“That’s what I’m talking about!” Aunt Joan pulled up the handle of the recliner and her feet dropped to the floor with a thud. “I’m going with you.”
Aunt Linny squealed. “Me, too.”
“Fuggettaboutit,” I said.
“What are you, nuts?” Aunt Sharon asked. “We are the Queens of Free. Between us we got, like, sixty years on PTA committees. You’re a kid, what do you know?”
“We’re going, and that’s that.” Ma tried to reach her feet, but leaned back against the couch. “Would one of youse please tie my sneakers? And take off those damn heels before you hurt yourself, Natalia.”
88.
“This is a bad idea, Nat.”
“This was your idea, Ash.”
“No, going to the mall was my idea. Bringing my family and Grandma—I had nothing to do with that.”
“So what do you want me to do, turn the car around? Look, your aunt is getting ready to pass me, and I’m doing seventy.”
“That’s my mother driving.”
“How can she reach the steering wheel?”
“Dad says her arms get longer with each pregnancy.”
“That’s kind of creepy.”
“Shut up and drive, Nat.”
“Shuttin’ up.”
89.
Ma took charge when we met up at the mall. She split us up into three groups: Aunts Linny and Sharon, Aunt Joan with Nat and Grandma, and Ma and me. Group one was in charge of decorations for the walls and group two was in charge of decorations for the tables.
Ma took my arm as we walked away. “What are we in charge of?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said. “This looks good. Let’s start here.”
“No, let’s not. This is a dress store, Ma. We need party favors. Balloons. There’s nothing here for us.”
We went in.
The ladies behind the counter stared as Ma stopped in front of a rack of long dresses.
“We can’t afford this,” I whispered.
“You have a very limited imagination, Ashley.” She rubbed a gray silk sleeve between her fingers. “Creativity, that’s what you need.”
I pointed to the red-hot price tag. “Money, that’s what I need. You don’t make this much in a whole month. We’re wasting our time.”
“Ooooh!” Ma clutched the display rack.
“What?”
She dropped her purse and reached for her belly.
“Is she all right?” asked the saleswoman.
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed.
Ma turned to the woman. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Could you get me a chair, please? No, ah, not there. Could you move it closer to the dressing room? Great, thanks. Is there any chance you could get me some water? Or a soda?”
The saleswomen ran around like squirrels, trying to do anything that would keep my mother from giving birth in the middle of the store. They sat her down in a fancy chair that looked like it came from a museum, and poured her a glass of lemonade. The “contractions” stopped and Ma started bullshitting the ladies about being pregnant with twins.
“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s not due for another month.”
A little bell rang as more customers walked in. “Go on, dears, I’ll be fine. I know you have your work to do. I’ll sit for a few more minutes, just to be sure. Since we’re here, Ashley, honey, why don’t you try on a few dresses?”
“Ma.”
“Oh, go on.”
“Maaa.”
“You wouldn’t want me to have any more nasty contractions now, would you?”
She winked at me.
I grabbed the gray silk dress in my size.
90.
It took the whole afternoon, four stores, and three episodes of “early labor” with the “twins,” but Ma finally got what she wanted. When we met up with the others at the food court, we were carrying a bag. Inside the bag was a dress. It was a prom dress. It was pink. It was originally seventy percent off, but Ma got it down to eighty-five percent off by screaming, “My water broke!” while we were checking out.
91.
The aunts and Nat loved my dress. They oohhed and aahed and said all the things you’d think, only they said it so loud the security guard who was keeping the food court safe wandered over to see what the commotion was about.
Grandma Shulmensky hated the dress. When Ma pulled it out of the bag, she spat on the marble floor, a big wet one. The guard said something into his radio and Nat said something that did not sound polite in Russian. Grandma spat a second time.
“Okay, then, time for us to hit the road,” said Aunt Sharon. “She is a feisty one, ain’t she?”
We hustled Grandma out to the parking lot, with two security guards tagging behind us until we were outside.
The aunts showed us their loot when we got to the cars. The kitchen store gave Nat and Aunt Joan a bag full of paper napkins that were too wrinkled to sell and the bookstore gave them gift certificates for door prizes.
Aunt Linny said, “Ha! We did way better.”
Aunt Joan lit a cigarette. “Sure you did.”
“We got Christmas lights.” She shook a huge department store bag.
Aunt Joan put her lighter away. “Aren’t you a little old for shoplifting, Linny?”
“They really gave them to us,” Aunt Sharon said.
Ma looked in the bag. “You’ve got hundreds of dollars of Christmas lights in here!”
“Why did they give them to you?” Aunt Joan asked.
Aunt Sharon unlocked her car. “Because we helped this really sweet gal in luggage who had a pig for a floor manager, and then we got to talking with her because Ashley’s graduating and needs a job and maybe they’re hiring. I got you applications for five stores, Ash, you’ll make a killing with the employee discounts. Anywho, the luggage gal tells us about these Christmas decorations that were never returned to the main warehouse and now they’re taking up a shelf in the back room. Next thing you know we were in the office, a few phone calls were made, and we wound up with the lights.” She opened the door. “When you fill out the application, put down that Patty recommended you, Ash. You could do worse than a steady job in luggage.”
92.
Oh. The other thing that happened at the mall was that Grandma stole a container of chai latte gelato. It’s expensive, beige ice cream.
She kept it in her purse until we got home.
I helped Nat clean the car.
93.
That night, we sat down like a normal family for dinner: pork chops, baked potatoes, salad, applesauce, and something in a covered casserole dish.
Dad passed the dish to me. “Try the beans. It’s your grandmother’s recipe. Has bacon in it.”
I shook my head. “Don’t suck up to me with beans. I’m not talking to you.”
“What? What did I do now?”
“You told the whole world about the prom thing, that’s what you did.”
“Get over yourself, Ashley, and take some beans,” Ma said. “Wait until you see her in this dress, George. You’ll die.”
I put two beans on my plate. “Well, he’s not dying tonight because I refuse to put that thing on.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ma cut up Billy’s pork chop. “And you should have seen the Christmas lights that Sharon got. I don’t know how she does it, I swear.”
My chop had the consistency of a purse. I drowned it in ketchup and chewed until my teeth hurt, then I fed the rest of it, piece by piece, to Mutt, lying at my feet.
Ma was center stage, telling Dad about the mall and the shopping, and how she got that last fifteen percent off my dress. Steven and Shawn made bean jokes. Billy mixed ketchup into his applesauce and poured it over his potato, then said he wasn’t hungry, which made Ma yell. By the time I cleared the table, I had a headache that started near my belly button and looped around my neck like a noose.
“I’m going to lie down,” I said.
“You can’t do that,” Ma said. She drank s
ome milk from Billy’s glass. “You’re gonna try on that dress. I want to see the hem; we might want to take it up a little. Plus we have to find a bra that won’t show.”
“I wanna play Spider-Man,” Billy said.
“No more Spider-Man.” Steven helped me scrape the plates. “We’ll play kickball. You can be on my team, Ash.”
“No fair,” said Shawn. “She can kick it downtown. If you get Ash, you gotta take Billy.”
“Hold it, hold it, time out!” Dad said. “Ashley spent the whole day with your aunts, boys; she deserves a break.”
“What are you saying about my sisters?” Ma asked.
“Nothing, sweetness. I just think Ashley should chill. She can watch the game with me. Wouldn’t that be fun, princess? The Phillies are going to crush the Yankees.”
I stacked the plates in the sink. “I’m not talking to you.”
“She’s not talking to you,” Ma said. “Ha. Why don’t you invite Natalia over so she can see you in your dress? She could bring hers, too. We’ll make it a little party, a girly night.”
My headache exploded like fireworks into every strand of my hair. Families should come with volume buttons. Better yet, a mute button. That’s what I needed: a mute button, three Tylenol, and a soft pillow.
Instead, I got TJ.
He knocked on the back door and walked in with a shy grin, shook Dad’s hand, let Ma kiss his cheek, turned down dinner because he already ate. His shirt was ironed, and his sneakers were tied, and I could smell his cologne from where I was sitting. My heart started beating faster even though I told it not to. Even though he wasn’t touching me, I could feel his hands sliding around my waist. My heart pounded.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
My options were what you call limited: a night with the inmates in the insane asylum, arguing about dresses and shoes and why the Phillies won’t spend money on their pitching staff, or a night with TJ.
“We riding in a bus again?”
“I borrowed the El Camino,” he said. “The night is ours.”
94.
I buckled my seat belt, rolled down the window and leaned against the door. TJ started up the car and pulled away from the curb.
“You’re a dog,” I said. “I’m still pissed, you know. You think you can stand me up whenever you want, then you suck up to my dad to get back in good with me.”
“All true,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re disrespectful, sneaky, and you’re always late.”
“Also true.” TJ switched on the CD player. It was cued up to one of my favorite songs, a slow, hot love song. “I’m very sorry.”
“The only reason you helped Dad was to get back with me.”
TJ braked for a red light. “Yep. I’m sorry.”
And then he didn’t say anything. When the light turned green, he drove the speed limit. When the song ended, he skipped the next two tracks to another one of my favorites. At the next red light he said, “I’m sorry, Ash.” At the light after that, he said, “I am really, truly sorry I pissed you off.”
“Are you going to apologize every time we stop at a red light?”
“Women like apologies, your dad said.”
“He did?”
“He told me all kinds of stuff about women.”
“Oh, man.”
“So I am officially, one hundred percent sorry I pissed you off, my darling, beautiful Ashley.”
We had fifteen more red lights so I listened to fifteen more apologies before we pulled into Sam’s Best Hoagies. I got an Italian with extra peppers and no onions. TJ got a foot-long cheesesteak, no onions, out of respect for me. We ate in the car because he had scored a couple mini bottles of raspberry vodka, and hoagie shops don’t want you pounding vodka at their tables.
The apologies put me in a better mood. The vodka didn’t hurt. By the time we were done eating, we felt normal again, talking and touching and throwing stuff at each other. TJ told me about working with his cousin and going after a job at the loading dock of Wal-Mart. I told him about Gilroy treating me like dirt and Nat’s grandmother swimming at the Baptist church and my dress and the prom stuff.
“Ma says you gotta get a tux,” I said.
“Aw, Ash, I don’t want a monkey suit. I’ll look like a dork.”
“They’re stuffing me into a dress, so you gotta have a tux.” I sucked olive oil off my thumb. “Unless you want me to go with some other guy.”
“He’d be a dead guy. I’ll get a tux. I don’t know about a limo. We’re talking big bucks, Ash.”
“Don’t worry. Dad said he’d take care of that.”
TJ rolled his cheesesteak wrapper into a ball and tossed it in the backseat. “We really have to go? You’re sure.”
“Yes, we do. Quit bitching.”
He burped and started the car. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Eight? Quarter after?”
“Cool. We can go then.”
“To the apartment?”
“Prepare yourself, gorgeous.”
95.
“You’re gonna love it, you’re gonna love it, you’re gonna love it. No, don’t open your eyes yet, couple more steps, no, you don’t want to touch that. Hang on. Don’t move.”
I stood with my eyes squeezed shut while TJ did something with a handful of keys. We were in a hallway at the top of a staircase that smelled like the front steps of the homeless shelter. It also smelled like oil, or maybe gas. TJ led me inside.
“Okay. Now you can look.”
I opened my eyes.
“It’s ours,” he said. “All ours, yours and mine, Ash. Can you believe it?”
The apartment was as big as my living room. The lefthand wall was stacked with shelves full of greasy engine parts and tools. A gray garbage can stood in front of the shelves, a broom leaning up against it. To the right of the door there was a small table with a microwave and two plastic chairs. Three grocery bags were lined up next to the table.
Dead ahead, against the far wall I saw a skinny mattress covered with a red blanket. It had two pillows. There were cardboard boxes stacked near to the bed with an old TV on the top. In the far back corner, a shower curtain hung down from the ceiling.
“This is it?”
“All ours. Awesome, huh? What do you think?”
“Um, what’s behind the curtain?”
“The toilet. Marty’s gonna put in a full bathroom this fall. Until then I figured we could shower at your parents’ or at Aunt Lana’s. What do you think?”
I thought an apartment was supposed to have rooms. And walls. And at least one closet. I thought my first apartment would have a sunny kitchen and a bathroom with a tub, and it would be in a building with an exercise room on the first floor and maybe a doorman.
“It’s, um, you’ve worked hard.”
“It rocks, doesn’t it? Look here.” TJ reached in a grocery bag and pulled out a box of microwave popcorn. “I got our first groceries.” He opened the box and started a bag of popcorn in the microwave. “The next thing we need is a refrigerator. And then a little stove or something so we can cook steaks. You can come in, you know. This is all yours. Yours and mine.”
I closed the door behind me.
“We own those tools? And that muffler?”
“No, dummy. They belong to Marty’s garage downstairs. Marty, he owns this place, he’s charging us half price if we let him store stuff up here. Plus we pay a flat fifty bucks for heat and electric. It don’t get no better than that.”
“We’re living above a garage.”
“For a little while. We’ll move to a bigger place once we save up enough.”
“But what about when they’re working downstairs? Won’t it be noisy?”
“I figure we’ll be at work, too, so what’s the difference?”
My foot bumped against something and I looked down. “That’s, um, a pretty rug.”
“Aunt Lana gave it to us. A housewarming present, she said.”
&nbs
p; “The floor is clean.”
“I been busting my ass getting it ready.” The microwave beeped. TJ took out the popcorn and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the grocery bag. “Our first meal. Let’s get comfortable. You want soda instead? There’s a bodega down the corner.”
“No. This is okay.”
He took my hand and walked me to the bed. “I knew you’d like it. Wanna watch the game? The Yankees suck, I bet we’re up by six.”
He sat down. I sat down. The popcorn sat between us. I ate popcorn and watched the Yankees beat the crap out of the Phillies.
TJ talked nonstop for four innings. He was full of ideas, like how maybe he shouldn’t take the Wal-Mart job because they didn’t have a union and we needed benefits, and how I should go full-time at EZ-CHEEZ-E and start sucking up to get the hostess job, or at least tell the boss I needed overtime, or I could get a second job, maybe Aunt Lana could get me in at The Haystack. He knew a place we could rent furniture for cheap. He knew a guy who could set us up with a full-sized refrigerator. By September he figured we could get a couple credit cards and pick up a plasma TV, a laptop, and all the video games we wanted.
TJ had so many things to say that he only ate one handful of popcorn. I ate the rest so I didn’t have to talk. The plasma TV sounded good. I always looked at those when I went into Best Buy. If we got a good game system to hook up to it, my brothers would be blown away. I wasn’t so pumped about working full-time at the restaurant or picking up hours in a bar. I mean, I wasn’t going to be a doctor or nothing, but there were other jobs out there, like office assistant or running the deli counter at Giant or mall security. But I was too buzzed to start an argument, and besides that’s when he took my present out of the last grocery bag.
A cell phone.
“We’re on a family plan, you and me,” TJ said. “This proves once and for all that I love you. Sometimes you forget that, you know.”
My own cell phone! I was, like, the only person in my school who didn’t have one.
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