Joey's apartment, Seaside Heights, New Jersey...Bon Jovi's "Lay Your Hands on Me" is playing on the radio...
“Joey? You ready, honey?” Mom arrived at six am to help me get ready for the wedding, which wasn’t taking place until seven pm!”
“No, Mom…I’m still looking at the back of my eyelids.” I opened the door and she walked in with my kid sister in tow.
“Joey’s getting’ married, Joey’s getting’ married.” She taunted, but I was unfazed. I ushered the two of them into the kitchen while I put on a pot of coffee.
"Anthony is not waiting right now at the chapel, Mom. You may have noticed the sun coming up just now? I guess he’s probably still lying face down on his bed after the engagement party last night.” I didn’t add that I spend much of the time under him until skulking back to my apartment at four this morning.
“It still seems crazy, Joey,” My mother was anything but reserved when it came to her own opinion.
"Yeah, Joey, Holy fuckin' shit," Angie said. "Why the fuck wouldya wanna maahree a fuckin' guy? Nikki was askin' about ya at Primo's last night. She's fuckin' hot!"
"I'm not interested in girls, Ang...you oughta have figured that out by now." I said with my one-time only concession to Joiseyspeak.
“You're breakin' my heart, Joey. Do you know you're breakin' your mutha's heart? You bein’ what you are and all? I just don’t unnerstan (yes, she said it just that way) why the hell you’d wanna get marreed to a boy.”
“Joey’s getting’ marreed to a fuckin' boy…Joey’s getting’ mareed to a fuckin' boy!” Did I mention Angie was twenty-six?
“That’s the ho-wuhl point, that’s the ho-wuhl poy-oint!” I stuck out my tongue, which garnered a sigh from Mom.
“I guess I shouldn’t be expectin’ no grand kids any time soon,” my mother said with a pout.
“Well…that’s usually the way it works out, Mom.” I poured her a mug of coffee. I was tempted to put Angie’s coffee in a sippy cup, but she was a big girl, so I gave her the coffee in a Flintstone’s grape jelly glass instead. By the way, I had a cup of coffee, they had caw-fee.
“You…you still gonna get…” My mother was a whiz with confrontation.
“Snipped? Yes, mom. Docked…altered…fixed…transformed… all of those things that make me what I am will be either used somewhere else on me or end up on the Jersey shore in a medical waste container.”
“That’s fuckin' disgustin'.” Angie practically spat it out, along with a half-mouthful of coffee, catching Mom just below her neckline on her new blouse. Mom failed to appreciate the irony of her younger daughter’s statement. Hell! She failed to appreciate that she actually had an older daughter.
“So there’s no way I can tawk you out of this?” She looked up from her mug with her big doe eyes like a kitten painted on velvet and frowned.
“Nope. Come seven-twelve or so tonight, you two will be in-laws, so we might as well get started.
“You mean you are actually gonna go through with this…you’re gonna marry that boy? I don’t get it.” Angie mewled. She didn’t get much to begin with, but this was a real poser.
“I love him, and I am going to be his wife. And sometime in the next seven or so months I’ll have taken care of things the way they should have been all along.” They stared at me like I had two heads but Mom just grabbed a rattail comb out of her purse and said,
“Okay…if you say so. Angie…Let’s get staaahted!”
"Faaaaaahk!" Angie breathed out a sigh.
Well, I can’t believe it. Here I am tonight as my Anthony gave me, his new bride, the moment of her life; a night to remember for Anthony Seraphino Ruffo and me, Pasqualina Giuseppina (Joey) Calcaveccia Ruffo. I guess Mom and Angie may yet get used to me being “Heterasexshul.” Grand kids? Not for a while; hell, we just got married. And like I said, in seven months or so I’ll no longer have that pesky...uh...detail to deal with...
Comments
Thank you 'Drea,
ALISON
'I didn't know you came from Joisey.What a surprise! You even speak da langwidge.
ALISON
Hi Gram...
Maybe lankwitch? I adore the medical waste on the beach. It's so much like Ft. Lauderdale. Maybe it's imported from Joiseeeeee??? As usual, a wonderful little 'snippet' of life.
Who else???
Da Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrat
I wonder if
I wonder if it's funny or sad that, despite being from Arkensaw I still understood that better than 90% of the people I live around? ("transplanted yankees" aside :-P)
Poor Joey. At least her mother's trying, in her own way. I could make a joke about Angie and a word that rhymes with 'Shore', but I'd rather not degrade a wonderful piece by a spectacular lady, so suffice to say, your characters are as compelling as ever. Color me green ^_~
Nice job :-D
Im always green with envy
when it comes to comparing myself to you, 'Drea. Your ability with language and accents, your talent for making believable characters, and the way you always make music a part of the story .... dam, girl, if I ever write anything as good.....
"I'm not like other people - Pain hurts me!" - Daffy Duck.
dorothycolleen
Of course, They Love Her
They had to go through the motions, but they were there for sistah and dawtah to make the wedding as right as it could be. Everything is gonna be jus' fine.
Portia
Portia
Ooh! I never thought about
Ooh! I never thought about it like that. That's very true :-D
Interesting take...
Interesting take on things.
Being a resident of New Jersey, I was able to make out most of what they said. (Just kidding...) Luckily, I didn't live my life here - just the past 20 years. As a result, I do NOT have a Jersey accent! (Which, by the way, is NOT what you may think you hear on many TV shows. The only folks that call this place "Joisee" don't live here!)
Quite a fun story. The family? Amazing, given their reaction, they're willing to help Joey get ready. I was lucky to wear White at my wedding - but my wife got the awesome dress. With luck, I'll get to wear a dress at my daughter's weddings! One can hope timing is good, can't one? :-)
Thanks,
Anne
As they say...
...(never really knew who they 'was'), timing is everything. Jerzie (notice the clever marketing ploy) hugs and kisses.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Jersey Shore Bride
Love how you brought out the native jive in your story.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I like this story Paulie Shore's Bride
...and this boisterous salt-of-the-earth family, who I do believe will come around over the course of their further misadventures. In about sixth grade I had a new friend who's family had relocated to the west coast from NJ. I was was with this boy and his mom in the kitchen, and was saying something, some precocious tweenage opinion or other, when his mom looked at me levelly and said "Yer so fulla shit it's dribblin' out ya ear an' down ya chin!" -but in such a way that it made me laugh and feel at home. None of my other friends' mom's talked like that. Faaaahkin' good little story.
~~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Think I missed this first time arround... Yous needs ta adverize
Yous know?
But then you post so much it is a full time job to keep up. 'Drea.
How did he propose? Did he make her "an offer she couldn't refuse"?
-- snicker --
Funny and sweet.
Um so where is Snookie?
Oops! WRONG Jersey Shore.
I'd better mind my manners. Might end up wearing a pair of concrete galoshes.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Don't know how I missed this one...
But completely love it! Thanks!