by Brent, Cora
Eventually Marco and Tom returned to the backyard. Cindy hissed something obscene at her husband and shoved the long metal barbecue flipper into his soft belly. He only shook his head and turned away as she stormed across the yard to retrieve her baby.
“Sorry, Angie,” she said, hauling the child into her arms.
“It’s all right. We’ve been having a nice time. What’s her name?”
Cindy smiled briefly as she looked at her hiccoughing daughter. “Alice.” Her smile faded. “Tom thought after two girls third time would be the charm and we could finally put the stem on the apple. But no.” She sighed. “I warned him this time we were gonna wait at least two years before trying again or I might lose my goddamn mind.”
“Oh,” I said, standing and brushing the grass off my behind and feeling a little embarrassed for the misfortunes of formerly pretty little Cindy Page. I touched the baby’s back. “She’s beautiful,” I said softly.
Cindy smiled at me gratefully. “She is, isn’t she.”
As Cindy walked away I searched out Marco. He appeared to be listening to Tom Hennessy who waved the burger spatula around and talked excitedly about god only knew what. But Marco’s brown eyes were fixed firmly on me. He did not flinch as I stared back at him nor did he betray the slightest hint of emotion. And even if someone offered me a million dollar prize I could not have said with any confidence what Marco Bendetti was thinking.
The harsh sound of Van Halen had been drifting across the yard over the chatter of the crowd. Laura McCaffrey, a ditzy, bucktoothed girl who had grown into a ditzy, bucktoothed woman switched the tape out in the boom box which had been blasting music from a picnic table.
A moment later the peppy music of The Go-Gos filled the air and I felt as if I was at one of the high school parties I had never actually attended. I spotted Keith French standing in the shade of a crab apple tree. He held his youngest son in one hand and a beer in another, watching his wife from ten feet away as she squealed and began waving her arms around in tipsy idiocy.
Krista ran over to where Marco idled next to Tom Hennessy. She clutched his arm, whispering in his ear and he looked at her with some alarm, backing away a few inches and glancing at Keith, who seemed distinctly unamused.
Belinda Carlisle began singing ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ and I’d heard it all before, seen it all before. Krista and Marco never had what you’d call a relationship but they’d had something…
***
It was a few weeks before the start of senior year. My dad always frowned when I blasted music in the store but it was my birthday and anyway he’d headed down the street to Kaminski’s to speak to my uncle. So I popped The Go-Gos into the tape deck and began singing along as I scrubbed the crusted syrup from the soda fountain.
I heard the roar of the motorcycle over the music. Those deep engines were a familiar sound in CPV. Get a whole pack of them together, riding down Main Street, and the chorus was deafening. But as I paused and looked out the window toward the sound I grimaced. It was only Marco Bendetti. He had parked on the sidewalk again with Krista teetering on the back of his bike. She tossed her blond hair, clapped her hands and laughed as he wrapped his hands around her waist, hoisting her up as if she were a doll.
Krista wrapped her legs around him and for a terrible moment the two of them made out like crazy with Krista’s Calvin Klein ass pressed against the window. I gaped and dropped the wet towel I was holding. Marco came up for air and looked into the glass. I thought he saw me staring but he only ran a hand through his wavy hair and I realized he was just admiring his reflection.
“Don’t come in, please please,” I quietly begged to no one. And no one listened.
Krista burst through the door in a fit of giggles. Spotting me, she opened her arms. “Happy Birthday, sweet cousin,” she said, folding me into a phony hug.
“Thanks,” I muttered and retrieved the towel from the floor.
Marco grinned at me and pointed a finger. “Your mom,” he said, “always brought the most awesome cupcakes to school for your birthday. Had fancy colored icing and shit.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They did.”
“How come she doesn’t do that anymore?”
I sighed witheringly. “Because we’re in high school, Marco.”
Krista ran a pink-polished nail over Marco’s chest. “We’ll all be over for cake later, Angela. I helped Mom pick out your present.”
My Aunt Becky was in the habit of gifting me with clothes which encouraged me to lose twenty pounds. It was humiliating. “I can’t wait,” I sighed.
“Hey,” piped up Marco, “am I invited for cake?”
Krista poked him in the chest. “Ah, no. My folks would go freaking ballistic that you’re around again. They think you’re a shitty influence.”
Marco laughed as Krista’s manicured hand traveled underneath his shirt. “Imagine that.”
Then they kissed so long and so deep I wondered if their teeth had become cemented together.
Krista broke the kiss and slapped him playfully. “You messed up my lip gloss,” she pouted.
Marco rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Angie, I’m gonna use the bathroom to freshen up from this savage, okay?”
“Fine. You know where it is.”
Krista blew a kiss to her beloved and bounced to the rear of the store, glancing back happily. She was a fool, I thought, messing around with Marco again. Marco Bendetti didn’t have girlfriends; he just had girls.
I returned to scrubbing the soda fountain, very aware that Marco was watching me from four feet away. He plucked a paper cup from the top of the stack and began filling it with Sprite. He filled the cup to the brim, yanking it away from the fountain just as it was about to overflow.
“So,” he said. “What do you hear from Tony?”
I straightened the stack of straws. “Not much,” I admitted.
Marco stared at the fizzing contents of his cup and then set it on the counter. And though it would have been easy enough for him to move a few inches past me, he chose to reach the long way around to grab a lid, his shirt grazing my chest.
I felt myself getting hot in the face. “So, you plan on paying for that?”
Marco withdrew a five dollar bill and held it between his fingers, several inches above my head. I would have had to grab for it. I refused, waiting. Finally he chuckled and pressed the bill into my palm. “Keep the change, Angela.”
Krista emerged and leapt back into Marco’s arms, tilting her face up to meet his sloppy kiss. She jumped on his back in the most obnoxious way and they headed for the exit.
“Happy Birthday, Angie!” Marco called as Krista waved from her piggyback position.
Outside, Marco took a long drink from the cup and then threw the whole thing in the street before climbing onto his bike and revving the engine. Krista eagerly settled in behind him and he swiveled his head around to play another round of tonsil hockey. I saw tongues and turned away in disgust, grabbing a broom to sweep the floor.
“One more year,” I told myself over and over to the beat of the broom’s strokes. One more year and I would be out of Cross Point Village, one way or another. One more year and I could escape the Marcos and the Kristas and all the narrowness of life they represented. Hell, they could squat down marry each other for all I cared and spend the next handful of decades musing about the people they thought they were. One more year and I would be free of it all. For good.
***
There was a pause in the music and I struggled to shake off old memories. Marco was headed in my direction with a plate of food. Krista watched him go with open irritation as Keith reached her side and began gesturing in an unpleasant manner. She glared at him, grabbed the baby out of his arms, and stalked toward the front yard.
“Thanks” I said as Marco passed me a hamburger, though I wasn’t hungry at all.
“You okay?” he asked, settling on the grass.
“Yeah,” I answered vaguely.
“You want to go?”
“Yeah.”
Marco took a large bite of hamburger and chewed slowly. When he finally swallowed he said, “What’s wrong, Angela?” But his voice betrayed impatience, as if he already knew exactly what was wrong and didn’t want to hear about it.
“Nothing,” I sighed, sitting next to him and resting my head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, we should stay.”
People wandered past us, some stopping and chatting for a bit before moving on. Gradually the light began to fade and as Tom Hennessy and his three older brothers began making noise about moving over to the high school to begin setting up the fireworks, I noticed Keith French. He was standing unhappily under the crab apple tree with his arms crossed, staring straight at Marco with an unfriendly air. Krista had not returned to the party.
Marco didn’t seem to notice. “I guess we’re moving on,” he nudged me.
Cross Point Village High School was right around the corner from Oak Street. The chain link fence circling the campus was broken in various places I could tell even in the dark that the athletic field was in sorry shape. A solid percentage of the town had already staked out places on the grass. Back in the days of parades and other formalities my father would have made a speech. The feeble CPVHS marching band would have squeezed a few desultory John Philip Sousa songs. Now, no one bothered. I watched a handful of high school kids pass around a bottle in plain sight and then wander off around the corner of the building.
Lightning flashed in the western corner of the sky and the sharp ozone scent of nearby rain hung in the air. As the Hennessy boys began to confusedly sort through their pile of fireworks I searched the sprawling crowd for my parents. I did not see them.
There was a steady stream of cursing and arguing as the men tried to figure out what was what. Wryly I thought about how alcohol and projectile fireworks was not a wise mix. However, Alvin Hennessy was the police chief and two of his sons were on what remained of the anemic Cross Point Village police force so wisdom was malleable in this case.
Marco’s hand reached under my hair and began to lazily massage my neck. It was a sweet gesture of familiarity and I turned around, hugging him around the waist and planting a light kiss at his throat.
“Hey,” I whispered, taking his hand. “Come on.”
The bleachers had been rickety years earlier; now they were positively unsound. We waded through thick stems of unchecked dandelions as Marco looked around doubtfully. He started to speak but I silenced him with my mouth, sinking into a long kiss and letting my hands roam over his chest, and lower.
“What is it?” I asked as he broke the kiss and stared toward the school.
He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said and pulled me into a close embrace.
I fitted my body against his and listened to his heartbeat quicken. With one hand I reached down and began stroking him. He made a strangled noise and wound his fingers through my unruly hair, pulling back hard and forcing me to look in his eyes. A few raindrops hit my forehead.
“Angela,” Marco started to say.
“You son of a bitch!” The voice was female and full of weary pain.
“Cindy, quit acting fucking crazy.”
Cindy Hennessy rounded the corner of the bleachers, carrying one child and holding another by the hand as a third little girl, the oldest, trailed slowly behind. Cindy gasped out short sobs. “Goddammit Tom,” she moaned as her husband caught up to her and grabbed her roughly by the arm.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed and I saw a few heads swivel around to observe the spectacle.
Tom held his hands up in mock surrender. Slowly he lowered them, his voice thick. “What the hell do you want me to do? I can’t exactly take it back. God knows where that guy is by now.”
Cindy stopped and pressed her face against the baby’s cheek as the little girls at her side watched their parents with solemn expectation. Tom patted one of them on the head and slowly approached his wife. “Come on, we always manage.”
She coughed painfully. “That’s great, you have your fucking dream car and we can’t pay our mortgage.”
“Cindy,” he touched her.
She ripped her arm away. “No! You SHIT, Tom. YOU SHIT!” She stalked off with the baby as Tom stared after her bleakly. As the rain started to fall more steadily he picked up a small daughter in each arm and headed back to the field.
They hadn’t noticed us standing close by under the tent of the bleachers. Marco tiredly brushed a hand across his forehead and leaned on the rickety metal casing, staring dismally into the dispersing crowd as the first claps of thunder sounded.
“You want to go talk to him?” I asked, feeling a little sick to my stomach.
He shook his head. “None of my business,” he said softly.
I listened to rain pinging on metal, trying to erase the grim exhibition from my mind. It had nothing to do with me.
It was only the sum of the unspoken fears I’d nursed as I came of age in this place. Back then I couldn’t put a name to what I needed to escape from. I only knew that I needed to escape it, that otherwise it would suck me in turn me into a sad-eyed woman dreaming of all the things I would never have out there in the world outside Cross Point Village.
“Where’d you leave your car?” Marco asked me, as the rain began to fall more heavily. There was a lot of squealing as people began running for cover. The summer storm was mild, but it was enough. There would be no fireworks tonight.
“Main Street,” I answered as he pulled me along, walking quickly.
As I fished around for my keys Marco stared silently toward the town square. Some long-haired delinquent hoisted himself up on the cannon, issued a wild rebel yell and then jumped off.
“You coming?” I asked, opening the driver’s side door.
He shook his head slowly, still staring at the deserted cannon. “Nah, I’ve got some stuff to do down at the bar.”
“Yeah, I should probably spend a few hours with the folks tonight anyway.” I looked down at my hands as they twisted around the key ring. “You know,” I said softly, “Boston isn’t that far.”
He laughed lightly. “It’s on the other side of the state, Angie.”
“So? What’s a few hours of open road?” But I already knew. It was everything. “Hey,” I laughed weakly, “I don’t even have your phone number.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Come again?”
Marco shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “I didn’t see any reason to keep the line in the house.” He finally met my gaze straight on. “If people need to get ahold of me they can call the bar.”
“And what about when you’re not there?”
“Then I guess they don’t really need to find me.”
I closed my eyes briefly. I felt like crying. I shouldn’t. I was the one who was leaving. “So that’s it, huh?”
Marco pulled me toward him. “No,” he said with a soft kiss. “How about I come by in the morning and take you out to breakfast?”
The thought was painful. Breakfast would be a civil and awkward affair. And ultimately we would say goodbye anyway. “All right,” I said.
I got into the car and rolled down the window. Marco leaned down, grinning in that old arrogant way. It made me absurdly furious.
He waved. “Bye.”
I started the car, rolling the window back up to avoid letting anymore rain in. “Bye,” I whispered, watching him as he walked away, wondering if I would jump out of the car and into his arms if he would only turn around and glance back one last time. He didn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY
My mother was worried. “But why do you want to leave so early?”
I shrugged, trying to seem upbeat. “Just eager to get home, I guess.”
In fact I’d lain awake for hours, thinking nothing, listening to the morose play of raindrops falling onto the decorative milk can outside my window. And then, eventually, to the familiar growl of a motorcycle as Marco pulled quiet
ly into his driveway. I had rolled over, facing the wall, and fallen into a dreamless sleep.
The sad concern of my mother was almost more than I could bear as I carelessly shoved belongings into my suitcase, struggling with the zipper. Although I was leaving with the same belongings I had arrived with, my luggage was being uncooperative. I swore and sat on the top, jerking the zipper until it was within four inches of closing and then the end broke off in my hand. I tossed it on the floor.
My mother tucked the bedspread in. “Did you tell him?”
“He knows I’m leaving today.”
“I see.” She didn’t need to articulate her disapproval. She knew me for a coward. But how could I explain it to her? Grace Durant had been born in this town and she would die here. Her prince had carried her off at a young age and she’d never suffered all the afflictions of lust and yearning and insecurity. There aren’t many people who get everything they ever wanted and I supposed I ought to just be grateful that I wasn’t Cindy Page or Shannon Cortez. That I had a Boston to get back to. A life to get back to.
If only I could stop thinking about the sound of Marco’s heart pounding underneath my ear or the feel of his skin. The way he entered me with fury and possession. The soft manner in which he said my name as if I both perplexed and excited him.
My father waited in the hall. He reached to take my suitcase but I stubbornly held it by my side. Our conversations had been rather nonexistent since the garden episode.
Outside the day was gray and dreary. Polaris Lane lay sleeping under a hazy cloud. I brushed a few wet maple leaves from the windshield of my BMW and avoided looking across the street.
My parents stood at the curb, my mother shivering slightly in her thin robe as my father automatically put an arm around her.
“Well,” I said, closing the trunk. “Take care, you guys.”
My mother hugged me tight as my father gazed at me sadly.
“Angie,” he said. “Forgive an old man.”
“Of course Daddy,” I told him, planting a kiss on his dry cheek. And I did forgive him. But the words he’d spoken in anger were still there. They couldn’t quite be forgotten.
