Allison led the way to the back of the tearoom, where a small cluster of empty tables waited. Overhead, paddle fans whirred noisily. Even in the dimness, dust at least half an inch thick coated the blades as they whirled around. Gwen sneezed, not once but three times, as she took her seat at the small, round wrought-iron table. Her eyes started to water behind her thick glasses.
“We should have gone to Dominic’s Pizza Parlor. This place is disgusting,” Gwen grumbled as she cleaned her glasses with the hem of her skirt.
“Too noisy at Dominic’s. Look around—no one is here. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and we have the place to ourselves. We don’t actually have to drink the tea or eat the sandwiches. We’ve been coming here for years when we had important things to discuss. It’s a tradition,” Allison said, her voice sounding defensive.
“Well, let’s get to it so we can get out of here. It’s just as hot inside as it is outside. I swear, I am going to move to Colorado first chance I get, and I’m never coming back to this place,” Jill whined. “Well, I’ll come back for a reunion, but that’s it.”
Hattie, or maybe it was Mattie, clomped her way to their table, a pad of paper and a pencil in her hand. Her ample bosom heaved with the effort of having walked across the room. “Hello, ladies,” she chirped. “What can I get for you today?”
“We’ll have three ice teas, and some of your famous rice cakes,” Allison said.
“No rice cakes today, ladies. We do have some store-bought cookies if your sweet tooth can tolerate them,” Hattie or Mattie chirped again.
“Ah, no. Just the ice tea then.”
Hattie or Mattie grimaced as she painstakingly wrote down the order before trundling off to the back of the teahouse.
“Okay, why are we here?” Gwen asked as she patted at her perspiring neck with a paper napkin. She yanked at the collar of her yellow blouse, which looked soaking wet.
Allison looked across the table at her two friends. She sucked in her breath, then exhaled it in a loud swoosh. She took a second deep breath as she leaned across the table. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “We’re going to rob the bank I work in. I can’t do it myself, so that means I need your help, and we split the proceeds three ways. Think of it as three for the money. In this case we’re talking about bearer bonds. You in or out?” She flopped back in her chair as her classmates stared at her, their mouths hanging open.
Jill’s plump fingers grasped the edge of the table. Her whole body started to shake. “In or out of what?” she gasped.
“With me or against me,” Allison said. “Gwen?”
“When you rob a bank, you go to jail. Where did you get an idea like this? I wouldn’t do well in jail. I think this state makes women go out in chain gangs. The guards rape women prisoners. I don’t think so, Allison. I’m not a brave person. You know me, I’m scared of my own shadow. I won’t tell anyone if you want to go ahead and do it. No. My answer is no.”
Allison stared at her friends. “What if I told you I’ve been planning this for a year and can guarantee we’ll get away with it. This is not a lark. I’m serious—we can do it. We’ll be rich. Not right away, because we’ll have to wait till the bonds come due. No one can trace them to us. Bearer bonds, girls. At my bank. I have it all down pat. Come on, for once in our lives let’s do something radical. There’s not a person within a hundred miles who would ever think we pulled it off. I’m telling you, we can do this and walk away with no one the wiser. You know I’m smart enough to plan this thoroughly.”
Jill continued to mop at her perspiring face and neck. Hattie or Mattie set down three glasses of tea whose ice cubes had already melted. Gwen reached for her glass just to have something to do with her hands.
“Tell us the plan,” Gwen whispered nervously, after Hattie or Mattie had left.
Allison smiled. “It’s so simple, it’s downright scary. As you both know, I’ve worked at the bank part-time since I got here. That’s four years of employment. Mr. Augustus depends on me. At Christmastime last year he said he didn’t know what he would do without me, said I more or less ran the bank, but that was a joke. He just meant that I know everything there is to know, which is true. You also know that he belongs to that Gentlemen’s Club with all those old rich, fuddy-duddy pals he associates with. They are all obscenely rich. Everyone knows that, too.
“So here’s the plan. Four times a year, regular as clockwork, someone delivers a package of bearer bonds. The man just drops them off in a brown envelope. It isn’t even sealed, just clasped. Then Mr. Augustus divvies them up among the men from the club. One time the package sat on his desk for a whole week. He never even opened it. Do you believe that? I always thought they were doing something…something illegal.
“Moving right along here. As you know, Margaret, Corinne, and I are the only employees. My hours are never the same, depending on my classes. Corinne works just three days a week. Only Margaret is full-time. Neither one of them pays attention to anything. They’re just tellers, and if the bank is empty, they go in the back and drink sweet tea. If someone comes in to deposit or withdraw, I buzz them. Are you following me here?”
Two heads bobbed up and down.
“Mr. Augustus is going on a trip with the Gentlemen’s Club next week. This time they’re even taking their wives. The courier is due the day after they leave. Now, this is important. No one touches that envelope but the courier. He personally walks into Mr. Augustus’s office and puts it on his desk. He closes the door when he leaves. Usually Margaret signs for the envelope, dates it, and gives me the receipt to file.
“All we have to do is substitute plain white paper for the bonds. I’ll do that, wearing gloves of course. One of you will come into the bank and put the bonds in your safe-deposit box. I won’t log you in, so there will be no record that you went to the vault. You’ll do this when Margaret and Corinne are in the back. You leave. The bonds are safe. We won’t move them till after graduation and we’re ready to leave town. What do you think so far?”
“Robbing the bank, any bank, is a federal offense,” Jill squeaked.
“Why aren’t the bonds put in the vault?” Gwen asked.
Allison threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know. Mr. Augustus must not think anyone would have the nerve to rob him. Either that, or he’s stupid. Like I said, I personally think he and those other men in the Gentlemen’s Club are doing something illegal. I haven’t quite figured out what, and maybe I never will. It’s just the way it is. Look, it’s a small, privately owned bank. Mr. Augustus does things his way. This is, after all, Mississippi.
“No fingerprints will be on the envelope other than the courier’s. All we have to do is cut up newspapers the same size as typing paper. We’ll wear gloves. I’ll carry everything in my book bag. I have it covered, girls.”
“How are you going to hold up against the FBI, Allison?” Jill whispered.
Allison looked around. The bell over the door had tinkled. Two little old ladies with blue-white hair carrying string shopping bags walked in and settled themselves at a table at the front of the teahouse. A few minutes later, a woman dragging a toddler demanding an ice-cream cone entered.
“Time to go, girls. Don’t worry about me. I can hold my own. I’ve been planning this for a whole year. At the risk of repeating myself, are you in or out?”
Two heads bobbed up and down.
“If we do this, and if we pull it off, does it mean we finally qualify as being the downtown girls who become the ‘uptown girls’?” Jill asked.
“It definitely does,” Allison said, her