A pause. “Honey.”
Yes, Dad has taken to trying endearments on me. It’s not working. It’s obvious he’s only ever said them to Mom and it makes him feel weird to use them on anyone else.
“Fine,” I said, and hung up. Stupid Laurie. I thought shrinks were supposed to help you, not torture you.
The nurse should have sent me back to class then but she didn’t. That was nice of her.
I should have guessed something bad would happen.
She told me to lie back down and got me a cup of water. When I was done with it she started telling me about her oldest son and how he was in Pinewood once 31
too. Then she said, “You know, I remember seeing you and Julia—” and before she could say another word I told her I was feeling better and left.
I only had one class to get through after that. It was physics, which dropped me back in with the honors kids again.
Also more group work, this time solving some problem involving rolling metal balls through some contraption and then measuring stuff. No one would let me touch anything, which was fine with me. I just sat there, and then some girl said, “Are you sure you’re supposed to be in this class?”
I tried to do that freeze-you-out thing Julia would do when she was mad. She’d turn away and act like whoever spoke didn’t exist. It worked on guys pretty well, even Kevin, and the two times she did it to me I begged her to talk to me again after less than ten seconds.
But my attempt at it? It didn’t work. I turned away too fast and caught my hip on the table with a nice hard smack. I acted like I didn’t notice my clumsiness (or the pain), ignored all the snickers at my table, and looked around the room. I actually recognized a lot of the kids from parties. They just look different when they aren’t messed up. Less human.
Mel nodded at me when I saw him and said something to Patrick, who pushed a pencil around in his hands and 32
then stared out the window. Mel sighed, gave me a small half smile, and then went back to work. Patrick kept staring out the window, even when someone at the table next to his said something, making sure my name and those of a few guys were loud enough for me to hear.
As if I didn’t already know I had a reputation. Please. I worked hard for it.
I have this theory about sex. I never told Julia about it because . . . well, because I just came up with it today as I sat in that stupid class. But I think it’s pretty good. And I think Julia would have liked it.
This is my theory:
If you sleep with one guy—well, who cares? Nobody.
It actually generates less talk than if you’re a virgin.
Two guys—same deal, unless you do both of them in the same night and are stupid enough to let someone take pictures. (Stephanie Foster!)
Once you get past two, the number of guys you sleep with gets more complicated. Say you sleep with three guys. Everyone will know you slept with ten and talk a lot of crap about you.
Four guys means people think you’ve slept with so many that every drunk or high (or both) guy will talk to you at parties because, hey, you put out for anyone.
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Past four? You’re a pathetic, diseased slut and everyone knows it, so the only guys you can get are the loser ones, and even then they’ll never call and always wear a condom because—well, look where you’ve been!
That’s why five is the perfect number. You get left alone and if you do feel like doing something (which I don’t—getting to fi ve was enough work, thank you), you can find someone stupid and forgettable and it won’t turn into drama. Or a relationship. (Which is really the same thing.)
I wish I could have told Julia this. She would have loved it. She would have had a shirt made that said “pathetic slut” in sequins. She would have worn it too, and laughed her ass off at anyone who said something.
I’ve been with five and a half guys. I always told Julia fi ve. I didn’t—I didn’t talk about the half. Not even with her.
Patrick was the half. It happened at a party in Millertown late last spring, the one Julia decided we should go to because she was fighting with Kevin and hoped he’d be there.
He wasn’t and so she had some acid and then got pissed at me because I wouldn’t, waved me away when I reminded her that acid always freaked me out and that I was fine, I had the vodka we’d picked up beforehand.
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“You won’t even drink unless you get to open the bottle,” she said, her voice soft but her words sharp, slicing me open in the way only she could. “You’re such a control freak.”
I stumbled back, hurt by the anger in her voice, and she sighed and threw her arms around me, said, “God, Amy, come on, have some fun. Let go a little! Live!”
And then she whirled away, caught up in the party. She didn’t look back.
I drank my vodka, trying to get up the nerve to fi nd her, but it didn’t work. The world was blurred the way I liked, but I didn’t feel relaxed and safe. I felt too tall and stupid, out of place. Everyone around me was having fun, but I wasn’t.
I felt like I should have been having fun but I knew, deep down, that I never would. Not the way Julia could. I could never just let go. It sucked, but it’s how things were for me. Plus I hated knowing Julia was mad at me. So I left the party and went outside to wait in her car.
I tripped over someone as I was walking down the porch steps. A guy, sitting there with a mostly full cup of beer by his side. He was staring off into the distance, arms wrapped around his legs. He looked as unhappy as I felt.
“Sorry,” I said automatically.
“My fault,” he said, and then, “Are you all right?”
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“I’m fine,” I said, another automatic response, and he said, “Okay,” and stood up. When he did, his hand touched mine, and I felt something, a strange, sudden jolt inside me.
I used to act annoyed whenever Julia talked about Kevin and how she felt a spark every time he touched her, but the truth was I knew exactly what she meant after that night. I just never told her.
He must have felt that jolt too because he said, “Oh,”
quietly. Almost startled.
We ended up in the basement, jimmied open a sliding glass door and went inside. It was dark and unfi nished, a single bare lightbulb shedding a tiny ring of light onto the sagging sofa we sat on. We didn’t talk much. His name was Patrick. I said, “I’m Amy,” and waited for the usual crap about how he’d seen me around before. Instead he looked at the floor and said, “You hang out with that girl, Julia, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought so. I don’t go to many parties.”
“Yeah? I go to a lot.”
He nodded and then looked at me. There was something almost frightened in his eyes. It was weird, but it . . .
I don’t know. It made me really look at him, not just as some random guy, but as a person.
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“It’s lonely, don’t you think?” he said, gesturing around the room. It was all bare walls and exposed beams. Even the spiderwebs in the corners of the ceiling were dusty, like they’d been abandoned. One of his fingers brushed against my arm and I felt that spark again. It was like part of me had been asleep until that moment. Like somehow, I’d been waiting for something I hadn’t even known about.
“It looks safe,” I said, honest like I never was with guys, spinning on that spark, and the fright in his eyes melted into something else, something like understanding. If he’d tried to kiss me then, nothing important would have happened. We would have had sex and that would have been it. But he didn’t try to kiss me. He just leaned over and pushed my hair back with one hand, tucking it behind my ears. Guys did that to Julia all the time because her hair was long and honey-colored, beautiful. Mine is short and the color red leaves are right before they rot.