CHAPTER SEVEN

Allison had first become Scoot when she was about fifteen and already feeling stifled.

They had such expectations, the Montgomerys. Private schools and country clubs, tennis and ballet. Charity balls and political dinners. French lessons. Old money. Good manners.

No freedom. Nothing wild, nothing fun.

So, she'd started shoplifting. Out of boredom. Knowing it was wrong but having to do something to relieve the monotony. The Montgomery monotony.

It had been little stuff, mostly. Stupid stuff. A lipstick here, a pack of gum there, a piece of fake jewelry, a bottle of cheap perfume. The items didn't matter and the price certainly didn't; in those days, she got fifty bucks a week allowance and if she needed more, all she had to do was ask Daddy.

What mattered was the rush, the tremendous walloping thrill of risk and excitement that she got whenever she slipped something into her pocket. Her heart would hammer at a furious pace as she walked toward the door, trying to look calm, cool, aloof. Each time, as she approached the exit, she'd wonder … would an alarm go off? Would a security guard chase her?

But it was too easy, so she soon graduated to stealing packs of cigarettes, bottles of alcohol, boxes of condoms. Allison herself didn't smoke, drink, or screw, so she ended up giving these ill-gotten gains to the 'bad girls' at her school.

And, always … would she get caught? Would they call the cops? What would her parents say if they had to come to the police station and bail her out? Would the other girls rat on her? Would she get expelled?

She never skipped classes, aware in some subconscious way that she'd only be hurting herself by doing that, but she did start lying to her parents about after-school activities. They thought she was in French Club, Drama Club, Glee Club, when really, she was downtown hanging out at the malls and the arcades.

And then she had gotten involved with the skaters. They were the ultimate in coolness and attitude. They had the freedom she craved, and casually indulged in crazy stunts and death-defying risks.

Of course, they were none too interested in welcoming her into their fold. Not a rich private school girl. They'd think she was stuck up and snotty, even if she wasn't. Here, at last, was a group into which she couldn't buy her way with stolen smokes or impress her way with her parents' money and connections. She had to earn her way in by doing what they did.

Then providence, in the form of Uncle Bob, brought the answer. He got the twins skateboards for their birthday. Black with red wheels and flames for David, black with electric-blue wheels and lightning bolts for Steven. And complete gear – helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, the works.

Mom had pressed the flawlessly manicured tips of her fingers to her temples in a futile attempt to forestall one of her migraines. She had conveniently forgotten her own rather humble upbringing when she'd landed Daniel Montgomery, and now acted like her working-class brother was a mortal embarrassment.

"They're all the rage with the kids these days," Uncle Bob had said. "Davey will be a natural, you just watch. And Steve, it'd do him good to get out in the fresh air and exercise."

Uncle Bob didn't know his nephews very well.

A month later, neither board had ever been used, so Allison had figured her brothers wouldn't notice if she happened to requisition them. She taught herself to ride, having to sneak around because if her parents ever got wind of her new hobby, she was sure there'd be hell to pay.

It wasn't ladylike, and worse, it wasn't classy. It was low. Right down there with dirt-bike racing and monster truck rallies. A bare step above cockfighting, competitive eating or spitting for distance.

Allison loved it. She'd started thinking of those secret training sessions as "scoot time." And of the wild inner Allison unleashed as "scoot Allison."

Her biggest challenge in those early days was keeping her battle scars hidden from her family. Despite the pads, her knees and elbows were soon scabbed over, and she was no stranger to road-rash on her palms.

When she'd finally felt skilled enough to debut at the skate park, she discovered one final problem that she hadn't considered. Most of the skaters were guys. Most of the girls who hung around with them were not that interested in the sport for its own sake, but were girlfriends or groupies. The few that did skate seemed only to do so in hopes of attracting the notice of one cute skater boy or another.

So, when Allison showed up with her board, she found herself the object of a lot of unwanted attention. The guys hit on her or did a lot of adolescent hooting and sniggering. The girls despised her for trying to horn in on their turf. No one seemed to care that she knew how to ride.

The answer? Scoot.

Like her sister the ballerina, Allison was tall for her age and had what Hilary liked to call a 'willowy' build. In other words, narrow hips and barely any tits whatsoever. While this had its downside, it was a definite bonus when it came to dressing like a boy. Frumpy, slouchy, baggy clothes being the fashion helped, too. All she had to do was tuck up her long hair under her cap, and she could readily pass for a slim teenage boy, at least as long as no one came within a few feet.

Then, once she'd mastered the skateboard and the art of disguise, she started snatching purses.

Shoplifting had become dull. She had never been caught, not once. Even the time she'd set off an alarm by carrying a stolen CD past the sensor, the store manager had not questioned her glib excuse. She'd gone into fitting rooms and put garments on under her street clothes and walked out with them. She'd lifted a diamond tennis bracelet, by far the most valuable of her thefts thus far, and gotten away with it.

Somewhere along the line, though, the fun had gone out of it. She hadn't been getting the same thrill anymore, not even when she tried to kick it up a notch with the more expensive items.

It was, she'd gradually come to realize, impersonal. Flat, and faceless. Oh, they said shoplifting was not a victimless crime, because it caused prices to go up so that the average consumer took it in the shorts, but really, all she was doing was hurting the big anonymous corporations. Hurting? That was a laugh … even if she took ten CDs a day, she doubted it would be more than a ripple in the profits.

The purses, though …!

Her first purse hadn't been a snatch, but a finders-keepers kind of thing. She had been Scoot that day, pleasantly exhausted from an afternoon of wheeled stunts, pushing along in a mellow, lackadaisical sort of manner.

Push … and coast … push … and coast … headed for the parking garage where she'd stowed the Corvette her parents had given her for her Sweet Sixteen. It had been waiting outside the house, cherry-red with a big white bow. They’d all gotten cars for their sixteenth birthdays. A silver Porsche here, a turquoise-blue Beemer there … it was just the way the Montgomerys did things.

She'd been coming up on a bus stop, and saw a chubby middle-aged lady heave herself onto the city bus, leaving her purse sitting on the bench.

"Hey!" Allison, still disguised as Scoot that day, had called. "Hey, lady!"

The woman had looked around, seen Scoot, and gone wide-eyed with alarm. Probably mistaking Scoot for a junkie, gang member, or generic punk, she had nearly leaped up the bus steps, mouthing frantically at the driver. The door wheezed shut.

"No! Lady, you forgot your purse!" Scoot had shouted, but the bus pulled away from the curb with a gassy exhalation of exhaust.

Grabbing up the purse, she had gone flying down the street on her skateboard, after the departing bus. But pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks slowed her and drew a lot of dirty looks and some swearing, and the bus kept going.

Scoot had not known what to do, so she'd taken the purse with her back to the car. There, her Scoot-clothes in the trunk with the board, she had opened it and started going through it.

And oh, how the excitement had coursed through her! Not because of the contents; the most exotic things in there had been a metal box of cinnamon Altoids and a ticket stub from a matinee showing of an extended director's cut of Titanic. It was the thrill of going through someone else's stuff.

This was not faceless and impersonal. This was as personal as it got. She'd gone through every compartment and pocket of that purse. She read the woman's shopping lists and receipts, criticized her choice in cosmetics, ate some of the curiously strong mints, looked at pictures of the kids.

It was, she'd found, even more exciting than the shoplifting. Lasted longer, too, because the rush she got from swiping a bracelet had usually faded by the time she was out of the store. Exploring a stranger's purse, really taking her time with it and being thorough, could entertain her for quite a while.

A woman's purse was such a trove of secrets, too.

She remembered visiting her Sherwood grandparents, a few duty-visits to their retirement community in Arizona, and when Grandpa Art had needed a pen, Granny Helen had not told him to get one from her purse.

"Bring me my purse," she had said.

And he had done it. Had carried that purse – a big, black, heavy old-lady purse with the gold clasps – all the way into the kitchen and waited beside her, humble as a church-mouse, while she had rooted around to find a pen.

A man wouldn't willingly look in a purse, Allison had determined.

Part of it might be some deep-rooted homophobia, him thinking that if he opened a purse or even held it in the wrong way, some inner switch would get thrown and the next thing he knew he'd be wearing ladies' dresses and singing show tunes.

But most of it was fear, a man's plain and simple fear of what he might find in there. What if there were tampons? Or feminine hygiene spray or some other dubious, icky product? What if there was proof of an affair in there, love letters or motel room keys or pressed flowers?

She even suspected that some men thought they might open their wife's purse and find a voodoo doll, or a vial of poison, or a fat insurance policy with his name on it. They harbored some hidden belief that there was death inside, just like they had that deeply buried superstitious fear of women themselves.

Women, who bled in monthly cycles and had incomprehensible mood swings. Women, who may or may not have teeth down there … they didn't, of course, everybody knew that … but didn't all rumors have some basis in fact? Would you want to be the one to stick the most important part of your anatomy into that strange darkness and find out for sure?

And just as a man's car was an extension of his you-know, to be shown off and compared and bragged about, a woman's purse was an extension of hers. Dark, mysterious, containing sought-after treasure.

Finding that first purse, mundane though its contents had turned out to be, had been like a brilliant bright light going on inside her. She was hooked, as hooked as anyone had ever been by a drug.

She tried to control it. Not quit, no, not give it up … but control it. Not go nuts with it or anything. Taking purses was a lot more dangerous than shoplifting. It required that up-close-and-personal contact. The victims tended to notice right away, and scream or shout or chase after.

A couple of times, they had thrown things. Scoot had been beaned in the back of the head and damn near knocked in front of a taxicab by a lady who had chucked a plastic water bottle. She had been smacked in the face once by a furled umbrella, and bombarded with oranges from a shopping bag held by a stout woman who was a fearsome shot.

Others on the street reacted, too. When a hue-and-cry went up, some lady shrieking, "Thief! Thief!", people turned to look. Sometimes they'd try to be heroes. Scoot lost her favorite baseball cap three years ago to a newspaper vendor who'd tried to grab her as she whizzed on by, and once a clean-cut Eagle Scout type had tackled her clean off her board. As they'd struggled, he got a good feel of what little tits she had through her quilted flannel shirt. He had yanked his hands away so fast he'd nearly given himself a whiplash, and sputtered an apology as his face went brick-red, thus giving her the opportunity to make her getaway.

The skateboard helped with all that. Usually, she could strike and be half a block down the street before the victim realized what had happened. A running person looked guilty, but everyone was accustomed to seeing kids on wheels slalom recklessly through pedestrians or plunge into traffic. And if she had to, all she needed was to get around a couple of corners or into a semi-private spot long enough to do a quick-change.

Over the years, she had honed her routine, adding little touches like the duffel, and the plastic garbage bag to hide the purses in. If she did it right, by the time anyone came charging along in pursuit of Scoot, all they'd see would be innocent Allison.

She still smiled at the memory of the first time a sweating, panting man had puffed to a stop and looked past her, then asked if she had seen a kid on a skateboard go by. "Scuzzy little prick, about so tall, skinny, had a ball cap and a jacket and his pants three sizes too big. Snatched a purse off a woman back there. Did you see him?"

Allison, who had reversed the jacket, hidden the hat, and whipped a long wraparound denim skirt over the pants, told him that yes, she had. "He went that way," she'd said, pointing with one hand while the other held the stolen purse at her side, making no effort whatsoever to hide or conceal it.

The man had thanked her and jogged on, and once he was out of sight she had retrieved her board from where she'd kicked it under a mailbox, and been on her merry way.

That had been a good purse, too. Small, but nice things came in small packages, wasn't that what they said? She'd found a lovely scuffed-suede wallet in there, a silver filigree heart-shaped pendant on a silver chain, an unopened bar of Toblerone white chocolate, and a fancy gold pen.

It was the infinite variety, the infinite possibility that appealed to her. She'd taken tiny beaded evening bags from elegant ladies on their way to the theater, and she'd taken funky patchwork-quilted satchels from hippie women in shapeless dresses and Birkenstocks. Old-lady purses like the one Granny Helen had, black and clunky and full of laxatives, prescription medicines and reading glasses. Teenager purses with Flirty Boys pins stuck to the strap. A stitched leather purse made to look like a decorated horse-saddle. All kinds of purses with all kinds of contents.

Like Christmas every time. A real Christmas, a fun Christmas. Like how she imagined Christmas might be if Mom's personal shopper hadn't gone out with lists from each kid so that they all knew exactly what they'd find under the tree.

She'd lost count a long time ago of how many purses there had been. Maybe a hundred and fifty, spread over the past six years.

Now, this one.

This supple buttercream-leather number with the long strap.

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