I managed to steal twenty dollars from Mommy’s purse that night. The next day at lunch, Lisa lorded it over me, practically making me beg her for her phone in front of the other girls. I swallowed my pride and did so. Finally, just before the bell was going to ring and make it impossible for me to use the phone, she relented and I gave her the ten dollars.
“Frozen custard for us after school today,” she announced, waving my ten dollars like a flag, “on Teal Sommers.”
The girls laughed.
I turned and called Del, but was disappointed to learn he wasn’t at work.
“He’s coming in at four today,” the other counterman said, and hung up.
“That was an easy ten dollars,” Ainsley Winslow cried when Lisa took the phone back. The girls laughed again, all smiling gleefully.
I hurried away, never feeling more helpless. I won’t let this go on, I vowed. I won’t.
With my driver herding me into the car and watching my every move, and with the house locked up like a penal institution, I boiled over with frustration. I couldn’t call Del and I couldn’t leave school and go to see him. After I was brought home at the end of the school day, I thought about breaking the lock on Daddy’s den-office door so I could get to his telephone and actually went down to the kitchen and got a butter knife out of the silverware drawer. What more could Daddy do to me anyway? I decided.
Just as I was at the door, however, I heard the front door open and Daddy and Carson speaking as they entered. Why were they here this early? Was Daddy coming to check on me?
Panicking, I retreated to the powder room across the way. I heard them laughing, and then I peeked out and saw Daddy unlock his door.
“What a pain in the rear this is,” he told Carson, “locking and unlocking my own office in my house, but for a while, I have to be sure she doesn’t disobey me. And there’s no doubt in my mind that she would if she could.”
“I know, Dad. I’m sorry,” Carson said as if he bore some responsibility for my behavior.
They entered his office, leaving the door open. Maybe they would forget and leave it that way, I hoped, and waited, watching them and listening.
“It was easy for Broderick to pay us the retainer in cash,” Daddy told Carson. “We’re saving him a ton of money and he knows it.”
I saw Daddy put a stack of bills on the desk, open his top desk drawer, take out a key, and then go to his wall safe and take out a metal cash box. Neatly, he put the money into the box.
“Ten thousand tax-free dollars!” Daddy declared. Carson laughed. “I hope you’re learning how to handle some of these clients of mine,” Daddy continued. “Someday, you’ll be in charge of the company, son.”
“You’re not retiring for a long, long time, Dad,” Carson told him, and Daddy smiled at him with such love and pride, I felt my heart ache. Paranoia or no paranoia, I thought, I never felt him look at me like that.
Daddy put the cash box back into his wall safe and put the key to the safe in his top drawer. Then they sat and began to talk about another project.
Boring, I thought, and slipped out and up the stairs. I’d wait to see if Daddy would leave and forget to lock the door. Hours later, Carson left, but Daddy didn’t. I heard him come up and go to his bedroom. When I went down to check the office, the door was locked again. Disappointed, but too frightened to attempt anything with the butter knife now, I retreated to my bedroom.
Later, dinner was conducted in the usual fashion it was conducted these days: a cross-examination of my activities, my school work, and my behavior. Mother sat looking as if she was the one being questioned and prodded. She kept her eyes down, held her breath, and nibbled on her food like a squirrel.
“Remember,” Daddy ended as he did every night since I had been arrested for the bracelet theft, “I hear that you so much as look at one of your teachers crosseyed, and I’ll tighten the walls around you even more,”
What else could you do, lock me in a closet? I wanted to fire back at him, but I didn’t say a word.
Instead, I waited like some predator for an opportunity, which came when he went upstairs to change into more relaxing clothes. This time he had left the office door unlocked. I snuck away from Mommy, who was on the phone, and I slipped into the office, but I didn’t call Del. I was too terrified Daddy might come down and find me in his office. Instead, I went to his window and undid the lock so it could be opened from the outside. Then I retreated to my room for the night, working on my homework, more to occupy myself and pass away the time than any interest I had in the material.
Close to eleven, Daddy came up to bed. I heard him go to his bedroom. Mommy was already there, after having given herself a foot treatment. I heard their muffled voices behind the closed door and as quietly as I could, tiptoed down the stairs and out the French doors in the sitting room.
It was a cool, overcast night, with just the ground lighting and some illumination from the house helping me to find my way around to Daddy’s office. I worried that he had found the window unlocked and had locked it, but when I went to it and tried, it opened and I was able to climb into the room. I dared not put on the lights. Carefully, I picked up the phone and punched out the number of the pizza parlor. If Del had come in at four in the afternoon today, he would still be there to close up, I thought. It rang and rang until finally someone picked up and I asked for Del.
“Who?”
I was afraid to raise my voice too loudly, but I took a chance.
“Del Grant,” I said.
“Del Grant?” I heard a voice I didn’t recognize ask.
“Yes.”