Annette was already staggering and needed Frank’s help to walk straight, but when she spotted the screwdrivers on the kitchenette counter, she lunged for them.
“I am so thirsty,” she said, grabbing a jelly glass and downing half the contents in a few gulps.
“Easy,” Frank said, holding her wrist to slow her down.
But she pushed him away and finished the glass, then dropped it on the rug as she stumbled toward the worn-out couch, collapsing on top of a bunch of pillows with needlepoint trout on them. Her eyes were closed, her face smushed into the arm of the couch. Her fancy updo had fallen to one side, and her mascara was smudged.
Her best friend Jennifer stumbled over to her and tried to right her hairdo, as if that was her worst problem.
“Is she dead?” Gdowski said, mixing another screwdriver.
Jennifer glared at him for asking such a thing, but she stuck her finger under Annette’s nose anyway to feel if she was breathing. It took her an awful long time to determine that Annette was still alive. Of course, she was pretty drunk herself.
Gdowski reeled on his feet as he concentrated on getting a screwdriver to his mouth. Frank hadn’t had a drink yet because at the prom he refused drink anything that had been under Gdowski’s armpit.
“Hope she doesn’t die,” Gdowski slurred. “If she does, you are fucked, Grimaldi.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Frank grumbled.
Vitale poked his head out of the bedroom. His tux jacket was off, his shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, and he was in his stocking feet. He was holding a lighted joint.
“Anybody want any?” His eyes were red, the lids half closed.
Marsha wandered out behind him, her eyes in the same condition. She was barefoot, wearing only her slip. Her hair was wild, like Elizabeth Taylor’s in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Vitale’s gonna be her fourth, Frank thought as soon as he saw them. If he wasn’t already.
Gdowski squinted and fumbled as he tried to take the joint from Vitale. They were both fucked up, and they ended up dropping it. Frank picked it up off the floor and tried to give it back to Gdowski, but he was too drunk to remember what he’d just been doing. He meandered over to the couch with his drink and plopped down next to Jennifer, leaning on her as she leaned on Annette who was out cold.
“Don’t let it go out!” Marsha rushed over to Frank like a cavewoman panicked that the last flame on earth would be extinguished, setting civilization back a couple thousand years. She waved her hands, pantomiming that he should take a toke. Frank wasn’t sure if he should. Annette was a basket case. What if he got fucked up, too? Who was gonna watch out for her?
But Marsha was fluttering her hands like a bird in a trap. “Don’t let it go out! Don’t let it go out!” She turned to Vitale. “It’s gonna go out! Do something!”
“Here. Give it to me,” Vitale reaching for the joint.
But Frank didn’t like his commanding tone as if Frank didn’t know what he was doing and needed help. Instead of handing it over, Frank brought it to his lips and inhaled until end glowed orange.
“Hold it in your lungs for as long as you can,” Marsha said.
Frank resented being coached by a girl, but he kept his mouth shut. It was their dope, after all. They passed the joint back and forth until there was nothing left but a roach except Frank didn’t feel a thing. Maybe he hadn’t inhaled deep enough. But he wasn’t about to tell them that he wasn’t high. That would be too embarrassing.
Marsha’s eyes were red and squinty. With her wild hair and wearing nothing but her slip, she looked like a she-devil. But she purred so sweet, like a little kitten when she talked. “I’m hungry. Are you guys hungry? Did anybody bring any food?”
Larry shrugged. “Look in the cupboard.”
Marsha went over to the kitchenette and rummaged through the cupboards.
Larry whispered to Frank. “You sure you don’t need any rubbers? I got plenty.”
Frank frowned and pointed at Annette making Zs on the sofa.
“So what?” Larry said. “Do her and tell her about it later. Tell her she enjoyed it.”
“What’re you, crazy?”
“What, you’re afraid her old man will have you whacked?”
“This has nothing to do with her old man. You can’t just do that to a girl. That’s rape.”
“Yeah, but this is the prom. It’s different.”
“Would you do that to her?” Frank nodded toward Marsha who was coming back to the table with an armful of food in boxes and plastic bags.
Vitale didn’t answer the question.
Marsha dropped her load on the table as she plopped into a chair. She’d brought a box of Triskets, a half-empty bag of Frito corn chips, a big jar of Marshmallow Fluff, and a small jar of Skippy peanut butter.
Larry grabbed a fistful of corn chips and stuffed his mouth. “They’re stale,” he said as he chewed.
“I like ‘em stale,” Marsha said. “They’re chewy.” She dipped her finger into the jar of Fluff and came up with a peaked white glob. She turned it slowly, examining it carefully. “Wow… It’s like a little ghost.”
Frank opened the Trisket box and helped himself, popping one in his mouth. He ate it, then ate another. They were so dry it was like eating sand.
Marsha still hadn’t eaten a thing. She was transfixed by Casper the marshmallow ghost on her fingertip. “That was sad,” she purred glumly. “I feel bad for her.”
“Who?” Vitale asked.
“That girl who won the dog-food prize.”
“You mean, the Alpo Award?”
Frank stopped chewing. She was talking about Yolanda. Frank looked sideways at Vitale, waiting for him to make a crack about her. He’d shove the box of Triskets down Vitale’s throat if said anything about Yolanda.
“Yeah, that was pretty cruel,” Vitale chewing corn chips with his mouth open. “She only won because she went with Vaseline Boy. They were getting back at him.”
“Who’s they?” she asked.
“Mr. Pomeroy and his pets. The rich kids from Milburn and Short Hills.”
Marsha looked at Annette on the couch. “That’s where she’s from, right?”
Frank nodded. The Triskets were going down so hard he couldn’t talk.
“Her father’s supposed to be in the Mafia.” Marsha stared at the glob and seemed to be talking to it. Her voice was like smoke. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I saw him once. He came to school to pick her up one day. A big fancy car. Another guy was driving.”
Could have been Mr. Nunziato, Frank thought.
“Sister Superior went out and talked to him. Her father, I mean. Stood by the window on the passenger side and talked to him. It was weird.”
“Why was it weird?” Frank asked.
Marsha shrugged. “I dunno. People always go to her in her office. You know, like when you get into trouble. Or the girls who stop by just to kiss her ass. But with Annette’s father, she seemed different. He was sitting and she was standing. It was like she was kissing his ass.”
“She probably was,” Vitale said. “He has people killed, you know.” He pulled a Trisket out of the box and dipped it in Fluff. “You really got balls, Grimaldi, taking her out.” He bit into the Trisket and it crumbled in his hand, Fluff and wheat shreds sticking to his chin. Marsha pulled out of her haze and started to crack up. Vitale cracked up, too. Frank didn’t laugh. It really wasn’t that funny.
“So why do you say that?” Frank said.
“Say what?” Vitale still laughing.
“That I have balls.”
“What?”
“You just said I had balls.”
“No I didn’t. Did I say that?”
“Yeah, you did.”
> Vitale looked at Marsha, mugged, and shrugged. They cracked up all over again.
“Never mind,” Frank mumbled. But they didn’t hear him.
Marsha stood up, still giggling, and headed for the bedroom, leading with her Fluff finger, which she still hadn’t tasted. She carried the open jar in the crook of her arm like a baby.
Vitale stopped laughing. He seemed upset that she was leaving. “Where you going?”
“To lie down.” She went into the bedroom. Through the doorway Frank could see her settling into the pillows at the head of the bed, staring at her ghost glob.
A grin stretched across Vitale’s face. Frank imagined it extending off the edges of face and curving up over his head, tying itself in a bow. Vitale wiggled his eyebrows. “Gotta go.” He snatched the bag of corn chips and staggered into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“I hope you like Fluff,” Frank grumbled under his breath.
He looked at the box of Triskets and thought sand. He looked at Annette on the couch, Gdowski and Jennifer still leaning on her. None of them had moved an inch. Annette’s mouth was open, and he could see a wet spot on the fabric.
“Delightful,” he muttered. He remembered the time he’d seen her sunning herself in a hot pink bikini in her backyard while he was mowing the grass. He thought about her bitchin’ Nancy Sinatra flip. He sighed because she looked nothing like that now. And to be absolutely honest, at the prom she didn’t look half as good as Yolanda. And Yolanda got the fucking Alpo Award. It wasn’t fair.
He sat there, mulling it over. The house was dead quiet, not even a peep from the bedroom. He had a feeling Marsha and Vitale had turned into corpses, just like the other three. Some prom night. They didn’t even have music. He spotted an old radio on the kitchen counter but didn’t bother to turn it on. What was the point? It might wake them up, and he didn’t feel like dealing with them, not when they were wasted and he wasn’t.
He went to the refrigerator, looking for something to drink, but when he found a can of Savarin coffee, he decided to make a pot. He’d need coffee to stay awake for the drive home.
When it was ready, he poured himself a big mug with three sugars and Cremora because the milk in the fridge had turned. He burned his tongue because he was impatient to finish. He just wanted to get on his way.
A red taillight river stretched out for as far as Frank could see as he drove across the Perth Amboy Bridge, heading north on the Garden State Parkway. A white headlight river flowed toward him in the opposite direction. Frank didn’t think there’d be this much traffic at four in the morning. He wondered if any of these other cars were prom kids coming back from the shore. Or was he the only one? The only one who hadn’t gotten drunk or high and hadn’t gotten laid. He felt like a lonely salmon swimming against the current.
The big black Cadillac whooshed smoothly through the night. “Let It Be” was on the radio. When the song ended and a commercial for Barney’s Boystown replaced the music on WABC, Frank pressed the preset button and tried WMCA. They were playing “Crimson and Clover,” Tommy James and the Shondells.
Frank exhaled a bittersweet laugh, recalling that the prom band had played Tommy James’s “Hanky Panky.” Frank had been dancing with Annette thinking he’d be doing the hanky panky with her at Vitale’s uncle’s place. He felt like an idiot now for getting his hopes up.
A Pep Boys commercial came on and Frank switched the radio back to WABC. “I Want to Make It With You” was playing, the Bread song. It was the last song the band had played at the prom, the good-night slow dance. He and Annette had done the bear-hug shuffle to it, but all the while he kept an eye on Yolanda and the Vaz who were doing a more traditional waltz, hands up, keeping a space between them. Frank was glad that they weren’t doing the bear hug, but he was still jealous. He’d desperately wanted to catch her eye, but she avoided looking at him the whole night. She probably figured he was dating Annette, really dating Annette.
Frank glanced into the backseat. Annette was curled up like a little kid holding an imaginary blanket to her mouth. Her hair was a real mess now. He shook his head and sighed. She really wasn’t a bad person. In some ways she was kind of nice even though she was a bit dim about things that mattered to him, like books and movies and politics. She just wasn’t the kind of girl he imagined himself with. She wasn’t Yolanda.
A commercial for Shop-Well came on the radio. Frank reached out to change the station and realized that his exit was coming up. He must have been driving on automatic pilot because he didn’t think he was this close to home. He pressed the preset button for WMCA and heard “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. He made a face and went back to WABC. He’d put up with the supermarket commercial until they played something else.
He got off the Parkway and headed for South Orange Avenue. The commercials ended and the Temptations came on, “Ball of Confusion.” There was hardly any traffic. South Orange village looked like a ghost town as he sailed through, careful to stay under the speed limit when he passed the police station.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River” got him through the hilly s-curves. As he turned left off South Orange Avenue, heading for Short Hills, Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” came on. He was close to Annette’s house now. By the time the song ended, he was in her neighborhood, passing big expensive houses with giant lawns and elaborate landscaping, driving the streets he knew from working with his father. He knew that Short Hills had private security cops and hoped some rent-a-cop didn’t decide to pull him over. He just wanted to drop her off and make a quick escape. He spotted her house up ahead and signaled to turn into the driveway. “Happy Together” came on the radio, the Turtles.
The lamppost at the end of the driveway cast a spooky light across the front lawn. The lights in the brass sconces on either side of the front door were also on. So were the floodlights over the garage. Frank wondered if the Trombettas always kept this many lights on or if that was just for tonight. He stopped the car near the end of the driveway. He didn’t want to wake anybody up closing car doors.
He shut off the engine, cutting off the Turtles, who sounded much too happy and giddy for this time of night. He got out of the car and closed his door softly, then opened the back door on the driver’s side. Annette was still asleep.
“Annette,” he whispered as loud as he dared. “Annette, come on. You’re home. Time to get up.”
He shook her ankle.
She frowned and moaned, but she wasn’t waking up.
“Come on. Can’t stay here,” he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up to a sitting position.
She pouted, her eyes slits. “Noooo,” she moaned and lay back down.
Frank pulled her back up. “Come on, you can sleep in your own bed. It’ll be more comfortable.”
“Fuck off,” she grumbled and tried to kick him.
Shit, he thought. How was he gonna get her inside? What was he supposed to do, carry her in by force? Bring her up to her room? No way. Maybe he could get her to one of the big white couches in the living room. But how was he gonna get in? The door had to be locked. Guys like John Trombetta didn’t go to bed with the door unlocked. The key must be in her purse. Thank God he remembered to bring it when he’d carried her from the couch at Vitale’s uncle’s place to the car.
He held her knees and slid her across the leather seats, positioning her feet on the asphalt. He pulled her wrists to make her sit up. “Come on. Let’s go. Gotta stand up now.” Her shoes were on the floor in the car, and he gathered them up, holding them by the straps in the same hand that he held the purse. Her girly things felt alien in his hand. Her dress was hiked up to her thighs, and he tugged in back down as best he could. He prayed to God no one in the house would wake up and see her like this. She was a train wreck.
“Upsee-daisey,” he said as he pulled her to her feet.
&n
bsp; “Fuck off! I’m sleeping!”
“Ssshhh! Keep it down,” he whispered. “You can sleep in a minute. Just walk now.”
But she didn’t want to walk. He had to hold her up, his arm around her waist as they moved forward hip to hip. He wanted it to look like she was walking even though he was really dragging her. If he picked her up and carried her, that would look bad. If he could just get her into the house and onto one of those white couches.
“I don’t want to fucking walk,” she whined. She was pouty and grouchy but a little more awake. Her pale pink lipstick was ghastly in the lamppost light. Zacherley’s daughter.
Frank thought about taking her to the outside spigot on the side of the house to splash a little cold water in her face. Wake her up enough so that she could walk on her own. That wasn’t a bad idea, he thought. He walked with her on his hip, trying to move a little faster.
“Frank?” she moaned, sounding a little sweeter. She reached into his shirt and rubbed his bare chest. “We didn’t do it yet.”
“What?”
“It’s your prom night.”
He stopped walking and looked back at the car. He could feel the presence of the rubber in his wallet in his back pocket. He’d taken one from Vitale’s box before they left. Just in case. His dick was standing at attention, eager as a dog who had just seen the leash in his master’s hand, suddenly desperate to go out. Could they still do it? She was awake, she was talking. It wasn’t like he’d be jumping her bones while she was unconscious. Could he possibly get her back into the car and drive somewhere dark and secluded where they could do it?
Frank heard something over his shoulder, the front door opening. He turned and saw a silhouette standing in the doorway, dim light coming from inside. The figure stepped outside into the light of the sconces—Mr. Trombetta, wearing dark slacks and a white shirt as if he hadn’t been to bed at all that night. He didn’t look happy. He never looked happy.
The Temptations of St. Frank Page 30