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Ida sat in the living room and picked her face. She took the small hallway mirror down with its metal circular frame that showed her small circular reflection, and stood it against the window frame in the living room. Then, opening Janet's ugly new curtains only a bit, she let the light in.
The sun was Ida's worst critic. It saw her even worse than she saw herself. It pointed out things she never would have noticed. It was scary, sometimes, to open the curtain. Things were always coming up a surprise.
Ida clapped when she squeezed her face too hard, waiting for the pain to go away. When she was younger, she made a friend from grade school take two handfuls of ice and slap either side of her face. All the tricks Ida knew to divert her one pain always caused another.
Ida always thought she wanted to be home alone more than she actually did. Without Janet to make fun of and her father to bother, there was no one to pick on but herself.
In the living room, her face turned red. She watched the skin that had been fine before turn into a mess. She clapped her hands, then put the mirror back and washed her face. She looked up in the mirror and then went back to the couch.
Ida looked out the window and saw a man coming up the front porch.
She tried to look at his face but he was already in the doorway, ringing the bell, and the wood pillars on the porch blocked her view. She ran to the bathroom and quickly patted her cover-up on. The doorbell rang again.
"Coming," Ida yelled, running to the door in her new gray shoes. She no longer asked her father if she could order shoes for herself, she simply signed his name and bought herself what she wanted. Sometimes she opened her closet just to look at them.
Ida looked through the front door window. The man wore a butcher's bloody apron and a tight T-shirt. He waved at her through the door in a sarcastic way — swift and stiff. It was Kenny D'Ambrosio, and he had come to the wrong place.
Ida opened the door.
"Can I help you?" she said, the way she did when her father went to lunch and she had to wait on the customers.
If I could be inside his head, Ida thought, I would know exactly what to do. I would pick up my ankles and comment on their perfectness. |
Kenny's armpits were half-yellow from old sweat and half-gray from new.
"Where is Janet?" he asked, walking past Ida inside the house without asking.
"Janet!" he yelled up the stairs.
Kenny was sweating. His eyes were wide and blue. When he looked at Ida, he did not see her.
"She's at work," Ida said. "She works all day."
"Ha!" he said. "A fucking working girl!" He lit up a cigarette and held out the pack to Ida. She took one and he lit it for her, cupping the flame with his hand like there was wind.
Ida tried not to look at the scars on his arms. They had been covered with a tattoo on the inside of each wrist. One was a gun shooting out of an American flag and the other said "D'Ambrosio and Sons" with a roasted pig below in the outline of a heart inside another pig in the outline of a heart.
Ida sat down on the couch and put an ashtray out on the table from the drawer.
"Thanks," she said. Kenny was in her house and she was not scared. She knew what was next. She realized that she had no idea when Janet got out of work, and when she did not work at all.
She sat on the couch in the living room where the slats of sun made their smoke look delicate and complex.
Kenny sat down next to her and put his head in his hands, "I went yesterday to wait for her outside Berdick's. She sent me a note to meet her there, and then she didn't show."
He looked up and took a drag of his cigarette. Ida looked at the veins in his upper arms and wanted to touch them.
If I could be inside his head, Ida thought, I would know exactly what to do. I would pick up my ankles and comment on their perfectness, then kiss the bone on the inside, gently pulling up each perfect toe.
Kenny looked at Ida.
"What?" he asked. "I guess I shouldn't tell you any of this." He laughed, "What are you, her fucking step-daughter?"
He laughed again and took out a flask that he drank from and then gave to Ida, who drank too. The taste was bad but the cigarettes made it better.
"I guess so," she said. "Don't worry, though. I won't tell anyone you were here."
"Like I give a shit. She's the fucking whore. Trying to get me back while she's still married to the old man. Fucking Jew!" he said, making a mean face that did not suit him. She
"Look at your thick hair," he said, putting it up to his nose and moving closer, "It smells so good." |
had not known he could be mean.
He looked at Ida, whose face must have shown all these things.
"Sorry," he said, leaning back on the couch, "I'm fucking sorry," he said, looking at her, "I'm just mad. Really. I'm sad," he said, putting his hands over his eyes.
Ida did not know what to say.
"Do you forgive me?" he asked.
"I know it's not your fault."
Because it was Ida's fault, she forgave him for calling her father a "fucking Jew." Because he took her hand then, and traced the veins, she forgave him. Because he put out his own cigarette, and then pulled the cigarette from her mouth and took a puff from it, she no longer cared. Because he put her cigarette out and unclipped her dark brown hair, she would let him call her father anything.
"Look at your thick hair," he said, putting it up to his nose and moving closer, "It smells so good."
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