Angel peers at her face in the dresser mirror. She got all-new makeup for tonight: foundation, lipstick, eyeliner. The purchases are technically Wants-Not-Needs, a designation Brianna kept harping on during their budgeting unit, but, looked at in another light, they are needs. Angel needs to feel put together. Angel needs to look and feel like an adult. Angel rubs the foundation along her jawline and down her throat, trying to blend it, which is a technique she read about in Seventeen when she was in middle school. It’s a little dark. And she’s still fat, obviously. But she’s pretty! She’s okay-pretty, anyway.
Angel is generally not impressed with good looks; god knows good looks haven’t gotten her mother anywhere, though Marissa still seems to think her beauty should qualify her for something the world is withholding. When they watch TV, Marissa can’t even enjoy the storylines, she’s so busy evaluating the faces. “I’m prettier than her,” she’ll say with dissatisfaction. Her mother should know that she’s old now, thirty-one, and it’s pathetic to still be waiting around to be plucked up into some romantic story.
She’s going to see her mother tonight, unless Marissa blows it off, and the thought makes Angel so anxious her stomach flops. She thinks of Mike, his hands on her throat. Her mother asked Mike to move out, which is exactly what Angel wanted, yet Angel is still angry with her, and she isn’t entirely sure why.
We are fam-i-ly! asserts her cell phone. Connor stops screeching and listens, frowning at the ceiling, so she lets the phone go for a second longer. The Sister Sledge ringtone is the only ringtone she ever hears nowadays. Her father. A flare of exasperation bursts behind her sternum, because they are due to leave for Espa?ola in five minutes.
“Where are you, Dad? We got to be going.”
“Chillax,” he says, to drive her nuts. “I’m outside. I got something to show you in the truck.” Sound of tapping at her window, and there is her father, waving like a goof.
“We don’t have time,” Angel says into the phone, eyes on him. “I can’t be late for this.”
“Just come outside.”
“Fine.” Angel drops her phone into her purse and hooks it and the diaper bag over a shoulder. There’s already a rut pressed into the muscle there that Angel fears might be permanent. She straightens and gives the mirror one more determined grin. “Let’s go, baby.” When she swings Connor up, he lets out a delighted cackle that makes Angel laugh, too.
Her father looks surprisingly nice, standing beside the truck he is no longer allowed drive. He’s got on a striped polo and khakis and his good work boots. And cologne, Angel discovers as she approaches. She feels a pang of remorse for snapping at him. And then she has the thought that slithers through her awareness whenever they’re alone now, that if her father wanted to, he could strangle her. The thought leaves her feeling disgusting and guilty.
“What’s up?” She jostles Connor. “You two are dressed the same. Ready for a day on the links.”
Her father glances into the truck, then steps aside, rubbing his hands nervously. There, hogging most of the narrow back bench seat and sporting a confusing network of straps and buckles and clasps, is a brand-new infant safety seat. It’s as opulent as a throne, all molded plastic and velvety plush cushions, and it is exactly what Angel wanted.
She feels her blood thicken with the sweetness of the gesture. “What’d you do with Valerie’s?” she asks dumbly.
Amadeo jerks his thumb at the road, where the nasty old car seat sits forlorn beside the green plastic garbage bin.
“It’s a Graco. One of the best rated. Not the best rated, ’cause that one was like five hundred dollars, but it was in the top three.” He scuffs the gravel. “I put it in backwards; did you know you’re supposed to put them in backwards when they’re little? The lady told me.”
Angel nods. The old one was also backward, she nearly says, which he’d know if he’d ever buckled Connor into the car. Or even bothered to look in the backseat. She shifts Connor to her other hip and places her palm against the velour where he will go. The seat is upholstered in sophisticated gray, as though designed for a business-class traveler. There’s even a matching curved neck pillow to nestle around his floppy head.