Laura Ruby - Good Girls (12 page)

Pam shakes her head at my stupidity. To Ash, she says, "With guys, it's so easy. Not so easy for us. And it's not like you get any actual help from them. Sometimes

158 I'd just give up and blow the guy. You can keep your clothes on for that. You can wear a winter coat and they don't care." She's dropped the honey out of her honey- gravel voice but seems sad somehow, or maybe disap- pointed. She sounds like some old barfly talking about her tragic, messed-up youth. We don't know what to say.

To change the subject or to cheer her up, Joelle decides to go back to her high-kick song-and-dance rou- tine, this time singing, "Here a ho, there a ho, every- where a ho, ho." A couple of goons in flannel--one short and light, the other tall and brown--amble by, smirking like fools. "You girls want any help?"

"Why?" says Ash sharply. "You work here?"

"No," said the light one. "But I'm sure I can find whatever it is you need." The brown one laughs.

Joelle turns on her sexiest smile and runs her finger down the light one's chest. "And what do you think we need?"

He jumps a little, as if Joelle's finger were electrified. "Well, uh, I don't know."

"You don't know?" says Joelle. She turns to us. "Girls, did you hear that? They don't know what we need."

Ash elbows Pam, and Pam's back to her smirking, sassy self, a forty-year-old divorcee on a hip TV show. "They don't know what we need?" Pam says. "Now, there's a freaking surprise."

159

E arly September, and this was what I needed:

Luke, Luke, and more Luke. School started, and

we passed each other in the hallways. My throat

closed up as if I had some wicked allergy. He said,

"Hey," and I couldn't speak, so I flashed my teeth

in what I hoped was a brilliant smile but was

afraid was the grimace of a constipated baboon.

160 "You avoiding me?" he said at the first party after school started, at Ray Dale's house on the second Saturday of the month. I wasn't big on parties during the school year, but I had been frantic to go to this one because I thought I'd see Luke there. I did, but he had to torture me first. For close to an hour, me and Ash watched him make the rounds, flirting with every girl in the place. Nearly puking with anxiety, I was digging around in the fridge for something nonalcoholic to drink when he spoke.

"What?" I said. I dropped a can of Pepsi on my foot. "Ow!"

"Are you okay?"

I winced. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Ash, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, said, "Hey, Luke."

Luke turned. "Oh, sorry, Ash. Didn't see you. What's up?"

"Not much," she said, giving him her own monkey grimace. She nodded at me. "I'll be in the other room."

Luke called after her, "Nardo's in the basement."

"Yeah," Ash said. "Thanks."

Luke turned back to me. "So," he said.

"So." My foot was killing me. I held it up, like a bear with a thorn in its paw.

Luke grabbed a bunch of paper towels off the roll hanging from the wall and wrapped some ice in them.

161 "Sit," he told me, pushing me into one of the kitchen chairs. He pulled up another chair and placed my foot between his knees. After sliding off my flip-flop, he pressed the ice to my foot. "Better?"

"Yeah." And not because of the ice, either. He seemed to have some sort of foot fetish. Not that I minded.

He held the ice on my foot for a few minutes. "So you're not avoiding me?"

"No," I said. I thought it was a retarded question, especially after the marathon flirting he'd been doing at the party. "Why would you think that?"

He peeked up at me. "I don't know. I must be nerv- ous around you or something."

This made me laugh. "That must be it."

Luke pulled the ice away from my foot. "I think you're going to live."

I didn't know what it was, but just being near him sometimes turned me into a completely different person, this say-anything person. It was a person I wanted to be, but also a person I was afraid of. If she'd say anything, what would she do?

"Are you sure it's all right?" I said. "I might need more medical attention."

"Medical attention," he said, pulling a shifty little grin. "I don't think you need me for that. You're a genius, right? You can probably diagnose and treat yourself."

162 And then, sometimes, I'd come rushing back to myself--the tense Audrey, the hyper Audrey. "Shut up," I said. I'd meant for it to sound teasing and sexy, but it came out whiny and annoyed. I was tired of everyone getting on my case for the work I did.

"Sorry," he said. "I was just joking."

"I know. I'm just . . . Look, I'm no genius, okay?"

He paused. "You did skip a couple of grades."

"One grade. Third grade. And not because I'm smarter than everyone else. Only cause I'm a finisher."

"A finisher," he said. "Sounds like the title of a kung fu movie. The Finisher." He punched the air.

"It wouldn't make a very good movie." For some rea- son, I felt like I should explain it to him. "Like, you get an assignment in English class to read five chapters in whatever book. How many times do you actually read all five of them when you're supposed to?"

"People read books? That's so strange. I thought they were just decoration."

"Ha-ha," I said.

"I've been known to read the occasional book," he told me. "I finished Moby Dick. Funny."

"You thought Moby Dick was funny?"

"Yeah. Mostly, though, I skim. I'm more of a skim- mer." The tips of his fingers skimming up my calf demonstrated his skills.

Moby Dick should have distracted me, the skimming

163 should have distracted me, but I was in Audrey Overthink mode and there was no stopping me. "I read all my chapters," I said. "Every word. Twice, or maybe three times. Every assignment I get, I finish as fast as I can. Papers, homework, posters, essay tests, whatever. If the rest of you guys finished everything you were sup- posed to when you were supposed to, you would have skipped grades, too."

"Come on. You've never blown off a homework assignment? Or a chapter? Not once?"

"No," I said. "When I was in kindergarten, the first day, we got this purple workbook, right? With all these little exercises in it, spelling and colors and that kind of thing. And I was so excited that I sat down and finished the entire book, beginning to end, then and there. I thought my teacher was going to have a heart attack when I showed her."

"I feel one coming on now," Luke said.

"It's like I can't not finish," I said. "I don't know why." Which was a lie. I knew why. If I didn't study as hard as I could for a test, I could fail. And if I failed one test, I could fail two. If I failed two, I could fail them all. And if I failed them all, then I wouldn't go to college. And if I couldn't go to college, I couldn't study architec- ture or design or anything else, and my life would be ruined. Because of the one test I didn't study for, the one chapter I didn't read. That's all it takes. One mistake,

164 and everything you've worked for is gone. It happens all the time. It happened to my parents. I came along and blasted everything to pieces. Instead of a graduate degree for my mom and a law degree for my dad, they did the right thing and had a wedding. And they didn't even get the baby brother to complete the family portrait.

Luke said nothing for a few minutes, and I figured that I'd ruined the mood with this lecture on my deranged study habits. Who the hell wants to talk about kindergarten workbooks? Sex-y.

Luke stood and pulled me to my feet, or foot, because I couldn't put any real weight on my right one.

"This really hurts," I said. "Who knew Pepsi cans were so deadly?"

"Here," he said. "Let me help you." He tossed the wet wad of paper towels in the sink and swung me up into his arms, which was totally terrifying because he's not that big and I'm not that small.

"You've got to be kidding," I said as he carried me toward the stairs. On the way, we passed Ray Dale, who raised his fist in the air and said, "Dude! Caveman!"

"You're not going to drop me, are you?" I said as Luke took the stairs.

"You doubt my animal strength?"

"No, I don't," I said, "but I also don't doubt my ani- mal weight."

"You're as light as a feather. Actually, you're lighter

165 than a feather. You're like a mote of dust."

"That's romantic," I said.

He kicked open the door of one of the bedrooms and tossed me on the bed. It was a twin, which made things cozy when he jumped up on the bed, too. I tried to keep breathing. It was a struggle.

"I missed you," he said. He cupped my chin with his hand and kissed me, hard and deep and twisty-twirly. My mind turned into Luke's little mote of dust. An angry, stompy little mote that wanted his shirt off NOW, IMMEDIATELY; that found shirts unnecessary and absolutely, utterly criminal. I pawed at his T-shirt, and let out a strangled mewl as he yanked it off. The sight of him, lean and rippled, threatened to unknit my skin. It didn't take long for his hand to slip inside my top, his fingers tracing my ribs.

"Your bones are so cool," he said.

"Huh?" I said, kiss-drunk.

He brushed against the lace trim of my bra and crawled under the underwire. Cupping my breast, he squeezed in the most delicious way. I heard myself make a low animal noise somewhere deep in my throat.

He rolled over with me in his arms, so that I was straddling him. He tugged my shirt up around my armpits and had my bra undone about two seconds later. Rubbing our chests and hips and thighs together, we rocked until the bed started creaking like an old wooden

166 boat, until my underwear was drenched and he was groaning like his own bones had spontaneously shat- tered all at once.

Later, on the way home, Ash asked me sarcastically if I'd had a good time.

"It was okay," I said, brushing my swollen, couch- pillow lips with the back of my hand.

So this is what I became: strangled and mute at school, when I could see but not touch, and a frothing wildebeest at this party and that party, none of which I would have gone to if I didn't think there was a chance that Luke would be there. I'd watch him flirt with the universe and I'd want to die; then he'd come find me and we'd disappear into bedrooms or closets or basements, wherever we could. Ash kept warning me to be cool, to not take things so seriously, to not be surprised that Luke flirted so much. "He's a player and you know it. If he wasn't, he'd be calling you, all right? You'd, like, have a real date or something? But he's not calling you. This is a casual thing, a hookup thing, a friends-with-benefits thing. Don't lose your mind," she said. "If you don't chill, you're going to get hurt."

It wasn't just Ash. I'd walk into a room and the first thing I would get was a report on Luke's whereabouts from people who liked me, glares and sneers from

167 anyone who didn't. After that, we retreated to the only private place left, his mom's van, which he would drive to some dark corner so that no one would show up and peek through the windows. He removed the last bench seat in the back and replaced it with a fluffy old com- forter we could roll around on, or roll up in like human enchiladas. We'd jump into the van, shut the door, and fall against each other, falling into each other, going fur- ther and further every time we were together.

One night, my top and bra were stripped off and flung into the driver's seat before we even had a chance to kiss. Instead of going for my mouth, Luke started to kiss my breasts instead. My eyes rolled back so far in my head that I thought they were going to keep rolling; I wouldn't be seeing Luke, I'd be seeing the happy thoughtless cloud of my own brain, that bright white pulsing nothing, and it seemed like the very nicest thing that could happen, the sweetest thing, to see your brain.

I covered us with the blanket as he unbuttoned my jeans and eased them off, and I worked him out of his. The two of us were wearing only our underwear, which should have made me stop, which should have made me think, but didn't mean much to me except for the fact that now his hands could go almost anywhere and were everywhere and I loved his hands best of all because they had these beautiful fingers that poked me and tickled me, rubbed me and hollowed me out. He tapped

168 the inside of my knee and my legs fell open as if he had just pushed a lever. I couldn't stop them and I didn't want to. More! bubbled my bright, cottony brain, Moremoremoremore, as his hand danced between my legs. I thought about grabbing it, guiding it, showing him exactly where and how to touch me, but as bold and brave and going-places-I'd-never-gone-before as I was, I wasn't that bold or that brave. My own hands started to travel. He had miles and miles of saltysmooth skin and all of it was mine. I could feel his hard-on burning a brand on my hip, heard the sharp intake of breath when I pressed against it.

He shifted and pulled the blanket off us. I felt the rush of cool air and the pressure of his lips as he kissed his way down my neck, breastbone, and stomach, past my belly button and lower and lower and lower. His fin- gertips curled into the top of my underwear and started to peel it down my hips. I lost the yummy feeling in my head and my body. My brain got all chattery like it always did, chattery and stupid and judgey: I want him to feel me but don't want him to see me my boobs are like pancakes and my stomach sticks out and my butt is all squished against the floor and what if I like it and start flailing around or what if I don't like it and start flailing around or what if I taste funny and he doesn't like it and . . .

I grabbed his face and hauled him eye level.

169 "What's the matter?" he said.

"Nothing," I said. "I want you up here."

He looked at me for what felt like a century. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said. With all that we'd done, it was dumb to be embarrassed, but I was embarrassed. I felt more naked than naked. I felt like crying.

"Okay. Whatever you want," he said. He stroked my body. "You're pretty."

I wanted to believe him and I sort of believed him, but I reached for the blanket and pulled it back over us.

We lay there for a while, not touching, not talking. Then I felt his hand around my wrist and thought, Okay, here it comes, he's all mad, he's going to start com- plaining, he's going to ask me to have sex with him or at least go down on him or something, because he at least TRIED to do it to me and it's only fair. But all he did was massage my wrist and palm, press my knuckles between his thumb and his index finger.

"Your hands are so small," he said.

My hands always seemed pretty regular to me. "They are?"

"Uh-huh," he said. "They're nice."

Him saying my hands were nice made me feel nice. I took one of my nice hands and put it on his nicer chest. His heart fluttered under my palm. I thought about the ventricles pumping his blood through his veins. And

170 then I thought about the veins themselves, pushing up through the skin on his arms and legs as if they could barely contain the fluid.

I slid my hand down his chest and stomach and then wriggled my fingers in the waistband of his underwear. His breathing went ragged as I brushed the tip of his penis, wrapped my hand around it. I couldn't believe that skin and blood could get so hard.

I squeezed. "Does that hurt?"

His eyes were like pools of motor oil, dark and glazed. "Are you kidding?"

"I'm curious."

"No, it doesn't hurt," he said. "I like it."

I ran my thumb in circles over the tip, where it was plush and sort of spongy. It felt like a warm and fleshy version of a video game control. Luke control. It was cool, but also kind of odd. Like, guys walk around all day with this thing hanging off them, this thing that seemed like it could make you feel really good, insanely good, but also could betray your thoughts or maybe even work against you. What's it like to have this THING?