The police had been back to their house to say they had looked into the robbery with Faith but could not find any evidence that she was involved. Kelly and Joel had scoured a few pawnshops and online sites but hadn’t seen the jewelry there, so it was probably black market if it was being sold.
Kelly stopped watching the squirrel, put the car in reverse, and made her way toward home. She tried to remember the good times with Faith, the early part of college, before Faith had started stealing from all of them.
Freshman-year move-in came to mind. Kelly and her dad had arrived first to the tiny dorm room with the two single beds and chipped dressers and desks. The walls were cinder block in the blandest off-white color. Kelly had some posters and poster putty, and she and her dad decorated her side as best they could. She unpacked her clothes and put them away, then pulled out the wooden jewelry box.
“Where should I put this?” she asked as her eyes started brimming with tears. Kelly’s mom and grandma had been killed in the drunk-driving accident just the year prior. Her father teared up too before saying, “Somewhere special, honey.”
She slid it into the top dresser drawer behind her socks, and she and her dad shared a long hug. Kelly wiped her eyes and continued unpacking, moving to the minuscule closet to put her extra sheets, towels, and laundry detergent on the shelf.
There was a clatter in the hallway and in swooped a whirling dervish of a person. The word Kelly remembered thinking wasbig.
Big personality, big entrance, big hair at the time.
“Hey there! I’m Faith,” the newcomer said, arms laden with an alarm clock, a pillow, and a lamp with a bright pink shade. Faith did a dramatic twirl in a circle, added, “Yup, I’m the new roomie… ta-da!” and set everything on the dorm bed.
Faith’s mother and sister were there, and they all met. Kelly’s father seemed as baffled by Faith as Kelly was. They both just kind of stared at her. Faith talked nonstop as she set up her side of the room. She clearly favored bubble-gum pink for decorations, and her comforter was in the same color as her lamp. She didn’t have as many clothes to hang or put in drawers as Kelly did, but the ones she did have seemed like the kind of cool clothes you might find at a funky thrift store, not a standard department store.
“OK, Mom and Sis and Kelly’s dad, byyyeeeee,” Faith said with a big wave. “Kell and I got this.”
Kelly was surprised to be called “Kell” so quickly, but it felt nice too. Her dad turned to her and raised his eyebrows in a “do you really want me to go?” look. She nodded.
“I’m ready, Dad.”
They walked to the front door of the dorm and shared one more long embrace.
“Your mother and grandmother are so proud of you, honey bear,” he said. “And I am too.”
“I know,” she said into his chest, crying. “Thank you, Daddy.”
She stopped at the communal bathroom on the way back to the room and cleaned herself up, not wanting her new roommate to see her like that right off the bat.
Back in the room, Faith’s mother and sister were gone and Faith was blasting rock music and hanging up Christmas lights.
“Ready for a killer year?” Faith asked with a grin.
“Uh, sure, yes, I guess,” Kelly stammered.
Kelly had always been a quiet and serious person, made more so by the accident. Faith was bold, mischievous, and always looking for a party. As the weeks went on, Kelly learned more of Faith’s habits. Faith didn’t care what anyone else thought of how loudly she played her music or blasted the TV. She spoke to her sister, Hope, in a bellowing voice on the phone, and she hummed at such a high decibel while doing homework that Kelly actually had to ask her to tone it down so she could focus on her own work.
For the first semester they got along pretty well, though, and Kelly was fairly pleased with her roommate. They were opposites in many ways, but Kelly looked at Faith as a creature from another planet, a fascinating one to be studied. Kelly would watch Faith as Faith sat on her bed painting her toenails and singing off-key to whatever band she was into that week. They would go to the cafeteria together, and Faith would direct them to sit with new people each time.
“Hey, we’re really fun and cool,” she would tell whoever was at the table. “Mind if we join you?”
Her outgoing personality constantly awed Kelly, and it was how they got to know Zoe and many others. Zoe lived down the hall, and soon they were in her room as often as they were in their own.
It was just before winter break, though, that they all started to notice little things missing. Small stuff at first—a watch, a pair of earrings, a CD. Things you could explain away as being something you had misplaced. Then cash started disappearing. Zoe’s roommate suspected Faith from the get-go, noting that things in their room only seemed to go missing when Faith had been there and one of them had stepped out to use the bathroom or run to get a soda, but they all pooh-poohed that idea, as Faith reported that some of her things were gone too. So Kelly stayed on Faith’s side.
But not long into second semester, Zoe’s entire jewelry collection disappeared on a night when the whole floor had a party and everyone’s dorm door was open. No one had seen anything and no one could be sure who was in or out of what room when. The resident assistant and university security looked into it, but they had no evidence. Zoe’s roommate once again pointed the finger at Faith, but to no avail.
At the weekly craft nights, most of the women from the floor would get together to do things like tie-dye shirts to wear to the next basketball game, or make sock puppets with their names on them to hang on their room handles. Faith claimed she wasn’t into stuff like that and stayed back.
Credit cards started going missing. Not every week and not from the same people. In fact, a girl on a different floor altogether complained about it. The RA asked everyone to lock their doors when they left. It wasn’t until people’s credit card bills started coming in that the alarm bells really rang. There were charges at the mall, all for women’s clothing at stores that college students liked. Every person on the floor was questioned and everyone denied it.
It was Zoe’s roommate who finally broke the case open. Shefollowed Faith to the mall and took secret pictures of her in various stores, then waited for the credit card statements to come in showing charges at those exact same stores. University police got involved and compared exact times of the transactions to the times she was in the stores. Faith was busted. She cried and apologized, saying something about being poor and never having proper clothes. She said she was on antidepressants that made her wired, jittery, and impulsive. She was told the university was suspending her midsemester. If she attended counseling, she could return. So Kelly didn’t have a roommate for the rest of freshman year.
As college continued, Kelly would see Faith occasionally, and they even had a class together during Kelly’s junior year. Faith asked her to coffee one day, and Kelly, feeling in good spirits, agreed. They talked about their futures—Kelly wanting to be a Spanish teacher and starting some in-class work, and Faith working to be a meteorologist and holding down an internship at a nearby TV station. When Kelly’s graduation came, Faith was there even though she still had that extra semester to make up. Faith sought out Kelly across the football field to give her a hug and wish her well. Faith said they should keep in touch, and they exchanged emails.
For years Faith would send an occasional email hello. Kelly was guarded but kind. Then came the middle-of-the-night phone call from Faith saying that she’d had her identity stolen and was desperate for help or she’d be kicked out of her apartment. Why Kelly believed her, she did not know. Trust in the goodness of human nature, she guessed. Plus, it had been years since the freshman-year debacle, with nothing else occurring. She figured Faith was mortified enough then and reformed now, so she loaned Faith the money.
