Sneaky

Mom used to call me sneaky. Said I was the sneakiest. 

Margooo, she'd croon. You should use it for good, she used to say. You should be a private eye, a detective. Join the CIA.

You can do all the sneaking around you want in the CIA, I thought.

But, I was just sneaky.

Mary went to her classes much earlier than I hopped into mom’s van for school. She was the oldest girl. She never wore family hand-me-downs, like me. I loved to creep into her room once she was gone.

I poked my nose in her jewelry box. Pulled out the Tiffany earrings snuggled in that iconic soft blue pull string bag. I fingered them jealously, rolling the rounded pearls through my fingertips, aching to wear them. She won’t be home until after cross country practice, I thought, she won’t know I ever took them to school today. I eyed my ears in the mirror. They shouted at me, burning with a desire I could not control. I slipped the backings from one, poking the needled silver through my dainty young ear, dropping the velvet stringed fabric and holding onto the other pearl so tightly it hurt. I pushed it into the remaining ear. I was thrilled. I knew I’d get away with it.

And I think I did.

Dad sometimes left his wallet out. Either on his dresser upstairs or on the kitchen counter or on one of the side tables in the family room. I wanted money. I wanted to be just like the kids at school who went out to the movies and the mall every weekend. Bought the hot lunch at school and the candy bars to follow. I craved George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Mr A. Hamilton. But, especially, Andrew Jackson.

I was just sneaky.

One time, Dad caught me. Well, more so that he noticed there were a few gentlemen missing from his well-packed wallet, a wallet browned and cracked from use, yet endowed.

A household alert went out.

Whoever took my money, he bellowed, Whoever took my money must place it in this envelope in the kitchen before tomorrow morning. THEN there will be no punishments. His hot, angry breath powered through the walls, into the surrounding rooms, hitting my now naked ears like a dulled punch against a padded wall.

Shoot.

I never put the two Andrews into the envelope in the kitchen before the next morning. Rather, I dropped them beneath the table where his wallet plumply sat. Victims of a misfortunate fall— that was my reasoning.

I never took a dime from my father again.

And sadly, I never joined the CIA. I must have lacked the qualifications.