From Butt to Booty (12 page)

“I don’t think you are.” I roll my eyes. “At all,” I add, hoping to soften the offense. “I didn’t mean anything. I’m just asking the question. I’ll note it down as a no.”

“You do that. I gotta go. Grandma’s calling.”

“Okay, sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hang up quick. That was useless. I ticked off my boyfriend and got no information. I call Clarice. “Hang on. I’m hooking Maggie on here.”

“Maggie, Clarice is on too.” I switch us all to the conference calling that the parentals are now paying for. “I have a nipple question.”

“You have extras?”

“No! Do guys’ and girls’ nipples behave the same way?”

“Oh, you mean are they sensitive and stuff?” Clarice asks.

“I think so,” Maggie says.

I ask, “Clarice, what’s your older sister say?”

“Guys are total freaks about their nipples. I don’t know why, but some guys won’t let her touch them and some guys like it way more to have her suck theirs than she likes them to work hers.”

“We’re talking nipples here?”

“Yes, nipples. There’s a variance in sensitivity, but it’s not a girl/guy thing. Depends on the person.”

I’m almost astounded by Clarice’s knowledge of this subject. I choose not to dwell. “So, why would a guy freak out if he liked tongue action on his chest?”

“Maybe he doesn’t think he should?”

The light comes on. “Oh, that makes sense.”

Maggie adds, “Maybe he thinks it’s cuz he’s a guy and only girls like their boobs played with.”

“Do you really like that?” Clarice asks.

“Why?” I ask, deflecting the idea that I have any experience with this. Which I don’t.

“Well, I just always get the feeling Spenser is trying to open a jar of pickles when he’s touching my boobs. It doesn’t do anything for me.”

“Have you told him?” I ask, all sex-therapisty.

I can hear Clarice shrug. “Told him what? Maybe it’s just me.”

“If he’s twisting and stuff, maybe he thinks you like it, but doesn’t know what else to do,” Maggie says.

I am about to ask Clarice why she hasn’t shared this with her older sister when Maggie jumps back in. “What’s the guide say?”

Of course. With it hiding under my bed, I tend to forget I have it. “Good idea. I’ll bring it to school tomorrow and we can check it out at lunchtime.”

“Maybe you could make a copy of the breast section and drop it in Spenser’s locker,” Maggie suggests.

“Nah, that’d be too clingy. We’re not having a relationship.”

“Why is that clingy?” I ask.

“Cuz it presupposes he’ll be touching my boobs again, and benefriends don’t make that kind of commitment.”

“But won’t he?” I ask.

“I don’t want to stop making out. But who knows.”

“Like he’s going to give up the opportunity to practice opening pickle jars!” Maggie snorts.

I bite back a snort of my own.

“Ha, ha!” Clarice doesn’t seem to find the humor. “Does this mean you’ve been playing with Stevie’s nips?”

“No, it doesn’t.” The idea makes me slightly nauseated because of his reaction to my question.

“Oh.”

I can hear their wheels turning. “What?”

“It’s Tim, then.” Maggie all but nods over the phone.

“Adam having boy trouble?” Clarice sounds cheered by this.

“Just breast trouble,” I say.

“I thought being gay he got out of the whole breast issue.”

“I think that’s the problem.”

We chat a little more, then hang up. I root around under my bed to find the guide’s hiding place. Mike gave me
The Guide to Getting It On
for my sixteenth birthday. It’s the best book ever. But I don’t want my parents to see it accidentally. I think it might cause a coronary in one of us.

I dial Adam, pull out the guide and flip to the breast section.

“He says it’s because only girls like their nipples sucked and he’s gay, not a girl.”

“Okay, I’m so making a copy of this chapter for you.”

“Why? It says he’s not a girl?”

“Kind of. Basically it says some girls don’t feel anything when their nipples are messed with, some it hurts and some like it. Same with guys. It’s all the same nerve endings.”

“Really?”

“Really. That’s what it says.”

“So he’s not a girl.”

“No, he’s just blessed with good nerves.”

“Well.”

“Maybe you should volunteer to have him suck yours next time so he can be assured you don’t have to be a girl to like it.”

“In the name of science, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks, Gertie. Oh, and if you tell anyone we had this conversation, I’ll have to kill you.”

“So I shouldn’t send this e-mail to the whole student body?”

“Ha, ha!”

“Bye.”

“Gert, can you come down here, please?” Mom calls up the stairs.

What does she want now? “Coming,” I yell back in her general direction.

I meander down the stairs, taking my time. Must not appear too eager to please. I look from one face to the other. Both my parents are seated and perky in the living room. Uh-oh. My stomach clenches and I feel slightly nauseated. Though that could have a direct correlation to moving my body, which resents me fiercely for it now. My mom and dad have that we-need-to-have-a-conversation look about them.

“Dinner ready?” I try not to hobble too much. Stairs are tough.

Mom waves her hand at a chair. “Not quite. We wanted to talk to you first.”

Dad turns the game on to mute. “We like that you’re playing soccer for your school.” He’s all scary intent, like this is the first thing I’ve ever done he can understand.

I blink and it takes a minute for his words to sink in fully. Oh, oh no, back up. “I’m only trying out. We won’t know until after tomorrow who makes the team.”

Mom bobs her head. “Right. But we want you to know how much we appreciate this new interest of yours and we want to offer you—”

“A deal,” Dad finishes for her. “We pay your car insurance and gas until the end of the season.”

“In case you make the team, we didn’t want you to worry about having to hold a job down too.” She must sense my panic. It’s not the work idea that panics me; it’s the running.

Dad flicks a finger toward me. “Your grades can’t slip.”

“Right, we don’t want your GPA to fall, because we’re so proud of you.” Mom tries to soften his dictum.

I can skip working if I make the team? Are they serious? Apparently, by the looks on their faces.

“If I make the team, I don’t have to work and you guys will pay the car stuff?”

“Until you’re done with the season and can get a job, yes, we’ll cover your car expenses.” Mom and Dad both nod like they’ve brokered a cease-fire.

I’m stunned. “Wow. Thanks.” Now I understand why jocks do what they do. There are benefits to this so-called exercise.

Now I have to decide whether or not I can survive running for the next couple of months. Must make list. Pros and cons. I think
the cons might be a longer list if I mention every body part that is screaming at me individually. “Okay, thanks. I don’t know if I’ll make the team. There are really good athletes going out for it and I’m not so coordinated.” I try to ease them into the realization that I’m not jock material.

“You’ll make it,” Dad decrees, defying my perspective on reality.

Oscars: Oscars are those kids who have been in every school play, musical and talent show. Students who are never happier than when they get to pretend they are someone else and not have to be themselves. These kids banter the words “stage direction,” “cue me” and “what’s my line?” like the rest of us use swearwords. They can memorize whole books of poetry and Shakespeare without getting nauseated. Some have parents who wanted to be on the stage or screen but mostly they’re kids that came out of the womb like chameleons, searching for the part that will change their lives.

Emmys: Emmys are the kids who work really hard to have life imitate art and want their lives to resemble the fantastical reality shows called soap operas. They think General Hospital and Gossip Girl are docudramas and work to steal boyfriends from their so-called best friends and cry on cue. In the feminine form, they tend to be daddy’s girls and thus control his credit card. In the masculine form, they tend to be
extremely popular, suave and sophisticated, frequenting clubs and attending events usually reserved for those actually old enough to drink. There is a brightness to their smiles, like the toothpaste ads, and theme music accompanies any entrance and exit.

Banders: Students who think arriving at school in the dark all year is fun because they get to play jazz, or who carry around instrument cases rather than setting them down and risking said black plastic hulk wandering off. Students who have a nice array of white shirts and black pants/bottoms for each and every special concert event.

I am a pile of goo. I am a husk of my former self. Dehydrated like a raisin. I gasp for breath. “We made the team.”

Maggie groans. Wipes the sweat out of her eyes. “We did.”

She sounds as bad as I feel.

Clarice bends down to untie her shoe. Her mouth emits noises like she’s trying to climb a rock wall with only her fingernails. “How is that possible? I crawled through some of the push-up-crab-walk things,” she moans, trying to sit on the bench. “On my butt.”