“Like kissing an ashtray,” he says.
Gross, I think. Thanks for the warning. I wait, but Frank doesn't kiss me; he just lowers his face so close to mine I almost stop breathing. We stare at each other hard again, the way we did in the car, and now I can see he's looking for something, but what? Fear? I'm not afraid. Desire? He's the one who wants something. Frank is so close I can see a tiny version of my whole face reflected in his beautiful brown eyes: a little me in his right eye and a little me in his left eye. The last thing I want to see right now is myself, so I shut my eyes to wait. I don't wait long.
“This your boyfriend's jacket?” Frank asks as he starts to unsnap it. Each snap opens with a little pop.
“My brother's,” I say. “I don't have a boyfriend.” I spit out the word boyfriend like a gulp of milk gone sour in my mouth.
Frank doesn't respond to this, just lays open the sides of Mike's jacket carefully, like he's unwrapping a birthday present. Then he unbuttons my sweater slowly, like we have all the time in the world, and that makes me want to scream. I'm wearing a black cardigan over a black T-shirt and when all my buttons are finally unbuttoned, Frank folds back both sides of my sweater gently, as if they're two pieces of tissue paper covering something delicate. I keep my eyes closed while he's doing all this, but I can see him by looking out from underneath my eyelids.
Frank is kneeling now and staring at me. I feel pretty ridiculous just lying here half undressed but I can tell that even though I'm right in front of him, he's not really seeing me. His eyes are blank, like he's thinking about something or remembering something or trying to make up his mind about something, but I have no idea what. I wonder if I should do something—I mean, what would a girl really named Vanessa do?—but I don't move. I just wait. The back of me is warm against the floor but the front of me is cold, and it's a strange feeling. Like sitting with your back to a warm campfire on a chilly night at the end of August on the last day of sleep-away camp.
Finally Frank shakes his head a little, like he's coming back to life, and then he lifts up my T-shirt. I have to arch my back so it doesn't get stuck and then it's all bunched up under my chin and armpits so my breasts are exposed. Ta-dah. There they are. Under my JCPenney bra, of course.
Frank doesn't touch me and I wonder how long he's going to just stare at me. I suck in my stomach while he studies me. I think he kind of likes me. I hope so, anyway. He seems totally mesmerized by my hooters, which is a good sign. I wonder if he wants me to take off my bra. I mean, am I supposed to be doing something here or what? Just as I'm about to ask, Frank leans down and does the strangest thing. He runs the tip of his finger from my right armpit to my left hip bone and then from my left armpit to my right hip bone, making a big X across my front. Like X marks the spot. And that's it.
I keep lying there waiting for him to do something else, but he doesn't. And then after a minute, Frank gets up. He doesn't say anything, so I just stay where I am with my eyes half closed, still waiting. Then I hear the strike of a match and smell a cigarette, so I guess he's done with me.
I sit up and pull my T-shirt down, button my sweater, and snap my jacket, doing everything Frank did, only in reverse. I still don't know what to do and I'm kind of disappointed. Is that it? Maybe Frank wanted to do more but once he got a good look at me, he didn't like what he saw. Maybe he likes his women skinny instead of flabby like me.
“C'mere.” Frank's staring out the window and I get up and go stand next to him. He puts one arm around my shoulders and gathers me close. “You're a good kid,” he says, which makes me feel about two years old. I don't want to be a kid. I want to be one of his women.
“I'm not a kid,” I mumble into his shirt. “How old are you, anyway?” My guess is around thirty.
“Old enough,” he says, and then he grinds out his cigarette on the windowsill, which is really gross. God, smokers get on my nerves sometimes, they really do. I'm always picking up after Shirley, and right now I'm tempted to pocket Frank's butt, but that might make him mad, so I don't.
Frank turns and heads downstairs and I follow him because I don't know what else to do. He holds the front door open for me, shuts it, and then checks to make sure it's all closed up tight, which is stupid since it's not like there's anything to steal in there. Then we walk back to the car without saying anything and get in. Frank sticks his screwdriver into the ignition and pumps the gas pedal. I wonder where we're going now, not that I really care. Frank doesn't say anything and neither do I, though I'm dying to know: does he like me or what?
Just when I'm about to ask where we are, things start looking familiar. There's the sign for the Long Island Expressway that some stupid kid spray-painted so it says Eggs Zit instead of Exit, like that's really clever. And then we pass the turn to my school and then we're back on Farm Hill Road and Frank stops the car in the exact same spot where he picked me up. I put my hand on the car door, but I don't open it right away. Frank just sits there, staring at me. I wish he would say something. Like what—I had a great timel Yeah, right. I want to tell him something like Thanks for the ride, or It was nice meeting you, or even See ya, but before I can even get one word out, Frank says, with that smile that makes my stomach turn over, “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The most wonderful word in the English language. Tomorrow. The way he says it, it's not a question and it's not a command. It's just a simple fact, a statement, you know, like the sky is blue; tomorrow will come; Frank will drive up, and off I'll go with him.
“Tomorrow,” I repeat, nodding in agreement, like I think tomorrow's a wonderful idea, which I do. Then I pick up my knapsack and get out of the car, closing the door gently as though I'm afraid it might break. Frank drives away and gives me the same old wave he's been giving me for the past month like today's just another ordinary day, and I wave back in my usual way, too, like nothing at all has changed. Yeah, right.
FOUR
Home, bittersweet home. I unlock the door, and as soon as I push it open, the burglar alarm starts blaring so loudly I bet my grandmother can hear it all the way down in Florida. Without her hearing aid on.
“Andrea, is that you?” Shirley screams from the living room.
“Yeah, yeah, it's me, it's me.” I run to shut off the alarm, then dash into the kitchen to call the cops and give them our secret password so they know it's only us screwing up again and they don't have to rush over.
“I'm sorry,” I yell after I hang up the phone.
“Andrea, come in here, please.”
Uh-oh. I drag myself into the living room, where Shirley is watching The Edge of Night, One Life to Live, or some other stupid soap opera.
“I'm sorry,” I say again before she can start yelling at me. “I didn't do it on purpose. I just forgot to turn it off before I opened the door.”
“That's beside the point,” Shirley says, barely taking her eyes off the TV. “Why can't you be more careful? The police have better things to do than respond to every false alarm in the neighborhood. You've got to focus on what you're doing, Andrea. Why are you so distracted?”
You don't want to know, I think. Out loud I say, “Well, at least I remembered the password,” unlike Mike, who set the alarm off last year when he arrived home to surprise Shirley for her birthday. Since we weren't expecting him, Mike came home to an empty house and when he set off the alarm he had no idea what was happening. (Mike swears we never told him about the burglar alarm; Fred swears we did. My guess is that Fred's right but Mike was probably so stoned at the time it didn't register.) Anyway, when the cops came and asked Mike the secret password, all he kept saying was “Hey, c'mon. I live here, man.” Well, the cops took one look at him with his long hair and ratty clothes and said, “Sure you do, buddy.” And then they hauled him right off to the station. I bet Shirley will never forget that birthday.
“I'm sorry,” I apologize to Shirley for the third time. “It won't happen again.”
“It better not,” Shirley says. “Now go get me a pack of ciga
rettes, will you? My nerves are shot.”
Ever the dutiful daughter, I go into the kitchen and open the drawer where most people keep their silverware but where we keep cigarettes—Virginia Slims for Shirley and Lucky Strikes for Fred. “Another twenty nails for your coffin,” I say softly so Shirley won't hear, since the one time I said it out loud she took away my allowance for two weeks.
“Here,” I say, bringing the pack into the living room.
“Thank you.” Shirley takes the cigarettes and looks up to give me the once-over. “Oh, Andrea, do you have to wear pants with patches on the knees to school?” She sighs dramatically. “If you need new clothes, I've told you a hundred times I'd be happy to take you shopping. We could go right now.”
“For your information, this is a style, Shirley,” I tell her. “All the kids at school wear pants like this.”
“Some style.” Shirley strikes a match and lights her cigarette. “Your father works extremely hard, Andrea, and I'm sure he doesn't appreciate his daughter running around looking like we're two steps away from the poor-house. And what happened to that nice pocketbook I bought you? Do you have to go around with that worn-out knapsack on your back like a hobo?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it doesn't do anything for you, Andrea, if you know what I mean.” Shirley directs her attention back to the TV and I study her as she watches her show and puffs away. She holds her cigarette between the second and third fingers of her left hand. Her fingers are long and slender and her nails are shiny and red, courtesy of her once-a-week appointment at the beauty parlor. And on her fourth finger she wears this band of diamonds that Fred gave her for their twentieth anniversary, instead of the plain gold wedding band he gave her the day they got hitched. She keeps that ring in a velvet box at the bottom of her underwear drawer. The new ring is nice and everything, and you can tell it cost a mint, but I like the old one better. Sometimes I look at it when I put away the laundry. When I was younger, I used to like trying it on, but now it only fits my pinky because compared to Shirley, I'm an elephant, as she constantly reminds me.
“What did you have for lunch today?” Shirley asks during an Alka-Seltzer commercial, as if on cue.
I rack my brain. “Um, an apple and a Dannon vanilla yogurt.”
“Good.” Shirley nods her approval. If she knew I'd had macaroni and cheese, a brownie, and a chocolate chip cookie, she would kill me.
“I went to Mrs. Goodman's for lunch,” Shirley tells me, like I care. “She served us fondue, isn't that interesting? Cheese fondue for the main course and chocolate fondue for dessert. Everyone got these cute little forks to dip chunks of bread and fruit with. It was delicious, Andrea. Of course, I have to go right back on Weight Watchers tomorrow, but it was worth it. Maybe I'll make it sometime, but I'm not sure your father would like it. What do you think? You know his taste. Do you think he'd enjoy it?”
“Whatever.” I mean, how should I know if Fred would like fondue or not? Besides, it's a moot point, since Shirley hasn't cooked a real meal since TV dinners were invented.
“Your father is such a meat-and-potatoes man,” Shirley goes on. “You can cook meat in it too. Maybe I'll try that.…” Her voice trails off.
“I'm going to start my homework,” I say, turning to leave.
“Can you change the channel?” Shirley points at the TV with the tip of her cigarette. God forbid she should get off the couch and change it herself. “Put on channel two. I want to see who's on The Mike Douglas Show.”
After I change the channel, I go upstairs to my room and put a Janis Joplin album that Mike left behind when he went off to college on my record player. Then I flop down on my bed, but before I even have time to take off my sneakers and relax, Shirley yells up the stairs, “Andrea! Turn that screeching down!”
“It's not screeching. It's singing,” I yell back before I turn the volume knob a hundredth of an inch to the left. I wait a minute, and when Shirley doesn't yell again, I lie back down on my bed, shut my eyes, listen to Janis, and think about Frank. Oh my God, I can't believe what happened to me today. A guy—no, a man—whisked me off and had his way with me. Well, sort of. You have to admit what he did was pretty weird, but he didn't hurt me or anything. He just ran the tip of his finger down my stomach like he was checking to see if it was dusty. But who cares? He was really sweet and gentle, especially when he put his arms around me over by the window and we just stood there being quiet. It felt peaceful, like when I hang out by the fence with Bessie. Most people don't know how to just be still like that. I'm glad Frank does.
I reach over for Snowball, my favorite stuffed animal, and hug the soft white cat to my chest. “Do you think Frank and I will fall in love and live happily ever after?” I whisper into her ear. Then I move her head up and down like she's saying yes. Hey, don't laugh; it could happen. Donna Rizzo is totally convinced she's going to walk down the aisle with good old Donald Caruso. I wonder if Frank is even the marrying type. He strikes me more as the living-together type, which is no big deal. I don't care about a stupid piece of paper, though believe me, it wasn't the greatest idea in the world to tell the Parental Units that.
It was a Sunday morning, and the three of us were sitting around the kitchen table eating bagels spread with this putrid low-fat cream cheese that Shirley insists on buying, and reading sections of the New York Times. Shirley was reading the wedding announcements and Fred was reading the obituaries, which tells you something, but I don't know what.
“So guess who's getting married?” Shirley asked out loud.
“The Pope?” I asked back.
“Very funny.” Shirley shook her head. “Fred, take a guess.”
“I give up,” Fred said.
“Karen Blumenthal. And her picture's right here in the Times. Isn't that something?”
“Who's Karen Blumenthal?” Fred and I asked at the same time, though neither one of us really cared.
“Alice and Sid's daughter. You know, they live over on Garden Lane? That's going to be quite an affair.” Shirley licked her lips as though she could already taste the high-calorie fancy food the Blumenthals were sure to serve. “They certainly can afford it. But don't worry, Andrea,” Shirley added. “When the time comes, we'll go all out for you.”
“I'm not getting married,” I said, reaching for another half a bagel, but Shirley stopped me cold with one of her “you don't need that” looks.
“What do you mean you're not getting married? Of course you're getting married. Everyone gets married.” Shirley's voice went up a zillion decibels as she went totally bananas.
“Okay, okay, don't wig out, I'm getting married,” I said, just so she'd get off my case. “But I'm going to be barefoot and have wildflowers in my hair and my dog will be the ring bearer and it'll be up on top of a mountain and…”
“Andrea.” Shirley let out this huge sigh like the entire world had just come to an end. She took a big gulp of her coffee, which was a disgusting shade of gray from the skim milk she puts in it instead of cream, and then addressed my father. “You're going to have a lot of trouble with your daughter,” she said. As opposed to saying our daughter. Like Fred gave birth to me all by himself.
I put Snowball down, turn over Mike's Janis Joplin album, which is skipping—no wonder he didn't take it up to Buffalo—and start my homework. But even though I have two French lessons to go over and a ton of math problems to solve, I can't force myself to pick up a pencil. All I can do is think about Frank.
Let's say, just for kicks, that we do get married, or at least wind up living together. What will I tell our children about the day we met? “Well, kids, your father pulled off to the side of the road and I got in his car and he took me to this empty house and drew a big fat X on my big fat stomach.” So much for telling them not to talk to strangers, like Shirley and Fred are always telling me. Which makes no sense because everyone's a stranger until you talk to them, right? So if you never talked to strangers, how would you make any friends? I'll give you a
n example: last year Shirley and Fred went on a cruise to the Virgin Islands, which is a weird name for a place— what do they have there, a bunch of girls who haven't done it yet, like me? Anyway, there they were on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of strangers and they all started talking to each other and by the time they got off the boat they were all the best of friends. When I said to Fred, “But that's talking to strangers,” he said that was different, but I didn't see what was so different about it. Just because they all have money and are on the same cruise ship doesn't mean they can't be lunatics or criminals or killers.
It's useless to even pretend I'm doing my homework, so I get up from my desk and flop down on my bed again. The question that's going around my mind is: why did Frank pick me? I'm not exactly a prize or anything. Like I already told you, I'm kind of chunky, and I'm not exactly the smartest kid on the planet.
I wonder how old Frank is. Not that it really matters or anything. I'm just curious. If he's around thirty, he's fifteen years older than I am, which isn't as big a deal as you might think. I mean, when I'm eighty, he'll be ninety-five, and who cares by then? Frank would probably kill me if he knew I was only fifteen. I know I look older on account of my boobs. I'll be sixteen soon, in December.
I jump off my bed—I just can't sit still today—and look at myself in the full-length mirror behind my door. Slowly, I unbutton my sweater and lift up my T-shirt, trying to see what Frank saw. There's my stomach, white and flabby as ever. I don't know what I expected, maybe that it would be marked or something, but it's not. I suck it in and wish it would just stay like that, but I have to breathe eventually and then it pops back out. Maybe I should lose a little weight so Frank will like me better.
I go over to my desk, take a piece of paper out of a drawer, and write Frank and Andrea on it inside a little heart with an arrow going through it and the whole bit. It takes me a minute to remember, and when I do, I crumple it up, take out another piece of paper and write Frank and Vanessa instead. Vanessa. God, where in the world did I ever come up with that one? “Sometimes you just kill me, Andrea Robin,” I say out loud to myself. “You really, really do.”
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