“Uh-huh,” she said, crunching the paper in her lap. “How are you going to get to New Jersey?”
“I’m gonna take the bus and Josh will pick me up. And then I’ll come home the next day,” I said slowly.
“Mm-hmm . . .”
“And Mom, his parents will be home the whole time. You can even call his dad.”
“Leave me the phone number on my table.” She pointed to her vanity.
By Wednesday, Mom hadn’t called Josh’s dad and it was driving me crazy. Every time I heard her on the phone in the kitchen or her bedroom, I strained my ears to see if I could figure out who she was talking to. But it was always my grandmother or Aunt Marty or somebody else. Not Mr. Heller. So after dinner and
Masterpiece Theatre
were finally over I said, totally nonchalantly, “So can I stay at Josh’s on Saturday, Mom? Did you ever call Mr. Heller?” I said it like I had just thought of it that minute.
“What? Who’s Mr. Heller?”
“Josh’s dad.
Mom
,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “Remember? I asked you about going to Josh’s in New Jersey?”
“Oh yes, yes, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to think at this time of night, Julie.” God. It was only nine o’clock.
“So did you call Josh’s dad?”
“Did you give me the number?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, okay, pussy cat, you can go, I just wanted the number so I’d know where you are.”
Sometimes, I just didn’t understand my mother at all.
The night before Josh’s party, I knocked on Ellie’s door. I wasn’t really sure why, but I thought maybe I could try talking to her. I felt scared about my sleepover with Josh, and I needed somebody to tell me which nightgown I should pack.
“Yeah?” Ellie said. She was working on some college application stuff on the typewriter.
“Can I come in?” I said, peering around the door.
“Sure,” she said.
I stepped in and she looked up. I didn’t say anything.
“Yes?” she said.
“I just wanted to hang out in here. Is that okay?”
“Okay.” She shrugged and went back to the typewriter.
“Are you gonna watch
Donny and Marie
?” I said. When Ellie was in the eighth grade, she saved up $120 and bought a small black-and-white TV that was covered in denim fabric with orange stitching. Dad had taken her to some warehouse in Queens to buy it.
“Um. I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it.” She slowly plunked at the keys.
“Can I watch with you?” I said, sitting on her bed.
“I guess so,” she said, keeping her eyes on her paper. “But it’s not on for a little while, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. Then we didn’t say anything again for a minute. Finally Ellie looked up from the typewriter.
“What’s wrong, Julie? You’re acting weird.” I inched myself farther onto the bed and leaned against the wall.
“I guess I feel kind of nervous,” I said.
“How come?” Ellie said.
“Well, you know I’m going to Josh’s house tomorrow night in New Jersey?”
“No, I didn’t know that. How was I supposed to know that?” she said, sounding a little huffy.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought you heard me telling Mom, and I only just found out that Mom and Dad would even let me go.”
“Okay, so?”
“So, I’m nervous. Like, I can’t stop thinking about what nightshirt I should bring.”
She sighed like I was the biggest pain in the ass. “Well, what does it matter?” she said. Maybe this was a mistake. I had no idea she would be so obnoxious.
“It totally matters!” I said. “Josh is gonna see me in it! Wouldn’t you care what you were wearing if a boy you liked was gonna see it? God! I thought maybe you’d be understanding, but I guess you’re just not capable of that emotion!” I got off her bed and headed for the door.
“Julie, wait. I’m sorry.”
I stopped at her door with my hand on the knob. I was fighting back the tears.
“Are you crying?” she asked.
“No!” I said, totally crying. Then Ellie started laughing, and she came over to me and turned me around.
“Stop laughing at me!” I shrieked, sounding like a baby.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, but it is a little funny. I’m sorry, Jule.” She stood there facing me with her hands on my shoulders, but I kept my head down. “You want me to help you pick out a nightshirt?” she asked.
Even though Ellie got nice after that and said she swore my long white Fiorucci nightshirt with the two angels on it was perfect for my sleepover with Josh, I decided to go shopping on Saturday morning. I had almost a whole day before I had to get the bus to New Jersey, so I went to Macy’s. I hadn’t been there since a few months before with Julie, back when we were friends and I was stealing. We had gone one day after school and each got a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. Julie also got a magenta velour V-neck top and just as we were leaving, we pocketed some earrings that were on those little plastic squares ’cause there wasn’t a salesperson anywhere. As usual, we made it out of the store, no biggie.
This time I walked through the first floor to the escalators feeling a little nervous, but I kept telling myself,
I’m only going to buy, I’m only going to buy
. I went to the juniors floor and it was kind of crowded. Looking through the nightgowns and nightshirts, I found some flannel ones on sale but they were too warm and too long. There were some pink gingham short nightshirts with matching bloomers, but they seemed too girly. Then I saw some plain yellow, blue, and green nightshirts. They were $9.99. I had just about enough with tax. I took two smalls and two mediums in different colors and went to the dressing room. There was a lady with enormous boobs counting some shorts. I noticed her huge chest because the glasses she wore on a chain around her neck rested there like they were sitting on a shelf. As soon as the lady saw me, she yanked my four hangers out of my hand and said,
“Four!”
loudly and headed down the dirty green carpeting trail to the dressing rooms.
“This way!”
she said, and her boobs led us to an open door. I was wondering if she was hard of hearing or something ’cause then even louder she said,
“Bring everything out when you’re done, all right?”
She wasn’t mean or anything, just loud.
“All right!”
I shouted back. It just came out that way.
Inside the dressing room I felt relieved that she had counted my nightshirts so I’d have to be a total idiot to try to steal one, and yet part of me was trying to figure out how to do it. As I tried on the green size small, I actually thought about waiting until the lady was distracted. I wondered whether or not I could quietly tiptoe past her with a rolled-up nightshirt in my bag. But I couldn’t be sure she was really deaf. Then I remembered to keep telling myself,
I am only going to buy, I am only going to buy,
and I tried on the blue one in a medium. It fit better than the small, but I liked the green color. So I chose the green medium.
I handed the loud lady the three I didn’t want.
“Thank you, darlin’!”
she said, and I went to find the cash register. My heart was pounding in my chest as I actually took out my wallet and paid for the shirt. I went out the Sixth Avenue exit wondering if I was cured forever.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Ellie said when I got home and showed it to her. “But I still think you should wear the Fiorucci one.”
My heart sank. A part of me was wishing I could call Julie and say, “Can I come over and show you my new nightshirt and you can tell me which one to wear to Josh’s?” But I decided to trust Ellie, and I packed the Fiorucci nightshirt in my LeSportsac overnight bag. As I packed, I kept imagining kissing Josh and feeling his hands in my hair.
22
Alone in the Tennis Bed
“So nice to meet you,” Marlene, Josh’s stepmom, said in a deep, gravelly voice as she met us on the white-carpeted landing a few steps up from the front door. Marlene was a roundish woman in a white terry-cloth robe with her hair all up in a towel like a turban. A few pieces of frosted blonde hair peeked out onto her forehead.
“Excuse the towel, I just showered,” she said, as she wrapped both her warm hands around mine. One of her long pink nails lightly scratched my wrist. “Oh, pardon me!” she said and started cough-laughing like a smoker. Her voice was so husky she almost sounded like a man. I counted nearly ten gold chain bracelets on her wrist and a gigantic diamond ring. She had several gold necklaces on, too, hanging off her tanned, somewhat wrinkly neck. I wondered if she showered with all that jewelry on.
“That’s okay,” I said. “Um. Nice to meet you, too.” We heard a timer go off in the kitchen.
“Ooh! That’s the pigs ’n blankets. You kids are my tasters, all right? I’m trying out some new hors d’oeuvres, all right? Whaddaya say?” And she scampered off to the kitchen, where I heard her open the stove. Josh rolled his eyes and smiled.
“Don’t mind her—she’s pretty cool actually,” he said. “Nothing like the evil stepmother you hear about.”
“Josh!” Marlene shouted from the kitchen. “Why don’t you show your friend the tennis room? Take her bag downstairs.”
“Yup!” Josh shouted back, taking my overnight bag from my arm. “I was just going to do that.” He touched my hand. “Follow me.” We went down a bunch of small white-carpeted steps to the basement.
“It’s the guest room,” Josh explained. “We call it the tennis room.”
The tennis room had white carpeting and kelly green wallpaper with white tennis rackets dancing all over it. There was a double bed neatly made with a matching green-and-tennis-racket bedspread and throw pillows. On each side of the bed stood white night tables with lamps that were made of that fuzzy yellow tennis-ball stuff. There was a white bureau with brass pulls on the drawers, and on top was a piece of kelly green material that matched the walls and the bedspread. It was sewn like someone had made a place mat out of extra material.
“I guess you could say Dad and Marlene are kind of obsessed with tennis,” Josh said, trying not to laugh, which of course made us both start cracking up. Josh was about to show me his room when we heard Marlene scream his name.
“Yeah?” he said as we went back to the kitchen.
“Would you and your friend like an RC Cola? Or I have Fresca, I have orange soda, and I have Dr. Pepper!” Josh looked at me.
“Dr. Pepper’s fine,” I said.
“Two Dr. Peppers and her name’s Julie,” Josh said, rolling his eyes again at Marlene.
“
Julie
, of course. Forgive me, sweetheart, if I didn’t have my head screwed on. . . .” Her husky voice trailed off as she dumped the tray of pigs ’n blankets onto a paper towel on the counter. “Blow on them first,” she said, as she licked some flakes of dough out of her nails.
The doorbell rang. Marlene squealed a little as she tightened her robe around her chest and pulled the terry-cloth belt. “That’s my liquor man!” she said. “Just a minute!” she called to the door. “Josh, take some mustard out of the fridge—you kids want mustard?” And she ran out of the kitchen to get the door.
“She has all the liquor delivered whenever she has a party,” Josh explained. “It’s a lot of bottles.”
“Gotcha. She is really funny,” I said.
“Yeah,” Josh said with a mouth full of hot dog. “Oh! Hot!” He fanned his mouth and opened the jar of mustard.
“Let’s get out of here,” Josh said after we had eaten more pigs ’n blankets.
“But what about the party?” I said.
“We’ll come back when it gets going,” he said. “There’s a cool park around here I want to show you.”
I ran back down to the tennis room to get my jean jacket. Just as we hit the front door, we ran into Josh’s dad.
“Well, hello!” he said. Mr. Heller was roly-poly like Santa but had brown hair and a brown beard and moustache. He was wearing a white alligator tennis shirt and white shorts that were too tight, and he was a little sweaty.
“You must be Julie!” he said. He wore a gold chain and a pinky ring. “I’d kiss you, but I’m all shvitzy.” I’d never heard that word before, but I got the gist. Even though Josh was eager to leave, his dad didn’t seem to notice, and he launched into all these questions, like was I planning to be an actor professionally when I graduated or was I going to college first, and did I have a backup plan if acting didn’t work out.
“Oh shit!” we heard Marlene’s deep voice shout from upstairs.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Heller yelled up to her. Josh looked up the stairs, waiting for Marlene’s response.
“I forgot ice!” Marlene screamed. “Josh! Would you and your friend mind going out to get some ice? Just run down to Luigi’s and get a few bags. You have money?”
Josh’s dad pulled a twenty out of his money clip and pressed it into Josh’s palm.
“No problem!” Josh shouted up the stairs.
“You’re a doll and I love you!” she called back.
The party was pretty cool for a while ’cause the weather was nice enough to be out in the backyard. But a lot of people stayed inside in the nearly all-white living room singing along with the hired piano player at the baby grand. He was kind of a Liberace guy with totally sprayed silver hair and lots of rings, and he played Barry Manilow and Captain & Tennille songs.
Marlene was drunk and acting pretty funny. She was singing at the top of her lungs in her husky manlike voice and kept introducing me to people as “Josh’s friend.” Josh must have sensed when I had had enough of being surrounded by all these grown-ups I didn’t know. He took me by the hand and led me to his parents’ bedroom. The first thing you saw when you walked in was the king-sized water bed across from a huge TV.
Pretty cool,
I thought, but then I noticed there wasn’t really any other place to sit. Josh kicked off his shoes and slid back into the rolling bed, then he patted the area next to him like I should do the same. We sat on top of the down comforter and Josh put his arm around me. We watched some old episode of
The Twilight Zone
, and I couldn’t help but laugh every time the water bed made us bob up and down. Luckily Josh laughed, too.