It seemed like a good idea to just keep walking, to get as far away from the water as I could. They probably wouldn’t want to stick around and look for me, since buddy in the baseball cap would be completely freezing when he got out of the water.

Freezing. I should be freezing in nothing but a thin sweatshirt and jeans. But I wasn’t. As I walked I watched my breath puff up in white columns ahead of me, hands clenched at my sides, darting a look back over my shoulder now and then as the dock got smaller and smaller. Nothing was really moving, there were no frantic footfalls or yelling behind me.

I relaxed a little bit. Maybe I could find somewhere to sleep for the night and in the morning I could resume my search for Aunt Mary. The idea of sleeping on a park bench like a homeless person wasn’t particularly inviting, but what other choice did I have? I kept walking though, in the back of my mind was the big green field that I’d seen earlier when I was on the bus. That might be okay, it wasn’t looking like it was going to rain or anything, so I’d probably just have a little snooze in the grass. No problem, right?

There was one last shop open, a starbucks, and as I passed it by the yellow light shining through the windows lured me inside. The thought of sleeping in a dark field all by myself had me kind of spooked, and though I hated to admit this to myself, I sort of wanted some human company, or at last, to talk to someone one last time before I gave up. Maybe someone would know where Aunt Mary lived.

The coffee shop wasn’t super crowded, there were a few people, a boy reading a book in the corner, and a couple that appeared to be completely engrossed in one another, hands twined together over two steaming cups of coffee. My stomach rumbled again, and I tried to ignore the gnawing pains of hunger. Tonight wasn’t going to be fun.

The table directly in front of me was occupied by a couple of blonde girls, so alike they could almost be sisters. They were both dressed in extravagantly tight jeans and dangerously high strap-backed high heeled shoes. The one nearest to me had her purse on the table, a large bag that had colorful Ls and Vs all over it. She was exclaiming loudly,

“Oh my God, look at that girl walking by. She totally shops for all her clothes at walmart!”

They both giggled, leaning sideways in their seats to peer out the window, her friend snapped chewing gum loudly, flicking her bleached hair back over her shoulder, “awesome clothes, I wish I looked so good!”

They both dissolved into laughter again, and then the one on the opposite side of the table got a text message, pulling out a pink and yellow leopard print phone, “Oh, Derek is texting me again!”

I watched, trying to keep my lip from pulling back in disgust as she attempted to text message “Derek” back, her progress impeded by the length of her pink, sparkly fake nails, “Oh, screw it! I’ll just call him.”

The other blonde announced loudly, “I’ve got to pee,  I’ll be right back.” She stood up and clip -clopped her way towards the bathroom, drawing looks like magnets. Her friend didn’t even seem to notice, she turned her body away from the table, stuck her finger in her ear and crowed into the phone, “Hey baby!”

The purse was still on the table, the mouth of the bag yawning, wide open and inviting. Nestled in the center was a pink coach wallet, and it drew my eyes immediately. Something surged in me, a guilty mixture of temptation and terror. My right hand twitched and my eyes darted back to the remaining blonde. She wasn’t looking, in fact nobody was. The boy in the corner was deep in his book, the couple in the other corner were lost in one another’s eyes. There was nothing stopping me, and I was starving.

Impulsively I darted one hand out and snatched the wallet, feeling a shock of terror run through me once it was in my hand, I moved back again, trying not to move too fast and attract attention, eyes fixed on the blonde at the table.

“Oh my god!” she was saying loudly, still facing the window, “She said that to you? She is such a tramp! I hope you told her to back off, Derek!”

I slipped the wallet into the deep pocket of my sweatshirt, taking another step back, heart hammering against my ribs. One last scan of the couple in the corner, they weren’t looking, they were sucking face now. Yuck.

The boy in the corner with the book was still reading…no. My breath stopped in my throat. He wasn’t reading anymore. He was staring straight at me over the top of his book. His eyes were brilliantly blue, and most definitely fixed on my face.

He saw me do it.

There was no doubt of it. He’d seen me reach into the girl’s purse and grab her wallet. He’d seen me put it in my pocket. My entire body was tense, ready to run the moment he pointed at me, the moment he said loudly, “Hey, she’s a thief!” Because he would, any minute now.

Instead, he lowered the book, revealing the rest of his face, unshaven by several days and framed by dark wavy hair. His lips tugged up at one corner in a knowing smile. Slowly he shook his head, an almost undetectable movement if you weren’t watching him closely. 

What…I don’t get it.

Panic was still coursing through me. What was he going to do next? To my shock he simply lifted his book back up and began to read again, obscuring his face once more. I turned abruptly and pushed my way out the door, making the bell over the frame ring wildly. Once I was out on the sidewalk I took a huge gulp of cool night air. What the hell had that been about? Why had he looked at me like that? Why hadn’t he turned me in, or told that girl I’d stolen her friend’s wallet?

The coach wallet was heavy in my pocket, the bulk of it sticking out the side of my sweatshirt. I darted around the corner into the dark doorway of one of the storefronts, opening it, hoping desperately that there would be some cash inside, any amount. I would eat a ninety-nine cent cheese stick right now.  There was the usual stuff, credit cards, recipes, condoms. I wrinkled my nose, pawing past the plastic wrappers.

Come on. Come on…yes!

The middle section of the wallet revealed a glimpse of green that made my heart lighter. I yanked out the bills, excitement rising as I counted under my breath,

“Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…awesome!”

Maybe I wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground tonight. If I could find a cheap hotel….but, my stomach was still growling…

Maybe I could find a cheap hotel and cheap food for eighty bucks. It wouldn’t hurt to try. I stared down at the wallet, biting my lip so hard it hurt. There was a burning guilt way down in the pit of my gut, a little jiminy cricket conscious that was yelling at me, that no matter how shallow and ridiculous a person was, you were still not supposed to steal from them.

I sighed, shoving the cash into my jeans pocket, leaning out of the doorframe to peer left and right. The streets were empty, only the dim glow of the overhead street lamp and the light from starbucks behind me illuminated my surroundings. I let the wallet fall out of my hand, and it hit the sidewalk with a dull little “thump”. Hopefully some good Samaritan would pick it up and turn it into the police station, or better yet, the blonde girl and her friend would retrace their steps, thinking she’d lost it, and they’d find it here when they walked back down the sidewalk. She’d still have all her cards, it wasn’t like she’d have to go through the pain of trying to replace them.

With this thought rattling around in my head and attempting to make me feel better, I set out down the sidewalk in the direction of the highway. The bus had passed a cheap looking little motel when it had first turned into Sidney, one near the gas station. I would just have to hope and pray that they had a really, really cheap room.

“Welcome to Belstam hotel,” the clerk at the counter gave me what she must have thought was a cheerful smile. I tried not to back up a step. Her front teeth were crooked, jutting out of her mouth so enthusiastically that it almost made her look as though she were snarling.

“Hi,” I stammered, “I’m looking for a room. What’s your cheapest room for just one night?”

            She gave me another smile. I wished she wouldn’t. “Well,” she said pleasantly, “we have a promotion on for the week. Just fifty per night!”

“That’s perfect,” the knot that had been growing tighter and tighter in my chest finally loosened. It would be a total dump, I knew that, but it was better than sleeping in a field.

“I’ll just need one night,” I held out three of the twenties, and the clerk took them out of my hand with lightening speed, the cash register opened with a cheerful “bing!” and she scooped out a five dollar bill and a few loonies and handed me the change, “I’ll just give you your room key here, darling.”

“Thanks so much,” I took the key from her, noting I had room twenty-eight. The key to this hotel room was actually a key, not one of those plastic cards, but an actual, honest to goodness, tarnished metal key. It felt cold in the palm of my hand as I gave the snaggle toothed desk clerk a wide smile, “Are there any really cheap restaurants around here?”

She appeared to think, then shook her head, “it’s all pretty expensive, but there's a little grocery store on that side of us,” she jerked a thumb back over her shoulder, “ you can always get soup or something if you want to go real cheap. I’ve done that before, just warmed it up on the burner right in the can!”

“You are a genius,” I said gratefully, “that’s exactly what I’ll do. Thanks so much. Say, you haven’t heard of a Mary Parker that lives around here, have you?”

The clerk shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile, “Sorry, darling.”

Hopefully she thought my involuntary wince was from the lack of info, and not her horrific smile, “Okay, thank you so much.”

The grocery store was pretty easy to find. It was one of those “fresh food market” places, which usually meant “organic”, which meant bugs crawled all over it and they charged you an arm and a leg,  but I figured the soup couldn’t be too much. No more than a buck or two.

A bell jangled when I pushed my way inside, and the florescent lights made me blink furiously. I wandered past an old lady peering nearsightedly at the bags of bread, and a middle aged woman scowling at packages of gravy as if they’d personally offended her.

Luckily the canned soup was only eighty-nine cents, so I grabbed two cans of chicken noodle and made my way over to the bakery where I grabbed a couple of ninty-nine cent dinner rolls. I’d save one for tomorrow morning too, so I wouldn’t be wandering around town starving.

There wasn’t much of a line at the cash register, only one guy about my age. I eyeballed the back of him while we were waiting for the clerk to ring in his purchases. He was leaning one hip against the edge of the counter, hands shoved into the pockets of his ripped jeans. He had dirty blonde hair down to his shoulders, and it made me think of what my dad’s reaction would have been, moaning about “girly-men” who could put their hair in pony tails. Personally, I thought long hair on a man could be sexy, depending on what the man looked like.

I got a look at him when he turned slightly to stare at the magazine rack. Scanning the gossip magazines with dark eyes for just a second before turning back to thank the clerk and take the bag of groceries from her.

I glanced at him once last time as he walked towards the door, and then the clerk was talking to me,

“paper or plastic?”

“Oh, um, plastic is fine, thanks.” I held out the money when she asked for it, and then let my eyes wander while she dug into the register for change. The blonde boy was on his way out the door, and just as he was pushing through, and the bell was ringing above his head, he glanced back over his shoulder at me. The impact of his dark eyes on mine was a little breathtaking. I hadn’t been expecting it. Then he turned and was gone, vanishing through the door, and I realized that the clerk had been holding out my bag of groceries for several seconds now, and was staring at me like I was a complete idiot.

“Oh,” I muttered, “sorry! Thank you.”

“Have a nice day,” her voice was flat.

“Right, thanks.”