A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [47]
“I can’t.” She tried to pull back, but he held on to her arm.
“C’mere, kitty-kitty-kitty,” he said through pursed lips. “That’s whachoo remind me of.” His huge body engulfed hers, pressing her against the plate glass. He smelled of butts and beer and musky cologne. The whites of his eyes were glazed and yellow, his nose and chin raw with zits.
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t do that.” She whipped her head from side to side.
“Come on, come on, come on, just one time, one little kiss and that’ll be it, I promise.”
“No! Leave me alone!” She butted her head into his shoulder.
He laughed. “I got what she needs. That’s why she keeps calling, right?”
“She didn’t call you.”
“Same thing. I get the messages. Ronnie, he had to go someplace.” He squeezed her chin in the cup of his warm, puffy hand.
“So when’s he coming back?” She pushed his hand away.
He smiled. “Too late for Marvella. By then she’ll be long gone. But here, feel.” He guided her hand down his leg. “Right here in my pocket.”
“How much? I only got a few bucks.”
“One nice kiss and it’s free, that’s all.”
“I got ten bucks.” The other eight she needed for food.
“That ain’t enough.”
“Yes, it is! Ten—I got enough for a rock.”
“Not anymore. Price’s gone up, but not much. Just a kiss, that’s all. Wait much longer, and you know where she’ll be.”
Toilet plunger, she thought, shuddering as his full wet lips clamped over hers. His fat tongue swelled inside her mouth, and now he was sliding both hands inside her pants. She couldn’t talk or push him away. Please, her eyes implored the dull, low clouds, the wet, empty street. Please make him stop. Somebody please stop this pig, this disgusting, sweating pig that was grunting in her mouth. She choked and began to gag. He drew back quickly. A car slowed close to the curb, then cruised by, a customer in orbit.
“Here.” He pressed the crack into her hand, then hurried into the pool hall. She looked down at the tiny white rock wrapped in clear plastic. It was too small to be a ten-dollar. He’d ripped her off, but she wasn’t about to chase him into the pool hall. Besides, her mother would be too strung out to care as long as she got something.
All the way down Nash Street, she kept spitting onto the sidewalk, trying to get rid of the pig taste. Her whole mouth was sore. It tasted the way Uncle Bob’s truck smelled after a pump-out. She stopped in front of the Nash Street Market and spat again. Gum would take it away. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. She couldn’t see Thurman. The only cashier was some lady, not that bitch with the tubes. She moved closer to the window. That guy Gordon was at the end of the aisle. If she got food here, she wouldn’t have to go all the way downtown to the Shop and Save. She went inside and grabbed a quart of milk, a box of Cap’n Crunch, Coke, Mountain Dew for her mother (the bottle, so when it was empty she could use it to smoke), two Hostess cupcakes, Reese’s peanut butter cups, Tostitos chips, hot salsa, and two frozen pizzas for supper. She was starving. “Hey!” she called.
Gordon turned from the meat case he’d been scrubbing and said hello. Water dripped from his rag.
“You got any of them green apples? I can’t think what they’re called.” She didn’t even like apples, but every now and again she’d make herself eat one for the vitamins. Her gums were always bleeding, and her two back teeth were so sore and rotted that in her dreams every time she opened her mouth teeth drifted out. She didn’t want to end up looking like the loser Burdle sisters down the street, not even twenty yet and no front teeth. Drugs instead of food, that’s what happens, she’d warned her mother. She should have been the mother and Marvella the daughter. There was so much stuff her mother didn’t know.
“Granny apples.” Gordon pointed, but she couldn’t see where. “Over there, next to the oranges.”
She shifted her armload of groceries and hurried off. Her mother was probably climbing the walls by now. Ninety-nine cents a pound. How the hell much did an apple weigh?