She recognized the girl standing at the stage edge—too cool to smile cheese for the camera. Carla. A sometimes girlfriend of Maddie’s cousin Enzo. Her dark hair was pulled back in a dozen scalp-tight braids, and from the end of each hung a rainbow of plastic beads. When she turned to look at Bitsy’s crew, the braids swayed click-clack like a beaded curtain. The girl puffed on a hand-rolled cigarette. As if, Maddie thought, Ms. Murphy, infamous at East High for doling out detention, wasn’t a few feet away, her cheeks pressed to the camera.
She knew these were the girls her cousins bragged about after family dinners at Nonna LaRosa’s house on the west side, when the boys played poker with the men and Maddie helped her aunts clear the table for pastries and espresso. Her cousins took these girls to the bowling alley on the mainland and the Avalon Cinema downtown, groped them in the backseat of the red Cougar the boys shared. Vinny had tinted the windows himself at the auto shop. Windows so dark, she’d heard Enzo boast, a girl could suck him off in broad daylight.
It wasn’t the girls she feared, although the way Carla stared—her eyes feline with black liquid liner—was enough to make anyone bug. And Maddie knew she’d catch serious shit from her cousins for hanging out with the elite East girls (rich bitches, Enzo might say). But that wasn’t it either. It was her dad. Vinny had a big mouth. If he ratted on her, she’d come home one night, tomorrow, the next week, who knew, to her dad sitting at the kitchen table. Waiting. The chair would topple back, his belt buckle jangling, the belt slithering out of his pant loops like a leather snake. And she’d get it bad.
Bitsy groaned. “Who invited these hoes to our party?”
More laughter from the East girls. An all-out guffaw from Vanessa, who always had to outdo everyone.
“Like, all of a sudden,” Gabrielle said, “it smells straight-up rank.” Ending with a back-of-the-throat uck like she was hocking a loogie.
Then, for some reason even Penny wouldn’t be able to explain later when Maddie asked what the hell she’d been thinking, Penny shouted, her voice ringing above the loudspeaker announcing the start of the sack races, “All that cotton candy’s gonna make your fat asses even fatter!”
The West girls came to, climbing off Maddie’s cousins’ laps. Straightening, stretching. Like she-lions waking in the afternoon sun. They shifted their hands to their hips and their rhinestone-studded nails flashed.
“What. The. Fuck.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes hard at Penny. “You so just asked to get our asses kicked.”
They turned to Bitsy. She was rattled. Maddie spotted the muscle in her jaw twitching. But Bitsy shifted into leader-of-the-pack mode, lifted her arm, and gave the West girls a ballsy middle finger.
Vanessa joined in, “Get lost, skanks!”
Gabrielle, her chin jutting back and forth chickenlike, imitated the West accent—the vowels stretched and doubled, as if words were saltwater taffy: “Ava-LAWN-EYE-land!”
When Penny joined in, Vanessa gave her an approving up-nod. Maddie felt a hiccup of panic. How was Penny fitting in when she wasn’t?
The West girls were like a troupe of exotic dancers—rolling necks, swiveling hips, arms lifting out and up like the swans in the bay before takeoff.
Who you talking to?
Step on up and get some of this!
Gerritt and his boys turned from the basketball game to watch. Laughing at East or West girls, Maddie couldn’t tell, but she heard John Anderson say, “Crazy bitches.”
She knew she should pitch in, and words like “sluts” and “trash” moved through her head, but when the carousel music started up again—this time playing “It’s a Small World”—she froze. She, and Bitsy—all the East girls—no longer seemed like untouchable beauties but more like deer emerging after hibernation. Knob-kneed and awkward-footed, their noses sniffing the air for danger.
Carla stepped to the edge of the stage so the toes of her black lace-up Doc Martens hung over. She pinched her cigarette and flicked it. Maddie watched the cherry-red ember arc through the air. The butt landed with a sizzle as it bounced off Bitsy’s white T-shirt.
“Shit!” Gabrielle pawed at Bitsy’s chest.
Bitsy shoved her away. “I’m fine! Can everyone just shut the fuck up for a minute?”
It was the first time Maddie had seen Bitsy lose her cool.
Vanessa spoke through clamped teeth, “She did not just do that.”
She lunged toward the stage with the same powerful advance Maddie had seen her use on the lacrosse field.
“V!” Bitsy shouted. “Take a chill pill, girl.”
Vanessa did an about-face pivot. “Catch you losers later!” she sang.
Bitsy smiled. “I’m not gonna let these butt uglies kill my buzz.”
She raised her hands in a W, thumbs touching, palms open. As in whatever. Like it was no big deal, Maddie thought.
“Let’s bounce,” Bitsy said, pulling at the back of Gerritt’s cuffed white tee so his chest muscles stood out in relief. “I’ll buy you some cheese fries at the Golden Dolphin.”
When Bitsy released his shirt, he sprang toward the photo stage.
Bitsy called after him, “Don’t let those welfare rats get to you, baby.”
Maddie saw her lurking smile. Bitsy wanted him to avenge her.
Gerritt jogged toward the photo stage. His boys, including Spencer, followed him—a loping chain of boy-man bodies.
Her cousin Enzo—what a show-off—leapt off the stage and swaggered toward Gerritt, one arm slack behind, as if winding up to throw one of the strikes he was famous for as West High’s champion pitcher. He still wore the black cowboy hat and she spotted a leather holster on his hip, the silver butt of a toy gun glinting. Her brother, Dom, had one like it when they were kids. Bang-bang! You’re dead, Maddie!
The boys met between the photo stage and the bouncy house. The hiss of the air pump and rattle of the roller coaster made it impossible to hear but she saw Gerritt’s lips moving. His boys stood at his elbows in V formation, collars turned up, chins cocked. One, two, three West boys showed up in black jean cutoffs and faded heavy-metal tees. Metallica, Def Leppard, Nine Inch Nails. A pack of panthers, Maddie thought. Haunches flexed and ready to lunge. East boys were wiry soccer and lacrosse players. The Wildcats football team sucked for a reason. She doubted any had thrown a real punch, one meant to bloody. But she knew the West boys had—they’d pummeled one another, drunk fathers, pervert uncles, PCP-wrecked older brothers, and God knows who else.
Gerritt and Enzo were doing the dance—bobbing foot to foot, so close their chests brushed and the cowboy hat tumbled off her cousin’s head. His spiky gelled hair gleamed like black ice.