Jailbait (13 page)

When it's time to go, I change back into my regular clothes and head downstairs. I have my hand on the front doorknob, but then I hear Frank say, “Wait,” and it makes me jump a little because I had no idea he was still in the house. I thought he was warming up the car.

I go into the kitchen, expecting to see Frank sitting on the counter, smoking a cigarette, but he's just standing there, staring out the window. I stand next to him, not too close and not too far away, and wait for him to say whatever he has to say.

“Vanessa,” Frank finally says after a good five minutes, and for some reason I feel like screaming,
That's not my name, you idiot
, but of course I don't. I'm the one who's an idiot for telling him my name was Vanessa in the first place.

“Listen,” Frank says, all serious. “I don't think we should see each other anymore.”

Oh no. Not this again. Frank gets into these moods every once in a while, I don't know why. And I especially don't know why today, since we had such a great afternoon. He always comes around and changes his mind, though.

“Here.” He reaches into his coat pocket and I think he's getting out the camera again, but then he puts something smaller on the counter. A little box. A little brown velvet jewelry box. For a split second I think he's giving me a present, but then I realize it's the box for Shirley's wedding ring and I get completely hysterical.

“Frank, what's the matter? What'd I do?” I keep my voice low and steady so I won't sound as scared as I feel.

“Vanessa.” Frank gives this huge sigh, like my name, or what I told him is my name, is the reason for all the trouble in the world. “It's just that …” He looks right at me and his eyes are so sad and beautiful, I want to drown in them. “I don't know, babe. I just don't think I deserve you.”

“Oh, Frank.” What is he, nuts? God, he can be so weird sometimes. “If anything, Frank,” I say,
“I
don't deserve
you.”

“Don't even say that, Vanessa. You deserve the best life has to offer, and don't you ever forget it.”

“But Frank,
you're
the best life has to offer.”

“You only think so, Vanessa.” Frank looks down like a little boy who's done something naughty. “Vanessa,” Frank says again, “I've been having some … some thoughts that I'm a little bit ashamed of.”

I ignore the knot tightening in my belly. “What kind of thoughts, Frank?”

“Well,” Frank looks at me again, and the poor guy seems like he's really in pain. “You're just so sexy and beautiful, I don't think I can stand it anymore.”

Like that makes any sense. “Frank, what do you mean?”

“I mean, I can't hold out much longer, Vanessa. God, I dream about you all the time. But it isn't fair for me to pressure you into doing something you don't want to do or you're not ready to do. So I think it would be better if we just ended things.” He looks over at Shirley's ring box and then he looks down again.

I can't even believe what I'm hearing. “You mean you want to go all the way?” See, it's like we're so connected, Frank can read my mind. This must be what they mean when they talk about finding your soul mate. You're two halves of the same whole. I'm so happy I almost laugh. “But Frank, that's what I want, too. I was going to tell you today. That's what I want for my birthday.”

“You do?” Frank sounds totally surprised.

“Of course I do.” What else would I want except to make him happy?

“When's your birthday?” Frank asks.

“Next Friday.”

“C'mere, birthday girl.” Frank opens his arms and gathers me into them. I lean back against him and let him hold me until he sighs like he's the happiest guy on the planet. Which I hope he is.

“Listen, Vanessa,” Frank says, releasing me. “I don't want to see you until next Friday, you understand me?”

“But why, Frank?” My voice sounds shrill in my own ears, but I don't care. A whole week! We've never even gone more than a weekend without seeing each other, except for Thanksgiving, when I had Thursday and Friday off from school. “Frank, I don't want to go a whole week without seeing you.”

“Don't whine, Vanessa.”

“But why?”

“I said don't whine,” Frank snaps. Then his voice softens. “I just want you to take some time and think this over so you're really sure about it.”

“I
am
really sure.”

“Vanessa, this is a very serious thing.”

Duh, like I don't know that, Frank. What am I, a moron? I don't say anything so he goes on.

“I just want you to be sure—”

“I am sure.”

“—that I'm the right guy,” he says, ignoring me.

“Of course you're the right guy,” I tell him. “Who else would be the right guy, Santa Claus?” I wait, but Frank doesn't laugh. “Of course you're the right guy, Frank,” I say again. “God, before I met you I didn't know anything, I was just some stupid kid. But now, Frank, don't you get it?” I look at him, but he won't meet my eye. Still, I say it anyway: “Frank, I love you.”

Silence. A long, loud, stupid, ugly silence. Frank doesn't do anything like say I
love you
back or take me in his arms and kiss me like I was hoping he would. He doesn't do or say anything, and the longer we stand there the more I feel like an idiot.

After a million years, Frank finally reaches for my hand and we just stand there with our fingers entwined not saying anything. Maybe hearing me say I
love you
got him too choked up to answer or something, because a lot of guys hate when a girl gets all emotional like that. But then Frank does say something, and it's the strangest thing, even for Frank. “I'll see you next Friday. And bring a raincoat. You hear me? Don't forget.” And then he heads out the door and I follow.

This is horrible. The pits. Worse than the pits. Life without
Frank is one gigantic, stupid, worthless bore. It's like when I'm with Frank I'm alive and when I'm not with him I'm dead. It's only Saturday and I wouldn't be seeing Frank today anyway, but still, knowing that I won't be seeing him until next Friday is really getting me down. And to top it all off, today I have to go to Donna Rizzo's stupid sweet sixteen party.

A few months ago, Shirley actually asked me if I wanted to have a sweet sixteen party. “Get real,” I told her. First of all, I'm not exactly sweet—sour sixteen is more like it. And second of all, who would I invite? It's
not like I'm friends with any of the girls at my school. The only reason I got invited to Donna Rizzo's party is that her mother made her send an invitation to every single girl in our class.

If only I'd had a chance to intercept the mail before Shirley got her claws on it, she would never have known about it and I wouldn't have to go. But the mail comes in the morning while I'm still at school, so Shirley always gets to it first. And the day Donna's invitation came, Shirley met me at the door with this big smile on her face.

“What's this?” she asked, handing me an envelope with fancy lettering and a bright green frog sticker on it. She stood there breathing down my neck while I opened it, and then when she saw it was a bona fide invitation— in other words, her loser of a daughter actually had a social engagement—she got so excited I thought she was going to faint.

“Oh, Andrea, let me see.” Shirley practically snatched the invitation out of my hand. “Ooh, it sounds like so much fun. What are you going to wear?”

“If you think it sounds so great, why don't you go?” I asked, but she just shot me a look that said
You are going to this party, young lady
, so here I am.

“Andrea, are you almost ready?” Shirley hollers up the stairs. Since Fred is at the office, she's my chauffeur today.

“Just a minute,” I call down, even though I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I'm wearing my usual dungarees and black sweater, and I'm just stalling for time. But wouldn't
you know it, Shirley decides to come upstairs and check out my attire.

“Andrea, you are not wearing that getup to a sweet sixteen party,” she immediately says with a frown. “Don't you want to look nice for a change? Besides, Four Stars is a very fancy place. I'm sure they have a dress code.”

“Well, then maybe I can't go,” I say, my voice full of hope.

“Andrea, don't be silly. I'm sure there's something in here you can wear.” And before I can stop her, Shirley yanks open my closet door and starts exploring.

“What about this?” Shirley pulls out a hanger and waves around the purple dress I wore to synagogue on Yom Kippur. My family is hardly religious, but we do go to temple on the High Holidays. Not that my parents pay attention to the service. Fred usually falls asleep with his hands clasped over his big belly, and Shirley gives herself whiplash from turning around every two seconds to see who just came in and what they're wearing.

“Shirley, I hate that dress.”

“Why, what's wrong with it?” Shirley raises the hanger up to her neck, holds one sleeve out to the side, and lets the dress fall down her body, like she's checking to see how it would look on her. I guess the dress isn't so bad, as far as dresses go. It's got three-quarter sleeves and an empire waist, which made Shirley very happy when we bought it. In case you don't know, an empire waist is when the waistline of a dress is hitched up right below your boobs and it's supposed to make you look skinnier than you really are. I don't know why they call
it that—maybe because it's supposed to make you look tall and thin like the Empire State Building.

“Andrea, I don't see anything else appropriate in here,” Shirley says, once again inspecting my wardrobe. “You'll have to wear this. Too bad we're different sizes. Otherwise I could lend you something from my closet.”

Thanks a lot, Shirley
, I think, since that's a really mean thing to say. As if I don't know I'm twice as big as my own mother.

I put on the stupid dress and Shirley drives me to Four Stars for Donna's big birthday bash. God, I wish Ronnie were still here. We'd find a way to make this fun—maybe crash a wedding or bar mitzvah going on in another room, like I see out of the corner of my eye Cheryl Healy and Diane Carlson are doing. I'm sure they have no interest in going to a sweet sixteen, since the guest list won't include any boys.

I get rid of Shirley as fast as I can and go into the room where they're having Donna's party. As soon as I step inside, I see a table covered with a white tablecloth that has all these little cards set up with everyone's names and table numbers on them. I find my name and—just my luck—I'm at table thirteen. Not that I'm superstitious or anything, but still, this can't be a good sign. I make my way over to the table, which is all the way in the back, and sit down next to a bunch of girls I don't recognize. What do you know, Donna Rizzo has actually done me a favor by not seating me with anyone from our school.

“How do you know the bride?” the girl next to me asks in this totally sarcastic voice.

“The bride?”

“You know. The guest of honor. Miss Sweet Sixteen.” She waves toward the front of the room where Donna is seated, surrounded by her friends.

“I go to her school,” I say, getting the joke.

“We're her cousins from New Jersey,” the girl says, gesturing to our tablemates. It takes me a minute but then I get it—of course I've been seated at the losers' table. Donna's cousins are the kind of girls no girl at my school would be caught dead talking to. Their hair is too high, their makeup too dark, their dresses too tight, their jewelry too gaudy.

Lunch is served, and since this is such a ritzy place, it's pretty fancy: stuffed mushrooms for the appetizer; a salad of lettuce, walnuts, pears, and crumbled blue cheese; and then an entree of poached salmon, which freaks out one of the New Jersey cousins because, as she tells us, she almost choked to death on a salmon bone not too long ago. “So watch out for the bones,” she says in this very serious tone, like they might sneak up behind us and murder us any second. Then we have cake and ice cream, and then Donna's mother announces it's time for the main event of the afternoon: watching Donna open all her gifts.

First, Horseface Hillary, who would do anything to be Donna's best friend, presents her with a memory cup that she's made for the occasion by putting sixteen pennies, a candle from Donna's cake, and a red plastic heart into a glass, filling it with water up to the brim, and then holding a lit candle upside down over it so that the wax from the candle drips onto the water and seals the whole thing
shut forever. After everyone oohs and aahs over that, Marlene Pinkus, who's also dying to be in Donna's inner circle, starts bringing Donna's presents over to her table and volunteers to make Donna a hat out of all the ribbons and wrapping paper. Not to be outdone, Horseface says she'll write down who gave Donna what, so she won't mess up her thank-you notes. Once that's all settled, the show begins.

Donna's presents are no big surprise: makeup kits, jewelry, fuzzy sweaters, lots of records, and because of Donna's insane frog obsession, a million different frog items: frog pajamas, frog paperweights, frog music boxes, frog teapots, frog soap, frog pencils, frog pens, frog candles, at least twenty-five frog stuffed animals, a frog mobile, a frog umbrella. And last but not least, my gift: a book called
Frog and Toad Are Friends
, which I know is kind of babyish, but still, it's one of my favorite children's books about animals, and it does go with Donna's crazy obsession. Not that she seems to care.

After Donna finishes opening all her presents, Cheryl Healy stands up and Diane Carlson taps her fork against her glass to get everyone's attention. I guess the two of them got kicked out of whatever party they were crashing and decided to grace us with their presence after all.

“I'd like to read a poem in honor of the birthday girl,” Cheryl says, her voice dripping with sweetness. Everyone sits up, impressed, but Cheryl doesn't fool me. She's definitely up to something.

“This is a found poem,” Cheryl explains. “We learned
about them last week in English class. A found poem is a poem you find when you least expect it, like in a magazine or a catalog or during a conversation. So this is a poem I found right here at Donna's sweet sixteen party while she was opening her presents. It's called ‘What Donna Will Say to Donald on Their Wedding Night.’”