The Anti-Prom (12 page)

I’m already barefoot, so I don’t make a sound as I creep out onto the landing. Light from downstairs soaks me in a dim glow, and I pause a moment, absorbing the plush surroundings. It’s like Kaitlin’s house all over again, another world of thick carpeting and gilt-edged picture frames on heavy wallpaper. The staircase is centered and the hallway wraps around, overlooking the foyer below. Marble floor, polished banisters.

Even though I swore I would be all business, quick in and out, I catch sight of a family portrait on the wall and feel my heart clench. It’s taken on a spotless beach somewhere, and he’s grinning, a kid in one arm and the other wrapped around the Blonde, looking perky and perfect with the other child on her hip. They’re wearing matching sun visors and his-and-hers pastel polo shirts, and everything about them screams preppy rich bliss.

When he was my dad, he wore stretched-out Knicks shirts and wasted twenty bucks a week on lottery tickets. Vacations were swimming at the community pool, and sweaty road trips to the lake to fend off mosquitoes and splash around in the crowded water. Popsicles were a treat; diner key lime pie the ultimate indulgence. I took it all for granted as a kid, but when you get older you see behind the cracks: the revolving wad of credit cards, my mom’s military policing of the grocery store cart, the hushed fights and tense look on her face every time the mail came. See, being poor isn’t just about the stuff you can’t have; it’s a low note of insecurity that echoes in the background of everything you ever do, that sick fear that there won’t be enough, that you’ll never have enough.

I blink at the photos, paralyzed, until some morbid curiosity in me twists, and I find myself padding silently down the hall to the door with rainbows and fluffy clouds painted in bright brushstrokes.

The twins.

Carefully, I push the door ajar, step into the room, and pull the door closed behind me. My eyes adjust to the dimness. The curtains are drawn, but there’s the pale glow of a night-light in the corner, with some kind of revolving case that casts star shapes up onto the ceiling above the matching miniature twin beds.

I edge closer.

Asleep, they’re angelic — even I can admit that. Two years old now, with blond ringlets, adorable cotton pajamas, pudgy little hands clutching the luxury plushy animals our father now imports. One has sailboats on the bedding and the other, tiny cowboys.

I got an invite to their last birthday party — the Blonde saw to that — but I couldn’t do it. I went to the Polaroid Kids show instead, drank too much whiskey, and made out with a third-rate drummer in the parking lot with their names echoing in my head. Camilla and Stephan. Classy names, both of them. Her doing, again I’m sure, but why shouldn’t they be? These kids are set for a life of prep schools and privilege, birthday cars and whatever college they damn well choose. And if Daddy screws it up and fails all over again, as I know without a single doubt that he will, then her trust fund will prop them up all the same. They’ll never know the bitterness of my life, and as much as I get that they’re innocent — that they didn’t choose this for me — I can’t help but feel a hot wave of resentment as I stand over their sleeping bodies.

I hate them.

It’s pure, and sharp, and the intensity of it scares me, but my hatred fills the room, spinning out like those little stars until I can barely breathe. I don’t exist to him anymore, not now that there’s this new life for him to enjoy. Up here, with his shiny golden family, he can pretend like he wasn’t a deadbeat failure, like he didn’t let us down and screw around, and then finally just cut loose and bail.

I don’t matter to him, not enough.

Backing out of the room, I close the door behind me and head for the master suite. More family portraits line the room, perfect in their gilded frames, and I have to stop myself from looking — from getting sucked into their glossy little world. I check every room in turn — faster, more frantic — but I still don’t find what I’m looking for. It’s not downstairs either, I know that much, but he couldn’t have sold it, not after the petty, selfish effort he went through to keep it in the divorce.

Even now, I can’t believe he cared so much. Visitation access? He didn’t ask, but when it came to that painting, he spared no effort: hitting us with threatening letters and lawyer fees until Mom just gave in to get him off our backs. It’s not even valuable yet; that’s the crazy part — just a swirled abstract thing he got suckered into buying from some gallery in the city instead of replacing the boiler that year. But he swore that one day, this guy would be the next Rothko, and we’d all be set, like that counted as a solid investment plan.

Now, I’m almost glad he fought so hard for it. See, hurting someone is simple in the end. Find what they love, and take it from them.

If I can find the damn thing.

I stand in the study, my breath coming fast. I need that thing as focus, to keep me from thinking of all the other damage I could do, the ways I could hurt him. But now I’m left shaking in the shadows of this life he’s built — three miles and a world away from the existence my mom and I scraped out of thrift-store clothes and late shifts and coupons. My hands are clenched, pressing fierce half-moon prints into my palm, and it takes every bit of self-restraint I have not to hurl every bookcase from the wall, to smash the picture frames into shrapnel, to burn his fucking house down.

I take a breath.

Think, Jolene. Where would he keep it?

And then my eyes find the keys and folders left on his heavy antique desk and I realize: there is one more place.

Moving quickly, I sweep the heavy key ring into my bag and flip through the thick leather journal. It’s stuffed with dates and meetings, notes about shipping data and new marketing teams. My new, improved father. God, I bet he loves it: the respected, productive life of an entrepreneur. But I know not everything can have changed; he was always bad with numbers, and sure enough, there’s a page at the back with a neat list of scribbled codes.
Card PIN, Penny — cell,
and then, finally,
Alarm — office.

Jackpot.

It feels like I’ve been up here a lifetime, but the same R and B seduction song is still playing from downstairs when I hoist myself out the window and scramble down the tree. Under five minutes, and I’m out clean. I guess hanging around all those bad influences taught me some things, at least.

“Oh, thank God!” Meg is looking severely panicked when I slide into the passenger seat. “What were you doing in there? You said it was your dad’s place!”

“It is.” I shrug, slamming the door closed behind me. After creeping around so carefully, the sound jolts right through me.

Meg stares, wide-eyed. “But you didn’t ring the bell.”

“I went around back,” I snap. “Now, do you want to get moving?”

I’m edgy, wired in my seat. I need to get away from this house, from the gleaming perfection of it all. I need to make him pay.

Meg gives me another anxious look, but she doesn’t press. Starting the ignition, she carefully drives away.

“So are we done yet?” Bliss speaks up. She’s still lounging in the backseat, clearly bored. “Because it’s midnight already. I’m going to miss the party too if we don’t get back soon.”

“Patience, grasshopper.” I force myself to sound casual, trying to pull it all back under control. “But I do need your phone for a sec.”

“What for?” I can hear the reluctance in her voice. Phones are practically an extension of those girls — it’s like I asked to borrow her arm.

“Does it matter?”

There’s a sigh, and then she passes it forward. It’s small, but equipped with a Web browser and a bunch of useless apps — and covered with diamanté gem stickers in silver and pink. Classy. With a few clicks, I find a map program and use my hastily scribbled address to figure out the way to his office. Just having something to do helps calm the itch in my veins, gives me some direction.

“OK, you need to take a right up ahead and get on Pinewood Avenue,” I tell Meg, glancing up from the tiny screen.

“But Brianna’s house is this way.”

“I know.” I shrug, still aiming for nonchalance. “I just need to make another stop first.”

“Noooo!” Bliss wails. “No more stops. Or just, drop me off first. I’m done.”

I whip my head around. “You’re done when I say you are. You owe me, remember? Or do you want me to call Kaitlin and let her know what we’ve been up to?” I hold up her phone and start scrolling through the contacts list. “Jared, Jenny, Joel, Kait —”

“OK, OK!” She gives me a murderous look. “I’ll wait. But can Meg maybe drive any faster? At this rate, we’ll be stuck out here all night.”

I turn back to Meg. “She does have a point. . . .”

Meg takes a breath. “This is the limit,” she says firmly, “and besides, I don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Elmwood Business Park,” I reply, casual. “Now can we go faster?”

“What’s there?” She frowns instead.

I sigh. “Just something I need to pick up. It wasn’t at the house, so . . .”

“But it’s the middle of the night; everything’s closed,” Meg argues.

“That’s kind of the point.”

“You’re going to break in?”

Meg slams on the brakes and we lurch to a halt on the dark, residential street. Sure, it’s only from about twenty miles an hour, but I’m still thrown forward against my seat belt.

“Ouch!” Bliss yelps from the back. “Meg!”

I peel the strap from my chest. That precious control is slipping fast. “Are we seriously going to go through this every time I tell you what to do?” I demand. “Because your innocent thing is getting old.”

“It’s not innocent to want to stay out of jail!” Meg cries.

Bliss leans forward. “Yeah, I kind of have to agree.”

I grit my teeth. “Can you both just relax a minute? Nobody said anything about jail.” I retrieve the key ring from my bag and dangle it in front of them. “See. I’m not breaking anything. And I have the alarm code, too. Nothing to worry about.”

Meg just purses her lips disapprovingly. “Right, nothing. Except motion sensors, and CCTV, and security patrols . . .”

“Don’t be such a baby,” I argue, but her words ring alarmingly true. Sure, the keys and code will get me in without any problems, but she’s right: a complex like that will have security cameras all over the place. I may have skills, but invisibility isn’t one of them.

I think hard. There’s no way I’m quitting yet, not after everything. So there’s surveillance? That just means I need something extra.

“What would you do?” I ask Meg.

“What?”

“You’re smart, right? Straight As, I bet. So how would you get around CCTV? I’m serious,” I add. “Finesse has never been my thing.”

Bliss snorts from the backseat. “You don’t say.”

I quell her with a look. “Come on, Meg, think.”

“You’re not supposed to get around security — that’s the point.” She sounds offended that I’d even ask her to consider breaking the rules.

“Bliss?” I turn. This is what it’s come to: asking Bambi for criminal input. But desperate times . . .

She rolls her eyes. “Uh, no. Unless you’ve got some magic wand to wave around, you’re screwed. And I’m still missing my party.” Bliss folds her arms, sulking, but something in her words triggers a spark. An old memory of late night, and hushed laughter, and the pair of us playing tag out on the damp fifty-yard line, the stadium rising, empty around us, as Dante crushed me into the ground.

Don’t worry about security, he’d told me. Eli had fixed it.

I groan.

“What now?” Bliss whines.

“New stop,” I tell them, already resigning myself to the indignities ahead. Sure, Eli Graff may be the undisputed geek criminal — and inadvertent YouTube hit — of East Midlands, but that doesn’t mean he won’t make me beg. “We need to go to the Loft, on Second Street.”

“Are you going to break in there, too?” Meg asks, still petulant.

“No.” I sigh. “I need to see a guy about a thing.”

“How specific.”

“The longer you argue, the longer you’re stuck with me.” I give her a look that could melt steel, and sure enough, she puts the car back in drive.

As we drive away, I rest my forehead against the cool glass. It’s another detour, but I don’t care. All this will be worth it in the end, when I get that painting, when my father knows what it’s like to lose even a fraction of what he’s taken from me.

I don’t complain when Jolene changes our destination yet again and orders me back toward downtown; I can only pray that whatever new task is sending us there distracts her from the most definitely illegal activities she’s planning. Revenge stunts are one thing, but I can tell from her tense expression that we’re veering into darker territory.

“I think this is it.” I pull over, peering through the windshield at the old warehouse. It’s lit up inside, with cars parked all around and people hanging outside in groups. I recognize some from school: the pierced goth kids and alternative crowds who wouldn’t be seen dead at prom.

“Ew,” Bliss says, scrunching up her face at the view. “I’m staying in the car.”

“Fine with me.” Jolene pauses to try and pat the ruffles into submission, but they won’t be denied. She makes a face and reaches for the door regardless. “But you’d better not bail.”