Jersey Angel Read Online Free

his heart, even if he is barking up the wrong tree.
    “Out and about.” I reach for a handful of grapes. Here we go. We’re about thirty seconds from him grilling me about her online adventures, when the screen door creaks open and Mom pads in, in her flip-flops with cotton between her freshly painted pink toenails.
    “Hello there.” TB flips the sandwich in the skillet.
    “Oh, it’s you. Are you messing up my kitchen?”
    “I’m feeding the kids. You want one?”
    “Move it,” she says, sliding around him to get in adrawer. “And for the tenth time, I’m on a diet. Do you ever listen to what I say?”
    Well, that’s my cue, and I am outta there. In the backyard, Mimi comes charging up to me in a polka-dotted bikini.
    “What did one saggy tit say to the other saggy tit?”
    “I have no clue.”
    “If we don’t get some support soon, people will think we’re nuts.”
    I giggle.
    “I don’t get it,” she says. “Mossy gets it but he won’t explain.”
    “I didn’t say I get it or not,” he says.
    “Liar!” she yells.
    To stop the titty talk, Mossy comes after us with the hose and sprays our legs. He chases us down the length of the yards as we duck under the rows of benny beach towels flapping on the clotheslines. At the Corner House, I stop and peer in the back door, wanting to get a good look at who’s living in my house.
    “Nosy!” Mimi says.
    “Shush,” I say. Just then Bart calls the kids in for their sandwiches and they take off. What can I say—the tofu gene is in their blood.
    The house is empty, as far as I can tell, so I slip inside, where it feels and smells like a completely different place. Funny how the bennies can completely make a house ahome, even when they’re here for only a week. Strewn around the kitchen are some mangoes,
Sun and Sand: A Complete Guide to the Jersey Shore
(the benny bible), a neon Frisbee, hot dog buns, a package of Dentyne, and bottles of root beer. I take a handful of barbecue chips from a bag on the counter and head up to the roof deck, where I sprawl out on the chaise, half hidden by the ficus in case I have to make a quick escape. I love this spot. There’s a nice breeze coming off the bay, and the late-afternoon sun blazes low in the sky.
    The chaise—fifteen bucks at a yard sale—has a leopard print and it’s threadbare in places, but it’s awfully comfy. With my late nights these days, I yawn and feel myself drifting off. Luckily I hear the squeaky wheels of a benny cart coming down the street. The cart is pushed by a beleaguered benny guy flanked on one side by the wife, I’m guessing, in a visor, bathing suit, socks, and sneakers, and on the other side by two whining kids, pink as raw meat. I’m pretty sure they’re my bennies, so I flee out the back.
    Since TB’s still at the house, I ride over to my dad’s marina, where I have a part-time job pumping gas, which is kind of the ideal job. I love the smell of gasoline and I get to be outside, and there are lulls when there’s no boat traffic, so I can sprawl out on the dock with a magazine or hang out with the marina dog, a two-hundred-pound English bull mastiff named Joop (short for Jupiter).
    Dad’s sitting at his messy desk surrounded by mounds ofpaper. He’s cute, my dad. When he started going bald in the worst way—bald top, ring of hair around the sides—he smartly shaved it all off. He’s got a goatee and nice dark eyes, gentle eyes. “Hey, sweetheart.” He looks up at me. “You’re not on the schedule, are you?”
    “Just visiting. I thought we could get something to eat.” I kind of hope we can do something—the two of us—which never happens, but I’ll settle for an invite to his house.
    “Aw, Angel, both kids are sick. They were throwing up last night.”
    “Yeah? Okay.” As if I haven’t been around a sick kid.
    “Here, sit a minute,” he says, jumping up and moving papers from the plastic chair. My dad’s basically a nice guy, but he’s remarried, with