By Sarah Pascarella
Olivia discovered her bag was gone when she got up to refill her coffee. Her crucial mistake had been to place it at her feet adjacent to the café’s busiest path, easy to grab. The seat behind hers was close enough that the thief could have simply reached behind, nonchalant, as though to scratch an itch, and grasped the top handle’s durable fabric strip. Pluck.
And it was gone, she made sure of that, burrowing like a mole underneath her table and the ones nearby. Instead of her bag, she found wrappers, crumbs, and unidentifiable sticky spills, the residue of one kissing her palm. She recoiled, stood to wipe her hands on her jeans, then scanned the vicinity to see if anyone held a backpack, battered navy blue with distinctive worn patches from a cross-country road trip years back: Mt. Rushmore, with Washington’s nose frayed off; a parrot in a now-smushed sombrero; Elvis in profile, his once-inky bouffant faded to gray.
Nowhere in sight.
Elvis has left the building, she thought.
She thought back: Had someone been at the neighboring table when she first arrived? She hadn’t been paying attention and had no identifiers to go on. Maybe the thief wore a T-shirt? There might have been a baseball cap? A beard?
No, she had nothing—and what she did have was likely imagination dressed as memory.
She assessed what she still held: her phone and keys; a textbook, Essential Biology; a notepad; and ballpoint pen.
She tried to inventory what the robber now held: her wallet and credit cards, a few notebooks, Michael’s sketch from Fundamentals of Drawing—the one she’d posed for after class. The one never meant to be shared, and violated every student-instructor fraternization policy in the university code of conduct.
Her stomach rolled over, a somersault.
Had Michael signed the drawing? She was pretty sure he had.
There were a few Polaroids of her alongside the drawing, too.
Another roll, to a cliff dive.
She considered the possible consequences: disciplinary action; maybe impacting her scholarship; Michael, her TA, losing his job; parental disappointment; campus-wide notoriety, and then—
Stop, she thought. Her counselor recommended pausing in stressful situations to stop spiraling thoughts and nervous nausea.
A few deep breaths helped.
Your credit cards, she thought, pulse soaring again. How much of a head start did the thief have—ten minutes? Half an hour? What damage could a person do in those unaware first moments? Olivia sensed she was about to find out.
* * *
I first stole in junior high, from J.Crew at the mall. My friend, Lisa, showed me her trick: bathing suits tucked away, unseen, held beneath the ruse of a few skirts and shirts to try on. In the dressing room, quick work of the anti-theft ink containers with a Swiss army knife. Suits on, one atop the other, regular clothes pulled over, billowed and tucked neatly to ensure a smooth line. Hand back the skirts and shirts, “Nothing for today, thanks,” and walk out.
It worked.
Over the years, it also worked with bras, athleisure leggings, and tops. Winter was easier, more layers to hide everything underneath. Summer was the hardest. I tended to take the summers off—in stores, that was.
At the café I saw the backpack, aisle-side, no one paying attention. Too easy to pass up. I sat down behind it, had a lime rickey. Pretended to read a magazine. When only the dregs of ice in my glass remained, I reached down and took the bag like it was my own, and left. Its real owner never even looked up.
I walked a few blocks away, nonchalant, and caught a bus across town. I figured I would dump and grab before my stop, before the woman—Olivia, her ID said—noticed anything was missing. She had forty dollars in her wallet and two credit cards, good enough for me.
I was going through the stuff when an old lady took the adjacent seat. She saw what I held before I did, and made a little tsk-tsk before averting her eyes. In between the two notebooks I’d lifted out was a heavier-weight sheet of paper; the drawing was tasteful, but it was a nudie all the same.
* * *
Olivia headed to her car, heart rate zooming, fast as if she were running a race—and in a way, she was, except she didn’t know her competitor, or where the finish line was.
Maybe the finish line was exposure, shame—indeed, she felt more naked than earlier, when Michael had studied her, first on paper then on skin. What if the thief had chucked the backpack, and someone who knew her—or Michael—retrieved it and recognized them in the drawing and photos? Could they be reported? Blackmailed?
That probably won’t happen, she thought.
But it might! And she was off again.
Parked in the sun, her ancient sedan’s interior felt like a kiln. The A/C vents roared in her face; she closed her eyes for a moment against the assault. Mixed signals came fast, scrambling her limbic system—head and shoulders absorbing the cold blast, back and thighs burning against the molten vinyl seat.
Stay focused, she thought.
She turned the A/C down two levels, shifting the whoosh to a flutter. The temperature grew almost comfortable.
First, the short-term: cancel her credit cards.
Then, call Michael. They’d figure out what to do together.
She retrieved her phone to start the cancellation process. As she swiped toward her bank app, a new text message popped up.
V&H BANK: Limited-time offer! Your Ultimate Cosmetics purchase is eligible for cash back! Type YES to claim.
Cosmetics?
In the app, several purchases were listed from the outdoor mall across town—cosmetics, pet supplies, lingerie—all within the last hour. She was about to tap the customer service button and shut everything down, then stopped.
You know where the drawing is.
Her mind quieted, its flailing, directionless energy shifted and combined, every nerve pivoting toward one focus.
Go get it back.
She opened her GPS app and entered the store address.
Your license.
It was somewhere in the plaza.
Don’t get in an accident.
She put the car in drive.
* * *
I ended up getting off the bus early, at the shopping center near the interstate. There were a few big-box chains there, including the beauty supply place that always had my favorites on sale, and the pet store that had the special treats Rex liked.
The notebooks in the backpack were dead weight; I left those on top of a trash compactor, the ones with the solar panels that were supposed to reduce waste. I kept the bag itself and that drawing. What can I say? It was beautiful, and I like beautiful things.
The picture was simple and tasteful, in some type of thick pencil or charcoal that smudged on my fingers. On the bus, even with the old lady over my shoulder—yeah, I caught her sneaking a few peeks—I kept it out a little too long, but I wanted to keep looking at it. The way Olivia looked at the artist was so interesting to me—even with the attention he paid to her body, her face was what I kept returning to. Her expression was direct but not obvious. Me? she seemed to be saying, and—at the same time—Me.
I hadn’t yet met anyone to look at that way.
I hadn’t yet met anyone who would capture me this way.
Someone who wants to understand me but also knows I’ll always be a bit of a mystery—and that I’d know the same was true for them.
After I lightened my load and made some room in the bag, I got something pretty to wear to bed then stocked up at the makeup store. At the pet supply place, I got Rex a fancy collar and one of those indestructible containers where you put a peanut-butter-coated treat inside that’s supposed to keep them occupied for hours to get it. It’s a job for him—and you know, sometimes I wonder if jobs are the same concept, all these folks putting in hours for the bites they can eventually get. Never all at once. Never a full mouthful. That’s kind of why I like to see what I can take—the lift is the opposite of toiling for a crumb, it’s a buffet of choices for me to take, and with relatively little effort. The effort is making sure I’m being alert while totally blending in. If everything is right, I see everyone, but no one sees me.
Doesn’t see me—now, like this.
Sees me—with the makeup, with the bathing suits—I guess Lisa had seen me. But she’s the one who first offered, the one who understood. She gave me access to her trunk of clothes, put the first swipe of gloss across my upper lip, those two initial gestures that made my nerves stop humming. That made my skin tingle, but in a good way.
I opened the backpack and put away the haul, careful not to crinkle the drawing. The zipper gave me some trouble on its return, catching on a few bent teeth. I studied a few of the patches more closely than before. There was a waterfall from Niagara, a rusty-colored arch from Utah. Famous faces from South Dakota and Tennessee. Clearly this backpack—and Olivia—had been some places.
I’d never been anyplace. Only imagined.
There was a travel agency in the shopping center. On the bag, Elvis side-eyed me, coy, like an invite.
“Are you lonesome tonight?” I asked him. I started to walk in the direction of the agency, wondering how much it would cost to buy a ticket to Memphis and add on a dog carrier. Rex is little, a Chihuahua mix, he could maybe even be smuggled away in an overnight tote, or in one of those small ventilated duffels. I turned back toward the pet store to price them, out of curiosity, when a sedan pulled up, the driver laying on the horn. The car went askew into an adjacent parking space and a young woman jumped out, in the flesh, in clothes.
“Hey!” Her eyes were huge.
You? I thought.
She started to yell. “That’s my—”
You.
Shit, I thought and started to run.
* * *
The thief was no one Olivia remembered from the café: lanky and lean-framed, cropped brown hair in a pixie cut, torn faded jeans and beaten-up Converse. Against it all, her weathered backpack, which she pursued like a bobbing beacon through an obstacle course. They maneuvered around abandoned shopping carts, storefront display towers, and idling cars with oblivious drivers worlds away on their phones.
“Stop!” she yelled, hoping another shopper would come to her aid. No one did.
The runner bore right onto a grassy divide stripe between the walkway and parking lot then made a hard left toward a loading dock. Olivia watched them go, waited for a few cars to pass, then followed.
A row of tractor-trailers stood at attention, cabs empty, backs against the building’s sized-to-fit maws. Pallets and cartons thudded as unseen workers unloaded each truck’s contents. On the ground, it appeared no one was around.
What if they’re gone? A shooting pain flared behind her eyes.
No, she thought and pinched the bridge of her nose. They’d gotten past her once and surely would try again, but this time she was wiser. Looking around more thoroughly, she estimated there were only two places the thief could be: at either end of the dock, between the respective truck and warehouse wall, just out of sight, sneakers and profile obscured by gargantuan tires.
“Hey!” she called out, her voice absorbed into the space. Foolish or emboldened—or both—she started toward the farthest left truck when a few taps pricked her ears. She whirled, saw the runner dart from the space at the far right, and she sprang forward with all the speed she could muster. Somehow, she managed to catch up. She grabbed onto the bag and pulled. If she wrecked the drawing, so be it—and maybe all the better.
They skidded together in an awkward collision, nothing sized to fit, the thief’s shoulder knocked against her teeth, her bag slammed against her chest. Something cylindrical inside bumped into the space between her breast and underarm, unnamed but present enough to hurt, but she held on until finally the thief relented and slowed.
“Fine!” they yelled. “Fuck! Will you hold on a minute!”
They were still connected, Olivia in tow, a human sled.
“I will not! You’ll take off again!”
The thief stopped entirely. “I won’t. Please let go.”
Pain reverberated through Olivia’s teeth and jaw, and she held on. As she collected herself, she took a good look at the thief. They were about the same age, she guessed, a college kid, too. She spied a mole behind their right ear, large as a dime but mostly hidden, visible only at close range. Connected, she could also see they were a true auburn, with golden red strands that curled into a comma at the nape of the neck. Details—among so many others—she’d missed at the café. She wondered how little attention she was paying to her life, how much of her day to day went unobserved.
“Please let go,” the thief said again. Tiny mountains of gooseflesh prickled up their arms.
Olivia’s pain dulled, softening her shoulders and wrists, the bridge of her nose. The possible consequences narrowed: The drawing was right there, almost returned, as was her wallet. The kid hadn’t stolen her identity or maxed out her cards. Some damage, yes, but contained. She loosened her grip slightly.
Against Olivia, the thief fidgeted, nervous at her presence, and a bead of sweat slid down their brow and caught at the earlobe like a delicate stud. She felt a wave of irrational tenderness, an unspoken awareness that they weren’t an ongoing threat. She had chased someone who loomed large, shadowy, and scary. But this actual person in her grasp was as scared as she’d felt. With that realization, her own tension dissipated, followed by an overwhelming urge to go home. She bet the thief felt the same.
She shifted her hands to the thief’s shoulders, tugging gently on the backpack, and they stepped out of the straps, the untangling was easy. The bag landed on Olivia’s chest and she stepped back with the weight of it, hugging it close, her breath quickening in surprise.
The thief turned, their eyes low but darting, making some calculation. “You going to call the cops?”
Olivia unzipped her backpack. Underneath several plastic shopping bags, she retrieved her wallet and checked each pocket, finding her cards and ID in their proper places. Then, she lifted the folder and peeked inside: the drawing and corresponding photos were where she expected them to be. Her own detective work had sufficed; the danger was likely contained.
“No need,” she said.
The thief looked up, sheepish. “Thanks.”
A pause.
“Could I have the…”
“Stuff I bought you?” Olivia finished.
“Yeah.” The veins at their temple shifted from watercolor blue to dark ocean depths.
She extracted the plastic shopping bags.
“I could—” the thief started.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She rifled through what remained, careful around the drawing. A closer inspection showed an eyeshadow palette had slipped out of its bag and broken in their scuffle. Amber and gold streaked across the bottom of the paper.
“Charcoal and now pastels—mixed media,” they joked.
Olivia didn’t laugh, but looked the thief straight in the eye. “You didn’t share anything in here, right? No pics on your phone or posting online?”
“No. I promise.”
Olivia exhaled, an effortful puff.
“So.” The thief shifted their weight from foot to foot. “We cool?”
Olivia laughed, incredulous, then stopped, realizing the thief still looked scared. It was as though they had absorbed Olivia’s earlier panic at being exposed, her fear of a mark on a record, and all that would follow. They both wanted the same thing—to move on from a poor choice, damage contained.
“Yeah, you’re good.” Not sure what to say next—see you around sounded wrong, take care seemed glib—Olivia simply held up a hand in parting and turned to go.
“Hey!” the thief said.
She looked back.
“How did you know where I was?”
Olivia studied her fingernails. One was chipped. “My credit card company.”
“Fraud alert?”
“Not exactly.”
A camper van pulled up beside them, a rusted stripe along its bulk. The stereo bass thrummed and growled as the driver scanned for parking, tossing her head, mouth agape mid-note.
“I wonder what she’s listening to,” the thief said.
The driver’s lip curled.
“Maybe Elvis,” Olivia said.
The van pulled into a spot. The driver killed the engine.
Olivia noticed the thief studying her bag. Across the front, the collage of patches sat like points on a treasure map.
“What was Graceland like?” the thief asked.
Olivia paused. There was no reason to engage any further, and yet.
“There’s a lot of blue,” she said finally. “Blue drapes, blue carpet, blue stained glass. And the kitchen looked a lot like my grandma’s.”
The driver approached them, humming something indistinguishable, and headed toward an employee entrance near the docks. “Evening, folks,” she said.
“Evening,” they said in unison.
The thief shifted their shopping bags. “Memphis,” they said. “I’d like to go someday.” A wistfulness pulled at the corners of their eyes. The same force tugged at Olivia’s ribcage. If they’d met under different circumstances, she wondered, would they be friends, daydreaming together about their next road trip?
“What the hell,” she muttered, dug her nails under the Elvis patch, and pulled. The king came off with little fuss. “Here,” she said, “in the meantime.”
Olivia went straight to her dorm when she got back to campus. She took the first credit card out of her wallet and dialed the number on the back. The credit card hotline’s prompts directed her toward where she needed to be, followed by hold music, mellow saxophone atop a steady beat.
The drawing and photos went tucked away, into the deepest desk drawer. She’d call Michael later, tell him the whole story, and suggest they pause until the semester ended. Nothing until their circumstances changed to no longer being TA and student.
The canned music had an orderly rhythm. While waiting, Olivia found a disinfectant cloth and wiped down her bag, passing over where Elvis used to be, his silhouette a ghostly dark outline against the faded fabric. Inside, she picked up residue from the crushed makeup, sparkly gold bronzing her fingertips. She dabbed them across her cheekbones then blended the traces in.
* * *
After Olivia left, I felt my whole body uncoil, as though it had been tightly wound. So I sat on a bench for a few minutes to stop the buzz under my skin, to shift my veins from a superhighway to country roads. A breeze ruffled my dampened shirt which helped to cool me down. I took a few deep breaths then decided to walk a little, maybe even all the way home. It would take a little longer, and Rex would be angry and hungry, but, once I gave him the new toy, he’d forgive me. Dogs are good like that.
I’d only had the backpack a short while, but I felt its phantom straps as I walked, as though I were the one missing something. Not true, I thought, although it kind of was. The plastic handles of the shopping bags were slick against my palms.
Ferocious, that was the word that came to mind. Olivia had looked so determined, so focused, back at the plaza. No one had ever caught me before, but then again, I’d never taken anything so personal, something that would be noticeably missed. My usual lifts were mass-produced—one-of-a-million, not one-in or only one.
I thought of the purchases she let me keep. She didn’t report me. In a way, she was now my partner in crime.
A partner I’d never see again, although, in catching me and letting me keep what I wanted—what I thought I’d had to steal—she’d seen and accepted the real me. And I’d seen her in the drawing. In the blink of an afternoon, in a fucked-up way, we’d acknowledged each other, without judgment.
I walked more slowly than usual. I even made eye contact with a few people passing by. Some actually nodded when they saw me.
A nod means yes. Yes, I see you. Yes, you.
If I could be accepted as me, maybe there wouldn’t be any need to steal. Every day—a normal day—might feel like a feast, if I could be seen.
When I got home, Rex flipped for the toy, and once in pursuit—I gave him crunchy peanut butter this time—barely paid attention to me. I took out my new purchases, had a bowl of cereal for dinner, and watched some online tutorials on contouring and smokey eyes. I browsed photos of Graceland, compared which color blue in the palette would be the closest match. By the time Rex had made good work of it and devoured every last bit, I had mixed a few hues, and my eyes looked just about right.
Author Bio
Sarah Pascarella is a writer and editor based in Boston. You can find her online at www.sarahpascarella.com.
