Melanie turned left at Fifty-Second and Nicholas Streets and headed into the Memorial Park neighborhood, a stretch of huge brick homes with carefully manicured lawns. Not a ceramic gnome in sight. That made her smile, thinking of her son, Charlie's, newest obsession of stealing lawn ornaments, even though it annoyed her as much as it amused her. She couldn't help thinking that maybe it was another example of like mother, like son. After all, she had taught him well, making a game early on of their escapades. It may have started as a game, but it bugged her that Charlie still treated stealing as a game, completely unaware of the risks and dangers. Yes, she had taught him well, maybe too well.
She'd brought him in when he was only eight. They stole packs of ground beef-quickly graduating to T-bone steaks-from the HyVee on Center Street, stuffing them into his school backpack. Charlie became so good at it she didn't even notice him steal the Hostess Twinkies and Bazooka bubble gum until they appeared later on their kitchen table, alongside the packs of meat. He was a natural, and now, nine years later, with that baby face and lopsided grin, he could still get away with almost anything.
Their game had started as a matter of survival, a way to supplement Melanie's string of shitty jobs. So what if Charlie swiped a few silly lawn ornaments as long as he brought home a leather jacket or enough CD players to pay the rent? What did it matter that he still considered hot-wiring Saturns a game? Maybe it was that carefree attitude that kept him from getting caught, though Melanie worried that it had more to do with luck than attitude. They had had a long string of good luck, and lately she found herself not trusting it to hold up. But she didn't dare tell Charlie that.
Luck and a little bit of opportunity. That had been her ticket out of the stink hole she grew up in. For the last ten years she had provided a nice home for herself and Charlie in the middle of Dundee, a respectable Omaha neighborhood. A good family neighborhood, though not quite like this one, she thought as she looked around. She kept to the sidewalks, wondering if anyone behind these huge, decorative doors would understand. How could they with their polished black BMWs and Lexus SUVs in their driveways, not a missing hubcap or spot of rust in sight, let alone a homemade In-Transit sign Scotch-taped to the rear window?
She walked past the only pickup parked in the street, a white Chevy, and she knew before she saw the attached beat-up trailer that the truck belonged to a lawn service. Then she saw two young men, shirtless and glistening with sweat, down on their knees on the front lawn of the house. They both had what looked like oversize scissors, and they were cutting blades of grass from in between the pristine white picket fence, obviously unable to use the array of machinery on their trailer for fear of scarring the white wood.
Melanie resisted the urge to laugh. Jesus! What did it cost to have something like that done? She wanted to roll her eyes and make some sympathetic gesture in recognition of their plight, but then they would have known. They would have realized that she didn't belong here, either, that she was an outsider, too. So instead she just smiled and continued walking.
She checked her wristwatch, a sleek, black-faced Movado with a single diamond that Charlie had given her on Mother's Day. She didn't bother asking him anymore how he got things or from where. She couldn't help thinking the watch belonged in this neighborhood even if she did not. It was then that she saw the eight-by-ten piece of cardboard nailed to the tree. She remembered noticing the tree soon after it was ravaged by last week's thunderstorms. The wounded maple managed to keep only its trunk intact, the branches ripped off, leaving behind what now looked like two severed arms, still reaching in surrender to the sky. This morning someone had added a hand-printed sign, a sort of public epistle that read, "Hope is the thing with feathers." In small print below was written "Emily Dickinson."
Melanie glanced at the house the tree belonged to, but didn't slow her pace. She repeated the phrase to herself, "Hope is the thing with feathers." She snorted under her breath. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And, besides, what did people with brick mansions and BMWs need to know about hope? What problems could they possibly have that couldn't be solved with their money?
She remembered what Jared always said. That people who had money didn't have a clue about people who didn't have money.
Melanie looked back at the tree. Even from almost a block up the street that poor, ugly thing stood out in the middle of this picture-perfect neighborhood. It didn't need a stupid quote from some dead poet tacked onto its pathetic remains to remind it that it didn't belong.
"Hope is the thing with feathers?" she repeated, but still didn't understand. Was somebody poking fun? Or maybe pointing out that they were above having an ugly tree in their front yard? Surely they didn't think hope was going to save it, so it had to be a joke or some highbrow message. It didn't matter. Why was she even wasting her time with it? One thing she knew for certain, hope was something only people in brick mansions could afford to count on. People like herself and Charlie and Jared counted on luck. A little bit of luck could make things happen. She and Jared had crawled up from the same stinking hole. That was the one thing they understood about each other.
She glanced at her watch again. Maybe things hadn't changed as much as she thought, and she picked up her pace. No sense in pissing off Jared.
CHAPTER 4
7:15 a.m.
J ared Barnett watched from across the street, three houses down, in a car he knew she'd never recognize. He had been here once before, but it had been at night, just to scope out the place. He had been pleased to discover no dog or even a trace of one in the backyard, only a shitload of mud and piles of some fucking pebbles that hadn't set properly in the new walkways. He remembered because he'd worried that the sound of him walking over them would wake up the neighbors.
Now sitting here, he wondered why in the world she had chosen a huge, old two-story in the middle of Omaha when she could easily afford a new house out in some ritzy West Omaha suburb? But this was better for him. More traffic; it wouldn't be unusual to have cars parked along the street. Anyone who saw him would simply think he was waiting for a girlfriend in one of the apartments across from her house.
He pulled out the cell phone and flipped it open, stopping to admire it. He might have to hang on to this one.
Technology stuff amazed him. He didn't have a clue how it all worked, but he loved having it, owning it. Like a new toy. He'd had fun in the last week taking pictures-sometimes without anyone knowing since the miniature camera was almost hidden in the back panel of the phone. He could take a person's picture then program it into the phone with that person's phone number. It still amused him that, when he dialed a number, the person's photo came up on the tiny video panel inside. And it blew him away when his phone rang, bringing up the caller's photo as a caller ID. Totally cool.
He'd filled up the queue in just a few days. The only problem was he didn't know how to erase them. That was one disadvantage-stolen cell phones didn't come with instruction manuals, and he hadn't been able to figure out the erasing part on his own yet.
He punched in the number, watching the small video panel then almost laughing out loud when the photo appeared. He'd taken the picture as he ate, catching him between bites, his mouth full of cheeseburger. He liked catching him off guard, sort of keeping him in his place, if only for a second or two and if only inside this high-tech contraption.
"Yeah?" Jared heard him say in place of a greeting, trying his best to sound like a tough guy.
Jared held the sliver of metal to his ear and said, "You almost finished?"