The Girls I've Been(84)
I did not expect, once I got the box inched out of its slot enough to unlock it, to find gold tucked beneath an old copy of The Wind in the Willows. And not a bottle of tiny nuggets—we’re talking six 400-ounce bars of gold bullion.
Definitely enough reason to rob a bank. Over three million reasons, because that’s about how much this is worth, if the quick search on my phone is right.
Well, shit. I look over my shoulder, knowing that I’m on borrowed time. If I take too long to “get my birth certificate,” Olivia will come looking for me.
I’ve done the research: Howard Miles, the owner of the box, was a widower with no family and no heirs. So there was no one to give this to, no one who knew about it. Did Mr. Frayn steal the keys off the old man? Were they entrusted to him? I’m not about to ask, and I know Casey’s dad isn’t going to be talking anytime soon, if he has even remotely decent lawyers. It doesn’t matter, in the long run. I have the keys now.
A prickle runs down my spine, and the temptation; oh, the temptation . . .
Money enables you to run, if you have to. And it gives you a chance to fight back, if you choose to.
My fingers curl around the box. Who am I kidding? Isn’t this why I brought my messenger bag? Isn’t this the reason I didn’t tell anyone I had the keys? Wes wouldn’t like it. Iris . . . well, I’m not sure where she’d fall. We’re more alike than you know. Would she understand?
This isn’t about satisfying my curiosity. This is about being who I truly am: a girl who finds a way through everything thrown at her.
So I take two of the bars. I don’t take all of them, only because it’d be too heavy, not because I’m struck with some sort of moral fortitude. I slip the gold and the book right into my bag, and shove the box back into its slot in the wall, locking it shut. Safe and away, no one knowing any better, and only me with the key. By the time Olivia’s footsteps come clicking down the stairs again, I’m already on the other side of the steel bars with the birth certificate I brought from home clutched to my chest.
“You’re the best,” I tell her gratefully, and she smiles again. “If I somehow get this scholarship, I owe you dinner.”
“I’m glad I could help. After the last week and a half, I think we could all use a little break from the universe.”
“I’ll say.” And I just got one.
I follow her up the stairs, keeping my shoulders straight beneath the added weight in my bag.
“Thanks again,” I tell her, and she waves at me as she walks back to sit behind her desk . . . and I stroll right out of the bank with the biggest score of my life, just like that.
My hands don’t start shaking until I’m driving out of the parking lot, but I press harder on the gas, speeding down the long, straight stretch of ranchland highway, moving forward.
Already, the plan is solidifying in my mind.
Step one: Book a flight.
Step two: Throw down the gauntlet.
Step three: Survive, somehow.
— 67 —
August 25 (17 days free)
1 long blond wig with bangs, 1 vintage plaid skirt, 1 black cashmere cardigan, a truly impressive array of makeup
Iris’s fingers card through hair that isn’t mine. I can feel the pressure through the wig cap. She bends down so she’s at eye level with me, pursing her lips as she tugs at the back of it, straightening it just a little.
Then she steps back. Comb tapping against her arm, she examines her handiwork.
We’ve waited for my face to heal up, and now my stomach is spiky with nerves, like when I asked her to help me with this. Now I don’t want to turn around and see my reflection in the mirror. I haven’t looked like this since I was twelve. No—I haven’t looked like this ever. The almost-grown-up version of the girls never walked the world, and now I’m looking at Iris, expectant, instead of in the mirror.
“Well?”
“Truth?”
I lick my lips and then make a face, because lip gloss is sticky, and I don’t like it when it’s on my lips and not just rubbed off from hers. “Yeah.”
“I like your short hair. And your T-shirts and boots. You look really weird right now. Well, no, not weird. Just . . . not like you. At all. Actually, you look a lot like Brigitte Bardot.”
I would narrow my eyes at her, but I think the mascara might smear. “Who?”
She points to my right, at her collage of various classic film actresses and vintage fashion ads. Her mom could easily clue in on the whole Iris likes girls thing just by looking at her room, but straight people do really love to gal-pal us up rather than face the truth—even when it’s hung on the walls.
I look at the actress she’s pointing to, and then I turn, staring at myself in her vanity mirror.
All I see is my mother and memories. But before I can lose myself in the thorns that come with all that, Iris’s door jerks open.
“Iris, do you and Nora want—” Ms. Moulton comes into Iris’s room without knocking and comes to a dead stop when she sees us. “Oh.” She frowns at the sight of me. “Nora! You look . . .” She stops, completely thrown by the change. That’s good. I do not want to look like Nora when I go.
“I’m thinking of doing makeup and hair for the senior musical,” Iris says. “Nora said she’d be my guinea pig. Her sister has some wigs because of the PI thing. What do you think?”