Frenemy of the People

by Nora Olsen

  Probably the right thing to do was to hide. The police were on the way. Hopefully. If Desi had talked to them. What was I doing down here anyway? I should be cowering in the bathroom with Desi, explaining things to the police. This guy could be dangerous.

  But I found myself getting more and more angry. Who the hell was this guy to walk around my kitchen, acting like he owned the place? My anger was at war with my fear, and I wanted anger to win. It was a strong emotion that could lift me up like a wave bearing a surfer. Fear was like one of the rubber hammers in Wack-A-Mole; it would slam me on the head. I didn’t like the fear.

  I stepped into the kitchen, feeling strange and exposed, my bare feet cold on the marble floor. I opened my mouth to shout and confront him.

  “Excuse me?” was what came out of my mouth in a squeak. Better than nothing.

  The man whirled and smiled at me. “Hi, girlie,” he said. “I didn’t know you were home.”

  “What are you doing in my house? Get out!” My voice was still quavering.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. I’m from the bank.” He stepped right past me like I wasn’t there and into the living room, leaving a cloying scent of cologne. I followed him. He was taking pictures again.

  “No, get the hell out of my house,” I insisted. “I’m not kidding. My parents aren’t home and I didn’t let you in. You’re trespassing.”

  He paid no attention to me, starting for the stairs. Should I pull his sleeve, tackle him?

  Just then I heard a car pull up outside and a door slam. A voice shouted, “Police!” The door burst open and a short police officer ran in, pivoting all around with her gun held in two hands. I threw my arms up in the air. I pictured being shot to death in my own living room. The intruder froze on the staircase.

  The officer put her gun down and stuck it in the holster. “Gibbons, get out of here,” she said to the intruder. A second cop came through the door, also lowering his gun.

  “You’ve got children terrified,” the first cop said. She was a petite, light-skinned woman with a hard face and a mass of black hair pinned under her cap. “If I catch you at this again, I’m going to take you in on charges of trespassing and endangerment and whatever else I can think of.”

  The man in the sport coat trotted down the stairs, his demeanor still casual. He sneered at me as he breezed over to the door.

  “You’re wasting police resources,” the second cop told him. He was a brawny African American man, very tall. Both police officers looked like extras from a movie, one of those buddy cop movies.

  I realized I was shaking. “Thank you. Who was that guy?” I asked.

  “His name is Gibbons,” the man cop said. “We get calls about him all the time. He sneaks into people’s homes when they’re being foreclosed. Banks hire him to do it. Sometimes he says he’s a plumber who’s come to fix the sink, sometimes he just walks in. Where are your parents, hon?”

  “They’re out. They had an appointment at the bank.”

  The man cop snorted. He was writing something in his book. “I bet he knew that. Are you the one who called?”

  “No, that was my sister. Oh my God, Desi. Will you guys come upstairs with me, please, and tell her everything’s okay? She must be freaking out.”

  The woman cop’s radio squawked. “You go,” she said. “I’ll be in the car.”

  The cop followed me up the stairs. I was embarrassed for a second to have him in my messy bedroom, but then I figured he was probably used to crack houses and stuff like that.

  I could hear Desi crying in the bathroom.

  “Des, everything’s okay. The cops are here and they chased the man away. Everything’s okay now. Let me in.”

  A pause, and then Desi opened the door. Her face was a mess, covered in tears and snot. I felt like my heart would break. I had seen Desi fake cry and throw a tantrum so often, but I had rarely seen her cry for real. We hugged and rocked back and forth. Then I pulled a tissue from the box I kept on the back of the toilet and handed it to Desi. “Blow,” I said, like we were children again.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” the cop told Desi. I felt reassured too. His voice and easy manner carried security. “That man is gone. And he wasn’t dangerous anyway. He is just a nuisance, you understand me?”

  Desi nodded.

  “He was investigating for the bank, getting pictures of the house, seeing how much everything is worth, and also trying to intimidate your family. But he wasn’t going to hurt you. You’re safe. You people should lock your doors, though. You leave them open, and someone like that will just pop inside. Now I need one of you to sign this form, says why we were here. Are you eighteen?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sixteen. My sister’s twenty-one.”

  The cop pushed back his hat to scratch his head. “Why don’t you both sign it for good measure,” he said. I handed it to Desi first because she wrote big, and then squeezed my own tiny signature under it.

  “That’s fine,” the man said. “Now, miss, what’s your name?”

  “Desiree Kirchendorfer.”

  “That’s a mouthful. Now, Desiree, you were very brave, but I want to ask you something. What’s your address?”

  “Nineteen Bluebird of Happiness Court, Poughquag, New York,” Desi recited. If I didn’t already know, I would never have understood what she was saying.

  “That’s a mouthful too. You did a great job on the phone explaining everything. That was good. Gibbons probably won’t come back, but if he does, next time you call 9-1-1, try to remember your address. It takes a while to trace the call. Although I guess you guys are probably moving soon. But when you do, learn your address right away.”

  I felt a chill at the assured way he said we would be moving soon. It seemed like everyone understood what was going on except me. On the heels of that, I was obscurely embarrassed that Desi had forgotten our address. I remembered when we were small, Mom drilled Desi over and over with our old address in case she ever got lost. I hated when Desi didn’t put her best foot forward and show how smart she was. This cop would go away thinking she wasn’t capable.

  “She knows our address,” I told the cop. “She probably just got nervous.”

  “Yes, I was very nervous,” Desi echoed.

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “You did the right thing calling us, even though that man is nothing but a pest. I just want to coach Desiree here. Are you girls going to be all right until your parents come home?”

  We nodded. I thanked him again.

  Des and I called Mom and then watched TV under the same blanket until our parents got back. We ended up eating all the snacks in the house.

  Chapter Ten

  Lexie

  When I sat next to Desi Kirchendorfer in the cafeteria on Monday, it had nothing to do with the fact that I was not falling in love with her sister. I had barely thought of Clarissa all weekend, except to congratulate myself on not thinking about her.

  No, I actually sat at that table a lot. In my mind, it was kind of like Switzerland. A lone kingdom of neutrality. You didn’t have to talk. No one was rude to each other or snubbed each other at this table. No particular kind of student sat there. It didn’t cause comment if a mixture of black, white, Latino, and Asian students sat there, because it was a nonaligned table.

  The only people there were Desi and a boy I didn’t know, reading a book. The idea of someone reading was sort of intriguing. Then I caught a glimpse of the cover. It was The Scarlet Letter. Homework, then. No one would ever read that book for fun. Nothing to get excited about here.

  “Hi, Lexie,” said Desi. “Do you have any ideas for me about my campaign?”

  “Yeah, I think you need to get a few key endorsements. The way a new product will get celebrities to endorse it, you know? I think that will influence other people to want to vote for you. I’m working on a list of people I think you and Clarissa should approach.”

  “Will you talk to them too?” Desi asked.

  “No. T
hat would be counterproductive. I’m the brains behind the operation. Also, I think you should go tell your guidance counselor about it. Get school support. Get all this machinery working for you.”

  Desi looked puzzled at the reference to machinery but nodded. “I already told her. She’s very enthusiastic.”

  Robert Gelisano, better known as Slobberin’ Robert, sat down at the table with his tray. He nodded vaguely to everyone at the table and a long curl of black hair fell into his eye. He tossed it out of the way in a move that would have looked better on a horse. Horse. Clarissa liked horses. No! No thinking about Clarissa, I told myself sternly.

  Slobberin’ Robert was a bit of an enigma to me. If he turned out to be a serial killer, I couldn’t in good conscience say he was the last person I ever would have suspected. Although his scarecrow-like body seemed poorly assembled, he had natural athletic ability and was good at sports, so sporty gym-rat types liked him. He also did a lot of drugs, so he fit in well with the druggy crowd. So far these habits did not interfere with his budding sports career, or with being religious, so he got along well with the God-loving types, who were a small but influential subset of the student body. He wore big plug earrings, so he got along well with other students who wore big plug earrings. And he was half-Dominican and half-Italian, so he straddled racial divisions too. The closest I could come to classifying him was as a class clown with a dark view of life.

  “Lexie, how’s it hanging?” he asked.

  “Heavy, Slobbo, hanging heavy,” I said. “In what movie does the main character saw off his own arm?”

  “Too easy,” he said. “That would be The Evil Dead.”

  “Oh really?”

  He furrowed his brow, now uncertain. “Yes,” he said unconvincingly.

  “It was Evil Dead II,” I said.

  He hit himself on his forehead. “D’oh!”

  What I principally liked about Slobberin’ Robert was his immense knowledge of classic movie and TV trivia. What I principally didn’t like about him was he seemed to have a fundamental lack of connection to all of humanity, which even my misanthropic self found chilling. Last year he dated Clarissa, so clearly she had been able to penetrate his defenses and—

  No. Stop. No thinking about Clarissa. She couldn’t penetrate anything.

  “I don’t understand this game,” Desi said.

  “You have to think of a movie,” Slobberin’ Robert said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Have you thought of one?” he asked.

  “No. Wait, give me a minute.”

  I chewed my sandwich and didn’t think about Clarissa while Desi was picking a movie. Why Clarissa? It made no sense. Surely I could stop this in its tracks.

  “Okay, I thought of one,” Desi said.

  “Now what you have to do is think of a question. No. How do I explain this?” asked Slobberin’ Robert. He seemed quite stoned. I wondered what it would be like to be stoned at school. Not that I’ve ever done drugs, and I hadn’t drunk alcohol in over a year, since I became straight edge.

  “You want us to guess what movie it is,” I said. “So you ask us a question like, in what movie did so and so happen? But don’t say the name of the movie.”

  “Okay,” said Desi. “In what movie is about a high school musical?”

  “I’ll let you field this one,” I said.

  “High School Musical?” asked Slobberin’ Robert gravely.

  “Oh really?” said Desi.

  “Yes.”

  “So sad. You’re wrong. It was High School Musical 2.”

  I cracked up. Everyone broke up laughing, even the guy reading The Scarlet Letter. A pleasant warmth permeated my middle. It reminded me of how good it felt to write my mom’s essay about me. I liked this feeling of being included with everyone, kidding around casually. I couldn’t remember the last time this had happened. Maybe I could have a misfit group of friends—it would be a heartwarming story: the punk rock lesbian, the girl with Down syndrome, the weird guy, and some guy doing his homework.

  “Scummy bear?” Slobberin’ Robert asked, bringing out a package of gummy bears.

  “I’m a vegan,” I said. “I can’t eat those because they have gelatin in them. Gelatin is made of horses’ hooves.” Horses. Clarissa. No!

  “Not these.” He rattled the box at me, and I saw at the top it said, No Gelatin. Vegan.

  “I love gummy bears,” said Desi. She took a handful. I took some, and then Slobberin’ Robert offered them to Scarlet Letter, who said, “Thanks, man.”

  As soon as I tasted them, I realized they had been soaked in vodka. I had known kids used gummy bears as a delivery system for alcohol so they could drink in school. But I hadn’t put it together. Probably the vegan gummy bears soaked up the alcohol better so they could become more saturated. I subtly spit them out in my napkin and no one saw.

  I wondered if Desi knew she was having alcohol. It could be like a gateway bear for her. I thought about warning her, but then I remembered Clarissa saying Desi was just a regular person and she could do anything. And regular high school students drank, right?

  “In what movie is there a terminator?” Slobberin’ Robert asked.

  “The Terminator?”

  “No. Terminator 2!” Slobberin’ Robert said.

  “In what movie are there a hundred and one Dalmatians?” I asked.

  “101 Dalmatians?”

  “No. 101 Dalmatians II!”

  “That’s wrong!” protested Slobberin’ Robert. “That was straight to video. The real movie was called 102 Dalmatians.”

  “That’s such a stupid name,” said Scarlet Letter.

  “I know,” I said. “Also, 101 Dalmatians was based on a book by Dodie Smith, and she wrote a perfectly good sequel called The Starlight Barking, but they didn’t even bother to use it. It’s a travesty.”

  The other three at the table just stared at me, whether in respect, deep puzzlement, or drunkenness I never found out, because just then, my inamorata Clarissa arrived at the table. I had to admit, Clarissa was actually quite good-looking. Nice legs especially. She was wearing her long brown hair down today. And look, her cute little arched eyebrows.

  Her eyebrows did not stay cute for long. The little arches squinched together, and her flawless forehead furrowed. “Des, what are you eating?”

  “Gummy bears,” Desi said defensively. “I’m not on a diet. I can eat whatever I want.”

  “Yeah, but you cannot eat gummy bears soaked in alcohol!” She batted them out of Desi’s hand.

  “Keep it down, Clariss. Viscount is here,” Slobberin’ Robert said. The vice principal liked to patrol the cafeteria.

  “I can’t believe this,” Clarissa said, completely ignoring Slobberin’ Robert and turning on me. “I thought you were better than this. How could you do this to my sister? Just so you know, I am not going to friend you on Facebook.”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything. They’re his bears,” I said, completely throwing Slobberin’ Robert under the bus.

  “I don’t expect anything else from him,” she said, her blazing eyes locked on mine. It was kind of sexy except she was so angry. “C’mon, Des. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going with you,” Desi said. “I’m staying right here. You are not the boss of me. I can do what I want. Stop trying to ruin my life!”

  Completely contradicting what she had said about staying right here, she thundered away from the table. Then she realized she had forgotten her backpack and came back to get it as dramatically as possible. Clarissa sighed and stalked after her.

  Viscount cruised by the table, frowning. Slobberin’ Robert tucked the gummy bears into the pouch of his hoodie.

  “I thought this was supposed to be the calm, no-drama table,” commented Scarlet Letter.

  No one answered him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Clarissa

  After school I drove to the stable and asked Mrs. Astin if she would give me a job. It just seemed like if my famil
y was flat broke I should get a job, so I could pay for my own shampoo and clothes. And maybe help out by giving my parents money, if that wouldn’t piss them off and I didn’t spend all the money on myself. Mrs. Astin said I could start right away mucking out the stables, feeding the horses, and cleaning the paddocks. Later on maybe I could help with lessons. She said I would get eight dollars an hour in cash to start, and after three months she would give me a raise. She told me to use a wheel barrel to clean the stalls, and I managed to keep my mouth shut and not say it was called a wheelbarrow, not barrel.

  There wasn’t any good horse-manure-shoveling music on my iPod. Luckily, shoveling horse manure was not as smelly as I had expected. I shoveled it into the wheelbarrow, then rolled it up a ramp and out a door I’d never even noticed before. I kept thinking about my favorite book when I was a kid, A Little Princess. In that book, Sara Crewe had been the richest girl in the school until her father died and left her penniless. Then the mean headmistress Miss Minchin made Sara go live in the attic and work as a scullery maid.

  I told myself not to be dramatic. Outside the door a Dumpster awaited me. The only problem was the Dumpster was already filled to the brim with poop, so it was hard to dump my load of horse poop inside. I had to tip the wheelbarrow and then spread the poop around with my shovel, like icing a really disgusting cake, so it didn’t fall back out at me.

  Next on the agenda was an area I had rarely visited. Mrs. Astin had a small petting zoo where kids could have birthday parties. The goats and sheep in the petting zoo had sawdust for their bedding instead of straw, and the sawdust was soaked in pee and much smellier than horse poop. I didn’t enjoy this part. But I decided, on the whole, the job was okay. Mrs. Astin was nice, and I was proud I was helping my family with the sweat of my brow. Maybe I could even save a little toward college if only I could stop buying expensive lattes at Starbucks.

  The worst part about working at the stables was seeing Sassy. I gave Sassy an apple and talked to her, but it made me feel like a red-hot band had been put around my heart and then tightened until it was close to bursting. I wondered how long it would be before someone bought her, and if they would board her here. What would it be like to watch some other girl take riding lessons on her?