Wing Jones(27)

“Do you know how people look at me now? Like I’m somehow involved. Like I’m just as much to blame for Michael’s and that woman’s deaths. Like by being with Marcus, it’s just as much my fault.”

“Are you still with him?” I venture. She turns the car into the strip mall parking lot.

“Of course I’m still with him! Look, we weren’t married yet, but I’m his girl, all right? For ever.” She holds up her right hand, brandishing the ring he got her for her last birthday. “I didn’t go through all the shit that we’ve been through to not be with him.”

“What are you talking about? You two … you two have the perfect relationship.” I almost slip and say that they had but catch myself at the last second.

She makes a sound like a horse neighing. It’s a sound I’ve never heard her make.

“Oh yeah. Like when he hooked up with Carla Torres. Twice. And then when I found out, the bitch wanted to fight me. Me! Like I did anything to her.”

“Oh,” I say. I wouldn’t want to fight Carla Torres. There are rumors that she brings a blade to school.

“It was awful. But I love him and so I forgave him. And then he goes and does this!”

I feel the old defensiveness waking up inside me. “He didn’t do it on purpose,” I say.

“Like that makes it any better. You know he said the same thing about hooking up with Carla? He was drunk then too. Being drunk isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card, you know.”

“Did…” Before I can finish my question, Monica throws her door open and gets out and slams it shut again all in the same second.

“Hurry up,” she calls over her shoulder.

We walk into the ice cream parlor, the bell jingling over our heads as we go through the door.

“One chocolate chip cookie dough and one mint chip,” says Monica to the girl behind the counter without hesitation. She pays, and when I try to give her a dollar she pushes my hand away.

“How did you know I like mint chip?” I say once we’ve got our cones and are back in the safety of her car.

“Wing, do you know how many times I’ve picked up a tub of ice cream at the store for Marcus? For you? Hell, how many times I’ve gone to Chick-fil-A for you with Marcus? You both love mint chip ice cream. Neither of you likes pickles on your sandwich. Marcus hates them so much that I stopped getting pickles on my sandwich because he wouldn’t kiss me. Would call me pickle breath.”

She looks at me and reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t say what she’s sorry for, but she tries to smile. She doesn’t quite make it because her lips goes all wobbly in the corner, but I squeeze her hand back.

“It’s OK,” I say. It isn’t, not really, but there isn’t anything else to say. “I’m sorry too.”

Monica turns and looks out the window, and even though I can’t see her face I know she’s crying again. I wonder how many hours a day she spends crying. I wonder if I should be crying more.

I wonder what else Marcus has done that isn’t perfect. What else is there about him that I don’t know?

That I don’t want to know?

“Let’s talk about something else,” she says, as if I’ve been talking even though I’ve been sitting quietly, licking my mint chip. Monica’s ice cream is melting already, dripping down the sides of the cone, getting her hands all sticky, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Like what?”

“Like anything. Look, my whole life has fallen apart… I need a reminder that there are other things out there. You know? Things other than Marcus.”

“Like what?” I ask again, and she rolls her eyes. At least she isn’t crying anymore.

“Wing!”

“All right. Give me a second.” I think, nibbling on my ice cream until I get to the cone, which has gone soft and chewy at the top. “Where do you want to go? Like, in the world?”

“New York. London. Milan. Paris. Tokyo. Hong Kong. Shanghai.” She lists them off so quickly I know this isn’t the first time she’s thought about it. “I wanna go to all the big cities.” She shrugs and swirls her tongue around her ice cream. “I don’t even have a passport, though, so it isn’t like that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It isn’t that uncommon. Most Americans don’t have passports. Not everyone is as cultured as you.”

“If by cultured you mean different.” I take a bite out of the bottom of my cone to get the bit of ice cream wedged down at the bottom.

Monica finishes her ice cream, cone and all, in a few quick chomps, rolls down the window, and burps. It’s pretty ladylike, for a burp.

“I’m still hungry,” she says.

“You could come over for dinner,” I offer. “LaoLao is making dumplings.” Monica loves LaoLao’s dumplings.

“Is your mom mad at me? For not coming by?”

I shake my head, even though I have no idea if my mom is mad at Monica. She has so much going on in her head right now I doubt that she has enough space, or enough energy, to be angry at Monica.

“She’d like to see you,” I say, and I know it’s true.