Lost Along the Way (20 page)

“It does, actually,” Jane answered.

“Women are complicated.”

“Men aren't much better.”

“If it makes a difference, I don't give him progress reports or anything. Not that he asked me to. It just made him feel better to know that I was around.”

“I get it. You're a good guy, Nick.”

“I don't know. At the time I really believed that I was doing the right thing, but now that I'm trying to convince you of it, I'm not entirely sure.”

“I think it's really sweet,” Jane said. “It makes me feel better, too. I won't say anything to her.”

Just then she heard a cork pop and Cara call out, “Dinner's ready!”

“You promise you won't say anything? If you tell her she's going to question my motives for hanging out with her, and the reality is, I'd be doing it anyway. It makes me feel better to know that I'm giving Steve some peace of mind in the process. Plus, she's an awesome cook and I'd be heartbroken if she stopped having me over for dinner,” he joked. “We will keep this between us?”

“I promise, I won't say a word.”

“Thanks, Jane.”

Nick put the album back on the shelf and linked his arm through Jane's, and together they walked into the kitchen.

A
re you going to give up? Are you going to let the fact that you're tired and sore get the better of you? No, you're not! You're going to keep pushing because it's your time and it's your body and you're going to give it one hundred and ten percent!” The spin instructor screamed into her headset from her bike at the center of the room as the class spun furiously on the stationary bikes surrounding her. Meg listened to the music blare from the speakers, pop tunes that the college kids probably knew all the words to and she only marginally recognized. Just another sign that she was getting old. Was it OneRepublic, then 50 Cent? Or 50 Republic and then One Cent? She had no idea. All she knew was that her shirt was sticking to her and sweat was dripping from her forehead, and she had no idea how she was going to last another twenty minutes without keeling over. She looked at Cara, who had a puddle of sweat on the floor beneath her bike and was pedaling so fast she was starting to turn purple. Meg smiled. It was nice to see that side of her again.

Meg loved her Sunday-morning spin class, not only because it kept her body in shape but because she found it helped to clear her mind. Today she kept thinking back to a day she hadn't thought of in ages, and despite the screaming instructor and the loud music, she could hear the entire conversation in her head.

December 1997

“There are too many candles on this cake,” Meg said at dinner on the night of her twenty-first birthday. Meg's birthday was right after Christmas, which was really annoying because people either forgot about it in the midst of the holiday chaos or tried to lump it in with Christmas, thereby reducing her number of gifts. In college, however, the fact that her birthday coincided with winter break ended up coming in handy because it meant she was able to celebrate it with her friends at home. She'd treated herself to a manicure and wore the new earrings her parents had given her earlier in the day, and had felt pretty as they'd sat through dinner. But even though she'd been adamant that she didn't want a birthday spectacle in the restaurant, she found herself staring at a birthday cake Cara had picked up from the bakery in town. She'd had the hostess stash it in the kitchen, covered in candles, a giant wax 21 dripping all over the fudge frosting. “You should not have done this!” Meg said to Cara, blushing as everyone in the restaurant turned to stare at them while Jane and Cara sang and clapped as if they were the only people in the room. “I'm too old for cake.”

“Stop being stupid. You're never too old for cake!” Cara said. “Jeez, Capricorns. You guys are never happy. Besides it's about time you turned twenty-one. That's worth celebrating.”

“Seriously!” Jane added. “It took you long enough!”

Meg laughed. Cara and Jane never missed the opportunity to remind her that she was the youngest person in their class, almost a full year younger than both of them.

“You'll be jealous when you guys turn forty and I'm barely thirty-nine!” Meg joked. She caught a group of middle-aged women sitting at the table next to them rolling their eyes as they
listened to them discuss how old they were. In fact, the women had been listening to their conversation the entire night, and if they were trying to be discreet they were failing badly. They'd scoffed at Meg when she'd proudly produced her driver's license to prove she was finally able to drink legally—in public! They rolled their eyes as the girls talked about who had better grades (Cara), who had a better boyfriend (Meg), who had managed to avoid college weight gain for yet another semester (Jane), and whose parents were more annoying and out of touch with reality (three-way tie). The women didn't try to hide their disdain of the table of girls with their parents' credit cards and their whole lives in front of them, complaining about such stupid things.

“Do you have any big birthday plans with Steve once you get back to school?” Cara asked in between bites of cake. “Is he going to take you somewhere special or what?”

“Yeah, what are you two going to do? One of the perks of having a boyfriend is that you should at least get a really good dinner and a nice bracelet or something from the deal. Otherwise what's the point?”

“I have something planned, actually,” Meg said slyly.

“You're planning your own birthday present?” Jane asked, oddly impressed by Meg's taking the initiative. “Good idea. The last thing you want is to end up with something heinous that you're forced to wear so you don't hurt his feelings. What are you going to get?”

“It's not what I'm going to get. It's what I'm going to give away.”

“I don't follow,” Jane said.

“I'm going to lose my virginity,” she whispered, not wanting
the nosy ladies at the neighboring table to overhear her and actually laugh out loud.

“You're joking,” Jane said. Her forkful of cake hung suspended in midair.

“What? Do you think it's too soon?” Meg asked. She'd been thinking about finally giving in to Steve's persistent attempts to get her to sleep with him, and after months of careful consideration had decided it was finally time. She was now twenty-one, and if she was old enough to drink wine in a restaurant, she was old enough to have sex. It made perfect sense as far as she was concerned.

“Too soon? I can't believe this. You've been dating this guy for two and a half years, and you're still a virgin? Why?” Jane asked, like Meg had just admitted that she had never shaved her legs or something. “How did we not know this?”

“I didn't want to talk about him like he's just a random guy. He's special and our relationship is special and I didn't want to gossip about what we have. It's private.”

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” Jane said. “Best friends discuss this stuff! I tell you guys everything. I just assumed you were being a prude and not wanting to talk about it. It never occurred to me that you hadn't actually done it yet!”

“Jane, stop it!” Cara scolded. “If she wants to wait, she wants to wait. What's the rush anyways? She has her whole life to have sex.”

“I just can't believe that you've been living on a college campus, unsupervised, with alcohol and no curfew, and you're not sleeping with your boyfriend. Is there something wrong with him?”

“There's nothing wrong with him! He's been great. I shouldn't
have said anything, except, well, I have a question.” Meg didn't like having to admit that she still had questions where sex was concerned. The last thing she wanted was for Jane to make fun of her for being inexperienced. Jane might be one of her best friends but they had very different attitudes about how to deal with members of the opposite sex. Actually, they had very different attitudes on a lot of things.

“Ask me, not Cara,” Jane instructed. “No offense, but there are some things you come to me for, and some things you go to her for, and on this topic, I'm your girl.”

“I went to the doctor last week for my checkup and I mentioned it to her. She gave me a prescription for the pill, but I'm a little afraid to take it. I heard that it makes some girls fat.”

“Oh, stop,” Jane said. “That's totally not true. It won't make you fat, but it may make your boobs bigger, which is a total bonus. Steve will have a girlfriend with better boobs who's sleeping with him. He won't care if you pack on a few pounds. Most guys don't even notice that stuff unless you gain like thirty pounds and start wearing sweatpants every day anyway.”

“I just want to make sure I'm careful. I need to take the pills for a month before they'll work and I want to start taking them this week if I'm going to do this. Do you think they're safe? The doctor says they are, but they don't protect against diseases.”

“Is Steve diseased?” Jane asked.

“Of course not!” Meg said, offended that Jane would ever say something about a guy who was about as perfect as a person could possibly be.

“Then what's the big deal? Pop the pills, have sex, drink booze. Welcome to twenty-one.”

“That's it? That's all there is to it?” Meg asked. It seemed like a very simple answer to a very complicated issue.

“I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Consider me your emergency hotline. I'm open twenty-four hours a day. I still can't believe you're a virgin. Wow.”

“Not everyone gave it up at sixteen, Jane,” Cara said. They had finished eating their slices and were now picking at the remainder of the cake from the platter in the center of the table.

“That's hurtful. I was two weeks from being seventeen. Big difference.”

“I see,” Cara said, knowing full well that Jane was only pretending to be offended.

“Are you sure you're ready? There's no rush. If you want to wait until you're sure, he'll understand,” Cara said.

“Or he'll start banging a freshman. One or the other,” Jane added.

“Don't say that! He'd never cheat on me!” Meg squealed, suddenly feeling very sorry that she'd brought up this topic in the first place. Especially in public. There was no way the other women weren't listening to them.

“Jane, that really is awful,” Cara said.

“All I'm saying is that it's time. You love him, he loves you—clearly, as evidenced by the fact that he's still dating you even though you won't sleep with him—you have protection so you don't need to worry about getting pregnant. What else is there to talk about? If you ask me, girls make this a bigger deal than it is because they talk about it too much. Less talking, more doing.”

“Most people like to talk things through, Jane. Not everyone lives in the moment the way you do,” Cara said.

“It's worked all right for me so far.”

“One day it's going to catch up with you,” Cara warned.

“I'll worry about that day when it comes. Of course, I'll be too busy enjoying myself to notice, soooo . . .”

A waiter appeared at the table with a bottle of champagne. “Excuse me, ladies, this was sent to you by someone named Steve. He says happy birthday to the most beautiful girl in the world. Which one of you is Meg?” he asked. Meg shyly raised her hand and blushed, knowing that the hags at the neighboring table were staring at her. “Shall I pour it?”

“Please do!” Jane said as the waiter placed crystal flutes on the table. “Maybe Steve sensed that we were talking about getting him laid and this is his way of saying thank you.”

“Stop it!” Cara said. She reached over and grabbed Meg's hand. “I don't know him very well, obviously, but he seems like a great guy. I can't wait to get to know him better.”

“Me too,” Jane said. “To be honest, I'm a little jealous.”

“What, you want to lose your virginity again?” Cara teased.

“No! Are you crazy? My first time sucked,” Jane said. “I'm jealous that Meg has someone who treats her so well. I've dated a few guys, but everyone I meet at school is constantly looking over my shoulder to see if a prettier girl is going to walk into the party. No one has cared about me yet the way that Steve cares about Meg. What does it feel like?”

“What does what feel like?” Meg asked.

Jane paused, as if her question was even more embarrassing than the one Meg had asked. “What does it feel like to be in love?”

“I don't know if I love him,” Meg admitted. “I think I do. But
what if that's not what this is? What if it's just infatuation or something stupid? What if one day I look back on this and want to kick myself for buying into all of it?”

“You're just a wimp. You don't want to admit that you love him because then you'll be afraid if he fucks you over you'll look stupid. You love him. If you didn't you wouldn't be taking birth control pills,” Jane said. “This champagne is good. We're going to have to call someone to come pick us up. I don't think any of us will be driving after this.”

“I know that he makes me happy. Every day when I wake up I can't wait to see him. I want to call him in between every class. I want to sit on the couch and watch TV with him even if all my friends at school are going out. When my phone rings I get excited, even now. He brings me breakfast in the morning, and sometimes he writes little notes that he tucks in my wallet or in one of my notebooks. We can talk about anything. I don't think I've ever been closer to anyone in my life. Well, except for you guys.”

“Of course. We don't count,” Jane said. Her eyes were starting to glass over, the wine and champagne making her giddy.

“I think that sounds awesome,” Cara said. “It must make life so much nicer. You never have to worry about being alone.”

“But I do worry about that. I worry about him breaking up with me. I think I would die, you guys, I really do. I don't know how I'd ever get over that.”

“Why do you think he'd break up with you?” Cara asked.

“Because he can do better than me,” she whispered. Cara and Jane seemed surprised to discover that Meg's insecurities were still very much intact. She had everything: looks, brains, person
ality, and now, it seemed, a good guy who loved her, and still she couldn't see it.

“Maybe he's worried about you leaving him,” Cara said. “Did you ever think of that?”

“I'd never leave him. If things stay the way they are now, I think maybe we could get married. I swear I think we could. That's another reason why I haven't wanted to talk about this stuff. If we end up getting married I don't want to betray him by talking too much about our private life, you know?”