Purity

  “I have to do it,” I say under my breath. “The Princess Ball. Dad said I had to last night.”

  “Whoa, whoa, did you try talking him out of it?”

  “Yep—that’s when he issued the kill order. I might have had a mini freak-out.”

  “Ah,” Jonas says, wrinkling his nose and displacing his glasses. He reaches up to adjust them, running a hand through his hair. “Okay, so you’re looking for a loophole?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll think on it,” Jonas says, then snickers.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You won’t think it’s funny,” he says, but when I fold my arms he grins sheepishly. “I dunno, Shelby. It’s just kind of like a sitcom, thinking of you vowing your purity.”

  “Even the word purity freaks me out,” I answer in disgust.

  “Exactly. It’d make the perfect sitcom plot.”

  Together, we walk back toward Anna. I swing my book bag over my shoulder and fold to the ground. Anna immediately begins yammering about someone who was drunk at a party. I tune her out, my head filled with potential loophole plans.

  A few hours and two potentially bombed finals later, I’m not any closer to a plan than I was last night. I’m just more frustrated. The only thing keeping me from totally snapping is the fact that final-exam days run only till noon, so by twelve thirty I’m chucking my book bag into Lucinda’s backseat.

  “Hello, Sunshine,” Jonas says. “I might as well tell you now—I haven’t thought of anything, either. Your mom’s Promises and purity don’t really go hand in hand. But I did make a list of sitcom plots involving Princess Balls,” he finishes, grinning and holding up a piece of paper.

  “Great,” I say, ignoring the list. “Is Ruby meeting us at the park?”

  “Yep. How did your finals go?” he asks, shoving the paper back into his bag.

  “I might have drawn my dad fighting a sexy dragon on my desk instead of finishing my tests,” I say, and Jonas laughs.

  It takes us a half hour to escape the school parking lot, the midday heat beating down on us with way more force than Lucinda’s AC can battle. By the time we’re tooling down a wooded road, we’re both wet with sweat and humidity.

  Ridge Park is a few miles behind the school, and it isn’t much more than a field, a fountain, and a playground. Ruby waits for us by the fountain, looking melted. She stares down at her camera, adjusting settings and such, but looks up when we park in the deserted gravel lot.

  Ruby collects art forms. This month, she’s a photographer. A while back, it was sewing; she makes all her own clothes now. When it was painting, she put this crazy mural of purple zebras on her bedroom wall.

  “Hurrah! You’re here. Okay, Shelby, you stand on the edge of the fountain,” Ruby says. “And Jonas, what she’s going to do is just fall off. So you need to catch her.”

  “What?” Jonas asks. “If I miss, it’s concrete!”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t miss. Shelby, turn this way. I want the sun behind you so it’s just a silhouette.”

  I look at Jonas and shrug, clearly more confident in his ability to catch me than he is. Ruby sets up her tripod and screws the camera onto the top. Jonas and I take the opportunity to practice; I tilt off the fountain’s edge and into his arms, elbowing him in the throat. I apologize, and Jonas, coughing, signals for me to give it another try. The spray of the fountain is calming in the sticky summer air, but it’s combining with sweat and making my skin slippery.

  “So did you work out the whole Princess Ball thing?” Ruby asks as she adjusts the camera lens.

  “Not really. All I got was a questionnaire I’m supposed to fill out and a headache.” I pitch off the edge again. Jonas almost misses, but I manage to get a leg down to support myself in time. A lone jogger gives us a curious look as he passes on the other side of the grassy field.

  “Ruby, I think professional photographers do this sort of thing over a mat or something,” Jonas mumbles.

  “Yeah, buy me a big giant mat and we’ll do that. Anyway, Shelby, so no sex for you? Taking the Princess Ball vow of prudishness?”

  “Not yet—I’m looking for a loophole to get out of it. And it’s not just sex—apparently being ‘pure’ means no drinking or drugs, either.”

  “I assume you already had no plans to end up on one of those drug-rehab shows, but no drinking, either? Ever?” Ruby asks as Jonas catches me again.

  “No, just no drinking till I’m twenty-one. I can deal with that, if I have to,” I answer as I climb back up onto the fountain.

  “Didn’t you have a beer at that Flying Biscuit Christmas party we went to last year?” Ruby asks.

  “I did,” I admit.

  “So… doesn’t that mean in the drinking category, you have no purity to begin with?” Ruby says, peering down at the camera and adjusting something. She lifts her head; I fall, Jonas catches me.

  “I guess,” I answer.

  “So you’re saying she can vow that and it won’t count,” Jonas says, nodding. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that. It’s so obvious—it negates the vow.”

  I pause, thinking about it. They’re right. It’s a totally valid loophole. I grin and step back up on the fountain.

  “All right, that gets me out of the drinking part. Any genius ideas on the sex ban?” I ask.

  “Think you could just quietly switch up the wording, so you’re only vowing the drug and alcohol part?” Jonas suggests.

  “Apparently we have to read off a card. I’m pretty sure Dad would notice if I skipped something.”

  “What if you just got conveniently sick on ball day?” Ruby says.

  “No way,” I answer. “I don’t fake sick.” It’s not even an option—watching someone die of a real sickness will make feigning a headache seem like a pretty crappy thing to do. I fall again, and it’s silent while I climb back up. I prepare to fall again, start to lean—

  “I’ve got it!” Ruby shouts, so loud I lose my balance—Jonas had snapped his head toward Ruby but looks back just in time to keep me from smashing into the ground. He glowers at Ruby as he helps me stand.

  “Sorry, sorry—but I’ve got it, really. You can treat it just like the drinking ban. You can have sex before the ball.”

  “What? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jonas says as I get back up on the fountain.

  “It is not!” Ruby says. “If it works for drinking, it works for sex. And Shelby? You’ve got to relax on the fall this time,” Ruby instructs.

  “Sorry,” I say. “That seems pretty extreme, Ruby. I mean, I think it’s a valid loophole, but…”

  “But what?” Ruby asks, snapping another picture. “I thought the Promises were the most important thing. No matter what.”

  “Fair point,” I say.

  “Fair point! There’s nothing fair about that point,” Jonas says. “This is totally different from the drinking thing.”

  Ruby scoffs as we set up again. “It’s not that different from any of the things you do to keep the Promises,” she says to me. “You didn’t really want to jump off that trestle, but you had to. You don’t really want to have sex, but maybe you have to do that, too. Move a little more to your right, and don’t look so much like you’re jumping at him.”

  “Don’t move too far to the right—I won’t be able to see you because of the sun. But no. No way can you just have random sex like that,” Jonas says.

  “I never said it had to be random,” Ruby says, snapping a few photos as I fall. She pauses as she adjusts the lens. “I mean, you could make a list—hell, Jonas, you love making lists. You should help. Narrow it down, figure out a candidate who isn’t going to give you crabs or ask you to pee on him. That sort of thing.”

  “That’s disgusting,” I say with a laugh, wiping water from the fountain’s spray out of my eyes.

  “Some dude asked my friend Marjorie to pee on him once. I’m just saying, choose your partner carefully. Hence, the list.”

  “You thi
nk you’re going to be able to just tell some guy, ‘Hey, man, you’re at the top of my list of People I Wanna Screw Before a Ball. Would you mind removing your pants?’ ” Jonas breaks in, holding out his arms for another fall.

  “Seriously, Jonas?” I ask. “You really think I won’t be able to find a single guy in Ridgebrook willing to have sex with me if I go through with this? Ouch. Way to cut deep.” I exhale and fall, trying to relax as per Ruby’s order.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Jonas says. “I’m just saying, despite what you see on television, I’d wager that most of the guys sans crabs and sans peeing fetishes aren’t the sort to want to, um… make love with you just so you can loophole out of a vow.”

  I laugh so hard Jonas has to put me down right away. The words make love have never sounded so awkward. Ruby kneels on the ground to control herself, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, while Jonas crosses his arms.

  “Okay… okay…” Ruby says through giggle outbursts as we attempt to contain ourselves. “First off, Jonas, hearing you say ‘make love’ is just all kinds of special. Secondly, making love is totally out of the question.” She turns to me. “Look, Shel, there’s getting laid, there’s dirty porno sex, there’s making love, there’s… well, I’m sure there are more. They’re not the same thing. You need to go into this knowing which one you’re shooting for. ’Cause if you’re trying to make love and you end up getting laid, you’ll be disappointed.”

  I climb back onto the edge of the fountain and pause for a moment, staring up toward the sun. The sky is a bright, nearly cloudless blue, and my vision blurs from water and light. I squeeze my eyes shut this time and fall backward into Jonas’s arms.

  “If I did this—and I’m not saying I will—which one do you think I should aim for?” I ask as he lets me down. “I mean, making love is out since, well, there’s no one I’m in love with.”

  “I recommend just getting laid. Nice, quick, and commitment-free,” Ruby says as Jonas takes my hand to help me back onto the fountain.

  I nod—“getting laid” seems the simplest of the three. The least big of a deal. I can handle that. Maybe. As a last resort, anyway, if I can’t find another loophole. I pitch backward toward Jonas again, locking my eyes on the sky. A weird, out-of-control-type feeling rushes through my chest, where my body is shouting “no!” It stops when Jonas’s arms catch me.

  I have to keep the Promises. They’re that important—more important than my virginity. I open my eyes as Jonas lets my legs down. Ruby stares at her camera, then begins to unscrew it from her tripod.

  “Awesome. I want to see what these look like on my computer before we spend too long out here. But if they suck, you have to come back with me,” she says. We trudge back to our cars. Ruby ducks inside and turns the AC on in her hybrid before climbing in.

  “Let me know what you decide about the sexing, Shelby,” she calls over the roof as Jonas and I open Lucinda’s doors. The scent of heat and stale McDonald’s wafts out. “Or if you or Boy Genius there can think of something else, because I’d love to know if I overlooked an easier loophole.”

  “I will,” I say, nodding. Ruby grins and slides into her car, then eases out of the parking lot.

  Jonas and I sink into our seats, both frantically rolling the hand-crank windows down. I stare out over the park as Jonas backs Lucinda up, finally looking away when the field disappears behind the wall of trees that line the road.

  “Look, it’s just… I know you don’t want to take this vow and all, but you can’t take Ruby too seriously. Not yet, anyway,” he says, slowing as we take a sharp turn. It’s one of those roads where it feels like they built around the trees instead of hacking through them. I like that.

  “We have to think of something else fast, then,” I say. “I can’t break Promise One or Three, and right now it looks like the only way around that is Ruby’s plan.”

  “I know,” Jonas sighs. “Just give your dad another night or so. See if he stays serious about it.”

  * * * *

  We’re back at my house by midafternoon, when the sun is so hot that everyone locks themselves indoors. I hop out of Lucinda with my book bag, rehearsing telling my dad about how the Princess Ball just isn’t my thing. It shouldn’t be hard, I tell myself as I turn the front doorknob and Jonas pulls out of the driveway.

  Dad is sitting at the dining room table—he’s usually at work till at least seven. There are boxes all around him crammed full of Princess Ball stuff; each looks a little like a thief had ransacked them. Typically, this is Dad’s element—when he was on the board for a landscaping thing, there was three times this much paperwork and he soaked it up like it was a life force. But right now he looks overwhelmed, surrounded by the giant stacks of paper with a sad look on his face. I feel a twinge of pity, despite the fact that he’s the reason I’m stuck with this whole purity problem.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say, letting my book bag slide off my shoulder.

  “Oh, hey, Shelby. You’re home from school a little early.”

  “It’s finals week. You’re home from work early.”

  “I’ll be taking a few days off work. Ball planning is pretty intense, apparently,” he mumbles, pushing a pile of papers across the dining room table. They run into another pile, which pitches forward and slides onto the floor. Dad sighs.

  “I’ll definitely need help planning it. I’m supposed to pick out events within the next week. Like, for example, one year the Princess Ball included a ballet number. But do most girls know how to dance? You took ballet when you were little, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” I nod slowly, recalling my days in a frilly pink tutu. I try not to cringe. “But I don’t think I remember enough for any sort of… recital thing,” I quickly add.

  “Okay, so that one’s out….” He pulls a piece of paper from the nearest stack, then sets it aside. It’s like some sort of relief has washed over him. He picks up another sheet. “What about a letter ceremony? You write a letter about yourself and the vows you’re taking, then put it at a cross—oh, wait, this is a carryover from when it was a religious ball. I guess we’d have to put them at something other than a cross—not everyone would want to write a letter to Jesus….”

  “Um… sure…” Letter to Jesus? Wow. I’ve got a few things I’d like to say to him, sure, but something tells me they aren’t Princess Ball–appropriate.

  Dad nods and puts the paper in a new stack. He’s about to slide another one toward me, but I cut him off.

  “I’m not sure I’m really up to planning all this now. I’ve got to study for a final tomorrow.”

  “Oh!” he says, then looks sheepish, like he should have known that I’d be busy. “It’s just… you know, only five weeks out. I was thinking it’d be a breeze….”

  I sigh. “Okay, I’ll help—but I’ve got to study. Maybe later?” I say, which is code for “Maybe after I’ve punched myself in the face fifty times.”

  I’m already speed-dialing Jonas by the time I reach the top of the stairs.

  “Well,” I say when he answers, “I don’t even need to give it more than tonight. He’s a go for Princess Ball badness.”

  Jonas groans. “And you seriously think exploiting Ruby’s loophole is a good idea?”

  “I have to, Jonas. We’ve only got five weeks and I don’t have any other ideas.”

  “I still don’t think your mom intended for you to get laid just to keep your Promise,” Jonas says.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Truth is, I’m never going to know what Mom intended with the Promises, just that she wanted me to keep them. “I’m gonna need your help, though,” I tell Jonas.

  Jonas makes a few stuttered noises, followed by awkward silence.

  “Not like that! I’m not asking you to sleep with me!”

  “Of course not!” Jonas says, and I can practically feel his face heating up through the phone. He stumbles over words before spitting out, “I was just surprised that you’re asking me to help you get some. But anyhow, no. I
’m not helping.”

  “Jonas! Come on! I need an insider’s advice on which guys at school to go for. You’re my best friend. Who else is going to help me?

  More silence. I hear Jonas’s breathing deepen, like he’s trying to keep himself from shouting or hyperventilating. “So what if it doesn’t work? What if you don’t lose your virginity before the ball?”

  “Then… I don’t know. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  We’re silent for a minute. I bite my lip pleadingly, an act that somehow seems to translate over the phone because Jonas sighs and gives in. “Fine. If you want my help, though, you have to set some rules.”

  I hear papers rustling and know he’s making a list. I can’t help but grin.

  “Title, title,” he hums to himself. All of Jonas’s lists have to have titles. “Lose Virginity Now.”

  “LVN?”

  “Better yet, Lo-Vi-N,” he says.

  “Oh, good one. LOVIN,” I agree. “So, rules. What are they?”

  “For starters, no one with a reputation for having something contagious. Or something noncontagious. Just no one with a reputation for having anything at all except for normal, uninfected plumbing down below.”

  “Of course, that’s a given,” I say, leaning back on my pillows as I hear him scribble that down. “And while we’re at it—condoms. Have to use condoms.”

  “Yes, yes,” Jonas mutters, and I can picture him nodding in agreement. “What about a ‘no jackasses’ rule?”

  I muse over the idea. “I don’t think that’ll work. I’ve only got five weeks. If we throw out the jackasses at Ridgebrook, we’ll be left with, like… the drama club and a few people in marching band.”

  “What’s wrong with that? I’ve got loads of friends in the marching band. And I’m in the drama club.”

  I ignore him. “So, with those criteria, anyone in particular come to mind?”

  “Off the top of my head?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you aren’t supposed to pick sexual partners the same way you pick snacks from a vending machine!”