THE THIRTY-NINTH DAY . . .
(Monday, July 20, morning)
MACK:
My life started last
night. Here on in, everything I see, I see. Like the way Tony was always looking up at the
sky. I don’t think I need to look down to my sneakers so much
anymore. To hide. I don’t think I slept last night, thinking about
her, about us, but I am awake.
The Too is closed to
customers today, but we’re in for annual cleaning. It’s hard to
hear her with all the fans sucking the stink of fresh paint out of
the place. Mrs. V. and me are at the bar. She has her arm over my
shoulders. “We understand each other?” she says. She puts her hand
to my chin and tilts my head up so I have to look her in the
eye.
“Yes,
ma’am.”
“Am I that
old?”
“Sorry,
ma’am?”
“Why won’t you call
me Carmella?”
“I will.” I almost
said I will, ma’am.
“Mack, Céce gets
excited about things. She dives in fast and deep, you know?
Sometimes before there’s enough water in the pool. I know, this is
a hard thing to hear, but you understand what I’m saying, right?
Look at me for a second. You love her, right?”
Sweat pushes through
me. “Yes.”
“And you’re
absolutely sure, of course.”
“Yes.”
“But here’s my thing:
You know you need each other, but you don’t know each
other.”
But we do, I want to say. We know each other’s
secrets.
“Mack?”
“Yes
ma’am?”
“Take the time, okay?
To find out who she is, to let her know who you are.”
“We will,
ma’am.”
She shakes her head.
“The two of you, I don’t know. I guess you’ll be all
right.”
“Thank you,
ma’am.”
The news comes on the
bar TV. They give the war report. Triple suicide attack. Car
bombs.
Mrs. V. switches the
channel to a game show.
I head off to clean
the ice machine. Marcy’s there in the back, with Céce. “How you
doin’, Marcy?”
“Suicidal,
Macky. You?”
“Good.”
“So happy for you.” She turns to Céce. “Cheech,
how’s that herpes thing workin’ out? You still
contagious?”
We’re at the
Dumpster, emptying the trash buckets. Céce’s looking over her
shoulder to make sure nobody’s spying. “How weird was that with my
mother, right?”
“She was real
cool.”
“What’d she
say?”
“That she loves you a
ton.”
She stops with the
trash emptying. Then she gets back to it.
“Any word from Tony?”
I say.
“Text that said he
can’t talk this week. Apparently if somebody in the platoon screws
up, everybody loses privileges.”
“I think I heard
that.”
She puts her hand on
her hip, gives me mean eyes. “Where?”
“Recruiter came to
the rec center a year or so back, was talking to the older boys
about careers in the military.”
“Mack, I swear, you
will break my heart if you ever sign up.”
“I don’t think you
need to worry about that.”
“That’s what all you
boys say, and then you go off and enlist on impulse.”
“No, I mean I don’t
think they’d have me, the army. I think once you do a bid, they
unqualify you from military service.”
“A bid?”
“Jail
time.”
“Oh.” She looks at me
different for a second, and it all comes back to me, that doubt I
can’t shake: This won’t last. She deserves better than me. Why is
she with me?
And then whatever she
was thinking leaves her. She checks to be sure Marcy isn’t
snooping. She takes my hand and pulls me to the shade side of the
Dumpster and kisses my eyes. “You ask your father if you can sleep
over tomorrow night?”
“Not
yet.”
“My mother said that
if you don’t get permission—”
“I know. I’ll ask
him.”
“You look like you
think he’ll say no.”
“He won’t give a damn
about any of it.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
she says.
I don’t really know.
I shrug off the feeling that something bad is going to come of this
sleepover. I kiss her neck. I love her neck. If I rest my lips on
her just right, to the side of her windpipe, I can feel her pulse
in my mouth. Each time her heart beats through me, I love her more
terrible. I don’t know what I would ever do without this girl. I
can’t believe she’s letting me hang with her. Over Céce’s shoulder,
I see Marcy in the window. She’s got her phone up, waving to
us.
“A picture’s not
enough?” Céce says. “You need video?”
“I need
video.”
Céce marches in to
bawl out Marcy.
I turn over the trash
barrel. It’s hot out and Tony’s peace medal sticks to my chest. I’m
never taking it off, because as long as I’m wearing it, everything
will be right.
(Monday, July 20, afternoon)
CÉCE:
We’re just about done
with cleaning day. I’m vacuuming a year’s worth of stale crumbs
from the bread warmer when Ma comes in with burritos for everybody.
“Vic,” she says. “All the years we’ve known each other, have I ever
steered you wrong?”
“Many
times.”
“Besides those
times?”
“Never,” he
says.
“I have this
fantastically awesome moneymaker idea for you.”
Vic looks up from his
laptop, squints through his old-man glasses at Ma. “Lay it on me,
sweetheart.”
“What would you think
about adding home-baked cornbread to the menu?”
“You mean like in a
Mexican restaurant?” Vic says.
“Except it’s
Italian,” Ma says. “Now how hot is that?”
Vic shrugs. “Let’s
give it a shot.” He nods to his laptop, the news. “This guy got
smashed in a rooftop bar, fell forty feet and lived. How’s it go,
God takes care of kids and drunks?”
“That’s why I drink,”
Ma says.
And act childish, I almost say. Her hair is double
bunned on top of her head. Pink cat’s ears.
“Help me with the
puzzle,” Vic says. “Twelve letters, second’s an n. Antiquated.”
“Anachronistic?” I
say.
“That’s thirteen
letters.”
“Antediluvian?”
“Loser?” Marcy says.
She pulls me into the bathroom.
“Come to Cindi
Nappi’s party with me.” She has about ten pounds of bronzer on,
topped off with a pound of eye glitter, which only accentuates the
fact that her poor eyes are a little too close
together.
“Cindi Nappi? No
thanks.”
“Because she’s like
totally skinny, right?”
“All she does is brag
about her new clothes and complain about boys.”
“And? I swear, Céce
Vaccuccia, you’re like a six-hundredyear-old lady in a cutie-pie
suit. There’s this really hot guy who’s gonna be
there.”
“I already have a
really hot guy, thank you.”
“A hot guy for
me. It isn’t always about you, okay?
That dude Brendan from the east side. You know the one I’m talking
about? His brother’s in the Abercrombie catalog? I heard he might
like me.” She grabs my hands. Her right grip is stronger than her
left. She’s wearing tight sleeves today, and you can really see the
difference: Her left arm is a lot thinner than her right. That
childhood accident—
“You gotta come with
me,” she says. “Please? I need to make it look like I have
friends.”
“Only if I can bring
Mack.”
“What’s it like,
having sex with a criminal?”
“How do you know
we—”
“Oh, Céce,
please.”
This is the ritzy
side of town. People up here have actual backyards, the kind you
see in the movies. Me and Mack are slow dancing by this beautiful
pool. The yard is packed with prep school kids. Cindi Nappi’s mom
is always running for some office or other, and she sends Cindi to
public school to show that she’s One
with the People, like her posters say.
Doesn’t matter that Cindi gets dropped off and picked up in a
limo.
Then again, I don’t
take the bus either. I tell myself I walk for the exercise, but
maybe I’m a snob too, just without the money. A few of them are
here, at the party, the kids from my school. We don’t cluster.
We’re all split off around the yard, like we’re embarrassed of each
other.
If I ever figure out
a gift or talent to write about for the G and T essay, and I rock
the test, I’ll probably get offered a scholarship to go to a
private school, the kind Anthony turned down, but I can’t see
myself at a private either. I can’t see myself anywhere, except
with Mack. It’s starting to drizzle. “You wanna hit
it?”
“Definitely,” Mack
says.
“Let’s grab a drink
on the way out.”
As we head to the bar
the other dudes are staring at him. They’re in designer jeans and
fluorescent tees covered with writing and rhinestones,
two-hundred-dollar sneakers. Mack is regular old Levi’s, white tee,
bin kicks. All the girls are looking at him like they want to eat
him slowly. He doesn’t notice. The girls are giving me you bitch looks. I notice.
Mack pulls a Sprite
from the ice.
“Have a beer, bud,”
this big dude says, holding out a forty to Mack.
“Thanks but I’m
a’right,” Mack says.
“Have one. It’s
cool.”
“Nah, I’m
a’right.”
“You said that
already.”
I frown. I thread
fingers with Mack and nudge him, like let’s
go.
Mack breaks eyes with
the linebacker and turns to me.
We turn to go, but
there’s another linebacker waiting for us. “Where you from,
cowboy?” he says, exaggerating Mack’s slight twang.
I pull Mack toward
the backyard gate.
The first kid slaps a
heavy hand onto Mack’s shoulder. “When’d you get out, Hoss?”
“How’s that?” Mack
says.
I’m gonna kill Marcy.
Why does she have to broadcast everybody else’s business? She even
blogged about it on her slutty MySpace page, My Best Friend Is Sleeping With a Convict
.
“You miss it, right,
buddy? Getting plowed?”
He’s moving too fast
for me to see how he does it, but in less than a second Mack kicks
the first idiot into the pool and flips the second one, a kid twice
Mack’s weight, onto the pool deck. He drives down at the kid’s
throat with his fist.
“Mack!”
He stops, his
knuckles hovering above the kid’s Adam’s apple.
“No, baby.
Please.”
His hand softens. I
grab it and hurry him out. We’re at the street, half the football
team catcalling “Oh Macky,” and
“No, baby, please,” and “Rump ranger.”
He’s wincing, rubbing
the back of his head, behind his ears.
“Is it the static?” I
say. He told me about it last night.
He pulls me into an
alley and holds me by the shoulders and presses into me. He has me
up against the wall. He’s kissing me, my neck. He’s shivering,
whispering into my ear, “Céce, I’m serious crazy in love with you.
I know it’s soo toon—too soon to be saying it, but you don’t have
to know somebody forever to know it’s forever. I just need to let
you know it, because we already done it, and putting a word to it
can only help make it last. You’re my warrant to be here, and I
don’t need anybody or anything else. If I ever lost you I’d just
fade.”
The rain’s coming
down, and I’m unbuckling his belt, and we’re doing it standing up,
in the shadows, in the downpour. He keeps telling me he loves me,
and even after we’re done he’s still saying it, so I know it’s
true.
I want to say it
back. I want to say it so bad, but I’m scared. Not here, in the
alley. We need to be somewhere safe. Someplace where we can keep
our secrets. My house. Tomorrow night. He’s sleeping over. Mack,
me, and Boo.
We hurry to the
train. He rubs the shivers from my shoulders and kisses the
trembling from my lips. We miss our stop. The bus says Out of Service.
The gutters are
overflowing and the streets are shuttling heavy water, and we take
off our sneakers. He doesn’t want me to hurt my feet. He carries me
on his back, and we’re laughing all the way uphill. He’s so tall
and strong. He glides. He carries me to my door and waits until I’m
safe inside. He tells me through the screen door one last time that
he loves me, and then he turns and disappears in the
rain.