96
PAR.TISAN R.EVIEW
I laughed, waved the locket in front of her face then snatched it
away before she could grab it. Then, just as the key turned in the lock, I
said, "Have it, stupid," and smashed the locket to the £1oor. It sprung
open and skidded under the couch . Jeanie fell to her knees after it and,
as the door opened, I wheeled around and ran, as fast as I could , back
through the kitchen to my father's house.
I double locked the doors behind me and collapsed against them,
gasping for breath. A giggle rose in my throat, then another, until I was
laughing, long peals of laughter that made my eyes water and my sides
hurt.
Ricky came out of the kitchen, a carton of milk in his hand.
"What's with you?" he asked. "Did the slime get you?"
"The slime" was his name for Jeanie. I straightened up, pushed the
hair out of my face. "She loves you," I said. "She wants to be your
girl–
friend."
Ricky's lips curled in disgust. He turned away and chugged milk
right out of the carton.
"Rhoda hates it when you do that," I said.
"So?" Ricky shrugged. "How's she going to find out?"
I almost said, "Because
I'll
tell her," but he knew I wouldn't.
I followed him back to the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich. Ricky cocked his heels against the rungs of his chair -
another thing Rhoda hated - and hunched over the sports section of the
newspaper. [ pulled the crusts off my sandwich and rolled them into a
ball. "Jeanie doesn't have a father, does she?" I said.
Ricky didn't even look up. "Everybody has a father, stupid."
"I mean, she doesn't really have a father, does she?"
"Who cares?" He turned the page.
What if I was wrong and Jeanie
did
have a father? What if she had a
handsome, rich father hidden somewhere? Someone
to
come and take
her places whenever she wanted, to buy her things, and to pay attention
to her. To scoop her up in his arms in the evening when he came home
from work.
I thought about Jeanie. About her dirty fingernails. About the scab
on her elbow that she picked at until the bright red blood bubbled up.
No. It was impossible. She was lying. Her father was dead or gone.
Either way, he had nothing to do with her.
I scraped the rest of my sandwich into the trash and washed my
plate. Then I talked Ricky into a game of Monopoly. For the rest of
the day the house was still, no sounds except for the dice clattering
against the kitchen table and Ricky's gleeful shouts when I landed on
Boardwalk. By the time our f:lther came home, I was in debt for over
