“No. No! It’s not. It can’t be!” I yell, then quickly lower my tone. “Please. Look again. Please.”
“I’ve been doing this for twenty-seven years. I assure you it’s an obvious knockoff. It’s not worth anything.”
“It has to be. Ithasto be worth something. Anything. Ten dollars. Anything,” I plead, and now the other employee and the two other shoppers have stopped to look at me but have quickly looked away.
“I’m sorry, but it’s not even worth that. I wish I could help,” he says, and everything becomes blurry, and the man looks like he’s moving in slow motion. My knees feel like they’ll buckle. I can’t go back. This can’t be happening.
“No. Check again. You’re wrong. You have to be wrong!” I scream.
“Ma’am. Please. You’re making a scene. I’m very sorry I can’t—” and then I stop listening. Everything sounds muffled. An older man is standing with another employee a few feet away. He’s looking at me with pity. The other employee has pulled a velvet tray full of jewelry for sale and is showing the items to the patron. There are mostly rings in the tray. I see a tiny white tag on a diamond solitaire ring that reads$1,300. I feel pinpricks of heat climb my spine. I look at Avery, who’s just happy to be looking around at all the shiny items. And what else can I do? I lunge at the velvet tray, grab the ring, and run.
I run out the door, pushing her stroller ahead of me. Avery begins to cry at the jolt and my panic and the men yelling to stop me. It’s pathetic. Alone, I could have outrun them, but I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t considering the bumpy, rock-studded concrete in the parking lot that would slow down the wheels of her stroller. I didn’t think through opening the door and maneuvering out two bags and a stroller. I didn’t think about anything, I just run, and I am caught before I get out of the parking lot.
The police are called.
They try to make me stay where I am until the police come, but I say it’s too cold for the baby and walk back inside, forcing them to follow me. Two male officers arrive twenty minutes later. Of course they’re male. And they know exactly who my husband is, but today, according to my ID, I’m not Georgia Kinney, I’m June Barrett, thirty-one years old. People don’t report IDs stolen, do they? They just replace them, especially since the purse was returned. I guess I’ll be finding out the hard way.
I hear the anime T-shirt man explain in dramatic detail exactly what happened, but I don’t say anything. I sit on the orange plastic chair near the front window and feed Avery goldfish crackers as I push her back and forth in her stroller trying to calm her.
After a few minutes, one of the officers comes over to me, and gently explains that the shop wants to press charges and so he will be forced to arrest me. I look over at the shop employee, who shrugs.
“It’s all on camera. What do you want me to do? I could lose my job,” he says.
“I have a baby!” I yell back at him. “You psychopath!” I expected to get a citation maybe, but I never thought they would arrest me. I stand and have the urge to run. I almost do it, but it would be so absurd and comical at this point. I’m a trapped animal. Again.
“Ma’am,” Officer McAllen says, “we’ll do our best to let you make some calls and find someone to pick up your little girl. We’re not taking her to jail.” He laughs at his own joke, and I think I stammer, or at least open my mouth to say something that doesn’t come out.
“Jail,” I repeat. And then I’m in the back of a cop car being transported to the police station with Avery. On the way, the officer explains that bail should only be a few hundred if it’s my first arrest and there are no red flags that I won’t show up for my court date. The urge to throw up increases with every word he says. Money, court, jail.
“Can you pull over?” I blurt.
“I’m afraid I can’t do—”
“I’m gonna throw up!” I yell through the plexiglass dividing us, and he quickly pulls over and clicks my door unlocked. I lean out and vomit until my insides ache. He doesn’t say anything to me. When my eyes are bloodshot from the effort of heaving, I close the door, and he pulls back into the lane and keeps going.
At the station, they are nice enough to let me sit in a holding room with Avery while they run my driver’s license. Thank God June Barrett has a clean record. When I explain that I don’t have any money on me and I’m not married (of course they don’t see a ring because I’m not allowed to wear one; Lucas knows I’d try to sell it) they don’t exactly take pity on me but I can tell they are just trying to get me out of here with a slap on the wrist and a court date.
“What happens if I don’t have anyone to come for me?” I ask, starting to panic again.
“We’d have to keep you until your arraignment, which will probably be Monday since it’s after noon on a Friday.”
“And Avery? What will you do with her?” I say, tears filling my eyes. He stops tapping on his computer and leans back.
“I’m afraid we’d have to call child welfare if there is nobody who can pick her up,” he says, and I wonder what the charge would be for lunging across the desk and stabbing out the eyes of a police officer for even suggesting separating us.
“There is one person I could try,” I say instead. “I don’t have her number, though. Cora. Cora Holmon, and I have her address!” The officer pushes a pad of paper and short pencil across the table toward me.
“Write it all down, and I’ll have someone try to track her down for you,” he says. I write it down, and he walks out of the room, leaving Avery and me alone together. I want to pick her up and hold her to me, but my ribs can only take so much pain, so I sit on the floor next to her and kiss her hands and tell her everything will be okay.
19
PAIGE
Finn’s laptop proves very useful. There are emails going back a year that Paige screenshots, emails to herself, and prints. She drops them into her box labeledFinninside the bedroom wardrobe. She doesn’t want to keep the laptop, she just wants to get what she needs off it. So she will drop it off at his front door. If he were to start pointing fingers at her, the last thing she needs is to be in possession of stolen property. She doesn’t think he really could without exposing himself, but maybe the secrets on his computer are worth the risk, she’s not sure, so she cleans it with a disinfectant wipe.
Both his and Cora’s cars are gone, so on her way out to go and visit Charlotte, she leaves it on their doorstep. It wasn’t hard to find pathetic, sickly sweet emails and Facebook messages between Finn and Charlotte. It’s like he wants to get caught. She doesn’t know why Cora finds it so hard to gather what she herself did, easily, in just days. Finn makes Cora feel like she’s the paranoid one and leads her down dead ends, that’s probably why.
It’s a Friday afternoon, and Charlotte is out of the office all day, according to their exchanges. Paige has emailed Charlotte from Finn’s account asking her to meet him at Milio’s for lunch and adding that it’s urgent. Charlotte agrees, asking if everything is okay. Paige assures her that it is but to please just be there at twelve thirty.
