From Butt to Booty (17 page)

Will people think I’m gay now that I play soccer? Are male footballers really ballers? How to combat assumptions?

Do I care? Maybe. But I know I will never touch a manly-boy butt if I give off the butch vibe, even if only through association.

Clarice isn’t gay. Maggie isn’t gay. Or are they? No, that would have come up in conversation. I’m not. I guess maybe I shouldn’t assume that the burly girl playing goalie means anything when she smiles at me. Do I have to be careful how nice I am? Will I be attacked in the locker room by fanatical lesbian players? Is Lucas our coach only because he thinks none of us are lusting after him?

I tried just not getting out of bed this morning, but the parentals noticed my absence around the coffeepot in time to get me to school. Damn.

I so don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see Stephen. I don’t want to see those bitchy cheerleaders. Basically I’d like a dark hole with a home theater system, Netflix and junk food to live in. I could stay there forever and not feel the need to see school again.

“I have Vaseline.” Tim and Adam lean over me as I’m digging through my locker before classes start.

“For what?” I ask. Do I want to know what my favorite gay boys need Vaseline for?

“His locker,” Adam says.

“Huh?”

“We’re going to cover his locker with slime because he be a slimeball.” Tim goes all ghetto gay.

“Uh-huh.” Weird. Sweet, but weird. “Maybe I should be all mature and not make a big deal about it.”

“That’s Charlie over there with the Cloud Riders.”

“So?”

“So he’s pointing at you and they’re all laughing.”

“Smear away.” I slam my locker door.

Adam and Tim high-five and all but run in the direction of poor Stevie’s locker.

“Hi!” Clarice and Maggie show up.

Holy-Mother-of-Suicide-Watches, what’s up with the friends putting in appearances?

“Hi.”

Clarice pulls out a gift bag that says “Over the Hill.” She points at it. “Sorry, had to make do with what they had in stock.”

“What’s this?” How do they all know already?

“Care package,” Maggie says.

“For what?”

“For you. The school has already heard about the breakup.”

“It has junk food, Kleenex, Sharpies for doodle cleanup on anything you might have drawn hearts or his name on, a scented ‘single-and-loving-it’ candle—”

GREAT!
“From your older sister?” I ask Clarice.

“Both of ours,” Maggie answers. “Mine said you need a copy of
GI Jane
, which is her favorite kick-butt girl movie.” Maggie’s sister is at NYU.

“Uh-huh.” I’m touched.

“Plus I printed out a list of ways to get over a broken heart.” Maggie points to the small ream of paper tucked into the bag.

“Thanks.” How am I going to show my face knowing everyone is talking about me?

“You’re welcome.”

Bell rings. I stash the loot in my locker.

“See you at lunch.” They wave.

Lunch. Huh. That’s gonna hurt.

I can’t do it. No matter how great my friends are, I can’t walk through the cafeteria today. I can’t pretend I’m superbusy looking for a superimportant group of superpeople to eat with.

I’d like to be the totally together girl who calls the dumping dude a wanker and moves on to the next penis person. I’d like to be. In fact, I’d sell my virginity to the devil to be that girl. I’m so not that girl.

I pull my feet up and push against the stall door as a group of Giggles arrives in the bathroom for after-lunch upchucking.

Is it always going to feel this bad?

He’s a bad kisser.

He sucks at conversation.

He probably doesn’t even remember my favorite color or my favorite group or the world’s all-time best movie according to
moi
.

So why am I crying? I blow my nose in really cheap toilet paper when the herd leaves.

My mascara is turning into lip liner.

Why can’t there be an expiration date on dating so you know when to abort the mission? Like those alarms in the space shuttle that scream, “Pull up! Pull up!”

I would have appreciated a little ejecting before the crash and burn.

He dumped me. And he sucks.

So why am I so sad?

I thought things were looking up, but they’re not. It’s a weird blip on the radar, me thinking that life was turning around and good.

Okay, he wasn’t perfect.

Is he the only guy who will ever care when I’m going to be ready for sex? What if he’s the only guy who will ever ask? And I said no.

I’m going to be wearing spandex, with wrinkles and white hair, talking to a ficus named Stephen and telling him, “I’m ready, I’m ready” while I water him every other day.

I’m an idiot. I should have named a date. I should have told him I wanted to have sex.

I should have just shown up at his locker naked and said, “Take me, lover.”

At least he wanted me. What if no other boyly-man or manly-boy will ever want me again? I’ll have to pay a street person to strip me of my virginity when I’m ancient and dried-up. No, I’ll become a nun.

“Gert?” Maggie calls.

“Gert, are you in here?” Clarice obviously doesn’t approve of Maggie’s technique and yells louder.

“She has to be in this one. We’ve checked all the other ones.”

“Come on. It’s just us.”

“Maggie and Clarice,” Maggie says.

“She has to know our voices,” Clarice says with exasperation.

“I’m here.” I drop my feet back to the floor and stand up from my throne.

“Told you,” Maggie says.

“Come out here,” Clarice demands.

“I don’t really think that’s a good idea.”

“Yes, it is.” Maggie never sounds this demanding.

“Seriously, get out here,” Clarice commands.

I open the stall door to my two friends leaning against the sinks with their arms crossed, glaring at me.

“What?” I ask. They look pissed.

“You’re allowed to wallow, Gert, but you’re not allowed to sit in the bathroom at lunch, over a guy who has a tiny dick.”

“Clarice!” Maggie looks horrified.

They weren’t supposed to know that. Only Adam could have spilled those beans.

“What? It’s true.” Clarice holds out a Sharpie.

I blot my eyes with recycled cardboard towels that could also be shoe boxes.

“Adam told us.” Maggie shrugs with a lot of sheepishness.

“They’re standing guard.” Clarice nods toward the bathroom door.

“We’ve voted.” Maggie takes the Sharpie from Clarice and pokes me with it.

“Voted?”

“He’s a terrible kisser and has astonishingly bad breakup skills. You need revenge.”

“Revenge?”

“On the wall.” Clarice points to the white paint behind me.

“What?”

“We’ve decided you will be doing the student body a favor if you assert Stephen’s rather numerous flaws in a locale that will be infectious.”

“It’ll make you feel better.” Clarice gesticulates. “My older sister said so.”

“Your older sister suggested we vandalize the school bathroom?”

“In so many words.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s not like you’re going to get caught. Adam and Tim are blocking the door. No one is going to come near here for another two minutes.” Maggie glances down at her watch.

“Here, I’ll start.” Clarice writes, “Stephen Blasko is the world’s worst kisser—bring your towels.

“See? Easy.” She hands another pen to Maggie.

“You’re not,” I gasp as Maggie raises the pen.

“Oh, I so am. He’s a jerk.” Maggie writes, “Whose d is so small it takes only one letter to spell it? Mr. Dickhead Stephen Blasko.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. My sweet, straight-and-narrow friend actually wrote the word “dickhead” on the bathroom wall.

“Clever.” Clarice high-fives her.

“Your turn.” They look at me.

I consider.

“When are we ready to have sex with Stephen Blasko? Try never, nope, not gonna happen,
nein, nada
, zippo, zero, zilcho,
niet
. Keep the lotion handy, ol’ Stevie, cuz you’re never gonna—”

Clarice takes the pen out of my hand. “That’s enough, ace.”

I’ve never considered graffiti liberating, but I feel better. Much better. My stomach isn’t quite so upchuckedness, nor are my eyeballs all swimmy.

“Guys?” Adam knocks on the bathroom door.

“Coming!” we yell, grabbing our bags and racing out the door.

“Okay?” Adam asks me.

“Better. Definitely better.”

The feeling of taking back control lasts until I’m home and Adam calls with a question I’m not prepared to answer. “Who are you doing your paper on?”

What paper? “Paper?”

“Yeah, the paper due tomorrow?” He’s speaking like I’m foreign or brain-challenged.

“What?” I don’t remember hearing about any paper.

“The most influential artist of the twentieth century? Your opinion and all, but—”

This should ring a bell. It should, but it doesn’t. “Crapping buttocks.”

“You forgot?” he gasps, aghast.

I can be honest or I can play it off. “I did.”

“You don’t forget stuff like that.” He doesn’t sound like he believes me.

“Thank you.” I never forget schoolwork. I’m always done with it days early. It’s a curse, which apparently I’ve now broken without kissing any frogs. Or maybe Stevie counts as a frog.

“It’s half our art grade for midterms.” Again with the disbelief.

“Of course it is.” The other half is whether or not we’ve given ourselves over to the art experience and mastered yoga’s downward dying dog. I sigh.

“She talked about it the first week.”

Okay, we’ve established my idiotness. Can we move on? I have a paper to figure out
. “Right.” I grope around for the clock and pick it up. 11:03 p.m. I’m so screwed.

Adam warms to his topic. “I’m doing Picasso. I’d let you copy me, but I think she’d be a little suspicious.”

“Just a little.” Though I could change a few words.

What am I thinking? I don’t cheat. I’m not a cheater.

Panic. Panic. Think. Think.

“Want me to help you search online? I’m sure you can find stuff on all sorts of artists.”

“No, go to bed.” It’s eleven, for goodness’ sake. How am I going to write a paper in this amount of time? I’m exhausted. I’m heartbroken.

“You sure?” He wants to go to sleep. I can hear it in his voice.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Crapping buttocks. What was that website Jenny used last term to buy a paper?

I fire up Google. I’m desperate.

I type “buy term papers.” I can’t fail midterms.

Theultimatetermpaper.com. I click.

I can’t fail. Not acceptable.