Gingerbread (12 page)

This, of course, made me think of Blank, because of (a) the pizza boy's good heart, (b) he was a great loverboy, and (c) did I mention the warm and sultry summer weather that just seduces your skin?

But still, I was good. Gingerbread gave me a look like, Don't do what I know you're thinking about doing, by which she meant, Don't be fooling with my boy Loo-eese. I told her, Don't you worry, it's cool.

I had another plan in mind. A call-by. A call-by is what I call the telephone equivalent of a drive-by, when you're crushing on someone so you figure out a way to drive by their house to see if they're home, if the lights are on, if, oh my goodness you're hanging out on the porch and I just "happened" to be driving by, why don't we go out for coffee or something? Coincidence! Call-by's usually end, however, when you listen to the object of your affection saying, "Hello? Hello? Who is this? Goddamnit, who is this?" and you sigh because you love that person so much and then you hang up. Call-by's, by the way, are not advisable if the person on the receiving end has Caller ID, which I knew for a fact that the recipient of my call-by did not have, or if that person is a chronic '69er (which is an interesting numeric choice on the part of the phone company, in my opinion).

So I picked up that phone and Gingerbread closed her eyes, and the phone went
ring
ring
and my heart went flutter flutter. After six rings I was about to hang up when a voice answered very sharply, "Ya, what?" Java. My lust

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factor shot through the ceiling even though I wanted to ask him, How is you-know-who? Is he okay? Does he miss me like I miss him? Have you fired that incompetent piece of shit Autumn yet?

But my mouth froze and my body grew warm and almost instantly, there was a fire inside me that was going to need to be quenched. I could almost hear the roar of the Ocean Beach surf in the distance and see Java standing in his wet suit on the roof, the cordless at his ear as he stared longingly at the water, hungering for the cold curls.

To the silence, Java said, "Who's there? Hello? Delia, is that you? Listen baby, you know I'm sorry about last night..."

I hung up.

I remembered how Blank's last words to me had been, "And maybe you need some time to figure out your crush on my brother." I looked at my Mickey watch. Seemed to me like that time had come. I looked at Gingerbread and she was giving me that same look she used to give me before I would sneak off to Justin's room to fool around. I took Gingerbread into our bedroom and tucked her in for the night. I whispered in her ear, "Don't worry, I'll be careful." I gave her an eskimo kiss and placed my sleep mask over her eyes so the moonlight would not keep her awake or distracted.

I returned to the living room and called Luis's mobile phone.

"Hey, buddy," I said in this indifferent but kind of sexy way.

"Uh-oh," Luis said. "What, you don't like being home alone on a Saturday night?"

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"Maybe," I said, coy. "Maybe not."

This is how I used to be around Justin. And he actually fell for this, too. Men. I don't get them.

Luis said, "So what do you want me to do about it?" I could hear laughter and music in the background of wherever he was.

I said, "I was thinking of going out clubbing tonight. Got any recommendations for places to go?"

Luis said, "No, you're not! Frank'll kill me!" I think he covered his hand over the phone because there was a pause and what sounded like a voice softly exclaiming, "Fuck!" Then he came back to the phone and said, "What do you say I come over and you and me go get a coffee or some tea?"

"Long Island Iced Tea?" I asked.

Luis said, "NO! I'll be over soon. Man, girl, I took one look at you and knew you were trouble." The tone of his voice was not entirely displeased by that observation. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be over soon."

'"Kay," I said, and hung up.

Her natural psychic abilities must be greater than Sugar Pie's because guess who called exactly when I hung up with Luis? My mother. How does she know when I'm about to score?

"Oh, hi," I said, nervous. Since arriving in New York I had talked to Nancy once, when I was in the car on my way to Frank's from the airport and I had called to tell her I arrived okay. She had promised then she wouldn't call me every two minutes and she had been pretty good about it. She had promised we would give each other "space."

"How are things going, sweetie?" she asked. "Is your

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da...is he...is Frank there?" I don't know what is wrong with people. Nobody knows how to address what Frank and I are.

"No, he went out," I said.

Nancy sighed, of course. "Surprise surprise," she said. "What are you doing now? Are you home alone?"

"Gingerbread and I are watching TV," I said.

Nancy sighed again. "Don't you think it's time for you to give up that doll?"

Silence.

"NO."

"Did I hear you say you're watching TV?"

Silence.

"Yes."

I could hear Ash and Josh in the background screaming and knocking things around.

"I can't hear anything!" Nancy shouted to them.

"I wasn't saying anything," I told her. "You didn't miss anything."

"Well," Nancy said sternly. "We miss you here. You stay out of trouble and if you need anything, call me."

I suppose she was trying to be nice but all I could think about was how she grounded me so I couldn't see the love of my life and how she was responsible for him dumping me. Who was she to tell me to stay out of trouble? She was my trouble.

"Yeah, right," I said. "Say hi to dad and the kids."

"Love you...," she started to say into the phone but I hung up.

So now I was fired up by Java's voice and pissed off by Nancy. I took a shower to try to cool off. No dice. And

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who should swim right into my trouble brew but Loo-eese, arriving all glassy-eyed and somewhat tipsy.

"You're stoned," I told him as he walked in.

He didn't respond to my proclamation but handed me a package of Twizzlers red licorice. "Hungry?" he asked.

"Way," I answered. I could feel my wet hair cascading down the bare part of my back, snaking drops of water down my spine, making me shiver with warmth and excitement.

Luis plopped down on the sofa and said, "So, what's really on your mind?"

I am a get-to-the-point kind of girl so I told him, "I know you have been checking me out since I came here and I have been checking you out too and I think we should do something about it."

Luis looked sad and said, "Can't. You're too young. You're Frank's...you're Frank's... whatever."

"Do whatevers do this?" I put his hand on my hip and leaned in toward him.

Please
let me live my Wallace fantasy out on you,
I thought,
please help me get it out of my system.

"Brazen" was the word the headmaster at boarding school used to describe me.

I straddled Luis on the sofa and kissed his neck. "Please, Luis," I whispered into his ear. "Do me this favor. We don't have to go all the way. I don't want you to like have to go to church and say a million Hail Marys because you had consensual sex with an underage girl. But bases one, two, and three are wide open, so why not take a shot at bat?"

Oh, it felt so nice to kiss a guy again after Alcatraz. He

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did not even pause to consider my proposal, he just pulled me toward him and our lips went right at it. The great thing about making out with someone who is stoned is that it doesn't necessarily have to lead anywhere; neither of us seemed to need it to. It was just all hands and hair and hot breathing, languorous into forever. And let me tell you, those tight biceps and abs felt great to the touch.

I have no idea how long we fooled around, could have been twenty minutes, could have been an hour. The strange part was that for as good as it felt, the whole make-out session made me feel kind of sleazy, too. It was so absent any kind of connection other than lust. I realized the feeling was one I would also experience if I hooked up with Wallace. My longing for Shrimp--say his name loud and proud--increased exponentially the longer I made out with Luis. I wanted kissing-of-the-soul kissing variety, and not of the sleazy entice-a-stud-over-to-your-place variety.

Not like the sleaze factor stopped me from gettin' a little booty from Loo-eese. Let's be real. My hormones were digging it. But then, as his hands were smoothing over my bare thighs under my short skirt and I was running my fingers through his hair and I was wondering if we shouldn't just go for home base after all because why not we were so close already, what should we hear but a door slam and a female voice exclaim, "Well, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Luis and I jumped up, all tussled and guilty, to stand before our accuser.

"Aw shit," Luis said, zipping up the pants my hands had only seconds before unzipped, and tucking his shirt back in. He took his bag of licorice off the coffee table and

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said, "I'm outtie." I don't know which scenario was worse for him: appearing stoned and inebriated or fooling around with the family love child. He scrambled toward the door and muttered, "This family," as he walked out to leave me alone with the monster who was my older sister Rhonda lisBETH.

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Twenty-eight

If Danny was
the shorter, thinner, and happier of Frank, Rhonda lisBETH was surely the Nellie Olson version: beautiful long hair, but pulled back with a preppy headband, framing a face that would be very pretty but for the scowl that looked, from the lines around her eyes and lips, permanently attached to her face. You could tell right away from looking at Rhonda that she only wore clothes she ordered from catalogs of companies in Maine and she was probably never going to meet a love child-sister she liked.

She said, "Cyd Charisse. Do you have a nickname? I can't imagine being called a movie star's name."

"I like my name," I said, then added, "Rhonda."

She demanded, so abruptly I nearly jumped, "Who told you to call me that!"

"Who told you to drop by without calling first?" I answered. I smoothed my hair down and pulled down the ends of my rumpled short skirt, but my heart was racing, as if on attack alert.

"I thought it was about time we met," she said, all huffy.

"Here we are," I said. "We're meeting."

We stood in front of one another staring one another down, like we were preparing for a shootout. I towered over her by a good four inches.

She couldn't stop staring at me. I wondered if my resemblance to Frank tweaked her out. She asked, "Was

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that Luis? I haven't seen Luis for years but I could swear that was him." When I didn't answer, she said, "Daddy will not be happy."

Like what, I'm supposed to be afraid that Frank will ground me? Mister Love Child-Spawning Indiscretion man? Yeah, right. He'd probably applaud me for scoring. Chip off the old block, eh? Wink wink. Whereas Sid-dad would have given me a lecture about ladylike behavior and making sure I respected any boy I dated, and making sure that said boy appreciated and respected me.

"That was a friend of mine," I said. In hip-hop speak, I added, 'Awright?"

Now Rhonda lisBETH was not just mad, she was confused. She answered, in a very slow and clipped manner, 'All right," as if she was correcting my English. Then she kind of sized me up and announced, "So, you're Daddy's little indiscretion."

If she hadn't been so completely nasty, I might have felt bad that she probably had a really unhappy childhood and now spent hours in an overpriced shrink's office working on her anger issues.

I asked, "Have you been tested for Tourette's Syndrome?"

"What are you talking about?"

I let Sugar Pie channel my body and I said all sassy, "Girl, don't trash talk to me. I ain't hearin' it."

My so-called sister got a look of deep offense on her face. She said, "Well, I never!"

"That's right, you never," I said.

She headed toward the door. "I'm not going to stand here and be insulted," she said.

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"You started it," I reminded her. "Who are you to call me 'Daddy's little indiscretion'?"

Maybe Rhonda lisBETH was embarrassed she had behaved so badly, or maybe she was just that p.o.'d, but she walked out and slammed the door behind her. I opened it back and said, "Better luck next time!" as she proceeded toward the elevator.

Then I cuddled into bed with Gingerbread, who told me everything would be okay and that I should be nicer to unhappy people.

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Twenty-nine

Communes are not
meant for families, I suspect. That's why they're communes. You can choose your family if you start your own commune. That's the new rule.

My next commune will be in Greenwich Village. We will wear rainbow flags for clothes, and charm bracelets with pictures of Ann-Margret around our ankles. We will only eat Michelangelo-worthy cakes baked by Danny, and we will dance around to punk rock thrasher music, with subways thundering beneath our floors, making us vibrate with pleasure, but not the sleazy kind.

Our commune will be all beautiful men and me. It will be like that Wonder Woman island in reverse, except we won't have superpowers, although we will all look great and be super strong and we will really dig on our collective philosophy, whenever we figure out what that is.

Since I will be the only girl and since all the boys won't be interested in me in that dangerous way, I will stay out of trouble. I will meditate and figure out ways to get along with the outside species of women who like to get bogged down in petty shit and that's why we had to start our own commune, to get away from them. I won't leave the commune until I'm ready, which could be never.

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Thirty

So there was something called a lunchtime poll taken at the Village Idiots, and in this poll it was decided that I was the Village Idiot
du jour
. According to the poll, I overreacted about Autumn and I jumped to conclusions about Shrimp's relationship with her. According to the poll, I should have trusted my boyfriend more and been a little more secure with myself before accusing him of cheating on me. According to the poll of customers, who I might add were very happy munching away on their quiches and cakes so they had no reason to bitchslap me, I was the wrong party, not the wronged party.