Four
PAST THE brIDGE, I WATCH THE VIEW OUT THE WINDSHIELD change while we move into the neighborhood of our next pickup, which is closer to the economic grade of where I grew up. Coventry’s one-stories with chain-link fences cede to the endless green lawns of East Greenwich, where trees hide long driveways curving up to stately homes with white shutters.
It’s September, the second week of my senior year of high school, the leaves giving up their green for the golden finery of fall. I imagine what my classmates must be doing right now instead of being crammed into this rental van. Waking up their summer-sluggish minds for the year’s first calculus problem set. Planning parties in the victory-lap halo of our final year of high school. College. The applications. The interviews. The fairs in the gym. It’s hard to imagine.
Will I even go to college? I don’t know. Although my father might step in and pay to save face, it’s not easy to contemplate leaving my mom with her debt, her lonely house. We’re the only light in each other’s days sometimes. With our present the way it looks, I don’t know how to make sense of my future.
It’s impossible to mock my compatriots’ high school preoccupations without recognizing how, deep down, I’m viciously hungry for their comforting simplicity. Much good mocking comes from jealousy, and much jealousy comes from circumstances like mine. It’s why I have such an effervescent sense of humor.
It’s also why I’m spending my Saturday in pursuit of stealing millions.
While I contemplate whether I wish I were doing homework right now instead, the van slows on the preternaturally pleasant streets. Where one of the driveways ends, our remaining member waits.
Tom Pham is going to be famous one day. You just know it when you see him. Not because he’s trying hard like most drama department prima donnas—but because he’s not. Everything, from the precise wattage of his knowing smile in every conversation to the easy slant of his posture right now, standing on the corner outside his house with his hands in his pockets, feels naturally charming and charmingly natural. He’s effortlessly cool, unflappably funny. Henry Golding meets Harry Styles in one sharply dressed chatterbox.
Right now, he looks ready to walk the red carpet. Like with Cassidy’s funereal ensemble, I did not request the exquisite flash of Tom’s outfit, the dark olive suit he pulls off with his nicely understated black tie on top of his crisp white shirt. The look is straight from GQ or Esquire except for the wide-petaled flower of his boutonniere, which is one-hundred-percent Tom Pham.
When the van pulls up, I haul the door open. Hands in his pockets, Tom cheerfully walks up to the car, where he flashes me one of his smiles. “Hello, everyone,” he greets us with magnanimous charm, the way he’s undoubtedly done in every play rehearsal he’s ever waltzed into. “Could we please de-escalate the air conditioner situation in here?” he inquires while stepping over me to the only open seat.
“No,” I say immediately. So does everyone else. Even Cass glances up to issue her denial.
“Sorry,” Deonte continues. “We need this temperature for the cargo.” The way he did with me, he nods to the trunk. Tom’s eyes follow, finding the strapped-down box.
“Is that a bomb?” His question comes out mildly scandalized instead of genuinely fearful.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say curtly.
Tom’s eyes rove over the box in the trunk.
“Okay, but, like,” he says, “would you tell me if it was a bomb?”
“Would you freak out if it were?” I ask.
“Me? Freak out? Good heavens, no,” Tom declares, then drops his voice gravely. “But for real, are we driving a bomb around?”
His eyes land on our driver. Incredulity explodes onto his expression.
“Mr. McCoy?” he nearly shouts.
“Shh,”I hiss. “We cannot have heist crew members hollering the names of other heist crew members in residential neighborhoods on weekend afternoons.”
Tom bobs his head. “Sorry. Sorry.” He lowers his voice. “Mr. McCoy?”
Without glancing over his shoulder, our driver nods. “Hello, Mr. Pham.” He sounds just like he used to in the classroom. Mr. McCoy, in his midtwenties, was one of the youngest teachers at our prep school. He addressed every student as Mr., Ms., or Mx., as if it were the only way he could cope with being called Mr. McCoy all day.
Tom rounds on me. “Why is Mr. McCoy driving us? And possibly explosives?”
“Rhode Island law requires minors to have their licenses for over one year before driving more than one teen,” I explain calmly.
Tom’s eyes remain huge. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought the plan was to commit various crimes today.”
“Man, shut up,” Deonte can’t help interjecting.
“I mean, we are, though, right?” Tom continues. “And we’re worried about traffic laws?”
“Yes,” I say, sterner. “I have no intention of being caught for any crimes today. Not now, not on our way home, not ever. Nothing we do can raise suspicion. Like, for instance, having a teenager in formal wear driving a utility van full of other minors. Now,” I order, “please stay quiet. Given our cargo, it’s really important for our driver to concentrate.”
“Our driver? Olivia, it’s not like you hired him out of Rhode Island’s deep criminal underworld,” Tom whines, pretty much ignoring me. “That’s our freshman English teacher.”
This is, in fact, true. Due to unfortunate events during my freshman year, the only year I went to Berkshire Preparatory—where I met Tom—I guessed Mr. Peter McCoy would be interested in joining our crew. I was right.
“It’s just,” Tom implores, “he’s a teacher. Do we trust him?”
“I thought the B I gave you on your C-minus Chaucer paper would’ve earned me your trust, Mr. Pham,” McCoy comments.
Cass smiles. Tom has the good grace to do the same. “Okay, your notes were, like, unnecessarily mean, though.”
“They were not mean. Your thesis was unsupported,” our driver comments while checking his phone’s GPS in the front cup holder.
“Guys,” I cut in. “I remember reminding everyone to remain quiet to ensure Mr. McCoy”—I emphasize his name for Tom’s benefit—“can concentrate.”
Tom straightens his lapels in his seat. He heeds my instruction for roughly one-point-three-five seconds before he extracts his phone from his front pocket, the case emblazoned with some streetwear logo.
“Could I get the aux cord?” he pipes up.
I eye him in exasperation. “What did I just say?”
“This is a rental van from, like, 2000,” Cass comments without looking up from her computer. “I don’t think there’s an aux cord.”
Tom wilts, crestfallen. It’s a moment before he speaks. “I just… made us a little pump-up playlist,” he confesses. He consults his phone, scrolling Spotify wistfully. “‘Money’ by Cardi B, ‘Money Trees’ by Kendrick—”
“Did you just put songs with money in the title?” Deonte interjects.
“Well, I’m not doing this heist for fun,” Tom shoots back. I zero my gaze in on the pair of them, hearing impatience in Tom’s plaintive tone. It isn’t lost on me that most of the people in this car have never met. I carefully weighed the potential interpersonal hurdles of this versus the interest in keeping the components of The Plan under strict need-to-know secrecy. The second priority won out, but I really do not want the hurdles to trip us up seventeen minutes into the van ride.
Deonte shrugs. “If you got Cardi, I’m good.”
“‘Money’ by Pink Floyd?” Cass inquires.
Now Tom cheers up. “Track five!”
“‘Take the Money and Run’?” McCoy chimes in from the driver’s seat.
The whole car goes quiet.
“Steve Miller Band?” our driver continues with eagerness verging on desperation. “Fly Like an Eagle, 1976?”
“I broke both hips the moment you said 1976,” Tom replies.
Despite my interest in easing intracrew dynamics, I can’t help smiling. McCoy, for his part, shakes his head with good-humored kids-these-days scorn.
“It’s before my time, too, but point taken. Old guy driving the van,” he says. “Not like I reviewed music for the Yale Daily News or anything…”
I realize I’m the perfect person to protect our dear driver from further musical embarrassment. “Everyone,” I say sharply. “I do not feel I need to remind you of the stakes here, which rely on precise execution of my instructions without fail. When I say we need quiet, I mean we. Need. Quiet.”
Right then, my phone rings.
Cass snickers. I frantically jab the side button to silence the irritating marimba of the default iPhone ringtone spilling out of my clutch. Not gonna lie, it kind of ruins the effect I’d hoped my penetrating gaze would have over my crew.
Composing myself, I close my clutch, onto which I calmly place my hands. Straightening my posture, I face the crew, schooling my features into respectful contrition. “I’m sorry for—”
My phone rings again.
Heat shooting into my cheeks, I wrestle the button once more into compliance. My reprieve is short-lived. Not one second later—as if the caller expected my resistance—my perky ringtone pervades the van once more. Fully furious, but half scared something’s happened to my mom, or Maureen’s power tripping by demanding some weird errand of me, or I’m uninvited to the wedding now, or dozens of other unnerving scenarios, I have no choice but to slide my phone out of the clutch.
When I see the name displayed in plainspoken Helvetica on-screen, I decide I would’ve preferred Maureen’s latest insult.
Jackson (DO NOT RESPOND)
Ugh.
I grit my teeth. “Everyone, for the love of god, please be quiet or I’m docking a hundred grand from your cut,” I say. “I have to take this.”
I pick up, knowing my ex-boyfriend will keep calling until I do.