The Blonde of the Joke Read online

  Francie was gripping my shoulders with each hand; she had a crazed glint in her eyes.

  I nodded seriously, trying to convince her that I got the message. “I know,” I said. “You’re legitimately right.”

  Francie looked like she was going to keep going, but the bus pulled to a stop and the hydraulic doors opened with a wheeze. We had arrived. We stood together and climbed down onto the sidewalk.

  Standing there outside the mall in the predusk October light, Francie looked like someone out of a myth—probably something Norse, I’d say, because they’re the tallest and most imposing. Not to mention blond. She put a hand on my hip. She was glowing, rosy and optimistic in the end of the daylight.

  She turned to me and said, “Okay, here’s the thing, Val. I’m going to put it a different way and then I’ll shut up, I promise. I believe the world is pretty fucking generous. It’s just putting all this stuff out there, all laid out in front of us, just free to take. Wouldn’t it be stupid not to grab it? It would be irresponsible. What’s that thing they say about a horse with a bow on it? Whatever. I’m just telling you what I believe. You don’t have to agree or anything. I’m just saying.”

  Francie believed a lot of things, I was beginning to realize. Some of them seemed pretty retarded. But at least it was nice to be friends with someone who put so much thought into everything. Even when I’d had friends, it never seemed like they cared about much beyond which pages had been assigned in Algebra and who was invited to what birthday party.

  Francie and I stood together, our hair twisting behind us in the wind, looking up at the mall. From the outside, it was a fortress, sitting on top of a giant hill off Georgia Avenue and protected by concrete moats of seemingly impenetrable parking garages. To get inside by car was no problem—you just drove on in—but on foot it felt sneaky from the start. You had to slip through fissures that weren’t meant for people. That day Francie and I climbed off the J-12 and looked up at Montgomery Shoppingtowne hovering above us, and I felt a funny combination of awe and dread. It was us against this. This sleeping, hungry thing.

  Of course, Francie had a plan of attack.

  “Over here,” she said. She led me from the sidewalk to a chain-link fence that bordered the steep, grassy hill leading up to the first garage. “This way’s quickest,” she said, and she pointed to a spot where the fence had buckled in on itself and was sagging into the dirt. Francie scrambled over the fence and bounded up the hill, those five-inch heels sinking into the soggy grass as she miraculously managed to keep her balance in them. “Come on,” she half shouted. “It’s not like it’s a crime or anything, but it’s probably better if no one sees you. It’s just the easiest way.”

  “Can’t we just use the actual door?” I asked.

  “You gotta start thinking different,” Francie said. “We strike silently. In and out. This way they’ll never see us coming.”

  In Physics, Ms. Tinker had taught us that, in order for the equations to work, you first had to accept certain things. Things that were just for the sake of argument. Things like, for the purposes of this equation, there is no such thing as friction. Or if you drop a rubber ball to the ground a million times, and every time it falls and then bounces back into the air, there’s still no guarantee that the same thing will happen on the million-and-first time. For all anyone knew, the ball could turn into a canary and fly away. You had to learn to live with things like that, or there was no point even bothering with physics in the first place. Francie was the same. In order to understand her—I mean, really get what she was saying—you had to first accept, as premise, things that made absolutely no sense.

  So I followed her, and we made our way up the hill, hunched and practically crawling to keep from sliding all the way back down. At the top Francie hiked her skirt up, revealing floral biker shorts underneath, and climbed up onto a concrete overhang from which she leaped straight into the parking structure. She gave her hips a little shake, and I climbed right behind her. This is how we made our way into the mall.

  And on that overhang I looked over my shoulder, down the hill to the highway, where I saw the bus that had dropped us off crawling into the distance. Just by standing there I was different, I knew. It was way too late to change my mind.

  I had always been good. I had always done everything right—done it just how I was supposed to. I had always shown up on time, gone through the motions. My grades had always been decent, but not outstanding enough to be obnoxious. I had never, ever bothered anyone. Because it seems like what most people in the world want is for you to just make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. That was good.

  Standing there on the outside of the parking garage, though, I was starting to wonder if there wasn’t that much difference between being good and being scared.

  Because that was just it, obviously: I was scared to steal. Not scared of getting caught—not scared of going to jail, or hell, or anything like that. What scared me was the thought of that moment. The split second when it stopped belonging to someone else and belonged to me. When I stopped being good and started taking what Francie believed I deserved. What if it turned out I didn’t deserve it at all?

  That day in the mall, Francie and I sat on the bench outside the Limited, on the ground floor. Francie reached into her purse and pulled out two carefully folded Bloomingdale’s bags. She handed one to me, and unfolded the other one as she talked. “There are three and only three tools for shoplifting,” Francie instructed me. “Number one: a shopping bag. From an expensive store is best. Ideally you fill it halfway with something like balled-up newspaper to make it look like you’ve actually been shopping. Number two: a rubber band. Keep it wrapped around your wrist and a few extras in your pocket.” She nodded at me as she spoke to make sure I was getting it all. “Number three is liquid eyeliner. Applied heavily and frequently. That’s all you need.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s it,” Francie said. “Some people like to carry a can opener, or wear, like, one of those big puffy coats, but I’m not into that. The can opener’s overkill, and the puffy coat makes you look like an idiot.”

  Why? I could have asked. Why a rubber band? What’s the reason? But I didn’t bother. Maybe it had to do with Francie’s eyes, which were green with rings of gold around the pupils, eyeliner stretching to curly points halfway up her temples. Francie’s eyes made it hard to concentrate. Or. Not the eyes, I guess, but the liner. Liquid. Applied heavily and frequently.

  “Thanks for showing me all that,” I said. “It’s nice of you to let me in on your secrets.”

  “Nice,” Francie said scornfully, half laughing. “Nice. Ugh! Nice is the last thing I’m trying to be. What a bitchy thing to say!” She smiled to show she wasn’t quite serious, but it still stung.

  “I wasn’t trying to be bitchy,” I said.

  “Argh! That’s just it! Like there’s something wrong with being bitchy!” Francie pulled her fingers through the roots of her hair, clutching at her scalp. Now she was frustrated. “See, there’s your problem right there.”

  “Um, sorry?” I said.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Francie said. She looked at me sternly with eyes that appeared to hover a couple inches in front of the rest of her face. “Let me ask you a question: Every day I see you in Ms. Tinker’s class—”

  “You never come to Ms. Tinker’s class,” I interjected.

  “Well, when I do,” Francie said. “Whatever. You know what I mean. Every day you’re in your seat when the bell rings, with your pen out and your notebook open. And every day I see you hand your homework up, same as everyone else, and all perfect handwriting and everything. And what I want to know is, why bother? Why do any of it? What’s the payoff here, Val? A college recommendation, like, someday? Do any of your teachers even remember you after the bell rings?”

  “Ms. Tinker thinks my name is Vickie,” I admitted. “I never bothered correcting her, and now it’s too late to say anything. Also, she dedu
cts five points if I don’t write in cursive, and another five if I forget to put the date on it, and one point for every doodle in the margin. Oh, and two if any of the binder holes are ripped.”

  “Exactly,” said Francie. “What a complete asshole. Have you ever even once thought about just saying fuck it?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, why don’t you? Why don’t you just stop bothering once and for all?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Of course, I did know. I was scared. I was scared of lots of things—say, all of the above—but what I was most scared of was Francie. What I was most afraid of was that she would find out exactly what a pussy I really was. From the first time we’d met, I felt like she had the wrong idea about me. She’d said there was something about me, but I suspected she’d seriously misjudged.

  I was not sneaky. All my dark secrets technically belonged to other people. And I had always been good. Why, I don’t know. Good was just something that came naturally. Maybe it all had to do with my brother, who had always, always been the opposite. Now he was dying. Being good might not be very exciting, but at least you don’t die.

  “Come on,” Francie said. “It’s all cool. Let’s go.” She stood, and snapped the bracelet of rubber bands against her wrist, wincing to herself.

  I stood, too. “Next stop Nordstrom,” she said. “Watch what I do. You might learn something.”

  We made our way through the mall to the department store. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you,” Francie told me as we walked. “You know that, right?”

  She had surprised me. “What?” I asked.

  “You have this thing about you. It would be a shame for anything bad to happen to you. I’m not trying to get you in any trouble. Trust me, as long as you’re with me, I’ll keep you safe. Swear to God.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then, without thinking about it, I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. I just had to. No one had ever said something like that to me before.

  That day, like every day, Nordstrom was echoing with the tinkling, clumsy strains of Pachelbel’s Canon on a grand piano, as played by an idiot in a tuxedo in an alcove by the escalator. Francie marched on, through Intimate Apparel to Cosmetics and straight to the Dior counter, where a prissy, overplucked guy in a skintight T-shirt was eyeing us suspiciously from behind the register.

  “Hi, girls,” he said. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I need some makeup,” Francie said. “I want the good stuff.”

  “All our products are good,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Francie said. “This is a store, right? You sell things?”

  The clerk gave a deep, pained sigh and started pulling stuff for her like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

  Francie winked at me when he wasn’t looking and when he’d laid a smorgasbord of makeup in front of her, she began to deliberate, hemming and hawing over all of it, trying on everything he offered her and finding some petty problem with each item. “This black’s a little too black,” she said. “Do you have anything with a little more blue in it?” And the guy would sigh again and pull out something else.

  I kept my eyes glued to her, like she’d told me. I knew exactly what she was doing, but as closely as I watched, I didn’t see her take anything. She was just that good.

  Watching her, seeing the casual, easy way she had, I wanted more than anything to be like that. Francie was not afraid of anything. She truly did not give a shit. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be the type of person who believed in something, even if it was something crazy and sort of ridiculous. I wanted to be beautiful, but not beautiful like one of those girls in perfume ads. I wanted to be beautiful like Francie. She was burning, brilliant with courage and self-assurance. There was something about her that was not good but really kind of perfect.

  As she had promised, it was all there, right in front of me, just asking to be taken. Wouldn’t it be careless of me—irresponsible, even—not to take advantage?

  So I did it. It was easier than I’d thought it would be. It was just like doing anything else, like buttoning your shirt or opening a book. I reached across the counter and grabbed a tube of liquid eyeliner from its display by the register. It was that simple. It belonged to the mall, and then it belonged to me. Just like that. It was that simple, but I kept it cupped in the palm of my hand, ready to drop it if I needed to.

  Francie and the salesguy, whose name turned out to be Clint, were deep in debate about the importance of lip liner, with Francie taking the affirmative position. Clint was more circumspect. “Sometimes it can look a little cheap, if you’re not careful or if the contrast is too intense,” he was saying, to Francie’s emphatic head-shaking. Neither of them had noticed what I had just done.

  I waited for her, heart pounding, breathing shallow, imagining beads of sweat forming on my upper lip. Francie was taking her time. She and Clint had gone from being adversaries to BFFs, and they were joking around about Paris Hilton’s wonky eye. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Hey, Francie?” I said. She looked up like she’d forgotten all about me.

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “I really have to pee,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Francie. “Okay, let’s go.” She turned back to Clint, who was pissed off again. “I don’t think any of this works,” she said. “I’ll come back another time, okay?”

  “Fine,” he muttered, gathering everything up. Francie and I left the store.

  I was still nervous. But there was something about having Francie next to me—her boundless confidence a halo that enveloped both of us. It was her hair. Her eyeliner. The sunny warmth of her undivided, overpowering attention. She was my friend. As long as I was with her, I didn’t have anything to worry about. We walked through the exit together, in lockstep, leaving the cameras, the security guards, the smarmy clerks, all of it, just leaving it all behind. There was a shrill beep from above us as we stepped through the antitheft sensors, and Francie whispered, “Just keep on walking.” And I did. No one tried to stop us.

  “I got something for you,” she said when we were safe in the atrium, the smell of Francie’s Thierry Mugler Angel mixing with the chlorine from the fountain. “I know you thought I was ignoring you, but it was all part of the plan.” She reached into her bag and pulled it out: a new tube of Dior eyeliner, liquid. She presented it with a grin. “The best presents are always stolen,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. I waved her off, trying to look casual. “But I already have my own.” Francie looked surprised. I tossed my hair, trying to copy the way she always did it, and with a careless flick of my wrist revealed my own tube, still in the palm of my hand.

  She squealed. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed breathlessly, and she threw herself on me, wrapped her arms around my neck and a leg around my waist. “You did it! You totally did it.”

  I stood stick straight, kind of embarrassed because we were making a real spectacle, right there in the middle of the mall. But I had to smile. Francie was squealing and hugging me and jumping up and down.

  “Francie!” I finally said. She was making me tense. “Please!” She laughed and pulled away.

  “I’m just so proud of you,” she said. “Go ahead, put it on. Oh my God! You’re going to look great. Dior’s the best, best, best—I mean, real top-of-the-line shit, the finest there is.” She handed me her compact to use as a mirror. “They never give you enough in the bottle, though. Cheap fucking assholes.” Francie sighed as an afterthought.

  I unscrewed the tube, looked at the foam-tipped brush, and then thought better of it.

  “You do it,” I said. “You’re the expert.”

  Francie was gratified. “Sit,” she said. And I perched on the edge of the fountain and closed my eyes. I concentrated on the green blobs again, and imagined Francie’s lips, bright red, lined with eggplant, and twisted into deep, satisfied concentration. I imagined each tiny movement of her hands as I felt the
cold brush across my face. Francie’s bangles were barely jangling in my ear, and I pictured sparks flying. I could have sat like that forever, or at least a really long time. But Francie was well practiced. It only took her a minute.

  “Okay, open up,” she said. I opened my eyes to the sight of Francie, radiant with openness and generosity. “You look so badass,” she said. “Babe, you are legitimately the baddest.” She held up the mirror, but I didn’t need to look. I already knew what I had become.

  Around here, very small things can transform you. There’s a winding creek that seems to touch every backyard. You put a toe in the freezing water and shudder, but a good kind of shudder because you’re happy just to feel anything at all.

  On days when you have nothing better to do, you go to the mall. You are hoping to be a better person. Or a worse one. You ask the mall for what you want. And if you want it enough, you’ll get it. Because it’s all laid out right there in front of you. It would be stupid—irresponsible, even—not to take what’s being offered.

  Chapter Four

  At school, no one noticed that I was different. It was easy for them not to notice because they still didn’t notice me at all. I was the same as ever. I was no one.

  I still sat in the back row, hair hanging in my face, drawing listless curlicues in my notebook while some teacher droned on. I still showed up for class on time, handed in enough homework to pull B-pluses, and walked through the halls with my shoulder grazing the lockers, books flat at my chest. I didn’t look any different. Well, except for the eyeliner. And I didn’t really act any different, either.

  But I was different. No one had any idea how much I had changed. I liked it that way. I was fooling them all.

  A few days before Halloween, I was headed to Physics when Francie beckoned to me from a door by the cafeteria that I’d never noticed before. She was standing in the doorway, hip cocked, forearm resting against the jamb. “C’mere,” she hissed, waving frantically. “I need to show you something.”