Jersey Angel (8 page)

Inggy’s on the phone with Cork, I can tell. She looks into the middle distance when she talks to him, half bored, half dreamy. I slide into the seat next to Mossy and take his hand. “I’m back.”

“Hi.” He glances up to me. “Look,” he says, showing me the list. Then he says, “Ew, you’re hot.” It’s true, his small hand feels so cool in mine.

“Don’t you think Angel and Joey should give it another go?” Inggy says into the phone. “She is not. Oh, stop.”

I scan Mossy’s list. “You forgot
rear end
.”

“Of course!” he yells. He scribbles like mad and grabs the list and runs out the back door.

“Bye,” Inggy yells. “Save our wedding date.” Then she says, “Gotta go,” into the phone.

I take the crumpled candy wrapper out of my pocket and smooth it flat. Joey loved me. “What did Cork say I am?”

She laughs and flips her hand.

“What’d he say?”

“He was talking crap.”

My phone blips in my back pocket.

“Ing, around what age do you think you can consider yourself sophisticated?”

“Probably twenty-six,” she says. “Well, I should go study for calc. We’re having potato pancakes. Want to come over?” she says, gathering up her stuff.

“We’re having chicken parm.”

“Well now,” she says, tilting her blond head. “Maybe I’m staying.”

“Totally stay.”

But she slides out of the chair. “Carmella won’t last, you know.”

“But I wouldn’t either. I’d keep ending it. Joey’s good, isn’t he?”

She swings her bag onto her shoulder and lets out a sigh. “It’s noble of you not to diddle him around.”

I get up and bring the glasses to the sink. “Oh, I’m not so noble.”

“You sorta are.”

I toss the wrapper, turn on the water, and squirt the sponge with lemony detergent. “What did Cork call me? You said ‘She is not.’ ”

“It was nothing, I told you,” she says. When I glance over, she’s digging in her bag and I can’t tell if it was nothing or if she doesn’t want to say. Out the window a seagull eats something stringy from the ground. Ing tugs my hair before heading out. “See ya.”

I reach for my phone with a wet hand. Cork’s text says “Later.”

At halftime me and Ing and some of the girls smoke a joint and get the giggles. When the band plays our rally song we spin on the sidelines with our shakers high in the air, and the music swells in my bones and Inggy’s bones and everyone’s bones, as if we’re all connected. Inggy swoops down and hugs me. “My friend,” she says. “No, my friend,” I say.

Now, in the fourth quarter, we’re down by ten, and a light rain is falling. We quit the cheers and some of the girls huddle under umbrellas while Carmella keeps springing over to the bench where Joey sits with a bag of ice on his knee. She plops onto his lap until a coach shoos her away and then she flies back to us only to sprint back once more, as if the electrical current between them is too much to keep her away. Cork leans over the fence, watching Ing, and she prances up and plants one on him.

“Stoner,” he says.

“True,” she says. They kiss over the fence.

The only one with pep is Mimi, who’s wearing her Pop
Warner cheerleading uniform. She climbs the fence and waits for me to lift her over. As soon as I do, she springs into action, waving her shakers and shouting to the bleachers, “We’ve got spirit, we’ve got class, come on now, let’s get some sass.” I do a couple of cheers with her until I run out of steam.

The drizzle stops, but the sun stays hidden. Feeling restless, I do a back handspring and muddy my hands. From where I stand I count three guys in the bleachers I slept with, another leaning on the fence. Then I count Joey and move in a half circle and count two more guys on the field and the assistant to the assistant coach, who doesn’t really count ’cause I only gave him a blow job. Then I lose count. I rub on cherry lip gloss, blinking into mist.

I love the moment when the guy is mine, when the spell is cast. Everything else falls away and there’s only me and him. I wonder if there’s a right love and a wrong love. Is getting naked with a cute guy and watching his eyes soften and feeling my heart pound high in my chest—is that a little like the real thing?

After the game, TB’s taking the kids to Olive Garden for an early dinner. I walk Mimi to his car, where Mossy my man sits all patient in the backseat, and think isn’t it funny how when you’re a kid so much of your life is planned for you. You just show up. There he sits, waiting for what’s next.

“Get in,” TB says through the window. “You need some nutrition after all that hopping around.”

“Nah. I have plans. But thanks,” I say.

“You love Olive Garden,” Mimi says, giving me a yank. True, but Mom’s got a date tonight and no doubt TB wants to grill me on the specifics.

“Bring me back a breadstick,” I tell her.

I walk into the school, where Inggy’s in the locker room combing her shiny though staticky hair and putting on lip gloss.

I lie down on the bench. “Want to hang out, Ing?”

“I’m going over Cork’s,” she says, and in a lower voice, “Pot makes me horny.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll give you a ride.”

Cork’s parked in the back of the school lot, where he lies across the hood of his mom’s Camry, and he lazily turns his head to us as we walk up. “What the feck, Ing? I’m waiting forever.”

“Poor baby,” she says, slapping his leg.

I slap his other leg for good measure and head to the backseat.

Sherry whistles and motions Inggy or me or maybe both of us over. “I’ll go see her,” Inggy says, and trots off.

Cork climbs in the front, and here we are, serendipitously, together. I poke him. “Come over later. After the party.”

“You know, I’m not at your beck and call.” He looks out the window.

“Yeah, so? You think I’m at yours?”

He turns on the engine, and the car rumbles. “Did I sound like a dick?”

“Pretty much,” I say.

“You think we should stop?”

“No. But I would. I mean, if you want to.”

“I would too if you want to.”

“We’re willing,” I say, as if it means something.

Cork nods but still doesn’t look at me.

“What’s up?” I climb clumsily into the front seat, my skirt riding high on my thighs.

He puts on a pair of dark sunglasses and checks himself in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes I feel like a dickweed. Mostly not, you know, but sometimes.”

“So today you feel like a dickweed?”

“Yeah, Cassonetti, today I feel like a dickweed.”

“Look at me,” I say.

He takes off the glasses and locks eyes with me. I try to read him but I see what I always see: a soft smile and his eyes at a low burn.

He slides his hand under my cheerleading skirt and hooks the crotch of my underwear. We both watch Inggy out the window. She has an arm around Sherry and they’re talking with their faces down. Sherry’s due in a few weeks and her belly is impossibly huge. Fall leaves swirl around
their feet. What is it about swirling yellowed leaves that makes me feel sad? Cork slides his finger in and out of me—wet and slow and delicious. I let my eyes close for a second.

Inggy walks back to the car, head down in the wind. Cork pulls out his finger and sticks it in his mouth, giving it a quick suck. I climb into the backseat and smooth down my skirt. Inggy opens the front door and hops in.

Sometimes a little peace and quiet is nice, but I kind of wish somebody was around. Mom’s having her nails done before her date and it’s just too quiet. In the House, I eat out of the fridge—a hunk of cheddar cheese, a handful of baby carrots, some cold mashed potatoes. I call Vic on a whim but it goes right to voice mail, and then I sit at the table all by my lonesome and suck on a cherry ice pop.

In the Corner House, I run water in the tub and wash my hair and soak in the tub. Then, wrapped in towels, I take a nap. When I wake, it’s fully dark and I go back over to the House and eat some Wheat Thins with cream cheese and slices of pepperoni before getting the idea of visiting my dad.

•   •   •

Lily and Abby press their noses against the glass and jump up and down, yelling, “Angel!” Lily’s four and Abby’s nearly three and they each have high pigtails shooting out the sides of their heads like little fire hydrants.

“Hello, monkeys,” I say to them.

My dad ushers me into the kitchen. “Sit and eat something, honey.”

“We’re doing cleanup,” Ginger says. “Leftovers.” She’s pear-shaped with frizzy hair she pulls back in a scrunchie, but she has a pretty smile when she smiles, which isn’t often.

“No worries, I’m not hungry,” I lie. “I’ve been foraging in the fridge.”

Ginger opens lids and sniffs things.

“I’m having spaghetti,” Abby tells me.

“And I’m having a pork chop.” Lily leaps across the linoleum.

“Here’s some eggplant rotini,” Ginger says doubtfully. The gravy is hardened around the edges and laced with water droplets.

“Really, I ate,” I say.

“Foraging isn’t a meal,” Dad says. “I’ll make you some spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper.” One of my favorites.

“Darn, we only have enough spaghetti for Abby.” Ginger presses her hand to my arm. “Sorry. Saturday is cleanup day and Sunday is food shopping.”

That’s my cue; I should go. I really should. “I’ll take a cookie or a Coke. Or nothing. Really. I’m easy.”

“We don’t keep soda in the house anymore. Empty calories, you know.” Ginger comes up with a half-eaten box of animal crackers and a half glass of pomegranate juice to which she adds a splash of tap water. She hands it to me with a quick smile. Then as she heats up the assorted meals in the microwave she does squats. “I’m multitasking,” she tells me.

I’m saved by Lily, who doesn’t want to eat sitting down. She wanders around the living room, nibbling on the greasy pork and giving karate chops to the couch and recliner. When Ginger gets a phone call, Lily and I wander off to her bedroom and sit at a little plastic table.

“I missed you, Angel,” Lily says tipping her face up at me. “Would you like a lobster or fried egg?”

“A lobster would be yummy.” She chucks the pork chop into the toy box, wiggles into a tutu, and serves me a plastic lobster on a plate. “Enjoy,” she says. Then she trots over with the tea service. “How many lumps?” She grabs a handful of plastic sugar cubes.

“Three,” I say. She daintily drops them in my cup one at time, looking pleased.

Ginger pokes her head into the room and watches us. “Where is the pork chop, young lady?”

Lily’s eyes grow wide. “Angel ate it.”

Ginger gives me the death glare. I’m not kidding, the death glare.

“Hey, I’m enjoying a lobster.” I wave it in the air. “You might want to check the toy box.”

She screws up her face and her head must momentarily shrivel too, because her scrunchie suddenly wilts to the side. She marches over to the box and flings the toys around and finally holds up the gnawed-on chop. “What is this?” she screams at Lily. “Is this what you do with your dinner?”

Dad rescues me and steers me out the room. “What a nuthouse, huh? Come have my ravioli. I insist,” he whispers.

“I’m good,” I say, beelining for the door and grabbing my jacket and bag. “Maybe we can hang out soon?”

“Sure thing.” He wraps me in a hug and kisses my forehead. “Where are you off to tonight?”

“A party?”

“I remember parties,” he says. “Then you get old and go to bed at nine-thirty.”

“Dad, you seriously need to have fun.”

“
You
need to have fun. You’re young.”

“Angel, I just love spaghetti,” Abby calls from her booster chair.

“Me too, Ab,” I say, craning my neck to see her. She smiles sweetly, her mouth ringed with red gravy, and gives me a little wave.

They are cozy, Joey and Carmella. Here we are on the couch at the party’s end with most everyone clearing out or already gone. I’m slumped at one end, Carmella is asleep and curled on Joey’s lap in the middle, and pregnant Sherry is asleep at the other end, her head tilted back against the cushions.

Joey shifts Carmella’s weight. “My shoulder fell asleep,” he says. I grab her bag and jacket and hold them on my lap. She looks so trusting sprawled out against him, her dark hair falling across her cheek and her mouth sort of open. Her shirt is scrunched down a bit in the front and her bra strap shows. It’s satiny blue. I fix her top, and she stirs a little but goes right on sleeping in Joey’s arms.

“Taking off soon?” he asks.

I nod, but I’m not ready to wrap it up. “How’s the fancy cheese these days?”

“I’m addicted,” he says, shaking his head. “And getting a gut.”

“Get out. And since when are you vain?”

“A gut, Angel. A gut!”

Inggy and Cork walk through the living room, Inggy hanging on Cork’s shoulder. Cork barely looks at me, but Ing turns and yawns, waving goodbye. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yup,” I say.

Joey gives Carmella a little jostle but she doesn’t wake.

“Too gentle,” I tell him. “Give her a poke.”

“She’ll get up,” he says, giving her another jiggle.

“Oh, you
like
her,” I tease.

“And who do you like these days?”

“Well, Sardi, I’ll tell you how it is. I’m in between adventures. There’s a definite lull.”

“Someday,” he whispers. “You’ll fall for somebody.”

“Maybe I fell for you,” I say, growing warm all over.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t feel it.”

“You know how I would know if I was loved?” Sherry says from the other end of the couch. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and settles her hands on her big stomach. “If a guy carried me over a puddle. I saw that once in a movie. This girl is a skinny little thing all decked out in fierce heels, and there’s this huge puddle. Her guy picks her up like she’s a delicate flower and carries her over and places her down as fine as can be on the curb. To me that speaks of love.” She takes a sip of Diet Coke, heaves herself off the couch, and waddles away.

Carmella stirs and yawns, gives her hair a tousle, jingling all her silver bracelets.

“You should have woke me,” she says.

“It’s okay,” Joeys says. I hand her her bag and jacket and off they go, hand in hand.