Trinkets Read Free

way.
    “No, it’s cool.” I give her a knowing smile. “Go ahead. I’m fine.”
    “I’ll be right back.” Jean nods appreciatively and goes to take the call. Jackpot.
    “Hey, stranger!” Jean blurts into the phone. “I love Ruth’s Chris!…” Then her shoulders slump. “Yeah, I think I still have the gift certificate. It was only for fifty dollars, though, so I’m not sure how big a dinner it will get us….”
    He wants her to take him out to dinner with
her
gift certificate? Jesus. Jean needs to hang up on this guy and delete his number. But whatever—her low self-esteem is my good fortune. When she hangs up, I give her a little wave and say, “Thanks! I’ll come back later!” and stroll off. Leaving everything behind but the Maya Brenner bracelet.

 
BRILLIANT CON ARTIST
    Walking your trinket out of the store is the worst and best part, where you’re about to become either a brilliant con artist or another juvenile-delinquency statistic.
    I force myself to slow down and supposedly admire a pink sundress, but underneath the sleeve of my sweater, I’m covertly ripping off the price tag and tiny bar-code sensor from the bracelet, which is fastened on my wrist. I drop the tag and sensor on the floor and walk on through Sporting Goods.
    Ninety seconds later, I’m at the street exit. I take a deep breath and make the final plunge through the electronic gates by the front doors—which, 87 percent of the time, are for show, but still they’re the final, exhilaratingly scary hurdle—and I push open the door. The winter air hits me like a slap of freedom.
    I quicken my pace as I beeline to the parking lot. I figure I’ll make a hard right in thirty feet, walk around the building, and reenter the mall near Yopop. I pull out my phone to text Kayla my ETA, and move faster and faster, freer and freer. I pick up speed and round the corner of the building, and that’s when I walk right smack into a security guard.

 
CAUGHT
    Blood bolts to the surface of my skin so hard it feels like my face is being pricked by a hundred little pins.
    I have no freaking clue what to do, so I cover. Badly. “Oops. Sorry. I’m such a spaz—”
    He smiles a slow, casual smile. A tattoo of a bobcat or some kind of jungle lion peeks out from under his collar. I stare at it. Was he my age when he decided to permanently ink himself? Was it something he did with his friends? I wonder if he regrets it.
    “I’ll need you to come with me,” he says.
    “Why?”
    He chuckles a little bit. “I think you know.”
    “I do?” I ask. There is literally no oxygen going in or out of my body.
    “Girls who steal three-hundred-dollar bracelets aren’t as dumb as they look.”
    “I didn’t steal anything.” I try to make my Mirror Face, my model face, my “you are the most charming person I know, and your arm around my shoulder makes me happier than anything in the entire world” face, but he doesn’t buy it.
    “I need you to come back inside and show me what’s on your wrist.”
    I have no choice. So I say, “Oh, shit! Is this what you’re talking about?” I hold out my wrist. “I totally forgot I tried it on! I’m retarded.”
    He smiles at me. Just beneath his smile, I can see the tattooed point of the bobcat’s claw, poised above his jugular.
    “You may have ‘forgotten’ ”—he stresses the word, obviously not believing me—“but you still walked out of the store without paying for it, which means you broke the law.”
    When we head back inside, I try to look like nothing’s wrong, but then I see Jean standing there by the big glass doors. She’s pointing me out to her coworker and wearing a smug smile on her face. Ten minutes ago, Jean was the loser and I was the winner. Now it’s a completely different story.
    “Eric is just using you for a free steak,” I snipe to Jean as we pass. Her smug smile disappears. The guard holds out his arm for me to take, and it’s almost the way a gentleman leads a lady onto