Twelve Rooms with a View by Theresa Rebeck

hid in the bedroom with the little beds on the floor. I stared at the stars on the ceiling and waited for my so-called family to leave.Which they did not do, and after a while I started worrying that maybe they were plotting about how they were going to cut me out of my share of the loot once we got our hands on it. And once that occurred to me, I worked myself into a complete paranoid frenzy. I almost went back out to let them know they weren’t pulling any fast ones on me, that I was a full member of this little tribe of pirates, and there would be no sneaking around and cheating. Then I decided I probably shouldn’t be so confrontational, because it would make them think I was weak. The smartest move, I thought, would be to sneak through the pink room and into the empty room next to the TV room, where I could hide behind the door and eavesdrop on their diabolical maneuverings.
    I was about to put this idiotic plan in motion—I was literally sneaking to the door of the pink room and easing it open as silently as I could—when I heard them coming down the hallway. So I had to sneak back to the other room, and the little bed against the far wall, so that when Lucy looked through the crack in the door she could see me sleeping peacefully and tell herself that I was a mess but not a problem. Her shadow hovered in the doorway for a moment, watching my back, curled against the light in the hallway. Then she left.
    I lay there for a good five minutes after I heard the door thump shut and the three different tumblers turn in their locks. And then I waited another five minutes. I didn’t want one of them coming back and interrupting me, which was completely possible, given my older sister’s devious mind. But after fifteen minutes I was fairly sure that they had gone away, so I turned on the light, pulled out the bag I had hidden under the clothes I had bought, and began to inventory my afternoon’s purchases.

6
    S O THIS IS WHAT I HAD: ONE P HILLIPS-HEAD SCREWDRIVER WITH INTERCHANGEABLE heads, one zinc-plated steel four-inch spring-bolt lock, and two brass chain door guards. Both the spring bolt and the chain guards came with their own screws, but I had bought an extra half dozen just in case. I spent the next fifty minutes locking myself into that apartment. I knew it would piss off absolutely everybody that I was doing this—Lucy, Alison, Daniel, those Drinans, maybe even Len the moss lover and Frank the doorman, both of whom had been really nice to me. Nobody was going to be happy that I had figured out a way to be the one who said who could come in and who couldn’t. But I didn’t see that I had much choice. In case you hadn’t noticed, in spite of the fact that I had been invaded the night before, not one person had spent one second figuring out how I was supposed to protect myself, given that the Drinan brothers had keys and that they clearly thought they were within their rights to use them. Lucy was spending all her time cooking up plans to pull one over on those guys—well, if you ask me, it wouldn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that they were doing the same thing to us. I needed protection. I needed a spring bolt and two security chains.
    And I was right. I mean, within ten minutes of finishing the installation process. I was in the kitchen pouring myself a tumbler of vodkagrapefruit surprise when the yelling started. You could hear it all the way back in the kitchen.
    “What the fuck? HEY. WHAT THE FUCK!” Then pounding, and yanking, and more pounding on the door. It was enormously satisfying to hear.
    “GO AWAY!” I yelled in return, while I sauntered to the front of the apartment. “I’M CALLING THE COPS!”
    “I
AM
THE COPS!” he yelled. “OPEN THE FUCKINGDOOR.” By this I knew it was the Drinan with the sexy eyes. Not that I was surprised.
    “I’M SLEEPING IN HERE AND I’M NOT BOTHERING ANYBODY. GO AWAY,” I yelled.
    “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR,” he yelled back.
    “What, you’ve got