A N G E L (Roger Daltrey)

Eight

Janice's POV

I sat in the middle of my floor, clothes everywhere. It looked like there had been a nuclear fashion explosion, and I was its epicenter. On my bedside table, Tommy was playing from my record player.

It had been dark for a while now. Truth be told, it was probably going on midnight if not later. My midday snooze had officially fucked my sleep schedule.

I picked up a pair of jeans that looked oddly small and read the tag. They were a kid's size! Why did I still have them? I shook my head and threw them into the 'donate' pile.

Next was a t-shirt that was an offensive shade of yellowy-green. In big, peeling letters it read 'MARVIN'S AUTO SALES'. I chucked it straight into the trash. Not even a homeless man would be caught wearing that.

I was adding clothes to the 't-shirts I won't wear but are too nice to be thrown out' pile when the phone rang downstairs.

My stomach flipped and my face got hot as I ran to answer it.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hi, Jan, I'm just calling to let you know I'm still alive," came Nancy's voice.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Oh! That's good. You aren't grounded or anything?" I tried to hide my disappointment that it wasn't Roger I was talking to.

"No, somehow. I guess my mom is finally, like, starting to trust me, ya know? 'Bout time, I mean, I'll be nineteen in six months."

I twisted the phone cord up around my fingers and leaned against the wall. One of mom's boyfriends had accidentally broken the little bench that I usually sat on when I talked on the phone.

"That's true. You're not a baby anymore." There was silence on the line for a moment. "Hey, I'm going through my closet because I can't sleep. If you want to do the same, we can run it all to The Salvation Army tomorrow if you're down with it."

"Sure!" Said Nancy. "I know for sure I have some shoes that don't fit anymore. If we go to the one in Davidstown, we can get lunch at that little deli. Like, make a day out of it or something."

"Sounds good. What time?" I closed my eyes, making a wish that she wouldn't say something ridiculously early.

"If I pick you up at noon, we can drop everything off and eat around one."

Okay, not too bad at all.

"Groovy, Trudy. See you then!" I unwound the phone cord from my hand. It was starting to cut off my circulation.

"Later, alligator. And don't call me Trudy!" We laughed, and I hung up the phone.

Back in my room, I finished sorting my clothes, but I still wasn't too terribly tired. I realized that if Nancy was going to pick me up at noon, I needed to get some sleep.

When I was younger and couldn't sleep, my mom would slip me a Tylenol. So I took two, and within twenty minutes had sailed away to dreamland.

When I woke, it was barely light outside. My alarm clock read 7:21 AM.

Dammit, I'm never going to sleep normally again, I thought to myself.

I hopped out of bed and went downstairs for a trash bag and a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts.

Out of curiosity, I peeked into the basement. My mom was snoring softly. Speaking of destroyed sleep schedules, it was hard telling when she'd get up.

I went back upstairs and jumped onto my bed, ripping open my Pop-Tarts and eating them un-toasted. I threw the foil packet into my bedside wastebasket, then shook out the large trash bag I had brought up and began stuffing clothes into it.

When I was almost finished, I got a creeping feeling, like someone was behind me. I turned around and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw my mom standing in the doorway.

"Could you have picked a better time to shake out a trash bag in the loudest way possible?" She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And you sound like a herd of elephants when you walk. I have a hangover, keep it down."

"You always have a hangover," I deadpanned.

Mom stared at me with empty eyes. "Whatever."

"Well, while you're up here, I'll let you know I'm going to The Salvation Army to donate some of my old clothes with Nancy and then we're getting lunch." I tied the top of the bag shut.

"Good for you," my mom said. She patted the doorframe and sauntered off.

I rolled my eyes. And Nancy thought her mom was insufferable! At least hers knew which way was up.

Noon crawled around eventually, and the unmistakable sound of the beetle bug's horn came from the driveway.

I hefted my bag over my shoulder like Santa Claus and waddled down the stairs slowly, trying not to trip and kill myself.

"Hey!" Nancy said. She had gotten out of the car and pushed her seat forward so I could cram my bag in next to hers in the backseat.

"Hi!" We got in the car and started on our way. "Have you gotten any sleep?" I asked her.

"Sort of? My mom didn't let me go to bed until, like, 8 PM after we got back. She said she didn't want me sleeping through the day." She made a disgusted noise. "But I woke up a couple hours later and that's when I called you."

"Probably for the best, I slept from the time we got back to, like, 6, and now I'm all out of sorts." I shook my head.

"You know what's got me all out of sorts?" She asked.

"What?"

"That we had an earth-shattering experience with The Who."

"Ah! I know!" I squealed. "I can hardly believe it wasn't a dream or a trip or something!"

We both blushed, relating the story to each other even though we had both been there for it.

"Ah, I'm sweating!" I giggled, dramatically fanning my armpits. "I always sweat when I talk about them!"

"I know! How'd you, like, not do that when you slept with Roger? I mean, if just talking about him makes you sweat." Nancy pulled into The Salvation Army parking lot.

"I don't know. I guess it just felt so much like a dream. Good thing, though, because I don't think he would've liked me near as much if I'd pit-sweated all over him."

We shrieked with laughter, the kind where you stop for a second but then lose it all over again when you look at each other. We wrestled our donations out of the backseat and took them in.

"Hi, we brought you some threads!" I announced cheerily to the woman behind the counter.

"Great! You can just sit them down right where you are. Peter! Come and take care of these donations, will you?" She said.

A young boy of probably about seventeen appeared from behind a rack of coats, flipping his long hair out of his eyes and smiling at Nancy and me.

"How're you ladies doing?" He asked politely as he loaded our bags onto a cart.

"Good," we said at the same time.

"That's good!" He pushed the cart away and disappeared behind a set of double doors.

"Alright, here's your receipt for proof of donation. Thank you girls!" The woman handed us each a slip of paper.

We walked out of the store and got back into the car. Next stop, deli.