Cherry Money Baby (17 page)

“Leave the chocolate,” said Cherry. “It’ll go good with the purée.”

Ardelia grinned. “You see, Alan? We have a convert.”

Cherry tried the chocolate again. “This stuff must be pricey as hell.”

Ardelia spooned some caviar onto a wafer of flatbread. “It’s not all fast cars and fancy dresses.”

Cherry stumbled from the Escalade, waved to the driver, and started around to the back of the trailer. The fence was a little trickier to get over tonight, and she tore the hem of her shirt a little. She felt marvelous. She felt like a king.

What was the name of the wine? La Lluvia, from Spain. She hadn’t been able to pronounce it.

She rapped on Lucas’s window. It was dark in there. She knocked again.

“Open up! It’s the cops! We got a report a vandal lives here.”

There was movement in the room. Lucas climbed out of bed and opened the window. He cleared his throat, his voice thick with sleep. “Hey, I thought you were gonna be home early tonight.”

“I
loooove
you.” Cherry leaned into the word, draping herself on the windowsill.

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m
tipsy.
There’s a difference. Did you know that? Did you know that British people say
pissed
instead of
drunk
? Ardelia got a little pissed, but not me.” She bugged her eyes at him. “Did you know wine coolers don’t taste
anything
like real wine? Real wine is sooo different. We had wine from
Spain.
”

“Your mouth is purple.”

“It tastes good. Want to try?” She stood on tiptoes to kiss him. It was a little sloppy. Then she lay her head down on the sill and closed her eyes. “I’m sleepy.”

“Go to bed,” said Lucas. “It’s late.”

Cherry jerked up. “Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I’m drunk. I mean tipsy.” She whispered loudly behind her hand,
“Actually, I’m drunk.”

Lucas didn’t laugh. Maybe he was just tired. It occurred to her that this may not have been the best idea.

“Drink some water before you go to bed, okay?”

“Okay.” Cherry nodded. And nodded again. “Okay.”

She stumbled to the fence, then turned and pointed to him with both fingers. “You complete me!”

“Uh-huh. Okay, wino.”

“You do,” she said, a little softer, and began the process of pulling herself over the fence. It took her two tries, but she got there.

There was no auditorium at Aubrey Public, just the gymnasium. For the all-senior assembly, the folding chairs had been arranged in the center, and the wobbly dais, which after today would be packed up until graduation, clapped together at the front. Principal Girder took to the podium and the squealing, unruly microphone (ice picks stabbing Cherry’s brain), while the nudging, chattering mass of seniors waited to hear his annual “Make It Last” speech. Every April, about six weeks before commencement, Principal Girder called the matriculating class into the gym for a heart-to-heart. It was the only time anyone saw the guy display any real emotion, and it was always a little unsettling, like the live sparks leaping from the ancient, dusty PA system.

Girder cleared his throat and moved on to page two.

“Do not dismiss the time you have left here. These are your last days as high-school seniors. For some of you, your last days as students.
Savor them.
”

Cherry and Vi were near the back. Cherry had hoped to sit with Lucas, but he’d come in early to help set up the dais and so had to sit near the front. If Cherry strained, she could just see the top of his head. That morning she’d woken in a panic, worried she’d pissed him off with her stupid drunken visit. But when she came into the kitchen, there was her boyfriend, sitting at the breakfast table with Pop and Stew. He’d brought her one of those big twenty-ouncers of Gatorade.

“Thought you might need a few extra electrolytes this morning.”

Why the hell was she so lucky?

She was double lucky with this assembly, since Girder’s speech interrupted European history, for which she had totally neglected to do the assignment. She was buried under makeup work from her suspension, and doing all that thinking and analyzing with Ardelia night after night sapped her mental mojo. And schoolwork all seemed so stupid. Even more stupid than usual. Normandies and Utrechts and Rubicons. She knew how dumb and immature it was to say,
Who cares about school?,
but really,
Who the
hell
cares about school?

“I mean, I see him in homeroom, right?” Vi was saying. “But that’s the only time I really have to see him.”

She meant Neil. This was another topic Cherry didn’t have the energy for. She could feel her friend wobbling on the whole Neil thing. She’d seen Vi do this before, make a good decision — like dumping Neil’s sorry ass — then go back on it. She was like one of those inflatable punching dolls that kept bobbling back into place, no matter how hard you hit them.

“But you guys are, like,
done,
right?” Cherry whispered back.

“Yeeeahh . . . I think so.”

“Vi,
no.
Now’s your chance to break free.”

“I guess. And I mean, I’m
not
going to college with a boyfriend.
That’s
for sure.”

“Your life after school is long,” Girder droned on. “Far longer than the four years you’ve spent here. It will come soon enough. For now . . .”

“Seriously, though,” Vi whispered. “Soon as they hand me my diploma, I’ll be all,
Suck it, fools!
I’m going to run out that door and not stop until I hit Rutgers.”

A girl sitting ahead of them turned in her seat. “Um, you know they don’t hand you your actual diploma, right? They mail it to you later. So people don’t pull stunts like that.”

“Hey,” Cherry whispered back. “I’ve got a question that maybe you could answer? And the question is,
Who the fuck
asked
you?
”

The girl scowled. Cherry recalled some vaguely annoying detail about her, like how she was going to film school or something. She had the black coffee-shop fingernails you’d expect from a girl going to film school.

“Flash forward three years, and there’s Cherry Kerrigan in line at the ShopRite with two kids and stretch marks,” the girl said. “Taking night classes and scarfing her kid’s Ritalin prescription. . . .”

Cherry made a jerk-off motion.

“Ladies?”

Shit.
They’d been spotted. Principal Girder somehow managed to look at them over his spectacles, despite being up on the dais. The surrounding chatter stilled as all eyes turned their way.

“Ms. Fernwire, turn around in your seat. Ms. Kerrigan, need I remind you you’re still on probation?”

“No,” said Cherry.

She glanced in Lucas’s direction. He gave her a smirk like
typical you.
She winked at him.

Girder resumed his talk, and the seat-level chatter started up again.

Cherry leaned forward so her mouth was inches from Ms. Goth Nail Polish’s ear. “The best part about this town is that all the shitheads
leave.
” She leaned back and saw that Vi had heard her. “Except for you, obviously,” she whispered.

Vi looped her arm around Cherry’s and smiled. It was supposed to be an
apology accepted
smile.

Nah,
Cherry heard her mommy-evaluating self whisper,
that was totally a
pity
smile.

After assembly it was lunch, and the seniors were herded through the rear double doors into the cafeteria. A few peeled off into the parking lot, which wasn’t strictly allowed, but assembly days were a little different and you could get away with stuff like that. Even a few teachers were out there, smoking.

Mrs. Ruppert, Cherry’s history teacher, gave her one of those
I’m watching you
hand signals.

Double shit.

“You know what sucks?” said Cherry. “
Not
being suspended.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Vi.

“There’s Lucas.” She spotted him exiting the cafeteria. He was scanning the crowd, looking for her. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

She jogged over. They kissed under the birch tree. Some girls went,
“Ooohhhh.”

“I got free period next,” Cherry said. “Want to walk the track with me?”

“Nah, they’re bumping third period back to after lunch.”

“What? Damn it.” Cherry glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Ruppert stubbing out a cigarette. “I’m about to get my ass handed to me.”

“The history assignment?” Lucas knew Cherry’s homework woes. “You have time now. You want to use Dad’s office?”

Cherry bit her lip, watching Ruppert shuffle back inside in her sensible red Easy Spirits and frowsy beige pant suit.
I’m serious. I’m academic. I’m tough.
She thought of Mrs. Ruppert’s car, her sad little Yugo with the bumper sticker reading: think education is expensive? try ignorance.

She was probably a cries-in-the-car type.

“Nah,” said Cherry. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lucas stuck his hand in her back pocket. “Suit yourself. You hanging with Vi tonight?”

“Maybe.” She spotted Vi in the crowd. She was talking to that nail-polish chick. Vi was laughing. Cherry could hear the laugh all the way across the lot. Would Vi start wearing hipster flannel shirts and dark nail polish at Rutgers? She wondered if they had a film program.

Lucas started to remove his hand, but she held it there. “Don’t,” she said. “Just hold on for a second.”

Thursday night Cherry and Vi went to ShagaRelics, a campy thrift store downtown in what almost definitely used to be a Pizza Hut. It was different from the Salvation Army, since the owner actually curated the selection for cool or weird clothes, and there wasn’t the same rustling, resigned quiet. It was one of Vi’s favorite places to shop, and occasionally Cherry found the odd funky T-shirt she liked. Even better, ShagaRelics was open late on Mondays, when the owner spun a big disco ball and played dance music from the ’70s.

“What are you eating?” Vi asked, shrugging out of a too-small pleather jacket.

“Chocolate,” said Cherry. She plucked another black wafer from the wax paper bag.

“Where’d you get it?”

“The store.”

Vi snatched the bag away. “I’ve never seen this before. Which store?”

“Sunflowers.” Cherry swallowed. “It’s an organic market.”

Vi read the label.
“Chocolate morsels. Eighty-five percent kow-kow-ah.”

She put one of the black wafers on her tongue and shuddered. Her face bent into a grimace. It was a look that said,
I trusted you!

“This is fucking
terrible.
Why are you eating this?” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, is this an Ardelia thing?”

“I just like ’em.”

“It is. It’s an Ardelia thing.” She handed the package back.

“Well, so what if it is?”

“Whatever. They’re your taste buds.”

“Yeah, they are. And they know what’s good.”

Vi bristled. “I know what’s good.”

“You should expand your repartee,” Cherry said, not certain she’d used the right word.

“You should get your head examined,” said Vi.

Cherry’s pocket hummed. Her cell sang,
“Rich, rich, rich!”

“Oh,” said Cherry, reading the text.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

“What nothing?”

It was from Ardelia. The text read:

“Don’t you see her enough already? I thought it was your night off,” said Vi. “Also, what time is it? It’s like nine o’clock already. On a school night.”

Cherry pocketed her cell. “Yeah.”

Vi held a skirt to her hips, draping the fabric over one knee and admiring herself in the three-way mirror. There was a small stain on the hem and some loose threads.

“What do you think?”

“It’s cute,” said Cherry. It really was cute.

Vi met her eyes in the mirror and followed their gaze to the stain, the frayed hem. She returned the skirt to the rack. There was a long pause, the kind usually filled with Vi chatter. The thump of disco music took its place. A sign over the changing rooms read: one person at a time! — a rule she and Vi had flagrantly ignored since grade school, squeezing together in the little plywood phone booth, Cherry zipping up Vi’s skirts, Vi re-angling Cherry’s caps. Now that she thought of it, they hadn’t done that in such a long time. It probably wouldn’t be the same now if they tried.