The Temptations of St. Frank (28 page)

Marsha's eyes were gleaming. So were Annette's. What were they thinking? Frank wondered. An orgy? His dick was throbbing.

Gdowski leaned in closer, pushing Annette into Frank's chest. “And just to get things started,” Gdowski said with a snicker. “I have come prepared.” He opened his tux jacket halfway and revealed a bloated, brown leather wineskin strapped under his arm like a detective's revolver. He'd managed to thread the strap around his shoulders and across his back so that it didn't show.

“What's in it?” Marsha asked.

“Vodka,” Gdowski said. “And gin. And some crème de menthe.”

“I
love
crème de menthe,” Annette said. Her mood quickly improved.

“And…” Vitale said. He pointed down with his eyes to his open palm in Marsha's lap. Two joints lay side by side like an equal sign. Frank was impressed. But what if he got high and cracked up his old man's prized Caddy? He'd kill him. And he'd have a great excuse for not letting Frank go away to college.

“Prom's over at eleven,” Vitale said. “Synchronize your watches, gang. That's when we leave.” He handed out slips of paper with the directions to his uncle's house written down. “I thought of everything,” he said, clearly proud of himself.

“You're the man,” Dennis Collins said from the far side of the table, his mouth full of fruit cocktail. Frank was astounded at the Invisible Man's enthusiasm. He'd never seen Collins excited about anything.

The others started to eat their fruit cocktail. Frank pushed his away.

“Let's dance,” Annette said in his ear. “I just have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay. I'll meet you out there.” Frank nodded toward the dance floor.

She and her friend Jennifer got up and minced toward the hallway. They weren't used to walking in long dresses.

Frank got up and wandered toward the bandstand, focusing on the guitar player's hands on his sunburst Stratocaster as he played a pretty decent solo on Paul Revere and the Raiders' “Hungry.”

“I'm disappointed in you, Grimaldi.”

Frank looked to his side. Molloy was standing next to him in a royal blue tux that was too small for him. A camera was hanging around his neck, and as usual he reeked of cigarettes. “What're you doing sitting with the dickheads?”

Frank shrugged. “Annette's friends.”

“Got you by the balls already, I see.”

Frank gave him a look. “What're
you
doing here? I thought you weren't coming.”

Molloy lifted his Nikon. “Duty calls.”

Frank looked around. “Who's your date?”

“Don't have one. Don't need one. ” He wiggled the camera and grinned. “Prom shots for next week's
Owl.”

Frank was distracted by the guitar player's extended solo. The guy was really good, and that made Frank envious. He wished he could play like that. If he could, he'd be up there with a band of his own, and not down here, sitting with the “dickheads.”

“Hey, look,” Molloy said. “There's your friend.”

Frank followed his gaze to the dance floor and immediately spotted Yolanda dancing with the Vaz. He felt a pang in his heart like a nail piercing a tire and starting to lose air. She looked wonderful. Sapphire blue gown that showed her cleavage, but not in a slutty way like Marsha. A nice way because she was wearing a short macramé sweater over the dress. He noticed that she was wearing a little more makeup than usual but not that glow-in-the-dark stuff Annette had. It was just enough. And her hair was down. Usually it was straight, but she'd put a curl in it so that it curved over her shoulders and flipped up at the ends. She really looked nice.

The Vaz looked like he'd gone to the Guido Shoppe for his clothes. His tuxedo was tan with brown velvet piping around the lapels and down the side of his pants. His bow tie was also brown velvet, and his shirt was a faggy mass of ruffles. It even had ruffles on the cuffs. But Frank was most surprised by his dancing. For a guy who looked like Humpty Dumpty, he really knew how to move. Like, real dance steps, not making it up as he went along the way Frank did. It would be just like him to have taken lessons just for the prom. Yolanda's dancing style was conservative with minimal movement, but she had a little smile on her face, which Frank took as a comment on Vaseline Boy's dancing. Frank was jealous. And sad. Seeing her dancing with the Vaz and enjoying it made him want to cry. Or break something. He thought about just taking off and driving into the night.

This is all fucked up, he thought. He was supposed to get into Mr. Trombetta's office to get the goods on the landfill to save Yolanda's neighborhood so that she would like him as much as he liked her. But he hadn't done that. He never got another chance to get into Trombetta's file cabinet at the house. There were always people around. And now here he was at the prom with Annette, and it looked like he
wanted
to be here with Annette. That was how Yolanda was gonna see it. It was all fucked up. Even the possibility that he just might score tonight with Annette didn't cancel out the fact that he really wanted to be with Yolanda.

“Guess what?” Molloy said out of the side of his mouth.

“What?”

“The Vaz is gonna win the Alpo Award.”

Frank wanted to punch his head off. “There's nothing wrong with Yolanda. She's not a dog.”

“Simmer down, cowboy. Pomeroy put the fix in. He's had it in for the Vaz all year.”

“Why?”

“The Vaz corrects him in class. You know how he is. Little Mister Know-It-All. He's always read some book or some article that basically proves that Pomeroy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.”

Frank shrugged. “He does that with all the teachers. Always has.”

“Well, it's payback time, I guess.”

“But why take it out on her?”

“She's a casualty of war,” Molloy said. “Pomeroy just wants to embarrass the shit out of Vaseline Boy.”

“It's not fair. This whole fuckin' school isn't fair. Is there any part of it that isn't fucked up?”

Molly looked him in the eye. “Are you serious? It wouldn't be a school if it wasn't fucked up. That's the definition of school.”

Frank frowned at him. He was in no mood for Molloy's smarmy glibness. This was serious. Why should Yolanda be humiliated because Pomeroy has a bug up his ass about the Vaz? He was gonna go find Pomeroy and tell him this was fucked up and if he gave the Alpo Award to Vaseline Boy, he'd fucking kill him. Kill him
and
the Vaz.

Then he'd rescue Yolanda and run away with her into the night.

He heaved a sorry sigh, knowing that would never happen. But he knew what he could do. He could just go get the Alpo Award itself and get rid of it. He knew where Pomeroy had it stashed. He'd just go snatch it and—

“Hey there.” Annette came up from behind him and put her hand under his jacket, rubbing his back. She grabbed his ass and pulled him into her. “Ready to dance?”

In a flash he was hard all over again, and the Alpo Award was a melting ice cube in the hot soup of mingled thoughts and concerns burbling in his brain.

“Yeah, let's dance,” he said.

She took his hand and led him out onto the dance floor which was crowded with kids dancing to “96 Tears,” the ? and the Mysterians hit. Up on the bandstand Mutton Chops sang bitterly about a girl who hurt him, the gerbil sliding up and down in his throat. Annette picked a spot in the middle of the floor and started dancing like a she-fiend, flailing her arms and shaking her hips, oblivious to everyone around her. She danced so wild, other couples backed away to give her room, and Frank was embarrassed, not knowing how to keep up with her. She hadn't danced like this when they'd practiced in her room.

He did his best not to look a lame-o, but he knew people were watching them—or at least watching her. He tried to look cool, keeping his own movements rhythmic but modest, but it didn't work. Annette was a wildcat, and people were staring. She started circling, and Frank had to adjust to stay in front of her, and that's when he realized that Yolanda and the Vaz were dancing right next to them. He caught Yolanda's eye, and she looked right at him. He couldn't tell from her expression what she thought, but then she looked away, paying attention to her own dancing. But as they all danced, Frank sensed that she was just as aware of him as he was of her. He wanted to know what she was thinking, what she thought of him. That he was a real dickhead? With a dickhead girlfriend?

Frank wanted Scottie to beam him the hell out of there. How the fuck could he ever explain to Yolanda that he was here dancing with Annette only because he wanted
her.

The band finished “96 Tears” and went right into “Black is Black,” the Los Bravos song, Mutton Chops wailing about wanting his baby back. So did Frank. Except Yolanda never actually was his baby.

Annette went into overdrive, dancing even wilder and crazier, putting the
Hullabaloo
go-go girls to shame. Suddenly she threw out her arms and hugged him around the neck, pressing her body right up against his. His dick went
boing!
and so did his head. He didn't dare look at Yolanda with a world-class boner like this.

“You having fun?” Annette breathed into his face. Her breath smelled of booze.

She kissed him, deep, her tongue going first. She kissed and danced at the same time. She tasted like crème de menthe.

She pressed her forehead into his. “You having fun
now
?” she said.

He was dizzy and horny and mad and confused. “Yeah,” he said.

“It's about time.” She kissed him again.

Tonight, he thought. Tonight.

When they got inside the house, Gdowski was still playing bartender, mixing screwdrivers in Welch's grape jelly glasses. The house had a combination kitchenette/living room. All of the glasses on the counter were either promotional give-aways from fast-food places or Welch's jelly jars. Frank guessed from the lack of décor, the lingering stench of cigarette smoke, and the fact that the second bedroom was a workshop for fishing-reel repair and fly construction that Vitale's uncle had been a bachelor for a very long time. Gdowski's screwdriver recipe was half a glass of orange juice and half a glass of vodka.

Annette was already staggering and needed Frank's help to walk straight, but when she spotted the screwdrivers on the kitchenette counter, she lunged for them.

“I am
so
thirsty,” she said, grabbing a jelly glass and downing half the contents in a few gulps.

“Easy,” Frank said, holding her wrist to slow her down.

But she pushed him away and finished the glass, then dropped it on the rug as she stumbled toward the worn-out couch, collapsing on top of a bunch of pillows with needlepoint trout on them. Her eyes were closed, her face smushed into the arm of the couch. Her fancy updo had fallen to one side, and her mascara was smudged.

Her best friend Jennifer stumbled over to her and tried to right her hairdo, as if that was her worst problem.

“Is she dead?” Gdowski said, mixing another screwdriver.

Jennifer glared at him for asking such a thing, but she stuck her finger under Annette's nose anyway to feel if she was breathing. It took her an awful long time to determine that Annette was still alive. Of course, she was pretty drunk herself.

Gdowski reeled on his feet as he concentrated on getting a screwdriver to his mouth. Frank hadn't had a drink yet because at the prom he refused drink anything that had been under Gdowski's armpit.

“Hope she doesn't die,” Gdowski slurred. “If she does, you are fucked, Grimaldi.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Frank grumbled.

Vitale poked his head out of the bedroom. His tux jacket was off, his shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, and he was in his stocking feet. He was holding a lighted joint.

“Anybody want any?” His eyes were red, the lids half closed.

Marsha wandered out behind him, her eyes in the same condition. She was barefoot, wearing only her slip. Her hair was wild, like Elizabeth Taylor's in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Vitale's gonna be her fourth, Frank thought as soon as he saw them. If he wasn't already.

Gdowski squinted and fumbled as he tried to take the joint from Vitale. They were both fucked up, and they ended up dropping it. Frank picked it up off the floor and tried to give it back to Gdowski, but he was too drunk to remember what he'd just been doing. He meandered over to the couch with his drink and plopped down next to Jennifer, leaning on her as she leaned on Annette who was out cold.

“Don't let it go out!” Marsha rushed over to Frank like a cavewoman panicked that the last flame on earth would be extinguished, setting civilization back a couple thousand years. She waved her hands, pantomiming that he should take a toke. Frank wasn't sure if he should. Annette was a basket case. What if he got fucked up, too? Who was gonna watch out for her?

But Marsha was fluttering her hands like a bird in a trap. “Don't let it go out! Don't let it go out!” She turned to Vitale. “It's gonna go out! Do something!”

“Here. Give it to me,” Vitale reaching for the joint.

But Frank didn't like his commanding tone as if Frank didn't know what he was doing and needed help. Instead of handing it over, Frank brought it to his lips and inhaled until end glowed orange.

“Hold it in your lungs for as long as you can,” Marsha said.

Frank resented being coached by a girl, but he kept his mouth shut. It was their dope, after all. They passed the joint back and forth until there was nothing left but a roach except Frank didn't feel a thing. Maybe he hadn't inhaled deep enough. But he wasn't about to tell them that he wasn't high. That would be too embarrassing.

Marsha's eyes were red and squinty. With her wild hair and wearing nothing but her slip, she looked like a she-devil. But she purred so sweet, like a little kitten when she talked. “I'm hungry. Are you guys hungry? Did anybody bring any food?”

Larry shrugged. “Look in the cupboard.”

Marsha went over to the kitchenette and rummaged through the cupboards.

Larry whispered to Frank. “You sure you don't need any rubbers? I got plenty.”

Frank frowned and pointed at Annette making Zs on the sofa.

“So what?” Larry said. “Do her and tell her about it later. Tell her she enjoyed it.”

“What're you, crazy?”

“What, you're afraid her old man will have you whacked?”

“This has nothing to do with her old man. You can't just do that to a girl. That's rape.”

“Yeah, but this is the prom. It's different.”

“Would you do that to
her
?” Frank nodded toward Marsha who was coming back to the table with an armful of food in boxes and plastic bags.

Vitale didn't answer the question.

Marsha dropped her load on the table as she plopped into a chair. She'd brought a box of Triskets, a half-empty bag of Frito corn chips, a big jar of Marshmallow Fluff, and a small jar of Skippy peanut butter.

Larry grabbed a fistful of corn chips and stuffed his mouth. “They're stale,” he said as he chewed.

“I like ‘em stale,” Marsha said. “They're chewy.” She dipped her finger into the jar of Fluff and came up with a peaked white glob. She turned it slowly, examining it carefully. “Wow… It's like a little ghost.”

Frank opened the Trisket box and helped himself, popping one in his mouth. He ate it, then ate another. They were so dry it was like eating sand.

Marsha still hadn't eaten a thing. She was transfixed by Casper the marshmallow ghost on her fingertip. “That was sad,” she purred glumly. “I feel bad for her.”

“Who?” Vitale asked.

“That girl who won the dog-food prize.”

“You mean, the Alpo Award?”

Frank stopped chewing. She was talking about Yolanda. Frank looked sideways at Vitale, waiting for him to make a crack about her. He'd shove the box of Triskets down Vitale's throat if said anything about Yolanda.

“Yeah, that was pretty cruel,” Vitale chewing corn chips with his mouth open. “She only won because she went with Vaseline Boy. They were getting back at
him
.”

“Who's they?” she asked.

“Mr. Pomeroy and his pets. The rich kids from Milburn and Short Hills.”

Marsha looked at Annette on the couch. “That's where she's from, right?”

Frank nodded. The Triskets were going down so hard he couldn't talk.

“Her father's supposed to be in the Mafia.” Marsha stared at the glob and seemed to be talking to it. Her voice was like smoke. “I don't know if that's true, but I saw him once. He came to school to pick her up one day. A big fancy car. Another guy was driving.”

Could have been Mr. Nunziato, Frank thought.

“Sister Superior went out and talked to him. Her father, I mean. Stood by the window on the passenger side and talked to him. It was weird.”

“Why was it weird?” Frank asked.

Marsha shrugged. “I dunno. People always go to her in her office. You know, like when you get into trouble. Or the girls who stop by just to kiss her ass. But with Annette's father, she seemed different. He was sitting and she was standing. It was like she was kissing
his
ass.”

“She probably was,” Vitale said. “He has people killed, you know.” He pulled a Trisket out of the box and dipped it in Fluff. “You really got balls, Grimaldi, taking her out.” He bit into the Trisket and it crumbled in his hand, Fluff and wheat shreds sticking to his chin. Marsha pulled out of her haze and started to crack up. Vitale cracked up, too. Frank didn't laugh. It really wasn't that funny.

“So why do you say that?” Frank said.

“Say what?” Vitale still laughing.

“That I have balls.”

“What?”

“You just said I had balls.”

“No I didn't. Did I say that?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Vitale looked at Marsha, mugged, and shrugged. They cracked up all over again.

“Never mind,” Frank mumbled. But they didn't hear him.

Marsha stood up, still giggling, and headed for the bedroom, leading with her Fluff finger, which she still hadn't tasted. She carried the open jar in the crook of her arm like a baby.

Vitale stopped laughing. He seemed upset that she was leaving. “Where you going?”

“To lie down.” She went into the bedroom. Through the doorway Frank could see her settling into the pillows at the head of the bed, staring at her ghost glob.

A grin stretched across Vitale's face. Frank imagined it extending off the edges of face and curving up over his head, tying itself in a bow. Vitale wiggled his eyebrows. “Gotta go.” He snatched the bag of corn chips and staggered into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

“I hope you like Fluff,” Frank grumbled under his breath.

He looked at the box of Triskets and thought
sand.
He looked at Annette on the couch, Gdowski and Jennifer still leaning on her. None of them had moved an inch. Annette's mouth was open, and he could see a wet spot on the fabric.

“Delightful,” he muttered. He remembered the time he'd seen her sunning herself in a hot pink bikini in her backyard while he was mowing the grass. He thought about her bitchin' Nancy Sinatra flip. He sighed because she looked nothing like that now. And to be absolutely honest, at the prom she didn't look half as good as Yolanda. And Yolanda got the fucking Alpo Award. It wasn't fair.

He sat there, mulling it over. The house was dead quiet, not even a peep from the bedroom. He had a feeling Marsha and Vitale had turned into corpses, just like the other three. Some prom night. They didn't even have music. He spotted an old radio on the kitchen counter but didn't bother to turn it on. What was the point? It might wake them up, and he didn't feel like dealing with them, not when they were wasted and he wasn't.

He went to the refrigerator, looking for something to drink, but when he found a can of Savarin coffee, he decided to make a pot. He'd need coffee to stay awake for the drive home.

When it was ready, he poured himself a big mug with three sugars and Cremora because the milk in the fridge had turned. He burned his tongue because he was impatient to finish. He just wanted to get on his way.

A red taillight river stretched out for as far as Frank could see as he drove across the Perth Amboy Bridge, heading north on the Garden State Parkway. A white headlight river flowed toward him in the opposite direction. Frank didn't think there'd be this much traffic at four in the morning. He wondered if any of these other cars were prom kids coming back from the shore. Or was he the only one? The only one who hadn't gotten drunk or high and hadn't gotten laid. He felt like a lonely salmon swimming against the current.

The big black Cadillac whooshed smoothly through the night. “Let It Be” was on the radio. When the song ended and a commercial for Barney's Boystown replaced the music on WABC, Frank pressed the preset button and tried WMCA. They were playing “Crimson and Clover,” Tommy James and the Shondells.

Frank exhaled a bittersweet laugh, recalling that the prom band had played Tommy James's “Hanky Panky.” Frank had been dancing with Annette thinking he'd be doing the hanky panky with her at Vitale's uncle's place. He felt like an idiot now for getting his hopes up.

A Pep Boys commercial came on and Frank switched the radio back to WABC. “I Want to Make It With You” was playing, the Bread song. It was the last song the band had played at the prom, the good-night slow dance. He and Annette had done the bear-hug shuffle to it, but all the while he kept an eye on Yolanda and the Vaz who were doing a more traditional waltz, hands up, keeping a space between them. Frank was glad that they weren't doing the bear hug, but he was still jealous. He'd desperately wanted to catch her eye, but she avoided looking at him the whole night. She probably figured he was dating Annette,
really
dating Annette.

Frank glanced into the backseat. Annette was curled up like a little kid holding an imaginary blanket to her mouth. Her hair was a real mess now. He shook his head and sighed. She really wasn't a bad person. In some ways she was kind of nice even though she was a bit dim about things that mattered to him, like books and movies and politics. She just wasn't the kind of girl he imagined himself with. She wasn't Yolanda.

A commercial for Shop-Well came on the radio. Frank reached out to change the station and realized that his exit was coming up. He must have been driving on automatic pilot because he didn't think he was this close to home. He pressed the preset button for WMCA and heard “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. He made a face and went back to WABC. He'd put up with the supermarket commercial until they played something else.

He got off the Parkway and headed for South Orange Avenue. The commercials ended and the Temptations came on, “Ball of Confusion.” There was hardly any traffic. South Orange village looked like a ghost town as he sailed through, careful to stay under the speed limit when he passed the police station.

Creedence Clearwater Revival's “Green River” got him through the hilly s-curves. As he turned left off South Orange Avenue, heading for Short Hills, Harry Nilsson's “Everybody's Talkin'” came on. He was close to Annette's house now. By the time the song ended, he was in her neighborhood, passing big expensive houses with giant lawns and elaborate landscaping, driving the streets he knew from working with his father. He knew that Short Hills had private security cops and hoped some rent-a-cop didn't decide to pull him over. He just wanted to drop her off and make a quick escape. He spotted her house up ahead and signaled to turn into the driveway. “Happy Together” came on the radio, the Turtles.