Calling Maggie May (5 page)

Sat, Nov 15, later

Ada's not very happy with me.

I don't totally understand it, and she says it's not my fault,
but apparently it's a huge deal that I had sex with Damon. I was so excited to tell her all about it! And I was pretty sure she wouldn't judge me. But I guess I misread the situation.

I sent her a quick text about it, and she immediately texted back asking for the hotel room. And said she was on her way over. I thought she just wanted to hear all about it, but when she got here, she was in a terrible mood.

She kept saying it was supposed to be just a date, a regular, normal date. She told him no sex, which I thought was really confusing. I mean, how is it her job to decide if I have sex or not? I thought only my mom was that controlling. Then she asked me if I was a virgin. I mean, if I had been. I was like, well, obviously. At that she groaned and put her head in her hands.

“I am so fucked,” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about. “I told him you were probably a virgin and he was
not
to have sex with you,” she went on. “I'm such an idiot. I should never have told him that. It's like telling a kid that there's candy hidden in the closet that he's not allowed to eat. God, that bastard. He's going to get me into so much trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, still totally clueless. “What trouble?”

“Damon knows better than to scam a freebie off Irma's girls,” she went on, but she didn't seem to be talking to me. “And now Irma is going to think I made off with the cash.”

“Cash?” I said. “What cash?”

“That's just it. There wasn't any! It was supposed to be a favor. I asked if he'd take a friend on a date, show her a nice time. As a friend.”

Suddenly some things clicked into place.

“Wait. You mean Damon only took me out because you made him? He didn't even want to?” My chest felt hollow, but Ada just laughed.

“Believe me,” she said. “He got what he wanted. It wasn't just a favor to me. It was . . . mutual. Damon likes girls the wrong side of legal, but he doesn't like to feel like a sleaze. His thing is to be Prince Charming, do a whole fancy date. And his fantasy is to deflower a virgin. So I told him I had a virgin for him, just like he wanted—for free. The only catch was, he couldn't sleep with you. No money changing hands—just a fun evening for everyone involved. All I wanted was to give your self-confidence a little boost, show you that you can do better than assholes like Tyler Adams.”

I was trying to follow her explanation, but one detail kept tripping me up.

“Why do you keep talking about money?” I asked. “And who is Irma?”

Ada looked up at me with a guilty expression. “Irma is my boss.” She took a deep breath and seemed to brace herself. “I turn tricks for a living,” she said. “Damon is one of my old clients.”

For a long time, I couldn't speak.

“Turn tricks,” I said at last. “You mean you're a . . . a prostitute?”

I had to sit down on the bed. On the one hand, I felt like I'd never been so shocked in my life. But on the other, I felt like an idiot that I hadn't figured it out earlier. So many things about Ada suddenly made sense now. How she always seemed to have so much money even though her family didn't. Why she was on her phone constantly, even though she didn't have any friends. Why she looked so sophisticated and adult even though she was still in high school. Why she left school so often during the day. And why she knew guys like Damon she could fix me up on dates with.

Damon! I had a sudden fear that last night meant something very different from what I had thought.

“Did I just have sex with Damon for money?”

“No,” said Ada. “That's what I've been trying to explain. I've known Damon for a long time now. I'd even call him a friend. I just wanted him to make you feel better about yourself, and I can't believe he dicked me over like this.”

“Oh,” I said, and suddenly felt washed in a wave of guilt. “That wasn't totally his fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was . . . It was my idea, kind of. I mean, I may have sort of . . . pressured him.”

Again, I thought back to last night, and so many things
seemed clearer. Why Damon had been such an incredible listener. Why he showed me such a good time. And why he seemed so hesitant to take the next obvious step. “He kept trying to back off, but I . . . I was the one who wanted more.”

Ada looked at me like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“You poor thing,” she said. “You really feel responsible. Look, honey, you're sixteen. He's twenty-seven. You're a virgin, and he is . . . Well, he's about as far from that as they come. Believe me, you didn't force him into anything.” Suddenly a new look of horror came over her face. “Wait,” she said. “You made him wear a condom, didn't you? Oh God. Please say you did. I will fucking murder him if he—”

I reassured her that he did wear one, though again I felt a little guilty that it hadn't been my idea. It hadn't even occurred to me until he brought it out. What had I thought would happen? I really felt like an idiot that I hadn't even given a thought to pregnancy or disease. I was just so caught up in the moment.

Anyway, that calmed Ada down a little. She took my hands and asked me really seriously if I was okay and how I was feeling. I said I was fine, just a little confused.

“Do you need anything?”

I shook my head.

“Did you . . . ? Well, did you have any fun, after all?”

I couldn't help smiling at that. “Ada, it was the best night of my life,” I said honestly. That made Ada smile back.

“Good,” she said. “Don't worry, then. It will be fine. We'll just have to hope Irma never finds out about this little mix-up.”

Tues, Nov 18

I just read over that last entry, and it feels like a dream I had. It's hard to believe that's something that really happened to me. I mean, in some ways it's hard to believe it happens at all. High school girls working as prostitutes? But it is really hard to imagine that I came in any way in contact with that world.

Not that I'm a prostitute! I never asked for nor accepted any money. Or was even offered any, for that matter. So really I'm just a sixteen-year-old girl who had sex with an older man. Which isn't that unusual. That's probably pretty normal, actually. It definitely isn't illegal. Oh wait. Yes, it is. I guess technically that's rape. Wow. How ridiculous that anyone would think what happened between me and Damon could possibly be called rape. I knew what I was doing! I'm not that innocent. Although I guess he did know a lot more about the situation than I did.

But whatever. It was great! I had a lot of fun, and I didn't do anything illegal, in any case.

But all that's over now, and it's back to regular life for me. It was kind of weird and twisted that Ada set the whole thing up for me, but also kind of . . . sweet in a way. I guess she really
did see something in me that I didn't, and so did Damon. And the weirdest thing is, it worked! I still see Tyler all the time at swim practice, but I'm not obsessed with him like I used to be. My world's a little bigger now, and I can see he isn't the only good-looking guy in it (though he is still really good-looking—nothing's going to change that). But compared to Damon? He is a twerp and a loser.

The other nice thing is that I expected to be horribly embarrassed around him all the time now, ever since I did my weird staring thing at him the other day. And it's true that he and his friends sometimes laugh at me or make comments when I walk by, and the old me would have been devastated by that. But now I just can't find it in myself to care. There are more interesting things in the world.

Too bad I still have to go through the motions of high school. It's harder than ever to convince myself that history term papers and debate tournaments and my mom's nagging are important. But that's life, I guess.

Wed, Nov 19

I had a chemistry test today that I totally didn't know about. Oops. It was probably announced during one of the periods I missed because I was hanging out with Ada. I guess I really have let things slide.

So, obviously, I failed it. I mean, I wasn't exactly doing great in chemistry even before, and that was when I was taking notes and paying attention and reading the chapters three times before each test. I've never really had a mind for it. And now I'm skipping classes and fudging my way through the homework and zoning out so bad that I don't even realize there's a test coming up. Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to come back from this. I used to calculate my average each time I got a B on a test and compute how well I needed to do on the remaining tests to bring it up to an A. But given my last couple of tests, that's just not possible anymore. Maybe if I got perfect scores on everything for the rest of the semester, I could still get a low B, but what's the point? Mom will still be furious. Stanford won't even look at me. It's hard to see how it's worth the constant struggle.

There's a part of me that has always wondered . . . what would happen? What if I just let go and stopped worrying over every little thing? But I guess that's pretty much what I'm doing now. It's weird—it's like, instead of being an active participant in my own life, I'm just watching it like a movie. Waiting to see what happens to me.

Fri, Nov 21

So it turns out that once you've decided to stop caring about your classes, school gets really boring really fast. I've spent so
much of my life drowning in pressure and anxiety, and I guess I always assumed that people who didn't have that must be happy and relaxed all the time. I never imagined how depressing it would be to just . . . exist.

Even eating lunch with my old friends just feels impossible now. Today Jenny and Eiko were talking about our chances for Academic Decathlon this year, and they asked my opinion and I had nothing to say. I couldn't even really follow what they were talking about. The looks they gave me . . . It would have been embarrassing, if I cared at all.

Sun, Nov 23

I'm so bored.

Not just bored in this specific moment, from not having enough to do. God knows I have plenty to do. . . . In theory, I have tests to study for and papers to write and math team competitions to prepare for and helping Mom around the house, if I ever finish the rest of it. There is plenty of stuff to occupy my time. But I can't bring myself to do any of it, and none of it makes me less bored.

I can't stop thinking about that night with Damon. I can't stop wishing my life were more like that and less like this. It's like now that I've tasted that life, it is really hard to go back to my normal world of Mom picking on me and nagging me and
never being satisfied with anything I do. And things between us are worse than ever now that I've pretty much stopped trying at all. My grades are plummeting. Half the time I don't even bother going to my activities. I haven't practiced the piano in ages, and as a result, every day when I come home from school, I get the same lecture about what a disappointment I am and how I am bringing shame on the family and will never amount to anything. I could bring real shame on this family if I wanted to! Maybe I should, just to show her. Mom is so sheltered. She has no idea what's out there.

I think a lot about Ada, too. Not that I don't see her. I mean, we're still friends, and sometimes I run into her in the halls and bathrooms at school. But I get flustered and don't know what to say. Her life is just so much more interesting than mine.

The other day she suggested we go shopping or something, and that sounded amazing. She always looks so glamorous and stylish. Maybe she could help me figure out how to do that too. But it's not like I have any money. It's kind of ironic, actually. Ada's family doesn't seem to have much money, but she personally has a lot of cash to spend, thanks to her work. Whereas my family is a lot more well-off, but that makes no difference in my life. I'm not like those rich kids with Daddy's credit card. I have to ask my parents to buy me things if I want them, and then they get to decide whether what I want is worth
spending money on or not. Usually not. It's just another way they control me.

I can just imagine asking my parents for money to buy sexy boots or a gorgeous camel coat like Ada's. They'd think I was joking.

So in the meantime, Ada and I have less and less in common, and she has less and less reason to waste any time on a loser like me. And pretty soon the one bright spot in my life will disappear and it will all be nothing but drab and gray.

Maybe if I got a job? Then at least I'd have some cash I could call my own.

Sun, Nov 23, later

Well, forget the job idea. First of all, Mom totally did not go for it. I tried to use the angle that college applications ask about work experience, and it would show a sense of responsibility and hard work, but she wasn't having it. She said the last thing I needed was another thing taking my time and focus away from my schoolwork and my activities. She said maybe if I brought my grades up, she might think about it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Because the truth is, my grades lately are even worse than my mom realizes, and I'm just waiting for report-card day, when the whole truth comes out.

Not that I care that much. I mean, what can she really do? She can yell and complain and berate me all she wants. It can't
be much worse than what I'm putting up with now.

And then the other thing is, even if I could talk my parents into it, I don't know if it would even be worth it. The only job I could possibly get would be part-time at minimum wage, and it would take me forever to save up any serious money. By the time I could afford a shopping trip with Ada, she would have forgotten all about me. Plus, they seem like kind of a drag. I mean, do I really want to spend hours every day mopping floors and scrubbing toilets? That sounds even worse than the stuff I currently have to do.

It all just feels so hopeless right now. Everything in my life is dull and pointless, and I can't even think of anything to look forward to. It's just a vast expanse of nothing, from here until forever.