Surviving Valencia

I never stole for myself, but after I was grounded for the banana incident, I began stealing for the twins more than ever. I was stuck at home for three weeks before school began, having lost my babysitting job since I had no means of transportation. My parents were gone all day and I was bored. Like the bracelet I had seen by the pencil sharpener, perfect situations fell into my lap.

The doorbell rang on my first day of being grounded, and there was the UPS man. I peeked out from behind the curtain by the door, watching as he set the package down and dashed back to his brown truck. Having no doors on their trucks had always scared me. Did UPS men sometimes fall out when they went around a sharp corner? He drove off and I opened the door to retrieve the package. It was for my mother. I tore it open and discovered an array of autumn kitchen decorations. Acorn potholders and dishtowels, a platter covered with brown and orange leaves. Kitschy junk. The kind of junk that, when she occasionally tried to decorate, she gravitated toward.

“These would be perfect for your apartment,” I whispered.

In my mind, Van and Valencia were no longer in college, but living here in Hudson in an apartment. I had picked out which one: a two story, white, boxy building a mile or so down the road. When I’d had a bike, I often rode past it. Sometimes they had cookouts with their friends and invited me. I fit in just fine and everyone was really nice.

I put the kitchen junk back in the box, arranging it neatly and taping it shut again. I had to find a new place to bury presents. I couldn’t use our backyard anymore because my father had begun to notice something was going on. He had thought it was a mole and had poured poison all over, and the bunnies and squirrels I loved had all died.

I took the box and my mother’s little gardening shovel and put them in a duffel bag. There was a wooded park between our house and the public swimming pool; I would bury their presents there. I had to hurry though, because it would be just like one of my parents to check up on me.

That park turned out to be the perfect spot, and during the next several months I went there to bury over a dozen gifts. Being grounded gave me extra time to devote to taking care of the twins. There was a baseball for Van that I took from school, and a suede purse for Valencia I bravely swiped from a teacher’s desk. There was even a small picture of a majestic mountain range beneath a purple sunset that I stole right off the wall of our neighbor’s house one sunny afternoon while she hung her laundry on her clothesline.

I added items whenever I had the chance, covering them with leaves and mulch, smoothing the ground with my hands, until late October when the ground became too hard to dig.

I had tried for thirty minutes that night in October, the wind gusting at my back and my eyes watering. A VHS tape of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off rested beside me, the perfect movie for Van and Valencia to watch with their friends while they played scrabble and ate pizza. I had taken it from the carelessly unsecured locker next to mine. When my mother’s little shovel began to bend more than the earth, I gave up. I covered the movie with rocks and twigs the best I could.

“I’ll bring you more in the spring,” I promised them, my words being carried away with the rustling leaves.

Chapter 39

Being a homeowner makes people care about things they never thought they’d care about. Fences, for instance. The fancy, tri-fold brochure in front of me was a surprisingly good read. There were white picket fences and cast iron fences, beautiful gates with lovely morning glories wrapping around them, and a whole pullout section devoted just to coordinating fountains.

“I love them all,” I told Adrian. “You pick.”

“Well, cast iron with sharp pokers on the top is probably the safest.”

“Then cast iron it is. But wait. How will that look with our house?”

“I don’t know. Good, I guess. This house here looks like ours and it looks alright with Classic Secure Cast Iron Deluxe,” he said.

“I wonder how long it will take to install. These construction projects can drag on. Maybe we should get out of town while they do it.”

“It says here they have the whole fence up within seventy-two hours of placing the call. Oh wait, there is an asterisk and the letters are getting smaller: Seventy-two hours if you choose a style they have in stock.”

“That’s encouraging. Let’s get it.”

“I’ll make the call,” he said, rising with the brochure then bending back down to kiss me. I think we both really believed we were fixing things.

Next, we were headed to the pound to buy the meanest dog we could find.

We went not to the shelter in Savannah, but an hour and a half southwest of us. It was a place we’d read about in the newspaper a year or so earlier one morning while doing the crossword puzzle and eating bagels at an outdoor cafe. A sad, weepy story of abused animals saved from violent, cruel lives. At that time I never dreamed I’d own a dog, much less a dog rescued from fighting rings. Yet here we were, back at home, now a family of three. We named our Rottweiler-Pitbull mix Frisky and bought him a cute pink collar to soften his impression on our curious neighbors.

“Come here, Frisky,” I said, waving a giant rawhide bone. He missed my hand by a fraction of an inch. I threw a block of moldy cheese on the back porch and when he lunged for it I slammed the door behind him.

“Adrian,” I called.

“What, Honey?” He appeared, holding some dishtowels he was folding.

“I’m not so sure about the puppy.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He terrifies me.”

“Baby, he’s supposed to make you feel safe. The poor guy has had a rough time of it so far. We’re his ticket to peace and happiness, and he is ours,” said Adrian, shaking his head impatiently and opening the back door. “Here boy, come on Frisky,” he called.

Plunk plunk plunk came Frisky’s big paws, his head bobbing left and right in goofy delight. He was excellent at playing the part of good dog when Adrian was around. I wanted to hate him, but was convinced his psychic dog skills would make it obvious to him, so I decided I would avoid him instead.