Free Local Girls by Alice Hoffman Page B

way we’d come to this same exact place when we were little. Jill was afraid of heights, so she always wrapped her arms tightly around the swings’ iron chains, as if that would do any good. Even back then you could tell she was going to be beautiful. We used to stay out much too late, and catch it from our mothers. We’d still be out long after the ice cream truck had gone by, ringing its bell; long after the sky was inky and black. We used to tell each other everything, but that was over now. The best we could do was stay a little while longer. We swung back and forth without much effort, without a word, until Jill tilted her head back and pointed out what should have been obvious to me if I’d bothered to look. Above us, in the dark night, we could already see stars.

Bake at 350°
    The summer before my senior year in high school I made the mistake of working for my mother and my cousin Margot’s catering business, the address of which happened to be our kitchen. It was the most scorching summer ever recorded in New York State. Elderly people were being warned not to venture outside; there wasn’t a single air conditioner or fan to be bought at Sears or any of the hardware stores up on the turnpike, not at any price. No rain had fallen for ten weeks, and the air had turned crackly with dry heat. Whenever you snapped your fingers little white sparks skidded off your skin. When birds took flight they singed their feathers and in no time fell to the ground.
    But the heat couldn’t stop weddings and bar mitzvahs and christenings, not in our town, and Margot and my mother were doing so well they decided to give their business a name and have cards printed up. They called their company Two Widows, a big joke since both their husbands were not only alive and well but married to younger women. Margot, especially, cooked with such passion you’d have thought it was the heart of her ex she was sautéing instead of mushrooms for a strudel. Margot was ten years younger than my mother and fifteen years older than me, and she’d been through a lot. She’d married in her senior year of high school—like a dope, she always said. But the truth was, when she spoke of Tony, her ex, her face was so vulnerable I couldn’t stand to look.
    â€œHey, I’ll get over it,” she insisted, but neither my mother nor I were convinced. Margot still telephoned Tony for reasons even she couldn’t explain. If he answered she’d simply hang up, then lock herself in the bathroom and cry. But if it was the new wife, she’d become oddly invigorated; she’d let go of a string of curses you wouldn’t believe.
    â€œWhere’d you learn that stuff?” I asked her. Some of the curses weren’t even in English, but you could easily get their drift. That new wife’s skin was probably crawling whenever the phone rang; she probably checked the windows and double-locked the doors after Margot called.
    â€œThat’s for me to know and for you to never find out,” Margot said. “Just be careful when you pick a husband. Remember what happened to me and your mother.”
    We were making noodle kugel that week for the Grossmans’ engagement party and the oven was always turned on high. It was so hot that I’d lost six pounds without even trying. If I kept drinking quarts of water and sweating, I’d reach my ideal weight by September. Maybe then, my life would start. Something would finally happen to me. I’d fall in love. I’d move a thousand miles away. I’d wake every day and know there was a reason to get out of bed.
    Lately, I’d been thinking a lot about love and marriage. My friend Jill had gotten married in the spring, and her baby was due in August. Jill hadn’t bothered to finish eleventh grade and now she and Eddie LoPacca were living in the basement of her parents’ house. Was this love? That’s what I wanted to know.