Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl Read Free

allowed to have some level of dignity during a mugging. Anyway, the only thing Caroline seems to find there are a couple of pennies. And I can sense her frustration as she undoes the bottom buttons on the old woman’s coat and pats her down all NYPD-style.
    “Tell us where you hide your money!” Caroline hollers as she throws the pocketbook on the floor. But the lady just shakes her head.
    “Don’t be acting like you don’t got none. I mean, look at all the stuff you have in this place. Nice paintings on thewalls, china in that cabinet over there. Tell us where you hide the money.”
    “What you took from my purse, that’s all I have,” the old lady says, hardly above a whisper. So Caroline just steps past her, walks out of the kitchen and to the doorway leading into the living room. She stands there surveying the scene for a few seconds, then turns to Gillian and tells her to look through everything in the kitchen. She tells me to hit the living room.
    “And, Gillian, keep an eye on her,” she says as she walks through the living room and into another hall that has one door on one side and two on the other.
    The first thing I notice about the living room is all this big, fussy wooden furniture. Everything looks as if it weighs about four thousand pounds. There’s this giant wall-unit thing that has these little pink chandeliers on either side. I can’t figure out if it’s ugly or not. And the couch is big and purple and plush. I’m thinking if I sit in it, I might just sink right on down to the floor and never make it back up.
    “Fay, don’t forget to look under those chair pillows!” Caroline yells.
    I start with the couch. I tuck my hand behind the cushions, afraid my fingers might touch something fingers have no business touching. But then I realize how clean the place is. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing in the love seat either. I open the doors of the big wall-unit thing, and there are all these crystal liquor bottles, but no liquor in them. I close the doors. On the sides of the unit are little animal figurines and some pictures. There’s a big black-and-whitephoto of some fancy-looking woman and man standing in front of a huge car. I pick it up. I’m thinking they’re in California, ’cause there are palm trees behind them. And they’re wearing old-time clothes and hats and look like something out of one of those old Abbott and Costello movies they put on WPIX on Sunday mornings. The woman is all glamorous, and I wonder if it’s the old lady. The thing is, I never think of old people as being pretty or ugly. I just think of them as being old. But then you see pictures of them from when they were young, and it’s like you’re looking at a whole other person.
    Caroline suddenly walks into the living room. She grabs the photograph from me and throws it onto the floor. But the glass doesn’t break, on account of the carpet being so thick and fluffy.
    “Why you out here looking at pictures? Come inside with me. We have to turn over the mattress in the bedroom.”
    We struggle trying to flip the thing over. And I’m starting to sweat, being all packed into my scarf and coat and hat like I am. We finally get the mattress off the box spring, but there’s nothing there. There’s nothing under the bed either.
    I notice some of the chunky, antique-looking brooches and necklaces scattered across the floor.
    “Maybe that stuff’s worth something,” I say.
    “Maybe. But it’ll be too much of a hassle to sell. And I don’t want to risk some cop or somebody tracing it back to us.”
    She has a point. Cash is cleanest. So we start going through all the clothes in her closet, pulling them offhangers, checking the pockets, and tossing them onto a pile. What’s weird is, even though she looks borderline homeless, the old woman has some really nice clothes. Maybe she just doesn’t believe in wearing her good wardrobe in wintry conditions.
    I go through all her button-down blouses quickly,