Teen Angel (15 page)

When they returned, Mike was already home from school and could not wait to get a gander. “Hey, Son,” he said, “that doesn’t look so bad.”

Sonny walked straight to her room and slammed the door. She studied it in the mirror. Her face looked like the sole of a shoe: worn out, stepped on, with shit in the cracks and a hole in the center.

“I mean it,” Mike said as he opened the door. “You look okay.”

“Get out of here.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t look bad. For you, that is.”

Sonny threatened him with her fist. “What do you want anyway? Did you come in here to bug me?”

“Can I watch television?” he asked.

“What do you want to see?”

“Popeye.”

Sonny groaned. Her brother was truly a mental midget. But then so were all the other kids his age. She sat through it, stroking Mike’s hair as he lay with his head in her lap.

On Sunday evening, her mother came into her room with something hidden behind her back. Sonny looked up at her in the midst of reading how wicked Elizabeth Taylor not only stabbed her best friend, Debbie Reynolds, in the back by stealing her husband, Eddie Fisher, but now was leaving him for Welsh leading man Richard Burton. “CAN YOU FORGIVE LIZ?” She had checked the yes box on the ballot.

“You’ll be going back to school tomorrow,” her mother began, “but first I want to talk to you about something.”

“What?” Sonny asked cautiously.

“Sonny, you must promise me that you will not see those bad girls anymore.”

“Who do you mean?” Sonny asked. Her banner, or, rather, what was left of it, lay stuffed in her desk drawer.

“You know who I mean,” she said. “The ones you had the party with. Those girls.”

“But they’re my friends.”

“They’re not your friends. They’re a very bad influence on you. Ever since you started seeing them, it’s been nothing but trouble. If it wasn’t for them, none of this would have happened.”

“None of what?” Sonny asked angrily.

Her mother ignored her. “I don’t see why you can’t make friends among the girls in your class. They’re good girls from good families–”

“You mean they’re Jewish.”

“So what’s wrong with that? You’re not Jewish?”

“I don’t like them and they don’t like me.”

“Well, then you can make friends with other girls. But your father and I don’t want you in the company of street hoodlums. They don’t come from homes like yours. Their parents don’t care what they do.”

“And their father doesn’t beat the shit out of them either!”

“Such language!” her mother screamed. “You didn’t learn to be fresh like that in this house.”

Sonny turned away from her, gritting her teeth.

“Do you promise?” she said, bringing her cupped hands in front of her.

“What do you have there?” Sonny asked. A bargain was a bargain.

“First, you must promise.”

“Okay,” she said, crossing her fingers behind her back.

“Your father and I want you to have this in the hope you’ll improve your behavior. That you’ll respect your teachers and fellow classmates. That you’ll respect us because we are your parents.”

Apparently Mrs. King had already gotten to her mother about Sonny respecting everybody and how it was necessary to follow the rules and not stand out, etcetera, bullshit, garbage, manure, crap, turds. Finally, she opened her hands and revealed a red jeweler’s box.

Sonny held it in her own hands and felt the hard, rounded top. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what expensive treasure it might hold.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” her mother asked.

Not yet!
She wanted to savor the suspense.

Was it a pin with rubies and sapphires? Heart-shaped gold earrings? It could be anything.
Diamonds?

“Sonny,” her mother repeated, “you can open it now.”

How she wished she was alone so she could wait until she just couldn’t stand one more minute and then would
have
to open the box. It was like saving the whipped cream until last, after everyone else had eaten his, and then slowly licking it off the spoon. She lifted the top of the box and there, sitting in a bed of blue velvet, was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. It was 14K gold with a real cultured pearl. That’s what it said inside the box in gold script. 14K Gold Cultured Pearl.

She took the ring out of its cavity and slipped it on the fourth finger of her left hand.
“Do you take Ruben Ortega to be your lawfully wedded husband?” “I do
” The pearl had these shadows that seemed to flicker inside of it. When she moved her hand, they moved too. “I love it,” she said involuntarily.

Now her mother stuck her face next to hers.

She gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek.

“You know we love you, don’t you? Sometimes your father and I get angry. But you drive us to it. We don’t like to hurt our little girl. Besides, you know it was an accident.” Her mother posed for another old smoocheroo. Two for the price of one, nothing doing. Sonny fixed her vision on the ring, which fit her finger like it was made just for her. It had a thin gold band with four golden prongs that held the pearl. It was so beautiful.

“You made a promise,” her mother said. “And we expect you to keep your word. Your father and I know you’re not a bad girl. It’s just that you’ve been influenced by the wrong kinds of friends. And that’s why you must not be friends with them anymore. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sonny said. “I promise.” It was her ring no matter what happened. They would have to saw it off her finger to get it back.

“And you mustn’t tell anyone what happened to your face. If they ask, Sonny, tell them you fell. Okay?”

Sonny nodded her head.

Even though Sonny applied half a tube of No More Blemishes, she still had an open manhole on her chin.
If you need an exterminator, call Palovsky’s face. One look at her and roaches split for your neighbor’s kitchen. Satisfaction guaranteed
. Her mother insisted that her father drive her to school.

“Genia, why?” he groaned from the bedroom. “Why? I didn’t work till late last night? Don’t I sometimes deserve to rest? What do you think I am? A horse? She can go to school herself.”

“Heniek,” her mother said sternly. “I want you to drive her to school and make sure she goes
inside
. Do you understand? I don’t want her to be alone.”

“But–”

“Heniek, we talked about it.”

“GODDAMN IT! No one around here cares how I feel, that I have to work later. She’s a big girl.”

“HENIEK!”

“You’re going to make me sick with your screaming. Sick. Do you hear me! Then who will work?” He cursed at her in Polish, something about catching the plague and lice, and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

They sat in the green Dodge with red vinyl seats like prisoners forced to share a bench on death row. Both dreaded contact. The fifteen city blocks dragged by slowly. It was hard for Sonny to believe that this was the same car that delivered the family to the “country,” which was any place that was grassy in a real way. Not like Fort Tryon or Prospect Park. Now she feigned interest in the happenings on Broadway. As they passed a group of boys wearing yarmulkas, her father smiled momentarily. That’s what he wished she was: Sid the Yid. And yet he looked so old and tired in his beat-up corduroy winter jacket, grey hat, with sleep still in his eyes.

“Dad,” Sonny began.

“What?” he said, not looking at her.

“Never mind. Actually,” she paused, “I just wanted you to know that I know it was an accident. You know, my chin and all.”

He nodded but did not turn to look at her, acting like he was the one who had been hurt.

“Well,” she said, “it still hurts real bad.”

He turned the radio on.
Damn him
. Last year, she had fixed him good. They were all going to visit this cousin in Brooklyn. As Sonny sat in the back seat, she took off one of her stockings. Then she said to her mother, “Look what I found in the back seat! Is this your stocking?” Her mother almost busted a gut, especially when her father started saying it wasn’t a stocking and he had no idea how it got there. When she saw the way they looked at each other, she got scared. So she told them it was her stocking.

Sonny could see the Teen Angels from two blocks away. And her heart leapt like a Duncan yo-yo as she made out the familiar figures: D.B. leaning up against the wall with Miguel at her side; Mary, Hansy, Marilyn, and the Gooch huddling in a circle over
something; Ruben standing off by himself, smoking a cigarette; even Dot sitting on a car fender with Steve next to her.
Nothing had changed
. She felt like running out to them and yelling, “Hi, I’m back. Remember me? Old Stringbean Palovsky! Enema mouth! Did you hear about the boy who was told to stop peeing in the swimming pool? ‘But everyone does it,’ he insisted. ‘Yeah,’ the lifeguard said, ‘but not off the high diving board.’ Ha ha ha! And I’ve got some other new ones, too. Wait till you hear them. You’re all going to crack up …”

The car passed their spot and stopped in front of the school building. She opened the door on her side and walked out of the car. Then he just sat there, waiting until she entered the building.
Hey, you guys!
She marched obediently into the building but right before the door shut she peeked out.
He was still parked out there. What was he waiting for?
She was in her seat ten minutes before the bell rang.

Mrs. King entered the classroom right after Sonny. She nodded, peering at her through her glasses as if to appraise the damages. Sonny tilted her head back so she could see her stitches.

“I don’t like to contact students’ parents,” she said as she hung her black coat with the mink collar in the teachers’ closet. “But your attitude made it necessary. I do hope I won’t be forced to do that again, Miss Palovsky. But it’s up to you. You have the potential to be a very good student, as I told your mother, but you must apply yourself.”

Sonny smiled at her, but the rest of her face was set in hatred. And she sat there like Exhibit A as the rest of the class gave her the once-over. Then they whispered among themselves. No one, of course, spoke to her. Somehow she survived the morning but furious thoughts crammed her brain. She wanted to choke Mrs. King, poison the class, holler, kill her father. As they discussed
Little Women
, which she had read before, she listened half-willingly. But they were just
Little Sissies
. She wanted the PASS but figured
she better wait for the next period, Algebra. Mr. Gross wasn’t too bad.

As she walked through the hallway to Algebra, she passed Mary Kelly. “Hey, where you been keeping yourthelf?” she asked.

“You all meeting outside after school?”

“Thure.”

“I’ll tell you all about it later. And you won’t believe what happened to me,” Sonny said.

“What? And how’d you get your face all banged up?”

“Later. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”

She had met some of the Debutantes, a Puerto Rican girl gang, and they had this rumble in the alley. There were switchblades and all
… Nah, Sonny thought. That story could be checked too easily. As she sat copying all these x’s and y’s into her notebook, she doodled furiously in the margin of her notebook.

The bell sounded and she had been so preoccupied that she forgot to get the PASS. Study period. Sonny took the PASS as soon as she entered the auditorium where everyone was copying everyone else’s homework. She raced upstairs to her favorite place.

The third-floor girls’ room was empty. Someone had written I LOVE RICHIE in her stall. Someone else had written next to it: “Would you suck his dick? That’s
true
love.” Sonny shook her head. Why would anyone want to suck a dick? Couldn’t you get a whole mouth of piss that way? She couldn’t think of anything more disgusting than that except for sucking pussy maybe. Did the Gooch really
go down
on Ruben? She’d never do that to anyone or vice versa.

The remainder of the day dragged on like when you were climbing steps behind a fat lady with a shopping bag. Sonny watched the clock in the front of the room, trying to catch the minute hand in motion. It was a quarter to three, so she got her coat. As soon as the bell sounded, she ran down the corridor, down three flights of steps, out the heavy door, across the schoolyard,
and to the other side of the street. No one was there yet.

“Hey, Sonny!” Hansy called. She and Marilyn walked out together.

“Where you been hanging out?” Marilyn asked, giving Sonny the Teen Angel handshake.

“You won’t believe it!” Sonny said. “I’ll tell you all about it but I hate to repeat myself. So wait until everyone else comes out.”

“What’s that on your face? A hicky?” Hansy asked.

“That’s part of the story. Now you don’t want me to give it away, do you?”

When Dot saw Sonny, she ran over to her and was about to kiss her. Sonny stopped her and gave her the Teen Angel handshake.

“Where have you been?” Dot asked. “I kept wondering when you were going to come back.” Then she said softly, “I really missed you.”

D.B. came out, followed by Steve. She carried what looked like a rat fur muff.

“Where’d you get that?” Sonny asked. “Is that real fur?”

“Beaver,” D.B. said. “Ruth picked it up somewhere. What happened to your face?” She took her right hand out of the muff and gave Sonny the handshake.

“Where’s Miguel and Ruben?” Sonny asked.

“Oh, they’re playing softball down the Drive,” D.B. said. “You wanna go watch?”

“That’s a game for queers,” Steve said.

“He’s mad ‘cause they don’t want all that blubber on their team,” D.B. said.

“A truck run over your face?” Steve asked.

“Truck you,” Sonny answered.

“Okay, everybody ready?” Sonny said loudly as the circle formed around her. “Now this is real private so it goes no further. You hear? Sorry,” she addressed Steve. “This is for Teen Angels only.”

“Everyone around here is so cheap,” Steve grumbled as he walked away.

“Why doesn’t he go to Vic Tanny’s?” Mary said as she joined them. “He could be half-dethent if he weren’t such a fat thlob.” She gave Sonny the handshake.