Confessions of a Not It Girl (9 page)

CHAPTER NINE

"Really, Jan. That's the grossest thing I ever heard."

We were trapped in the library because students weren't allowed to go off campus all week, a policy that might have had something to do with the fact that Rebecca and I weren't the only seniors who had been cutting class left and right.

"You don't know the half of it," I said. "He was just poking at my boobs the whole time like this." I used my index finger to poke at an imaginary breast.

"Why did you
let
him?"

"I don't know. I felt bad. He seemed so into it." Rebecca rolled her eyes.

"Well, what was I supposed to do, punch him?"

"Um, how about just saying no?"

"You're heartless."

"This is why you
have
to go out with older guys," Rebecca said for the millionth time. "Brian didn't poke me once. He really knows what he's doing."

"What about Mr. Just Touch It Once?" I pointed out.

"That was different." Rebecca looked annoyed. "He was a freak."

Rebecca's always saying how mature older guys are, but every time she and this "actor" she went out with last year

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fooled around, he would practically break her fingers trying to get her to put her hand down his pants. Then he'd go, "Just touch it once. Please, just touch it once."

"All I'm saying is you've fooled around with two older guys and one was a total pervert and one wasn't. Your set is too small for statistical accuracy."

"Who are you, Mr. Andrews?" Mr. Andrews had been our math teacher in ninth grade.

"Do you think Mr. Andrews ever asked anyone to touch it once?" I asked.

"Only if by 'it' you mean his pocket protector." Rebecca started laughing, and then I started laughing. Every time I tried to stop, I would picture Mr. Andrews begging someone to touch his pocket protector, and I'd lose it all over again.

The librarian, Mrs. Deaver, (or as we affectionately think of her, the Beaver), came marching over to us.

"Girls, you have had several warnings. I want you out of the library." We were laughing too hard to say anything, so we just grabbed our bags and ran into the hallway. Or Rebecca ran into the hallway. I ran into Josh.

"Easy there," he said as I banged into him. He held my shoulder as I took a step back. "You okay?" he asked.

My trajectory caused Rebecca to go into another round of hysterics. Luckily I, unlike her, am not the most immature person in the world and was therefore able to pull myself together.

"Sorry about that," I said, doing a fairly reasonable imitation of someone who was not dying of complete and utter embarrassment.

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"It's a good thing I ran into you, actually," said Josh.

"Actually, I ran into you," I pointed out.

"Touché," he said, smiling. He was wearing a Wesleyan sweatshirt, and I made a mental note to work extra hard on my Wesleyan application. Perhaps we were destined to be thwarted during our senior year only to find true love there, in the romantic atmosphere of the small Middletown campus. I could see it perfectly.

Setting:
The registrar's office at Wesleyan.

Scene:
The first day of freshman orientation.

JOSH: Jan?
(His smile broadens when she turns around.)
I thought that might be you.

JAN:
(Smiling.)
Hey, Josh.
(Her hair is subdued in the low humidity of a fall day in Connecticut. Her miraculously tiny butt looks spectacular in a pair of tight jeans.)

JOSH: I had no idea you were a student here.

JAN: Nor I you.

JOSH:
(Shyly.)
You know, last year I never had the chance to tell you how attractive I find you.
(He moves closer to take in the subtle fragrance of Jan's perfume.)

JAN:
(Coyly.)
Well, I look forward to hearing all about it.
(Music swells.)

CURTAIN

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"...would be a big help," Josh finished. "If you don't mind."

"No, I don't mind," I said.
Mind what? Mind what?
Whatever he said had been drowned out by my mental musical crescendo.

"Thanks a lot. I'll call you later."

"Right," I said, backing away from him without turning around.

"Watch the wall," he said, just as I banged right into it.

"Thanks," I said. "I'm kind of klutzy." As if my slamming into the wall two minutes after slamming into him didn't make that totally obvious.

"You probably shouldn't walk backward, then," he suggested.

"Good advice," I acknowledged. "I'll try and remember it."

"I'll call you later," he said, turning around and going into the library.

Rebecca was waiting for me on the stairs. "Josh is calling me later," I told her.

"Wow, that was fast. How do your Amish parents feel about your having a phone?"

"Ha ha. It just so happens he needs me to help him with something," I said.

"What?" The bell rang and students started pouring into the stairwell. I turned to go upstairs to history.

"I have absolutely no idea."

I waited as long as possible to go into the classroom since the last thing I wanted was to get there when an empty seat next to me might encourage Tom Richmond

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to sit in it. Naturally I was late, got yelled at by Ms. Smith, and then Tom wasn't even in class. Had he been hospitalized for dehydration after losing all that saliva Saturday night?

What had Josh asked me to help him with? What had I agreed to do for him? The possibilities were endless.
Would you tutor me in French? Would you help me with my Wesleyan application? Would you donate a kidney?
Yes. Yes. YES!

It was a C day, so English was last period. I waited for Josh to show up, and when he didn't, I couldn't help coming to a very depressing conclusion: Josh didn't need an ongoing tutorial. He didn't need a major organ donated.

He needed the English homework.

Still, I could work with this. I mean, okay, it was a banal, quotidian, pedestrian request (according to my SAT vocabulary flash cards), but it was a start. After all, he did not ask Mandy Johnson if he could call
her
for the homework. He did not say, "Mandy Johnson, put down your lip gloss and call me with the homework." No, he asked
me
for the homework. "Jan," he had said in his hour of need, "help me."

When I got home, my dad was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. He was wearing a plastic apron with all these different kinds of peppers on it and this chef's hat my mom gave him for his birthday last month.

He looked like an enormous mushroom.

My dad loves cooking. His dream is to open a restaurant somewhere out in the country. Personally, I don't see

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how anyone's dream could involve exposing himself to public ridicule, and when he asked me to set the table, I took our quality time together as an opportunity to mention this.

"I won't lie to you, Dad," I said, carrying the plates over to the table. "I don't think that chef's hat is working for you."

"I thought
Sixteen
said they're all the rage out in L.A.," he said, tasting something from one of the pots he'd been stirring.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if my dad is the most obtuse person in the world or if he's making a joke. "You do know it's
Seventeen,
right?" I asked.

"Taste this soup," he said. "It's like heaven on earth." He held out the spoon to me and I slurped at it. It was pretty good.

"Seriously, Dad. Chefs today are much more chic than they used to be. You don't have to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy to be a good cook." I took some silverware and went back to the table.

"It tastes great, doesn't it?" When my dad doesn't want to deal with whatever I'm saying, he just pretends I haven't said it.

"Yes, yes! It's great. You're the best chef on the planet. And you would still be the best chef on the planet if you didn't have that deflated pancake on your head."

"You know, honey," he said, walking over to the fridge and taking out a head of lettuce, "one of the pleasures of getting older is you stop obsessing about what other people think of how you look."

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"I'm not talking about
obsessing,'"
I said. "I'm talking about a healthy awareness of other people's aesthetic needs." The phone rang.

"Hold that thought," said my dad, reaching for the phone. I forced myself to fold the last napkin really slowly and carefully, like I wasn't at all interested in who was calling.

"Phone's for you," he said, holding the receiver toward me.

I didn't want to talk to Josh--if it was Josh--in front of my dad. After all, there is simply no way to tell when a casual conversation about the English homework will evolve into a confession of true love. Unfortunately, I'm so superstitious that I was sure if I went upstairs to pick up the extension in my room before finding out who was calling, I would jinx it, and the call would turn out to be Rebecca or someone equally not Josh.

I took the phone from my dad, trying to tell from his expression who it was, but his face was perfectly blank.

"Hello?"

"Hey." It was Josh. My heart started to pound.

"Hey. Can you hang on a second?" I asked my dad to wait to hang up the phone for me and went upstairs. I picked up the phone in my room. "Got it!" I screamed.

"Okay," said my dad.

"Hi," I said.

"Hey. That your dad?"

"Yeah. He's making soup," I said, as if Josh would

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be fascinated by my father's activity of the moment. I started folding and refolding a corner of my comforter, making it into a tiny triangle and then smoothing it out.

"Listen, thanks for getting the English homework. The coach pulled us all out of class for this unbelievably stupid meeting."

"No problem," I said. There was a pause.

"Ah, what is it?"

"Oh, right. We have to read the first fifteen pages of
The Sound and the Fury,'"
I said.

Josh laughed. "Well, I guess my not having the book is going to be a little bit of a problem, isn't it?"

Oh my God, why hadn't I thought of that? The book! The book!

The book!

"Well, you could just come over and borrow mine," I suggested casually. My heart was beating so fast I could barely talk.

"Hey, thanks. That would be great. It's due tomorrow?"

"Oh, no. Actually, not until Wednesday." My fast-beating heart slowed down considerably.

"Then I'll just go and get the book from Mr. Kryle tomorrow."

"Sure."

I was flat-lining.

"But thanks a lot anyway. Mr. Kryle got
so
pissed last time I missed an assignment because of soccer. I think he's kind of anti-sports, you know?"

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"Really?"
I attempted to sound shocked that
anyone
could be anti-sports.

"Yeah. I think a lot of people think athletics and stuff are a waste of time."

"They do?" I was trying to remember if the Nets were a New York team and, if so, what they played. Luckily, Sarah chose that moment to shout a question at Josh.

"Jan!" he shouted back to her.

I liked hearing him say my name.

Sarah said something I couldn't make out. "Oh, yeah," Josh answered. "Listen," he said to me. "I have kind of a weird favor to ask."
Will you be my girlfriend?

"Shoot," I said casually. I wondered if he picked up on my subtle use of basketball terminology.

"Your dad's a professor at Columbia, right?"

"Right," I said.

"Okay, the thing is, I have this cousin who's applying to Columbia, and my mom was wondering if your dad would be willing to talk to him."

"About Columbia?"
Duh.

"Yeah." Sarah yelled something else to Josh. "What?" he shouted. "Okay, I'll ask. My mom wants to know if you and your parents want to come over for dinner on Friday."

"To your house?"
Duh.

"Yeah, so my cousin can talk to your dad and stuff."

"Um, sure."
Yes!
YES! YES! YES! YES! "I mean, I'll ask them."

"Well, okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

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"Bye."

When my father cooks Italian food, he likes to blast opera and sing along. If he doesn't know the real lyrics, he just makes them up. As I walked into the kitchen he was belting out,
"Ooob, my pants are in the oven!"
His chef's hat had fallen back on his head, and there were little bulges of fat hanging over the string of his plastic apron.

All my dreams of happiness depended on this man.

It was a terrifying thought.

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