Stealing Heaven (12 page)

"You'll see."

"I'll see?"

"Yeah," he says. "You'll like it. Trust me."

I freeze. Trust. I hate that word. It doesn't mean a thing and I
stop walking, all the misgivings I had

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about being here, about him, coming back. I should have known
better than this.

"I'm not real good with trust."

"What? You?" he says, and looks back at me, eyebrows
raised and a grin creasing his face. "I never would have guessed."

I should have known better than this, and the thing is ... I do. I
do know better. I should never have agreed to this, never should have thought I
could go on a date with anyone, much less a cop. It was stupid to come here
with him, and I should just get out of it now.

"You know what? This was a bad idea."

His grins fades. "What?"

"You heard me, This was a bad idea and I... why did you even
bring me here?"

He's silent for a moment. "I wanted to."

"What?" Of all the things I thought he might say, that
wasn't one of them. He wanted to bring me here.

I want to believe him. I want to so much it scares me, and I take
a step back, away from him.

"Okay," he says. "I'm just going to walk--" He
points off into the distance, and I can sort of make out a path. "If you
want to come, that would be

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great, because the view is amazing and I think you'll like it. If
not... well, there's a ferry that leaves in half an hour."

He fishes in his pockets, pulls out a ticket, and then holds it
out toward me.

"And if I go?" I say. Here's where there will be a
catch. Where something bad will happen. I know it will. It has to. It always
does.

"You go. I won't be able to drive you anywhere when you get
back, obviously, since I'll be ..."--he points over at the path
again--"but if you ask them to call a taxi for you when you board, they
will."

I wait, but he doesn't say anything else.

"I don't understand what you want from me," I finally
say.

"Yeah, I get that." He hands me the ticket, his fingers
brushing against mine. "I don't want anything from you."

I stare at him. "Everyone wants something."

He shoves a hand through his hair. "Well, okay. I wanted to
bring you here, like I said. And I wouldn't mind showing you the view. So I
guess I do want something after all. I want to spend time with you. But not if
you don't want to. So ... " He turns away

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from me, walks up the road.

I watch him go and then look down at the ferry ticket in my hand.

When I'm halfway down the last hill we walked up, I turn around. I
expect to see him behind me, but he's not there.

I don't get it. There has to be something more going on than him
just wanting to spend time with me. Nothing can be that simple.

Can it?

I walk back up the hill, sure he'll appear now, but he doesn't. I
reach the path and look down it. It's long and winding. I can see the sea from
here but I can't see where the path ends. I can't see Greg either. I hesitate
for a second, and then I start walking.

I find out why I couldn't see where the path ends when I'm about
halfway down it. It basically disappears, looping back into the rock that makes
up the island. I'm walking along a narrow ledge that looks like it will drop
off into nothing when I round the next corner. Should I go on? I take a
cautious step forward, then another, and then I bump into something. Someone.

'T guess I should have told you the path just kind

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of ends," Greg says. He's sitting down, looking out at the
ocean.

"What are you doing here?"

He looks up at me. "Shouldn't that be my question?"

It should, but I'm afraid to answer it. I turn away, staring out
at the sea, and my breath catches.

I've seen the ocean up close before. It's nothing special, or so
I've always thought. But this...it's not just a long dull blue-gray line
stretching out toward the horizon. This is different. There's water everywhere,
crashing noisily over rocks just a few feet below us, churning and rolling and
alive. It's terrible and beautiful at the same time.

"Wow." I sit down on the ledge next to him. Now that I'm
closer the water is even more mesmerizing; twisting and turning, fighting like
it wants to get away from the rocks and then turning back, rushing toward them.

"Yeah," he says. "The first time I came here, I
thought the whole place was--well, like it is in town. I was pissed I'd come
out here because if I want to see expensive crap I can do that anytime and don't
have to sit on a boat for an hour first. But then I walked

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around, and past all the crap are places like this. And they're
everywhere, all over the island. This was the first one I found, though, and
sometimes I come back just to sit and watch the ocean. I like it."

He's silent for a moment. "Did that sound as stupid as I
think it did?"

"No. There's--there's something about it. Something ..."
I lean forward a little, and salt spray blows up over me, the ocean raining
gently onto my skin. "I don't know what it is, though."

"Me either," he says, and leans forward too. I watch
water spray across his hands, drops catching on his wrists and running over his
palms, his fingers. And so we sit there, together, in silence, and watch the
ocean roar.

We ride the ferry back from the island the same way we did to it,
in silence standing on the deck, only this time we stand at the opposite end
and watch the island fade smaller and smaller. He asks me if I want to stop and
get something to eat as we're driving back to the grocery store and for a
second I'm tempted, think of his face as he sat looking at the ocean, about how
he didn't bullshit me with some story about what the

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view meant to him, about what it being there meant for the world,
for me. He just said he liked it, and I like that.

I like him. And I can't. I shouldn't. "I've got to get
home."

"Okay," he says, and we turn in to the grocery store
parking lot. "Do you need a ride?"

"No. I'm fine."

He nods. "Well, I... thanks for coming with me."

I look over at him. The sun is just starting to set and it's
caught his hair, gleams off it. "I guess I'll see you around."

"Oh yeah?" He grins.

"Now who's the question person?"

He laughs. "I'll see you later, Dani." I look at him for
a second, the strangeness of being called that and the even stranger rightness
of it washing over me. Then I get out of the car.

He waves before he pulls out onto the road. I watch him drive away
and when he's almost out of sight, far enough away so I figure he can't see me,
I let myself wave back.

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16

Mom's waiting for me when I get home, sitting on the sofa eating
soy crackers and grinning. I smell the reason for her grin as soon as I walk
into the house.

"Pizza!"

"Yeah," she says. "I think I remember a certain
someone liking it."

"You thought right." I sit down and eat two slices.

"You want any?" I ask when I'm done, looking at the six
remaining slices.

"Maybe later."

I laugh then, and she says, "What? I might."

"Uh huh. I've never seen you eat pizza, you know. That's not normal."

"I'm plenty nor--" She breaks off, coughing.

"Did you take more cough medicine today? I'll go get it
and--"

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"Later. Right now we need to talk."

So we talk, or rather, she does it turns out she spent the day
checking maid services.

"Here," she tells me, and hands me a piece of paper with
an address on it. I recognize it as being right outside Heaven. "This is
the one we want. You've got an interview tomorrow."

"So do you want me to drive you or--wait. I've got an
interview?"

"I've been out a lot, been seen a lot, and this is a small
place, baby."

"You just don't want to clean toilets."

Mom laughs. "Maybe. But I also know the job will go better if
you do it."

I look at her, unsure of what to say. It's not that I don't know
that I'm pretty good at what we do-- how could I not be? It's been my whole
life, is my life, even if I've spent a lot of time wishing it wasn't. And to
hear her say that a job will go better if I pull it, to know she trusts me that
much...well, that should make me happy.

It doesn't. It makes me wonder what's wrong. I mean, I know Mom
believes in me, in what she's taught me. But I also know who's the best at
everything

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in this family. I know we both know that. And it isn't me.

"Quit looking at me like that," she says. "You'd
think I'd never said anything nice to you before."

"It's not that. It's --"

"Go upstairs and bring the folder with all the papers down,
okay?"

"Mom--"

She shakes the box of crackers at me. "You know, these are
really good."

I sigh, knowing that's all I'm going to get out of her, and go
upstairs. As I'm looking in her room for the folder I can hear her coughing
again.

"You really need to take more cough syrup," I say when
I'm back downstairs. She makes a face at me and I make a face right back, then
go into the kitchen and grab the bottle off the counter--right where I left it
this morning. I knew it. I make her take an-other dose, holding the folder just
out of reach until she does.

"Quit it," she says, swatting at the folder. "You
have the soul of a cranky old person, you know that? I swear, next thing you'll
be telling me to pick up my room."

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"Don't tempt me." I hand her the folder. She flips
through it and then stops, pulls out two things and hands them to me.

Fake social security card and driver's license, all you need to
become someone else long enough to hold a shitty job. I look them both over.
"Rebecca, huh? Twenty years old. You know, one of these days I'm going to
end up being someone who's my actual age."

"Only you would complain about being young," Mom says,
and takes the cards away. "Social security number?"

I tell her. She nods. "Driver's license number and
address?"

I tell her and she hands them back. "Good."

She tests me again during the night, waking me up four times to
ask me my new name, social security number, and address. I am good at
memorizing names and numbers quickly, just like I'm good at reading maps. I
wonder what use any of it would do me if I didn't run around stealing things.
Probably not much.

My interview--with a company called Maid to Order--is in the
afternoon. It lasts longer than I thought it would and by the end I'm pretty
sure I'm

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not going to get offered a job.

I'm glad about that. I shouldn't be, but I am because I don't
think this place is good for me and Mom. Things don't feel like they usually
do. I don't feel like I usually do. There's Greg, for one thing. I haven't told
my mother everything--or even anything--about him although I know I should. A
day spent with a cop isn't something to skip over, even if he did just want to
show me a view.

I still can't get over that. He wanted to take me to the island
just to take me there. He wanted to spend time with me.

I fold my hands together and look down at them resting in my lap,
wait for the guy I'm talking to, Stu, to tell me, "Thank you," in the
way that means, "That was half an hour I'll never get back."

"So I'll just get the tax forms, then."

I look up and Stu is holding out a hand for me to shake.
"Oh," I say, and remember to tack on "Great!" at the last
second.

Looks like I got myself a job.

By the time I leave, having filled out a bunch of forms and agreed
to take a drug test at some facility an hour away in the morning--and yet I
have to

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be at work by eight--I'm a brand-new employee. I even have a
bright yellow uniform (cost subtracted from my paycheck, which, at the pitiful
amount I was quoted, means I'll be making exactly squat) to show for it.

Mom is really happy, gets a kick out of the uniform, and even
cancels a date with Harold to take me out to dinner. We go to some place she
read about in a magazine, an hour away and in another state, and she's
positively beaming by the time we're seated. I can't remember the last time I
saw her smile like this for anything other than our fence counting out money.

"What's going on?" I ask, and she shakes her head, looks
over at the table next to us, and smiles at the people sitting there--two guys,
both clearly very happy to have her smile at them.