“But it’s time we started spending more time with you girls,” she went on. “Your father thinks maybe Lucy would study more if we kept an eye on her. And you know what Rebecca’s teachers say about her need for more socialization. That’s why both your father and I will be cutting back our hours at the office. True, it will mean less money coming in. That’s what your father’s fight with his mother was about.” My mom grimaced. “But then, I was never that enthusiastic about going to Aruba for Christmas with her anyway.”
I just stared at her, barely able to register what I’d just heard. Mom and Dad were going to be spending more time with us?
Was this a good thing? Or a bad thing? Or a very bad thing?
“What about me?” I croaked.
“What about you, honey?” my mom asked.
“Well, I mean…is this about my detention last week? Or what I said on TV?”
“Oh, honey.” My mom smiled at me. “You know we don’t worry all that much about you, Sam. You’ve always had such a good head on your shoulders.” Then she added briskly, “But I do imagine if I’m home more, I might at least be able to keep you from doing anything else to your poor hair.”
She smiled to show she was joking…only I could tell she wasn’t really.
“Huh,” I said. “Great.”
Like someone in a daze, I headed up the stairs to my room. My dad had promised there’d be some BIG changes around our house.
I just never imagined they’d be this big.
I was in so much shock, I didn’t even hear Lucy when she called to me from her room as I passed by her open door. It was only the second time she screeched, “SAM!” that I realized she was talking to me, and poked my head into her room to see what she wanted.
“You’re back early!” Lucy cried, from where she was perched under the big canopy over her bed, perusing the latest Vogue, or whatever.
“So are you,” I said. “Did Dad and Grandma really get into it?”
“Totally,” Lucy said. “Well, you know how they are. They’ll be speaking again by Monday. At least, I hope so, because I was totally getting a new bikini for Aruba. So…how did it go?”
“Fine,” I said, conscious of the fact that Lucy has the long-term memory of a cat, and that it was unlikely she’d remember our conversation from the week before, or even that she’d ever bought me birth control.
But I guess our conversation had been more important to her than I’d thought—either that, or Harold’s tutoring had improved her memory—because she went, “Come in, come in and tell me all about, you know. It,” in a conspiratorial voice.
I slipped inside her room and closed the door so no one downstairs could overhear our conversation—not that that was very likely anyway, considering the volume at which Rebecca was playing her clarinet.
“So,” Lucy said, patting the empty spot beside her on the mattress. “What happened? With David, I mean? Did you two, you know, Do It?”
“Well,” I said, sitting down on the side of the bed where she’d indicated. “The truth is…”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “Yes?”
“Basically…” I took a deep breath. “I jumped his bones.”
Lucy squealed and squirmed in her seat. That’s when I noticed that the magazine she’d been reading with such intense concentration had been an SAT prep book.
Wow. She really did love Harold.
“So what happened, EXACTLY?” she wanted to know. “You used the foam, right? And he used a condom? Because you have to use both. Heather Birnbaum just used condoms and got knocked up and had to go live with her aunt in Kentucky.”
“We used the foam,” I said. “And the condoms. Thank you for that.”
“Did you—you know?” Lucy dropped her voice to a whisper.
“I think it’s going to take some practice,” I said, starting to blush, “for that to happen. But we’ll get there.”
“REALLY?” Lucy looked excited. “Tiffany always said it would work. Practicing with the handheld shower nozzle and all. But I didn’t believe her. It’s good to know she wasn’t totally lying.”
I looked at her curiously.
“Well,” I said, “I mean, haven’t you had some personal experience with it yourself? I mean, what about you and Jack?”
“JACK?” Lucy laughed as if this were hysterically funny. “Oh my God, JACK!”
I stared at her.
“But…” Something was not computing. “Lucy, you and Jack—you two Did It, right?”
Lucy made a face.
“Ew! Me? With JACK? Never!”
“Wait.” I stared at her even harder. “So…you’re…you’re a VIRGIN?”
“Well, of course.” Lucy looked puzzled. “What did you think?”
“But you and Jack went out for, like, three years!”
“So?” For someone who had so blithely (SAT word meaning “in a joyous manner”) given me birth control and sex tips, Lucy looked extremely indignant at the suggestion that she herself might not be pure as the driven snow. “I mean, he wanted to, but I was like, No way, José!”
“But, Lucy,” I cried. “The foam! And the condoms! You’re the one who got them for me!”
“Well, of course,” Lucy said matter-of-factly. “I couldn’t let you go to the store and get them yourself and have it be all over the National Enquirer. I mean, that was before you made it so obvious that you don’t care WHO knows your business by announcing it on national television. But that doesn’t mean I ever used it. Foam, I mean. I just heard about it, you know. From Tiffany.”
“But”—and this was the part that I was having the most trouble processing—“the other day, in the cafeteria. You called yourself a slut.”
“So?” Lucy tossed some of her shimmery red-gold hair. “So did Catherine.”
I stared at her, completely shocked. “So you…you just did that for me? And you and Jack—all that time—you never…you never…”
“Did It?” Lucy shook her head. “No way. I told you. He wasn’t The One.”
“But…but you thought he was. For a long time. You can’t tell me you didn’t. You even told me he was your first!”
“My first LOVE,” Lucy said. “Not my first…you know.”
“But…” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Lucy shrugged. “I mean, yeah, I guess I thought sometimes he might be. The right guy. But I never knew. You know? Not the way you know about David. Or I know about Harold.”
“You think Harold is The…One?” I asked.
I must have wrinkled my nose as I said it or something, though, because Lucy sounded defensive as she said, “Yes, I do. Why? What’s wrong with Harold?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m sure you two will be very happy together. After, you know. You pass your SATs, and everything.”
Apparently mollified, Lucy said, “So tell me all about it. Did it hurt the first time? Did his parents suspect? Where’d you guys Do It, his room or yours? What about the Secret Service? They weren’t around, were they? What about—”
Her questions went on and on.
And even though I felt way too dazed to answer them, I totally tried. Because I fully owed her. Way more now than I’d ever even realized.
It was the least I could do to repay her.
Besides, what are sisters for?
“Sam! You showed!” Dauntra waved at me wildly from behind the cash register when I showed up for my shift later that day.
Well, so much for her being mad at me. I’d fully thought she would be. On account of my having turned out to have been a mouthpiece for the president’s fascist initiative after all.
Although I had refused to go along with it at the last minute.