“Uh …” Les let the newspaper fall to the floor, and his feet fished around for his loafers. “Mr. Watts has the final say,” he said quickly. “A caregiver’s a pretty personal choice, so you’d need to meet him.” Then he added, “The room to the right of the entrance.”
“Thanks. I’ll look it over,” Andy said, and started back up the hall.
Les stared at me with wide eyes, and I covered my mouth. He lifted his hands helplessly, palms up, his mouth in the shape of Wh … ?
“You’re in for it now, bub.” I giggled.
Les went out in the hall. We could hear a closet door opening and closing.
“Cross circulation. That’s good.” Andy’s voice, checking out the windows.
“Bathroom?” she asked, coming back.
“End of the hall,” said Les, following after her. “But, you know, you might want to see Mr. Watts first before we go any further… .”
“And this is the kitchen?” Andy stopped at the makeshift kitchen, with appliances along one wall, the sink on another. “Well,” she said, “I’ve seen better, but it’ll do.”
In the bathroom she checked out the medicine cabinet and the space under the sink. “This Mr. Watts—he have any specific issues?”
“Quite a lot of them,” Les replied. “Takes a ton of medicines.”
“Is he ambulatory?”
“In a matter of speaking, I suppose, yes. But he’s old and frail. And he also has male problems—you know, urinary incontinence. Needs assistance in that area, so I don’t know how he’d feel about a woman—”
“No sweat, I can handle it,” said Andy. “Who’s the other renter here? What’s he like?”
“Paul Sorenson?” I could almost see the wheels spinning in Lester’s brain. “Eccentric. Very eccentric. An odd duck, actually. Hard to get to know at first.”
“I think we’ll get along fine,” said Andy. She thrust her hands in the pockets of her parka and looked straight into Lester’s eyes. “Well, I can move in anytime. Let’s go meet Mr. Watts.”
I waited while Les took Andy down the outside staircase and heard the doorbell ring far below. Les was back in a matter of minutes and leaned against the door once he got inside.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I’m probably having a heart attack or something,” he said. He walked slowly into the living room and sprawled on the couch. “He’s interviewing her now. He said he’d give me a call.”
“He wasn’t surprised she was a woman?”
“I don’t know. How the hell will I explain this to Paul?”
I pressed my lips tightly together to hold in the laughter. “You didn’t specify you wanted a guy?”
“I guess not. Just said we wanted a nonsmoking grad student and gave the conditions. Oh, man, I’m dead.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What if Paul bolts and it’s just you and Andy?”
“Don’t say that!” he yelped. “Can’t you see I’m suffering here?”
“Where is Paul?” I asked.
“Ten-day ski trip. Which means I can’t go out at all in the evenings until he comes back. He said to go ahead and get a roommate—he’d trust my judgment. Oh, brother, am I fried!”
“Well, let’s try to look on the bright side. What’s her major?”
“History … English lit … I forget.”
“Smoker?”
“No.”
“Drinker? Did you say you didn’t want wild parties?”
“Why would I say that? What am I going to do if I want to invite someone to stay overnight?”
“Oh, the two girls will probably get along famously. They’ll spend the whole evening in the kitchen talking,” I said breezily.
Les jumped to his feet and ran one hand through his hair, then paced back and forth, taking deep breaths. “Why didn’t I tell her the room was taken? I hadn’t even met her before! I must have been out of my mind to let her see the place.”
“Relax,” I told him. “Watts won’t want a woman in the bathroom with him.”
Lester stopped suddenly and peered out the window. “Hey! There’s hope! It’s Andy, heading for her car.”
I leaned forward.
“Hold it,” Les said. “She’s opening the passenger-side door. Taking something out.”
“A suitcase?” I jumped up and joined him at the window, but it wasn’t a suitcase. Something Andy held in both hands. She disappeared again under the roof of the porch.
Les and I sat down opposite each other. He looked so miserable, I almost wanted to give him a hug. We waited two minutes. Five.
The phone rang and Les picked it up. Mr. Watts was yelling. He’s stone-deaf without his hearing aid, but always takes them off when he’s on the phone.
“Lester?” I heard him yell. “She brought me some apricot strudel! She’s in!”
Two days later Les was sitting at our kitchen table with the news that Andy had moved in, books and all.
“So? How goes it?” Sylvia asked.
“I don’t know. We don’t have much to say to each other, which is probably good,” Les said. “She doesn’t ask, she announces: ‘I’m taking a shower now,’ not, ‘Need the bathroom before I shower?’ Or she’ll say, ‘I used the last of the milk.’”
“You should be able to work that through. Set some ground rules,” Dad said.
“It’s just weird having her around, Dad. I walked in the bathroom yesterday and knocked over a shampoo bottle turned upside down on top of another, draining out every last drop of shampoo.”
“That’s called being frugal, Les. And it’s not a crime,” Dad said.
Les looked helplessly around the table. “Look. She washes her underwear in the tub with her feet.”
I burst out laughing. “What?”
“How would you know that?” asked Sylvia, amused.
“Because I found sopping wet pants and a bra in the tub that she forgot to wring out after she showered. I could hear her stomping around in there. I figure she saves on detergent by letting her soap and shampoo rain down on her underwear while she washes her hair.”
“Marry the girl, Les! She’ll save you a ton of money!” Dad chortled. “Look, Les, every person has idiosyncrasies, you included.”
“She’s loco, and Paul’s going to hate her.”
“Mr. Watts likes her?” Dad asked.
“He’s crazy about her. Her strudel, anyway, which I happen to know came from the Giant.”
“Oh, boy, you’re in it for the long haul, Les,” said Sylvia.
Scary, I thought. Kay Yen would be starting grad school next year, and Les had already received his master’s. The first four years of college were behind them, but problems just kept coming, no matter how much education you had.
There ought to be a recess. A time-out. Some plateau you could count on where absolutely nothing happened, good or bad, and you could catch your breath. When did that happen? After you married? Had your children? Retired? Never?
3
BODILY PERCEPTIONS
Gwen invited Liz and Pam and me for a sleepover and included her friend Yolanda from church.
We propped ourselves up on pillows around the living room floor with a bowl of dip and Fritos and traded catalogs from many of the colleges we had applied to—Frostburg, William & Mary, Clemson… . Gwen’s parents and brothers were out for the evening, and her grandmother was asleep in a back bedroom.
With rings on every finger, some with two, and her finely arched eyebrows rising and falling with every word, Yolanda read aloud the names of courses that sounded interesting.
“Here’s one for you, Pamela: Theater of Revolt,” she said.
“I like it! I like it!” said Pamela. “No, wait a minute. I’ll take Sensory Exploration Lab. Woo! Hope it’s coed.”
“What about Witchcraft and Magic in Premodern Europe?” said Liz, reading from her Bennington College catalog.
“Hand Percussion and Dance Accompaniment. That’s for you, Pamela,” I said. “And
this is for Gwen: The Nature of Moral Judgment.”
“Naw, I’m taking judo or scuba diving,” Gwen told us, checking the catalog in her lap.
It was amazing. The depth and variety of college courses made high school look like kindergarten. It was almost embarrassing to think about going back to physics and economics on Monday. We, here on the floor, were a huddled mass, yearning to breathe freely of the intoxicating air of adult discussions and debates: Advanced Logic; American Humor, 1940–1965; The Psychology of Sexual Response; Storytelling and Film… .
I saw Gwen nudge Yolanda and point to a course. “Reading the Body,” she read. “‘Our bodies and our perceptions about them constitute an important part of our sociocultural heritage …’”
Yolanda only shrugged.
“I’ve got to get into Bennington!” said Liz. “I’ve practically memorized the map of the campus. You know how sometimes a place just seems like home?”
“That’s sort of the way I felt about William & Mary,” I said. “But … I feel the same about the University of Maryland. I applied for early admission at Maryland, but I’ve got until April first to make a decision.”
“I’ll take anything as long as it’s in New York,” Pamela told us. “I’ve applied to four schools in Manhattan.”
“How are we going to stand waiting until April to find out?” said Liz. “This is absolutely the worst part of senior year.”
“What’s the best part?” asked Yolanda.
“Prom,” said Pamela.
“Graduating,” said Gwen.
“I think it’s being together, like this,” I said. “We’ve only got four more months.”
“Seven,” said Gwen, “if we work on that cruise ship together this summer. Speaking of which …” She reached around behind her for a manila envelope and waved it in the air. “Applications, everybody. They have to be in by March first.”
“What’s Lester doing this summer?” Pamela asked. “You should talk him into coming, Alice. Really! He’d make a great deckhand. Now that he’s got his master’s, he can do something different for a change. Can you imagine how wild it would be if he was on board?”
“He’s got his hands full,” I said. “He’s sending out résumés for a new job. And he’s also dealing with a new roommate he thought was male, because she had such a low voice over the phone.”
“Is she hot?” asked Pamela.
“I wouldn’t call her that, no. But her low voice certainly doesn’t seem to bother her; she’s obviously lived with it all her life.”
“I don’t know how you could change your voice even if you wanted,” Liz said. “If I could change one thing about myself, though, I’d have curvier legs. My calves are too straight.”
Gwen shook her head. “It always amazes me how some of the most beautiful girls don’t even know they’re gorgeous enough.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Liz, frowning down at one leg.
“See? I rest my case,” said Gwen.
“If I could change one thing about me, I’d take a pound off each of my thighs and put them on my breasts,” I said, dipping another Frito in the sour cream dip.
“A whole pound? Like a pound of butter?” said Pamela, laughing. “Alice, you’d be falling out of your bra.”
“I wish my fingers were longer,” said Gwen, placing both hands on one of the cushions and studying them. “Mine are too short and stubby. I’ve always wanted long, elegant fingers with tapered nails.”
“Well, I wish I could tan more easily,” said Pamela. “If we get that job on the cruise ship, I’m going to look freakishly white in shorts. I hope we get hired, though. I’m getting psyched for it.”
“Me too,” I said, and looked around the group. “Are we all in?”
Gwen glanced at Yolanda.
Yolanda hugged her knees and rested her chin on top of them, a black coil of beaded hair on one side of her face dangling down her leg. “I don’t know,” she said.
“She doesn’t want to leave her boyfriend,” Pamela teased.
“It’s not just that. I’m probably earning more waiting tables than I would on a cruise ship. Summers I work full-time, and those tips really add up.”
“Oh, come on, Yolanda. It would be fun! Money’s not everything,” I coaxed.
“I really need it, though,” Yolanda said.
It was the way Gwen was looking at her sideways that cued us there was more to the story.
“College fund?” I asked.
Gwen raised her eyebrows, still looking at Yolanda, waiting.
“A little surgical procedure,” Yolanda said finally, and sat back against the couch, her eyes on the floor.
Okay, so we were probably all wondering the same thing—abortion? Why else wouldn’t she discuss it? My mind went through a simple calculation I’d been through before: Of me and my original two best friends, Elizabeth and Pamela, only Pam had had sex. Intercourse, I mean. Two virgins, one non. Once we added Gwen, that was two virgins, two non. Add Yolanda from another school, two virgins, three non. Add Jill from our school, two virgins, four non. Add Karen and Penny … I had no idea.
When the silence got heavy, Liz asked, “What’s wrong, Yolanda? Tell us.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Gwen said emphatically, continuing to frown at Yolanda. “She only thinks something’s wrong, and I’m about to beat bumps on her head if she goes through with it.”
Yolanda gave her a defiant look. “Everybody has something they’d like to change, including you. You said so yourself. Well, I want to change something else.” She glanced around at us. “It’s just a girl thing.”
“Boobs?” Pamela prodded. “Are you serious?”
Yolanda sighed, knowing we wouldn’t give up. “It’s personal… . I sort of stick out down there, and there’s a surgery you can have …”
I think each of us cringed, wondering exactly what she was talking about but too embarrassed to guess. Not Gwen, though. It had gotten this far, and Gwen wasn’t about to give up.
“Her labia. It’s got a name, Yolanda,” she said, and then, to us, “I keep trying to tell her that this is a normal sexual characteristic, and every girl’s different, but she won’t listen.”
I finally thought of something to say. “Yolanda, have you read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? She was worried about the very same thing until her mother persuaded her it was natural.”
“Well, some doctor advertises that he does this kind of surgery, and Yolanda’s borrowing four thousand dollars from a cousin to have it done,” said Gwen.
“Four thousand!” we spluttered in unison, and Liz choked on her Sprite.
Gwen turned to Yolanda again, and her voice was more gentle, almost pleading. “Listen, Yolanda. Some girls have labia all tucked up inside them like … like petals on a carnation. Other girls’ are more like rose petals, half in, half out; and some are like … the open petals of a tulip.”
We laughed, and that helped relieve the awkwardness, if not the embarrassment.
“Gwen, you should write for Hallmark,” I said. “‘Ode to the Labia’ … a rose is a rose is a labia.”
“I guess I’m a tulip too,” said Pamela thoughtfully, making us laugh again. “I never thought much about it. But Tim sure liked the way I looked. In fact, I heard a guy say once that girls with big ones are supposed to be more sexually responsive than girls with small ones—like pouty lips, I guess. Next, girls will be getting collagen injections in their labia to make them pouty.”
I was all for changing the subject at that point, but I realized we had Yolanda’s attention.
“Where did you get the idea that something was wrong with you?” Liz asked her.
Yolanda hugged her knees again. “My boyfriend said I didn’t look like the girl in a movie we watched.”
“Must have been some movie!” said Pamela.
“Okay, so it was porn, but we got a good look, and he’s right. I don’t look like the girl down there.”
??
?So you’re going to have surgery? Lop them off just for your boyfriend?” said Gwen. “To look like a porn star?”
“It’s a regular surgery, not a back-alley kind of thing,” Yolanda said. “This doctor’s done hundreds of them.”
“Listen to yourself!” said Gwen. “If hundreds of women think they ‘stick out down there,’ as you put it, it only proves it’s normal! Somebody’s feeding them a bunch of crap. And it’s risky. What if you went through with it and found you didn’t feel as much as you did before? That there was nerve damage. What would your boyfriend think about that?”
Liz was trying to comprehend it. “How … I mean … does your boyfriend … like … examine you all over? ‘I like this part’ and ‘I don’t like that’?”
More embarrassed laughter, but a little louder.
“Well, he sees what I look like down there. Any guy would when you’ve been having sex.”
I shrank back against the cushions. “Arrrrggghhh! I want a guy who loves all of me, not just a part. ‘It’s a package deal,’ I’d tell him. Yolanda, what if you go through with this and he decides he doesn’t like something else? What if he says your belly button should poke in instead of out? Would you fix that, too?”
“Then he’ll want a boob enhancement,” said Pamela. “I think it’s a control issue.”
“Yeah. What if you go to all the trouble to make your labia smaller and the next guy who comes along wants them larger? You going to have them stretched?” I said. “I’ve got a better idea. The next time your boyfriend wants to do a clinical exam, tell him you’ll trade places. Put him on the table.”
“Yay!” the others cheered.
“Yeah, stretch him out buck naked and tell him all that body hair has to go,” said Liz.
“And that thing could be a little … uh … thicker,” said Gwen.
We shrieked.
“And those could be a little tighter,” said Gwen. “‘How about doing a testicle tuck just for me?’” she suggested.
We howled.
Yolanda was laughing so hard, she had tears in her eyes. In fact, I wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. Relief, maybe.