Story of a Girl (3 page)

I shook my head. “Not the same. Nothing actually happened. Besides, he’s a guy and she’s a hot teacher. If something
had
happened, he’d be a hero. Not a slut.”

“Okay. Coach Waters finding Julie Archer and Tucker Bradford in the girls’ locker room on Celebrate Abstinence Day. That was back in October and people are still talking about it.”

“You don’t get it,” I said. “Julie is, like,
proud
of that story. She tells it as much as Tucker.”

“I know. Sorry. I know you don’t like to talk about it.”

I’d already detached from the conversation. In my head I saw the girl on the waves, bobbing along, thinking my thoughts, feeling my feelings, swimming away.

A lady at Subway took my application and asked if I had any experience, as if making sandwiches was rocket science or something. After one minute in Wendy’s watching the manager yell at an employee about cleaning the bathroom, I decided not to apply.

“This sucks,” I said. “I want another donut.”

“There’s still Picasso’s,” Lee said, straightening my hair. “
Then
you can have another donut.”

We walked over to Picasso’s Pizza, this complete dump that’s been at Beach Front longer than anything else. It’s the last pizza place in town that isn’t part of a chain, and they don’t deliver, and it’s basically a hangout for twenty-five-year-old guys whose primary transportation is a BMX bike.

I stared through the grease-streaked window. “I don’t want to work in this hell-hole.”

“Ask for the manager,” Lee said. “If they ask about cashier experience, tell them you always get good grades in math and you’re a fast learner.”

“Now you’re the expert in getting jobs? All you ever do is babysit.”

“I’m just saying that’s what
I’d
do.”

Darren was always telling me that I should listen to Lee. She’s a good girl, he’d say.

We went in. The place was always just this side of pitch-black. I don’t know if that was about creating “atmosphere” or about an unpaid electricity bill. Whatever it was, we stumbled around for ten seconds before our eyes adjusted. The only person inside as far as I could see was a lady with a bad perm, stocking the salad bar with slimy-looking kidney beans. “Hi,” I said, trying to sound perky and non-Deanna-like. “Is the manager here?”

“Hold on.” She went into a back room and came out, a man following behind her. He was in his forties maybe, balding and thin, with a mustache. His handshake was strong, but not one of those bone-crushing shakes you get from some people who are trying to convince you of how confident they are.

“Hello,” he said in a voice so deep I almost laughed. “I’m Michael.”

“Hi. I’m here to drop off my job application?”

“Great. Follow me.”

I turned to Lee. “Be right back.”

Michael led me to a booth, my shoes making gross sticking noises as we walked across the terminally unmopped floor around the salad bar. While Michael took a pair of glasses out of his shirt pocket, I quickly grabbed a napkin and swept it over the orange vinyl of the seat, just in case.

“I should tell you,” Michael said, “business is a little slow these days. Since 9/11 and Enron and Iraq and all of the other bullshit — excuse me — this country has been through, it turns out pizza doesn’t hold the esteemed position in the family budget it once did.”

I wanted to say that the slowdown probably had more to do with his crappy pizza and no-delivery policy than world politics, but since Picasso’s was probably my last resort I kept my mouth shut.

He asked me a bunch of questions and then said, “Normally I only have two or three people working, including me. Things pick up a little in the summer and I like to have an extra person on board in case it gets busy.” He paused like I was supposed to react to that.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, no one else has really applied. So.” He opened up his hands and shrugged.

“What’s the pay?”

“Everyone starts at minimum wage, but if you’re still around after two weeks, I bump you up fifty cents. You also get a free pizza for every shift you work.”

Minimum wage. That was like, nothing. The pile of money I’d be able to throw onto Darren and Stacy’s bed shrunk in my mind. “How many hours a week can I get?”

“I can give you about twenty-five right now. Maybe more if someone gets sick or we get busy.”

It wasn’t exactly my dream job, but Michael seemed cool, like a regular no-b.s. kind of person.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay? You want the job?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

Michael smiled. His teeth were yellowish, like maybe he smoked three packs a day or drank gallons of coffee.

“Terrif.” He stood and shook my hand again. “Come in at six tomorrow and we’ll get you started. I’ll give you a Picasso’s shirt then. What are you, a small?”

“Medium.”

“Jeans are fine. Just make sure to put your hair back.”

“Thank you,” I said. Michael disappeared into the back and I found Lee. “I got it.”

“Yay!” I gave her a look and she changed her tone. “I mean, ‘Yay?’”

“Not really. But that’s life.”

“Do you get free pizza?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet!”

Stacy and my dad were arguing when I got home. They stood in the dim hall, my dad dripping wet in his robe, Stacy still wearing the dirty sweats and bouncing April in her arms. They didn’t seem to notice me.

“It would be nice to have a hot shower in my own house once in a while,” Dad said.

“At least
you
have
time
to shower.”

“You have the same twenty-four hours in the day as everyone else.” He went into the bathroom and shut the door before Stacy could respond. I watched her stand there, staring at the spot where he’d stood. I knew that feeling.

“Hey,” I said softly.

She turned, startled. “Deanna, hi.”

Then she did her move.

Stacy has this thing she does, this move. No matter what’s going on, she can pull herself together by giving her hair a shake and putting her right hand on her hip in this certain way, and it’s, like, holy crap, don’t mess with that girl. That’s the girl prowling around Terra Nova, daring anyone to look at her twice. I saw her do that move after Darren’s ex, Becky, shoved her down a couple of stairs at the Taco Bell at the beach. She did it the day she moved into our house, when her mom dropped her off and said, “Well, this is just about how I thought your life would turn out.”

I needed a move like that.

April started to whimper. Stacy jiggled her a little as we went into the kitchen. “I committed the cardinal sin of doing my laundry. I guess there’s no hot water for his shower. Oh well!” She handed April to me and got a diet soda out of the fridge. “I have to leave, like,
now
if I want to catch the bus for her appointment.”

“Darren has the car?”

“Yes.”

“How come you didn’t just drive him to work this morning so you’d have it?”

“Well, Deanna, I guess I’m just a stupid, irresponsible, airheaded bad mother.” April had gone into a full-on wail. Stacy closed her eyes. “God! Why can’t she go
one
day without crying?”

I bounced April in my arms. “Um, because she’s a baby?”

“You know what, Deanna? I’m glad you can be a smart-ass about it, really.”

“Sorry,” I said. An image flashed in my mind: Stacy in a different living room, with a nicer, ungreen carpet, and a real painting of a lighthouse over the fireplace. “We won’t live here forever, Stacy.”

She looked at me.

I corrected myself. “I mean,
you
won’t live here forever. You and Darren and April. And I won’t either.” It was too soon, not the right time. “I just mean . . . someday, we’ll all be gone.”

“I hope so.” She took April from me and headed for the front door. “I don’t even know if I can make it through today.”

Jason and Lee invited me to go out with them that night. Which was nice, you know, because Lee’s parents only let her go out two nights a week. I should have said no, should have given them some time to themselves since Lee had been away a few days, but of course I jumped on the chance to get out of the house.

Lee’s mom drove us into the city, to Stonestown, this semiupscale mall near San Francisco State where you could wander around and usually not get jacked by wannabe gangster kids. Lee sat in the front with her mom, leaving me and Jason together in the back of the station wagon, which felt kind of funny. To me, anyway.

We pulled up to Nordstrom and Lee’s mom told us to meet her back there at nine. Nine. That’s Lee’s curfew. In the summer! She didn’t even attempt to argue.

When her mom drove off, Lee said, “Okay, who has money?”

“Not me,” I said.

Jason reached into his pocket. “I got five bucks.”

“I have four,” Lee said, pulling ones out of her purse. “That’s nine, so . . . three for each of us. Woo-hoo!” She led us into Nordy’s, waving the bills, shouting, “Stand back people, we have some shopping to do!”

“Note how the salespeople are not flocking to us,” Jason whispered to me, his arm brushing against mine as Lee forged ahead, laughing.

I snorted. “More like calling security.”

Lee turned back, her eyes bright, a giggle still in her voice. “Come on, you guys, don’t lag. We only have two hours in which to spend our fortune.” She reached out her hand and Jason jogged a few steps to catch up and take it. I felt myself slowing down, pretending to look at a rack of jeans while they cuddled into one another.

Forty-five minutes into our window-shopping, we’d had enough of shuffling along the marblesque floors and watching yuppie couples buy stuff we would never be able to afford, and I couldn’t help but think I should have stayed home. I’d watched Lee and Jason with their hands in each other’s back pockets, like it was just that easy to be a couple, or sending each other little messages with their eyes:
You’re so cute,
or
You make me smile,
or
I like the way you do that
. Or maybe they were saying:
Too bad we’re not alone
.

“I might be able to buy half an earring someday,” Lee said, looking at the hundredth jewelry display of the night. “If it was on sale.”

“Dude,” Jason said, draping his arm over her shoulder, “can we sit down already?”

“Aww. I love it when you call me ‘dude.’ He’s such a romantic, huh, Deanna?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound fun and light, breezy, like her. “It’s real sweet.”

“I gotta take a leak,” Jason said. “Meet you guys at McDonald’s?”

Lee sighed. “All roads lead to McDonald’s for you, Jay.” She kissed him then, running her thumb over his jaw while she let her lips linger. “See you there.”

What did it feel like, I wondered, to be kissed like that right out in public? Not like some passionate tongue-wrestling thing, just a kiss to declare:
We are each other’s
. I’d never been kissed like that, not by Tommy or anyone else. No one had declared me his, not for the whole world to see, anyway.

Lee and I bought nine dollars worth of food and waited for Jason in a hard plastic booth with a sticky table. I watched the kids behind the counter taking orders, changing money, sacking up burgers, move move move, a swarm of red polo shirts. “That’s gonna be me in twenty-four hours,” I said.

“Only without the customers,” Lee said, dunking a chicken nugget into barbecue sauce. “No one actually
eats
at Picasso’s.”

“It’s a job. I just want money.”

“We need to have, like, a giant shopping spree at the end of the summer. New clothes, new everything.”

I shook my head. “I’m not wasting my money on that crap.”

“What crap
are
you going to waste it on?”

Jason walked up then, and slid into the booth next to Lee, reaching across the table to help himself to the community fries. “I got you something,” he said to Lee through a mouthful of food.

“You did? You were withholding funds?”

“For a good cause.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, waxy Mrs. Fields bag. “White choco-chunk whatever. You know, that one you like.”

Lee’s face was so happy, so truly happy over a stupid cookie, that I had to look away. My eyes stayed on the fries while they kissed.

“Here,” Lee said, “does this look like thirds?” She pushed a piece of the cookie over to me, and one to Jason. “Fair and square? Or fair and cookie shaped, I guess . . .”

“Thanks, babe,” Jason said, finishing his piece in one bite.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.” It was so easy for her. Easy to be a girlfriend, easy to be a friend, easy to be a “good girl,” like Darren said.

“So back to the money thing,” Lee said, “your plans for your colossal summer earnings.”

“You gonna buy a car?” Jason asked. “Don’t do it without talking to me first.”

I shook my head, not sure if I should tell them. It still felt too personal, but there I was, empty-handed, contributing nothing but my sarcastic comments and private jealousy to the whole night out. Just Deanna, the problem child, with no money or boyfriend or plans.

“I’m moving out.”

Lee put her hand over her mouth.

“What do you mean you’re moving out?” Jason said.

“I’m moving out. Me and Darren and Stacy.” I broke a small piece out of my third of the cookie. “We’re taking April at the end of the summer and getting a place.”

“Seriously,” Lee said. “
Seriously
? Do your parents know?”

I felt Jason’s eyes on me, his bullshit detector set to high.

“Well, it’s not, like, an official plan yet or anything.” I was already sorry I’d said it. The words coming out of my own mouth sounded like b.s. even to me. “I kind of want to wait and see how my job goes,” I said, like, no big deal, I didn’t care. “If I like it, I mean, and if I make some okay money.”

“Wow,” Lee said. “That’s huge.”

“It’s just an idea.” I crumpled up our garbage and piled it onto a tray. “It might not even happen.”

“You’d have to keep working through the whole school year, right? Like to pay your share of the rent?”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at my watch. “Don’t say anything. Darren and Stacy don’t want it getting back to my parents.”