28--This Is For You, Nicole

We were false, even without the masks. Nobody really believed we were bank robbers, not even us. But we had made the deal that nobody got a cupcake without stealing at least a hundred thousand dollars. I had a feeling that a dozen Mexican chocolate cupcakes from our favorite bakery would be going in the trash.

The plans were so old that none of us really could remember who had made that first joke--that we would made great bank robbers. June could pick locks because of that year spent working for her grandfather, the locksmith. Mark was the Boy Scout and could tie knots better than anyone I'd ever met before. Nicole just liked guns. I don't really know why I was included in the group (had I maybe had the idea?), though I did have the dubious talent of being trusted and well-liked by authority figures. Though I didn't think my knack for getting out of parking tickets was going to help us if we got caught robbing Goliath National Bank.



Even the whole time we had made the careful plans, hand arranged for the getaway, had opened and offshore account where we planned to store the money--through all of that, we hadn't believed that we were really going to rob an actual bank. But the thing about planning massively illegal activities is this: it's actually much easier to put your time and money and energy into planning than it is to say, "No, this is stupid. And is probably going to ruin all our lives." So you just go on pretending that you want to do this.

But the real secret was that I did actually want to do this. As the planning went on, the idea had appealed to me more and more to the point that when I thought about how I didn't believe we were actually going to do this, I felt a genuine disappointment, as though I'd failed at something important in life. So my plan was to go through with the whole thing, and my stupid unknowing friends had left the entire fate of the operation in my hands. I was the one who handed the give-me-the-money note to the teller. They all knew I'd chicken out.

And in all honesty, I probably would have, but I had taken precautions, had taken things out of my hands. One of the notes in my pockets was innocent, citing laryngitis for my silence, asking for forty dollars and giving my account information. The other offered various threats if she did not give up whatever she had behind the counter. On the outside, the notes were identical--I couldn't tell them apart by touch or sight--and I hadn't the slightest clue which note was in which pocket. Inside my jacket, I fingered one of Nicole's less beloved guns; she'd kept the best ones for herself, of course.

I smiled my best smile as I headed for the teller's booth, and hoped beyond hope to get one of the cupcakes.