Jersey Angel (10 page)

I find the enormous dictionary and look up
prevaricator—a person who speaks falsely
. So that’s not Larry, obviously. The answer must have been that
entrepreneur
word, which is too smudged on my hand to read. So I guessed right. I fling myself into a seat, feeling wet and cold. Maybe I should have finished.

Well, I don’t speak falsely. If Ing found out and came to me and said
I know
, I would never deny it. How could I? I’m no prevaricator. I think about things for a while.

The lady sitting across from me is knitting some caterpillar-like putty-colored thing. She says to her friend,
“I got the cat sprayed. I had to. If they roam outdoors you have to get them sprayed.”

The friend nods.

Well, everybody’s a dope, maybe, when you get right down to it. That cheers me a little.

The rain stops as suddenly as it began, and the sun comes out. As I’m leaving, a guy wipes a bench with his sweatshirt until all the beads of water are gone. He plunks down, opens a box of Yodels, rips into the plastic, and takes a happy bite. “My wife won’t let me have this stuff at home. We’re dieting. Want one?”

“Sure.” He hands me a package and I tear into it.

A little sparrow comes along and lands right on this guy’s head. Right on his head. He stops chewing and raises his eyes as if he can see up there. I burst out laughing. “There’s a bird on your head,” I whisper. “Crazy.”

“That happened to me once before,” he tells me.

What is it about his semibald, graying head that a bird has landed on it
twice
? A mystery! A very funny mystery.

The sun is shining, the Yodel is creamy chocolate deliciousness, and the little sparrow sits there for a few seconds before taking off. All this makes me feel good. It feels like a sign. Of what, I don’t know.

The jukebox at
BOWL BAR MOTEL
is pretty wonderful, and so are the bowling shoes, worn down to a slippery finish and perfect for spins. So Ing and I stay in the bar dunking cheese fries in ketchup, pushing quarters into the jukebox, and dancing while the others bowl. It’s a weeknight and pretty early, so we have the floor to ourselves as we groove to “Tobacco Road” and “Fever.” To “Mustang Sally,” one of our favorites, we pulse and grind under the dim lights and sing to each other:

When Joey, Carmella, and Cork come into the bar to buy snacks, “Mercy” comes on and Carmella joins us on the floor. We spin and twist and strut and shimmy. It’s so nice to be a girl—to be pretty and soft with long, swinging hair. I can tell Inggy and Carmella feel it too, and our
smiles flash off each other until we’re deep inside the music, moving with it, feeling it pulse like a heartbeat. We must be good to watch. Joey leans against the bar with a basket of onion rings, and Cork sits on a stool waiting for his order. I can feel their eyes on me.

When the song ends, Carmella snuggles close to Joey and nibbles on an onion ring. Soon she heads to the bathroom, and I walk up and pluck a ring from his basket.

“That was good dancing,” he says.

“It feels good.” I look into his shy eyes.

“ ‘Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh,’ ” an old lady eating chicken wings at the bar cries. “ ‘For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.’ ”

“Shut it, hag,” Cork says, joining Inggy on the bench.

“Hey.” Joey turns to chicken-wing lady. “Did you know the Bible’s got sexy parts?”

“Blasphemy!” she says, sucking on the greasy meat.

“For real?” I ask him.

“Song of Songs. Read it.”

“I will.”

“I’m not mad at you, Angel.”

“Huh?”

“I keep meaning to tell you,” he says in a low voice. “From when we were together …”

“Why aren’t you mad at me?” I’m confused, and this isn’t what I want to ask. I grab another onion ring.

“You gonna eat my whole basket?”

I take a bite. “I think you’re a little mad.”

“Nope.” He walks away, and it can’t be good what he’s telling me.

He, Carmella, and Cork go back to the lanes and the Bible-spouting chicken-wing-eating lady leaves and Inggy and I dance some more until we’re sweaty and pooped. Inggy stretches out on the duct-tape-patched bench and admires her bowling shoes, turning them this way and that. I tell her what Joey said about Song of Songs.

“I’m definitely gonna look that up,” she says.

“You and me both. Hey, Ron,” I call to the owner as he collects empties off the bar. “You have Bibles in the rooms?”

“Has the spirit moved you?”

After some serious coaxing, he gives us a key and we skitter across the parking lot, the asphalt glimmering under the neon
BOWL BAR MOTEL
sign, and climb a staircase to one of the rooms.

In the desk drawer, we find a Bible, and Inggy flips through the pages till she finds it. We settle on the scratchy bedspread and take turns reading aloud. Right off the bat the woman wants to be kissed “with the kisses of his mouth.” The man tells her her boobs are like two fawns. She and he spend a lot of time comparing each other’s body parts to ripe fruit and whatnot—wine, anointing oils, henna blossoms, nectar. They’re swoony, these two.

“ ‘Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate,’ ” I read. “You know just what he’s talking about.”

“Dang,” Inggy says.

She runs her finger under a line. “ ‘I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.’ She’s bold, for sure.”

I nod. There’s no doubt she’s a horndog, this sister of Israel. She “seeks him” and tells him to “make haste.” I like that—make haste—and will find a way to work it into conversation.

“Cork and I,” Inggy says. “We did it at school.” She lets out a laugh and covers her mouth.

“You did?” I turn to her. “Where?”

“In the old art room. During study hall. On one of the tables.”

“So tell me,” I say, getting a little itchy and jealous.

“I want to tell you something else.”

“What?” I say, carefully.

She closes the Bible and lies back on the pillow and tells me this story:

Just recently she was on the campus of one of the good schools she applied to and had some wadded-up garbage in her hand. Usually a good aim, she missed the can and it landed next to a guy lounging on the grass. He heroically picked it up and brought it over and told her to try again. This time she sank it. It was very satisfying, she said, getting to try again.

He was eating a swiss cheese sandwich, this guy, and reading a little book of poems. “For a class?” Ing wanted to know. “For me,” he said. She liked that—“for me.” They talked. He wasn’t exactly cute, though not uncute, and appealing in some indefinable way. He was on the small side and slouchy but comfortable in his slouchiness. And he had a steady gaze, not creepy steady, but like you had his attention. He read her a poem about the happiness of sitting in a dense leafy tree during a rainstorm. She borrowed his pen to write the poem’s name on her hand. He wanted to take her to a party that night and said it like they’d known each other for a long time. Inggy wanted to go, but she and her parents were leaving that day. He told her she should come to the school next year, that it was a good place, mostly as good as the hype.

Her parents were sitting on a bench, frantically waving her over. Her dad had bought hot knishes and could not abide a cold knish. But she couldn’t move away. Instead she asked how he would spend his afternoon, because she liked imagining the rest of his day. “I’ll probably think some thoughts,” he said. She felt herself grow warm in a good way. She pointed out to him that it’s very hard to say something like that and not sound like a wiseass. She told him he sounded sort of true. “I am sort of true,” he said, simply. He took her hand and held it for a minute, each of them feeling perfectly understood.

Inggy inches close to me on the bed. “I kept thinking
about the conversation and I realized something.” She hooks her hair behind her ears and gets a serious look. “I’m not sure this makes sense, so bear with me. But I realized we’re turning out. I mean, we can’t see how we’re turning out because it happens so infinitesimally, but we are. It made me realize that when I go off to school, I’ll get to find out—” Then she looks at me, me who won’t be going off to school. “I mean, when we graduate and get away from all these morons we’ve known forever, we’ll really get a chance to see who we’ve become. Meanwhile a stranger comes along and I get a glimpse of myself. I liked the girl he saw, so I decided to
really
be her. Did you notice anything?”

I shake my head, and she looks flustered.

“Well, I feel different, a little, anyway, and Cork must feel it too. Things are more exciting with him lately. We did it in the old art room! I was sure he sensed something in me.” She looks at me hopefully, and I should agree. I should nod.

“Probably,” I say, then add, “but maybe he just wanted to spice things up.”

“Maybe.”

We’re quiet for a minute. I pull her over to the mirror, and we share the desk chair and give ourselves a good look under the dim light. She glows a little, pale and pink, with blue eyes as clear as a sky. Her silky hair falls in a sheet down her back. Me, I’m the opposite. Dark eyes, dark curly hair, olive skin. We look at ourselves and each other. I
reach for her hand on the desk and rub it, feeling the delicate bones and the small swell of blue veins and wonder what it means to be Inggy inside that long stretch of white skin. Is she different, has she changed, and have I missed it?

“You like being pretty, Angel?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I read that Marilyn Monroe said it’s a burden. Sometimes I think I know what she meant.”

“I might leave New Jersey, you know. I just might,” I say, touching my face.

“I’ve never slept with anyone but Cork,” she says with wonder.

“Well, you will.”

“I guess that’s right.” Her eyes tear up.

“You didn’t tell me any of this, Ing.” I have no right, but I say it anyway. “You’ve had all this stuff going on inside you.”

“It’s been a jumble in my head.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “So this guy, this slouchy guy with the undefinable something, did you want to do it with him?” I slip an arm around her and she tips her white head against mine. “Of course you did,” I tell her.

“How will I ever leave Cork?”

“They’ll be new guys, lots of guys. The guys will come and go, but it’s friendship that lasts.”

“But how will I ever leave him?” She stares at her reflection as if it knows the answer.

“How will you ever leave me?”

Inggy startles, and I guess I do too. “Leave you? You’ll visit me,” she says. “I’ll come home. We’ll talk on the phone, text.…”

“Oh, I know, I know.”

“With Cork everything will have to be different.… I do love him.” She blinks away her tears. “Say something, Angel.”

But I can’t. Maybe I’m too filled with secrets. Am I a bad person? It doesn’t feel bad. Not really. It’s separate, me and Cork. And it doesn’t mean anything. If Inggy found out would she see that I’m still me and we’re still us? I think so. I really do.

Joey, though, would lose all faith. He expects too much. Maybe you can’t expect so much. Joey feels lost to me forever.

Just one more time, or two. Then I’ll stop. But it’s Friday, and the night awaits me. Mom’s having a party, Inggy’s at some Journalists of Tomorrow seminar in DC, and my immediate prospects are Kipper or Cork. Need I say more.

Kipper’s writing me notes these days, folding them a million times and slipping them into my locker.
Friday, Oct. 14, 1:16 p.m.: Let’s go on a date tonight! A movie? A stromboli on the boardwalk? We could fox-trot. Full moon tonight! p.s. I’m not looking to get laid. p.s.2 But if you want to, great! p.s.3 Maybe you’ll let me hold your hand in any case
.

After school, Cork stops by my locker as I’m looking in a tiny mirror I taped to the door. I can only see my mouth as I rub on lip gloss. “I’ll come over later,” he whispers.

“All right,” my glossy mouth says.

•   •   •

I heat up a Hot Pocket while Mom backs out of the refrigerator with an armful of guacamole, salsa, cheddar cheese, olives, and hummus. The kids are with TB, who has not been invited to this party of hers tonight. “How do I look, by the way?” she asks.

“Can I run a chip through that?” I reach for the tub of guac.

“Go ahead.” She hands it off. “Good?” she says, twirling.

“You’re smokin’ but simple.” I crunch a chip. She has on a black halter dress and sleek midheel wedges. Her hair waves nicely around her face. Definitely sexy but low-key tonight. It’s a good look for her and probably has something to do with the banker she’s been dating.

I take a long bike ride into the state park. The moon is indeed full, and it’s a bright, cold night. The island is so different in the off-season. There are some lingering bennies on the weekends in September, but slowly the place clears out and by October it’s quiet, quiet, quiet. I ride along the dunes until I get tired and then take a walk on the beach. It’s windy and deserted; I’m not dressed warm enough and start to shiver, but I like the night beach. The full moon. The moonlit sand, the waves silvery in the brightness. Nature is sexy, and that makes me think God is alive and has very good taste. I can go a long time without
thinking about God, but then I do, and tonight God is this beach. And wouldn’t you know, I see a little fox up on the dunes. You don’t see them often, but there it is, its eyes sparks of light. When I’m shivering too much, I hurry back to my bike.

I’m cold and sweaty when I get back home. My mom’s party is in full swing, cars parked all over, the house lit up, and music humming through the walls. I walk my bike over the stones to the shed. Cork sits waiting on the back stoop of the Corner House.

“Where’ve you been?” he says, a little pissed.

“Out and about.”

Upstairs, I take off my clothes, leave them in a heap, and head for the shower. “Wanna join me?”

“No,” he says. But a few minutes later he pulls back the shower curtain and watches me soap up, his eyes never leaving me. It’s juicy, him holding back. Finally he peels off his T-shirt, unzips and drops his pants, and joins me under the steamy water. We do it sitting in the tub with a drizzle of water falling over us. After, I plug the drain and let it fill, and we lounge for a while, Cork’s long legs climbing the tile.