"Of course, I knew what he meant. He had always had a crush on me. For a moment I didn't know what to say, and then I said, 'I was always hoping you would speak to me.' Of course, that was a bright, white lie, but he obviously was pleased.
"'Most of the girls in our school are vapid,' he said. I didn't know what vapid meant. I thought we had recently had it on a vocabulary test, but I hadn't studied for that test and I failed it.
" know what you mean,' I said. It seemed like the thing to say, which pleased him again.
"'I thought you might,' he told me. 'I bet there really isn't anyone with whom you care to share your feelings concerning your parents' divorce,' he added.
"Then he sat back and started to describe what it was like for him, really like. . . how he thought of his family in terms of this big, powerful train, and how it was running along efficiently and perfectly, but all of a sudden the chief engineer and his assistant got into a dispute and the train began to sway with its wheels screeching around turns for a while until it went off the tracks and came to a grinding halt. I didn't know what to say. It sounded . . smart and yet, it sounded silly, too, until he added, 'Sometimes, I feel like jumping off the train. How about you?'
"Yes, I thought, I do. I want to run away. Maybe that was a good idea. I told him and he and I got into this great discussion about how we would live on our own. I actually began to think it was possible. He knew how to get some of his money. It sounded. . . romantic.
"Suddenly, he crossed the space between us and kissed me on the lips. It was sort of clumsy. He practically fell on my face.
"'I hope you don't mind,' he said.
"I shook my head. He made it sound like he had just helped me with my books or something. Then he did it again, only this time it was longer and better.
"'You're the first girl I've brought to my room,' he told me softly.
"I don't know . . ." I looked at Doctor Marlowe. She nodded so slightly to encourage me, only I could tell she was doing it, I thought. "I guess I wanted someone to say nice things to me so much, I would have welcomed the lips of Jack the Ripper. My heart started to beat wildly. We kept our faces very close, the tips of our noses practically touching. I closed my eyes and he kissed me again."
Cathy really began to squirm in her seat. She looked like she had sat on an anthill. Doctor Marlowe's face took on a worrisome expression. Star stared at me with almost an angry turn in her mouth, but Jade just gazed with eyes that suggested boredom. Did she think I was some little teenager, miles below her world of romantic experiences? I'll show her, I thought.
"Our tongues touched this time," I said emphatically. Jade's eyebrows rose a bit. "Some boys are very sneaky about how they get to put their hands on you, but Charles Allen just went ahead and brought his hands up along my ribs and pressed his palms over my breasts."
Cathy lowered her head and stared at the floor. "Wow," Star said. "Mr. Proper loses control." She raised an eyebrow as she looked at me.
"I don't let just any boy touch me," I said sharply, "so I pushed his hands away."
"What did he do then?" Jade questioned impatiently.
"He ignored it and kissed me on the neck. No one had ever kissed me like that on the neck before. The feeling scared me. It shot right through my body and I pulled back to my side of the sofa.
"He was so polite, he started to apologize, but I didn't want to hear that. I was confused. My heart felt like it was a kaleidoscope of emotions. I was afraid and yet I didn't want him to stop. I wanted to be kissed and held and needed.
"'Stop being so damn polite,' "I ordered him "Now he was the one who looked confused.
"'I'm not being so damn polite,' he said. 'I just don't take advantage of people, especially when they're vulnerable.'
"That damn vocabulary of his, I thought. 'What's that supposed to mean?' I demanded.
"'You're at a weak point because of what's happening with your parents,' he said, which just got me madder. He was a lot smarter than I ever imagined He was manipulating me.
"'I am not,' I fired back. 'I don't care what they do to themselves.'
"He smirked arrogantly. I felt like slapping him.
"'The only reason you stopped is you're afraid,' I told him.
"'What do you mean? You pushed me away,' he said. "You were just moving too fast. Girls do that when boys move too fast.'
"Laughter rippled over his pretty-boy face.
"'What's so funny?' I demanded.
"'I was hardly moving very fast. You're just afraid, which is normal for a girl who is still a virgin,' he said.
"I was afraid, of course, but thanks to Doctor Marlowe, I now know I was afraid because I feared being like my mother, who, according to what my father said, found sex painful and unpleasant. I thought I would end up just like she did and drive away someone who had loved me," I recited. Doctor Marlowe nodded, pleased.
"So what did you do?" Star asked.
"'How do you know I'm still a virgin?' I fired back at him.
"He laughed that arrogant laugh and said, 'Oh, you're a virgin, all right. Pure as the driven snow.'
"'That's what you think,' I said. He laughed again and I said, `Do you want to touch me?' "
"Is she telling the truth?" Star suddenly asked of Doctor Marlowe.
"You'll have to ask her and judge for yourself, Star. You'll all have to do that with each other."
Star curled her lip up and narrowed her eyes.
"So then what happened?" she queried like some cross-examiner out to prove perjury.
"He just sat there, a little shocked, I think. I really felt like shocking him, I suppose. So, I started to unbutton my blouse. He looked frozen and I guess I felt so powerful because of what I was doing to him that I continued."
Cathy lifted her head and looked at me with new interest in her eyes.
"My heart was pounding, but I reached back and unclipped my bra. I just sat there with it hanging loosely. His face got all red.
"'Well?' I asked him, `Do you want to see and touch me or not?' "
"You were really playing with him," Star commented. "Like playing with a Yo-Yo or something," she added, nodding at Jade who rested her chin on her hand and stared at me, barely breathing.
"It felt like I was an actress in a play
performing a role. He nodded and I took off my bra."
It was so quiet in the office, I could hear the water running through the pipes on the other side of the house.
"What did he do after you took off your bra?" Star asked breathlessly.
"What do you think'?" I tossed back at her.
"You did it in his room the first time you were there with him!"
"No, not that time. A different time," I said, "but only once."
"Only once? Why?" Star asked.
For a long moment, I couldn't bring out the words. It was like swallowing a wad of gum and waiting for it to go down. They stared. Finally, I had enough air in my lungs to speak.
"Because I found out he was a bigger liar than all our parents put together," I told her.
I didn't know I was crying until the tear dripped off my chin.
Doctor Marlowe wanted me to pause here and take a break for a few minutes.
"Whether you want to or not," she said. "I need a bathroom break myself." She stood up.
The others were all staring at me, Cathy just as directly as Jade and Star.
I rose and followed Doctor Marlowe out of the office. The three of them sat quietly, watching us walk out, no one so much as taking a deep breath.
And that included me as well.
5
When I returned with Doctor Marlowe, I could see from the expressions on the other girls' faces that they had been talking about me. They had trouble looking directly at me, especially Cathy. I sat and waited for Doctor Marlowe, who put on her glasses to read something on her pad before turning back to us. She crooked her right pinky finger as if holding a thought around it and then smiled when she was finished reading.
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"Do you want to continue, Misty?" she asked. I glanced at the others. All three of them looked worried that I wouldn't.
"I don't care. Sure," I said and started. It was almost like having eaten something bad and needing to get it out of your system.
"A few days after I had gone with Charles Allen to his home, I brought him home with me after school so he could meet my mother and she could meet him. I had spoken about him a few times at dinner, and that was enough for her to start calling him my boyfriend.
"'I should meet your boyfriend,' she insisted, putting on that official mother's face she hated because it made her look older. 'I should know what he's like since you're spending so much time with him and have even gone to his house and met his mother.'
"She whined the last part, sounding hurt that I had met his mother before he had met mine. Ever since the divorce, it was like my mother was on an Easter egg hunt for possible ways to make me feel guilty.
"'First, he's not my boyfriend, Mother,' I told her. 'Second, I'm not spending all that much time with him. And, third, you never asked to meet any of my other friends and I've been to lots of their houses and met their parents, too.'
"'That was different,' she replied. My mother always nods after she says something she wants you to agree with. It's like she's coaching your thoughts.
"'Why?' Imanted to know. Of course she was disappointed I would question her. The corners of her mouth dropped.
"'Because your father was still living here. For God's sake, Misty, surely you're old enough to realize that all the responsibility is mine now,' she moaned with a sigh to suggest the great weight that had been dumped on her fragile but perfect little shoulders.
"Of course, I knew she was being overly dramatic just because she wanted to see what sort of boy I was with. Nevertheless, I brought Charles Allen home and introduced him to her."
I turned to the girls
"I should tell you that my mother is in the running for the title, World's Biggest Flirt. As soon as she saw that Charles Allen wasn't the son of Frankenstein, she went into her Scarlett O'Hara act. I nearly puked up lunch.
"Right off, however, she made a gross mistake. She started calling him Charlie. He grimaced in pain every time she did it, but he was too polite to say anything to her.
"Since I had told her Charles Allen's family was very wealthy, she just had to give him the grand tour of our home, pointing out the expensive paintings, our Baldwin piano, her Lalique collection, even furniture and rugs that she called imported and very pricey. I know she thought she was impressing him, but one look at his face would tell you he couldn't have been more bored.
"Then she embarrassed me to the point of tears.
"'It's so hard being the mother of a teenage girl when you, yourself, keep being mistaken for her older sister,' she said with great flair, fluffing her hair and turning her shoulders. 'I keep up with all the music and read many of the same magazines Misty reads. We like the same shows on television, too, don't we, Misty?'
"'I don't watch all that much television,' I muttered and she giggled like a silly teenager.
"'Of course she does, Charlie.'
"'His name is Charles Allen, Mother, not Charlie,' I corrected.
"'Oh, fiddlesticks,' she cried, threading her arm through his to lead him out to our patio. She was practically leaning on him. 'That's what his parents call him,' she lectured. 'You don't like to be addressed so formally, do you, Charlie?'
"'Actually,' Charles Allen said, 'I'm used to it, Mrs. Foster.'
"'Oh pleeeeze,' she cried, grimacing as if she had just seen a dead rat, 'don't call me Mrs. Foster. That makes me sound so old. Call me Gloria. All of Misty's friends do,' she added, which was another lie in bright neon lights.
"He glanced back to me for help and I told my mother he had come over to help me study and we didn't have all that much time because he had to be home early. She looked like we had told her she had two days to live or something.
" `Oh,' she said, reluctantly releasing his arm and stepping back. 'Of course. I know how important all that is. I just wanted to make Charlie feel at home,' she said.
"For one small second, I felt sorry for her. I actually thought she was suffering loneliness and I felt bad about cutting it all short like that, but Charles Allen was very grateful for my rescue.
"We went up to my room and I apologized for my mother's behavior. He fell back on my bed with his arms out and stared up at the ceiling for a moment.
" 'I hate to be fawned over like that,' he finally said. 'I have an aunt who always does that. As soon as she comes into the house, she always finds me and hugs me so tightly, I nearly suffocate. She wears this heavy perfume, too, the kind that you continue to smell for hours after she leaves a room. She loves messing my hair and keeping me trapped on her lap, wrapping her long, thin bony arms around me like some sort of octopus.'
"He sat up with a big smile on his face.
" 'What?' I asked.
"'Whenever I complain about her now, my mother always reminds me that once when I was about three, I urinated on her, right through my clothes. It didn't stop her from scooping me up the next time, though. She's my mother's older sister, a spinster. She took care of my grandmother for years after my grandmother's stroke so we have to put up with all of my aunt's eccentricities, and believe me, there are plenty of them.'
"He paused and looked around my room, nodding as he gazed at the armoire, the vanity table, the computer, and my closets and mirrors, as well as my posters, wall of family photos and doll collection.
"'Your room is just as I had imagined it would be,' he told me.
"'What do you mean?' I asked. If he had said it's cute, I would have thrown him out the window right then and there."
"What did he say?" Jade asked.
"He said, 'It's cozy and warm.' Charles Allen knew all the buttons to push," I said with a tight smirk.
"You sound like you really hate him now," Star said.
I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. Her eyes softened.
"I don't hate him Actually, I pity him He's even more confused by life than than I am," I replied.
"Anyway, it got pretty hot and heavy that afternoon. We came very close," I said quickly for Star's benefit. She looked disappointed that we only came close. "We just started kissing again and he asked me to do what I had done at his house and take off my blouse and bra. There was something exciting about doing all this in my own house with my mother right downstairs filing her nails or something."
I paused in describing the scene, recalling that afternoon in my own mind first: his eyes, my own thumping heart, the cloud that had turned my room mysterious and dark for a few moments, the way his tongue glided over his lower lip.
My reverie was too long for Star.
"If you're telling it, tell it," she said with a little smile.
I looked at her with an expression that clearly said, you better be just as honest about yourself as I am about myself. I had told Doctor Marlowe most of it before, so it wasn't hard to describe things in front of her now.
"We got into my bed and kissed for a while. I kept my eyes closed and held on to him as if I would drown if I didn't, and then he unbuttoned my jeans and put his hand in them. No one had ever touched me where he touched me. Then he really surprised me by taking down his own pants. He squirmed out of them like a snake. I thought that was funny, but after he had done it and I felt him between my thighs, I panicked and asked him to stop. He said he couldn't. He said it was too late and that was the way it was with boys.
"'Don't you know about this stuff?' he asked and I didn't want to seem stupid, so I said I did. Of course, like all of you I suppose, I've had sex education. I knew what happens but it's different when it's happening to you and you're not just reading some textbook.
"Anyway, he said, 'So you know I can't just stop now and he got excited and made me wet. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought I would faint. I got up quickly and went into the bathroom. I could
n't get my heart to stop thumping. When I came out, he was dressed and sitting calmly at my computer, acting as if nothing at all had happened. After he was ready to get up and go, he apologized for not being properly prepared.
"'Prepared?' I asked.
"'You know,' he said, 'contraception. Next time we won't be like a couple of kids.'
"I nodded, wondering just how sophisticated did he think I was?
"'I wasn't expecting us to have the opportunity,' he explained. Somehow, it didn't sound very romantic or exciting the way he put it.
"He said good-bye to my mother, who prolonged it with her announcement that she was considering changing her hair color and style. She had pictures of models on the table in the living room and wanted Charles Allen's opinions. He kept telling her she was fine the way she was, but she insisted he give her his opinion and finally, he chose a picture just to end it. Of course, she said it was exactly the one she had chosen herself.
"I walked him out to his car where I apologized for my mother again.
"'That's all right,' he said. 'She's actually amusing.'
"'Amusing?' I asked. I really didn't like that characterization of her, but he just smiled and started his engine. Then he leaned out the window to kiss me.
"'You're the nicest girl I know,' he said. 'It's good to have your judgments confirmed,' he added.
"I knew it was supposed to be a compliment to me, but it sounded instead as if he was complimenting himself for being so good at choosing a girlfriend.
"When I went back inside, my mother astonished me by complimenting me on my choice, too. She said it was reassuring for her to see that I had a gentleman for a boyfriend. She ran on and on about it and how important it was to be very discriminating and particular about men, even in these little high school romances. Her divorce proved that, she said. Then she really surprised me by adding that she had decided to go on her first date since my father had left. The owner of one of the restaurants she frequented for lunch had learned of her divorce and had asked her out.