I Should Have Left Early

     “Stop right there,” a voice said behind me. Panic rose in my heart. Janet and I stopped, inches from the outside automatic door with the Zayre’s logo on it. We turned slowly. Behind us stood a small man, flat top haircut, wearing dress pants, a short-sleeved shirt and a tie.

     He wasn’t smiling. “Both of you need to follow me.” He turned and walked toward the back of the store, not wondering whether or not we would comply. Janet and I silently followed. I kept my eyes straight ahead, but I wondered if other customers were looking strangely at the three of us marching through the aisles.

 

     He led us down a narrow hallway, a row of bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. He nodded us into a small room where a woman sat at a plain table. Her blond hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her neck. We went in and sat at the two unoccupied chairs opposite the woman. The man closed the door.

 

     The woman stood up and gestured to the empty table. “Empty your pocketbooks.” I saw she had a badge on her waistband.

     Janet and I dumped out the contents of our purses. I don’t know what Janet was thinking, but I was scared stiff. I began to shiver.

     The woman picked up a bottle of English Lavender from my pile. She set it aside. Next she picked up a beige lambs wool cloth and put that with the cologne. She lifted her eyes to mine. “We’ve been watching you and your friend by surveillance camera for awhile.”  She looked back at my pile. “Is there anything else in there that you took?” She was not expecting any evasion.

     “This,” I said, handing her a Chunky bar. She added it to my collection.

     She went through Janet’s pile in the same manner. Charlie cologne, a silver-colored charm bracelet, a pack of Bic pens. She picked up a Charleston Chew. “I suppose this goes along with the Chunky bar.” 

     Janet nodded, keeping her eyes on the floor.

     Without emotion, the female officer told us, “take off your clothes.”  At that, the plains-clothes detective got up and stepped out of the room. Janet and I stripped down to our bras and bikini panties. She looked us over closely front and back. It was obvious we had nothing hidden in our underwear. “Okay, you can get dressed.”

     Embarrassed and heart thumping, I hurried to dress. The officer took the confiscated items and swept her hand toward the rest of the contents. “You may take those things back.”  She sat at the table with an adding machine, hands flying over the number keys. She ripped off the tape. Looking at Janet, she said, “Your total is $17.54.”  She handed me a tape. Mine was $12.37. “They both fall under petty larceny. You’re lucky that way.”

     A stern look crossed the officer’s face. She folded her arms across her chest. “How old are you?”

     Janet muttered, “Nineteen, almost twenty.”

     “I’m nineteen, too.”

     “Well,” she shook her head, “I hope it was worth it.” She walked to the door and opened it. The detective was standing outside.

     “This way,” he said. He led us back the way we came, right to the automated doors. Outside a black and white police car waited. The detective escorted us to the open back door of the car.

     The fresh air hit my face. I noticed everything around us was going on as normal. We slid in on the black bench seat and he slammed the door shut.   The car took off, siren wailing, careening right past the college campus. I shrank down in my seat.

  

  

I breathed a big sigh and leaned over toward Janet. “Oh my goodness!” I whispered.

 

     She turned to me and let out a nervous giggle. “That was wild. I am going to get in so much trouble.”

     “Yeah, me too. My parents are going to kill me.”

     “I’ve already been through this once before in Boston so I am in double trouble.”

     “Oh wow. Do you think we’ll still make it into Delta Phi Epsilon?  We can’t deliver the items on our list, but do you think they’ll still let us in to the sorority?”

     “I don’t know. We may end up in jail anyway for this.”

     “Jail?  Are you serious?”  I fell against the back of the car. “That was never mentioned last night at the pre-initiation meeting. This was supposed to all be in fun.”

     “I couldn’t be more serious. You think the detective and that female Attila the Hun were just kidding around? She said it was petty larceny and that’s a crime, so I don’t think we’ll have to worry about being in a sorority. We may even be kicked out of school all together.”

     Tears stung my eyes now. How was I going to explain any of this to my parents? It would break my dad’s heart. He’d had such high hopes for me going to college. I’d probably blown everything now.

     I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. My palms were sweaty and I kept rubbing them with my thumbs. I confessed to Janet, “You know I really felt weird when Mona and Pat were laughing as they told all us pledges what we had to do to get into the sorority. What kind of sorority is it anyway that has its girls to do illegal stuff?  Did you hear them tell Debbie and Nancy they had to break into the school library at night and take the bust of Socrates?”

     “Yeah, but I bet the school would be more understanding of a sorority prank than someone getting caught shoplifting from Zayre’s. We’re going to be fingerprinted, photographed, and then have to go to court.”

     I burst into tears. No, it wasn’t worth it. I should have left early.

Based on the writing prompt: "I should have left early."

Photos courtesy of corbis.com and fotosearch.com