Courtney pulled her hand away from her purse and pressed something against my forearms. I fumbled to collect it and immediately found a wad of several hundred dollars in my hands.
It was a fat fold of bills. “What is this?” I asked.
“It’s money, stupid,” she said.
Of course. Courtney snapped her purse closed and put it on the ground at her feet. She kicked off her shoes. Then she laid her fingers over her bare knees and finally looked up at me. Clearly the girl was pissed, but she wanted me to see her anger, not the fear behind it. I saw both and was curious, not to mention still buzzed enough to want to take my new mental images with me to the bathroom.
“I need you to hold this for me,” she said.
“The money?”
She gave me an annoyed grimace. “Are you fucking retarded?”
“Hey,” I said, handing the money back, “if that’s the way you want to be.”
She shoved her hands against mine. I was instantly aware of how hot her skin was. It was the first time our fingers had ever touched. “No, sorry, God. Just take the money.”
“Tara…”
“Don’t!” she hissed. She looked scared now. “Don’t let Tara know. Put it someplace she won’t find.”
“Um,” I said, trying to put my thoughts into words. “I don’t-”
“Please,” she said. That was new.
“OK,” I said, more from exhaustion than common sense.
“And I won’t tell Tara you touched my tit.”
I laughed. “That was an accident.”
“Whatever. You stare at them all the time.”
I made sounds of protest.
“Whatever,” she repeated.
We left it at that and Courtney curled up on the sofa. I took the money and hid it in the same panel of my toolbox where I hide my cigarettes. The next morning Courtney was gone. According to Tara she was staying with their parents for a few days. I actually forgot about the money for a few weeks until I tried to sneak a cigarette the next month and was shocked to find two-thousand dollars in cash. Courtney called her sister a few weeks after that to invite us to her new place in Indianapolis.
We drove over during the long Presidents Day weekend. Tara hardly spoke the whole time and I realized that she’d actually been fairly distant for the last week. I asked if there was something the matter.
After some cajoling she told me that a few weeks back several hundred dollars were stolen from her grandmother’s house. The money had been saved for a rainy day. Instantly I thought of the cache of bills stashed in my toolbox. “Do they know who took it?” I asked.
Tara shook her head. “Nothing else was taken so whoever stole it must have known it was there. It was in a little box in the linen closet.” She stopped talking for a moment. “So that means it must have been someone in the family.” Tara was visibly shaken.
I wondered if I should say something but decided to hear the rest first. “Who?” I asked.
Tara sighed. “They’re not sure. The last time they had anyone over was weeks ago and they just realized the money was missing this week.”
It had to have been Courtney. I wasn’t sure for what, and I definitely didn’t know why she thought she could get away with stealing something so conspicuous, but there it was. Yet a shred of doubt clung to my mind. Maybe it was a complete coincidence. Maybe last month Courtney had just come into a fortuitous quantity of money and wanted to unload it somewhere without telling her sister. Yeah… Right.
We were on our way up to Courtney’s apartment when Tara suddenly stopped. “I forgot the champagne,” she said.
I myself had forgotten we were here to celebrate Courtney’s birthday.
“I’ll go,” I said. “Just tell me what to get.”
“No, no,” Tara was already putting a list together in her head. “I also need to get a card and that chocolate she likes.”
“Alright, well, let’s go.” I started heading back towards the car.
“No,” she said. “Stay here. I think Courtney’s setting up for the party later.”
I didn’t relish the idea of spending time alone with Courtney. She had never been my biggest fan. But it might give me a chance to find out what was going on with the enigmatic cash. After Tara gave me a quick kiss and sprinted back to the car, I walked up the slightly damp stairs to Courtney’s place.
When she opened the door she was beaming. She really was a cute girl, upturned button nose, broad smile (bigger mouth overall than Tara’s cute, demure lips), shining eyes. But the smile vanished when Courtney saw it was me alone. “Where’s Tara?” she said flatly.
“Had to go pick up some things. She asked me to help you set up.” I followed her into the apartment.
“Everything’s already set up,” Courtney said distractedly. As she crossed to the kitchen I got a look at her swiveling bottom. The party was not for several hours and she had yet to get fully dressed. Courtney was wearing gray gym shorts and a thick blue cotton top. She trod barefoot through the small but welcoming apartment. Banners and streamers hung from the ceiling and a table stacked neatly with cups and an assortment of alcohol was pushed against the wall. When I closed the door behind me Courtney was all business.
“Do you still have the money?”
“Uh-” I started. “Yeah.”
“Is it with you?” she asked.
“Why would I have it with me?”
Courtney rolled her eyes as if somehow it was her great misfortune to be partnered with so inept a criminal companion. Her lips, which were pressed together in a firm arc of disapproval, were a deep red. She began to speak again but I volleyed first.
“Say, Courtney, where’d you get that money anyway?”
She narrowed her eyes and placed her hands coolly on her hips. Even half-dressed she was a knockout. The prickliness of her character made it impossible to like the girl but that worked in its own devious way. Her black hair was a little longer than shoulder length and straight and shiny as leaking oil. Her skin was darkened by frequent use of a tanning bed (which looks ridiculous anywhere but especially in Indiana in the middle of January). And while this did give her a slightly burned out appearance, it made the stark paleness of her teeth and eyes pop with a vibrancy that drew your gaze to her long lashes and full lips. Then of course there was her chest, amply stacked below her round shoulders and giving that blue cotton top a helluva job to do. Courtney’s painted nails tapped against her hips, probably wider than she liked but undeniably curvaceous. She had thighs that looked like they could wrap around a man’s back with dire consequences.
“Before you ask if that’s my business,” I said, raising a finger to staunch her bubbling protest, “bear in mind you did leave the money in my care.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she spat. “‘Bear in mind,’ ‘in my care,’ who the hell talks like that?”
“Are you angry because I’m choosing my words carefully or because you’re trying to figure out an excuse?”
Courtney gave me an icy glare. “It’s just money,” she said. “I started a new bank account when I got to Indianapolis and I hadn’t withdrawn all the cash from my old one. I didn’t want to be walking the street with that much on me so I wanted Tara to hold it for me.”
I regarded Courtney for a moment or two. “But you told me not to tell Tara.”
Courtney’s lips twitched.
“You were a little drunk, maybe you don’t remember.”
“I didn’t want Tara to see me drunk,” she said quickly. “That’s all I meant. You could have told her about the money.”
“Should I tell her when she gets back?”
Courtney swallowed hard. I could see the gears working overtime behind the sharp white of her eyes. I wanted to see how much Courtney would admit to before I brought up their burglarized grandmother.
“No,” she said slowly. Then, “Where is it?”
“The money?” I asked.
Courtney nodded. A few strands of bangs fell over her eyes fetchingly. I couldn’t help notice her breasts jiggle slightly too. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
“It’s… safe,” I said. A strange but powerful notion peeked from within the dark recesses of my brain.
Courtney wiped the hair back from her face and bit her lower lip. We were standing roughly ten feet apart from each other, she at the counter of her kitchen and I very close to the front door.
“It’s not my money,” she said.
“Oh?”
She narrowed her eyes again. “You prick.”
I held up my hands. “Hey, I didn’t take the money. And I’m pretty sure I know where you got it from.”