Stay with Me

by Paul Griffin

  We’re quiet on the walk home. My arm’s over her shoulders. Her arm’s slung low on my back, her thumb hooked into my belt loop. She’s walking Boo. Boo listens to Céce perfect. My legs are weak. I love her so bad. I want to say it to her. I better wait.

  “He’s not like that when he’s sober, though, right?” she says.

  “He’s like that, just sober.”

  “Yesterday I woke up with Carmella in my bed. She was holding my hand. The lightning, she said.”

  “Lightning?”

  “The thunderstorm. The woman sleeps with a Snoopy night-light.”

  “I like your mom a ton.”

  “If Anthony dies, she’ll go from beer to liquor. After that, it won’t be long. I’ll wake up one morning, and she’ll be dead on the couch with some DVD menu music on perma-loop. Pretty Woman. You ever see that one?”

  “Hey?” I pull her close. “Tony’s not gonna die.”

  She studies my eyes. “I believe you.”

  “I been wanting to send him a letter. To thank him for the medal. Can you help me write it?”

  She hugs me. “We’ll do it right now. C’mon.” We’re just a couple houses down from her house.

  “I need a little time to figure out what I want to say.”

  “My mother made Christmas cornbread.”

  “In July?”

  “I know,” she says. “Red and green icing.” She pulls me toward the house.

  I hold up. “I’ll come in Tuesday night.”

  “Promise me.”

  “We’ll make dinner and sit at the table and make out, but not when we have food in our mouth, of course.”

  “Of course,” she says.

  “After that, we’ll write the letter to Tony.”

  “And after that?”

  “Man, you’re cute when you’re pouty, and I think you know it too.” I walk her to her door and kiss her good night. She watches me back down the porch steps with Boo. “Don’t know how I’m gonna look your mom in the eye at work tomorrow.”

  “Anthony was dating this girl for two years, and he was a junior in high school when Ma finally sat him down to talk birds and bees. Ant told me he chewed a hole in his cheek to keep from laughing. Slutty as she was in her youth, Carmella apparently assumes everybody’s a virgin now. The last twenty-five years of soaking her brain in Bud Light must’ve eaten away the part of her brain cerebrum that’s supposed to initiate reasonable suspicion.”

  “Say that last part in English. Sure, the cerebrum.”

  “Or is it the cerebellum?”

  “Your pick.”

  “Hate bio. Don’t worry about my mother, baby. The woman is out to lunch when it comes to this stuff.”

  “Yeah huh? Good luck.”

  “Good luck?”

  “The kitchen light just went on. I better git.”

  (Sunday, July 19, late night)

  CÉCE:

  Ma’s sipping in the kitchen. I walk by fast for the stairway. “Night.”

  “Cheech babe, can you c’mere for a second?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “Sit. Spend a few on the old lady, catch me up on you.”

  “Would so love to, but I gotta study. G and T’s just around the corn—”

  “Just for a sec. Grab yourself a hunk of Carmella’s Christmas Confection there. I’ll take one too. Yeah, no, the one with the headless snowman painted onto it. The top part was burned. I had to chop it off. I’m saving the good pieces for Anthony’s platoon.”

  I sit, smile, force myself to look her in the eye. “Howya doin’, Carmella?”

  “Hangin’ in, you know. You?”

  “Oh you know. Everything’s good.”

  “Excellent.” She’s nodding. She’s squinting. She’s drinking coffee. I am so fucked. “So looks like my Tuesday trip to the shore is getting canceled.”

  “Julie crash the camper again?” Shit.

  “Weather’s supposed to suck out loud.” She drowns her creepy headless snowman in her coffee. “But Mack can still stay over.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m going away, and you’re not gonna try to swing the overnight? Hello, we share DNA. If you’re gonna do it, and you are, then you’re gonna do it someplace safe. You keep sneaking around, and that’s how accidents happen. If you trust me about nothing else, trust me on that one. The apartment downstairs, the storm door. You have your own entrance. I don’t have to know when you’re down there, and I don’t want to. Be respectful. Be discreet. Tell me you’re using birth control.”

  “I totally cannot be talking about this with my mother—ew.”

  “I’m serious, Céce.”

  “With your pink hair and your gold teeth and your busted nose.”

  “Right now, I’m your best chance at not ending up like me.”

  “You think we’re stupid?”

  “I think you’re fifteen. And thanks.”

  “Ma, look, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Yeah you did. Condoms?”

  I roll my eyes and nod.

  She nods. “I’ll take you to the doctor for a prescription.” “I told you, we got it covered.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to have a backup.” She holds my hand. “Just. Be. Careful.”

  I roll my eyes the other way. Why am I so bitchy to her when she’s being so cool? “We will, okay?”

  “I’m talking about being in love with each other so soon.”

  I’m about to tell her I’m not in love with him, but that would be a lie. “I do. I really do love him. And he loves me, I think. He’s the one, Ma. He is. I feel it.” Tears from nowhere. I am such a tool. She pulls me into a hug. I’m sitting in her lap. She’s rubbing my back and hushing me. I bury my face in her pink hair. It smells like burned pumpkin. “Ma? He makes me feel like I can be somebody.”

  “You are somebody, honey. You are so awesome.”

  “No, Ma. You don’t get it. He makes me feel like I can be somebody else.”

  THE THIRTY-NINTH DAY . . .

  (Monday, July 20, morning)

  MACK:

  My life started last night. Here on in, everything I see, I see. Like the way Tony was always looking up at the sky. I don’t think I need to look down to my sneakers so much anymore. To hide. I don’t think I slept last night, thinking about her, about us, but I am awake.

  The Too is closed to customers today, but we’re in for annual cleaning. It’s hard to hear her with all the fans sucking the stink of fresh paint out of the place. Mrs. V. and me are at the bar. She has her arm over my shoulders. “We understand each other?” she says. She puts her hand to my chin and tilts my head up so I have to look her in the eye.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Am I that old?”

  “Sorry, ma’am?”

  “Why won’t you call me Carmella?”

  “I will.” I almost said I will, ma’am.

  “Mack, Céce gets excited about things. She dives in fast and deep, you know? Sometimes before there’s enough water in the pool. I know, this is a hard thing to hear, but you understand what I’m saying, right? Look at me for a second. You love her, right?”

  Sweat pushes through me. “Yes.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “But here’s my thing: You know you need each other, but you don’t know each other.”

  But we do, I want to say. We know each other’s secrets.

  “Mack?”

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “Take the time, okay? To find out who she is, to let her know who you are.”

  “We will, ma’am.”

  She shakes her head. “The two of you, I don’t know. I guess you’ll be all right.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The news comes on the bar TV. They give the war report. Triple suicide attack. Car bombs.

  Mrs. V. switches the channel to a game show.

  I head off to clean the ice machine. Marcy’s t
here in the back, with Céce. “How you doin’, Marcy?”

  “Suicidal, Macky. You?”

  “Good.”

  “So happy for you.” She turns to Céce. “Cheech, how’s that herpes thing workin’ out? You still contagious?”

  We’re at the Dumpster, emptying the trash buckets. Céce’s looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody’s spying. “How weird was that with my mother, right?”

  “She was real cool.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “That she loves you a ton.”

  She stops with the trash emptying. Then she gets back to it.

  “Any word from Tony?” I say.

  “Text that said he can’t talk this week. Apparently if somebody in the platoon screws up, everybody loses privileges.”

  “I think I heard that.”

  She puts her hand on her hip, gives me mean eyes. “Where?”

  “Recruiter came to the rec center a year or so back, was talking to the older boys about careers in the military.”

  “Mack, I swear, you will break my heart if you ever sign up.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

  “That’s what all you boys say, and then you go off and enlist on impulse.”

  “No, I mean I don’t think they’d have me, the army. I think once you do a bid, they unqualify you from military service.”

  “A bid?”

  “Jail time.”

  “Oh.” She looks at me different for a second, and it all comes back to me, that doubt I can’t shake: This won’t last. She deserves better than me. Why is she with me?

  And then whatever she was thinking leaves her. She checks to be sure Marcy isn’t snooping. She takes my hand and pulls me to the shade side of the Dumpster and kisses my eyes. “You ask your father if you can sleep over tomorrow night?”

  “Not yet.”

  “My mother said that if you don’t get permission—”

  “I know. I’ll ask him.”

  “You look like you think he’ll say no.”

  “He won’t give a damn about any of it.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” she says.

  I don’t really know. I shrug off the feeling that something bad is going to come of this sleepover. I kiss her neck. I love her neck. If I rest my lips on her just right, to the side of her windpipe, I can feel her pulse in my mouth. Each time her heart beats through me, I love her more terrible. I don’t know what I would ever do without this girl. I can’t believe she’s letting me hang with her. Over Céce’s shoulder, I see Marcy in the window. She’s got her phone up, waving to us.

  “A picture’s not enough?” Céce says. “You need video?”

  “I need video.”

  Céce marches in to bawl out Marcy.

  I turn over the trash barrel. It’s hot out and Tony’s peace medal sticks to my chest. I’m never taking it off, because as long as I’m wearing it, everything will be right.

  (Monday, July 20, afternoon)

  CÉCE:

  We’re just about done with cleaning day. I’m vacuuming a year’s worth of stale crumbs from the bread warmer when Ma comes in with burritos for everybody. “Vic,” she says. “All the years we’ve known each other, have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “Many times.”

  “Besides those times?”

  “Never,” he says.

  “I have this fantastically awesome moneymaker idea for you.”

  Vic looks up from his laptop, squints through his old-man glasses at Ma. “Lay it on me, sweetheart.”

  “What would you think about adding home-baked cornbread to the menu?”

  “You mean like in a Mexican restaurant?” Vic says.

  “Except it’s Italian,” Ma says. “Now how hot is that?”

  Vic shrugs. “Let’s give it a shot.” He nods to his laptop, the news. “This guy got smashed in a rooftop bar, fell forty feet and lived. How’s it go, God takes care of kids and drunks?”

  “That’s why I drink,” Ma says.

  And act childish, I almost say. Her hair is double bunned on top of her head. Pink cat’s ears.

  “Help me with the puzzle,” Vic says. “Twelve letters, second’s an n. Antiquated.”

  “Anachronistic?” I say.

  “That’s thirteen letters.”

  “Antediluvian?”

  “Loser?” Marcy says. She pulls me into the bathroom.

  “Come to Cindi Nappi’s party with me.” She has about ten pounds of bronzer on, topped off with a pound of eye glitter, which only accentuates the fact that her poor eyes are a little too close together.

  “Cindi Nappi? No thanks.”

  “Because she’s like totally skinny, right?”

  “All she does is brag about her new clothes and complain about boys.”

  “And? I swear, Céce Vaccuccia, you’re like a six-hundredyear-old lady in a cutie-pie suit. There’s this really hot guy who’s gonna be there.”

  “I already have a really hot guy, thank you.”

  “A hot guy for me. It isn’t always about you, okay? That dude Brendan from the east side. You know the one I’m talking about? His brother’s in the Abercrombie catalog? I heard he might like me.” She grabs my hands. Her right grip is stronger than her left. She’s wearing tight sleeves today, and you can really see the difference: Her left arm is a lot thinner than her right. That childhood accident—

  “You gotta come with me,” she says. “Please? I need to make it look like I have friends.”

  “Only if I can bring Mack.”

  “What’s it like, having sex with a criminal?”

  “How do you know we—”

  “Oh, Céce, please.”

  This is the ritzy side of town. People up here have actual backyards, the kind you see in the movies. Me and Mack are slow dancing by this beautiful pool. The yard is packed with prep school kids. Cindi Nappi’s mom is always running for some office or other, and she sends Cindi to public school to show that she’s One with the People, like her posters say. Doesn’t matter that Cindi gets dropped off and picked up in a limo.

  Then again, I don’t take the bus either. I tell myself I walk for the exercise, but maybe I’m a snob too, just without the money. A few of them are here, at the party, the kids from my school. We don’t cluster. We’re all split off around the yard, like we’re embarrassed of each other.

  If I ever figure out a gift or talent to write about for the G and T essay, and I rock the test, I’ll probably get offered a scholarship to go to a private school, the kind Anthony turned down, but I can’t see myself at a private either. I can’t see myself anywhere, except with Mack. It’s starting to drizzle. “You wanna hit it?”

  “Definitely,” Mack says.

  “Let’s grab a drink on the way out.”

  As we head to the bar the other dudes are staring at him. They’re in designer jeans and fluorescent tees covered with writing and rhinestones, two-hundred-dollar sneakers. Mack is regular old Levi’s, white tee, bin kicks. All the girls are looking at him like they want to eat him slowly. He doesn’t notice. The girls are giving me you bitch looks. I notice.

  Mack pulls a Sprite from the ice.

  “Have a beer, bud,” this big dude says, holding out a forty to Mack.

  “Thanks but I’m a’right,” Mack says.

  “Have one. It’s cool.”

  “Nah, I’m a’right.”

  “You said that already.”

  I frown. I thread fingers with Mack and nudge him, like let’s go.

  Mack breaks eyes with the linebacker and turns to me.

  We turn to go, but there’s another linebacker waiting for us. “Where you from, cowboy?” he says, exaggerating Mack’s slight twang.

  I pull Mack toward the backyard gate.

  The first kid slaps a heavy hand onto Mack’s shoulder. “When’d you get out, Hoss?”

  “How’s that?” Mack says.

  I’m gonna kill Marcy. Why does she have to broadcast everybo
dy else’s business? She even blogged about it on her slutty MySpace page, My Best Friend Is Sleeping With a Convict .

  “You miss it, right, buddy? Getting plowed?”

  He’s moving too fast for me to see how he does it, but in less than a second Mack kicks the first idiot into the pool and flips the second one, a kid twice Mack’s weight, onto the pool deck. He drives down at the kid’s throat with his fist.

  “Mack!”

  He stops, his knuckles hovering above the kid’s Adam’s apple.

  “No, baby. Please.”

  His hand softens. I grab it and hurry him out. We’re at the street, half the football team catcalling “Oh Macky,” and “No, baby, please,” and “Rump ranger.”

  He’s wincing, rubbing the back of his head, behind his ears.

  “Is it the static?” I say. He told me about it last night.

  He pulls me into an alley and holds me by the shoulders and presses into me. He has me up against the wall. He’s kissing me, my neck. He’s shivering, whispering into my ear, “Céce, I’m serious crazy in love with you. I know it’s soo toon—too soon to be saying it, but you don’t have to know somebody forever to know it’s forever. I just need to let you know it, because we already done it, and putting a word to it can only help make it last. You’re my warrant to be here, and I don’t need anybody or anything else. If I ever lost you I’d just fade.”

  The rain’s coming down, and I’m unbuckling his belt, and we’re doing it standing up, in the shadows, in the downpour. He keeps telling me he loves me, and even after we’re done he’s still saying it, so I know it’s true.

  I want to say it back. I want to say it so bad, but I’m scared. Not here, in the alley. We need to be somewhere safe. Someplace where we can keep our secrets. My house. Tomorrow night. He’s sleeping over. Mack, me, and Boo.

  We hurry to the train. He rubs the shivers from my shoulders and kisses the trembling from my lips. We miss our stop. The bus says Out of Service.

  The gutters are overflowing and the streets are shuttling heavy water, and we take off our sneakers. He doesn’t want me to hurt my feet. He carries me on his back, and we’re laughing all the way uphill. He’s so tall and strong. He glides. He carries me to my door and waits until I’m safe inside. He tells me through the screen door one last time that he loves me, and then he turns and disappears in the rain.