Member-only story
Sticky Fingers
A tale of Montreal in the 1970s and a cheese that screamed, “Steal me.”
June 1973, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
As a fit twenty-two-year-old, carrying her groceries up three flights of stairs to her apartment posed no problem. As a shoplifter, making it home undetected was the challenge.
Today, standing at the grocery cheese bin, a wedge of imported French grappe cheese, a favorite quarry, screamed, “Steal me.” So Gilly Smith did.
The Grappe, cured in the remains of winemaking, wore a pebbly coat of black grape seeds. Gilly loved the fruity echo of the cheese’s soft white interior. Though one of the most expensive cheeses sold in Montreal, Gilly didn’t steal it out of poverty. No, Gilly, had money. Money was not the issue. She’d been a thief as far back as…well, at least as far back as the time…
June 1957, Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec
Gilly knelt in prayer, bare knees on the store’s black and white checkerboard floor, her eyes squeezed shut. From the candy shop’s back room, Madame Delaurier kept an eye on her as she, Madame, muttered in French and dialed the black rotary phone. Gilly took a squinty-eyed peek as a scrabbling commotion began at the store’s front door. Her sister’s and brother’s faces pressed against the screen, like hams in…
