Trouble Read Free Page A

good place for me.
Jesus couldn’t hurt me, right?
    Ryan seemed to panic as I was leaving. He
yelled after me. “So are you going to bail me out or
what?”
    I kept walking.
     

CHAPTER 3
     
     
    I got the dreaded
phone call while I was standing in line at Siegfried’s Pawn Shop.
“Calm down, Mom. I know you’re upset but I didn’t realize I was
robbing a bank. Ryan left that piece of information out of our
plans for the day.”
    “ You’ve disgraced our entire
family. All the ladies at my charity league keep looking at me like
I’ve raised a serial killer,” Mom’s voice was getting more
high-pitched the longer she went on. “You were on the news .”
    I rolled my eyes, grateful I didn’t have a
video phone. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t have a time machine so I
can’t go back and fix it. All I can do is apologize.”
    I couldn’t hear it, but I knew she was
sighing. Really, she should have expected something like this one
day. I was no Lily. I was always making mistakes, this was just
another one in a long line. She should have been immune to my
embarrassment-inducing incidents by now.
    She ranted for another five minutes while I
stood in line. Finally, I had to interrupt her. “I’ve got to do,
I’m being served.”
    “ Served with what? Court
papers?”
    I cut her off before she could start a whole
new wave of lecturing. “No, at the store, I’m being served. I’ll
call you later.” I wouldn’t, but she didn’t have to know
that.
    “ Can I help you?” The counter
assistance asked me. He had one of those horribly thin and creepy
moustaches. The kind reserved for pimps and silent movie actors. I
didn’t want to guess which one he was.
    I explained about my jewelry. “Can I get them
back? I’ll pay whatever is owed on them.”
    “ Do you have the ticket?” He
leaned on the counter with just one elbow. It was kind of sleazy, I
think I knew which moustache guy he was.
    “ No, I don’t.”
    “ No ticket, no items. Next.” He
looked behind me, calling up the woman standing too close to my
back for comfort. She stepped up, nudging me as she did.
    “ No,” I protested. “I need my
jewelry. Please, I can tell you exactly what they look like. They
were stolen from me.”
    “ Then get the police report,” his
moustache twitched at me. “And then come back. Next.”
    He moved onto the pushy woman. I left the
pawnshop, empty handed. I tried to recall if I saw a ticket at the
apartment. I didn’t even know what it was supposed to look like.
Knowing Ryan, he probably lost it. I’m sure he had no intention of
actually getting my jewelry back. Especially not when he had to rob
a bank for cash.
    Perhaps the cash was to get my jewelry back?
Nah, he wouldn’t be that thoughtful. I doubt he ever gave them a
second thought once he had the cash in his grimy hands.
    As I walked the block to my car, I heard
someone calling my name. At first I thought it might just be
echoing in my head like a conscience to torture me but I recognized
the voice so I knew it couldn’t be that.
    I turned around and was face to face with
Rueben. I think he was mistake number four. “Hey, Rueben, how’re
you doing? It’s been a while.”
    “ It has been. I saw you on the
news this morning, you’re really making headlines. Nice mug shot,”
his voice was joking but I’m sure it was just an act. Reuben spent
his entire life enjoying the misery of others so he could tell
himself he wasn’t the weasel he really was. It took me five months
to figure that out.
    “ Yeah, well, you’ve got to do
something to keep yourself amused, don’t you?” I laughed but I
think it only made me seem insane.
    “ We should catch up sometime,
maybe get a drink?”
    That was never going to happen. “I’m looking
at twenty years in jail so perhaps after that?”
    Reuben was speechless, which only made me
happy. I stared him down while he grasped for something to say. I
decided to make it just that little bit worse.
    “ You could