You, Maybe, page 11
“You’re thinking of letting her go?” I heard Bitsy ask my mother.
I couldn’t hear what my mother answered. She met my eyes in the reflection and said something else I didn’t hear. And then I noticed myself in there, in the reflection, beside my mother. I looked different. My hair was smooth and shiny, falling soft around my face, the ends just skimming my shoulders. It looked like a vaguely pretty girl but nobody I specifically recognized. I watched some expressions pass over the face of the girl in the mirror, and when we smiled at each other, Bitsy shut off the blow-dryer. “You like it, huh?”
She tucked the side hair behind my ear. My mother stepped closer, then grabbed my empty earlobe, pinched it and yanked. “Your earring! Oh, no! My grandmother’s diamond earring. It must have fallen out!”
The whole salon erupted into furious activity, everybody checking my one remaining earring, searching the sink, the garbage, the mess of hair in the dustpan. It all happened too quickly for me to stop them, and then it was too late to correct the misperception. By the time we left, the owner of the salon was so relieved to get rid of us, he refused to let Mom pay for my day of beauty at all, and promised to call her immediately if the earring turned up. Mom and I walked glumly to her car.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Was the back on properly? You have to take care of valuable things, Josie. You always . . .” She shook her head. I didn’t defend myself because the truth was way worse than what she was mad about.
She backed out and as we waited our turn to pull out of the shopping center’s parking lot, she asked, “So you and that gorgeous boy are in love, huh?”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“Nothing. It’s wonderful,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So why do you seem so unhappy?”
I looked out my side window. She drove for a while, without talking for once.
“Your hair looks good,” she said.
“Beschert,” I said. “It means meant for each other. Do you think you and Daddy were meant for each other?”
She bounced her glossy lips against each other. “Meant for each other?”
“You don’t seem it,” I said. “I mean, you’re all about how you look, he’s a schlump; all he thinks about is feet, and all you wear is stilettos. . . . How come he doesn’t bug you about your shoes?”
“Relationships are work,” she said. “And they all have their miseries.”
“Miseries?”
“Mysteries,” Mom said. “I said mysteries.”
“You said miseries.”
“Josie! Why are you always looking for a fight?”
“I’m a pacifist!”
“So you say.”
“Fine, forget it. Can I go this weekend or not?”
“Daddy and I will discuss it.”
“Daddy will agree with whatever you say. He’ll say, ‘As long as she wears the orthotic shoes for her falling arches I don’t care where she goes.’”
Mom laughed.
“Is that a yes?”
“I guess so,” Mom said.
I looked at her, as she drove. Yes? “Really?” As easy as that?
She smiled. “I trust you.”
“I’m supposed to do a party that weekend but I can cancel it, no problem.”
“If you’re willing to cancel a party for it,” she said quietly, “it must be really important to you.”
“It is,” I answered. “Thank you.”
Her pocketbook started to ring. “My phone. Quick. Josie! Get that for me. Come on, why are you always so slow?”
I found her phone in her bag and handed it to her. She flipped it open and started talking a mile a minute. Work. “No,” she was saying. “Absolutely not. Well, tell him the sketches have to be in by Thursday or the . . . what? That’s ridiculous, I don’t care if the flooding is up to his armpits, I still need . . .”
“Mom!”
She was swerving a little, yelling into the phone, and almost sideswiped a car passing on our left.
“Ack! Don’t yell, Josephine, you almost made me get in an acci . . . what? No, my daughter. I had to take her to a, a, a doctor’s appointment. No. Fine, I’ll be at a computer in twenty minutes, email me what you’ve got.” She hung up and tossed the phone in my lap.
“It’s dangerous to talk on the cell phone when you drive,” I told her.
“You sound like your father. Listen, that reminds me . . .”
“Don’t say I have to wear the orthotics.”
“No, don’t. They’re hideous. Wear stilettos; that’s what they all love. Even your father.”
“What?!”
“Nothing.” She blushed a little. Weird. “No, I mean the lie I just told about the doctor’s appointment. What about birth control?”
“Mom . . .”
“Please tell me you’re using protection, and I mean condoms plus something else—are you on the pill?”
“I’m not using anything, Mom.” I am only fifteen years old. I’m in over my head as it is and I am nowhere near needing birth control.
“Josie! You have to use something,” my mother screeched. “Are you an idiot? Not using anything? That’s suicide!” She turned to look at me and the car lurched into the other lane again.
“Mom!” I grabbed onto the door handle for dear life. “Please watch the road or you’ll kill us today, before I ever get the chance to lose my virginity!”
“Oh,” said Mom. “You’re still, you’re not . . . oh. Okay.”
“Disappointed?” I asked her.
“No! That’s good. Phew. I just thought, I mean, he looks so, grown up. So big.”
“Mom!”
“What? I mean, usually you hang around with Michael, or Zandra and Tru. You just haven’t had a lot of experience and Carson Gold seems like a, like he’d want you to . . . Phew. Okay. Good. Only Josie? I don’t want to lecture you.”
“But . . .”
“Not that you’d listen.”
“I wouldn’t,” I agreed.
She gave a snorting little laugh. “Your hairstyle may change but . . .”
“Some things won’t,” I finished for her. “No.”
“All I’m saying is, go to Planned Parenthood with a friend if you won’t let me bring you to my doctor. Maybe this new friend, Alabama.”
“Emelina,” I said.
“Whatever,” said Mom. “Does she drive?”
“Definitely,” I told her.
“Fine. Get her to take you. If you’re going to do adult things you have to be adult about them. Sex is serious stuff, and I don’t mean just intercourse, either.”
“Mom!” I felt like my brain might explode. “Stop talking! I told you I’m not even doing it.”
“When you start having sex, Josie, you have to protect yourself.”
“Don’t you always?” I asked.
“Always what?”
“Have to protect yourself?”
“What are you talking about, Josephine? You know how it all works, right?”
“Yes, Mom,” I groaned. “I was being metaphorical.”
She sighed. I know she thinks metaphorical is a synonym for annoying. But then her hand moved toward me. I thought for a second she was going to hold my hand or something, so I held very still.
She just adjusted the heat. It would’ve been weird if she had tried to hold my hand, anyway.
Twenty-two
ON THE WAY up in the car, I turned to Carson and said, “So I cancelled the party I was supposed to do this weekend.”
“Josie does birthday parties,” Carson told Margo and Frankie, who were, as usual, making out in the backseat.
“Children’s birthday parties,” I clarified. “I’m a clown, you know, magic and everything.”
“We know,” Frankie said, coming up for air. “Remember? At the Eagles game?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. That seemed like two lifetimes ago, a different girl.
“You canceled a party this weekend?” Margo asked.
Carson reached over and squeezed my leg, left his hand there, heavy and warm. Good.
I turned around to talk to Margo. “It’s a kind of funny story,” I said, hoping it was. “The girl’s name is Daisy Dang.”
Margo smiled. I took a breath and reminded myself to talk soft.
“She’s turning five years old on Saturday, and they’d been planning on me for a month. Her parents had ordered a $100 clown cake made with my likeness on it, from a photo taken at Daisy’s best friend’s party in October.”
“Wow,” Margo said, encouragingly.
So I continued. “Yeah. Mrs. Dang cried when I called to cancel.”
“Mrs. Dang cried?” Margo asked.
I nodded. I liked playing the Emelina role. Carson’s eyes stayed on the road but Margo and Frankie were leaning forward. I continued even a little softer: “Daisy Dang’s father called me later, vowing to email every person in a fifty-mile radius with a child under ten and tell them how I had broken his daughter’s heart. He said the extent to which he was going to ruin my business would match how badly I had ruined his daughter’s birthday. He asked what I could possibly be doing that would justify my breach of contract and trust.”
“Whoa,” Margo exhaled. “What did you tell him?”
“What could I?” I checked Carson’s face. He seemed to be enjoying the story, too. “I just told him something came up. He said I should be ashamed of myself.”
“And are you?” Carson asked.
“No,” I said.
I watched for his smile, but it didn’t come. Why? I sunk down in my seat, thinking Great, now Carson is probably angry at me. Maybe the story wasn’t funny. Maybe it came off sounding boastful. Oh, I hate myself, I thought.
Margo and Frankie went back to breathing heavy in the backseat. They obviously have sex with each other. Maybe that’s what I need to do, I thought. Maybe that would solve the problem. Am I really ready for that? I am only fifteen! Not that I thought I would necessarily wait until I got married but, I mean, one of my best friends hasn’t even kissed anybody yet. The other, well, even Zandra hasn’t gone all the way. Carson and I have gone farther than I’d ever gone with Michael—touched each other everywhere, shirts off, pants on. But having sex is a whole different thing. How far would I be willing to go this weekend?
I should have called Zandra and Tru to discuss it with them. I just didn’t feel like I could. That made me feel lonelier than anything. I would have to figure this out alone. Fine, maybe that’s good for me. Nobody was talking to me in the car anyway so I had plenty of time to talk to myself.
I love him, I told myself. If you love somebody you will do anything for him. If I love you, Carson, will you love me? Should I do everything with you? I have never been naked in front of anybody since I stopped wearing diapers. What would it feel like to be naked with you?
I watched him drive in silence. “What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“Huh?” he asked. “Nothing.”
I sat there in lumpy silence, wishing he would sweep me off my feet again, like in the beginning. What if he is already getting bored of me? What if I am getting bored of him? Yeah, right. But clearly I had done something wrong, to be getting this silent treatment from him.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling ready to cry, to offer to be dropped off on the side of the road with my suitcase and cell phone, to call my mother to come pick me up and listen to her tell me all the way home that I should never have expected Carson Gold to love me.
“Sorry for what?” He glanced over at me.
“For whatever I did wrong,” I said.
“Did you do something?”
I shrugged. “Why are you not talking to me?”
“I’m just driving.” He moved his hand from the gearshift onto my leg. “Do you like snowmobiling?”
“I love it,” I said.
He shot me a look. “Have you ever gone snowmobiling before?”
“No,” I said.
He smiled. God, I hate his smile, I love it so much.
“Hey,” Frankie piped up from the back seat. “Are we going to that rib place tonight for dinner?”
“Yuck,” Margo said. “Why don’t we pick up pizzas, like when we came in the summer? That place was great.”
“Maybe I’ll make my famous chili,” Carson suggested.
“Ew, not again,” Frankie said.
“Have you had his chili yet, Josie?” Margo asked.
“No,” I said.
“Lucky you,” they both answered, cracking themselves up. “Let’s go out, please,” Margo begged.
I was really happy I had put all my money in my wallet, just in case. I wasn’t sure how the whole thing was going to work, and I really had nobody to ask.
“What do you think, Josie?” Carson asked me quietly. He rubbed my leg. “Ribs? Pizza? Chili? What do you want to do tonight?”
“You, maybe,” I whispered. The one answer I knew I knew.
Twenty-three
Margo and I were sharing a room. She told me as we put our suitcases on our beds that during the night one of us would sneak into the boys’ room. That way, both couples could have some private time. She said it casually, like, of course. I nodded like, of course, too, silently thanking her for not mentioning the fact that of the four of us coming into the house together I was the only one with a rolling suitcase instead of a duffel bag. Or the fact that Emelina’s grandmother knew Carson so well. I wondered if that moment when Gingy wouldn’t let go of Carson’s hand and told him she had bought all the ingredients for his wonderful chili was as awkward for Daniel as it had been for me.
Emelina and Daniel, meanwhile, were downstairs with the rest of the group, some seniors who were friends with Emelina. I was pretty thankful to have Margo around. She was on teams, too, so they all knew her. Not that anybody was nasty or snide, in fact the opposite: Everybody was extremely friendly to me, all smiles and Love your coat—is it vintage? No, I had answered, just old. They all cracked up. Turns out I’m funny. I was trying to relax. These people were just nice and gorgeous, why should that repel me?
Margo used the bathroom first, then I went, and I have to admit I was relieved she was sitting on her bed waiting for me when I got back to our room. “Your hair is different,” Margo remarked, as we went down the stairs.
“Last time I cut it myself,” I admitted.
“Really? I liked it,” she said. “This is nice, too, but that was more, you know . . .”
“Different?”
“Yeah.”
When we got to the great room, everybody was playing poker. Margo sat on the arm of Frankie’s chair. I kind of hovered near Carson, who was deep in concentration. He laid down a card and collected the pot of chips. “Yes!”
“Lucky hand?” Margo said.
Carson grabbed me by the hips and pulled me onto his lap. “Yes,” he said. “Very lucky. Both of them.”
So it was all okay, and I coasted on that for the rest of the evening. He felt lucky to have me there, and that made it all worth it. I helped him cut up habanero peppers and plum tomatoes for his chili, which really wasn’t so bad (though I only had a little; if your mother works in the gas-relieving industry, you become wary of beans) and turned down a slice of pizza (for similar reasons). Carson wrapped his arms around me as I washed the dishes, and then snuggled with me under a blanket in front of the fire. I felt his fingers tracing the bottom hem of my sweater.
“Yawn,” he whispered.
I yawned. He yawned. Soon everybody was yawning, stretching, mentioning how tuckered out they were and how they were looking forward to an early start.
“Everybody talks about teenagers staying up all night,” Pops said, standing up. “You all go to sleep before we do!” He headed toward his bedroom.
“Or at least to bed,” Gingy said, with a glint in her eye, and followed him in. “Sleep tight!” she called. “Emelina, I’ll be in to give you a kiss in a little while.”
“Okay, Gingy,” Emelina said, grinning. “Let’s go to bed. Who’s coming with me?”
A bunch of guys raised their hands. Their girlfriends swatted them down. Emelina grabbed one of the girls and they went off to Emelina’s room, holding hands. We all watched her go, then headed our separate ways. As I followed Margo into our room, I saw Carson lingering at the door to his and Frankie’s. He was watching me. I slowed down, held onto the doorframe. We stared at each other for a minute, then went to our rooms to change, and wait.
Margo went to the bathroom with her cosmetic case and a little bundle of pajamas to change into. I sat on my bed and tried to call Zandra on my cell, for an ego boost. No service, not one single bar. I felt a little like I did the first time I went on a sleepover, when I was six and didn’t sleep one bit because I felt a million miles from home. I reminded myself that I was fifteen now, not six, and it didn’t matter that I was far from home. My parents had the address and phone number up here; Carson had written it down for me to give them on a plain white index card and I had taped it to the kitchen wall where we don’t have a bulletin board. It’s only two days. And two nights. I am fifteen years old! Anyway, there wasn’t going to be an emergency. If there were, they could just call me at the number I left for them, if they can’t get through on my cell phone. No problem. And I could always ask Gingy if I needed to call them. Which I wouldn’t.
I pulled out my pajamas and sat in a yoga pose to calm myself down. I had brought the flannel pants with yellow duckies on them, and an orange camisole with a built-in bra. Not the most comfortable thing to sleep in but I thought a T-shirt might look too dumpy. When Margo came out of the bathroom in a pink tank top with little tennis racquets crossed above her left boob and matching shorts with “love-love” scrawled across the butt, I realized I may as well have packed the comfy T-shirt. My stuff wasn’t the right stuff anyway.
She sat on her bed with crossed legs.
I knew I should shut up and go to the bathroom but I hesitated. “Can I ask you something?” I asked her, redundantly. “I need a, sort of a, girlfriend lesson.”
“Sure,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears.
