From Butt to Booty (22 page)

Oh, this could be good. “And?” I put down the textbook. I can feel a humiliating parental moment coming. I have hum-dar.

She takes a deep breath and blurts out, “What exactly is anal bleaching?”

I blink. I’m fairly certain I didn’t stop breathing for long since I’m alive and not dead, but that’s about all I can attest to. Of all the questions I thought might come out of Mom’s mouth, that didn’t make the list.

“Did you hear me?” She’s peering into my face like there’s nothing shocking about her asking me about anal bleaching.

“Um. Can I get back to you?” I have no idea what to say.

“You don’t know?” She’s crestfallen. Her
sigh
sounds old. “I asked your father, but he didn’t seem to know about it either.”

“Um, well, no, I think it’s something people do who are interested in having anal sex. Or oral sex.”

“Oral, there?” she asks, her eyebrows rising to her hairline.

I nod and pluck at lint on the comforter. “There. It’s called a rim job.” I push the mortification down into my stomach and try to act like we’re discussing drapery patterns.

She nods as if she understands. “Oh. But bleach?”

“It’s about the color of the skin, I think.” Either that or there are some weirdly inclined germaphobes in the world.

“Thank you. I appreciate you telling me. I told the girls you’d know. You’re so smart.”

I choose not to dwell on the idea that a bunch of Bunko ladies are waiting to hear my thoughts on anal anything.

“Hey, Gert. Party at our house Saturday night. Bring a date if you want.” Lucas pauses by my locker. Just a brief pause to get the words out.

I smile. “Sure. ’Kay.”

“Hey, Adam? You and Tim are getting drinks, right?” Lucas turns to him and asks.

“Yep.” After Lucas has walked on, Adam leans down to me and whispers, “He’s inviting the whole soccer team, kind of an end-of-season thing.”

My smile doesn’t falter. “Whatever.”

“Whatever?” Adam asks. “Word is he doesn’t have a date to GAGD yet.”

“So?”

“Just thought you might care. You bringing a date to the party?”

“You busy?” I ask with a grin.

“Taken. But you can be our favorite inny.”

“Inny?” I’m not sure I really want to know.

“Girls inny, guys outy.”

I giggle. “That’s so juvenile.”

Adam just laughs and walks away. He and Tim now have a secret language. I don’t think I’m okay with that.

A date? Who? But bigger still, do I possibly have the balls to even ask someone?

Who am I? It’s simpler to write a paper about who I’m not. I don’t know who I am. I’m Gert. I’m a friend to Adam, Clarice, Maggie and a few others. I’m the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Garibaldi. I’m the sister of Michael. I’m the future sister-in-law of Heather. The future girlfriend of someone. The ex-girlfriend of Stephen. I am a sophomore in high school.

I am a girly-woman, or am I a womanly girl? See, I don’t even know what the truth is.

Life would be vastly easier if I knew who I am. If I had one part of me that I could hold on to and say, “Don’t touch, that’s me, that’s mine.” But I don’t yet. I have days, sure, where I think I know what I need to know and what I want. But that feeling is fleeting.

I’m not a beautiful person. To compete I’d need about ten different plastics. I don’t think so. I’m not a plastic surgery person. I mean, sure I’d love to have perky boobs and a nondescript nose, pouty lips and a tight tiny booty. But what if I change my mind after it’s all over? See, here’s the deal, I like to change my mind. I change it often. Occasionally, I’ve been
known to change my mind simply because I’ve had the same opinion for too long. Maybe that’s stupid, but it’s true.

So I’m not beautiful and if a manly-boy were to tell me I am and really mean it, I think I’d probably cry. Because we all want one person who isn’t our parental to think we’re beautiful, don’t we? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so.

I’m not going to be a Merit Scholar with scores like I got on the PSAT. So perhaps I’m outgrowing the Brain definition too. Maybe I’m not as smart as some. I once had this friend who wrote an essay about how one girl she was friends with was her intellectual match, and I was her political and social match. We’re not friends anymore. You’re not very bright if you think you can easily sum up smarts like that.

I’m an American. I like being American. I don’t like the rest of the world hating me, but there are very few other places I’d be happy having been born a woman. You know? There aren’t a lot of choices for free, for me. So I’m not going to be emigrating anywhere or dissing the U.S. itself. She’s been good to me, hasn’t she?

I’m not big on God, but I’m not completely faithless, either. I just don’t know how much of anything I believe in. How can you believe in something when you don’t even know who is doing the believing? Don’t I have to know myself before I can believe in anything remotely unseen?

I am the girl who plucks her eyebrows daily in the
hopes that this grooming makes me less likely to stick out and perhaps more likely to be considered attractive.

I am the girl who dates kinda-cute boys but not Lucas.

I am the girl who joins a sports team to be around a guy, though I secretly hate myself for feeling like I need to be around a guy in the first place. Aren’t I supposed to be all feministy and complete without a penis in proximity? Does this make me a traitor to my gender? Or to women who can’t vote? If I like to be around a manly-boy enough to run miles upon miles, does this make me the girl who cuts my hair the way he wants it to be cut? Who does my makeup according to his preferences? Who makes excuses if he hits me?

That’s all I have so far.…

I arrive at the party with Adam, who picked us all up at Clarice’s house. We’re spending the night. Not Adam, just Maggie and me. But we’re going to the party first so we can have something other than the upcoming dance to talk about. They’ve been trying to convince me that asking Lucas to the dance would be good for my development as a confident human being.

Clarice is so full of crap. They laid off when Adam laughed in the car and said that Lucas has been turning girls down since November. He has a date now, though. I guess he stopped turning girls down when Aubrey asked him. Or is it Amanda? Ashley? They all probably asked at one time or another.

The bass is thumping. I’ve been here before. It’s still the normal-looking house with the amazingly terrible AstroTurf decorations with flowery bows. I’m working on my calm self-assured exterior, but I wish my insides matched my outs. It’s still Lucas’s house. There’s only so much calm a girl can be.

“Hey.” A guy I don’t know opens the door.

“Hey.” I can’t think of anything else to say and he’s waiting for a reply.

“Dude.” He nods.

“Duu-dde.” Adam makes it two syllables.

“Righteous.”

I walk past, trying not to laugh.
“Righteous”? You’re kidding, right?

This is drunk-people conversation. Drunk people, or stoned people, for that matter, will want you to believe that being under the influence creates a higher form of consciousness. Like they’re reaching a plane full of rainbow colors that makes them better or bigger human beings. But put any sober person in the middle of their conversation and it will be recorded accurately: it will be full of exclamations and pronouncements and a whole lotta crap. Really. There’s not a nice way to put it.

I really don’t get the attraction, but this party is full of people who want to surf the wild rainbow. I guess the end-of-season party means the end of spring, the end of hunting season, the end of wild-duck mating season instead of the tame and relatively benign interpretation I had, which was end of the soccer season. Huh. My bad.

There are tons of people. Lots I recognize from Jenny’s New Year’s party. A few who came to my birthday party back in the fall. And some I’ve never seen before in my life. I didn’t think this town had this many people.

And really, if I need to be drunk to ask a guy out, maybe that’s my sober self’s way of trying to get me to pay attention to what I really want. If I really wanted to ask a guy out, I’d be compelled to act, rather than needing to drink Listerine in an effort to get the freshest breath and my stomach pumped. What’s the point?

Tangent: sorry.

If I wanted it, I’d do it. So maybe I don’t want it that much.

The party is okay. No real talking. Lots of making out. A few full-fledged coital hookups in bedrooms and a couple who decide the floor behind the couch is all the privacy they need. Holy-Mother-of-Hind-Ends, I don’t need to see his full moon and its orbiting bits. If my parentals only knew.

I drink a Mountain Dew. A cold one. Munch on a freshly opened bag of chips. I saw them open the bag; I can’t bring myself to eat any of the food that is sitting out. I’ve seen too many of those high school movies where the unenlightened eat or drink a very unappetizing ingredient.

Clarice disappeared with Spenser soon after we got here. She’s intent on finding out exactly what he thinks about being in a relationship with her. She told us she wants to take her boyfriend to GAGD, but Adam and I shared this look that pretty much shouted, “But he
has
told you!” He wants to be benefriends, how much more obvious does he need to be?

But Clarice didn’t pick up on it. Nothing. So Spenser is cornered in this house trying to explain for the three-hundredth time that what he wants he stated clearly the first time they had this conversation. Hmm. I can see why guys get exasperated with us.

Maggie finds me around eleven. “Help.” She grabs my arm and all but attaches herself like a barnacle to my side.

“Whoa, personal space,” I say, pulling away.

“Don’t. Look like you like me.” She hugs me tighter.

“Huh?”

“Gert, we’re together.
Together
. Put your arm around me.”

I am so not following this conversation, but I put my arm around her back while reaching for another can of soda. I will have
to pee if I keep drinking this way, but what else can I do with my hands? Hmm.

Maggie whispers through clenched teeth, sounding all snakey and hard to understand, “Jesse is following me around hinting that he wants to go with me.”

“So?” I ask.

“So, I like him. Kiss me.” She tilts her head up toward mine.

I snort Doritos and Mountain Dew up my nose.

“Thanks. You’re so supportive.” She glares at me but doesn’t even give my snort secretions room to maneuver.

I pull away, wiping my nose on a used paper towel. Beggars and all that. I try to point out, “You like him.”

“Of course I like him. He makes me insane.” Maggie turns around and starts rearranging the stuff on the table.

“So, what’s the problem?” I can’t begin to unravel this one.

“I’m not ready to like him. I certainly am not ready to ask him to go to a public function with me.”

Again with the rational thought. “So, don’t ask him.”

“But he’s getting pretty close to asking me to ask him and I can’t say no because then he’ll think I don’t like him, but I really am not ready to talk to him every day and kiss him and have sex with him and meet his family and—”