“It was good they fixed it when they did. Because otherwise if I knocked into anything it could go straight through to my heart.”
Angel doesn’t remember a scar. She should have noticed something like that. But the truth was that she wasn’t noticing him at all; her memory of that night is just a vague impression of pale boniness, some grateful muttering that made her despise him, and her own pleasure that made her despise herself. She doesn’t remember whether his eyes were open or closed, can’t even remember feeling him above her or inside her. She was noticing herself, her own nudity and her sense of power, as if she were a beneficent fairy bestowing a blessing, or a superhero with a cape saving him from his own pathetic life. The Devirginator. She imagines her costume: slimming black leather, a red satin cape.
It must have been his virginity that attracted her to him in the first place, she thinks, eyeing him. Otherwise she can’t fathom what induced her to set down her beer at that party and lead him to the filthy back bedroom—some man’s surely, a brother or uncle or even the boy throwing the party, unmade bed, the random tangle of video games and electronics, the warm thick animal smell like a ferret’s cage. Certainly she led him. There is no way he would have had the balls to make the move on her. Which is both disturbing and comforting; disturbing because it is Angel’s own fault she got pregnant, comforting because it is her own fault, which makes her feel free somehow, defiant, in charge of her own destiny.
What was she thinking? Look at him: skinny, narrow-chested, and apparently skeletally incomplete, less of a person than a regular person. Through his pale hair, his scalp is spotted with scaly barnacles. The thought of sex with Ryan is incomprehensible and also a little gross, particularly when she considers Lizette, with her beauty and presence and swagger. Angel’s heart stutters.
“You have all your bones!” Ryan tells Connor. He pushes the baby’s kicking legs through the leg holes, does the snaps, one, two, three. Now he lifts him high, their eyes locked on one another’s, Connor shrieking with joy and grasping at the air. “Superbaby!”
Monday morning, Amadeo leans into the dark upholstery of his mother’s car. It’s just after dawn, but he is alert and excited, the plastic toolbox stowed carefully in the trunk. He shaved and dressed in a plaid button-down shirt, and drank three cups of coffee for maximum alertness.
On Saturday, when Amadeo wandered into the kitchen, his mother withdrew her head from the oven, steel wool in hand, and announced, “I got you a customer. Monica’s got a big crack, size of my fist.” She demonstrated, fingers ensconced in yellow rubber gloves.
“Ha,” said Angel from the table, bringing a spoonful of rice cereal to Connor’s mouth. “A big crack.”
“Watch it,” says Amadeo, swatting her with the dish towel.
Amadeo kissed his mother. “Well, you need to work, honey.” As if Amadeo didn’t know that. “You know how busy that Monica is; she’s very important. She can’t just be taking off work to get her car repaired.” Yolanda straightened, pleased. But then she looked at Amadeo sternly. “So you need to be ready to go with me Monday morning.”
“Hell, I’ll be ready.”
“Dang! I’ve got school,” Angel wailed. “I can’t believe I’m missing our first job.”
“Also, hijito,” his mother said, “I said you’d do it for free, but don’t worry, I’ll pay you.”
“Okay,” agreed Amadeo, crestfallen, because he was looking forward to cashing that first check. “I guess word of mouth is the best advertising a business can get.”
“You can’t pay him, Gramma. This is like his training. His internship.”
“I see,” Yolanda said.
Now, she drives, both tense hands gripping the wheel, her face pinched.
“What’s your deal?” Amadeo asks, wounded. “Are you mad at me, Mom?”