The girlfriend said something that had the look of complaining: Why wasn’t Richie paying her more attention, admiring her giant boobs or her ten pounds of makeup?
“She is so hoochie,” Janice said. It was the most awful wrong thing, seeing this girl with him, the two of them together. She wanted to jump up and scream and rub the sight of them away.
“Look at that, she has her hands in his back pockets,” Marilee said. “I mean, honestly.”
“She seriously should not be doing that.”
“I bet they have all kinds of sex.”
“Well of course they do, duh!”
“You don’t have to bite my head off,” Marilee said. She was painting her fingernails yellow and holding each one up to admire it.
How could Richie not notice her, not know one thing about her, when she was so crazy with feeling, she was afraid of flying through the air at him like iron to a magnet?
Janice watched the girlfriend and pretended not to. She wished she had some secret superpower, like making people burst into flames. The girlfriend was extra extra hoochie. She wore a lot of gold jewelry, earrings and bracelets and some dangly stuff around her neck. She was busting out of her clothes in a horrible cheap way.
Marilee said that guys got bored with girls like that, once they got what they wanted off them. Janice didn’t bother answering back. Marilee was boring herself. Richie Cruz’s girlfriend made a pouty face and said something to him, then crossed the black-and-white tiles of the food court on her way to the bathroom. Her shoes had high heels and she took little bitty steps.
Janice said, “You know what she looks like? One of those foo-foo dogs on a leash, the kind with bows in its hair.”
“Those little dogs are actually sort of cute,” Marilee said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, you want to be Richie’s pet bitch.”
“Oh screw you.” Janice stood up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“What are you doing?” Marilee asked, but Janice ignored her. Go for it! Geronimo!
Richie Cruz was leaning against a wall, waiting, like he was used to it. His girlfriend probably spent a lot of time in the bathroom, putting on makeup and yanking underwear out of her butt. He yawned, a big gorgeous yawn that showed all his teeth.
Janice walked black square white square, black square white square, right past Richie. She couldn’t look at him straight on, any more than you could look straight at the sun. But even with her eyes down she saw the creases in his jeans where they fit so good, she saw his hands with the thumbs hooked into the pockets. And he was watching her! He was!
She reached the Karmelkorn place and stood in front of it like she had some serious decision to make. Caramel caramel caramel, like Richie’s skin. She bought a bag of popcorn and walked past him again, slower this time, putting pieces in her mouth and licking her fingers.
“I do not believe you,” Marilee said, once Janice sat back down.
“Want some?” She shook the bag at Marilee.
“What were you doing?”
“Showing off my goodies.” She was giddy. Her heart beat crazy. She watched the hoochie girlfriend make her way back from the restroom, feeling almost even with her now.
Marilee twisted the top shut on the nail polish with an extra hard tug. “That was so trashy.”
“Yeah, well your fingernails look like they rotted and fell off.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Forget about it.” Janice watched Richie and the girlfriend slow-walking out of the food court. The giddy feeling ebbed out of her. It hadn’t been anything, she was so stupid, and now she’d messed up and it wasn’t how the story was supposed to go.
—
Richie wants to go all the way, she told Geronimo. Even this late, it never really cooled off upstairs. She had the fan going but the heat hunkered down in the walls and didn’t budge.
Well of course he duz. He is a man and u r a beautiful young lady.
I just don’t know.
Geronimo was growing a beard, one of those soul patch things. It was like the tuft of hair he combed straight up, like he kept thinking of weird things to do to his face. He had all the lights in his room off so there was only the computer screen and its blurry glow.
Whats there to know? Just do what comes natural.
Hey where do you live anyway?
In a galaxy far far away ha ha.
Because I would just you know die if you showed up at my school or something.
Candy baby u got nothing to worry. I know how to keep a secret. Anyway I never leave the house hardly. ROTFL!
I mean who are you really? Because isn’t it kind of pervy to be talking about this stuff.
She was pretty sure he talked to other girls. He hadn’t meant to say so but he sort of did once.
Geronimo bent over the screen, typing. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “I Support Re-Cycling. I Wore This Yesterday.” The sleeves made his arms look fat. Well who are YOU really, come on Candy gurl.
I have to go now.
Aw hey Im sorry. Im on yur side like nobody else is cuz I. Dont think u r bad just a beyootiful gurl. Doin what comes natural an that Richie is one lucky man. Pull yur pants down.
No way!
Just a little. Come on its practice. For when Richie asks u.
She had the worst underwear on, plain white cotton like a little kid’s. She shook her head at the screen, no.
Y not?
Its pervy.
OK so dont. Just put yur fingers where it feels good.
No!
Y not?
She shook her head.
Candy gurl dont be fraid. Of beautiful sexy u. Feel the power of the Force! LOL! Becoz u got so much power u know it an u can let it loose. Jus a lil touch.
So it was pervy. She didn’t care or she didn’t care right now because it felt good so maybe she was a perv too. She kept her eyes shut, Richie Richie Richie, but at the worst possible moment she remembered their tenant in the basement, Mr. Grotius, who was maybe sixty years old and had a face like cigarette ash, all crumbly and gray, and long gray shaky hands.
She slammed the computer lid closed. She unplugged everything and turned off the light and covered herself up in the sheets, her sweat turning cold.
—
She finally got an iPod! Her mother said it was a waste of good money and if Janice was serious about music she could have kept up her piano lessons, but that was the kind of thing her mother could be expected to say. Janice saved up her birthday money and her babysitting money and went to Target and bought a pink iPod and all the things that went with it. Now at night, instead of getting on the computer, she listened to her music and made lists of the different songs she wanted to buy.
She didn’t go online with Geronimo anymore. It was just one of those things you did for a while and then you were done with it.
Ordinarily she would have shown the iPod to Marilee but Marilee was being a giant bitch these days. It was like they were through being friends. They hadn’t had a fight or anything, they just quit talking. Marilee’s Facebook page said she was going on vacation with her family to Colorado, and Janice started to write Thanks for telling me, loser, but decided not to. It would just make her feel crummier.
Then out of nowhere her mother said, “What is it you’ve been doing on that computer all this time?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t give me that. You’re supposed to use it for homework. Not listen to dirty music.”
Her heart, which had clenched up, began beating again. Her mother didn’t know anything. “Define dirty.”
“Dirty is dirty! You know it when you see it! Don’t roll your eyes at me, you think you can do whatever you want well you can’t, you want people talking about you, you want to
be the kind of girl everybody points to when they see you coming? You act like it’s no big deal to go around looking cheap, talking cheap, like everything in the world has changed but some things don’t change. Men don’t!”
And then her mother got a weird, pitiful look on her face and she said, “Baby girl, you have so much to learn,” and made as if she was going to touch her and Janice jumped back and her mother’s expression went back to its normal suspicion and contempt. “Fine. You keep on going down that same road, see where it takes you.”
Her mother was unhappy for life because Janice’s father hadn’t wanted to stick around, who could blame him, and so she looked at everything like it was about her.
Maybe she was all over the Internet now being a famous slut. She’d made him swear never to do that but what if he got mad at her and did and her mother found out. Her stomach crawled into her throat every time she thought about it. Then another day would go by when none of that happened, and maybe nothing would ever change in her whole boring stupid life. Even her iPod got stuck playing the same song, one she kept trying to get rid of, a girl singer going on and on about a chance chance chance for romance mance mance, shut up shut up shut up.
Janice went to the mall by herself. There wasn’t anybody else to go with now that Marilee had her head up her behind. She missed Geronimo, not for the pervy stuff, not exactly, but because he had been sort of a friend. She moped around trying on sunglasses and leather jackets and then she bought a Coke and sat in the food court listening to her music, which was the great thing about an iPod, you could always look like you were doing something.
She’d pretty much given up pretending Richie Cruz was ever going to notice her. It was all dumb and hopeless. She hadn’t seen Richie or his trashy girlfriend and anyway who cared about them? They could do whatever they wanted. The summer had gone on forever. Every day she woke up with the same heat headache. Every day there was nothing for her to do except take up space and watch the world like it was a clock.
Then Richie Cruz walked into the mall, or no he was already inside but she hadn’t seen him, and for a moment or two it tripped up her brain, she couldn’t make sense of his being there. The idiot song buzzed in her ears, take a chance let’s dance make romance mance mance, and here was Richie coming straight toward her with his sleepy, slow-footed walk, his thumbs hooked in his pants pockets, pointing down, lookee here! and he was smiling! Smiling at her!
Janice froze up. Dance dance dance. Richie and his green eyes closed in on her. She thought she was going to be sick. He stood next to her chair. She couldn’t even look at him. She smelled his dusky musky aftershave. She could have buried her nose in his pants pants pants. For a second she was afraid she had actually done so. He said, “Hey, can I see that?”
He meant the iPod. Janice unhooked the earbuds, still making their tiny noise, and handed it over.
Then he was walking away again. Not in any big hurry. He fiddled with the iPod, probably trying to change the song.
She just sat there. She would sit there the rest of her life.
But then it got even worse. From the same direction Richie had appeared, Marilee and another girl, another blond girl just like Marilee so the two of them looked like doll twins, came toward her with their heads together, whispering. They stopped at Janice’s table, grinning and rocking back and forth on their heels, they were so excited about making fun of her. Marilee said, “We told Richie you were in love with him and you want to have his baby.”
Marilee waited for Janice to say something and when she didn’t, she said, “So anyway, now he knows you have the hots for him. That’s what you wanted, right?” The two of them walked away, laughing and shaking their heads so their blond hair swished like horse tails.
After a while Janice got up and went home and when her mother asked her what she’d done with that music thing she was so excited about, Janice said she lost it.
—
Nana was sick. She went into the hospital and then she came home and then she went into the hospital again. All sorts of things were wrong with her, all her inside parts leaking and going flat. One of these days she would be dead but not right away. They had all gone to see her in the hospital this last time. The hospital was the kind of place that made you wonder if anybody got out alive. Nurses stalked the halls with carts full of blood and pee. The walls were tile and echoing. There was a smell of steam and fish sticks. Janice’s mother pushed Janice and her brother forward. “Mom, I brought the kids to see you.”
Nana was bundled up like laundry on the bed. She opened her eyes and groaned. “They cut me all up,” she said. “Then they threw me away.”
Now Nana was home from the hospital again. A nurse stayed with her nights, and Janice’s mother went over before and after work to take care of her. Her mother was too busy to pay much attention to Janice, and she could have done anything she wanted except there was nothing she wanted to do. Mostly she hung around the house and watched whatever was on television. Nobody called her and she didn’t call anyone.
It was like her life was already set out for her. She was never one of the popular girls and now she had a reputation as a slut without even doing anything, at least nothing that ought to count. She guessed she was a slut, there was something wrong with her. Once school started she would have to try and be invisible, get through it all until she was old enough to find some kind of job. Then after a while she would be old and fat like her mother and then even older like Nana and then she would be dead.
Janice’s mother called her from work. “I need you to take Nana one of the beef pot pies, the rest of the bakery bread, and the strawberry jam that’s on the counter. Don’t tell me you don’t have time because you do. Yes, cook the pot pie at home, what did you think, let it defrost and get ruined? I have to go to the bank and the drugstore, then I’ll worry about your supper. No, your brother can’t do it, I’m asking you. Now get a move on.”
Her brother never had to do anything. If you were a boy you could run wild and people thought it was only natural. The pot pie was another one of her mother’s bad menu ideas. It cooked up with burned spots on the crust, probably from being in the freezer too long.
Janice put all the food into a backpack, which was less embarrassing than plastic bags, and set off. There was a hot spot between her shoulder blades where the pot pie rested. The sky was dark in one corner and a wind pushed grit along the streets. It hadn’t rained for so long that you didn’t even think to worry about it anymore. The sky opened its mouth and thunder rolled out. Maybe she’d get hit by lightning and that would serve everybody right.
The streetlights had come on in the early dark. Nobody was out walking but once in a while a car whisked along. The first rain tapped against the fabric of the backpack, then she felt it on her skin. Perfect. Great. She was still a long ways away, and either she’d get there with a lot of wet food, or she’d be late, and either way it would all be her fault.
She ran across an intersection just ahead of the first sheeting rain. There wasn’t such a thing as a store open around here, so she ducked under the overhang of an apartment building’s parking garage. Wind blew the rain across the streets in a little surf. Her feet were wet. She thought about calling her mother but it would serve her right to worry a little. Anyway, you could kind of like being all alone and tragic in the storm, like somebody in a song.
A car pulled up on the street next to her, an old beater with a dent in the fender. The passenger door opened and the driver shouted something she couldn’t hear. She bent down to get a better look and for one crazy moment she thought it was Richie Cruz, but it wasn’t, it was his friend who had grinned at her and Marilee that time in the A&W, and he was waiting for her to get in.
She didn’t right away. She hung back and shook her head and he motioned, come on, come on, and then he did a comical thing where he turned up his collar and put his hands palms up, like it was raining
on him inside the car, and that’s when she put the backpack over her head and sprinted to the curb.
“Hey, close the door,” he said, once she was inside with the backpack at her feet and the windshield wipers struggling to push the rain back. “You want to flood us?”
She closed the door and the rain was all around them. She hugged herself because where she’d gotten wet was now turning cold. The boy said, “What are you doing out here, huh? You lost?”
She was trying to look at him without being obvious. She was trying to decide if he was cute or not. He wasn’t really, but he wasn’t too bad. She rubbed her arms along her legs until they warmed up, then she rubbed them some more because he was watching. She said, “I’m going to my grandma’s place. She’s sick, I’m taking her some food.”
“Yeah?” He made an exaggerated sniffing noise at the backpack. “She gonna be a lot sicker once she eats what’s in there.”
On the dashboard, its wires and earbuds trailing out behind it, was a pink iPod. “Hey, is that mine?”
“I dunno. Could be. So you want a ride?”
“Give me my iPod back.”
He put the car in gear and it nudged forward in the watery street. “What’s it worth to you?”
He said it like he was trying to be tough but it came out nervous. He probably had to practice it. And right then and there, she lit up with knowing. It was all so simple. She was balanced between two different lives, two different stories, and the whole world waiting for her to choose.
He said, “Hey, what’s your name, huh?” Nervous again. He took a quick look at himself in the rearview mirror.
“Candy,” she said, and she smiled a candy smile. She was going to gobble him up alive.
FAITH
Et invenerunt lapidem revolutum a monumento.
And they found the stone rolled back from the sepulchre.
The Witch Page 8