Crimes of the Sarahs (19 page)

“I was going to give the horse money to help out pit bulls. They’re so misunderstood,” I say.

“Like Robin Hood?” my mother asks. “Except with vicious dogs?”

She’s on her feet now, walking toward me. She probably wants to look me in the eye to confirm that I’m telling the truth.

“You acted alone?” she asks. “None of the other Sarahs were involved or influenced you in any way?”

I stare into her brown eyes. I don’t know what to say to make them happy. I turn away.

“I’m the only one in the picture, right?” I ask.

My mother puts her hands on my shoulders. She wants me to look at her. So I do.

“There will be consequences for your actions,” my mother says.

She squints and strengthens her hold on me. I can feel her weight. It’s heavier than my own guilt.

“I think she’s cleared it up,” Sarah A says. “She was trying to redistribute the money. She acted solo. She thought she was doing a noble thing. It makes sense to me.”

My mother turns and stares hard at Sarah A.

“I don’t feel like I’ve gotten the whole story,” she says.

Sarah A shrugs. “I know. It’s very surprising,” she says.

“The truth is sometimes hard to hear,” Mr. Aberdeen says.

“I find that the whole truth is rarely told,” my mother says.

“Sarah, do you still have the jar?” my father asks.

I look at Sarah A. Her bottom lip is thrust out, making her face appear dramatically sympathetic. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was oblivious to my crime. She looks that convincing.

“The jar is in my room,” I say.

“I think you know what you need to do,” my father says.

“Sarah, I can’t believe you did this.” My mom lets go of me and moves toward the edge of the room.

I walk down the hallway, wishing that my house had a back door and that I could throw it open and escape into the night and run and run and run. But I open my bedroom door and go to my closet instead. I can feel Sarah B and Sarah C watching me, but I don’t look at them. I fear eye contact with them could reduce me to a quivering mass of humiliation.

As I take the donation jar and return to the living room, I feel like I’m holding my own soul. It grows heavier with each step. When Mr. King sees me, he closes his eyes and shakes his head. And I stand there, holding the plastic box. Mr. King reaches out his arms. I give him the box and it feels like I’m handing over so much more.

“This is hard for me, too,” Mr. King says. “You’ve been an outstanding volunteer.”

I fold my arms across my chest and focus on not bawling in front of everyone. Right now, a mild flow of tears are all that I allow to escape.

Mr. Aberdeen and his wife both stand.

“I think it’s best if we take our daughter with us,” Mrs. Aberdeen says.

“Am I going home?” Sarah A asks.

“No. Vance is still there. We’ll put you up in a hotel,” Mr. Aberdeen says. “It’s just for a couple of nights.”

My mother releases me.

“Sarah, go to your room,” my mother says.

Her tone is flat and bitter.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

But it’s way too late for that. I glance at Mr. King. I can see the photo. Without a doubt, it’s my car. Clearly, I’m the driver. Nobody else is with me. I’m the only person in the frame.

I walk into my room. Sarah B’s face looks relaxed and relieved. She’s blowing a large bubble. It pops.

“Stress relief,” she says.

I nod.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Sarah C says.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“We’re still your friends,” Sarah C says.

I almost smile.

Why is it that it’s the backstabbing Sarah who’s always there to offer me the most public support?

Sarah B pops of series of bubbles that are so loud they sound like gunfire.

“We’re still friends too? Right?” I ask.

“Yeah, but it kind of depends on what happens next,” Sarah B says. “My dad probably won’t want me hanging out with you. Not after your confession.”

“You don’t seem upset about this at all,” I say.

“Well, the Tigers are having a great season. They’re the number one team. This never happens. Now I’ll be able to catch some games.”

“Baseball is more important than the Sarahs?” I ask.

Sarah B looks down at the ground. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I’m totally in love with Pudge.”

“Who’s Pudge?” I ask. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What about Gerard Truax?”

“Oh, I still like Gerard, but I love Ivan Rodriguez. His nickname is Pudge. He plays for the Tigers. He’s probably the best defensive catcher that ever lived.”

“How long have you loved him?” I ask.

She looks up at me, her face soft and dreamy. “All my life.”

“Did you know about this?” I ask, pointing at Sarah C.

“She didn’t exactly hide it,” Sarah C says.

“I’ve never even heard of this guy, and suddenly he’s more important than the Sarahs?” I ask.

“He’s the greatest,” Sarah B says.

“He’s a catcher?” I ask.

“He’s a very civic-minded player. He’s donated a lot of money and he started the Ivan Rodriguez Foundation. It helps kids with cancer and other diseases,” Sarah C says.

“He’s the best,” Sarah B says.

Things just aren’t quite making sense for me.

“So you’re out of here?” I ask.

Sarah B nods and gives me a quick hug and is gone.

“This will blow over,” Sarah C says.

“I don’t know. She seems really hung up on this catcher,” I say.

“No, the Pudge thing is a permanent fixation. I’m talking about the bigger picture, about getting caught for your crime.”

When she says the word “crime,” I feel stung.

She walks out of my room and I watch the back of her
head until she turns the corner and is gone. I feel weak. The Sarahs are finished. Sarah B has already moved on to new interests. My parents think I’m a criminal who commits unnecessary crimes to protect mean dogs. I lie on my bed and roll onto my stomach. I breathe into my pillow, warming it until the fabric around my face feels uncomfortably hot.

“You get to keep John Glenn.”

I look up.

Sarah A gathers her things from around the room.

“What?” I ask.

“Everyone thinks he’s yours now. Even Mr. King. So he is.” Sarah A’s face looks blank. I can’t tell what she’s feeling about all this. “You can put it on your college entrance essay. It’s my gift to you.”

“But my life is ruined,” I say.

“You’ll adapt,” she says. “That’s what you do, remember?”

“Adapt? My parents’ opinion of me has been destroyed,” I say.

“Okay. Let’s not overreact. Sooner or later, one of us was bound to get caught. Be honest with yourself. Are you really so surprised that it was you?” Sarah A asks.

“What?” I ask. “You think I deserved to get caught?”

I want to tell Sarah A that I am surprised. I never thought things could end this badly. My life feels wrecked.

“Your parents are going to keep you under lock and key
for a while. I mean, you got caught robbing a convenience store,” Sarah A says.

“But I did it for you,” I say.

My voice is trembling. Sarah stoops to pick up a pair of socks and lets out a frustrated sigh.

“You don’t believe that, do you? It’s like you’re disconnected from understanding your own personhood or something.”

She sympathetically shakes her head back and forth, looking at me like I’m a lost cause.

“Listen, you didn’t rob that store for me. You did it for yourself,” she says.

I wince. But I don’t deny it. I watch as Sarah A picks up three of my tank tops, wadding them into the giant ball of her own clothes.

“Don’t be like this,” she says.

I can barely see her face over the large bundle in her arms.

“Thanks for keeping the game under wraps. That’s really cool of you. That is something you did for us. But
I’m
not the reason why you took that jar. You drove to that 7-Eleven and ripped that jar off the counter because you wanted to be a Sarah. You did it for yourself.”

John Glenn follows her to the door, but she turns him away with her foot. And when he tries to inch toward her and the exit a second time, she forcefully uses her sandal to re-aim his head toward me.

“I don’t even like the way stealing makes me feel,” I say.

Sarah A tilts her head back and looks at my ceiling. She bites on her lower lip like she’s annoyed. “That’s something you probably should have addressed with yourself a long time ago.”

She opens the door.

“What about the guy phase? The future? Don’t you have anything else to say to me?”

“I think John Glenn peed on your carpet,” Sarah A says.

I turn and look. There’s a puddle near where he was laying, staining my throw rug a deep green. Considering my own bladder anxiety, this seems oddly appropriate. Not only do I have bathroom issues, I trigger them in dogs. Due to the drama, I forgot to walk him.

Sarah A flutters her fingers, drumming them against her wad of garments, halfheartedly waving good-bye. I push my face back into my own pillow. Why did I let her take my tank tops? I feel tears melting into my pillowcase. Why didn’t I disagree with anything she said? Suddenly, I can’t breathe. The pocket of air that I’ve been drawing on has run out. I turn my head and take a deep breath.

When I let it go, I’m surprised to feel sobs escaping from somewhere deep inside of me. Feelings that I’ve been holding down for a long time are finally finding their way out. I try to
calm myself, to take a series of breaths. I choke, sputter, gasp. All I can think about is what Sarah A said. Is that why I’m crying? Do I think she’s right about why I stole that stupid jar? Yes. I do. And knowing this—believing this—makes me, makes everything, feel so much worse.

Chapter 17

The inquisition is two weeks behind me, and to cheer myself up I’ve started sleeping with Roman Karbowski. Not the person. But the pillow. Since Sarah A left him behind, curling up with Roman allows me to feel less alone.

I haven’t spoken to the Sarahs. Somewhere around day four, I grew numb to the pain. Actually, I grew numb to everything. I don’t know if this is what Sarah A had in mind when she told me to just stop feeling things, but it works much better than the alternative, which is to feel awful about myself all the time.

In addition to my newly implemented curfew, I was forced to give up my volunteer work at the shelter. It was explained to me that due to my impulsiveness concerning animal equality and liberation, I would be a liability. But my life has bloomed with new kinds of activity. I’ve become essential to my parents’ lives. They even take me to work with them. Like I’m a lunch box.

When school starts in three weeks, I imagine I’m either
miraculously going to reattach myself to the Sarahs or finally strike out and make new friends. Except, I’m not really sure how to do that. I have no idea what I’ll do. When I picture myself at school, Sarahless, I’m wending through the hallways, burdened by my heavy backpack, all alone.

Sometimes I hope that the school year kicks off with a major Sarah reconciliation. They’ll all race to my locker to tell me how much they missed me. It shouldn’t matter. I know it shouldn’t. But I want my absence to have made them ache. For them to have felt incomplete. I want to hear them say that they were unable to launch full bore into the guy phase without me.

My mother can sense that there’s more to the “donation jar” story. So does my father. I’m certain they suspect other crimes. And even though they don’t voice this concern, it’s clear they each think that I’m protecting the other Sarahs. Thankfully, in the days that followed, neither pushed me toward additional confessions. I admire this about them. They’re prepared to let me keep some secrets.

My mother and I are driving to Dr. Pewter’s condominium.

“Stabilizing the master bedroom will be a feat,” she says. She pulls to a stop in front an old, two-story brown condominium.
A college professor lives in this dump?
I unbuckle my seat belt. For the first time, I realize that my mother’s car smells oddly medicinal, like fruit and ointment.

“Your car smells like grapefruit and something else. Something bitter,” I say.

“When cleaning defiled pigpens, bitter grapefruit is one of the more pleasant fragrances to encounter.”

Dr. Pewter’s master bedroom in one of the last rooms my mother has left to clean in this
Beowulf
-obsessed professor’s cluttered life. It’s my first time coming to her condo. For the past two weeks, we’ve been working on cleaning her office at Western Michigan University. It’s on the ninth floor of Sprau Tower and overlooks a fountain that strongly resembles the YMCA’s swimming pool. Except the fountain contains several quack-happy ducks.

Dr. Pewter’s office wasn’t the receptacle of filth that I’d been expecting. Sure, there were towers of graded essays stacked in leaning piles across her desk. (I skimmed quite a few of them. The majority had earned C’s and were dripping with BS.) And she had a ton of Bible-thick books about Old English prosody and
Beowulf
. But I was sort of expecting that. Minus the dust, her work space appeared reasonably sanitary. I wouldn’t have wanted to eat a meal or have any surgical procedures done in there or anything. But it wasn’t on the verge of being condemned.

“You make it sound like her place is something out of a horror film,” I say.

My mother hasn’t released her grip on the steering wheel.

“Horror is a good word.” My mother frowns, creating a deep crease next to her left eye along her nose. She finally turns off her car and pulls the keys out of the ignition. “She has an abominable home life.”

“Can you sum it up in one word?” I ask.

My mother slowly turns to face me.

“Parrots,” she says. She drops the keys in her purse and re-grips the steering wheel.

“Parrots?”

“Parrots,” she repeats, nervously wringing the steering wheel with both hands.

“You mean she’s let parrots overtake her house?” I ask.

My mother shakes her head no.

“Not the house. Just the master bedroom.”

She reaches into the backseat and pulls out two pairs of thick leather work gloves.