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 Yes. I don t know where yet, though. I m still waiting to
hear.
 So you re a good student. That s cool.
 Pretty good.
 So when can you come over? I m dying to see you.
JOEY 117
" " "
Joey called every night that week. At school I felt newly con-
fident. I breezed by the cheerleaders and the jocks without
looking at their jeering, snotty faces. I didn t care about them.
Joey was part of my life now. Joey who was dying to see me,
Joey who thought I was beautiful, Joey who had nothing to do
with high school, nothing to do with Reston. I thought of Joey
making T-shirts in his apartment which I pictured as Lyle s
basement minus the band equipment waiting for me to get
home from school so he could call me.
 I hope he s not some sort of weird stalker guy who s going
to end up killing you or something, Theresa said at the lunch
table.
 He s not, I said, immediately worrying that he was.
Mike looked over at me like he d just now remembered I
existed, and then he went back to his tuna sandwich. It was all
I could do not to stand up and cheer.
Saturday morning I told Mom I was going to the mall with The-
resa. I had to take a bus and a subway to get to his apartment.
It was my first time going into the city by myself, and I was
excited. Joey had given me careful directions, so I didn t have
any trouble finding his place, but it still took me twice as long
as driving. His apartment was in the basement of a modest brick
town house, in a better part of town than I expected. He had
his own entrance around back. I checked the address in front
and walked back down the driveway, my footsteps louder than
I wanted them to be on the loose gravel.
There were two cars parked in back. One was a green
sedan, and the other was a beat-up brown station wagon that
118 POLLY
looked like it hadn t been started in years. I wondered if one
of these cars was Joey s and, if so, why he hadn t offered to
drive out and pick me up. Not that I was anxious to introduce
a twenty-two-year-old man with dyed red hair and a studded
leather jacket to Mom and William.
I tapped on the door, and a moment later Joey stuck his
neon head out.
 You re late, he said. He was all eyebrows and sharp limbs
and clown hair, and I suddenly felt shy.
 Public transportation is hard to predict, I said.
 That s all right, darlin , he said, putting on a country accent.
 Come on in and put your dawgs up. I m awful glad to see you.
 Thanks, I said. I stepped past him into the apartment.
It was bright outside, so it took a few seconds for my eyes
to adjust to the dimness. Joey guided me past a couple of
large, heavy-looking machines to the far corner of his apart-
ment, which was really just a big, L-shaped room. Against the
wall that made up the shorter part of the L there was a metal
desk. Next to that was a TV, VCR, and stereo stacked on a
shelving system made out of boards and cinder blocks. It looked
like it was about to fall down.
Once my eyes fully adjusted I took in the most interesting
aspect of Joey s apartment. Nearly every inch of wall space was
covered with horror movie posters. There was a black-and-
white still from a movie called The Hills Have Eyes, which showed
a grimacing bald man in profile, brandishing a small knife. The
bald man was wearing a fur vest and a dog collar. On another
poster, for a movie called Deadly Blessing, a woman was stretched
out on her stomach with her eyes closed and her mouth open.
A menacing pair of hands encircled the woman s head. Next to
these were posters for Chamber of Horrors and Dr. Terror s House of
Horrors, among others. I hadn t heard of any of them.
I pointed at a poster for a movie called Horror High, which
featured a skeleton cheerleader in a blond wig and the words
JOEY 119
killer to the left. killer to the right. stand up. sit down.
fright! fright! fright!
 That one s my favorite, I said.
 You ve seen it?
 No. I mean the poster.
 Yeah, I like movies about freaks, he said.   Cause I can
relate.
He let out a high-pitched laugh, and I gave him a polite smile.
My eyes had come to rest on the oversized mattress that took up
most of the floor space. His bedding was strewn around, expos-
ing the bare, yellowish exterior of the mattress here and there.
I lowered myself into the only other place to sit, a faded gray
chair that looked like it might once have been blue.
Instead of stabbing me or wrapping his hands tight around
my neck, Joey produced a Milwaukee s Best from a small re-
frigerator that doubled as a nightstand there was no kitchen
that I could see and I accepted it with relief. He knelt down
on the floor in front of me and tugged on one of my bootlaces
as I opened my beer.
 Are you nervous to be here?
 No, I said. I glanced over at the mattress.  I mean, should
I be?
 Of course not. I just want you to be comfortable is all.
 Your hair seems brighter today, I said.
He shrugged.  I did it last night. I touch it up every month
or so.
Raising my beer to my mouth, I tried to picture him bent
over a bathroom sink, dabbing at his roots. When I took the
can away from my face Joey kissed me, softly, like he had the
first time at the T-shirt table. I inhaled his salty, leathery smell.
He helped me out of the chair and onto the mattress. A few
minutes later I was down to my skirt and bra.
 There s one thing you have to know, I said, moving his
hand off my skirt.  I can t sleep with you. You know, not yet.
120 POLLY
He kissed my chin.  I know, honey, I m not expecting that.
There are other things we can do.
 Like what? I asked. My mother called me honey.
 You know what.
After Joey came I asked him if it was okay for me to smoke.
He got an empty beer can out of the trash and put it on the
floor next to the mattress. I was on my stomach, like the
woman in the Deadly Blessing poster.
 I can t believe you don t have a boyfriend, he said.
I thought about Mike. The thing I missed the most was the
way he used to look at me when I said something funny. Like
there was no one he liked better than me. And how he laughed
at my jokes even when no one else did. Mom said that having
the same sense of humor was one of the most important things
in a relationship.
 I can t believe you don t have a girlfriend, I said.
 And here we are, Joey said.
 Yes. Here we are.
On the way home I thought about Frank, one of Mom s old
boyfriends. Frank had a beefy upper body with comparatively
skinny legs. He was a fireman, and he liked to make jokes about
his name and my mother s:  It s Frank and Fran! he d shout
when they came home from a date to find me and the babysit-
ter waiting for them. On the phone he d say,  It s Mr. Frank,
calling for Miss Fran. At the time I thought he was funny.
Frank brought me a fireman s hat and promised to take me to
the station so I could slide down the pole, but before we had a
chance to go my mother broke up with him.
Mom didn t have very many boyfriends that I remembered,
just Frank and the guy I heard in the hallway and William.
There might have been more. I wondered now what made
Mom break up with Frank. What made Frank not even worth
JOEY 121
dating, but William worth marrying? Was it his sense of humor
or something else? Mom and I didn t talk about those kinds of
things much, but I thought maybe I d ask her.
I knew that when you were older you had to think about
more things when you were dating someone, like whether they
liked your kids or had a good job. Maybe in the end love wasn t
even a factor when you were choosing someone to marry, al-
though Mom and William still held hands in public and kissed
when they got home from work. I knew they loved each other,
but as far as I knew, Mom might have loved Frank, too. She had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]