Jersey Angel Read online

  Also by Beth Ann Bauman

  Rosie and Skate

  Beautiful Girls

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Beth Ann Bauman

  Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Getty Images

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bauman, Beth Ann.

  Jersey Angel / by Beth Ann Bauman. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Shapely seventeen-year-old Angel Cassonetti, who lives with her younger siblings and single mother in a house at the Jersey Shore, finds it hard to stay away from ex-boyfriend Joey Sardone.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89900-3

  [1. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 2. Beaches—Fiction. 3. New Jersey—Fiction. 4. Italian Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B32743Je 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011030915

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First

  Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  for ml

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Summer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Fall

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Winter

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  summer

  chapter 1

  A whiff of seaweed blows in the window from across the bay, and the bed fills with sunlight. I reach for my sunglasses and have myself a long stretch. Maybe tonight will be a good time to see Joey, patch things up, and put a sweet ending on the day.

  The screen door squeaks, feet dash up the stairs, and the kids charge into my room—Mossy with a meatball on a fork and Mimi sloshing Coke from a glass loaded with cubes, just the way I like it.

  “Happy birthday!” Mimi shouts, plunking the wet glass on the dresser and jumping into bed with me.

  Mossy hands me the fork. “I couldn’t decide. Heated up or not.”

  “Cold is de-lish,” I say, sitting up and taking a nibble. What service.

  “Gimme.” Mimi reaches for my sunglasses. She slips them on, curls on my pillow, and stares up at me. “Oh, I wish I was seventeen.”

  “You’ll get there,” I tell her. Mimi’s short for Mimosa. She’s ten. Mossy’s eight. Mom was married to Tofu Bart when she had them, which should explain the names, and by the way, that’s Mimosa as in the flowering tree, not the champagne cocktail.

  Mossy hands me a leftover valentine with hearts and Be Mine in big loopy letters. On the back he’s written Angel, treat yourself to something special and taped three dollar bills.

  “Oh, my little man,” I say, throwing an arm around him. He smiles shyly, dropping his eyes.

  “I didn’t make a card,” Mimi says. “And I’m broke, but I have a cheer.” She gets my shakers from the closet and stands at the foot of the bed in a purple bikini with a dirty white boa looped around her neck. She stamps her foot and waves the shakers.

  “Angel is pretty!

  Angel is great!

  Angel is my sister

  And she goes on dates!

  Angel has a birthday

  And we’ll have a cake—chocolate!

  Angel has boobs

  And they’re not fake.”

  She crashes to the floor in a split.

  “Oh brother,” Mossy says.

  “Who has fake ones?” I say, chewing.

  “Nefertiti’s mom. She just got them. They’re bazoombas.” Mimi crawls back in bed. “So, you like it? On a scale from one to ten?”

  “Loved it. Nine.”

  She stretches out on the bed and sighs. “If I was seventeen then I could do anything I want. Date boys and be mean to them when I feel like it and nice to them when I feel like it …”

  “Why do you want to be mean to them?” I say.

  She tilts her head. “Because!”

  “I’m not mean to guys,” I tell her. I take a sip of cold, fizzy Coke. Bliss.

  “But you break up with Joey Sardone.”

  Mossy leans over and takes a bite of my meatball.

  “Not because I’m mean. Because we need a little break now and then to spice things up.”

  She closes her eyes dramatically, and her cheeks grow rosy. “Oh, I want to spice things up!”

  “Angel,” Mom yells.

  I lift the screen and hang out the window. She’s standing in front of the house in a lime bikini top and jean shorts, holding a bucket and mop. She has a bandana tied around her hair.

  “Happy birthday, kiddo.” She shades her eyes. “How is it you’re seventeen? That practically makes me an old goat.”

  “Hardly, Ma,” I say.

  She shrugs. “Gravity’s getting the best of me.” Here we go. The truth is, with her long, dark hair, dark eyes, and upturned mouth, she looks kind of like a forty-year-old Kim Kardashian. We all look like Mom, especially Mimi. “Okay, cake later. Now we work.”

  “I hate to clean!” Mimi yells, squeezing in next to me at the window.

  “Me too!” Mossy whines.

  “You think I like it?” Mom says. “We’ll do it fast. Let’s go. Mossy, where are my rubber gloves? Were you using them again for one of your experiments? Go find them.”

  He rolls off the bed and trudges downstairs.

  We own three houses on the Jersey shore. Every summer we rent out two to some of the tourists who descend on our little barrier island like a stampede, which means we pile together under one roof. During the off-seasons, at least, we get to spread out and breathe. Mossy and Mimi live with Mom in the House, and I get my own place.

  But now it’s time to clear out. I grab a Walgreens bag and start unloading my drawers—bikinis, panties, bras, tanks, shorts, jeans. I throw it all in. I wad up my sheets and blanket and shove them in too.

  Yup, we have three houses. My grandfather, Pop, bought the House years ago; then he won the Next-Door House in a poker game, or so the story goes, and old Mr. Zimmerman, who was a little in love with Mom, or a lot, apparently, left her the Corner House—my house. So three in a row, overlooking the bay. The moolah we make by renting has to last the rest of the year because Mom isn’t cut out for nine-to-five, or so she says.

  “Here. Help.” I throw Mimi my duffel bag. “Take the closet.”

  She steps into my spiky sandals and admires herself. “Fierce.”

  I empty the medicine cabinet into a shopping bag—undereye concealer, eight tubes of lip gloss, hair gel, Tylenol, a couple of condom packets, and my birth control pills. In the bag it goes. I squeeze
out toothpaste and brush my teeth as I chuck in shampoo, soap, three kinds of conditioner, a loofah, and a razor.

  Mimi puts a sundress on over her bikini and swirls in front of the mirror. “Oh, I wish I was you … but still me.”

  “So basically you?” I spit in the sink and toss the toothbrush and paste into the bag.

  “Basically.” She teeters over in the sandals and looks up at me, her eyes all dark pupils. “Is it exciting to be you?”

  I swish out my mouth with a handful of water. “What a question, Meems. Is it exciting to be you?”

  “No,” she whines. “I don’t wear mascara. Or have a best friend like Inggy Olofsson. I basically hang out with Nefertiti. We just eat Popsicles and watch TV. I’m too pretty to be so boring.” She lets out a tiny sigh and collapses to the closet floor.

  “You’re such a snot-nose,” I tell her.

  She tips her face up to me. “I can’t help it.”

  “Sure you can. Hang in there.” I lean over her and start dropping clothes off the hangers, some of them raining down on her head. “One day boys will come a-knocking and everything else too. And then there’ll be no looking back.”

  “How exciting,” she whispers.

  Have I been excited in a while? Maybe not. Maybe I’m due.

  “Girls,” Mom calls, squeaking open the screen door. “Let’s get a move on.” She turns on the kitchen faucet and a blast of water hits the metal pail.

  chapter 2

  The mad cleaning spree lasted nearly all day, and we barely made a dent, which is what you can expect when half your crew is kids. And now all of us are under one roof, meaning me and Mimi are sharing a bedroom the size of a large closet, her on a cot smack up against my little bed. “Isn’t this nice?” she said, reaching out across the sheets to hold my hand and chattering away into the night.

  So that’s why it’s one a.m. and I’m wide awake sitting on the front porch in a bikini and shorts, digging my way through a bag of cheddar popcorn, when Mom’s ex, Tofu Bart, walks up to the house, carrying a blender, of all things.

  “I’ve been summoned,” he says, holding up the appliance. “Now, if your mother asked for the electric mixer I wouldn’t be worried, but the blender is bad news.” With a deep sigh (poor TB is always sighing), he sits himself on the steps and reaches for the popcorn, though he’s not one for the hydrogenated oils. “So spill the beans, kiddo. What does she want it for?”

  “No idea. Icy drinks, maybe,” I say, capturing my hair and clipping it with a barrette.

  “See! I told you. Who’s she having icy drinks with?”

  Here we go. “Listen,” I say, patting his knee. “Is this how you want to play it? All crazy and jealous? You’ll become repellent. Think about it.”

  “Did she place a personal ad on Yahoo? She said she was going to.”

  “She might have,” I half lie. Actually she did, and may she meet a good one quick! I don’t tell him that, though. When my mother’s between boyfriends the general mood around here is not so good.

  “You know what I think? She met one she likes, and she’s inviting him over for icy drinks!”

  “Look at the moon, will you.” Tonight it’s golden red and impossibly full, high above us in the night sky.

  “What a beauty.” He sighs. “It fills me with awe.”

  “Me too,” I say, nibbling on a kernel. “Me too.” My hair pops out of the barrette in the humidity and mushrooms around me.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he says, his hound dog eyes hanging heavy as he stares up at the sky. “Your mother is the one for me. My love is such that I’m willing to lend my blender, which she requested by email, mind you—didn’t even bother to pick up the phone—so that she can have icy drinks with her new beau.”

  “Oh, Bart, you’ve got it bad. Have some more popcorn,” I say, thrusting the bag at him. Poor TB really needs to get laid. What he fails to understand is that he doesn’t have a hope in hell with Mom. She’s always exasperated with him—rolling her eyes, swishing past him, calling him a dummy. And here he is still smitten, long after the divorce.

  “Everyone asleep?” He looks back at the darkened house.

  “All but me.”

  “Why not you?”

  “I’m adjusting to life in the sardine can.”

  “You should like living with your family,” TB says, shaking a finger at me. “You have too much freedom, missy. You’re only seventeen.”

  “But an old and wise seventeen, wouldn’t you say?”

  He slides his eyes over to me. “How old were you when you got the patch from the pediatrician?”

  “Thirteen. I had to quit. I smelled like an ashtray.” That’s ancient history, though, and I’ve been smoke-free for years. I jump up, go around back, get my bike, and walk it over the stones. “Well, I’ll see you later.” I hop on the seat.

  “Where are you off to at this hour looking like that? Go put a shirt on. Pull back that crazy hair.”

  “Bart, really,” I say nicely. “Don’t you have enough to worry about?”

  “Be careful, you.” And there he sits, clutching his blender. Poor guy. “Hey,” he yells as I pedal away. “Happy birthday!”

  I ride past the Corner House—my house! A warm, sticky breeze stirs the air as I ride, but how nice it feels to be out in the night. I left three messages for Joey but he didn’t call me back. I considered zipping over on my bike earlier tonight, but what I really wanted was for him to call.

  Oh, the moon! The blazing moon. I stop and gaze at it and don’t see Cork until he pulls up on his bike and squeals his brakes.

  “Just look at that crazy moon,” I say.

  John Cork is one of those people who can smile with his mouth open and not look dumb. He’s wearing a red bathing suit with GUARD written up the side, and his hair’s in a salty do—dried slicked back after a swim in the ocean. He’s already pretty tan, though it’s only June.

  “Just look at that crazy hair,” he says, grabbing a handful of my long, curly mop, which grows to twice its usual size in this weather. “I could lose a hand in there.”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  He smiles, closed mouth this time. I’ve known Cork forever, and he’s Inggy’s boyfriend. Funny, they’re both tall, blond, and skinny, though he’s golden and she’s pale as milk. “Why you up?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Twizzler?” He pulls a package from his back pocket.

  “Sure.” I take one, and we stand there yanking and chewing. “Sounds like Ing’s having fun.” Cork nods. She and I talked a couple of times today, while I vacuumed the floors and scrubbed the tub, but I wish she was here for my b-day. No matter, we’ll celebrate soon.

  Inggy and the O’s are off on a round of college tours—this time Syracuse, Brown, and some other places I can’t remember. She’s headed somewhere good, while Cork and I are probably headed across the bridge to the community college. But Inggy has straight As and the O’s have money, and Cork and I are on the lazy side with no moolah. I’m not complaining, really.

  He gives my hair another tug.

  “Watch it,” I tease.

  Then he leans in and gives me a kiss. A soft, slow one right on the lips.

  “Hey there, mister …,” I say, a little surprised.

  “Just a little mischief in the wee hours.”

  “You badass.” I smile.

  “Later, Cassonetti,” he says, hopping on his bike.

  I ride over to Joey Sardone’s, a little lavender-colored house on the lagoon. The flower boxes under the front windows are overflowing with his mom’s droopy purple and white pansies. Water, they scream, so I give them a drink with the garden hose and then walk around back to Joey’s window and put my nose to the screen. “Hey, Joe, you awake?” Nothing. “Hey, Sardi.”

  His mattress creaks. “Angel?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” The lagoon laps against the dock in little licks. “Get up. For a minute.”

  “Man,” he says, dragging himself to the wi
ndow. He has a hairdo—it sticks up on one side and the front is mashed—and he’s shirtless in boxer shorts. He raises the screen and frowns at me.

  Let me tell you about Joey Sardone. He is something. He’s tall and solid with smooth, hard muscles—a middle linebacker on the Ocean Heights High football team—and one of my most favorite people. He has dark hair and dark eyes, and when he lowers those dark eyes, which he does a lot because he’s shy, he’s all dark lashes. Sometimes I wonder if I love him. But if I have to wonder, then maybe not. I reach in and run my fingers along his bare side.

  “What?” he says, flinching.

  “Why so crabby? How about letting me in?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on.” Usually he’d be popping out the screen and hauling me inside right about now.

  “Look,” he says finally, but he doesn’t say anything else, so I lean against the house and wait. He lowers his eyes. “You want me. But you don’t. Right or wrong?”

  “It’s not like that—”

  “Right or wrong?” he cuts in.

  “Listen—”

  “Right or wrong?” he asks quietly.

  I fold my arms, and he takes that as a “right.” It’s true; Joey and I break up a lot. I guess I like my freedom too much, but for me it’s always only a time-out so I can feel like I’m back in my life with all the possibilities. I like possibilities. But after a time-out, I’m always ready to come back.

  “The thing is,” he goes on, “you don’t really want to be my girlfriend, and now for once I don’t want you to be.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I search his face, but he’s not giving anything away. “So who is she?”

  He shakes his head. “There’s no one.”

  “Seriously?”

  But he won’t answer.

  “Well,” I say, “how about one for the road?”

  “I’m not going to be some horndog, Angel.”

  I reach in and slide my hand over his. “I don’t mind a horndog.”

  “Nice. Real nice.” He swats a mosquito.

  “So this is it?”

  He stares at me for what seems like a really long time until I start to squirm. I look up at the moon, glowing in the dark night like an eye watching us. The wind blows back my hair as if giving me a shove, but I can’t seem to move away.