by Thea Thomas
“You don’t know? Aren’t you worried about him?”
“He can take care of himself. He knows what he’s doing. He’s at a... what’s it called, crossroads. It’s his journey. He’s in God’s hands.”
“Well, I’m worried about him.” I have no idea what made me so strong that I could carry on this confrontational conversation with his mother. But I was strong.
“Then you should go find him. If you are meant to find him, you will.” With that, she closed the door and threw the lock.
I stood there disappointed and confused for a few moments and the I realized that of course I knew where he was. I just had no idea how to get there.
I walked slowly back to my apartment, trying to sort out how to make the next move. Inside, the place was very quiet. Mom left a note on the entryway table.
“Getting some groceries. Be back soon.”
Something came over me that I had never felt before. I opened the drawer and pulled out the extra set of Mom’s car’s keys. I dug in my wallet to make sure I had the driver’s license I got in the summer just before we moved here and that I had almost never had the opportunity to use. There it was, just waiting, it seemed, for this moment.
I slipped out the door and crept down the hall to the stairs, then flew down the seven flights of stairs. The stairs came out beside the elevators, and beside the doorway from the stairs was a back door to the parking structure. Just a quick turn out one door and through the other – I prayed that Homer was facing the street.
At the bottom of the stairs I paused, caught my breath. If Homer saw me, I wasted to seem calm. It’d be enough to have to explain why I took the stairs. Just exercising, Homer.
I opened the door, stepped out. Homer had his back to me talking to the tiny woman with the yippy dog I’d seen – and heard – every now and then. Homer was trying to be heard over the dog’s shrill noise. I stepped through the back door, ran into the parking structure, fumbled with the keys, dropped them. picked them up. Got in the car, started it and then asked my self, “What do you think you’re doing, Nikki?”
But I didn’t have time to answer. I had to move, or I would lose courage. Or whatever this weird emotion was that made me suddenly act completely out of character.
I had never, ever, ever done anything even remotely like this in my life. When I we as little girl, a friend of mine said she was going to run away from home. She’d packed a little suitcase and everything. I couldn’t imagine how she could even think of doing such a thing. I asked her where she would go, what she was going to eat, where she would sleep, what her parents would think, they would be so worried.
And now I’d basically stolen my mother’s car and didn’t even leave her a note. Oh – I had really become crazy!
I was glad it wasn’t dark yet so I could get my bearings. I tried to remember exactly the route Mitch had driven when he took me to his underground hideaway. We’d started from the theatre about half-a-mile away. So I went to the theatre, and then worked out the same initial turns he took. I remembered that he then went quite a distance on a road that wasn’t very busy. So I followed what I thought he’d done.
About twenty minutes later, I saw familiar terrain, as the sun made its way below the western horizon. I pulled onto the grassy knoll, stopped the engine and gripped the steering wheel. Courage, Nikki, I told myself. You’ve come this far, don’t wimp out now!
I got out a flashlight and started to prowl around in the fast falling darkness. The place looked completely abandoned, not even Mitch’s car was there. I felt spooky. I knew I ought to text Mom, who was surely becoming alarmed. But I dare not stop. I had to find that rabbit hole in the earth before darkness fell completely. A loamy, earthy scent rose up from the damp ground, and a cool breeze buffeted around me. It made me feel as if I didn’t exist.
Then I almost fell into the hole before I saw it. Carefully I went down a couple of steps. It did not feel as though anyone was there, other than the two-dimensional Millie, on the billboard, eternally, gazing skyward.
I continued to the bottom of the stairs, the musty aroma rising up around me. I walked cautiously on the wooden sidewalk, the beam of my flashlight barely giving me enough light to see my next step. I came to the house Mitch had shown me before, and went up the steps, peered around in the foyer. But no Mitch. I began to wonder how I could have been so wrong about where he was. I knew I ought to turn around and hurry home.
But I couldn’t resist continuing, now that I was here. I followed the wooden sidewalk further into the underground Victorian Seattle, without any idea of how far the sidewalk might continue, without any idea if it was safe to walk on these ancient, damp planks. The sidewalk continued on, fading into an impenetrable darkness.
I passed a part of another house, and that was when I decided I really must turn back. That was also when I heard the soft-footed step of someone in the near distance. Fright ran through me like electricity. What if there was someone I didn’t know down here? It was entirely possible. Just because Mitch discovered this place didn’t mean others hadn’t.
I tried desperately to hold my breath and to make myself invisible, shrinking up against the wall of the house. How strange and unreal this whole situation! If anything happened to me, no one would ever find me until they discovered Mom’s car – if even then.
Whoever was walking on the sidewalk in the darkness was very nearly upon me. The strong beam of a high-powered flashlight played on the wooden sidewalk. The person walked at a slow, thoughtful pace, obviously not looking for young women to pounce upon. I honestly wanted to shriek like every high school girl in every horror movie. But I kept my silence, my heart pounding.
And then – I made out Mitch’s face in the faint, shadowed light, and the breath flowed from me audibly.
It was Mitch’s turn to be scared out of his wits – clearly not expecting any girls to pounce upon him. “What the... who is that?” He flashed the light in my eyes. “Dominique? What are you doing here?”
“Shopping for oranges,” I answered in a sudden fit of silly.
Mitch heaved a huge sigh. I couldn’t tell if it was a recouping equilibrium sigh, or a sigh of depression. “No oranges down here this time of year.” He walked up to me, but kept an uncomfortable distance between us.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” He seemed angry, and after the intense emotions I’d been going through all day, I was afraid I was dangerously close to bursting into tears.
“I’m here,” I answered in a little, quavery voice.
“Well, come on, let’s sit on the porch.”
We sat on the bottom step, Mitch still staying a couple of feet away. “Now tell me – why are you here?”
“I haven’t seen you in days. You don’t answer your phone, you don’t answer my texts. I don’t know why you’re hiding from me. I’m not angry with you, my parents aren’t angry with you. I know a lot has happened, and I can understand you need to spend some time alone. But don’t you know I’m going crazy not hearing anything, not knowing anything about you?”
Mitch shook his head, studying the wooden planks beneath his feet. “I don’t know what I thought, or what I thought you thought. I’ve just been trying to make my guilt go away. My mother needs me too, but I just can’t stay in that place right now. There’s so much you don’t know, that I don’t want you to know. Please, please – let it alone. Let’s at least keep the memory of that one perfect evening. My uncle, my family, my heritage are going to haunt me. I can’t get away from it. I can’t have a future apart from them, a future that’s moral and good. Crime is my birthright.”
“What incredible nonsense.” I moved closer to Mitch and took his hand. “You can be anything you want, you can do anything you want. I know you’re good. You’re not responsible for what your uncle did – no one holds you respo
nsible for what he did. You didn’t know your uncle committed a crime, so stop feeling guilty.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I felt my heart sink... I was about to hear something that would cause me worse pain yet.
“Please, Nikki, do not insist.”
“Well, I do insist, if it’s something that’s coming between us, you have to tell me.”
“I did know what my uncle had done. He’s been talking about hitting your apartment for months. He was going to do the job while the place was vacant. He didn’t know it’d been sublet, and he’d planned to do the job the first week you folks moved in. You see now what I’m trying to deal with? I knew he was going to rob you, and I didn’t do anything. I did return your ring, though. Boy, I thought he was going to come unhinged when he couldn’t find it, but I just couldn’t let him keep it when it meant so much to you.”
I felt my whole body tighten. Now I understood what Mom meant when she said she felt violated by the robbery. Here was this person who pretended to be interested in me, who pretended to be my friend. But he wasn’t. He was an accomplice to a crime.
Suddenly I was standing, although I didn’t know I’d moved, and my whole body trembled. “You knew and you didn’t do anything to stop it? How could you pretend to be a friend while knowing who had committed this horrible, invasive, crime? I thought you liked us, I thought you cared about me. Never mind me, I thought you respected my parents. But I guess you must really hate us, you must be jealous, because we’re a real family, and all you have is some abusive uncle you can’t get away from. That is, until the police came and took him away.”
I moved away from the porch. “I can’t believe it. Everything else I could handle, the robbery, the fact that it was your uncle who robbed us, that fact that you disappear and don’t even give me a call – all that I could take. But the idea of you laughing at us, when you’re an accomplice to a crime, it’s too much. Shame on you! Really, shame on you!” I had burst into tears, blinded with the pain of being so wrong about Mitch. Was I going to stay stupid all myI life, or did I just have to stay away from getting close to anyone?
I stumbled back up the sidewalk to the steps and climbed them as fast as I could, blinded by my tears, nearly tripping, finally gaining the outside world, now truly dark with night.
I climbed in the car and pulled onto the road, trying to see through my tears, pain, and anger. I knew that was dangerous behind the wheel, and not only that, I could soon get lost. I pulled into the first gas station I came to and got out my phone. I started a text to Mom, but I just couldn’t think, couldn’t decide what to say. I couldn’t say I was on my way home, because I didn’t want to be around them right now.
But I had to talk with someone. I felt I was about to explode. Then Alex popped into my mind. We’d become bantering, teasing pals at school, but maybe I could talk with him. I dialed his number.
“Hey, Nikki,” he said, all happy-sounding.
“Hi, Alex.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes.”
“I... I just need to talk with someone.”
“Well, come on over to the store and we’ll talk.”
“But, the store’s closed.”
“Guess what? I have a key. And I’ll have tea and cheese cake waiting for you.”
How wonderful was Alex? “But... I’m not at home. I’m... I don’t exactly know where I am, but it’ll be awhile before I can get there.”
“Strange. Where do you think you are?”
I told him the name of the gas station I was at.
“Oh! You’re right, that’s not close. What are you doing there? Never mind, we’ll talk when you get here. Come to the back and ring the buzzer.”
Then he told me a simple route to get back to territory I was familiar with. Twenty minutes later, I saw the “Zingas” sign with huge relief, parked on the street, went around to the back and pressed the buzzer. Alex let me in. Without a word, he led me to a little table with a steaming pot of tea and a huge slice of cheesecake. He’d only turned on a small light, and it all looked so cozy.
I sat. Alex poured me a cup of tea. “What’s up?”
“Well...”
“Wait. First, do you folks know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Call them.”
“Right.” I got out my phone and texted Mom’s phone. “Home soon. Dont worry.” I shut off my phone then looked across the table at Alex. He was completely attentive. No goofy little boy now, but a real, listening, good friend. “Thank you for... this, for talking to me. I just didn’t know who else to turn to. I can’t talk about this with my parents.”
Alex nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Since our place was robbed, I really haven’t been too upset about it. I don’t know if you know this part, but the other night the police learned who did it, and it was our neighbor. It was Mitch’s – my neighbor? – his uncle. I was okay with that, because I thought, you know, that Mitch couldn’t help what his uncle did. But then he disappeared.”
“Who disappeared?”
“Mitch. My neighbor. The boy next door. Anyway, I haven’t seen him or heard from him since the police came and arrested his uncle. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, I had to talk to him. I had to tell him that I didn’t hold him responsible for what his uncle did.
“Then I... I found him, and I told him I couldn’t be mad at him or hold him responsible for something he didn’t know about. I said that if he’d known his uncle was going to rob us, he would have told someone, so it wouldn’t happen.
“Then he...” Much to my chagrin, I burst into tears. “He told me he had known about it. That his uncle had planned to rip our apartment off for months, before we even moved in. He’d intended to do it when the place was vacant. Instead, he did it when we went away for the weekend.”
“That’s too bad,”Alex said. “You must feel like you’ve really been betrayed.”
“Yes! Betrayed.” I wished I could stop sobbing, but I just couldn’t. “I mean, Mitch and I went out to a movie last week end, and he took me to a hiding place of his and I thought we were so close, I thought we were sharing something beautiful and honest. But he was making a fool of me and my parents. That’s the part that makes me so angry. My dad was even going to help him get into college. No wonder he said his education was unorthodox. I guess being trained how to rob your neighbors blind and make them love you in the bargain is an unorthodox education, all right.
“And he acted so sweet. Really, he’s an incredible actor, saying he admired my family so much and wished he could be in a family like ours. But I think he was jealous and petty, and probably really hates us.”
“Hmm.” Alex said quietly. “You really believe he hates you?”
“Well, maybe not hate, exactly. But I think he wanted to hurt us because we have each other. He told me that he returned my grandmother’s ring to me. He snuck it away from his uncle and put it back in my jewelry box, like that’s supposed to make all the difference.”
“He brought back your grandmother’s ring? When did he do that?”
“The day after we came back from our weekend at the beach.”
“How would he do that? Wasn’t someone home then?”
“I don’t know how he did it. I suppose my Mom went out and did some shopping, I suppose he did it then.”
“Are you saying he has free access to your apartment?”
“So it would seem. I mean, they ripped us off without any sign of breaking and entering. That’s what the police were so mystified about. Eugh! I didn’t think about that until now. He has some kind of access to our apartment, doesn’t he?”
“Looks like
. Had you told him how much your grandmother’s ring means to you?”
“Well, ahm... no! That’s right, how would he even know it was my ring, or what it meant to me? There’s something very weird going on.”
“There are some unanswered questions. But let’s look at it. Yes, my Dad has some problems with Mitch’s family. But I know Mitch a little bit. I’ve chatted with him a few times here in the store. He always asks me about school. Anyway, he seems to have quite a lot going for him. I’m not saying it’s not possible that, under his veneer, he’s conniving and immoral. But it doesn’t fit with him taking you out on a date and returning your ring. If he hated your family and if he was supportive of his uncle’s heist... well, it just doesn’t fit together.
“He’s still a minor, and he’s living in his uncle’s home. His uncle really is kinda scary. Mitch may be frightened of him, especially if he feels he needs to protect his mother. And if that’s the case, he may have felt that he needed to protect his mother and also try to protect your family, too.
“But what if doing the one sacrificed doing the other? He’d choose his mother over a few items being taken from your apartment, don’t you think? Plus, he returned something to you that would be worth a lot of money to him. If he didn’t care about you, he would surely not return a small, easy to liquidate, valuable item.”Alex poured me some more tea, as I’d pretty much gulped the whole cup down – it made me feel so much more calm. Well, the tea and Alex’s soothing, logical voice.
“Tough spot to be in,” he went on. “I can understand his moral dilemma. But the biggest curiosity is how did he know the ring was yours, and how did he know it has such tremendous personal significance to you, if you didn’t tell him? And how did he return it without anyone knowing he did? I’d think you’d want those questions answered. Even if he actually is terrible, I wouldn’t want to alienate him until I knew more. Because it is decidedly all very odd.”