Ready or Not (17 page)

David looked up from the book he was reading in bed.

A book on architecture.

While I, his girlfriend, had been sitting for what seemed like hours, waiting for him to come deflower me already.

David seemed more than a little surprised to see me. You know, considering.

“Sam,” he said, closing the book—but leaving, I couldn't help noticing, his finger inside it, to hold his place, “is everything all right? You're not sick or something, are you?”

Seriously. I almost lost it, then and there.

“Sick?” I echoed. “SICK? Yes, I'm sick. Sick of WAITING for you.”

This made him take his finger out from the book and actually set it aside. He looked concerned.

He also, I couldn't help noticing, looked totally hot. Mostly because he didn't happen to be wearing a shirt. But also because, let's face it: David always looks hot.

“Waiting for me?” David, looking genuinely perplexed, wanted to know. “Waiting for me for what?”

I couldn't believe it. I COULDN'T BELIEVE HE WAS ASKING ME THIS. Hot or not, what kind of question was this?

“TO HAVE SEX,” I almost yelled.

Only I didn't want to wake his parents up. Let alone the Secret Service.

So I whispered it.

Loudly.

But even though I whispered it, instead of shouting it, David still looked totally shocked. His face, in the warm light from the reading lamp beside his bed, started to turn as red as my hair used to be.

“Sex?” he echoed hoarsely.

“You know what I'm talking about,” I said. I couldn't believe this. What was
wrong
with him? “You're the one who brought it up.”

“
I did?
” His voice kind of broke on the word
did
. “When?”

“Outside my house,” I said impatiently. What was wrong with him?

Maybe he really had slipped and hit his head in the shower. “Remember? You invited me to Camp David to play Parcheesi.”

“Yeah,” David said, now looking blank. But also still hot. “Which we did already.”

Which we did already
. Oh my God. I couldn't believe he'd said that.

Also, that he'd still looked so hot saying it.

“But I didn't mean…” David stammered. “I mean, when I said Parcheesi, I meant—”

Something cold gripped my heart. Seriously. It was like someone had dumped a whole glass of ice water over my head, and a bunch of cubes had slid down my shirt.

Because it was obvious by the expression on David's face—not to mention, the way he was acting—that when he'd said Parcheesi, he'd really meant…Parcheesi.

“But,” I said, in a small voice, “you…you said you thought we were ready.”

“Ready to spend the weekend together with my parents,” David said, his own voice uncharacteristically squeaky. “That's all I meant by ready.” Then, his eyes widening, he went, “Is THAT what you were talking about the other night? When you said you've said yes to sex?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “What did you
think
I meant?”

David kind of shrugged. “I just thought you were trying to make a point to my dad. That's all. I didn't know you were REALLY…you know. Saying yes to sex.”

Especially since he hadn't even asked me.

“Oh,” I said.

And wanted to die.

Because it had all been for nothing. All of it, the worrying, the long talks with Lucy, the Just Say Yes to Sex thing, slut solidarity—all of it, for nothing.

Because David had never meant for us to have sex this weekend.
I
was the one who'd jumped to the conclusion that Parcheesi meant sex.
I
was the one who'd assumed when David had said he thought we were ready, he'd meant he thought we were ready for sex.
I
was the one who'd said yes to sex, when it turned out no one had even
asked
me.

It had all been me. I had brought all that worry and angst upon myself.

For nothing.

God. How totally embarrassing.

“Um,” I said. Now
I
was the one turning red. I mean, what could he be thinking about me? Here I'd come, barging into his room, demanding to know why we weren't having sex already. He must think I'm a total raving lunatic. “Yeah. Listen. Um. I'll just, um, be going.”

Except with each step back toward the door, I couldn't help noticing stuff. Like how good David looked in the glow of the lamplight.

And how green his eyes were, the exact color of the lawn at the Kentucky Derby.

And how he still looked so confused, in an adorable, geeky-boy kind of way, with his hair kind of sticking up in back, where it had gotten mushed against the headboard as he was reading.

And how wide and comfy-looking his chest was, and how good it would feel to rest my head there, and listen to his heartbeat….

And suddenly, I heard myself say, “Um, could you just wait here a second?”

Like he was going somewhere.

Then I turned around and ran as fast as I could back to my room.

When I came back, I was even
more
out of breath.

I was also holding a brown paper bag.

David glanced at it, then up at me.

“Sam,” he said, in a suspicious—but not necessarily displeased—voice. “What's in the bag?”

So I showed him.

When I let myself into the house the next day, I was shocked to see my father sitting in the living room, listening to Rebecca play “New York, New York” on her clarinet.

“What are
you
doing here?” I blurted out, as Manet, who'd run to the door at the sound of my key in the lock, jumped all over me.

Rebecca lowered her instrument and said, “Excuse me. I'm still
playing
.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “Sorry.”

My dad, who wasn't reading the paper, talking on the phone, or doing anything, actually, except apparently listening to his youngest daughter's performance, smiled at me a little painfully as I stood there waiting for the song to end. When it did, he clapped, almost as if he'd really enjoyed it.

“That was great,” he said enthusiastically.

“Thank you.” Rebecca primly turned a page of the book sitting on her music stand. “And now, continuing my tribute to the nation's greatest cities, I will play the song ‘Gary, Indiana' from
The Music Man
.”

“Uh, could you wait until I've gotten a refill?” my dad asked, holding up his empty coffee mug. Then he hurried out into the kitchen.

I looked at Rebecca.

“What,” I asked her, “is going on here?”

“Those Big Changes Dad was talking about the night you said yes to sex on TV,” she said with a shrug. “They've decided to spend more time with us. So I'm going to play him every single song in my repertoire, to see how long until he cracks. He's held up surprisingly well, so far. I give him two more songs.”

Stunned, I carried my overnight bag into the kitchen, lured there by the smell of something baking. I was shocked to see my mom, and not Theresa, bent over the open oven door, going, “Do these look done to you, honey?” to my dad, who was refilling his coffee mug.

She was baking chocolate chip cookies. My
mother
, the meanest environmental lawyer in town, was baking chocolate chip cookies. Her PDA was nowhere in sight.

My overnight bag fell from my hands and landed with a thump on the floor.

My mom looked over her shoulder at me and smiled.

“Oh, Sam,” she said. “What are you doing home? I thought you were gone for the weekend.”

“We had to come back early,” I said. “David's dad wanted to get together with his advisors to revise some things on his Return to Family initiative before unveiling it to Congress on Monday. What are you
doing
?”

“Baking cookies, honey,” she said, and pulled the tray from the oven, then closed the door. “Watch out, they're hot!” This she said to my dad as he tried to reach for one.

“Why aren't you guys still at Grandma's?” I asked.

“That woman is dead to me,” my dad said, taking a cookie anyway, and burning his fingers.

“Richard,” my mother said, narrowing her eyes at him. To me, she said, “Your father and his mother had a little disagreement, so we came home early.”

“Little?” my dad said, after gulping some coffee to wash down the hot cookie he'd stuffed in his mouth, to keep it from burning his fingers, and burning his tongue instead. “There was nothing little about it.”

“Richard,” Mom said. “Richard, I told you, those cookies are
hot
.”

My dad took two more anyway, holding them on a paper towel. “See ya,” he said, heading back toward the living room, Manet following eagerly behind him, in hopes of scoring some dropped cookie. “‘Gary, Indiana' awaits.”

“Okay, seriously.” I stared at my mom. “What is going on here? I leave for one night, and you guys suddenly turn into the Cleavers? Where's Theresa?”

“I gave her the weekend off,” my mom said, attempting to scrape the cookies she'd just baked off the metal tray they were sitting on. Unfortunately, they weren't coming off all that easily. “It's important for her to spend time with her own family, you know. Just like it's important for all of us to spend time together, too. Your father and I discussed it, and we agree with the president. Not with
everything
he said, of course.” She worked at scraping up a particularly recalcitrant (SAT word meaning “stubborn or rebellious”) cookie.

“But it's time we started spending more time with you girls,” she went on. “Your father thinks maybe Lucy would study more if we kept an eye on her. And you know what Rebecca's teachers say about her need for more socialization. That's why both your father and I will be cutting back our hours at the office. True, it will mean less money coming in. That's what your father's fight with his mother was about.” My mom grimaced. “But then, I was never that enthusiastic about going to Aruba for Christmas with her anyway.”

I just stared at her, barely able to register what I'd just heard. Mom and Dad were going to be spending more time with us?

Was this a good thing? Or a bad thing? Or a
very
bad thing?

“What about me?” I croaked.

“What about you, honey?” my mom asked.

“Well, I mean…is this about my detention last week? Or what I said on TV?”

“Oh, honey.” My mom smiled at me. “You know we don't worry all that much about you, Sam. You've always had such a good head on your shoulders.” Then she added briskly, “But I do imagine if I'm home more, I might at least be able to keep you from doing anything else to your poor hair.”

She smiled to show she was joking…only I could tell she wasn't
really
.

“Huh,” I said. “Great.”

Like someone in a daze, I headed up the stairs to my room. My dad had promised there'd be some BIG changes around our house.

I just never imagined they'd be
this
big.

I was in so much shock, I didn't even hear Lucy when she called to me from her room as I passed by her open door. It was only the second time she screeched, “SAM!” that I realized she was talking to me, and poked my head into her room to see what she wanted.

“You're back early!” Lucy cried, from where she was perched under the big canopy over her bed, perusing the latest
Vogue
, or whatever.

“So are you,” I said. “Did Dad and Grandma really get into it?”

“Totally,” Lucy said. “Well, you know how they are. They'll be speaking again by Monday. At least, I hope so, because I was totally getting a new bikini for Aruba. So…how did it go?”

“Fine,” I said, conscious of the fact that Lucy has the long-term memory of a cat, and that it was unlikely she'd remember our conversation from the week before, or even that she'd ever bought me birth control.

But I guess our conversation had been more important to her than I'd thought—either that, or Harold's tutoring had improved her memory—because she went, “Come in, come in and tell me all about, you know.
It
,” in a conspiratorial voice.

I slipped inside her room and closed the door so no one downstairs could overhear our conversation—not that that was very likely anyway, considering the volume at which Rebecca was playing her clarinet.

“So,” Lucy said, patting the empty spot beside her on the mattress. “What happened? With David, I mean? Did you two, you know, Do It?”

“Well,” I said, sitting down on the side of the bed where she'd indicated. “The truth is…”

Lucy's eyes widened. “Yes?”

“Basically…” I took a deep breath. “I jumped his bones.”

Lucy squealed and squirmed in her seat. That's when I noticed that the magazine she'd been reading with such intense concentration had been an SAT prep book.

Wow. She really
did
love Harold.

“So what happened, EXACTLY?” she wanted to know. “You used the foam, right? And he used a condom? Because you have to use both. Heather Birnbaum just used condoms and got knocked up and had to go live with her aunt in Kentucky.”

“We used the foam,” I said. “And the condoms. Thank you for that.”

“Did you—you know?” Lucy dropped her voice to a whisper.

“I think it's going to take some practice,” I said, starting to blush, “for that to happen. But we'll get there.”

“REALLY?” Lucy looked excited. “Tiffany always said it would work. Practicing with the handheld shower nozzle and all. But I didn't believe her. It's good to know she wasn't totally lying.”

I looked at her curiously.

“Well,” I said, “I mean, haven't you had some personal experience with it yourself? I mean, what about you and Jack?”

“JACK?” Lucy laughed as if this were hysterically funny. “Oh my God, JACK!”

I stared at her.

“But…” Something was not computing. “Lucy, you and Jack—you two Did It, right?”

Lucy made a face.

“Ew! Me? With JACK? Never!”

“Wait.” I stared at her even harder. “So…you're…you're a VIRGIN?”

“Well, of course.” Lucy looked puzzled. “What did you think?”

“But you and Jack went out for, like, three years!”

“So?” For someone who had so blithely (SAT word meaning “in a joyous manner”) given me birth control and sex tips, Lucy looked extremely indignant at the suggestion that she herself might not be pure as the driven snow. “I mean, he
wanted
to, but I was like, No way, José!”

“But, Lucy,” I cried. “The foam! And the condoms! You're the one who got them for me!”

“Well, of course,” Lucy said matter-of-factly. “I couldn't let you go to the store and get them yourself and have it be all over the
National Enquirer
. I mean, that was before you made it so obvious that you don't care WHO knows your business by announcing it on national television. But that doesn't mean
I
ever used it. Foam, I mean. I just heard about it, you know. From Tiffany.”

“But”—and this was the part that I was having the most trouble processing—“the other day, in the cafeteria. You called yourself a slut.”

“So?” Lucy tossed some of her shimmery red-gold hair. “So did Catherine.”

I stared at her, completely shocked. “So you…you just did that for me? And you and Jack—all that time—you never…you never…”

“Did It?” Lucy shook her head. “No way. I told you. He wasn't The One.”

“But…but you thought he was. For a long time. You can't tell me you didn't. You even told me he was your first!”

“My first LOVE,” Lucy said. “Not my first…you know.”

“But…” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “Why?”

“I don't know.” Lucy shrugged. “I mean, yeah, I guess I thought sometimes he might be. The right guy. But I never knew. You know? Not the way you know about David. Or I know about Harold.”

“You think
Harold
is The…One?” I asked.

I must have wrinkled my nose as I said it or something, though, because Lucy sounded defensive as she said, “Yes, I do. Why? What's wrong with Harold?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I'm sure you two will be very happy together. After, you know. You pass your SATs, and everything.”

Apparently mollified, Lucy said, “So tell me all about it. Did it hurt the first time? Did his parents suspect? Where'd you guys Do It, his room or yours? What about the Secret Service? They weren't around, were they? What about—”

Her questions went on and on.

And even though I felt way too dazed to answer them, I totally tried. Because I fully owed her. Way more now than I'd ever even realized.

It was the least I could do to repay her.

Besides, what are sisters for?

 

“Sam! You showed!” Dauntra waved at me wildly from behind the cash register when I showed up for my shift later that day.

Well, so much for her being mad at me. I'd fully thought she would be. On account of my having turned out to have been a mouthpiece for the president's fascist initiative after all.

Although I
had
refused to go along with it at the last minute.

“Hey, D,” I said, ducking beneath the counter to join her. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

“Bitchin',” Dauntra said. “I thought you were spending the weekend at your grandma's.”

“I was,” I said. “But I ended up going to Camp David, instead.”

Dauntra hooted. “Camp
David
? Where the president spends his downtime?”

“That'd be the one,” I said.

“Man.” Dauntra shook her head. “And he LET you? After you dissed him like that on national TV?”

“I didn't dis him,” I said uncomfortably. “I just pointed out to him that there might be a better way than, um, the one he was suggesting.”

“
Pointed out to him
,” Dauntra echoed with a grin. “Man, you are so cool.”

I looked over my shoulder, wondering who she could be talking about. But the only other people in the store were some ninja geeks over by the Kurosawa shelves.

“Who?” I asked. “ME?”

“Yes, you,” Dauntra said. “None of us can stop talking about how you totally put the Man in his place, and without even staging a die-in.”

“Um,” I said, not really sure what she was talking about, but pleased all the same. I mean, there aren't many people who actually think I'm cool. Except for my boyfriend, of course. And, it turns out, my big sister. “Thanks.”

“I'm serious. Kevin wants to know if you want to come over some time. You know. To hang out.”

“At your place?” My heart skipped a beat. I never imagined I'd ever get asked to “hang out” with someone as fabulous as Dauntra. I mean, we were work friends, and all that. But outside work? “Sure. I'd love to. Can I bring David?”

“The first kid?” Dauntra shrugged. “Why not? It'll be a hoot. Oh, and hey, you inspired me.” She reached inside her backpack, pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper, and handed it to me. “When Stan comes over to check my bag tonight, I'm giving him this.”