already had a bagel at Shelley’s. She tried not to look at Beth. She felt terrible. She concentrated on squirting an equal amount of syrup into every square in the waffle, making a whole neighborhood of identical swimming pools.
“What will you wear if you stay home?” Beth lingers in the doorway with a Swiffer mop.
“I don’t know if I’ll be here.”
“But if you do stay home, what do you think you’ll wear?”
Who would want your dried-up old twat?
“Dani?”
You’re all dried up, you old twat. No one would want to marry you!
Waiting for Dani’s answer, Beth looks so hopeful and wistful and weak, she’s trying so hard, that she seems like Alex. What if Dani yelled something that nasty, while her mother waits, blink-ing and vulnerable? In all their talks they have never discussed her mother’s vagina. It seems excruciatingly personal. And Beth would be devastated about the Sean part. It might be the last nail in the coffin of her mother ever being happy. Dani tries to remember the last three things they said in this conversation. Did she really say “twat” or just think it? She touches her mouth to see if her lips are moving. Please Mom, please, get out of my room. Get out before I say something you don’t want to hear.
“Dani? What’s wrong? Are you listening to me?”
32
T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
“I’d wear this,” Dani says, pointing to her ripped jeans and pink hoodie.
“You don’t want to borrow something of mine?”
“I probably won’t be home.”
“Suit yourself,” Beth says, going off to fine-tune the ambiance for Sean. Dani shuts the door. Finally, she’s gone. Thank God.
Beth calls back from the hallway, “I like that song, Dani. Leave your door open so I can hear you practice.”
33
10
“You were right about something,” Malcolm Pinto tells his father during a break from yard work after school. They relax on lounge chairs on the back patio.
“What?”
“The jockette. You know, the tennis-playing one.”
“Strawberry Shortcake’s friend?”
“Yup. She is definitely a baby dyke.”
Michael smiles. “How do you know for sure?”
“I heard them talking about it.”
Michael peers at Malcolm over his sunglasses. “A lesbian in training.” He takes a gulp from his soda. “Your old man knows the score.”
“I guess so,” Malcolm says. He folds one arm behind his head.
Malcolm’s mom peeks out the door. “The lawn looks perfect,”
she says. “You’re as good as the professionals.”
Each week Malcolm and his father follow the same routine.
They mow, then they trim the hedges and weed along the fence.
Then Malcolm rakes while Michael uses the leaf blower. Mrs.
Pinto talks on the phone while they work. She likes to brag to her friends about what a good crew she has. Afterward, father and son drive along the coast. Michael points at the girls running or Rollerblading along the beaches and breakwaters. “There’s one T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
for ya,” he tells Malcolm, once he’s checked out a girl from both behind and the front. They stop at the beach shack for a burger and shake before heading home.
The work is done. Malcolm and Michael shower quickly and head to the Jeep for their drive. They pass the center of town.
The coastline opens up before them. Malcolm imagines girls like Dani Solomon, Zoe Brightman, and Meghan Dimmock doing a double-take when he enrolls in the academy, and starts running every day along the back shore.
“I wonder if Strawberry Shortcake’s hair is natural,” Malcolm muses.
“There’s one way to be sure,” his father says, grinning behind his shades.
“Look at her roots?” Malcolm guesses.
Michael smiles, taking his eyes off the road. Malcolm sees his reflection in his father’s dark lenses, with wet, comb-marked hair and sunglasses of his own.
“Oh.” Malcolm laughs, at the joke and at his own slowness.
He feels he may never catch up.
35
11
On Wednesday, Dani hesitates at Alex’s front steps. Why
is she getting these pictures and words in her mind? Is she crazy? She’s never been crazy before. She picks brown leaves off Mrs. Alex’s geraniums.
Under the welcome mat is a magazine subscription card that fell out of the mail. She picks it up. She dreads going inside. Now that she’s started worrying about insulting Shelley and her mother, she’s worried the thoughts about hurting Alex will come back.
Mrs. Alex rushes downstairs in scrubs and reptile-print heels.
She grabs her lab coat and waves good-bye to Dani. Dani drops her backpack