Frankie & Bug: List 5

The clerk in the shop directed Frankie and Bug to the back, where Flo was going through a box of clothes. There was no spangled unitard, just jeans and a tank top.

“Y’all wanna take a picture? It’ll last longer,” Flo said in a raspy, amused voice.
“Sorry,” Bug apologized, feeling dumb. She was accustomed to unusual people in Venice.

“Y’all wanna take a picture? It’ll last longer,” Flo said in a raspy, amused voice.
“Sorry,” Bug apologized, feeling dumb. She was accustomed to unusual people in Venice.

“Are you a he or a she?” Bug blurted out when Frankie failed to ask the pressing question.
“That depends on the day,” Flo replied breezily, shaking the dust out of a paisley dress.

“If I hear one more word about the Midnight Marauder, I’m gonna maraud someone myself,” Flo said with an exasperated sigh.

“Is that what I am?” he asked in a quavering voice.

“And there are other people? Like me?” Frankie asked in a halting voice.

As riled up as Bug was, Frankie seemed serene, as if the meeting with Flo had answered a question instead of raising a zillion new ones.

As riled up as Bug was, Frankie seemed serene, as if the meeting with Flo had answered a question instead of raising a zillion new ones.

She’d dropped off the film at the kiosk in front of the Sav-On Drugs, splurging for the twenty-four-hour processing so she could get prints back and have proof.

She’d dropped off the film at the kiosk in front of the Sav-On Drugs, splurging for the twenty-four-hour processing so she could get prints back and have proof.

“Our day was fine. Nothing special,” Danny said, giving Bug and Frankie a conspiratorial look.

“What about you?” Frankie asked Phillip. “How are you feeling?”
“Never better,” Phillip quipped. Bug could tell by the furrow between his brows that this was not true.

“What about you?” Frankie asked Phillip. “How are you feeling?”
“Never better,” Phillip quipped. Bug could tell by the furrow between his brows that this was not true.

"...Apparently, they accept children as young as eight in the audience, so you can come,” she said to Bug. She must have been feeling pretty generous, because, without prodding, she turned to Frankie and added, “And you, too.”

“I thought I came here to take care of the children while he recuperated,” Aunt Teri said to Mama, not even looking at Phillip.

“Are you calling me prejudiced?” Aunt Teri huffed. “I have a friend who’s from Mexico. Just ask her if I’m prejudiced.”

Bug wanted to probe further, but when Aunt Teri added, “I wonder if they’ll ship washing machines,” Bug understood the conversation was over.

Sometimes when Bug was swimming, a giant wave would sneak up out of nowhere and wallop her.

When Bug’s sobs had subsided to hiccupy gasps, Danny knelt in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “What happened?”

She jabbed herself possessively on the chest. “I have a right to know! I’m not a baby!” With the tear stains on her face, Bug would not have been surprised if Danny had contradicted this.

Mama shrugged. “You can either give in to the prejudice and treat people badly just because they’re different from you. Or you can shine a light on it, to understand how arbitrary it all is and judge people for who they are, not what they are.”

“They said it wasn’t too late for me. I could leave behind all that ‘unpleasantness.’” Here Mama made finger quotes. “Start fresh.” She gulped hard. “They wanted me to annul my marriage to Daniel. Sign a paper that would erase it from the record. This was bad, but I could’ve forgiven them for that. But then they...” Mama trailed off.

“The cherry-red Mustang?”
“She’d scrimped and saved to buy it and fix it up, and everyone knew it was her when she drove down Mooney Boulevard. She was constantly getting offers from people who wanted to buy it, but that car was her pride and joy. It was her baby. But she sold it.”

The third thing was that Frankie confirmed that Bug was right about the skinheads. “How do you know?” In all the tumult of the previous day, Bug had not asked Mama about this.

She counted six of them, two of whom Bug recognized from the day at the diner. They were passing around a bottle of something in a paper bag and didn’t notice them as Frankie marched right up to the tower, his hands planted resolutely hands on hips.

They ran hand in hand across the beach, sand churning under them, toward the boardwalk.

Frankie and Bug plunged into the melee and suddenly they were surrounded by voices, laughter, music. Bug wasn’t sure if the skinheads were still chasing them, if they had chased them at all.

Danny shook his hand using the complicated high-five handshake he and the guys at Muscle Beach often exchanged but which he’d never deigned to use with Frankie or Bug.

Because after he signed off, Frankie added the following postscript.
PS: Don’t get rid of my wet suit. I’m already bugging my mom to let me come back next summer!