Riding In Cars With Boys by Beverly Donofrio Read Free Book Online Page A

calling, “Berta, Betty, Bam Bam.”
    It was late, near nine o‘clock, and I was trying hard to keep my mind off of Raymond so I wouldn’t get furious. I got Bam Bam a Ring Ding Jr. and poured him a glass of strawberry Kool-Aid, then I sat at the table across from him with my Ring Ding and glass of Kool-Aid and he did like Simon Says. He peeled the wrapper exactly like me, then held the round chocolate thing with his pointer finger and thumb the same as me. Then I licked under it to be sure it wasn’t my imagination, and he licked it too. Bam Bam cracked me up.
    It was pitch-black out; a breeze was kicking up and whipping the shades against the windows. I was spooked and glad Bam Bam was there. “Hey, Bam,” I said. “You want to dance?” He nodded his head up and down fast. I put Sgt . Pepper on the stereo. I was careful not to lift my arms up high because my mother was always warning me that I’d strangle the baby with the umbilical cord. So I twirled and swayed my gigantic hips and Bam Bam did little hops and wiggled his head.
    I collapsed exhausted and sweaty in the rocker.
    Bam Bam tried to climb on my lap.
    I didn’t want him to touch me. “Get off,” I said.
    He made like he’d start crying.
    “Don’t you cry, Bammer, or I won’t let you in anymore. Hear me? You better go now.” I opened the front door. He just stood there. “Bam Bam,” I said with forced patience.
    He bent his chin to his chest and crouched down like an ape. When he finally passed through, I locked the door and headed upstairs. He banged his head on the screen, “Bam … bam, bam … bam,” he said.
    I screamed, “Bam Bam, get lost. I mean it!”
    I ran up the stairs and sat on the edge of our bed and stared out the window in the dark. I spotted Bam Bam sitting in the gutter a few feet down the road, swishing sand with a stick and rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. I felt bad kicking him out, but I didn’t want to call him back, either.
    Just then a car approached in a whoosh of light and I thought maybe it was my mother. It was Raymond. He slammed the door a little too hard.
    His feet made a lot of noise on the floor. He called, “Beverly.”
    I didn’t answer.
    “Fuck,” he said.
    He opened the refrigerator door and closed it. I heard the water go on. He walked up the stairs, took a piss in the bathroom. I held my breath. He looked in the room and said, “What’re you doing?”
    “You should have called.”
    He leaned against the door frame. He smelled of cigarettes and booze. “That guy, Sal? Got laid off. He didn’t expect it, either. Some of us guys went down the Aviation for some drinks to make him feel better.”
    I laid down on my stomach and started to cry.
    “What’s the matter?” he said.
    “I don’t know,” I lied. The matter was I wanted my mother.
    I had big plans for my marriage. They went something like this: My friends come over every night. We have pajama parties and play music as loud as we want. Instead, like I said, they deserted me to Spring Lake. where they had new and changing boyfriends, went skinny-dipping and floating on inner tubes, and never thought of inviting me, because I was pregnant. The only girlfriends who called me up were Virginia, who would be going to college in the fall and had to stay in Wallingford to work for the summer, and Fay, because she was married now too. She’d married the guy from the nuclear submarine the day after graduation, as planned.
    Finally, my friends invited us to a huge party. Ray and I drove Virginia and Bobby, who would be leaving for boot camp in a couple of weeks. Everybody would be there except for Fay, because she was visiting her in-laws in Virginia. By the time of the party, it had been positively confirmed that Fay had conceived on her honeymoon. I was ecstatic that now I wouldn’t be the only mother.
    I could think of nothing but the party for weeks. I was sure everybody would be shocked to see how fat I’d grown and that they’d