“Here’s one: ‘The Josephus Wynne Historic Estate reported the theft of an antique desk accessory from its premises.’”
Grace stared at him. What was he playing at?
“They don’t even know when,” Riley said, avoiding Grace’s eyes. “Because who would notice a missing desk accessory?”
“I’m surprised people don’t steal shit from them constantly,” Greg said. “All that old shit no one cares about.”
“I bet it’s all crap,” Riley said. “What do they call it?” He looked at Grace. “When they make new stuff that looks like antiques?”
“Shabby chic,” Greg said with authority.
“Reproduction,” Grace said, seething at Riley’s indiscretion.
“No, they probably don’t allow that,” Riley said. “Against the rules or something.”
“Some people go in for the dumbest shit,” Greg said. His family’s house was full of crystal decanters and silver napkin rings, but maybe he had never noticed them amid the rubble. The Kimbroughs were more into biannual kitchen renovations than they were into heirlooms.
Riley shrugged. “I’d rather have George Washington’s spittoon than a home theater.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Greg said. “You’d be like, how many Xboxes can I get for this? You’re just saying that because of her.” He got up and dropped his bowl in the sink. “They should just liquidate the Wynne House and build a water park.”
“We’re doing it. Raiding the Wynne House,” Riley said, clasping his hands behind his head. “Me and her.”
“Hot damn, I want in.” Greg laughed and leaned against the counter. “Then what? Yard sale?”
“Then we drive the loot to Atlanta or whatever and sell it off. All our grandpas died.”
“Come on,” Grace said, getting up. “We need to get to Walgreens before they close.” Grace needed to pick up her birth control, but Riley didn’t need to walk with her, and he knew that.
“Why do you hate me?” Greg asked her. He’d said it as if he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He smirked at her, daring her to answer. She rolled her eyes.
“No, you really do,” he said. “Like, it’s painful for you that I’m laughing at one of your jokes.”
“Christ, man,” Riley said. “Will you chill?”
Grace was getting tired of Riley’s Christ, which seemed to stand in for his brain so he wouldn’t have to think of anything to say.
“You don’t have any money anymore,” she said to Greg. “What are you going to do?”
Greg shrugged. “They’ll give in. They’re not going to let me starve.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, though, that it’s up to them?”
Riley was clearly nervous. In the six years they had known each other, Grace and Greg had never had any real discussion, and she certainly had never flaunted her contempt for him.
“It bothers you more than it does me,” he said, surprising her.
“We need to hurry,” Riley said. “They close at nine.”
They closed at ten, but Grace followed him out.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded on the sidewalk.
“What the hell was that? You tell him everything we talk about?”
“It’s a joke,” he said. “I didn’t realize that was such sensitive information.”
“I feel like we have no privacy here,” she said. She could not tell him what she had meant to say without looking like a fool. “I feel like we have less privacy now than we ever used to.”
He looked at her then as if she were crazy. “What is this about?”
“Riley, how are we going to pay the rent, huh? And buy food? By selling your stupid car?”
“Look, I know you’re worried, but something will change. Worse comes to worst, we move back home for a while. We’re not adults.”
“I can’t go back home,” she spat. “Don’t you get that?”
“Calm down. My mom made you a room, for chrissakes.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. It was only a matter of time until Riley found out something, she knew. If the Grahams told him about the money, she knew that Riley would want to believe that his father had made a mistake, that he had not given her the envelope. Or that he had, but she had not opened the envelope, that she had simply lost it. She didn’t know which was better to say.
She wished she could take something else from the Wynne House, just so she could sell it and pay the Grahams back. They could all pretend she had simply misplaced the envelope. Everything could be the way it was before, or at least the Grahams would think it was.
The horrible shame of knowing Dr. and Mrs. Graham thought—knew—she had stolen the money seemed like it couldn’t possibly get any worse until she imagined the further conversations: Riley telling them they were wrong, that of course he believed her. Mrs. Graham knowing that Grace had lied to her son, and so effectively. Grace wouldn’t be a girl with a little problem of borrowing and not giving back, their girl who just needed some sessions with a counselor. They would never really trust her, or even look at her like her again, their Gracie.
But that had already happened, she knew. Mrs. Graham had been clear. Grace was not their daughter, not all the time.
Grace and Riley had not been to his parents’ since Mrs. Graham had confronted Grace. She had dreaded Riley’s questions about why she didn’t want to go, but he barely noticed. Grace had been the one pushing for those weekly dinner visits, and she and Mrs. Graham had always arranged them. Two weeks had passed since Mrs. Graham had taken her up to the bedroom, and she had not called Grace about dinner. About anything.
This was what happened when your heart wanted two things it could not have together: You lost them both. Everyone knew that.
But she still had Riley, the only person who still thought she was a good girl, and she could not let him change his mind. She knew this even as she fought to ignore the inexplicable, grotesque rage she felt hissing deep within—at Dr. and Mrs. Graham, for treating her as their daughter and then humiliating her like a stray who’d forgotten her place; at Donald and at Bethany; at Lana and Kendall; at Craig Furst, wanting to know if she enjoyed Miami; at her parents and at the twins for revealing them to her; at Greg, who coasted through the days in an Xbox fugue state, blank-eyed and gassy. At Alls, who had picked her like a lock. At Riley, for being so loved and so smug, even now, and in love with her. At herself, more than anyone, for not smacking her own hand back when it wanted, so often, what was not hers. She looked at her husband and saw a ticking clock. She had to take him away, and she had to take him before she ran out of time.
? ? ?
The next morning, Grace and Riley were lying in bed when Grace heard a door slam in the driveway. She turned over and covered her head with her pillow, trying to stay asleep.
“RILEY!” Greg bellowed from downstairs. “YOUR CAR’S GETTING TOWED!”
She heard the front door swing open and shut, Greg shouting at someone. She elbowed Riley, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Wake up,” she said, her throat dry. “Greg is yelling.”
What had Greg said? The car?
She pulled a T-shirt over her head as she stumbled to the window. “Riley,” she said sharply. “There’s a tow truck in the driveway.”
He rubbed his eyes. “It’s our driveway,” he said. “I can park in my own driveway.”
“I think you better wake up,” she hissed, raking through the pile of clothes for a pair of jeans.
All at once he sprang up and sprinted downstairs. Grace followed him. Alls was already outside, demanding to see the man’s papers, and Riley ran out into the March frost in only his shorts, shouting at the man to stop.
“What are you doing?”
“Repossessing your car,” the man said. “You want to give me the keys?”
“What? Why?”
“Are you sure you have the right car?” Alls asked the man. “You check the VIN?”
Greg turned away and shambled up the porch steps. He stood next to Grace in his sweatpants. “I’ve never seen a repo man in real life,” he said.
? ? ?