It’s the first sign in any of them that they’re actually feeling something.
The tender moment is as fleeting as it was shallow, however, the moment she opens her mouth again. “I’m just glad her parents can’t get a refund. That whore of a mother of hers deserves to pay for what she’s done to Sadie.”
“And god knows,” one of the other girls says, as they trio turn to walk away as the door opens again and other start to file inside, “It was expensive.”
As I listen to the girls talking, a seed takes form in my mind, and an idea begins to grow.
This isn’t the first I’ve heard of the elite private school Sadie was going to … it just has never seemed all that important. Until now.
I peek around the column at the girl’s retreating backs, and then over my shoulder towards the front door. I don’t see anyone looking, so I quickly dart out to the table and palm Sadie’s driver’s license. I have many talents, and though some of them are considered bad, this is one that I’ve found to be quite useful from time to time. Sleight of hand. A quick theft.
I’m out through the kitchens, darting between flustered cooks and caterers, until I emerge out the back. Here one moment and gone the next. I’m good at it, but I don’t want to lie, steal, and cheat my way through life.
That’s the whole point of this idea, isn’t it?
This idea … it’s stupid, there’s no denying it. But it just might work. I take a moment to take stock.
Everyone keeps saying how much I look like Sadie. Even her own mother thought that I was her for a minute. I squint hard at the ID card. I guess I can see we share something more than a passing resemblance, but enough that a stranger might actually think I’m Sadie?
Maybe if they don’t know her personally.
And where I’d be going … no one knows her well enough to tell the difference.
And as I’m letting the idea evolve in my mind, I can suddenly see it happening. I can see myself with her straight blonde Barbie doll hair, in her fancy clothes, at this new school she was supposed to go to tomorrow. The more the idea rolls around in my head, the more realistic and doable it sounds.
What would it really take?
Even from outside, I can hear Ms. Martin loudly yelling at the girls for eating at the buffet because it makes her look like she doesn’t feed them. From the shrill tone of her voice, Lola Hines must have had to leave early. She’ll be coming for me next.
This is my life. This is the lot I’ve drawn. But it doesn’t have to be.
It’s like something in me snaps.
I can’t put a number on how many times I’ve simply thought about running away … but I’ve never acted on it before. I guess I never had a place to go. Until now.
I head towards the road and walk past the limos, and I’m just about at the end of the road when I see Ms. Martin standing at her dumpy old car, smoking a cigarette, watching me while she slams the car door shut with the girls in the backseat.
I feel the slightest pang of guilt at the sight of their scared faces pressed to the glass … but I have to do this. Someone has to set a good example for them. I’ll show them there’s a way out.
I look away and pick up the pace.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” she calls after me. She flicks the butt onto the concrete and grinds it out with the bottom of her heel.
“Somewhere better,” I answer her.
She laughs and blows the last stream of smoke out of her lipstick caked lips. I’m not waiting around to chat. I turn from her and begin to take off toward the main road down the small hill.
“Wait! Teddy! Wait!” she cries out, and there’s something in her voice that makes me stop and turn around; something almost … desperate.
“What?” I ask, turning to face her as I continue to back down the hill.
She steps to the edge of the road and stops, not wanting to stand on the lawn in her heels. Any last hope that she might try to show even a smidge of genuine, motherly care, evaporates when her mouth opens again.
“You walk away, you’re dead to me. If anything, and I mean anything, is missing when we get home I’ll have your ass in juvie before you can say runaway.”
A chill shudders through me. Of course, that’s what she’s worried about.
I look at her standing there, a new unlit cigarette in her hands already, her bird-nest of hair … then back down at myself in the oversized dress and worn boots. I turn Sadie’s license over in my hand. It’s the last in a long line of things I’ve stolen.