Jersey Angel

by Bauman, Beth Ann

  Usually working a ride on the boardwalk is a complete loser job unless you’re fourteen and too young to get anything else, but Vic’s uncle is part owner of the amusement park and a Polish mobster, to boot. He wears a Guido tank and a diamond ring. A complete cliché, but I have to say he’s a pretty nice guy. He pays Vic a ridiculously good wage in cash, opening his fat wallet and wetting a finger before flipping through a major wad of fifties and twenties. When I’m there he’ll peel off a few more twenties and give Vic a playful slap across the head and say, “Buy your pretty girlfriend here somethin’ nicer than a sausage sandwich, huh?”

  So Vic and I have a midsummer adventure. How good and horny it feels, zooming around the island on his Vespa, weaving in and out of benny traffic, the wind in our hair, my arms tight around his abs, him leaning back and kissing me at red lights. And here it begins. We even have surf and turf one night, courtesy of the mobster.

  Meanwhile our renters come and go—the benny families flapping around in their flip-flops and 45 sunblock. Mom flirts with the better-looking husbands. Late one night when I’m walking my bike over the stones to the shed, I catch a glimpse of a couple entwined by the rosebush. My flustered mom comes tripping around the corner when she hears me, saying, “I was just showing Ned our roses.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, strolling past. The guy smiles too big and sticks his nose right into one of the flowers. It’s some pretty sorry acting.

  Minutes later, when I’m eating a Ring Ding at the kitchen counter, Mom comes traipsing in with a little smile on her face. “That wasn’t what it looked like.”

  “Ma, you were totally making out with the dude.”

  She cocks her head and shrugs.

  Her personal ad brings a slew of responses but not a single date. They’re too old, too fat, aging badly, or mustached. There’s a black guy who likes “cream in his coffee” and a guy who would “seriously like to kick ass like Arnold Schwarzenegger.” So she makes do with the exes, waiting until the next Mr. Right comes along. Sometimes she leaves for the night and returns in the morning, and when Tofu Bart starts looking happier and gets a spring in his step, I think even he’s getting lucky.

  And then there’s a heat wave like none other. Some days it’s so hot the air looks wavy. The kids have sweaty pink faces like someone blew them up, leaving them hot and moist. I pump gas in my bikini and baseball cap and spritz myself with the hose every five seconds. My dad sets up a big beach umbrella on the dock that I sit under, but even with a portable fan plugged into the generator I think I’m going to spontaneously combust.

  Speaking of Dad, we mean to have dinner, but it never exactly works out. We do have lunch some days in his crammed office, sharing a meatball or chicken parm sub while Joop lies at our feet and the blasting air conditioner whirls invoices into the air.

  Deep into August the heat still hasn’t broken. It’s steamy for days, and everyone walks around glistening with sweat, looking dazed. And there’s a west wind, which means the beach is no relief because it brings biting green flies. You can catch a breeze up there, but you’ll be slapping your arms and legs the whole time.

  Inggy’s sprawled out on the dock and Cork’s standing over her. “Do I have to carry you?” But she’s either asleep or ignoring him. She just came back from another college visit and then worked a double at Sundae Times. Cork has his brother’s 32 Carolina Classic tonight and is taking us to the flats to cool off.

  “So tired …,” she mumbles. She has a glob of hot fudge in her hair.

  “Will you stop?” Cork hoists her up, and she dangles like a rag doll and lets out a tired laugh.

  “Seriously, no. I’m so beat.”

  “The ride will wake you.”

  “Home, Cork. I’m going home.”

  “Come on, Ing,” I say. “It’ll be fun.”

  He bends and heaves her onto his shoulder, and her long white hair touches the dock.

  “Knock it off,” she says upside down. He carries her down the length of the dock to have a fight with her, I guess, and we can hear them both complaining.

  “Looks like we’re not going anywhere,” Sherry says, holding her round stomach.

  “Ye of little faith,” I say. “We’re going.”

  “And freaking Tony doesn’t show up. He said he was coming.”

  Everyone was supposed to come—Joey too—but here it is just Sherry and me. Soon Ing calls out, “Bye, you guys.”

  “Don’t bail,” I yell, but she’s already on her bike.

  Cork lopes back, making a face. “Ready?” He swings himself onto the gunnel.

  “I have to pee like every half hour, so I hope that bathroom’s clean,” Sherry says.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Doesn’t work.”

  “Forget it, then,” she says. “I’m not going.”

  “Pee in the water,” he tells her.

  Sherry puts her hands on her hips and stares at us unhappily before flapping away in her flip-flops.

  “Oh, come on,” I call. But she waves a hand over her head and keeps walking.

  “Crap, everybody’s bailing. So it’s just you and me?” I ask.

  “Looks like.”

  I swing myself over the side. “You still want to go?”

  “Yeah, don’t you?”

  “I’m game. Definitely.” And we’re off. It’s good to speed around in the boat, the wind rushing over us. Oh, how guys love to speed. So we ride around for a while, our hair flying out behind us, and then we head to the flats, anchoring in the deeper part.

  I have to pee and reach for the bathroom door. “Shoot,” I say, remembering.

  Cork steps in front of me and opens the door. “It works.”

  “Oh, you did not!”

  He climbs down the ladder into the water and floats out on his back, making ripples. “Sherry’s wound pretty tight. Am I right or am I wrong?”

  “She’s knocked up, Cork.”

  “Knocked up, hopped up. She would have bitched the whole time.”

  “Have a heart.”

  “All hopped up, I’m telling you. All you girls are hopped up.” He splashes water at me.

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Okay, I’m an ass,” he says, paddling up to the ladder. “Okay, Ing’s mostly not hopped up.” He closes one eye, thinking. “And you, Cassonetti, I have to say, you are not hopped up.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you coming in or are you standing there?”

  I slip into the warm water and a strand of seaweed twirls around my wrist like a bracelet. I swim over to a sandbar where the water’s only a few inches deep and lie there on the sandy bottom. How weird and wild to be in the middle of the bay in a few inches of water. It’s a moonless night and the sky is inky. With my head tipped back I feel like I’m floating in space, surrounded by black water and night. A whiff of fish fills the air.

  Cork swims over and we both drink in the dark sky until it starts to rain lightly. We huddle down in the warm water while the cold drops hit our faces; one runs into my ear, making me yelp. It’s just a quick, delicious shower, and when it’s over Cork starts to entertain me. He walks in the shallow water going “do da do.” Like a clueless clown, he walks with exaggerated steps, then drops off in deep water, letting himself sink with gurgles and bubbles. After a few tries, he gets the timing perfect, and it’s pretty funny.

  He swims to the boat and comes back with a raft. I lie on it, and he pulls me into the deeper water, then hangs onto the side as we rock with the tide. We float along, not talking, and it’s nice.

  “Had enough?” Cork says, paddling us toward the shallow water.

  “I don’t know. It’s so much cooler here.”

  “Yeah,” he says, lifting his wet head.

  “Hey,” I say, “you think Joey will come around?”

  “Why you asking me?”

  “You’re his friend.”

  “So are you.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t think.”

  “You’r
e so different, you guys.” He blinks his watery lashes at me.

  “Different’s okay.” A tiny crab, ghostly pale, smaller than my thumb, scuttles past. I finger the top of its shell and it spins around, lost and teensy, all of its legs flailing.

  We float up onto the sandbar in a few inches of water. Cork stretches out along the bottom and rests his head on the raft. I flip on my stomach and yawn, breathing in wet rubber.

  “You have a sweet ass, Cassonetti.”

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “I’d like to spank that juicy behind.”

  I flick him on the forehead with two fingers.

  “Ouch,” he says, and laughs.

  I close my eyes, feeling lulled by the current and growing sleepy.

  Just as my eyes grow heavy, Cork puts his hand inside my bikini bottom and rubs my ass. Real slow. Everything stops for a moment. For a long minute nothing happens except for Cork rubbing my naked ass. In slow motion, I turn my head to look at him, and it’s clear that if he looks at me the spell might break, so he doesn’t.

  “John Cork,” I whisper, making him meet my eyes, which he does, looking all dreamy and not quite inside himself. For a long minute we stare at each other, and it feels like something’s getting decided.

  He kisses me, hungry and soft. My favorite way.

  Once, twice, again and again. “Sit up,” he says. I slip off the raft and kneel in the water next to him. He cups my face and we kiss until our legs grow numb.

  “Here.” He sits in the shallow water, pulls me onto his lap, and presses me to him, all warm and wet and smelling and tasting like gasoline, sweat, and black salty water. He buries his face between my boobs and I feel him smile. It’s the quiet, maybe—the lapping water, the lone flapping of wings in the sky—that makes it all seem unreal. The raft drifts away. Cork follows my eyes and says, “Let it.”

  He slowly unties my bikini strings and lets the top drop. And he does something very sexy. He doesn’t look but stares into my eyes for an endless minute, a smile on his lips. Only then does he let his eyes drop. And when he does I shiver. “Oh, you,” he says. “Fantastic boobage.”

  And here it begins comes uninvited into my brain. No, no, I tell myself, burying my face in his neck. Not this. This is nothing.

  We really go at it then. Naked in the middle of the bay, we do it with me sitting on his lap.

  It’s late when we climb back into the boat.

  “It won’t count,” I whisper.

  “I want it to count,” he says, reaching for the keys.

  I shake my head. “Don’t be stupid.” But I wrap myself around him, and he lifts me into a piggyback and starts the motor.

  We putter away, cutting a rough path through the water. I think about Inggy asleep in her bed with the dust ruffle, curled up on her side, wrapped in her white hair, dreaming, maybe. Safe there. She’s been safe all her life.

  Up ahead we see the raft drifting on the smooth surface. Cork cuts the engine, and using a net, he captures it and fishes it out. “There,” he says, satisfied.

  fall

  chapter 7

  I’m back in the Corner House.

  It’s a cool September night with a wind kicking around. He whistles low at the back door, standing there in his GUARD sweatshirt, hood up, eyeing me. I come to the screen and lean into it. “So what do you want?”

  “A blow job.”

  I laugh. “You’re an ass.”

  I unlatch the door, walk into the kitchen, and eat another meatball from the bubbling pot, a midnight snack. Cork comes up behind me and wraps around me. I feel him. “Have a meatball, McHardon.” I stab one, hold it out. He bites, chews, and kisses me with saucy lips.

  “Sooo good.”

  “I know.” I turn off the stove and he follows me up the stairs, his finger twisted around my belt loop. Halfway up he unzips my jeans and puts his finger inside me. We fall, bumping down a couple of steps.

  “You’re wet,” he says, his hot breath in my ear.

  At the top of the steps he picks me up. I wrap my legs around him, and he walks into the bedroom and drops us on the bed. We tumble and roll, his lips on my neck, trailing down my throat. I yank off his jeans and underwear, he yanks off mine. And soon he’s inside me, pumping hard. I like it hard. I like it fast. Both of us free-falling.

  I thought it would be weird at school. Our lockers are right across from each other, and the three of us always hang out before homeroom. But it’s okay. We’re the same. We can look each other right in the eyes, me and Cork. We don’t give anything away. Me and Cork. Me and Inggy. Me, Inggy, and Cork. All of us friends. The same as always. Sometimes, though, he’ll come up to me between classes and whisper in my ear, “Later, Cassonetti.”

  Night is when it happens. Him standing at my back door, the cool darkness of summer becoming fall, the wind through the screen, the crickets chirping, him looking in, waiting for me. I love the first glimpse of him standing there where he doesn’t belong—in the yellowed porch light next to the mimosa tree. His dick hard, his heart beating. I’m slow to open the door. It’s always late, the day softly fuzzed into night. We never say much, me and Cork. I like Cork in the dark, the feel of his heat and his mouth hot and wet on mine. I’m not exactly me, and he’s not exactly him. But here we are.

  I can stop it anytime. And I will. It’s not cool. It just isn’t. But this is my first fall, and doesn’t everyone fall sooner or later? I’m basically good. Yeah, I copy homework sometimes and sometimes cheat on tests—who doesn’t. But I don’t lie. Not really, not about the stuff that counts. So I’m allowed this little thing. Plus I don’t love Cork. He loves Inggy and she loves him. They’re meat and potatoes. I’m just a dessert. I won’t let it go on too long. And Inggy can never, ever know. Cork will never tell. I’ll never tell. She won’t know.

  Inggy. I wonder if someday when we’re like eighty—when I allow myself to smoke like a fiend—I wonder if one day when we’re, say, sitting on folding chairs under an umbrella on the beach, me sucking on my smoke and Inggy upwind of it, I wonder if I could say, Cork and I had a thing—a little fling back in senior year. Did you know?

  Get out, she’d say. We’ll both be grandmothers, maybe great-grandmothers. It’s possible. Inggy won’t have married Cork. I don’t see that in her stars, though it’s hard to tell what she sees. She doesn’t know what college will do for her. I mean, of course she knows what it will do for her. But she doesn’t know how it will change the basic fact of her and Cork. He’ll go to Ocean Community with me, if anything, and Inggy will meet new guys, smart guys, and slowly Cork will be uncorked. I know it. I bet he knows it. Only she doesn’t.

  But I’m rambling. Back to the future: we’ll have married, we’ll have maybe a couple divorces between us. I hope not, but it happens. And I’ll say, Did you know? About me and Cork? She won’t have, but if she chews it over for a few days she’ll say, Yeah, I’m not completely shocked. And she’ll have a secret or two herself, it’ll turn out. It won’t be my kind of secret, but she’ll have something good, and we’ll laugh into each other’s wrinkled faces—my wrinkles will be worse since Ing slathers up with 45 sunblock.

  It’ll be okay. I’ll say sorry, and she’ll shrug a little sorrowfully. And I’ll say that in the end friendship is the most lasting thing. Maybe we’ll have outlived our husbands. It’s possible. And she’ll agree. We’ll be sexed out by then, so it won’t be a big deal.

  Maybe, though, it’s better if Inggy never knows. Not even if we’re old and grandmothers and all sexed out. Some things you just keep to yourself always.

  Afterwards we lie twisted in my sheet and sweaty. A cool wind blows off the bay. We lie close and breathe.

  Cork is skinny. In his clothes, he’s bigger somehow. Naked next to me, he’s lean and hard, with pale hair on his long arms and legs. His belly button is botched, a round button that would look right on a fat man. I like that it’s all wrong. His dick is small and soft, and his breathing slows. I give him a nudge.

&nbs
p; “You booting me already?” he says with closed eyes.

  “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “Five minutes.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say.

  He does his putting-on-his-pants dance—little hops around the room as he hoists them up. Then he sits on the edge of the bed.

  “See you tomorrow.” I touch my fingers to his back.

  “Yup.” He slides his feet into his flip-flops. “Has she said anything?”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “She doesn’t know, right?”

  “She doesn’t know. You worried?”

  “Nah.”

  I sit up and give him a hug, pressing my boobs into his back. “Have a meatball on the way out.”

  “She’d hate me,” he says.

  “I’m pretty sure we’d both be in deep shit.”

  “Yeah, but she’d hate me,” he says matter-of-factly.

  I look at him. “You’re an ass.”

  He pins me in one quick move and climbs on top of me. “Stop calling me an ass.”

  “Stop being one.”

  And this gets us hot. When I break free, I unzip him and tug at his shirt.

  Later, when he goes, I hear the squeak of the screen and his crunch over the stones. I feel full and curl up in the middle of the bed.

  chapter 8

  After school one day we’re sitting at my kitchen table eating cookies. Mossy’s sweaty and pink from pushing a puck around the street with his hockey stick. “So, Mossy,” Inggy says, slinging an arm around him and with her other hand pinching a Thin Mint from the wrapper. “Where would you take a girl on a date?”

  “I don’t like girls,” he says, sharpening a pencil.

  “You like us,” I say.

  He checks the point and goes back to twisting the pencil. “You and Inggy. Mom. Mrs. Fishbaum and Mimi sometimes.”

  “Okay, let’s say you’re taking me on date,” Ing says. “Where do you take me?”