Jersey Angel (16 page)

“You’re funny.”

“I gave her an ultimatum. Stop smoking or I’m not kissing you. She smells like an ashtray.”

“What’d she choose?”

“She’s still ‘deciding’ and will ‘get back’ to me when she makes a decision, which is kinda what I mean about the attitude.” He pops a big chunk of gruyère in his mouth. “I feel duplicitous, not voting for her and all, but oh well.” He licks a cheese fleck from his finger.

“
Duplicitous
. That’s a good word.”

“Yeah, Murphy uses it in English lit. I like it.” He picks up my hand and holds it. “Anyhow, sorry about the contest. I know you kinda wanted it.”

I look up at his sleepy face. “You’re a nice guy, Joey.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“You mean something to me.”

We’re quiet for a time, and I rest my head against his bare shoulder.

“What do I mean to you?” he asks.

“Something.”

“Something?”

“Something that makes me keep coming back.”

He lies back on his pillow with a little sigh, and I curl up beside him and put my palm over his heart and feel it beating there quick and strong, rising up to meet my hand. A boy’s heart, I think. The heart is pure. This must be true. If the body and head aren’t always, then the heart is. I keep one hand over his heart and the other over mine. They pump hard and fierce to a steady beat.

We’re having a bonfire on the beach, and Sherry plops down next to me on the sleeping bag. The fire crackles and spits and for a second smoke blows in our eyes.

“Look at the moon,” she says, squinting. “It’s blue.”

It’s a full moon and definitely bluish. “Maybe it means something good.”

She takes a sip of beer. “I hope.”

“Me too.”

“I’m feeling a little better, you know.” She tosses the sleeping bag off her legs and stares up at the sky. “I can’t go to the parade tomorrow. I got a weekend job at Macy’s.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. My cousin works in lingerie, supposedly lingerie, but she’s always at the sock counter. Go figure. Socks are totally boring. I’ll be in luggage. Luggage seems interesting.”

“Definitely, plus the store discounts, right?”

“Uh-huh,” she says. She lets out a sigh and unzips her
jacket. “I probably would have been a crappy mom, being so young and all. I didn’t really want her, you know. Maybe she knew that.”

“Well …,” I say. “You hadn’t met her yet, you know, so it doesn’t really count.”

She makes a face. “I ate too many potato chips and Diet Cokes. I probably killed her. Babies, you know, they need milk and vegetables and stuff. Plus I used the f-bomb a lot.”

“You used to hold your stomach a lot. She must have felt that, your hands around her.”

“Yeah?” Sherry shrugs. “I guess I did.… That’s nice of you to remember, Angel.”

The fire’s hot and I unwind my scarf. Across the way, Carmella, Kipper, and Inggy are making s’mores. Cork sits nearby drinking a bottle of beer. His eyes find me and keep moving. Joey talks with some of the football players, tipping his head back now and then, laughing.

“Why didn’t you tell me to see her?” Sherry whispers.

Kipper holds up a stick with a toasted marshmallow. “Marshmallow, girls? S’more?”

“Messy but scrumptious,” Inggy calls, licking her fingers. “Want one?” Sherry and I shake our heads.

“I mean,” Sherry whispers, “you said she wasn’t a freak, so why did you tell me not to see her?”

I take a deep breath. “I guess I thought she might break your heart.”

“Oh.” I can feel her eyes on me. “Would it have been so
bad if my heart was broken?” She doesn’t say it like she’s mad, only wondering.

“There are worse things than a broken heart,” I say.

“A broken heart won’t kill you.”

I turn to her, and she still looks a little dazed, her bangs flung across her forehead. “She was pretty, Sherry.”

“Pretty, yeah?”

“Little and pretty.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “Little and pretty.”

“Totally.”

“Kinda like that picture I showed you?”

“Kinda.”

“I probably should have looked.”

I nod.

She sniffs and wipes her nose. “Well, I’m not mad at you, Angel. ’Cause you were caring about my heart and all. But if you ever, like, see one that looks like her you’ll tell me, right?”

“I definitely will.”

I lie back on the sleeping bag and look up at the sky. By the shoreline I can hear the crash of waves.

“I wish I looked,” she says.

“I wish you did too.” I look up into her face, her cheeks rosy from the fire, and I hold her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

We sit together for a few minutes before she says, “I guess I should go. I’m a working girl now. Try to have fun tomorrow.”

“All right.”

She lifts herself off the sleeping bag and says her goodbyes.

Ing drops down next to me. “What were you two talking about so intensely?”

“I fucked up.”

“Tell me.”

“Look at the moon, will you.”

“Gorgeous.” Inggy has static cling from her scarf and some blond hairs float away from her scalp, and she has a marshmallow fleck on the corner of her lip. “Tell me.”

So I tell her about Sherry—all the questions, the little photo. And what I saw in the crib that night. The pretty little baby alone in that room, wrapped in a blanket, so still. Inggy hugs her knees and stares into the sand, listening with her whole self. “Sherry should have seen her baby,” I whisper.

“What a hard decision. Seriously.”

“Now she’ll always wonder. I was wrong.”

“But you’re right. It might have totally broken her heart.”

“Giavanna Angel Gulari will always be a blank in her mind, like some paper doll cutout.”

Inggy sorta smiles. “No, she won’t. Sherry will invent her. And with a name like that she already has personality.”

I turn and look at her, my beautiful friend. “That’s such a nice thing to say.”

“It’s kinda true.”

I hug her. “I am so sorry, Ing.”

She turns to me. “For what?”

“I’m gonna do better. I promise.”

She laughs. “You’re squeezing too tight. Jesus.”

“I’m gonna do a lot better, Inggy.” I let her go and stare up at the blue shining moon. Hope and bliss and heartache swell inside me. I want to make myself a promise; it’s that kind of night. “Listen. I really
really
don’t want to go to school next year. And you know what, I’m not going!”

“Really? No?” She looks disappointed.

“Nope. I’m not going! I wanna work. Maybe I’ll move to the city.”

“What kind of job will you get?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“Receptionist.” I check her face, and she’s listening. “I like to talk. Obviously. I could buzz people in, make them comfy, set up appointments and stuff. It’s not much, but I like the idea. I’ll look around, learn the ropes.… I’ll have my own desk … my own stapler. I’ll be out in the world.”

She thinks about this, sifting sand through her long fingers. “You’d be a good receptionist. I can see it.”

“I can see it too.”

She laughs. “A stapler! Okay, I’m buying you one for graduation.”

“A fancy one.”

“You got it.”

•   •   •

Inggy and I sit on the bed of the float sharing a bag of corn chips. Some official hands her an envelope and inside is a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. She hikes up her cape and pockets it. Today she’s wearing a little pearly eye shadow and some lipstick, and the rhinestone tiara is sparkling on her head. The red velvet cape is too short on her and her jeans and sneakers stick out the bottom. Carmella, Alyssa, and I are wearing white velvet capes.

A folding chair is perched on top of the staircase in the middle of the float. “Come,” I say, climbing the staircase because I want to try out the seat and see the view. I sit on the chair, and Inggy parks on the step.

“So what do you think?” she asks.

“Not bad.”

The day is cold, crisp, and gray. Seagulls sit on the telephone wires watching us. Carmella and Alyssa hunch together in their billowy white capes and seem to be reading each other’s palms. I wonder what they see there.

Behind us are the school’s marching band, flag twirlers, a float with gift-wrapped people standing around a Christmas tree, another float with assorted elves. There are honks and toots and mini drumrolls as the band warms up. A baton shoots through the air and plummets into a twirler’s hand.

“Places, girls,” a fat man from the chamber of commerce
says to us, and I slowly climb down and take my place on the right rear corner of the float. Next to me are Styrofoam stars attached to broom handles.

We creep along to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as people on the sidewalks wave to us. The O’s snap pictures and gallop alongside us for a block. Inggy sits on the folding chair, flushed yet pleased, beaming her smile down on her mom and dad. There’s nothing to do but wave my arm.

Up ahead I see my mom, TB, and Mossy on the curb. Mom, incognito, wears big dark glasses and a beret. When we get near them Mom takes pictures and my little man waves like mad and reaches into his pocket and holds something up in the air. Oscar the mouse, I’m guessing. “Oscar,” I shout up to Inggy, but I don’t think she hears me.

Mimi is boycotting the parade, at least that was what she said when I left her this morning, slurping up Froot Loops. When she and Mossy found out I hadn’t won they put their arms around me, but it was Mimi who sobbed, huge tears running down her blotchy face, her whole body heaving. Maybe she wanted me to pave the way for her. “You like Inggy, right?” I said.

“Not anymore.”

“But I get to ride on the float too.”

“So what?” she sobbed.

I hope she’ll change her mind, and I keep a lookout for her pom-pommed hat as we roll along. We pass Kipper,
sitting on the curb eating an apple, and Cork in front of the hardware store, sitting on bags of fertilizer. Joey stands in front of Fat Sal’s, eating a slice.

My phone blips in my back pocket and I reach under my cape. It’s a message from Joey—Joey, who hasn’t sent me a text since last spring.

“u mean something 2 me 2.”

“i am ready,” I write back.

But he doesn’t reply. Not yet. He’s gonna give it a think. And I will too. I’ll try harder, Joey. I will. We can surprise ourselves. I make these little wishes and hope they get carried through the crowd to Joey, eating his slice in front of Fat Sal’s.

I see my dad, taking a picture. He has Lily on his shoulders and Ginger is holding Abby. The girls blow kisses and so does my dad, and I stare in his direction until after we pass.

Then I see Mimi, hiding behind a mailbox in front of the savings and loan and watching for me. As the float glides toward her she pushes her way into the street. “That’s my sister,” she shouts, pointing at me. She looks as if she’s waiting for something to happen and I almost expect something to happen, but the float coasts on like a cloud though the sky and I lose sight of her pom-pommed hat.

We stop short. I stumble, nearly stepping on Inggy’s tiara, which lands by my feet. It’s hard to see what’s happening, so I climb the little staircase to Inggy, carrying her
crown. Up ahead a car has rear-ended a police cruiser, bringing everything to a stop. Inggy inches over and I share the folding chair with her. “You’re not crying, Angel, are you?”

“I’m not crying.” She slings an arm over my shoulder and pulls the bag of corn chips from under her cape. That’s all I want then, to sit beside her, eating chips and looking out over the town.

In front of us, the ladies’ auxiliary put down their banner and start yakking. Carmella hides behind a Styrofoam star and lights up. Alyssa gently waves her arm to the crowd, which isn’t paying attention.

The air is still and calm and cold. I heard it might snow later tonight, the first snow of the year. It’s only supposed to be a light dusting, but I hope it’ll be enough to cover the town in a clean sheet of white.

Bighearted thanks to my excellent team: Tina Bennett, Wendy Lamb, Svetlana Katz, Dana Carey, Colleen Fellingham, Isabel Warren-Lynch, Barbara Perris, Caroline Gertler, Courtney Carbone, Sabrina Ricci, and Tamar Schwartz.

Huge thanks to my friends and readers for advice, support, inspiration, and all forms of goodness: my writing group, the Talls (at 5′7″ I was the shrimp)—Sarah Bardin, Melissa Johnson, and Emilie Oyen; also Maggie Carino-Ganias, Shelley Griffin, Nancy Skinner, Mindy Lewis, Irene Bauman, Matt Guarino, Tom Guarino, Suzanne White, and Leah Friedman.

Finally, thanks to all my dance friends for the joy of swing—the perfect antidote to the writer’s life.
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.…

Beth Ann Bauman is the author of the short-story collection
Beautiful Girls
and the young-adult novel
Rosie and Skate
, which was a
New York Times
Editors’ Choice and a
Booklist
Editor’s Choice, as well as a
Booklist
Top Ten for Youth in two categories. She lives in New York City but will always be a Jersey girl at heart. Visit her at
bethannbauman.com
.