The Storm King(24)
Anyway, the boutique. I shouldn’t have even looked through its windows, and going inside the place was totally insane.
Textbook self-destructive behavior, Karp will tell me if he ever reads this. Indicative of self-hatred. Serious comorbidity with depression. Dangerously habit forming. Total cliché.
Whatever it is, it happened. But let the record show that I didn’t do it for me. I did it for Mom.
Christmas is only a month away, and we’re a mess. The babies are so young that they barely even realize Dad’s gone, that Mom’s tired, that our food’s down to supermarket generics. Christmas is supposed to be magic for kids, but they don’t even know this, and maybe that’s the saddest part.
This time last year, I had a long wish list of fancy gifts, but I’m not one of those girls anymore. I don’t need to compete with everyone else, which is good, because I can’t.
No present’s worth Mom picking up another shift at the hospital. She works too hard already. For Christmas I wanted there to be at least one nice thing for her under the tree.
Me, Lindsay, and the Sarahs loved this boutique. Everything here’s delicate and expensive and made to be admired. I used to fit right in—you could have hung a price tag from my pinky finger and propped me in the corner. But that was before I learned that something fragile is just about begging to be crushed, and anything beautiful is asking to be defaced.
Everything in the shop still looks like it’d be at home in a Manhattan art gallery except Mrs. Sackett, who’d fit in better in some moldy Egyptian exhibit. The old bag’s on the phone when I come in, and I’m happy to slink right past her.
I try on a pair of huge sunglasses, pouting in the mirror like an actress. Part of me wishes Lindsay and the others would sashay in, all chittering like we all used to. They’d freeze when they saw me, and the silence in the little store would grow and fester and bloat until it became a physical thing.
My eyes are on my reflection, but my attention’s on my left hand as it drifts to a display of bracelets. My fingers creep along the smooth band of a silver cuff studded with amethyst. They slide through the cool metal, and just like that it’s sitting on my wrist, perched like a crown on my winter skin.
I play with the sunglasses awhile longer before moving to the pashminas, then get ready to stalk past Mrs. Sackett. The woman used to be one of Mom’s friends back in the days when they returned her calls.
I should have smiled at Mrs. Sackett, but my smile’s broken. I check in the mirror sometimes and it’s all edges. About as heartwarming as a chainsaw.
Would have been wasted anyway.
Sackett clears her throat. Lifts and injections have left the creature’s face a weird combo of puffed and taut, but she can still squint her eyes. Now they’re slitted with disgust and, I’m pretty sure, satisfaction. Those bracelets are hard to resist, aren’t they? she asks me.
Of course she’d been watching. Hoping for me to screw up.
Our family’s disgrace is the kind where no one’s worse to us than the people we used to think of as friends. A criminal, just like her father, Sackett will tell the vultures at the club.
Oh my gosh! Totally spaced, Mrs. Sackett! I tell her in the most convincing little girl voice I’ve got. That I’d stumbled home just before dawn and already smoked half a pack probably doesn’t help. I pull off the bracelet and put it on the counter.
Sackett the Hatchet. Lindsay came up with the nickname, and it fits the lady way better than the tops she wears.
What an airhead! the Hatchet says with a smile as fake as her tan. And then: Cash or credit?
Obviously, I’d planned to plea ditziness and return the bracelet. But of course the Hatchet’s not going to let me leave her store before milking this for every possible drop of drama. This is around when I realize how idiotic it was for me to come here. Even before the trial and settlement, I knew the woman was a beast. And now her boutique is the forbidden territory of a lost life. Might as well be marked with caution tape and hung with blinking red signs. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
Well? the Hatchet asks me again.
I’m not rich and popular anymore. Sometimes I think the only thing left of that girl is her pride. But the card I’d been an authorized user for was shredded months ago, and I doubt I’ve got more than ten dollars in my pocket.
I ask her how much it is.
Three fifty-nine ninety-nine, she tells me.
Crazy, right?
Not including tax, she can’t help adding. Surgeries have dulled the Hatchet’s expressions, but the glee in her eye is like neon.
I check and find out that my wallet holds all of seven singles.
If you can’t pay for it, I’m afraid I’ll have to call the police, she says. She lifts the phone’s receiver to her ear.
It really was an accident, I tell her.
We should probably leave that to the authorities, she says. I’m sure the security footage will help, she tells me.
Getting picked up for shoplifting won’t be the worst thing to happen to me—not even close—still, something about this really hits me. Like being carted to the police station will prove how far I’ve fallen and trash any hope of recovery.
I’ve got to admit, begging for mercy occurs to me. I could throw myself to the floor and grovel like a dog. But that’d give this town exactly what it wants. They want me on my knees just to kick me in the face.