Six
THE DRIVEWAY WINDS UPWARD, SECLUDING US IN THE WOODS SURROUNDING my father’s home. It’s designed for impressing guests, not for easy ascent. On the curving climb under the vermillion cover of fall leaves, I can’t help remembering the dinners I’ve had here every week for the past couple years—my dad’s new way of pretending we’re a family.
I get nervous every dinner, for no exact reason—only the unwelcome feeling of the home I once loved. The six or seven times I brought Jackson with me, I felt calmer driving the Camry I share with Mom up this foreboding driveway. Other nights, I find myself fretful on the drive, uncommunicative during dinner, then frustrated with myself, then restless when I go to bed because I know in a week, I’ll repeat the whole ugly riddle over.
I couldn’t have known it would help me now. It does, though. The funny thing is, driving up to my father’s estate with nervousness clenching my stomach, I feel… prepared.
The house is elevated—or the highest you can get in Rhode Island. While the incline’s grade is gentle, Deonte nervously watches the box secured in the trunk.
When the road evens out, our destination finally in view out the windshield, we follow the valets’ directions into the collection of Maseratis, Maybachs, and Porsches filling the otherwise needlessly large green lawn flanking one side of the house. The older I get, the more perplexing I find this feature of the grounds. What did Dad plan on doing out here? Play polo? Hold Coachella?
I direct McCoy to the very back. We’ll need to walk farther, complicating hasty escapes, which is unfortunate.
On the whole, however, seclusion means occlusion. The more people, the more cars, the more everything distancing us from the house, the less memorable we’ll be.
Yes, I found this pretentious-ass phrase in an online guide to robbing secure facilities. Yes, such content really exists. Yes, I promptly wrote the irritating rhyme into The Plan’s notebook.
McCoy puts us into park. Everyone reaches for their seat belts. “Introductions,” I say, preempting them. “Cassidy—our hacker.” I nod to Cass, who does not respond. “Deonte, catering. Mr. McCoy—”
“It’s okay to just call me Peter,” he interjects. “People pretty much do outside the classroom.”
“Mr. McCoy,” I repeat. “Security. Driving. Tom,” I continue, pointing two fingers to our remaining member. “Playing my date for the wedding. Yes, he’s who I referred to on the phone with my ex. Our story needs to be consistent with what Jackson sees.”
The crew exchange glances. I pause, giving them time to commit the configuration to memory. Much of this is new information to each of them. Like their identities, I’ve concealed from each member of my crew the parts of the plan they didn’t genuinely need to know—until now.
I’m pretty certain I catch the moment it happens. The moment this becomes real. Everyone’s expressions settle into mutual respect, then the realization of mutual reliance. Right now, from here on, we know each of us is depending on everyone else.
“This, of course, is the final time we will use the names we’ve just exchanged,” I continue.
Everyone falters. Nobody received this part of the plan.
“We’ll be using code names,” I continue.
Pretty much from the outset, I knew we would need code names. If we’re overheard or our communications over the course of the next six hours are discovered or whatever, keeping our real names clean is imperative.
“We will go by the names of chess pieces,” I elaborate to the group.
“Ew, why?” Tom wrinkles his nose, evidently finding my code-naming scheme nerdy.
“Whenever I would go meet one of you, I used the same excuse to my mom,” I explain. “I would say I was going to chess club.” The excuse, I pretty quickly discovered, invited no curiosity, which was important when I would sometimes leave home for hours to drive to other neighborhoods or work with inconvenient schedules.
Cass glances up, catching Deonte’s eye as if they’re having the same thought. It’s Deonte who speaks up. “Your mom… bought that? You in chess club?”
I frown, irritated by the insinuation that my presence would be unrealistic in chess club when I literally planned this entire heist. “Yes, she bought it,” I say impatiently. “Besides, they’re good code names. Easily memorable. Everyone knows the chess pieces.” I read my crew’s faces, searching for agreement. I find none. “Also,” I add, trying one last angle, “I think they sound cool.”
Everyone nods. I don’t pretend I don’t enjoy the group’s validation of the coolness of my code names.
“I’ll be Queen,” Cassidy decides. “Because the queen can move wherever she wants.” She places her hand on her computer.
“What about Olivia?” Tom asks.
Cass looks to me.
“Nah,” she says. “Olivia is King.”
I say nothing, meeting her eyes, grateful for the gesture from this girl who hadn’t even met me this time last year.
“I’ll be Pawn,” McCoy offers from the front seat.
“’Cause you make the first move.” Deonte nods. “Cool.”
“No, because I was easily convinced by a group of children to commit several federal crimes,” McCoy replies pleasantly.
Deonte laughs into his fist.
“I shall be Knight,” Tom declares. “The well-cut suit is the modern man’s shining armor,” he notes as if he read the comment somewhere.
“Then I’m Rook,” Deonte says. “Worth more points than the knight or the bishop.”
Everyone pauses.
“Nobody here actually knows about chess, huh?” he says.
“Wait.” Tom is eyeing our former English teacher, the hint of memory shining in his sharp eyes. “You got fired from Berkshire the year we had you, didn’t you? Now you’ve turned to crime,” he comments mournfully, as if everyone in this car hasn’t just turned to crime. “And grown a… rather regrettable beard.”
While I wasn’t going to mention it, I’m not going to dispute Tom, either. McCoy looks halfway from winsome hipster to perpetually exhausted. Unfortunately, his new scruff is my fault. He was my first recruit because I knew he would need months to grow the beard intended to render him unrecognizable to the Berkshire parents invited to the wedding.
Whether driving the van or during the wedding, I knew we’d need someone like McCoy—someone who could move without the whiff of suspicious scorn reserved for teenagers in places of power. Besides, he’s cool. Whether because he’s precociously young or just nice, he treated students like we were important instead of like we were work.
“Say, Tom,” he returns with the first hint of sarcasm, as if he’s realizing we’re now his coworkers, not his private-school pupils. “What’s going on with you? Figured out your post–high school plans yet?”
Tom grins. “We’re doing them right now.”
“Could we please wrap this up?” Deonte interrupts. “I’m really concerned about the cargo.”
“Everyone,” I cut in. These little moments when we’ve veered close to bickering unnerve me. Bickering is not part of The Plan. “We will deal with the cargo when I say so,” I continue, hoping what the situation needs is some good ol’ fashioned leadership. “First, Queen will provide the documents.”
Cass reaches into her computer bag. She produces a hard plastic badge with McCoy’s photograph printed underneath the words Millennium Security, which she passes forward to McCoy. Cass doesn’t speak much, but I don’t need her to. In her black T-shirt and black jeans, she’s the only member of the crew not coming into the wedding. No socialization required—only having her way with my father’s online accounts, which she promised me was well within her digital reach.
I have no reason to doubt her. I recruited East Coventry’s Cassidy Cross when I learned of her suspension from school for hacking the school’s computers to delay finals by erasing teachers’ exams. It was tight; I passed biology because of the extra week we got.
“Wait, McCoy’s pretending to be security? In a tux?” Tom frowns when McCoy receives his badge, then nods respectfully to his former teacher. “Looks tailored, though. You just have that in your closet?”
“You have no idea how many weddings you’ll go to in your twenties,” our driver intones.
“For real, though.” Tom faces me. “Don’t you think he’s going to look overdressed next to the other mall cops?”
“No.” I smile without warmth. “I do not. In July, I went to my twenty-five-year-old stepmother-to-be’s bridal shower for exactly one reason,” I explain. “Which was not drinking my ‘virgin mimosa’ on the patio of the house my father more or less kicked me out of.”
McCoy squints. “So—just orange juice?”
“Fresh-squeezed,” I say. “No, I sat under the circusworthy complex of tents Maureen had put up on this very lawn like she could not wait to call this house hers so I could mine her for information on the wedding. The look, the details. The Pinterest boards. Oh, the Pinterest boards.” I’m surprised her phone could still operate despite the overwhelming collection of inspiration photos stored within its rhinestone frame, which I have no doubt she’s going to change out for diamonds the moment the marriage license is signed.
Maureen Grabe is twenty-five years old. I’m seventeen years old. She went to Berkshire Prep. My stepmother-to-be graduated three years before I got there.
Do I like Maureen? With her exaggerated “look over here, boys!” laugh, the collection of designer handbags she induces my father to buy but then never uses, the way she clicks her nails on the nearest surface whenever she’s impatient with conversation or the house chef’s preparation of her salad or the daughter of her fiancé daring to watch Grey’s in the living room instead of chatting with her while Dad finishes up some interview before dinner? No.
Do I believe she loves my father? No.
But do I have some sympathy for her, this girl growing up fast into my father’s world of wealth and power, to which she was drawn probably because of the lack of support or companionship in other realms of her life?
Still no. Maureen sucks.
“I got photos of the ten cakes she’s serving,” I continue. “I got details on dress code. White tie is expected of everyone. Including,” I say, “the private security firm. My dad is way too afraid of bad press to ever, ever think of calling the cops. Instead they’re using Millennium Security, but requiring even the guards to wear tuxedos.”
I gleaned this detail when I pointed out to Maureen the comically stereotypical men in black suits with black sunglasses lingering on the periphery of the palatial pavilion tent where the bridal shower was held. Even the bridal shower “needed” security, Maureen insisted, I guess concerned nefarious elements would be drawn to the home by the promise of party games or delectable virgin mimosas.
Maureen, who was by then five or six very real mimosas deep, welcomed my follow-up questions. Will you have them for the wedding, too? Oh, great idea. Like, what kind of clothing? Ooh, nice. Yes, I definitely think tuxedos will make the small mercenary force you’ve hired for your wedding look presentable.
McCoy pins the plastic badge to the corner of his lapel.
Cass reaches once more into her bag, from which she extracts five sheets of ivory-white heavy-stock paper. When I gave her Maureen’s full name, searching the file indexes of the print shops nearest to this house for the order to print the wedding programs was easy, I’m told. Downloading the programs was even easier.
Cass passes them to Deonte, who grabs one off the top. They’re identical in every way to Maureen’s programs except for one detail. “Program headers in bold correspond to phases of The Plan,” I inform the group. There’s no way for me to indicate out loud “The Plan” is capitalized, but I feel like everyone understands.
I’m proud of this innovation—cheat sheets no guest would ever question, because they look like misprinted programs. The first such item on the floral-decorated, needlessly embossed paper is Arrival of Guests.
“The first phase commences now,” I say. “In thirty minutes, everyone except Cass, who will remain in the van, is to discreetly visit the ground floor’s main restroom, where you’ll receive your phones. We’ll be using burners.” In fact, when you combine tutoring money with Tom’s ridiculous monthly allowance and McCoy’s grown-up finances, used iPhones with new SIM cards are well within reach economically.
“Hold up.” Tom pauses. “Why the restroom?”
I sigh. Not from impatience with Tom’s perfectly reasonable question. No, on occasions like this one, I must sigh from the deep misfortune of being related to the humans responsible for the present problem.
“Phones are prohibited at the wedding,” I say.
Tom’s eyes widen. “What?”
“It’s due to privacy concerns. Given the guest list, they want to”—oh, I’m fighting my grimace now—“‘prevent the selling of photos to celebrity news sources,’” I say.
I could hardly comprehend this detail myself when I read it on Dad and Maureen’s Save the Date. Researching this part, however, I found out they’re not the first couple to ban phones over this concern. Nor could I deny that my father’s fifteen years of media influence really will yield the sort of guest list certain publications would salivate over. I’ve stumbled on several posts for chichi blogs proclaiming today’s nuptials the social event of the season. One even proclaimed the wedding “Gatsbyesque,” which I showed McCoy to get the predictable rise out of him.
“Every guest enters through the metal detectors in front of the main entrance. Cameras, phones, iPads—they’ll confiscate everything,” I say.
“I’m very committed to this plan, but I’m not sticking iPhones into my bodily cavities,” Tom notes.
“No need.” I smile. “Rook,” I say to Deonte. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Deonte nods.
While we watch from inside, he exits the van onto the carpet of grass outside. He continues to the rear of the vehicle, where he opens the heavy metal doors as if they’re the cardboard flaps of the boxes waiting inside.
With everyone peering out, Deonte undoes the cords constraining the largest box. When he lifts the lid, the sides of the box drop open.
Inside, with condensation forming on its frosted sides, is the most gorgeous wedding cake I’ve ever seen.