Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,245

everyone starts dancing, even Mr. and Mrs. Cirillo. When Christine dances, her pool-damp hair swings, and all the kids come to see. In the neighborhood, she is the one to emulate. She is defiant in her contentedness, outward about having accepted the small circumstances of a small life. As with a priest who has actually done some living, there is a dangerous intelligence to her limited aspirations that makes her behavior especially worth the watch.

Rob takes my arm and draws me close; we dance too. It’s good to dance on the city streets in summer, the narrowness of the road and the expanse of the sky, the heat bleeding up through your thin shoes.

You’re the only girl my heart beats for.

How I wish that you were mine.

Three cars slither up the street in a lights-on procession, and the dancing ends. There is a conversion back to the sweeping contagion of real time—people breaking apart, fixing clothes and hair. Rob’s mother steps to the darkened rear window of the first car.

“Late as usual, Tudi. Everything’s ice-cold.”

Uncle Tudi creaks out to kiss her, and over her shoulder, through the inky rounds of his jumbo sunglasses, he eyes me in Rob’s arms.

He says to Rob, “You ready to head out?”

Rob says, “Yeah, I’m ready. You ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. I been ready.”

“What do you mean you’ve been ready?” Rob releases me. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

“You wanna stand around all night and discuss technicalities?” Tudi asks.

“Shit no. Let’s go.”

“All right, then, let’s go.”

What I feel at that moment is a start, an ignition, a sense that what is happening belongs less to what has preceded it than to what is yet to unfold. Rob discharges me to Lorraine, who is somewhere behind me, calling my name. It sounds like calling a child through an open window: sweet, faraway—Eveline. Ray Peña’s powder-blue Lincoln pulls up readily, like it’s been idling nearby, and Rob and Joey get in, kind of getting vacuumed down or going fast-motion in reverse. They take off, and when they make a right at the end of the street, I see Rob’s forearm hanging out the window, striking against the door frame. It has a warlike look, and in my stomach I get a sick feeling. It’s not usual for him to reveal himself.

Christine, Lorraine, and I arrive at an auditorium somewhere on the Jersey shore, a decrepit building with a grand, tame face like that of a former picture palace. There are lots of people arriving. The look of them rushing to get in is anarchical—oblivious and opportunistic and everywhere at once, like rats shooting through dumpsters. We drive past twice looking for a place to park.

An empty ticket kiosk in the center of the clamshelled entrance is filled with framed memorabilia from the fifties and sixties of performers like Sammy Kaye at Point Pleasant and Fred Waring in Ocean Grove. There is a vintage Drink Coca-Cola sign and a Pokerarcade mini-marquee. Christine stops to find her reflection and apply lipstick. It amazes me how like Rob she is. Her lack of shame is somehow forward-reaching and mature. While most of us linger reticently on the sill of adaptation, she is already over and on the other side, surviving just fine.

She pats my waist. “Don’t look so glum, kid. It’ll be over before you know it.”

Through a set of double doors leading to the main arena, through the congestion of the crowd, I see the glow of the preliminary fight. This is the first thing I notice, the location of the glow, which is the location of the ring. The girls cut in through the right. I follow.

Mark is in the center of the auditorium, surrounded by people. Everyone he knows is there—Richard, his boss, and Richard’s fiancée, Mia; Brett; Anselm; Miles and Paige; Jonathan and Alicia; Marguerite, his shopaholic lawyer friend; Dara; that guy Swoosey Schicks; cousins and co-workers and guys from the pit whom I’ve never met. I can tell they’re from the pit by the pens in their pockets.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it to Rob’s parents’ house,” Mark says, pulling me from Lorraine, helping me down the aisle, giving me a kiss. “I was leading the convoy. Twelve cars!”

He passes me to Jonathan and Alicia. Alicia takes my hand, squeezing tightly. Lorraine is about ten feet behind me. She smiles before heading in another direction, as if to say, Sorry, but what am I gonna do? She shouldn’t feel sorry. I’m used to it. Everyone does what