Page 40 of Creeping Beautiful

I had started the jobs when I was twelve, but they weren’t real dangerous jobs. Just thieving, mostly.

But anyway. Nate was just good at martial arts. I loved that about him.

On the subject of school and Nate’s grandfather’s opinion on the matter… that’s a sore one with me. Because I did go to school, I just didn’t go anywhere but the back room of Old Home for my lessons.

At least, not until I was fifteen. Then I did go away to school. Just a semester though, because I had to kill a senator’s daughter. Then I had to stay all fuckin’ semester to make it look all natural. Then I went home at Christmas and never went back to that school.

I did that a couple more times over the years when certain things needed to be cleaned up for whatever reason.

So I did actually go to some very fine schools. And I could speak three languages because Adam was in charge of languages and he knew five. We would go months of just speaking Spanish. I even had to speak Spanish with Nathan during immersion training with Adam. But Nate didn’t care. He just pretended to understand me and made up whole conversations in his fake Spanish.

And we would laugh about it.

He was so funny.

We would just laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

One day we were watching a movie at Old Home. And it was called Forrest Gump. And I swear, it’s like those movie people were spying on me and Nate. And I, of course, was Jenny. And he was Forrest. Even though Nate didn’t have leg braces. He was a runner. And when Forrest got up and ran Nate cheered. Every time. Every. Single. Time. He just cheered for him.

So we were peas and carrots like that. I even looked like her. I even played outside in a white dress like her. But Adam got mad because every time I came home, I was muddy and he said, “I’m not gonna buy you white dresses anymore if you’re just gonna wallow in the mud like a wild hog.”

So I stopped wearing the white dresses in the woods and only wore them to church after that.

After that first time we watched the movie I started talkin’ like Jenny because I wanted to be her. Not big her. Little her. Even though I didn’t want God to make me a bird and fly far, far away.

I loved my life on Old Home Island.

I loved McKay, and I loved Adam, and I loved Donovan when he was there.

But I loved Nate the most.

And he loved me. So much.

But I’m not gonna write about that.

Not yet.

All that love stuff came later. After we were grown and we understood each other better. After I told him what I really did. And why I really lived with Adam and McKay. And who Donovan was and why Nate wasn’t allowed to come around when Donovan was there.

And then he told me things too.

Surprising things. Secret things.

That’s when I fell in Love.

Before that it was just lower-case love. Not capital-L love.

What were Adam, and McKay, and Donovan doing during all this?

Adam was gone a lot. He would leave for meetings with the Company people. They would tell him what needed to be done. Then he would come home and we’d talk about it. And he’d tell me his plan, and I would give notes on his plan. Then, sometimes, I would come up with an alternative plan. But not always. Adam was pretty good at planning. Then we would rehearse the job. Over, and over, and over.

This was McKay’s doing. He wanted everything to be set up perfect. So we would do a lot on the computer. We would do a virtual walk through the neighborhood with Google Streetview. And often times McKay would go to the job site and take pictures of the target and get other details. Then he would come back and we’d go through it again.

It was like this a lot in the beginning. Adam said, “I didn’t pay three million dollars just to get you killed before you can even drive a damn car.” Which was his way of saying, I love you, Indie. And I don’t want you to die. And even though I really did pay three million dollars for you, I really just want to make sure you come home with me when the job is done because Donovan and McKay will not be happy if I get you killed.

So we did a lot of that. But even when Adam was not meeting with the Company he was in New Orleans with his sometimes-girlfriend, Misha. I met Misha. She was around long before I was. Though I would not say they were steady. Not the way Nate and I were steady, for instance.

At least Adam was not steady. He was with other girls all the time. Not girlfriends. Like Misha kind of was. But just… girls. No-name girls. Short-term girls. And he always lied to them. He never told them his real name. And he said I was his sister and we were visiting such-and-such place for such-and-such reason.