up on Route 40 and Rita was dead tired, but she made sure to go down on him. Twice. Her hair was coated with grease and salt from his popcorn when she finally pulled her head from his lap. The people in the next car gave her a dirty look. They had a bunch of pajamaed kids with them. So what? It was an R-rated movie about two teenagers trying to lose their virginity. Those righteous parents were the creeps, bringing their kids to something like that.
She wonders if Mickey has gone all the way yet. She thinks not. She doesn’t want her to, of course, although Rita was only sixteen when she did it the first time, and girls grow up faster now. Still, Mickey needs a boyfriend, someone to distract her so she wouldn’t be in the apartment all the time, sneaking up on Rita and Larry. Maybe Rita should take Mickey to her doctor, get her on the pill? Or an IUD, like she uses, because she smokes. Does Mickey smoke? Does she use drugs? Rita won’t let her get away with that, even if it does make her a hypocrite. Does Mickey know she uses on occasion? Used. Probably, the kid doesn’t miss a trick. Look at her, standing there, staring. Who is she to judge Rita? It might look bad, leaving Rick, taking up with Larry so fast, but if only Mickey knew the whole story. Rita isn’t taking a family apart, she’s putting one together. The girl should be kissing her feet with gratitude.
“I’m going to go outside,” Mickey says. “Look around.”
“You get all your stuff unpacked?”
A pause. She’s actually thinking about whether to lie to her. The thing that kills Rita is that Mickey wants Rita to see her thinking about lying. “I’ve done enough,” she says. “For now.”
“You did a shit job packing my glasses,” Rita says.
“Maybe you should have packed them. I guess you were too busy.”
She puts a lot of spin on
“Yeah, I was busy. Busy working every night, so you can have food and clothes and a roof over your head.”
“Yes,” Mickey says, looking upward. “And what a roof it is.”
Rita raises a hand, her temper roaring back, even as Larry says, “Ladies, ladies.” Larry doesn’t like conflict. She better keep it in check if she wants to keep him, not let Mickey get a rise out of her. She wonders if Mickey understands this, if she’s baiting her mother to make her look bad in front of Larry.
Joey bellows from the bedroom, waking up from his nap. Rita’s policy is that if he takes a nap at nursery school, he sure as hell is going to take one at home. But he never goes down without a fight.
“Go get your brother,” she tells Mickey.
“I was going to-”
“Get your brother. Your stepfather and I have to-wash the sheets.”
“He’s not my stepfather,” Mickey says, and Rita can’t be sure, but she thinks Larry nods.
“Get your brother,” she says.
“Half brother,” Mickey says. She always has to have the last word.
As soon as Mickey leaves the room, Rita grabs the laundry basket and a random selection of clothes, doesn’t even bother with detergent.
“Why do I-” Larry starts, and she gives his crotch a quick squeeze. “You’ll like it,” she whispers. “Doing laundry is good clean fun.”
They can’t lock the door as it turns out, but they close it and start out standing. No one’s coming through that door unless they’re determined to push 250 pounds of human aside. But Rita doesn’t want to finish that way. It’s too tempting for her to press herself against the rattling washer, full of someone else’s clothes, Larry behind her, vibrating all over. She has to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep her pleasure to herself, and even Larry, expert at stifling his own cries, has to bite her shoulder to muffle his groans. He breaks the skin, although he doesn’t draw blood. She thinks she hears someone start to open the door, only to retreat.
Back in the apartment, little Joey is running around naked, screaming at the top of his lungs, and Mickey’s just watching him, no expression on her face.
“Nake! Nake!” he screams. “I’m nake.” It’s the word he used as a toddler. He knows it’s funny.
“What the hell, Mickey?”
“He took his clothes off,” she says with a shrug. “I can’t help it if he’s retarded.”
“Don’t call your brother retarded.”
“Look at that little thing,” Larry says. “No resemblance there.”
Rita shoots him a look.
“Nake! Nake! I’m nake!” Joey screams.
“Retard,” Mickey says under her breath, but she’s smiling. They’re all smiling. Rita wonders if it would be wrong to start calling Joey by his middle name, which happens to be Lawrence.
Chapter Twenty-one
T im stands outside his house, watching the participants gather for the Fourth of July parade. He tries not to take it personally, that his one-block street, Sekots Lane, is used as a staging area for the annual parade, but he can’t help feeling slighted. Sekots has always felt like an annex to the real neighborhood, some orphan street that got tacked on by mistake. Sekots dead-ends into a hill where children sledded once, but the Dickeyville Garden Club planted it aggressively, hoping to block out the view of the Wakefield Apartments above them. Seemed ridiculous at the time, all those little saplings, but trees grow, and the club’s objective has been achieved. Tim remembers when those trees were smaller than his boys.
It’s been years since his family was home for this parade. Even through last year, with his work life on and off, they were able to take their usual week in Ocean City. They always go to an old-fashioned rooming house that Tim’s family stayed in when he was a boy. It’s not fancy. In fact, it’s downright crummy, but what’s the point of spending dough on a place where you only come to shake sand out of your suit and hang wet towels over the railings. The location is prime, two blocks from the beach, within walking distance of the attractions along the boardwalk, where they spent almost every evening. Last summer, it broke Go-Go’s heart when he just missed the height cutoff for the bumper cars. Tim pleaded, even tried to slip the attendant a fiver. Go-Go threw a tantrum, not entirely out of character for him, although it struck Tim as particularly violent and out of control. Last summer-no, Tim tells himself. It hadn’t happened yet. It was only the one time. Go-Go said it was the only time he was ever in that old bastard’s cabin.
No shore this summer, even though Tim is back to work. He has a gig at Tuerkes, which sells luggage and leather goods. Not doing the books, but working the floor as a sales associate. He likes it, sort of. He actually has to dress better than he did when he was working in accounting, and he enjoys the store’s deep leathery smell, the company of the other guys. They’re young, blow-dried. They go to discos and come in after the weekends, talking about the pussy they get, claiming a girl’s drink preference tells you everything about her, whether it’s a Wallbanger
