BETH ANN: Beth Ann Bartels. I live at—
MARY LOU: Excuse me, but I’m going to go over there and look at wallpaper paste. I’ll be right over there if either of you needs me.
(Scene fades out.)
Well, she did it. She got him to ask her to the movies. Unbelievable. And her parents are letting her go. When I told my mother, she said, “Beth Ann? With Carl Ray? But he’s seventeen years old! Whatever can her parents be thinking?”
Exactly.
But then Beth Ann wanted me and Alex to go with them! I really thought that was stretching friendship a bit far. I refused. So they went to the movie that we wanted to see (and which, by the way, Beth Ann has seen three times already), and we walked down to the Big Boy and had a hamburger and then we went to the park (by the pool) and sat on the picnic tables.
We held hands for twenty minutes (I had my watch on). I’ve been practicing kissing on one of Maggie’s posters—there’s one of a guy who has approximately life-size lips—just in case Alex decides to kiss me. Sometimes I think he’s going to, but he gets all nervous and never does. I’m a little glad. I hope, when the time comes, I have a chance to brush my teeth first. I also hope that it doesn’t taste like chicken.
On Saturday, Beth Ann called me to tell me how wonnnnderful Carl Ray is (Carl Ray? Wonnnnderful?) and that they were going out again that night. Unbelievable. She loves his car (maybe she’s just after his money) and she thinks he’s shy (well, that’s true) and cute (pretty far-fetched, if you ask me) and such a gentleman (I think she’s making this up) and sooooo interesting (absolutely a bald-faced lie).
She also said that she didn’t think “the jerk” (Derek) got her letter yet (well, of course not, she just mailed it the day before), and, no, they hadn’t run into “the jerk” at the movies (probably because she had made him take her to it three times already), but sooner or later she and Carl Ray (she’s talking like she owns him now or something) were bound to run into the ole jerk.
Beth Ann also said that Christy had called her that morning (Saturday) and told her that the GGP (the secret club) was having a pajama party that night and only a few non-GGP girls were invited, and that these non-GGP girls were “under consideration for membership.” They invited Beth Ann to the party, but she told Christy she couldn’t go because she had a date with an older man (oh, brother). Beth Ann decided this was good strategy anyway, and it would make them even more anxious for her to join.
Then Beth Ann said that Christy asked her a million questions about me and Alex, but Beth Ann said she really didn’t know too much about Alex because I don’t tell her very much. As if she ever gives me a chance to get a word in.
Then Beth Ann said that Christy was probably going to call me at any minute so I’d better get off the phone.
Christy didn’t call.
The other news is that Carl Ray is going home next Friday. When I mentioned that to Beth Ann today, she about blew a gasket. You’d think they were married or something. She said, “Oh, how can he leave me now?” and “Why does he have to go on the weekend?” and all that kind of malarkey.
I read Book Ten of the Odyssey yesterday afternoon. It was pretty good, but there are some very strange parts. For instance, King Aeolus lives on an island and he had six sons and six daughters and he made them marry each other (how disgusting), I guess because of the island and no other people being around. The King gives Odysseus a present. It’s a bag of winds. Really, a bag full of crazy, wild winds, the kind that are blowing around outside right now. So Odysseus takes this weird present and off he goes, but when he falls asleep, his nosy men open the bag and the winds get out and there’s this horrible storm and they get tossed around and are driven about eight million miles away from their home (they were almost home until this happened).
Then they go to another island, where Circe lives, and she changes all the men (except Odysseus, who, of course, is too clever) into pigs (Homer really gets carried away sometimes). Circe falls all over Odysseus and wants him to go to bed with her (Homer doesn’t seem to care that Odysseus is a married man) and has all her servants wash him and anoint him. You’d think he’d get tired of having other people wash him all the time and put oil all over him. (My parents don’t want me to watch any sex or violence on television. If only they knew what the school is asking us to read!)
Anyway, Odysseus and his pig-men end up staying there twelve months!
Carl Ray happened to sneak by me in the living room while I was reading, and he asked me what part I was on. When I mentioned about Circe and the pigs, he said, “Oh yeah. Book Ten.” This surprised the heck out of me. And when I said that I thought it was a little far-fetched about the men turning into pigs, he said, “Well, it’s a metaphor.” (Can you imagine Carl Ray even knowing what a metaphor is?) And I said, “How so?” and he said, “Women turn men into pigs all the time.”
Then he went into the kitchen to make himself about four sandwiches.
And I sat there thinking about that. I hate to admit it, but it’s really very interesting and I wondered why I didn’t think of that. Maybe this whole trip that Odysseus is on is a big metaphor, you know, like the poem about the woods on the snowy evening. That road is supposed to be the road of life.
I asked Alex about it that night when we went to the movies (Beth Ann and Carl Ray went to play miniature golf), and even he seemed to have known all along about all the metaphors. He said, “Sure, his whole trip is a metaphor. It’s like life, you know. All the time you’re trying to find home (you are?) and all the time you have these adventures.”
I never even knew that Alex paid attention in English. I’m supposed to be the one good in English. I felt pretty stupid. But I like the Odyssey better now.
I will tell only briefly about Saturday night because the thunder is scaring me to death.
We went to the movies and saw this really sappy romance, but I have to admit that I enjoy the kissing scenes a lot more now than I used to. I’ve been studying them. I think I might write my own manual. Usually the guy starts the kiss, but not always. If he starts it, the girl often acts shy at first, but then she gets into it, and throws her arms around his neck. When the girl starts it, the guy usually looks pleased, and then he throws his arms around her.
One odd thing I’ve noticed is that the kisses rarely occur when everything is all quiet and romantic. They happen at times you wouldn’t ordinarily expect them, like after a fight—just when the woman has been telling the man that she hates him—or right in the middle of the street with people walking past and cars honking their horns. In the movie we saw tonight, a couple kissed right smack in the middle of the supermarket, after the woman picked up a frozen chicken! I’ve never noticed that in real life. Maybe it happens, though. Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention.
After the movie, Alex and I went to the park and he started telling me about why he likes basketball so much, but that he’s always worried he won’t make the team. Now, that surprised me about Alex. I thought he was Mr. Basketball Confidence. And right in the middle of talking about basketball, he reached over and put his arm around me. It’s the truth! Now, how in the world do boys’ brains work? How do they connect basketball and putting their arm around a girl? I would have liked a little warning. And what exactly is the girl supposed to do when the boy puts his arm around her? Just sit there? Move closer? Untangle her own arm and put it around him (squash!)?