V is for Virgin

  “ I wouldn’t get your hopes up if I were you.” I couldn’t help but warn her. “I have a feeling Kyle Hamilton is in to pretty much anything with legs.”

  “Jealous much?” Olivia said with the smugness back in her tone. I decided to ignore it. If Olivia wanted to be some Almost Famous’s booty call, so be it. Can’t say I didn’t warn her.

  I shrugged and she moved on to telling everyone else on the council whom she’d had coffee with yesterday until Eric brought things to order.

  This was the last council meeting before the festival so we spent it confirming everyone’s status and hashing out some unfinished details. When we got to the music committee Eric turned to me with a big smile. “So how are we looking for the music, Val?”

  I grinned at Cara. “Tralse said they would play the show.”

  “Tralse!” Eric repeated, surprised and impressed. “No way, that’s awesome! Nice work, Val.”

  “It was all Cara’s doing. She used her brother’s connections to get us backstage at one of their shows.”

  “Oh, please,” Cara said, winking at me. “They told me no, but Kyle is seriously hooked on our girl, V. He simply couldn’t deny her.”

  Olivia huffed.

  “It’s true,” I deadpanned. “He wants me bad.” I shrugged at Olivia with all the fake sympathy I could muster up. “Anything with legs, remember?” Then, because I couldn’t resist, I said, “He only went out with you because I’d already told him no.”

  “Huh,” Cara added immediately. “Kind of like Zach.”

  This got quite the reaction from everyone present. Eric was forced to intervene even though he was laughing just as hard as anyone else. Luckily, Bethany, the editor of our school newspaper, helped him by interrupting our meeting. “Hey! Sounds like a party in here,” she said as she walked in.

  “It’s always a party here. You should think about leaving that stuffy news room and joining the people who actually affect change in this school,” Eric said. For some reason there’s always been a bit of a rivalry between the school journalism department and the student government.

  “Unlike you politicians, we reporters take our jobs seriously.”

  “Right.” Eric laughed. “What brings you into the enemy’s lair?”

  “Well, surprisingly, you actually are doing something newsworthy for once. Well, one of you is.”

  Bethany pushed her glasses up her nose a little so that she could smile down at me.

  “You want to write a story about me?”

  “Are you kidding? You are the hottest topic this school’s had all year. You know that I would never stoop to reporting gossip, but now with this whole V is for Virgin thing, you’re a legitimate story.”

  Before I had the chance to respond, Craig Sanchez laughed. “V is for Virgin?”

  The entire student council snickered and I groaned under my breath. “Here we go.”

  At the same time Cara pounded her fist down on her desk grumbling, “Robin!” Only she didn’t bother to say it under her breath. “That sneaky little… You see? You can’t trust anyone in the journalism department to keep a secret. Not even the layout girl!”

  I threw Bethany an apologetic smile. Cara’s a really nice girl, but if you don’t know her well enough, it’s easy to get offended by ninety percent of the things she says.

  “We’re not trying to keep it a secret,” I told Cara. “Remember? Being outspoken about it is kind of the point.”

  “Well then, by all means,” Jesse Andrews laughed. “Explain it to us, Virgin Val.”

  Jesse high-fived Craig, and Olivia had never looked more satisfied in her whole life.

  I took quite the verbal beating in student council that afternoon. I had it coming, I suppose. I knew people would laugh at the idea and harass me about it. Oh, sure, at least, being my fellow council members, the mocking was “all in good fun” but it was enough to have me convinced that I was wasting my time. It was clear they all thought I was crazy. Maybe I was. I mean, who was I kidding? My classmates were never going to start wearing Virgin Vs or participate in any abstinence challenges.

  I did give an interview to Bethany, but it was clear that she was only interested in the story because it was controversial, and it was a way that she could write about sex in the high school paper. She didn’t actually care about my cause.

  I went home that afternoon feeling rather dejected. This project was closer to my heart than anything I’d ever done. It felt like everyone who laughed at my idea, or made fun of me, was somehow personally attacking my birth mom and that hurt.

  When I got home, I took out the letter I kept tucked safely in my jewelry box. Even though I’d read it a thousand times, I sat down on my bed and whispered the memorized words out loud.

  Dear Baby,

  I just barely turned 16 and am about to have a baby. I’ve made a lot of bad choices, but the worst was going to a party, getting drunk and waking up pregnant. It was my first time and I can hardly remember it. I don’t even know who I was with.

  I don’t regret bringing you into this world. I regret doing it too soon. Believe me, if there were any way I could take care of you myself I would. It’s going to kill me to have to say goodbye, but you shouldn’t have to suffer for my mistakes. I’ve picked the very best people I could find to be your mommy and daddy. I know they’re going to love you as much as I do.

  I know I don’t deserve it, but if you ever do anything for your mamma, learn from my mistakes. Do things the right way. Don’t screw up your life like I did. I hope someday you can forgive me. I will think of you every day for the rest of my life.

  Love You Always,

  Momma V

  I didn’t realize how hard I was crying until I heard my mom knock on my door. “Valerie?” she called through the door. “Everything okay in there? Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, Mom. Come on in,” I said as I quickly swiped at the tears on my cheeks. “I’m okay.”

  My mom sat down on my bed. She recognized the letter instantly. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught me crying over it.

  “She was great girl,” my mom said, the way she always did when I asked about my birth mother. She sighed and handed me a Kleenex. “She looked just like you, you know.”

  “She did?”

  My mother nodded and then let us both fall into silence. My mom is very good at being there for me without being pushy about it. She’s always seemed to just magically understand what I need, and today was no exception. She waited for me to start talking, and then, as always, had all the right answers.

  “Why did you give me this letter?” I asked. “You didn’t even have to tell me that I was adopted. I would have never known the difference.”

  My mom was quiet for a minute as she thought very carefully about how to answer me. “Do you remember the day your father and I gave you your necklace?”

  I thought back on my life, but I couldn’t find a single memory where I didn’t have my necklace. When I shook my head, my mom sighed. “When you were three years old I took you to the Long Beach Aquarium with a play group you and I attended. I got to talking with some of the other mommies and didn’t notice when you managed to figure out how to climb out of your stroller. It could only have been a matter of minutes, but it was so busy that day, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  My mom took a second to steady her voice before she continued with her story. I was surprised I’d never heard it before, but at the same time my mom sounded so ashamed of herself that I can understand why she’d never told me.

  “You were missing for half an hour. It was the absolute worst thirty minutes of my entire life. I fell apart. I could barely function I was so crazy with worry. When they finally found you, you had done exactly as I had told you to before we went there. You’d gone up to a security guard and told him that you couldn’t find your mommy. You didn’t panic at all. You didn’t even cry. You were so brave. It was the first time I’d ever looked into your face and saw your birth mother.??
?

  I gasped. I couldn’t help it. Her words sent a strange kind of bittersweet pain through my heart. The tears returned to my eyes, and my mom reached for my hand. I let her squeeze it as tight as she could.

  “I only met your birth mother twice, but I knew from the very second I saw her that she was strong, and so brave. I knew, after seeing how much of your mother you had in you, that it was important you knew the truth. I gave you the necklace that day and told you that you were adopted. You were too little to understand what that meant at the time, so I waited to give you the letter until the first time you asked me if I knew about your real parents.”

  That day I did remember. I was in first grade and my teacher had just read us a story about adoption. I knew the term, and when I proudly informed my classmates that I was adopted Tommy Fisher asked me why my parents wanted to give me away. My adoptive mom and dad had always loved me so much that I’d never even thought about that before, but it made me so upset that my teacher sent me to the office and my mom came and took me home.

  “Do you think I’m crazy for needing to keep a promise to a woman I’ll never even meet? People at school are making so much fun of me for doing this V is for Virgin thing that I’m not sure it’s going to work at all. I kind of feel like if I fail, then I’m letting her down.”

  “Valerie,” my mom said firmly. “You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone but you.”

  I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself, which my mom didn’t like. “Do you think what you’re doing is important?” she asked.

  I frowned, but I thought of my birth mom, crying as she wrote a goodbye to the baby she loved. I thought of all those girls—excuse me, Lacrosse4life—all those people on YouTube who admitted to struggling. Then I thought of the way I felt when Zach dumped me—how hurt I’d been, and how angry. I knew the answer to my mother’s question. “Yes.”

  “Then you need to see it through no matter how much difference it makes, if any.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  And I did know. I knew I would see this thing through to the end. I just had no idea, at the time, how far it was all going to go.

  I was putting some empty boxes under the table in the booth when I heard, “Wow, you actually did it. I heard the rumor that you were going to have a booth at the festival, but I didn’t think it was true. Good for you, Valerie.”

  I found myself looking at a skinny girl dressed in black all the way from her hair to her Doc Marten combat boots and nail polish. “Do I know you?” I asked even though I was positive I’d never seen her before.

  “Cindy Lewkowski,” she informed me. “I’m a sophomore.”

  “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  Cindy didn’t seem the type to smile, but she looked interested enough, so I figured that was the same thing. “I think you’ve got guts,” she said.

  I held up a black A necklace and a black V bracelet, and dangled them. “So how about it, you want to have guts too?”

  “I’m down,” she said, handing me a five-dollar donation.

  I held out the black jewelry, but she reached for a bright red bracelet with a rather large V on it. “Wouldn’t want it to blend in,” she said as she strung it in the middle of the gazillion black bracelets already riding up her arm.

  “Thanks!” I called as she walked away, then I turned my giddy smile on my best friend. “Can you believe this?” I asked Cara and handed her the five bucks. I’d put her in charge of the money.

  “Honestly? I’m still hung up on Lacy and Devon signing up for the abstinence challenge.”

  “I know, right?” I turned behind me to grab some more Not Everybody’s Doing It pamphlets and a bracelet to replace the one Cindy bought. “I thought I might sell like one or two but—OW!”

  I spun around to see why Cara had elbowed me, and found myself caught in Isaac Warren’s smile. “How’s it going, Virgin Val?”

  It took me a moment to untangle my tongue from itself, and even then I could only manage a single word. “Great!”

  “Success then?”

  “Oh.” I blushed. “Well, you know. We’ve had three times as many kids laugh at us than buy something, but still. I can’t believe people are wanting them at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people have been making fun of me nonstop since the whole Virgin Val thing started. I didn’t think anyone would listen to me, much less support me. There’s the people on YouTube, but that’s anonymous.”

  Isaac shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s different now because not only did you not let the teasing get to you, but you’re doing something about it. It’s like you said, someone just had to set the example. You’re making people brave.”

  “Thanks,” I said shyly. “I still didn’t expect I’d get much of a response today. I honestly figured I’d be able to count the number of pieces I sold on a single hand, but I’ve sold close to forty so far.”

  “That many!” Isaac was shocked by the number, but quickly recovered from it and burst into laughter. “I wouldn’t have guessed there were that many virgins left in our school.”

  “There may not be.” I laughed, handing Isaac the flyer I’d made advertising the abstinence challenge. “We’ve sold as many A pieces as we have V’s.”

  “The abstinence challenge?” Isaac asked with a smile that made me blush again. Thankfully he didn’t notice it because he was actually reading the challenge.

  I couldn’t quite hide the embarrassment in my tone when I replied. “You made a very valid argument that day. I couldn’t just leave all the fun to the virgins after that, could I?”

  Instead of putting the flyer back down on the stack, Isaac folded it and slipped it into his back pocket—drawing both Cara’s attention and mine to his jeans, and the way they were so nicely worn from riding his motorcycle. When I managed to drag my eyes back to his face he was watching me with that intense stare he’d given me before. “Nicely done,” he told me. “An abstinence challenge is a great idea.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Cara spoke up. I’m surprised she hadn’t interrupted us sooner. “And Lacy and Devon actually signed up for it!”

  Cara just could not get over that.

  Isaac’s smile turned very knowing as he asked, “Did they?”

  Cara must have noticed Isaac’s look too because she went, “Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t Devon on the baseball team with you?”

  Isaac winked at her then, and I’m pretty sure it gave her a heart attack.

  “So what’d you have to bribe him with?” I managed to tease when Isaac looked at me again.

  “I never said a word to Devon,” he replied innocently. Too innocently. “Must have been your excellent skills of persuasion.”

  I willed myself to play it cool and with a deep breath said, “I have excellent persuasion skills, huh?” I picked out an A keychain that I’d sort of made just for him. “So are my persuasion skills convincing you to sport a Virgin Val original?”

  Isaac pretended to think about it for a moment but the corners of his mouth curved up into a smile. “No,” he said dropping a twenty into the donation box Cara held. “It’s all your natural charm that’s doing it.”

  He ignored the keychain in my hand and instead picked up a leather backpack chain with a silver little V on it that was similar to the one I wore around my neck.

  I couldn’t believe it. He really was a virgin. He’d just been giving me a hard time that day. He smiled at my confusion and then sent me a heart-stopping wink of my very own as he walked away.

  When he was gone, I stumbled backward, collapsing into a metal folding chair.

  Cara gave me a moment before starting in on me, but then she asked—no, more like demanded, “Since when did you become such a vixen?”

  “What?”

  “Girl you were as smooth as a Ten-Ways-To-Make-Him-Fall-For-You article just now!”

  “You think?” A tiny wave of relief washed over me because her exaggerations were usually based on some form of truth.
“Because it felt like I was acting like a complete mental case.”

  “Definitely not, V. I think you might have a shot.”

  “Me? Have a shot with Isaac Warren?”

  Cara and I were startled from our conversation by a painfully familiar voice. “Is that the douche bag who was just over here?” Kyle asked. I wouldn’t say he sounded jealous exactly, more like completely unimpressed. “You’re blowing me off for that guy?”

  “He is not why I’m blowing you off,” I said, annoyed that the dreamy, lightheaded feeling I’d been experiencing was replaced with a giant pain in my you-know-what.

  “Well that’s a relief, because you could do way better than—”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I interrupted him. “I would dump you for him in a heartbeat, but you’ve already given me a million other reasons to do so.”

  “Name one!”

  I didn’t even know where to start, so instead I asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got a show to do, remember? You only begged me to play for you.”

  “I did not beg you,” I corrected him, pointing an accusing thumb at Cara. She started to protest, but then frowned because she couldn’t deny it. “I meant, what are you doing here.” I held up a keychain with a big red A on it. “Have you come to sign up for the abstinence challenge? You know, if you pledged your abstinence to me until our marriage, I might consider dating you.”

  Kyle had such a good laugh at that, that by the time he regained control of himself he’d forgotten what we were talking about. “You’re going to close up shop while we play, right? I’ve got a couple of front row seats for you and the goddess here.” To Cara he said, “Shane’s been asking about you.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Cara snatched the badges from Kyle’s hand before I could refuse them. “Of course we’re going to watch the show,” she said.

  I managed to busy myself with my booth in order to ignore Kyle. Apparently he didn’t appreciate that since he grabbed hold of my wrist. “That means you too, right?” he asked, not convinced that I was included in Cara’s promise to watch him play.