Love and Other Four-Letter Words (11 page)

O
ver the next few weeks, I was in a near-constant state of anxiety, to a point where it was normal for my throat to be tight, my cheeks tense, my breath hard to catch. At night I would fall into bed, my body zapped of energy, and dream about separating lights from darks in the laundry room and ATM machines running out of cash. There was just so much to remember that my brain felt like our wearied old fan, whirring night and day in a cycle like this:

1. Is there anything to eat in the apartment? Answer is often no, which means I have to make a shopping list and trek to several grocery stores in an attempt to hit all the sales advertised in the windows.
   

2. 2. Has Moxie been fed and walked? And why does she keep gnawing that raw patch on her back?
   

3. Is today a day I have to remind Mom about alternate-side parking? And what if another episode like last Thursday happens? I hadn't been able to rouse her in time, so as the street cleaners advanced, I'd grabbed her car keys and begged the super to move the Volvo while I hyperventilated from the sidewalk.
   

The only times my mind slows down are when I'm playing guitar or hanging out with Phoebe. We've been meeting in the dog run every morning. Sometimes we just sit on a bench, chatting as Moxie and Dogma horse around. Other times we wander around Central Park for hours, until Phoebe “limps” off to physical therapy.

I guess I'd say we're becoming friends. It's strange. We haven't exchanged phone numbers and I still don't even know her last name. And it's not like we make plans to meet; we both just show up at the dog run at nine, an unspoken agreement. In a way, the fact that we're completely unattached allows us to talk about things you ordinarily don't when you've just met someone.

Like on Friday afternoon, as we were walking around the reservoir, Phoebe told me that after her
release from tennis captivity, she'd assumed it was going to be a lonely summer. Most of her friends were counselors at sleep-away camps, or with their families out in the Hamptons, which she described as these swank beach towns near the eastern tip of Long Island.

“If you can call them friends,” she added, scuffing her sneakers in the pebbles.

“What do you mean?”

And that's when Phoebe told me about her stuffy private school, where the kids believe that a hefty allowance + designer clothes + a country home = high status. Phoebe's parents often forgo vacations to cover tuition because they believe that education equals enlightenment. What they don't understand is that all the teachers talk about is how education equals good college applications.

“Can't you tell them you want to transfer somewhere else?” I asked.

And that's when Phoebe told me how her older siblings, both in their midtwenties, had gone there too. And how her sister had excelled at Cornell; her brother was a nuclear physicist “with more degrees than a thermometer.” And how her parents pressure her to live up to that precedent, not realizing that to the rest of the world these wunderkinder aren't exactly normal.

The next morning, while we were sitting on a pier in Riverside Park, I told Phoebe that I understand what it's like to live in someone else's shadow.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

And that's when I described Kitty. How she has the brains and the beauty and the boys. How I once compiled a list of all of Kitty's assets (seventeen) and all of mine (two), which I then shredded into pieces and stuffed in the trash. And how, next to Kitty, I often wind up feeling second-tier.

Phoebe's eyes had been closed as she aimed her face toward the sun. I think she was trying to dry up her acne, which has gotten worse over the past few weeks.

“Sammie.” She sat up abruptly and looked at me. “You are
anything
but second-tier.”

It could have just been the sun making its way over the Manhattan skyline, but I was suddenly overcome with a warm sensation inside. I knew that, whether or not it was actually true, Phoebe meant what she said.

I got a similar feeling a few days later, when I showed up at the dog run racked with a lousy, crampy, moody case of PMS.

“You need chocolate,” Phoebe said matter-of-factly.

But when we scavenged around in our pockets, we didn't have enough collectively to buy a Hershey's Kiss.
I was about to succumb to premenstrual funk when Phoebe marched me down the street to this chichifroufrou chocolate shop, where truffles are worth their weight in gold. After tying Moxie and Dogma to a parking meter, Phoebe dragged me past displays of delicately wrapped gourmet chocolates, ignoring my hushed reminders of our penniless state.

“My friend and I are regular customers here”— Phoebe smiled at the person behind the counter, a petite woman with closely set dark eyes and cascades of long reddish hair framing her fragile face—“and we wanted to see what you're sampling today.”

Regular customers here?
What if she takes one look and says she's never seen us before in her life? I was debating whether I should flee the scene of the crime or defend Phoebe on grounds of PMS prevention when the saleswoman said, “We're sampling our new line of milk chocolate hazelnuts. Does that sound okay to you?”

Okay to us?
I considered asking her if she'd ever heard the expression “Beggars can't be choosers,” when she selected two morsels from a nearby tray. She was even shorter than Phoebe, who is exactly five feet tall, so she had to stand on her tippy-toes to pass them over the high counter.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, tearing off the crinkly brown
foil. It was creamy and delicious and vanished in one pop.

“Mmm,” Phoebe said, “thank you.”

Once we were out on the street, Phoebe opened her fist and revealed her chocolate, still in its wrapping.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” she pronounced, handing it to me.

“No.” I attempted to give the chocolate back to her. “It's yours.”

But Phoebe held both her hands in the air, refusing to take it. Then she paused, deliberately scratched her temple and giggled. “A shih tzu, don't you think?”

“What?”

Phoebe gestured toward the woman in the shop. “Those little dogs with the long, long fur.”

“Oh,” I tried to say, but my mouth was full of milk chocolate hazelnut. Even though they came from the exact same tray, I could swear this one tasted even better than the first.

There
are
things I didn't tell Phoebe. I didn't tell her that my parents had separated so recently. And I didn't tell her that Dad had suddenly decided I was no longer his Number One Daughter, like he always used to joke, pshawing away my reminder that I was his Number
Only
Daughter. And I didn't tell her how many hours Mom sits at the kitchen table playing solitaire or flipping through her selection of self-help books. And I definitely didn't tell her about Dad's phone call the following week.

It had caught me off guard, in a rare moment when I was home alone. I'd just finished washing Moxie with a dog shampoo that Phoebe's sister, Charlotte, had recommended to reduce itching. Phoebe had e-mailed her in Tucson, after the patch on Moxie's back grew raw and flaky.

I tossed a towel over Moxie's damp fur, closed her in the bathroom and dove toward the receiver, answering on the third ring. My T-shirt was sopping wet and my arms felt slimy from the suds.

It turned out to be Dad, with his usual
How are you? How's Mom? Are you sure?
and me with my
Fine, Fine, Yes, I'm sure.
I examined a blunt scratch on my thigh, most likely from Moxie's attempted escape during the rinse-off. I couldn't believe how calm I felt. I could almost get used to this.

“In case you try to reach me,” Dad said right before we hung up, “Aunt Jayne and I are taking a cycling trip down the coast in two weeks.”

I sank onto the futon, even though my shorts were relatively damp. That was
my
plan with Dad, before all
the trial separation business! I was going to bring Mariposa to Palo Alto, and if we were in good enough shape by the end of the summer, we were going to cycle as far as Los Angeles and then fly back with our bikes.

I hadn't realized I was so replaceable,
I thought about saying. But I didn't. I barely said another word until we got off the phone a few minutes later.

After we hung up, I thought of that Dr. Seuss book,
Horton Hatches the Egg
. It's about how Mayzie the Lazy Bird convinces an elephant to tend to her egg while she flits off to Palm Beach, and then demands it back once it's about to hatch. When I was four, I used to make Dad read it to me every night, even though I'd memorized it so completely I would stop him if he altered even a word.

I scratched my arm. The soap was beginning to irritate my skin. I could hear Moxie whimpering from behind the door. As I headed toward the bathroom, I wondered what would happen if Dad ever stopped his lazy-bird act and decided to become a father again. I couldn't say whether I let him back into the nest again. After all,
Horton
ends up gaining custody of the offspring,
not
Mayzie the Lazy Bird.

I
did
tell Phoebe about Kitty's panicky phone call two days later. Well, I tried to, at least. Because I hadn't
even gotten to the part where Kitty discovered condoms in the glove compartment of Jack's Jeep even though she'd gone on the Pill two months ago, when Phoebe sucked in her breath.

“Your best friend has had SEX?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, glancing around the dog run. Phoebe had said that so loudly I wouldn't be surprised if the people walking down Columbus had heard it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Kitty had heard it all the way in Ithaca. I wonder how she'd feel if she knew I told Phoebe about her, about Jack. For some reason, I'd rather not think about that.

I should have guessed Phoebe's next question.

“Have you?”

I shook my head. “Not even close.”

Phoebe exhaled, her shoulders sagging. “Me neither.”

We were quiet for a minute. I have to admit, I'm glad Phoebe is still a virgin. It makes me feel more normal somehow. I wonder if she's done other things, like second base or even third.

“Have you done anything else?” she asked.

I began to describe the Big Slobbery Makeout at sailing camp last summer. I told her how his tongue felt like a giant wet worm invading my mouth. And how strange it was, when you can barely swap chewing gum
with your closest friend, to have a stranger's spit sliding down your chin. It wasn't until I recounted how he pushed his pointy bulge against my thigh that I realized Phoebe had been digging her fingernails into my wrist.

“You're so lucky,” she sighed as soon as I'd finished.

And that's when she confessed that she hasn't done anything yet, not even a peck. That the closest she's come is a cyber-boyfriend she met in a teen chat room. His screen name is Mountainking. They e-mail every day and have even scanned photos back and forth, but it's a long way from New York to Denver.

“And it's not for lack of knowledge,” Phoebe added wistfully.

“What do you mean?”

“I know everything there is to know about sex … without having done a thing.”