Stay with Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

fifteen.”
    “Cocktail hour.”
    “In the morning.”
    “Whacha eatin’ there, babe?”
    “PBJ.”
    She’s eating one too. “You are your mother’s daughter.”
    “You’re absolutely sure ? I’m doomed.” I grab her beer and dump it in the sink.
    “Don’t turn on the light, Céce.” Her voice is soft, sweet. Headlights from a passing car briefly light up two shiny streaks of mascara slitting her cheeks. I practically have to carry her up to bed. I tuck her in. She winks at me and slurs, “Howya doin’, sister?”
    “Carmella, the sister act is getting old. Could you be the mother for five minutes?”
    She smiles. Those gold teeth. Anybody else would look four hundred percent retarded, but she’s beautiful. Sometimes I want to hug her till I break her. The woman is demented.
    I wonder if that Mack boy is working today.
    I pop my head into Anthony’s room. He’s out?
     
    Middle of lunch shift, Marcy sticks her head into the walk-in. “Céce Vaccuccia, why you hanging out in the refrigerator?”
    I hide my third slice of cheesecake. “Cooling off, duh .”
    “God swapped June for August on us. Probably be like this till winter, and then overnight it’ll be five billion below zero, freeze nail polish right in the bottle. You can’t win, Cheech. You can’t . They got it stacked against us.”
    “Who’s they?”
    “ Them, chica. The system.”
    I pat the cheese wheel for her to sit with me. “Hang out.”
    “Ohmigod.”
    “What?”
    “Ew!”
    “What!”
    “You totally made out with that loser delivery guy dude last night.”
    “ What? No.”
    “I can see it in your eyes, you lovesick bitch.”
    “You need to pop another Lexapro.”
    “Tell me later. You got a tray of manicotti up and your tables are howling for their checks. And Céce, the manicotti? Vic totally went heavy with the ricotta this morning. Gonna feel like you got a Honda Element on that tray. I can’t believe you swapped spit with that dropout moron.”
    “I. Did not. Kiss. The de liv ery boy.”
    “Ick.” She leaves.
    I’m totally bloated. Skirt zipper is gonna rip any old shift now. It’s like I ate a ten-pound box of chalk and then somebody pumped hot gasoline into my stomach. Make out with Mack? Is she out of her half a mind? Dude won’t even look at me.
     
    End of lunch shift I’m at the bar, refilling the salts and peppers, thrill-a-rill. The salt is all clumps in the heat. While I’m spilling the condiments I’m checking my G and T practice test grid against the answer key.
    I aced it?
    Maybe not so remarkable, because Vic keeps quizzing me words all the time. Like last night, I was picking up an order, and he handed me my linguine red sauce and said, “Frenetic.” And I replied, “Crazed, as in ‘Marcy is running around in a frenetic state, trying to catch up on her orders, because Vic’s Too, currently the one and only Vic’s eating establishment, is slamming.’”
    Of course, this is only the multiple-choice part. I still don’t have any idea what I’ll write for the essay, but I have a few weeks to cook up a really good lie.
    Marcy flies into the bar and drags me to the bathroom. “Your psycho boyfriend?” she says.
    “He’s not my—”
    “ Yah . He’s a felon.”
    “What?”
    “Your mother was asking Vic about him because she, like everybody else who isn’t you, can tell you’re crushing on him.”
    “I’m crushing on a felon?”
    “Vic’s like, ‘Well, I suppose you should know he’s had some problems in the past.’ And then your mother’s like, ‘What kind of problems?’ And then Vic goes, ‘Well, he has a bit of a record.’”
    “What’d he do?”
    “I don’t know. I snuck out from where I just happened to be behind the trash compactor to run here to tell you, but it was probably something wretched .”
    Ma comes into the bathroom. “You know what they have to say about those who gossip?”
    Marcy hides behind me. “What do they have to say, Mama