

  Mom would never do that. She isn’t Dad’s biggest fan—he’s the one person who ever really hurt her—but she will admit he taught her one useful thing: Don’t waste money on things you can’t win at/don’t need. A lot of people like us do drugs or take expensive vacations or buy luxury cars. Conspicuous things.

  We don’t do that. We buy sensible cars, neutral-colored midsize sedans that blend in. We don’t go anywhere expensive unless it’s for a job—the rest of the time it’s crappy apartments, hotels, or houses. And while Mom hasn’t ever told me not to do drugs—she’s just not like that—she’s never had anything nice to say about people who do what we do and use. She says drugs make you sloppy, that they ruin what’s best about what we do, the moment we’re inside a place we shouldn’t be and are holding things that aren’t ours. She says there’s no rush like it.

  I’ve never felt it. I’ve never told her that. I don’t want her to be disappointed in me.

  “So…” I say, and point at her neck. “What did happen?”

  It turns out she met an architect, a local guy who renovates houses. “And not just any houses,” she says. “Our kind of houses. I spent a lot of time with him. He said the people around here, the rich ones down in Heaven, are pains in the asses.”

  I finish my donut and drink some soda. “What’s his name?”

  Mom looks blank for a second. “Richard? No, no. Robert. Nice guy. Very sweet. Good kisser.” She laughs when I blush. “He told me a bunch of stories—gossip, mostly—but a few of them…”

  “A few of them what?” I say, just like I’m supposed to, and Mom grins.

  “Okay, get this. He said at the job he just finished, the people were so insistent on having a certain kind of molding put in that even though ripping the old molding out screwed up the security system, they didn’t care. Plus, he has a brother—no, wait, a cousin—who does most of the alarm systems around here. The big companies use him as a contractor because it costs too
much to have an entire office here. I saw his card…”

  She leans over and fishes around in her purse, pulls out a wallet that isn’t hers, and starts looking through it. “Here it is. It’s a definite—”

  “Is that his wallet?” I shouldn’t be surprised but I am, a little. She does stuff like this all the time and I don’t get it. She just said the guy was nice. Sweet, even. But she took his wallet. She didn’t have to, didn’t need to—but she did anyway.

  “What?” she says, still distracted by the business card. “Oh baby, it was nothing. I flushed the credit cards before I left so he won’t have to worry about some jerk getting them. All I got was stuff we need. People we might have to contact. Plus—” She shows me a fistful of bills. “Not too bad, right? And now we can go shopping, get a coffeemaker so you don’t have to go out every morning. After all, I gotta look out for you, don’t I?”

  “Sure,” I say, and watch Mom fold the bills away. The guy probably has a ton of money and, just like Mom said, it’s not like we’re going to use his credit cards. Plus I really don’t want to have to go out and get coffee every morning. So it’s really not that bad, all things considered. Right?

  I never really even thought about stuff like this until I was thirteen and we robbed a rich old lady who lived in a huge house in upstate New York. We cleaned out all the silver she had, made enough to go to Manhattan and shop for two weeks. The day before we left the city, I was reading the paper and ran across an article about the robbery. The old lady wasn’t as rich as we’d thought, had sold her house to pay back taxes her husband owed and gotten rid of her insurance policy on the silver because she couldn’t afford it and was planning on selling the silver anyway.