She and her mother had gone out to buy her some jeans. They had already been making the rounds of the stores on the main shopping street for more than an hour in the March slush and they couldn’t find anything that fit both her and her budget, as well as fulfilling Maya’s light-beige color requirement. They were just coming out of yet another store and Maya was about to tell her mother that she couldn’t take it anymore and was ready to acquiesce to the most pedestrian blue denim just to get it over with, when Sirma and Spartacus appeared on the sidewalk in front of her. They were absorbed in conversation, Spartacus jutted up a whole head above her and was nodding so vigorously that his poofy hair, which he was trying to grow out, bobbed rhythmically and made him look a bit like a poodle. Sirma was explaining something excitedly and looked unusually pleased with herself. Maya stared. She would’ve pretended not to see them, she would’ve let them pass and given them the third degree on Monday, but from his height Spartacus noticed her, at first he jumped, but then he started waving ecstatically. Talk about theatrics! Sirma’s black curls were positively glowing. Hey, what are you doing here, Maya? I’d ask the same of you; Mom, these are my schoolmates; ohhh, it’s so nice to meet you, so you’re Sirma and Spartacus, I’ve heard a lot about you, why don’t you come over some time, in a matter of seconds her mother’s sharp eye had managed to look them over carefully, pausing on Sirma’s scrawl-covered army-surplus bag and the pins on Spartacus’s jacket, while they giggled idiotically and explained that a new music store had opened up further down the street. Maya was livid. She wished them a pleasant afternoon, went into the next store with her mom and — oh, parody of wonders! — finally discovered the yearned-for light-beige jeans, which according to her mother fit her perfectly, really, said Maya, well, Okay then.
And on Monday she headed for school in her light-beige jeans, while under her coat, unbeknownst to her mother, who would have been shocked at such recklessness, it was still winter, after all, she wore only a tight pink shirt, which had shrunk sufficiently to accentuate her breasts and show her navel, she put on lipstick, she would’ve put on more make-up if her mother had already left for work, but there was no way to do so now, she made herself up for the first time a whole three months later for a party and the results were catastrophic, so she went to school like that, purposely dawdling on the way so she would arrive a minute or two after the teacher, she took off her jacket and was left in her pink shirt, she burst into the classroom triumphantly and… Spartacus wasn’t there. She sat at the desk alone. Ways for expressing repeated past action: past continuous tense, used to, would. I used to go out often with my friends. During the break, Sirma herself popped into their room, hugged her and informed her that the music store was great and that Spartacus was sick with the flu.
When Spartacus returned to school, however, everything seemed to continue as before, the three of them went out together and Maya didn’t see any signs of a greater intimacy between Sirma and him, which annoyed her all the more, because the awful anticipation of seeing them kissing at any moment ate away at her. One afternoon, when she was home alone, she sat down in front of the mirror with a cup of coffee and started asking herself questions out loud. The goal of the interrogation was to find out what was bothering her. Did she like Spartacus? If she didn’t like him, what did she have against Sirma going with him? She couldn’t really expect all of their relations to develop in a triangle, in which no corner was ever left out. Well yes, she told herself, in fact, that was exactly what she expected. And to be frank, from a certain moment on things really did begin to happen that way, they did everything as a trio and Maya didn’t find it strange, she had never found it strange, but that really had begun later. A whole month passed before Spartacus and Sirma announced they were a couple. Maya kept hanging out with them and they didn’t seem to have anything against it. What’s more: Sirma started acting warmer, trusting her with more things, her eyes seemed less and less like mocking blue beads when she talked to her. Maya admitted that Sirma was very pretty, but she also thought that she herself was nothing to be scoffed at, either. Maya got used to Sirma and Spartacus being together and no longer shuddered when they kissed, but, in fact, this happened only rarely. Besides, at that same party where she had gone slathered with foundation and with eye-shadow ringing her eyes, looking as if her father had beaten her, she drank vodka for the first time, as an experiment, since at the previous party another girl had gotten drunk on vodka and hooked up with the host’s neighbor; and the experiment suggested that perhaps vodka has an automatic effect because after she got drunk at one point she suddenly found herself in the parents’ bedroom with the birthday boy pawing her, which was actually quite pleasant, Maya let him dig his huge, hot tongue into her mouth and sensed a warmth creeping along her spine when he unclasped her bra with astonishing dexterity, but she had already sobered up enough not to allow him to undress her. When they reappeared in the living room, Sirma looked at her with respect, while Spartacus went out on the balcony and tried to smoke with some unfamiliar boys. Maya never figured out how that unsuccessful attempt at smoking had led them to the brink of a fistfight, but she and Sirma quickly dragged Spartacus away, who also turned out to be quite drunk, they dragged him into the bathroom, and Sirma started pouring cold water over him, while he alternately snorted, laughed, yelled and shook his fists, his whole T-shirt was soaking and Maya, still mellow from her adventure with the birthday boy, suddenly said he was very sexy all wet like that, and Sirma burst out laughing, come on, girl, isn’t one a night enough for you, but Spartacus was not in good shape at all and they slipped out with him, walking on either side and holding him up, while he howled ’70s songs at the top of his lungs and when he couldn’t remember how the lyrics went, he would simply repeat the same verse ad nauseum; Maya and Sirma were enjoying themselves thoroughly, ecstatic when some elderly passerby looked after them and clucked his tongue indignantly. But Spartacus sobered up quite quickly, growing gloomy and shame-faced. They argued for some time over how to see one another home without anyone coming to harm, since they found themselves more or less equidistant from their respective apartments. In the end, Spartacus and Sirma walked Maya home. It turned out to be barely nine, her mother and father were watching television in the dark living room and praised her for coming home on time, horrified, she expected them to bust her for drinking, but they were too engrossed in the film, only her brother met her in the hallway and said, whoa, Maya, just take a look at yourself; scram, twerp, she replied, but she went into the bathroom and was horrified to discover a degenerate whore with smeared make-up looking back at her from the mirror. If that’s how you look after a hook-up, thanks, but I’ll pass.