“Don’t.”
“I’m not breaking any rules. It’s been a few hours.” I yawn, then wait that right amount of time before changing subjects. “Then tell me.”
“About what?”
“What it’s like.”
“I’ve already told you.”
I scoot across the bed to get closer to her. “Not really,” I say. Mary has told me some stuff, but now I want more. Seeing her with Todd Ryser today intrigued me. I want to know how it felt to be with him, but I couldn’t come right out and ask her that. He was a means to an end, and Mary would get upset if she suspected more behind my request. I playfully pat her bare knee. “Tell me more. We’re in this together. I want to know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. Tell me something. Anything.”
She sets down the nail file and swings her long, slim legs over mine.
“His breath smelled like fish sticks from the cafeteria. Happy?”
“Ecstatic. What else?”
Mary props herself up on one arm and all of her hair falls behind her shoulders. She’s still wearing my tank top, but she’s swapped the miniskirt for a pair of denim shorts. The outfit doesn’t look nearly as fashionable as what she had on earlier.
“He threw his condom on the floor and it landed next to a dead roach in the corner.”
“Gross.”
“Times ten.”
“More.”
She pauses a long time, then says, “I always choose something to focus on. Today it was the EXIT sign. It was cracked, right through the X and the I. The bulb was burned out, too. The silver frame was full of rust. I wondered who installed it, when it was installed. It looked old and neglected. Who’s going to fix it? The guy that put it in? Is there a warranty on those things? Would the school get sued if there was an emergency and some poor kid panicked in that stairwell and couldn’t find his way out? Also, I realized that Exit spelled backward is Tixe, which could be a cool name for a ticket company.”
Mary has never rattled on like this and it makes me shaky. “Hey, if you want to stop . . .”
“Come on, Rosie. This isn’t a choice.”
“Of course it is.”
“Not with our records it isn’t. Jeez. Take a few cans of spray paint and we’re goddamned criminals.”
She’s right about that. Mary’s dad let us do stock in his hardware store until we blew it. What Mary doesn’t understand is that taking the stuff isn’t necessarily what made us criminals— it’s her dad’s store, after all—it’s what we did with that stuff. Painted some bad graffiti on the park wall—our names scrawled so poorly you couldn’t even make them out (spray paint is harder to use than you think)—until a cop arrived and put an end to the fun. We ended up with a misdemeanor and a bunch of community service hours. Of course, this just gave Mom a reason to hate Mary, for getting me dangerously close to landing in said jail. At least I made enough money that summer to buy a laptop and a powder-blue case for it.
“So,” Mary continues. “The Gap isn’t going to hire us. We can forget about something like babysitting because parents want references. Remember when I tried during winter break? Got the third degree. Adults think it’s so easy for young people to get a job. It’s not. It’s harder.”
“Maybe we should go back to your dad and beg.”
Mary recoils. “Bite your tongue. I’m not going to beg that man for anything. Screw him.”
My face drops in frustration.
“Look. I’m not ragging on you. We’ve both made mistakes.” She rubs my arm under the terry-cloth sleeve. “So I’ve got this. I don’t mind. I already gave away my virginity to some douchebag, anyway. May as well charge for the privilege now and help my best friend at the same time. Plus, you’re not a total charity case since I keep half.”
“Speaking of cases . . . Oh my God.” I throw off the covers and scour the sheets.
“You looking for this?” Mary pulls the sock from behind her back and dangles it in front of me.
“Holy crap.” I grab it, then clutch the furry ball to my chest for dramatic effect. “I thought my mom had—”
“She’s not home. Only the Dud. I’ve got your back, Rosie girl.” She winks a chocolate-brown eye. “In more ways than one.”
I swat her playfully on the arm. “Stop.” Then I collapse onto the bed, squeezing the sock and all its hope. “You’re making this whole thing possible.”
“Yeah, I’m a real hero.”
“No, not a hero,” I say. “You’re a . . .” I search her face for the answer. “Savior.”
“Don’t get all sappy on me. Desperate times, Rosie, and all that shit.” Mary adjusts her legs and slides one between mine. “Now what were you going to say before you thought Mommy Dearest stole your stash?”
“Oh, yeah!” A surge of excitement races through me. “The guy who agreed to consider my case—”
“You mean the guy you spoke to on the phone a couple months ago. The one who was too busy for you.”
“That was okay,” I say, dismissing her attitude with a flick of my wrist. “I didn’t have his three-hundred-dollar retainer fee back then, anyway. But today with Todd put us past the mark.” I shake the sock at her. “Three hundred and ten. So we’re meeting tonight.”
“And when did you set up this little rendezvous?”
“Called him when I got home.”
Mary squints at me. “Three hundred and ten, huh? That means I’ve got three hundred and ten, too, which also means we’ve got over six hundred bucks. Forget about this guy. Forget about everything. Let’s blow it all on a trip to the mountains,” Mary says wistfully, even though what she truly wants isn’t a trip, but a move. She’s always dreamed of leaving Miami and heading out west, working in one of those national parks where she can wear boots and a ranger hat.
“One day,” I say, pretending to agree with her. But I’ll never go anywhere. Remember, I’m the big thinker. Mary’s the doer.
While in many ways we’re like oil and water, a marinade still needs both to work. That’s us. We work, despite our differences. We met in ninth grade, two days after my father had a heart attack at the kitchen table while I was enjoying a bowl of cinnamon-raisin oatmeal. When he clutched his chest, I thought he was joking, like he always did about Mom’s terrible cooking. The eggs did look especially runny that morning. His eyes grew wide, his mouth fell open, and then he slumped over his plate, knocking yellow slime to the floor.
Stop it, Dad, I said, gently poking him in the arm with my spoon caked with oatmeal.
You’re scaring her, Clint, and you’ve made a mess of my kitchen, Mom said. You and your practical jokes. If you don’t pick up your head, I’m spilling this hot coffee down the back of your shirt. And she would, too. She could be mean like that when you didn’t listen to her.
We buried him two days later, which was when I met Mary. Not at the funeral. After. We were at a family friend’s house. Everyone had gone back there when the service was over. I knew the hostess—Rita Hale. She would go shopping with my mom on the weekends or pick her up for dinner sometimes. She had an older son who still lived with her at home. He was one of those hot college guys that made me blush.
His name was Eddy, and as we circled the dessert table in his dining room, he said he liked my dress. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but even on the day of my father’s funeral, I had carefully chosen my outfit. It was sleeveless, charcoal gray, and made my body look curvier than it actually was with an empire waist and darts aimed at my boobs. Before the service, I had admired myself in the mirror, then felt like the worst daughter in the world for doing it.
So there was Eddy, touching my arm when I reached for the pie cutter, telling me I had really grown up. It had been a couple years since he’d seen me.
“Hey, want to get some air?” He guided my empty plate back to the table. I held
on to the cutter, since I had been looking forward to a piece of cherry cobbler. “Let’s go outside.”
I did want to get some air. Although it was a chilly October day, the Hale house was stifling and hot. Too many people, too much food, too much noise. The cherry cobbler could wait. Besides, Eddy Hale said I looked grown-up, which is music to every fourteen-year-old girl’s ears, even on the day of her father’s funeral.
But we didn’t make it outside. Halfway to the front door, he took my hand and said, “Maybe it’s too cold out. Let’s just hang in my room.” I went without thinking twice. He showed me his baseball awards from Florida International University and a bong that looked like a kaleidoscope. He rattled on about his fraternity, graduating, maybe opening a club. I allowed myself to get lost in these stories, aware that for the first time in three days my cheeks were dry. I didn’t notice when he went to show me his baseball jersey hanging on the back of his door that he’d closed it.
“Come here,” Eddy said, sitting on his bed, patting the space next to him.
I did that, too.
“Sorry about your dad.” He had superdark eyes and a wide, bumpy nose that had probably seen a few fights. His lips were nice, but his teeth had that fang thing going on.
“Thanks,” I said, beginning to sense this might be that awkward moment right before a guy kisses you. But that wasn’t possible. Eddy was so much older than me and we had just been at my father’s funeral. There was no way . . .
And then, yes way. He leaned in and kissed me, and I kissed him back, thinking, Oh my God, I’m kissing a college guy! And then thinking, Oh my God, college guys move fast, because his hand was already grabbing at my chest.
I scooted away. “No.”
But Eddy didn’t want to hear that. He pushed me down, pulled up my charcoal dress, grabbed my panties, tugged at them. At the same time, he was working on his own clothes, unzipping his pants.
“Stop!” I said, which made him instantly cover my mouth.
“Scream, and I’ll hurt you.”
So I didn’t scream, even though I was terrified and wanted to unleash a storm of sounds trapped in my throat. But I still fought with my hands, bit with my mouth. The pressure, the pain, the confusion at just having heard the story about how he made a home run that won the championship and now he’s forcing himself inside me and my dad is probably still warm in that coffin and I want a piece of the cherry cobbler and I have to get away, I have to go. I’m going.
That’s when I realized Eddy had closed his bedroom door but didn’t lock it. A girl had opened it and cried, “What the fuck are you doing?”
The rest was a blur. I only remember sounds—his zipper, the stomp of feet leaving the room, the click of a closed door. Then her touch—fixing my dress, removing the hair stuck to my tearstained face, the pads of her fingers on my shoulder. And then her voice—“I’m Mary. Are you okay?”
• • •
I roll over, untangle my legs from hers.
“You know, you could always pawn that piece-of-shit ring that piece of shit gave you,” Mary says, and I use that as an opportunity to leave her and disappear into the closet. I need to get dressed and be out of here by nine thirty.
“No,” I say from behind the closed door. I choose a pair of skinny jeans and an old button-down shirt of Ray’s I never returned, then grab a woven belt that matches my silver sandals.
“He screwed you over, Rosie. Dumped you the minute he got a taste of those Tallahassee hoses.”
I can’t help but chuckle as I button up his shirt. I slide open the door. “Not hoses, Mary. Ho’s, short for whores. And they’re called Tally Ho’s.”
“Oh,” she says, slightly embarrassed, then goes at it again while I adjust my belt. “Why would you even want to keep that ring?”
“No one’s ever bought me anything before.” He gave it to me the day after Valentine’s Day. We had met in December, during winter break of my junior year. It was one of those crisp, clear South Florida days, and Mary and I and three other girls from our Biology class were at the beach. Of course, you can’t get in the water, it’s way too cold in December, but we still wore bathing suits and lay on towels to get a tan. That’s when I got hit in the head by someone’s Frisbee. It was Ray Mangione’s, one of the hottest seniors at our school, and his body blocked the sun as he asked for it back.
So why the day after Valentine’s Day? I’d been heartbroken and confused that he hadn’t even given me a single flower on the day of, but it was a good thing I didn’t show my disappointment. He said it was a test. Was I one of those girls who expected things on holidays? He hated girls like that, he told me, and since I passed the test, he gave me the ring.
“Besides,” I say, thinking of the sparkly blue sapphire, the delicate silver band, “I like it.”
“But you don’t wear it.”
“So?”
“So you may as well sell it and make a few bucks.”
“I’m not selling it.”
“It’s been sitting in your jewelry box for what? Like nine months? You should pawn it or something unless . . . unless you’re hoping that piece of shit will come crawling back, and when he does, you want him to be able to put it back on your finger.”
“Stop calling him that.” This is the trouble with best friends—they know the score, even when you haven’t admitted to playing the game. “I’m not selling the ring, but it has nothing to do with Ray. He’s moved on, and so have I.”
We both know I’m full of it, but Mary backs off. “So where’s this big meeting taking place?”
“Lou’s Deli.”
“Nothing like pickles and private eyes on a warm summer night.”
“Think I can get out of here before she comes home?”
“Nope.” Mary suddenly cocks her head. She has an uncanny ability to detect the sound of Mom’s rickety Saab from down the block. “T minus three minutes,” she says, then crawls out the bedroom window. Mary has never liked my mom.
3
I WAIT A BIT before facing them. I’ve learned it’s better to let Mom settle in with a drink and a smoke before pouring out a lie I need her to swallow.
I find her and Judd snuggling on the couch. Because the Real Housewives Who Are No Longer Married is on television, she barely acknowledges me hovering in the hallway.
“Oh, hey, Rosie.” Her greeting is about as warm as an ice cube. She offers a dismissive wave, two fingers clutching a lit cigarette. Judd’s nursing a beer, but looks up and winks at me in that creepy way he does that makes me lock my door at night. I’ve put a robe over my clothes and pull it tight across my chest. He’s twenty-nine, my mom forty-three. While I try not to wonder what he sees in her—it will only lead to disturbing images of them having sex in weird positions—I can see why he finds her attractive: silky platinum hair she’s never bleached or straightened, eyes the color of lime Jell-O, and a petite figure resistant to cellulite and weight gain. We’re not exactly twins.
Mom found Judd Lister not long after Dad died. He was browsing through an aisle of the bookstore that has all the A Dummy’s Guide to . . . books, which should have been her first clue. He’s an assistant shift manager at Itchin’ for Chicken and comes home with a bucket of cold fried chicken for dinner even if it’s eleven o’clock at night and I’ve already gone to bed without a decent meal.
Times like those I miss my father most. He was a grilling master and loved to wear an apron that stretched around his growing belly, clicking his tongs in the summer air. He’d shout, Get it while it’s hot! and I would drop whatever I was doing to join him outside with an empty plate and a watering mouth. Mom would show up eventually and eat whatever was left, stubbing out a cigarette on the grass beneath her shoe.
“Hitting the sack,” I say.
“So early?” No need to check a clock or anything, since Mom knows what time it is based on the show she’s
watching.
“I’m tired.” I try to force a yawn, but it’s hopeless. It is only nine fifteen. Plus, that nap recharged me.
“Well, you don’t need any extra beauty sleep,” Judd says. “That’s for sure.” He dips his head and winks again. Does my mom not see this? Completely oblivious.
She swings her head to the side to get a better look at me. “You feeling okay?” And I panic because if she looks over the arm of the couch she’ll be able to see the jeans and silver sandals I stupidly left on poking out from under my robe. I force a cough and rub my nose for good measure.
“Yeah, just tired. Long day. Two tests and a mile run in gym.” All lies.
“You sure?” She’s not above a little motherly probing in front of her boyfriend. Makes her seem downright parental. “Because if you are sick, don’t contaminate the rest of the house. Stay in your room.” And there goes that.
“She’s fine, Lucy. Leave the girl alone.” Judd squeezes her shoulder, gives me a third wink. He’s on my side, he wants me know, which is such a crock and makes me want to puke.
I smile, shift my weight, attempt that yawn again.
“All right,” she says, satisfied. “See you in the morning.”
Judd starts tickling her and she almost spills her wine and they both instantly forget I’m still standing there. Normally, I’d be annoyed, but tonight their distraction is an advantage. Back to my room I go, then shut and lock the door behind me. I instantly shed my robe. Since the screen is already out, I am through the window in two minutes flat.
• • •
I’ve learned the bus schedule pretty well and the time it takes me to reach the stop nearest my house. But it doesn’t do me much good tonight when the nine thirty bus arrives ten minutes late. I’ve already listened to three songs on my phone.
I board to find myself one of three passengers. Slow night. I slide into a gray plastic seat and watch as my neighborhood gives way to an area lined with fading storefronts and half-empty office buildings. We’re passing Del Vista High when my cell phone vibrates with a text from a number I don’t recognize.
Rosie Girl Page 2