Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries) (8 page)

LATER: 1:28
a.m.

 

Rory and I just had the hugest fight. He recorded a new song inspired by our relationship called “Blue Balls in Blue Jeans” and he wanted my honest opinion. He sang it for me over the phone. I told him I thought the tune was extremely catchy and cute but that the lyrics were juvenile. Since he wrote the words and not the music he went completely insane. I cannot love Rory because I cannot respect him. He doesn’t take life seriously. If he did he wouldn’t write silly songs like that. Older men rule.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

 

I got basically no sleep last night but it didn’t matter. I was so happy about my upcoming date with Dan that I couldn’t stop smiling all day. My heart felt big and bursting with love. I wanted to hug the whole world. Even ugly old ladies and dirty old parking meters. I especially loved the Spooners.
For no reason Margaret gave me a Mexican silver ring she never wears and a gorgeous old Hermes scarf. Paul made a shitload of money today on some foreign deal so he brought home champagne and Belgian chocolates and we all indulged. He started fake-dancing Margaret around the room. It was the most in love I have ever seen them and it made me smile till it hurt. For the first time it felt like Christmas was just around the corner.

Friday, December 14, 2007

 

Monday we’re going to the pediatrician to get vaccinations for Cole. Some parents don’t like to give them because they think they cause autism. Paul decided that he’d rather give Cole his shots and have some small chance of giving him autism than have him die of polio or whooping cough that could have been prevented.

Cole has big intelligent blue eyes. Margaret calls them “vigilant.” Which means alert and watchful. And his lips are pouty and full, the kind movie stars pay big money to get once they are at the age when nobody wants to kiss them anymore. Ha!

While Cole was napping I went to yahoonews to learn more about world events. I read about a teenage girl in Canada I think, or maybe England, who’s in critical condition in the
hospital after being choked by her own father for refusing to wear a Muslim scarf around her head. And I thought my dad sucked! Even if my father was strong enough to kill me with his bare hands, he would never do it. Unless I stole his last beer. As much as I want to know more about the world, it takes a lot of courage to read the news. I complained about it to Paul and he said not to worry my pretty head over it, because the world has always been shit. I felt better.

As soon as I got home, I started to get depressed. Maybe I’m scared at what might happen with Dan tonight. Or maybe because tomorrow is my birthday and I will be an official adult. One good thing—at least my period is over. Must get into the shower and do some strategic shaving.

Welcome to my reality show.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

 

I turned 18 yesterday. Adult life has started and all I want to do is die. My worst birthday ever. Let me put it this way. It was so bad I had an urge to go to church this morning, okay? I haven’t been since I was 12. I am an atheist but this weekend made me feel dirty and ugly. At least my mom’s church is clean and beautiful.
My date with Dan started exactly like the last one. We kissed at the door and walked with our mouths connected all the way to the couch. He stripped my clothes off and everything was exactly the same except that after he was finished going down on me, instead of me just lying there thinking about what to do next, I pulled him up to my mouth, kissed him deeply, unbuttoned his jeans, grabbed his dick and put him inside me. He was so shocked he pulled out a little but I pushed him back in.

I’ve only slept with six guys and two of them were once and one of them was three times. Rory is by far the person I’ve had the most sex with and it never lasts for very long. The sex with Dan was so much better than anything I have ever experienced, I can’t even tell you. First of all, it lasted 43 minutes. (The clock was right near me.) And second, it felt absolutely awesome. I don’t know if it’s because he moves better or because he’s got a bigger dick or what but it felt totally different. It just kept building and building until there was nothing in the whole world but the two of us and what we were doing. When he was about to cum and moving really fast, it felt so good I screamed and he had to put his hand over my mouth so the neighbors wouldn’t hear. He kept pumping but he forgot to remove his hand. I had to pull it away so I could breathe. A pretty unromantic way to end the best sex of your life but in a way it was a sign that everything was about to get really bad.

We laid there kissing and breathing until I felt some dribbling and excused myself. I walked slowly to the bathroom because I didn’t want to leak on the floor and because I wanted him to get a good look at my ass. I read once in one of my mom’s
Cosmo
magazines that a good trick is to hold an open hand across your ass like a fan and sort of skip all the way to the john, so the guy won’t see your cellulite. Since I don’t have any I walked slowly with no hand.

When I came out of the bathroom Dan had his jeans back on and looked really freaked out.

“I wish that hadn’t happened,” he said.

“You mean no condom? Don’t worry. My period ended this morning.”

“No, I meant—”

“Oh, you mean jail? Don’t worry. I turn eighteen in a few hours. I’m basically legal.”

“Sit down, Katie.”

I hated the serious look on his face. It was the kind your mom gives you when she got a call from the principal’s office about the beer they found in your locker. It was not the look you want from a person five minutes after you make love for the first time.

“Here’s the thing. I like you, Katie. A lot but—”

I knew what he was about to say. My heart stopped. But I pretended to be really calm.

“Listen, before you dump me, let me just say something, okay?”

He was so shocked by my mature attitude that he let me talk. I told him I really loved him and that I thought he should dump Martine and make me his girlfriend. But in a healthy way that would work with our age difference. He wouldn’t have to introduce me to a single person. Our relationship could be totally secret. Just the two of us in his house, enjoying sex and food and classic films. And then as soon as he met a non-psychotic woman he wanted to marry and have kids with or I was ready to start college, we could break up maturely and stay friends forever.

I could tell he was impressed by my offer and how confidently and clearly I explained it. I honestly think he might have said yes but then I made a big mistake. I mentioned, sort of half joking, the Chaplins and how if it turned out we were like them, one of those one in a million couples that have a big age difference but really belong together, that would be cool too. We could get married and have many kids. His whole face changed. He pretended to think some more but I knew he had made up his mind.

“Katie, I’m so tempted. You have no idea. But it just … It’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“I know I complain about Martine. A lot. But there’s something I haven’t told you. About her. And me. You see, we’re … well … we’re engaged.”

“What?”

He nodded his head, really embarrassed.

“You’re just saying that to get rid of me! No way you can marry her! She treats you like shit! She’s insane!”

He couldn’t even look at me. “Not all the time. Sometimes we’re happy. Most of the time actually. When we are, I don’t call you. So you don’t hear about it.”

I started crying. “What do you have with her that you don’t have with me?”

“Oh, sweetheart. Let’s not start that.”

I went sort of berserk and shouted “Answer the fucking question!”

He looked at the front door like he thought any second the cops were going to come busting in and find out I was only 17. But they didn’t so he took a deep breath and talked really calmly. He said a bunch of stuff about how individuals of the same age share things that people with an age difference can’t. Something about cultural references and existentialist clocks. WTF? Never date a professor! Then he said something that really pissed me off. He said that he and Martine were “intellectually compatible” because they’re both working on their P.H.D.s. That was a cruel thing to say, because at my age even if I read a book every single day for the rest of my life I could never catch up with her.

All I wanted to do was escape. I got dressed. He watched me. Say goodbye to my hot young body asshole! At the door
I turned around with tears in my eyes and said “How long have you been engaged?”

He looked at the blank TV. “Since October. That’s why I moved. We needed more room.”

“You mean she lives here too?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is she now?”

“She has a seminar Friday nights. I’m sorry. I’ve behaved really dishonorably. I was weak. I couldn’t resist you.”

I shook my head like I pitied him and walked out. I crossed the street as slowly and confidently as I could just in case he was watching. When I unlocked my car door I looked over my shoulder. He wasn’t watching. I felt like such a loser. A typical dumb teenager. I cried so hard driving home I almost crashed.

I wish this was the end of my tragic birthday story but it’s not. When I got home Rory was in the living room playing Scrabble with my mom and Mark Aubichon. Since Rory was supposed to be at band practice tonight I used him as an excuse and told my mom we were having dinner together. Well, it turns out Alden, their drummer, broke his ankle this afternoon, so practice was canceled. Rory called to tell me but my phone was shut off, so he drove over to see if I wanted to go out. When my mom told him we were supposed to be having dinner together, he got really suspicious and decided to wait for me like a spider on a web.

When I walked in, my clothes and hair were messy and my face was red from crying and beard-burn. Since my mom is clueless about my personal life, she thought I’d been raped or something. So did Mark. They jumped up all worried but Rory knew better. He looked like he wanted to strangle me.

“I’m fine,” I said, laughing and crying at the same time. “I saw a sad movie, that’s all. God. Get a life!”

“Really? What movie? What’s it called?” Rory asked.

I was totally busted. I ran up the stairs and he ran after me. The second we were in my room, he slammed the door. His eyes were crazy. This is when I usually scream “Nothing happened! You paranoid freak!” But instead I told him the whole truth. I said I was in love with someone else, an older guy, and that I just found out he’s secretly engaged and that my heart was broken in a thousand pieces and I just wanted to be left alone. If you know guys, then you know exactly what Rory said next.

“Did you fuck him?”

I swear, a guy would rather have his girlfriend be in love with another guy she’s never kissed than have a one-night stand with a guy she’ll never see again. For a girl it’s the exact opposite.

When I didn’t answer, he covered his face and started moaning like I just got hit by a car right in front of him.

“Oh god, you did! You’re a whore! A whore!”

“Yup, that’s me.”

He jumped and grabbed my shirt. I hardly blinked.

“How many times?!” he screamed.

“None of your business, you jealous ass! And it wasn’t fucking! It was making love! Something you know nothing about!”

He pulled back a fist. No one’s face gets redder than a red-haired person’s when he’s furious. I knew I was about to get my teeth bashed in, so I did the only thing I could: I punched him first. Right in the neck. He was so surprised that he fell and the back of his head cracked against my vanity. Before he could get up, Mark Aubichon rushed in, grabbed him by his hair and his arm and told him to get out or he’d call the cops. Now Mark was the one who looked deranged. A maniac frog. He shoved Rory out the door. Blood was running down Rory’s head. I know I should have felt sorry for him but I didn’t.

Later while I was washing my face, my mom came in and asked what was going on.

“Lovers’ spat,” I said. “The kind you and Mark would have if you were in love. Please get out.”

There’s nothing that hurts her feelings more than when she wants to talk about my life and I shut down. She stormed out, slamming the door behind her. The full-length mirror almost fell off. I crawled into bed with my clothes on.

I need a brake. My hands are sore from typing.

Later: 2:15 p.m.

 

On my birthday my mother and I have a tradition. We get a mani-pedi, eat a fancy lunch and see a movie, usually a chick flick. Yesterday I woke up so late we didn’t even bother. We just sat in the kitchen and talked while I crunched down a bowl of Mark’s natural cereal (pebbles and acorns) and drank a humongous mug of coffee. I felt so guilty about the way I spoke to her that I told her a lot. I left out Dan’s true age, of course, and that he is an engaged professor but I told her pretty much everything else. I said that the night before, right after we made love for the first time, he confessed that he was getting back together with his ex-girlfriend and that he couldn’t see me anymore.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “Never get attached to a boy if there’s a third party involved. The third party always wins. Because they have shared history on their side.”

“Now you tell me.”

“If I had told you sooner, it wouldn’t have mattered. Everyone has to learn these lessons for themselves, I think.”

“Yeah.”

My mom is pretty wise sometimes. But only with the lives of others. Before I went back up to my room, she gave me three hundred-dollar bills for my birthday.

•    •    •

 

I spent the rest of yesterday in bed, too devastated to do anything but watch TV. I didn’t even pick up the phone when Jade called, which since it was my birthday was pretty shitty of me but I knew I’d end up telling her the whole disgusting story and I didn’t want to relive it.

Around 5:00 she texted me that she had just heard from Willy that Rory and I broke up. She was coming over asap to take me out for a birthday dinner and cocktails so I’d better get my “filthy ass in the shower.” She is so funny. It cheered me up. I got right in the shower and made myself look as pretty as I could. Not very.

At dinner Jade gave me a beaded pink leather case for my phone and a $50 gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret. After a dinner of fried shrimp, salad and fries, the waiter brought me an apple pie a la mode with a candle in it. I wished for Dan to dump Martine. On the way out, two older men tried to pick us up but we rejected them with humor. We drove like forty minutes to this new bar that serves minors if they’re gorgeous and female. We got hammered on vodka and cranberries. Was it enough to make me forget my pain? Yes and everything else.

When we were leaving the bar around midnight, a cute boy in a Santa hat said hello to me in the parking lot. I grabbed him by the fur on his parka and stuck my tongue down his throat so far I touched his lung. At least according to Jade. I don’t remember any of it. Then I asked him if he
wanted to “fingerbang me.” She said he was so scared he ran away.

Okay, that was the single most boring post ever. I have become everything I hate.

Now it’s freezing out, football is on the TV, I’m still hung-over from last night and my fingers are stiff from typing this sad tale of a girl gone wrong. I am really unfortunate and empty. No boyfriend. No secret older man. No bliss. No college. Loser
²

I should have broken up with Rory the second I met Dan. Or else been strong enough never to kiss Dan in the first place. One or the other. One or the other.

I really don’t want to get back together with Rory. I am sick of his freckles and intense emotions. Plus his balls smell like vinegar.

Thank god my name is not really Katie and I am 100% invisible to the world or I would be so humiliated right now I would crawl into a hole and die.

My father totally forgot my birthday. Or maybe he just ignored it. I was his favorite person in the world when I was
little. Now that I am grown up he hates me. Why? What did I do wrong?

I am a crazier gyrl than I thought.