From Butt to Booty (10 page)

“Not at dinner,” Stephen’s dad huffs over a dirty look.

I really want to go home. Now. Forget seeing his room. I just want mine.

“Work. Sorry.” She flips open the phone and moves away from the table. I think she must work for the State Department or something.

“She’s a reporter at Channel Six,” Stephen whispers.

That’s why she looks so familiar.

“Gotta go. Gert, it was nice seeing you.” She grabs her keys and dumps the lettuce in the garbage in one motion.

“When are you coming back?”

“Late.” She slams the door.

“I want sardines.” Mrs. Blasko sounds like a three-year-old.

I stare at my plate.

“And then she kept yelling she wanted sardines and his dad just mumbled about cattle fixtures or futures or something weird.” I try to finish my story over the ever-increasing volume of Adam’s mirth.

“Stevie didn’t say anything?” Adam asks once he gets his breath back.

“Noooo,” I squeal into the phone. I’m staring at my ceiling in utter awe of how horrible that was.

“I’m so sorry, Gertie. Swear I had no idea his mother was Moany Joany from Channel Six.”

Apparently Joan Hudson is a local celebrity. I guess I would have known that if my boyfriend had told me, or I ever watched the evening news. She’s an investigative reporter whose delivery is the stuff of
Penthouse
breathiness.

“Was it as bad as I think it was?” I ask. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Perhaps if I squint really hard at a lightbulb, the memory will get fuzzy and warm.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, what was I thinking?” Of course it was that bad. And then it just got worse.

“He dragged you up to his bedroom?”

“Yes.” I don’t even really remember the décor because I was so focused on evading the tongue of death. “And he tasted like cheap Chinese takeout and kept shoving his tongue into my mouth like he was some tentacle-man from outer space.” Let’s not even talk about the hello erection rubbing on my thigh.

“What’d you do?” Adam gulps air. I can hear it.

“I kept asking him about the model airplanes hanging from his ceiling like I cared.” Stephen’s taller than me, so about all I could see while his tongue was in my mouth was the ceiling. The angle was brutal.

“Uh-huh. And you weren’t into kissing him back?” Adam asks like he’s afraid of my answer.

“That was not kissing. That was carpet cleaning.”

“Huh?”

“It was uncomfortable and boring. For buttocks’ sake, I was having juicy conversations about P-3s.”

“What are P-3s?”

“Planes. Very old planes,” I snap.

“Oh. How’d you get home?”

“I made a big deal about my neck hurting, which was actually true, but I pretty much lost it when he started to pull me toward the bed. No way was I leaving my feet.” Visions of having appendages or breasts sucked into the Hoover mouth are going to haunt me for years.

“So, you were into him,” Adam says.

Do I sound into him? I want to be into him
. “Not then.”

“Then he brought you home?”

“Yes, and he wanted to make out in the driveway like we hadn’t been doing that for an hour. And it’s a good thing I didn’t eat any
food, I would have thrown up all over him when his tongue got my gag reflex. Still, I was hungry.”

“You have a bowl of ice cream?”

I clink my spoon into Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. “Yes, comfort food.”

“Are you going to break up with him?”

The sixty-four-million-dollar question: Am I going to dump him? “Maybe he’s special.”

“Special?”

“Like I wouldn’t dump a guy in a wheelchair if he popped a wheelie, so why would I dump Stephen for popping a boner?”

“We’re not talking about his dick here. His dick wasn’t in your throat, was it?”

I shiver. I can’t even imagine the alternate reality where that might have happened. “No.”

“Let’s recap. He tells you his grandmother is nuts but leaves out the part about his mother being on television and, oh, by the way, anorexic from the sound of it. He doesn’t talk to you at all during dinner. Doesn’t let you finish eating before pulling you up to his bedroom so he can shove his unwanted tongue down your throat—”

“Wait, I don’t know that it was unwanted.” I have to be fair. I like the idea of French-kissing. I just hope it’s not all like this.

“Okay, but he doesn’t check in to make sure you’re having a good time, right?”

“Well, no.”

“Then he gets huffy when you say your neck hurts and you need to go home and you won’t make out with him in front of the prying eyes of your parents. Right?”

“That’s close, yes.”

“And you think there’s something wrong with you, right?” Adam hits the nail on the doorjamb.

“Is there?” I have this terrible sinking feeling that this is the best my dating life will ever be. It will all be downhill from here, until I have fifty cats and wear Lycra on my massive butt.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. Really.”

“Really?”

“Really. If I put it to a vote right now—no, we all agree, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Thanks.”

“And Gertie, the tongue thing is great with the right person.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, someday there will be a boy whose tongue you want in your throat. Not to mention his—”

I cut him off. “That’s strangely comforting.”

“Go eat more ice cream.” Adam hangs up.

He always makes me feel better.

Kissing. I’m talking good kissing. Ice-cream-melting, toe-curling, tingling, don’t-want-to-stop kissing. I want some of that.

There are whole websites devoted to the healing properties of kissing. It’s been known to cure cancer and at the very least brighten a clinical depression.

It’s a hobby. It brings people together. I want it. I want the kiss that lasts forever. Okay, I’d like bathroom breaks and neck-sprain breaks and probably occasionally might want to do something else, but mostly I just want the feeling of a kiss that could last me a lifetime. That lost, dreamy, creamy feeling of being in the moment with one other person. With a manly-boy.

I don’t think that’s asking too much. Is it?

“I’m … going … to die.…” My face is so hot it’s melting off my skull. I can hardly breathe. I lean against the auxiliary gym wall like a gargoyle in heat. I don’t care how pathetic I look. I don’t. I’m sure I won’t survive these tryouts and then people will never say a bad thing about me again. Because you don’t say bad things about dead people. Unless they’re serial killers or something. And I’m not.

Tangent: sorry.

“Gert, we just walked over here.” Clarice is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“I’m practicing.” Okay, so I’m not on my deathbed yet, but it’s out there. I can see it coming. “Why are we doing this, again?”

“It’s our only opportunity to be jocks.” Maggie keeps picking at her shorts and T-shirt like she’s never worn anything with fewer than five layers.

“Winter sports, ladies?” What was I thinking? I don’t care about being a jock. I want to ride the away bus with Lucas. I’ve heard things about the away bus. “It’s outdoor soccer in January.”

“Technically this is just tryouts.”

“Maybe we’re not destined to be jocks. Has it occurred to any of us that we aren’t genetically equipped for this activity? Do you even know what a soccer ball looks like?” I ask my compatriots quasi-seriously.

“It’s black and white, right? With shapes on it?” Panic blooms on Maggie’s face for a minute before she quite stoically brings herself back under control.

“Listen up, people.” A lanky guy with calves the size of Montana loops a whistle around his neck. “This is tryouts for girls’ soccer. This is the first year it’s been offered, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to make the team.” He puffs up his chest like we’re an incoming class of wannabe Navy SEALs. “We have a freshman squad, which will also be the junior varsity squad, and then room for the varsity ladies. My name is Mack. I’m going to be your head coach, but just call me Mack. No mister. Mack. Got it?”

I’m still looking at his knees. They have amazing definition. All sinew and muscle. I will have to take the magnetizing mirror to my knees when I get home. I don’t think mine look like that.

“Where are my student coaches?” Mack asks.

I straighten. This is where Lucas comes in. I begin to panic when I can’t locate him casually. He’s the entire reason I am doing this. He must be around here somewhere.

“Mack. We’re over here.” Lucas and three other guys I’ve never seen in my life part the crowd like Moses and the Red Sea. I swear a collective sigh and hair toss moves across the girls like a wave at a football game.

The guys all slap hands and thump each other with their shoulders. A bigger display of masculine preening you’ve never seen—not even on Animal Planet. Not to say I’m immune. I’m not. Look at that smile. That hair. Those shoulders.

“Good to see you.” Mack repeats this strange dance of slap and thump with each of them. It’s that odd hello ritual guys do.

“Who are the other guys?” Clarice whispers to me. We both sneak a glance at Maggie, hoping she’ll have done some research.

Her blank look is not comforting. The guys are skinny. Muscular, but, well, there’s no fat on their legs. On anywhere.

I swallow, doing the math. Unless they’re all brothers, which I know they’re not—the rippling muscle thing must not be genetic. Five guys, not related, plus soccer equals no fat.

“We’re going to die,” I stage-whisper.

“Uh-huh.” Clarice finally makes eye contact with me. She’s figuring out there will be pain.

“Can we sneak out?” Maggie tugs at the oversized cotton covering her dainty proportions like a crescent roll on a toothpick.

Mack turns back to us. He’s smiling. A really big smile. “Now, we’re going to work you today. Don’t worry if your soccer skills aren’t up to World Cup level, we’ll get there later.”

I have a mental flash: I think I kicked a soccer ball once in PE, in the fifth grade. It hurt my big toe. Why have I blocked this memory until now?

Mack continues. “We need to get a feel for your conditioning, put you through some basic drills, and then tomorrow we’ll get out the balls.”

Oh goody, I will collapse before even touching the soccer ball. That’ll be humiliating.

“We’ll start each practice by running a couple of miles to warm up. The red line is an eighth of a mile. This gym is your new home. We’ll live in here for tryouts. Any questions?”

Do I want to be buried or cremated? Bagpipes or boy band?

I look around at the group of about fifty girls. Some faces I
know but most I don’t. I pull Maggie into a huddle with Clarice. “How hard can it be to get cut the first day?”

Relief blooms on their faces. “You’re right. There are lots of girls here. Odds are we’re the least skilled,” Maggie says.

“There’s no shame in giving it a try and being ousted because we suck,” Clarice adds.

Mack announces, “People, let’s do a mile to start. Eight laps, people. Look alive.” He nods to one of the guys, who presses a remote button. Supernova’s latest riff fills the gym with reverberating chords. “Run, run, run.” Mack herds the group in a clockwise motion.