“So. Is it a deal?”
“Wait. What do I get if I do it?”
“Same thing.”
“Deal.”
“Okay,” Mike begins. “Here’s what you do.”
CHAPTER 9
this remote island
september 5, 5:32 p.m.
“Okay.” I turn over this huge shopping bag in the middle of Maggie’s king-size bed. I swear, her bed is bigger than my room. “I brought my flares, my low-rise, my skinny jeans . . . oh, my size-eight low-rise—”
“I thought you were a size six.”
“Yeah, but size eight makes my butt look smaller.”
“And this is a good thing because . . .”
“Because my butt looks bigger than California in all the others?”
We’re deciding what I should wear for my big date with Dave tomorrow. Or Maggie’s giving me things to try on and then deciding for me.
“Oh, please.” Maggie picks up the flares. “You look fabulous in these.”
“Are you sure?”
“Would I give you bad wardrobe advice? Here.” Maggie holds them out. “Put these on with, um . . . hang on.” She dives into her enormous walk-in closet. “I am now locating the shirt that will drive Dave crazy.”
I laugh. But it’s not funny. This reminds me of reason number seventy-three why I’m nervous about tomorrow. I know it’s only the first date, but what if Dave’s expecting a lot more than I’m used to? I wonder if he can tell I’m a virgin.
I lie down on Maggie’s bed. I pile all the pillows on top of me. I’m freaking out. This is nothing like what I had with Scott. That was definitely
not
a case of zsa-zsa -zou. Whenever Scott tried going further than I wanted, the decision was easy. I just smacked his hand away and he didn’t push it. But with Dave . . .
“Okay.” Maggie emerges with a stack of shirts. She holds out a red backless thing. “Try this first,” she says.
“What,” I go. “Seriously?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not exactly . . . me.” I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but sometimes we have really different ideas about what’s sexy. When it comes to clothes, Maggie subscribes to the Less Is More school of seduction. Whereas I’m more into the Jeans and a T-Shirt Always Look Cute way of thinking. Then again, this is new territory. I’ve never dated a Calvin Klein ad before.
I grab the shirt. I’m trying to figure out how it goes on when a door slams down the hall. Then there’s yelling. Maggie’s parents are fighting. It’s been happening a lot lately.
“There they go again,” Maggie says. “My dad just got home from a business trip. This is gonna be a long one.”
Her dad is always traveling. He’s, like, this systems-analyst guy who gets hired by all these different companies as a consultant. He makes a ridiculous amount of money, which is why Maggie has her own credit cards and her mom doesn’t even work. I love Maggie like a sister, but I’m so jealous of her it’s wrong. But maybe her life isn’t all that.
“You can totally work that,” she tells me.
I look at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing a belt that’s masquerading as a shirt. “There’s no way,” I tell her. I yank it off.
Maggie hands over a pink silk top with sequins. “Girl, you don’t realize how sexy you are. That shirt and anything else can be you if you let it.” That’s the thing about Maggie. She dates all these gorgeous guys on her terms and has never been dumped in her life. She’s had sex with two guys already and doesn’t regret any of it. It’s like love is this fun adventure for her, while for me it’s all about wanting something you don’t have.
Until now.
“Any tips?” I say.
“Sure.” Maggie plops herself down on a gigantic floor pillow. “What do you want to know?”
“Well . . .” Of course Maggie’s told me all about the guys she’s slept with. But before, sex seemed like this remote island. Now that it’s a definite possibility, I need details. “What’s it like? The first time?”
“I’m sorry. Since when do we sleep with guys on the first date?”
“I don’t mean for tomorrow! It’s . . . for future reference. ”
“Do you think you’re gonna sleep with Dave?”
“I don’t know.” I smile at the floor. “Maybe.”
“Look at you!”
“So what’s it like?”
“Well, at first it hurts.”
“A lot?”
“It depends.” Maggie shifts on the pillow.
“Were you nervous?”
“Not really. I wanted to and . . . it was the right time for me.”
“How did you know?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I was . . . I don’t know. I just wanted to.”
It’s not like I don’t want to. But I’ve never reached the point where I’ve wanted to more than I didn’t want to.
“Does it hurt the whole time?” I say.
“No. Just at first. But then it gets better.”
“So . . . what if like four months from now he’s getting impatient, and I’m still not ready?”
“Then you don’t do it.”
“But what if I think I’m ready and we’re almost doing it and then I realize I’m not and I freak out right when he’s about to—”
“Chillax! You’re thinking about this way too much.” Maggie throws a lacy turquoise top at me. “That’s the problem with you genius types. You overanalyze everything. ”
“I don’t think I’m overanalyzing. I just—”
“Look, stop worrying so much. Just go with the flow.” Maggie scrutinizes my outfit. “I like the pink on you. But try this one—it’s much tighter.”
I take the tiny shirt and try to squeeze myself into it.
“It only matters what
you
want,” Maggie says. “Don’t let him force you into anything.”
“Right.”
“Don’t forget mints tomorrow. And—oh yeah! This is the shirt!”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too tight.” I peel it off.
“That’s the point. You’re wearing it.”
“No, I’m not. I like the pink one.”
“But the turquoise is so you.”
“Um, no.”
“Oh—you should get some condoms so you have them when you’re ready. You have no idea what’s out there. And you can’t always expect him to have them.” Maggie has condoms, plus she’s on the pill. She believes in doubling up on birth control.
“What if he wants me to put it on?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you do it?”
“Oh, it’s easy,” Maggie says, like it’s nothing. “First, you have to make sure you’re putting it on the right way or else it won’t unroll. Then you squeeze the tip to let the air out so when—”
“I get it.”
“Then you just unroll it. But make sure you unroll it all the way down. You don’t want it to come off, believe me.”
All this seems like too much. Figuring out which way to unroll a condom in the dark and how much it’s going to hurt and how I’m going to feel after. Is it worth all the drama?
I steer the conversation back to the date. “Okay, so mints. What else?”
“Don’t act all shy when you see The Look. You know you’re dying to make out with him.”
“Finally,” I say. “Familiar territory.”
“Oh, yeah, like Scott ever gave you The Look,” Maggie scoffs. She’s convinced that a person can’t be smart and passionate and president of the chess club. Two out of three, maybe.
“It wasn’t his fault I wasn’t more attracted to him,” I sniff.
“It also wasn’t his fault he wasn’t attractive. Big whoop.”
“Oh! He’s cute!”
Maggie raises an eyebrow at me.
“Sort of,” I mumble. I glance at the clock. “It’s getting late.” I shove my jeans back in the bag. “I better go.”
“Hey,” Maggie says when I’m in her doorway.
I turn around just in time to catch the pink shirt that’s flying toward me.
On my way down the hall, I pass her parents’ room. Their voices are lower, but they’re still fighting. I consider listening at the door, but that’s tacky. Anyway, I don’t want to know. I’m not ready to find out that the only parental role models I’ve ever had aren’t happy after all.
CHAPTER 10
living proof of the impossible
september 5, 9:43 a.m.
I never thought talking to a girl would ever be this hard.
At least we have Music Theory together. The problem is that we were put into pairs the first day, and so I never get to talk to Sara. She sits all the way across the room with Laila. I could always go up to her after class or something. But it’s not that simple. How exactly do you get a girl who likes someone else to like you instead?
Mike’s philosophy is if a girl likes someone and you want her to like you, you should watch what the guy who she likes does. Then whatever you see him doing around her, do that. The logic is that since the girl likes this guy so much, she’s automatically into the kinds of things he does. Mike’s big plan for me is to do the same exact thing that Dave did. So all I have to do is go up to Sara, talk to her for a few minutes, and then ask her out. Since it’s only been three days since Dave dropped the bomb, I’m not technically scamming on some other guy’s girl. And Dave is an asshole who doesn’t deserve to be with Sara. And Sara isn’t some random girl.
But I still haven’t come up with a feasible enough excuse to talk to her. So I’ve decided to accidentally-on-purpose cross her path in the hall. Josh found out from Fred that Sara has drafting third period.There’s only one way Sara can walk to drafting. So I’ve scoped out the staircase where some serious serendipity is about to go down. Today’s the day.
When second period is almost over, I start packing my bag on the sly. The instant the bell rings, I sprint out of class. The halls are clear. I station myself at the bottom of the small staircase that leads down to the art studio.
I wait.
People moving by bump into me.
I wait some more.
And then I see her.
I start to walk up the stairs.
She starts to walk down.
She looks at me.
I smile at her.
My lip sticks to my front tooth.
I say, “Hey.”
And that’s when I trip. My books go flying all over.
I never thought it was possible to fall up stairs. But here I am. Living proof of the impossible.
I put my hands out to break my fall. My fingers slip on a stair. Some kids behind me run up, pushing me over. I bang my head against the wall. Random pages from my binder, which popped open when it smacked against the floor, are scattered for what appear to be miles in every direction.
Sara bends down to help me up. “Are you okay?” she says.
I get up quickly like it’s no big deal. "Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Every time I see you, you’re bumping your head!”
And every time I see you, I wish my headboard was bumping against the wall. With you in my bed.
The bell rings.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sara says.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want help picking up your stuff?”
“Oh. Did something fall?”
Sara laughs. This is a good sign. Most girls don’t get my sense of humor.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “Thanks, though.”
“Okay, well . . . see you.”
“Later.”
I watch her walk away. Here was my chance and I blew it. And I looked like a spaz for nothing.
Could I
be
a bigger loser?
By the time all of my papers are shoved into my binder, I realize I should be in pre-calc. I’m mad late. Well, what do they expect? We do have lives here. Whoever established that there should be only five minutes between periods was obviously designing this rule for a school with like ten students. Sometime around 1908. Not that I’m ever in a rush to get to class on time. But still.
The teachers couldn’t be more clueless about our lives. The more I think about this as I walk to class, the more annoyed I get. Like, now I’m late, and Mr. Perry is going to ask me for a pass, and I don’t have one, and he’s going to be all, “Why are you late?” And what am I supposed to say? “Oh, sorry, Mr. Perry. I was just acting like this deranged stalker, and then I had to humiliate myself in front of the one girl I’m dying to get. The humiliation part took longer than I thought.” Yeah. That’ll work.
I walk into class like I’m not guilty of anything.
Everyone stares at me.
I sit down.
Mr. Perry quits speaking in the middle of a sentence. He glares at me.
It’s very quiet.
I open my notebook to a new page. I write the date like nothing’s wrong.
“Tobey?” says Mr. Perry.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a pass?”
It’s like they all read from the same script.
“No,” I say. But what I really want to do is jump out of my chair and yell, “Don’t you think that if I had a fucking pass I would have fucking given it to you when I walked through the fucking door?!” Then slam my notebook shut and stomp out the door in a triumphant huff. But he’ll harass me more if I do that.
Then he goes, “Why are you late?”
“Sorry,” I say.
Everyone is still staring at me.
“I appreciate your apology, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“I was in the bathroom.”
“Without a bathroom pass?”
“That’s right. It was an emergency.” I shake my head dramatically. “Trust me.You don’t want to know.”
Everyone giggles. Mr. Perry looks embarrassed.
“Next time you’re late, make sure you have a pass.” He goes back to talking about something that is, I assume, of vital importance to our lives.
After a few minutes of everyone writing down what he writes and no one raising their hand to answer his questions, Mr. Perry says, “Take out your homework. Let’s go over number nine.”
Everyone rustles in their notebooks and produces pages that may be homework or are just posing as homework until Mr. Perry discovers that they are, in fact, not homework. I don’t even bother to pretend to look for something that I would never have.
Mr. Perry looks at me. "Where’s your homework?” he demands.