Jersey Angel (5 page)

I smiled.

“You have a calm face, Angel.”

“Calm?” Here I was thinking a
pretty
or
sexy
was coming my way.

He nodded and looked out at the waves, and his face lit with some happy, secret thought. “It’s like … like you’re waiting for a bus and you’re sure it will come.”

Now, I’ve been told all the usual things by a boy who’s into me. But this bus business … who knew. Not that I minded, exactly. When I told Inggy later, she let loose a laugh, saying, “He’s so weird and great. I love it.”

That night I took a look at myself in the mirror, turning my head this way and that. I just didn’t see the connection between my face and an oncoming bus, though in theory I thought I knew what he meant; I’m the anti–Chicken Little. Mossy was crazy for that story when he was little. “Goosey Loosey,” he’d whisper over and over again. Anyway, I’m not a the-sky-is-falling type. I expect, in fact, that
the sky will remain where it is, which makes me an optimist, which was probably Joey’s point.

So that was our beginning. Joey and me.

The summer gets really hot, so Mom breaks down and buys a new air conditioner for her bedroom. Me and the kids drag in our mattresses and pile them all over the floor while she lies on her queen bed, looking like an invalid and scowling at us. “Pft! It’s like sleepaway camp in here.”

“Only it isn’t any fun.” Mimi flops down on her pillow.

But man, the cold air is delish, and I stand right in front of the vents, flapping up my tank top.

Mom turns on her laptop and puts on her reading glasses. “Angel, come look at these men. One jackass after another.”

“Oooh, let me see a jackass,” Mimi says, and she and Mossy pile around us on the bed as we check out the dating site.

“Maybe you like him?” Mimi says, pointing to a picture of a friendly-looking guy with a big, round head.

“I never met a mustache I liked,” Mom says.

“Yeah, mustaches will never make a splashy comeback like bell-bottoms,” I say. “Don’t ever grow one,” I tell Mossy.

“Why would I?” he says.

“I’m just saying, little man,” I say.

“I like him,” Mimi says, stabbing the screen. He’s a decent-looking guy with a full head of hair, which Mom likes. His caption reads
R U Out There???
Mom clicks on his profile, which says
Looking for Beatiful sole inside and out knows how to be pleased
.

“Can’t spell or write a sentence, and I ain’t no fillet,” Mom says.

“Why does he have to write a sentence?” Mimi says.

“Because if he can’t, then he’s a dummy. You want me to date a dummy?”

“This one?” Mossy points to a guy with a helmet hairdo. His caption is
Seeking Special Lady
.

Mom and I break up laughing. “See here, Mossy,” she says, taking off her glasses and slinging an arm around him. “A man who calls a woman a
lady
is a bona fide jackass.”

“Jackass,” he whispers with glee.

“Here’s a good one,” I say. The guy is pretty good-looking even if he is going gray, and he looks nice, like someone you could ask for directions if you were driving around lost.

“Yeah, I saw him. He’s so-so.”

“I don’t know, Ma. He seems better than so-so.”

“Trust me. So-so.”

“Fussy.”

“Listen to you! You dump Joey again?”

“Why’d you dump Joey?” Mossy asks.

“I, for one, would not dump Joey,” Mimi says, digging
her head into the crook of my arm and looking at me upside down.

“We’re taking a little break,” I say.

Mom smiles. “That explains Carmella.” But I let that go.

Then Mossy gets a funny look. He stands on the bed and puts his finger under his nose like it’s a mustache and swishes his behind. “I’m looking for a special lay-deee,” he says in a high voice. We all break up.

“Do it again!” Mimi shouts.

So for the next few minutes Mossy smarms around the room with his finger mustache, coming up to each of us, saying, “Are you my special lady?” And we fall out.

“I’m a jackass!” he cries.

We laugh for a while, and it’s fun to see Mom smiling, her face lit up; she looks young and pretty when she’s all relaxed. When the kids finally settle down to sleep, she tiptoes into her closet and wriggles out of her nightgown and into her bra. “Angel, you up?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m going out for a bit.”

“Yeah, okay.” She’s on the prowl, off to hook up with one of her exes, no doubt, though I don’t think that includes old TB. “Hey, Ma, where’d you see Joey and Carmella?”

“Outside 7-Eleven,” she says, pulling on shorts. “So I said to him, ‘I made meatballs last weekend. Where were
you? No Joey at my table?’ Then Carmella came out with a Slurpee, and there’s this dead silence.” She balls up her nightgown and throws it at me. “Thanks for telling me.”

“We’re all friends.” Of course I’m not liking the sound of this, but I’m not going to jump to conclusions either. A Slurpee. Big whoop.

“Well, I hope you’re enjoying your little break.” She takes her makeup bag off the nightstand, tiptoes past the sleeping kids, and disappears into the dark hallway.

“Is it me,” Inggy says, “or do subs and BO smell kind of the same?”

“That’s so true now that you mention it.” But that doesn’t stop us. The coffee table is covered with two mammoth five-foot-long subs. I rip into one with a steak knife, cutting us each a chunk. Cork’s parents have gone to a wedding in North Jersey, so we’re having a keg and sub party at his place.

We head into the kitchen and get tall, foamy cups of beer. Inggy grabs a can of Easy Cheese from the fridge and squirts a gob in her mouth, then in mine. I’m not one to hold a grudge, so when Joey passes by the doorway I say, “Hey, cheese man. Look what it’s come to.” I grab the can from Inggy and wave it at him. “Can you forgive me?” He smiles at me, a real smile, and it gives me a good feeling, like maybe a thaw is happening. I scrounge up a box of
crackers from the cupboard, and Ing and I head into the yard and sit on sawhorses under a mimosa tree.

Kipper Coleman joins us, saying, “I’ve been thinking.…” Inggy squirts him a cracker, which he pops in his mouth and chews rapid-fire. “How can it be that I’ll graduate high school without ever having laid my lips on either of you fine girls?” He stands there, tilting his head in a flirty way. Kipper, I should mention, is super-skinny and wears weird jeans, but he’s not uncute.

“Is that my cue to jump off the sawhorse and plant one on you?” Inggy says.

“Yes, it is,” he says.

“Kipper Coleman, someday you’ll get laid. If you’re lucky,” Sherry says, waddling past with a bag of potato chips. She’s four months pregnant, just starting to show, and is in a real mood these days. Honestly, she’s always in a mood, but she’s all right.

“Vulgar,” Kipper whispers. “Here I am talking about romance and that whale completely taints the moment.” The poor guy turns bright pink, only confirming that he hasn’t yet done the deed.

“Aw, come here,” I say. He leans in, and I plant a kiss on his hot cheek.

“Aw, my mom does that,” he says.

I shrug, so he looks at Inggy, who gives him a peck on his other pink cheek, which gets him complaining again,
so we hand him our cups and send him in for refills, and off he trots on his long legs.

When he comes back he says, “S’okay, if you met me in college would you think me witty and charming, or would I still be skinny old Kipper?”

“Skinny,” Inggy says, “but dashing.”

“You’ve definitely got some dash.” Ing and I smile.

Then he and Ing launch into a conversation about college courses, dorms, and cafeteria plans that goes on and on.

I wander into the kitchen, and Cork strolls in with a dripping sub and holds it to my lips. I take a big old bite full of salami and onions and sweet and hot peppers, and he watches me chew. “Yummy,” he says, before heading into the yard.

I’m kind of glad Carmella isn’t here, but it’s still early, so she’ll probably show. And that’s all right, I guess. A girl at the sink lights up a cigarette, and the delicious curl of smoke rising above her head makes me want one bad. I almost bum one, which kind of shocks me, but I exercise willpower and promise myself, once again, that when I’m eighty I can light up and smoke like a fiend.

I chew on a pretzel instead and have a seat next to Tank-Top Tony and play a couple of rounds of quarters with him. Tony is Sherry’s off-again, on-again, the one who knocked her up. He wanted her to Hoover it once she
found out, which was late, since her period’s screwy to begin with and she’s kind of fat. Not a tub, but definitely a muffin top. Anyhow, she was too late, so she’s having a kid. Crazy.

Sherry slides into a chair.

“If you’re stayin’ you’re playin’,” Tony tells her. “And since you’re obviously not drinkin’, get off. Seats are for players.”

“Real nice, Tony,” I say.

“Bite me.” Sherry slaps his arm. “If I want to watch, I’ll watch!”

He sighs.

Tony and I flip quarters while Sherry scowls, and I hope Joey will come over but he doesn’t. The setting sun casts a nice shadowy calm over the yard. I love this time of the day, when the afternoon seems to yawn and stretch out. It’s a nice time to think, take a deep breath, consider your evening options. In the glow, Inggy and Cork sit on sawhorses, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm slung around her. What a pretty picture. She shakes the Easy Cheese and he opens his mouth and she squirts him a glob. Then she makes herself a cracker.

I keep right on drinking, and at some point it dawns on me that I am one tipsy girl. When Joey passes the kitchen doorway and heads upstairs, I follow him. When he opens the bathroom door, I’m right behind him.

“What the hell, Angel?”

“Sit a minute.” I close the toilet lid, have a seat, and wait for him to sit on the rim of the tub. Instead he opens the medicine cabinet, roots around, finds some dental floss, and starts sawing it between his teeth. I watch in the mirror.

“How long, Joe?” I ask. But he just keeps on flossing. Finally he tosses the string and has a look at his teeth. “Joey?”

“Can I pee?”

“Come on. I asked you a question.”

“Will you get out, please?”

Please?
There’s something so awful about that
please
. Like we’re strangers, instead of us. Me and Joey. Who’ve been naked together many times.

“Just stop. I’m done, Angel. Okay? I’m done.”

But I can’t move.

He yanks me off the bowl, opens the door, and leans in close. “You toy with me. Honest to God, you do. Maybe you don’t even know it. It’s over, okay?” I back out of the bathroom and he shuts the door quick, almost hitting me.

I sleep late, and when I take a look around the room, I see that the kids are gone and their covers are balled up on their mattresses. Even Mom is up and out. The shades are down and cold air blasts from the AC. I dive back under the sheet to sleep some more.

“Are you sick, Angel?” Mimi says a while later, kneeling beside me.

“Yeah, a little,” I say, pushing hair out of my eyes.

“I’ll be the nurse. What do you need?” She’s wearing glitter eye shadow, a bikini, and feather boa.

“How about a Coke, Meems.” I squint at the clock. It’s nearly eleven-thirty, which is when I’m supposed to be at work. “Where’s Ma?”

Mimi makes her fingers like scissors. “Haircut,” she says. “Are you contagious?”

I shake my head.

“You’re sad, aren’t you?”

“A little.”

She runs off and comes back with a glass of Coke loaded with cubes, and Mossy troops in behind her. “Hand me the phone, will you, my little man?” I say.

I dial the marina while they kneel on the floor, watching. Finally I get Dad. “I’m not feeling too hot,” I tell him as I walk into the hallway, where the heat is stifling. “I’ll come in, though, if you’re stuck.”

“No, honey, don’t worry. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s my head.… I don’t know. I’ll be fine.” I take the phone into the bathroom and look at my frizzy, sleepy, hungover self in the mirror.

“Take some Advil and take it easy. We’ll work it out here.”

“Hey, Dad, thanks,” I say, sitting on the toilet lid.

“You’re my girl,” he says, which always kind of gets me.

“It’s just that Joey—”

“Hold on a sec, hon.… Yeah. Check the invoice. No, the other pile.… Hey, Angel, we’ll have dinner soon, okay?”

“All right.” And I hold the phone to my ear until I realize he’s hung up. I pad back into the bedroom and fall on the deliciously cold mattress and close my eyes.

The kids come back in with a bag of bread, jars of peanut butter and jelly, and a butter knife. I don’t think I want a sandwich, but when Mimi slaps one together and holds it
to my lips, I take a nibble and realize I’m starved and could eat my arm. Plus it’s really good. I sit up and join the picnic, the kids yakking and breathing peanut butter and jelly breath on me. Meems asks if I’m still feeling funky and I say it’s probably a long-lasting funk. Mossy wants to know how long, so I say a week at least. Is it Joey? they want to know. I confess that yeah, it is.

“You keep dumping him!” Mimi says.

“Not this time.”

She cocks her head. “He dumped
you
? I’ll smack his face!”

Mossy scratches a mosquito bite. “He blew up my raft,” he says.

“And he found the leak,” I remind him. Mossy nods.

“And now,” Mimi cries, “he won’t blow up anything else ever again!”

“Maybe not.” I flop back on the pillow and close my eyes.
I’m done, Angel. I’m done
.

“I’ll smack his face,” Mimi says.

And we lounge around feeling lousy for a few minutes before Mossy pats my head with a sticky hand and says, “Let’s go to the beach.” Might as well, so I head outside in my nightshirt and sunglasses and pluck my bikini off the line.

It’s another scorcher, without a cloud in the sky. The kids hop all around me, holding my hands, as we head up the street. We climb the stairs and walk over the bridge to the
sand, where I flash the badge checker my season pass. Funny how as soon as the kids glimpse the water they charge toward it, as if they’ve never seen the ocean before. They race down to the shoreline, dropping their towels along the way, and fling themselves into the waves. How great it is to be a kid. Watching them makes me feel a little bit old. And that’s how I spend my first totally-Joey-free, no-more-hope-for-Joey day.