“We could work on the report before school,” she says. “In the library.”
“The library?” I make a face. “I guess I don’t have anywhere else to be then.”
“It’s got to be there,” Jeni says. “We can’t work where I’m living.”
“We sure can’t work at my place.”
Near the top of the hill a truck pulls even with us. Stays even.
I know the sound.
“Whatever you hear,” I say, “don’t hear it. Don’t look.”
Jeni says, “What?”
“The truck,” I say. “It’s my boyfriend. He’s following us.”
As we step into the crosswalk: “I know that ass!” some guy calls.
Not even Steve’s voice.
Into town we’re trailed by the squeal-stop of Steve’s brakes.
“Why is he following?” Jeni sounds scared.
I toss my hair. “They’re not after you.”
“Angelyn. Angelyn!” That same guy’s voice that I can’t place.
We pass a parking garage. City Hall. A Mexican restaurant.
Then: “ANGELYN!” My name in chorus. Finally, I look.
Steve is rolling next to us. Three hangers-on from our group are in the back of the truck. Young kids. The ones without girls. My choir.
In the cab with him, a friend from last year. Kal somebody. He’s graduated.
“It takes five of you to make one,” I shout.
Kal slings an arm out the window. “How ’bout we all make you?”
I look to Steve. “You let him say that?”
Steve shoots me the finger. Wiggles it.
Jeni tugs at me. “Angelyn—”
I whirl on her. “Hands off.”
She reels away. Hurt eyes.
Two lawyer types look us over, passing. We’re close to Courthouse Park.
“Come on, let’s go,” I say.
The boys yell after us. Steve honks.
“They’re stopped in traffic,” Jeni says.
In the park I take a bench that faces the street.
“Leave if you want,” I say.
Jeni sinks onto the bench.
I swallow. “When they come, pretend—”
“Like we don’t care,” she says. “No matter what.”
I look at her. “Yes.”
Steve is heavy on the bumper of the car in front. The boys in the back are pointing to the park like they’ve discovered land.
“What’s he need all those guys for?” I wonder out loud.
“I’ve got some gummy worms,” Jeni says.
“And you’re telling me because?”
“We could look busy eating them.”
“Dig them out,” I say.
She pulls a bag from her purse, and we each take some.
“These are horrible,” I say, chewing. Like globs of stale Jell-O.
She folds a leg under. I stretch my arms along the bench back.
“Lesbos!” the boys shout as the truck inches to the park.
I blow them a kiss across the empty sidewalk.
Jeni’s hand trembles as she passes me the bag.
“Look at that slut,” Kal calls as the truck pulls parallel to us.
“Hey!” I say, standing. “Steve! Shut him up. Talk for yourself.”
Steve is slumped, shades on. The car he’s tailing surges ahead.
“Go!” I call as traffic builds behind him.
He throws down his shades, puts the truck in park, and jumps out.
Jeni chokes my name.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. Thinking: Is it?
Steve stomps around the truck and onto the sidewalk. People are honking.
“What?” I call. “What?” when he’s closer.
“We are on our way to Taco Bell,” he says. Steaming.
I tilt my chin. “And you’re driving the bus? The short bus.”
“It ain’t about you, Angelyn! That’s what I’m saying.”
“Then tell them to stop.”
Steve thumbs back. “I don’t tell them what to say! They say it.”
“Like on the field?” My breath hitches. “They don’t hear it first from you?”
He frowns. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Holding out,” Steve says.
We eye each other.
“I’m not your bitch,” I say.
“Since when?” Steve asks.
“Since right this second.” I fire the words at him.
“Angelyn, damn.”
I point. “I’d be looking at that.”
Kal is jerking the truck down Main, the boys in back bouncing like beans.
“Shit.” Steve takes off running.
I sit back on the bench.
“That was great,” Jeni says.
“That was acting,” I say, working my cold fingers.
“He never saw me.”
“Steve can be single-minded.”
“My mom meets guys off the Internet,” Jeni says.
“What?”
“That’s how she got with Nathan’s dad. That’s why we’re in this town.”
“Okay, why are you telling me?”
“Just thinking out loud, Angelyn.”
“Your mom trolls the Net for sex buddies and I need to know.”
Jeni laughs. “Romance, she calls it.”
I’m not sure how to take her. “Well, I’m not like that.”
“I’m not either.” Deadly serious now. “I won’t be. Not ever.”
A clump of regular people goes by, coffee and cigarettes in hand. A jury, I decide, on break from one of the courts.
“My mother hates me,” I say.
“Why?” Jeni asks.
“She just does. Forget it.” My face is hot.
“Okay.” She checks her watch. “Maybe we should go.”
We leave the park.
“You think we’ll get back to school before those guys do?” Jeni asks.
“Yep.” Taco Bell is on the far end of town.
“Angelyn, I feel like I said the wrong thing, but I don’t know what it is.”
I exhale. “No, I did. There’s no point in talking about it.”
“My mom is kind of—out there,” Jeni says.
“But do you get along with her?” I ask.
“She’s not a grown-up. Sometimes I have to think for both of us. But, yeah, we get along.”
“Any of her Net friends ever go for you?”
“They get her, not me.” Jeni is calm. “We are real clear on that one.”
I scuff along the sidewalk.
We pass lawyers’ offices done up in cozy brick-red. Superior Court, its sparkling glass door stuck between yellow brick walls.
I point. “They hear custody cases in there. My mom used to say I’d best watch myself, or that’s where we’d all wind up.”
Jeni is looking at me. “You mean, like, your dad would try to get you?”
Rage starts through me. It dies. “No. Like the state would try to get me.”
“Oh.” Her voice is careful.
“Nathan told you all about me, I bet.”
“He said some things. Not in a bad way. He likes you, for sure.”
“It’s all bad. And Nathan’s a punk.”
We’re quiet, climbing. We stop at the intersection.
“I think about what comes next,” Jeni says. “What I can do. I already know I won’t be like my mom, waiting on some guy. I’m going to make my own life.”
She’s shiny-faced, breathless, her hair escaping from its knot.
“I don’t see ahead,” I say. “For me it’s all about getting by.”
“I have to see ahead. My life would suck too much if I didn’t.”
“I can’t be more than what I am.” I test the words.
Jeni asks, “Why not?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I look at her. At him. At dinner. It’s always the same. Mom talks and Danny says nothing. She hardly lo
oks at him, and he only looks at his food. What keeps them together—I wonder—still.
I hate how the kitchen shrinks when all of us are in it.
“Someone pass the juice?” I say.
The container is closest to Danny.
He keeps his eyes down. I can feel him wanting to reach.
“Lazy,” Mom says. “Get it yourself.”
With a swipe of my arm, I grab the bottle. Danny flinches.
“Sorry.” I watch his bowed head.
Mom talks more. Something about her boss. Something about the job.
I push my chair back. “Can I be excused?”
“So rude,” Mom says.
“What?” I say. “I’m done. I’ve got homework.”
“I tell you my news and you ask to leave?”
Her eyes have me pinned. Dark eyes, almost black. Like mine.
I look back, lost.
“Are you happy for me?” Mom asks.
“Yeah.” No clue. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. What for?”
I’m squirming. “I didn’t hear your news. Sorry.”
Danny glugs water.
“Angelyn, you didn’t listen. I hate liars.”
My throat clutches like her hand’s around it.
“I’ll listen now.”
Mom picks up a breadstick. Swabs it in sauce.
“Tell me, all right?”
“You’ll have to wait until the weekend,” she says, chewing around the words.
“The weekend?” It’s Thursday. “What’s happening then?”
“We are going shopping,” Mom says. “And out to lunch.”
It’s not my birthday. Not Christmas. “Shopping for what?”
“I want to buy you a treat.”
Now I’m staring. “Why? I mean, thanks—but why?”
“You’ll find out.” Mom breaks out smiling. “I don’t mind telling it twice.”
With shoulders and attitude, Mom clears a path through the packed aisles of Rowdy’s shoe department, grabbing boxes off shelves, passing them to me.
“Choose one,” she says when we have three.
In an empty corner I line the boxes on a bench.
“How’d you know my size?” I ask, stepping out of my past-it summer sandals.
“We both take nine.”
I lift the lid off the first box. Running shoes. Pretty nice ones.
They fit fine. Look good. I have a pair like them at home.
The second box holds brown clogs with fake-fur yellow trim.
I turn one over. “They look like bear paws.”
“Winter’s coming,” Mom says. “Try them out.”
I clump around, uglier with every step.
“Those are really cute,” she says.
“They kill my feet,” I say. A lie. I’d never wear them.
Mom points to the last box.
Ballet flats. I slip them on and slide along the floor. The fabric pinches the sides of my feet and feels like nothing underneath.
I take them off. “Can I look around?”
Her mouth turns down. “I don’t know what you think you want.”
I’m backstepping. “Five minutes. Less than five.”
Mom just looks at me. But she doesn’t say no.
Families from toddlers to grandmas are picking through shoes, hopping in, testing walks. I weave through, scanning displays.
Then I see them. The shoes. Stiletto-heeled Mary Janes, ribbon straps, red, standing out like jewels in a sea of black and brown.
I find my size. Cradling the box, I take it to Mom.
“You’re kidding,” she says when I lift the shoes out.
They fit like custom-made. Feel great walking. In the step-stool mirror I check front, side, and back. My legs are long, strong, endless.
I can’t stop smiling. “These are the ones I want.”
“What would you use them for, Angelyn?”
“Dances? You said it was a treat.”
“You want to look pretty for all the boys,” Mom says. “Right?”
My stomach dips. “No. Not really. I mean, I like the shoes for me.”
“Why?”
I stick a foot out, looking. “It’s not complicated. They’re pretty. They are.”
Mom checks the box. “Ninety dollars.”
“Ninety.” I sit on the bench. “I didn’t see that.”
“Ninety dollars.” Her voice is hard.
I pull the shoes off. “Okay, Mom.”
Taking one, she fingers a ribbon. “I used to want things like this. I never got them.”
“You didn’t?” I say, watching her.
“We were too poor.” Mom is somewhere else. “I’ve brought you a long way, Angelyn.”
I shrug. And sneak a look at the shoes before they go back in the box.
“Why do you want them?” Mom’s voice is intense.
Surprised, I raise my eyes. “They make me happy.” My face flushes, but it’s true.
She boxes the shoes and walks them past me.
We stand at the end of a very long line. Mom’s back is to me, her arm curved around the box.
“Thanks?” I say.
I see the price on the box end—$90.
“Really, Mom. I can’t believe it. I mean it—thanks.”
“All right,” she says.
We shuffle forward with the line.
“You can borrow them sometimes,” I say.
Mom turns. “What?”
I smile a little. “We are the same size.”
She looks me up and down. “I wouldn’t wear these outside the bedroom.”
My smile sticks. “Mom—that’s disgusting.”
“Yes, it is.”
She’s mad. The woman in front of her is turned and staring.
I reach for the box. “I’ll take the running shoes instead.”
Mom swings away. “No, ma’am. You made your choice.”
In a diner across the parking lot, Mom tells me her news. Her eyes shine. It’s like the store never happened.
“It’s a great opportunity,” she says. “They asked me to apply.”
I sip my Diet Coke, the bulky shoe box pressed to my thigh.
Mom pulls back. “You can’t say you didn’t hear me this time.”
“I’m just not that excited about you becoming a bus driver.”
“Angelyn, it’s twice the money. Overtime hours. Better insurance.”
“That’s why the shoes,” I say.
Mom’s face falls, like a little kid’s. Then it gets mean. “Most girls would be happy to shop with their mothers. Most girls would be glad for a new pair of shoes.”
The waitress steps up with our food. Burgers and fries. We eat in quiet.
“This is going to change our lives,” Mom says, wiping her lips. “You don’t see that now, Angelyn, but you will.”
I’m thinking. “You’ll be out of the house more. Right? With overtime and things.”
She looks at me quickly. “Yes. Why? You’ve got something planned?”
“No. I don’t. Is Danny all jazzed about this?”
Mom doesn’t answer right off. “Sure he is. He’s excited for me.”
“How is that going to be—” I lose my nerve.
“How is what going to be?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Wow, more money coming in. Danny won’t even have to pretend to work.”
“You’re missing the point,” Mom says. “And I don’t like your tone.”
The hostess leads a group to the booth across from ours. A tourist family by their look, right out of L.L. Bean. Blond dad, blond mom, two kids, a boy and toddler girl.
They’ve hardly sat before the girl turns up her arms to the man. He sweeps her into his lap, and she settles against his chest like it’s a pillow.
The girl waves, smiling—“Hi!”—at me.
I look away. And catch Mom’s eye. She was watching too.
“My real dad,” I say. “Did he— It’s hard to ask, bu
t—”
“Your real dad. He is long gone.”
A deep voice. My name the way he said it: Angie-lyn.
“I don’t remember much. But—did he ever care?”
Mom lifts her chin. “Not how Danny cares.”
“Oh.”
“Junk jobs. Part-time junk jobs. That’s all I could get until Danny got me on at the high school.”
“And then they let him go,” I say.
“He was injured on the job!”
“Whatever happened.”
“Danny fell off a ladder. He settled with the district, and that’s how he got his work truck. You know all that.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“They wouldn’t have given him a settlement if he’d done something wrong.”
“Mom. Okay.”
“Danny helped me. He helped us when no one else wanted to know. I don’t forget that.”
What do you remember? I want to ask.
Instead: “So, it’s all right with you that we’ll be spending more time together? Danny and me. While you’re driving the bus.”
And then I can’t look at her.
“Angelyn.” Mom is hushed. “What is your problem?”
I study my plate.
“My news. And you make it about you.”
“Sorry.” I hate saying it.
“Don’t be like this on our trip. I want to make it fun.”
I look up. “What trip?”
“I don’t have the job yet,” Mom says. “I’ve got training in Sacramento next weekend, and a couple of weekends after that. You’re coming with.”
“I am?”
“I’ll get a motel with a pool, so you can swim. And good TV. Maybe room service. The district is paying.”
“Why do I have to go?”
“Come on.” Mom fake-laughs. “Pretend you’re a normal kid.”
“I’ve got homework.” My voice is heavy. “Every weekend.”
“Bring your books! I’ll be out all day, both days, training.”
“Mom, I don’t want to go.”
“You’re going.” Steely.
She signals for the check.
“I know why,” I say quietly.
Mom zooms in on me. “You know what?”
“A trip with you is not about fun.”
“Thanks!”
“It’s about Danny,” I say. “And me. You don’t want to leave us alone.”
“Wrong,” she says.
“If you take the job, we’ll be alone. What happens then?”
Mom blinks through mascara.
“Trust us now or trust us later. You have to do it sometime.”
Her lashes catch. “You ruin everything.”
The File on Angelyn Stark Page 7