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I wrote it down in my notebook in huge letters: IT’S NOT CHARITY. IT’S HUMAN RIGHTS.

I was staring at him, wondering what it would be like to kiss somebody so amazingly generous and kind. I flipped the page and I wrote: Bee Alexander

Ms. Bee Wilson-Alexander

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson-Alexander

Then I noticed that the girl next to me was kind of looking over my shoulder, so I balled up the page with his name and put it in my bag to dispose of in a garbage can far, far away.

Brian told the group all about how he had met Bono at a benefit to raise awareness for debt relief in Africa. He’d organized three triathlons for spina bifida. (By the by, I didn’t even know what spina bifida was; I had to go home and look it up in the dictionary.) Watching him, I thought, Wow, this is what college is about. I totally want to do cool stuff like benefits and triathlons. So I went up to him after his talk, determined not to geek out.

“Hi,” I said. “That was a great speech.”

“Thanks so much,” he said, totally humble like. “Tell me your name again?”

I hadn’t even said my name, but the way he asked the question, it was like he was determined to remember it.

“Bee,” I said. “I mean Beatrice. But my friends call me Bee.”

He took my hand and held it, not in a nice to meet you handshake, but in a sitting in a movie theater on a first date kind of way. “So pleased to meet you,” he said.

“I totally want to join Blue Key,” I said, sounding so totally like a dork.

“You should,” Brian said. “Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you sometime and tell you more about the work we do.”

I didn’t think he’d call. But he did, that same night. We went out for pierogies—delicious Polish dumplings—the following Saturday, and we’ve been dating ever since. Fall in New York City has got to be the most romantic time of year, and I lapped up every minute of it. I went with Brian to hear all these cool speakers at places like the Council on Foreign Relations. We went to see all these indie movies at the Film Forum, and then, as it got colder, we started swinging by MarieBelle, after classes, for hot chocolate. But the best thing of all was meeting Brian at this little diner near his house to read the Sunday paper, then taking long walks through Central Park, watching the leaves change and discussing all of the issues that were going on in the world.

It’s been more than two months now, and I know people look at us and wonder how I snagged him. All I can think is that it’s scientific. Take for example, lightning. It’s the result of one kind of charge in the clouds during a thunderstorm and an equal and opposite charge on earth at the same time. The two totally opposite charges meet together in space and neutralize as lightning.

Brian is really sweet. He’s always saying that I’m beautiful and that my clumsiness is charming. But I think he’s just being nice. My theory is that Brian and I are like lightning. My ultimate nerdiness and his ultimate hotness came together and manifested itself into one very electric kiss that sparked a whole relationship.

2

Bee Bops

Here’s
the dealeeyo. I’m not some kind of prude. But I’m a virgin, and I had planned on staying that way for the foreseeable future. Maybe it’s because my sophomore year of high school, Mason Riley, the girl who was class valedictorian, got pregnant. I didn’t even know her, but like everybody else in school, I stared as she walked around the hallway, her belly getting bigger and bigger. By the time graduation rolled around, she looked like she was going to pop that puppy at any second.

There was a whole big flap because the principal didn’t want her to give the valedictorian speech, but her parents threatened to sue, and so she gave this speech—the usual hooha about working hard and dreaming big. But as I watched her, I thought, This is a girl who scored 2380 on the SATs. She must’ve been using birth control. For the first time, I believed the sex-ed hype. No type of birth control is infallible. Accidents happen. I’m a clumsy girl. There’s only three steps at the front of our house and I fall down them on the regular. I looked at Mason Riley’s big old belly and I didn’t want that accident to happen to me.

That was all well and good in high school, when I went to the junior prom with this kid, Max, whose parents have known my parents since college, when they all joined the Peace Corps. Max was cute, but our parents used to bathe us in the tub together until we were in like third grade, way past the point they should’ve stopped. So while it was really nice to make out with him on prom night, I think we both felt like it was practice for something bigger and better.

When Brian and I first started dating, I told him I was a virgin and he said it was cool. But he’s nineteen; he’ll be twenty in the spring. I can’t expect him to wait around forever. So a couple of weeks ago, I went and got a prescription for the pill. Then I bought some condoms and kept them in my purse. And then just for good measure, when I went home last weekend, I saw my ob-gyn and got the patch. I left the doctor’s office feeling very mature and sexy, like Lady Chatterly’s lover. Or I guess, I mean like Lady Chatterly. You know what I mean. Mature. Sexy.

This weekend, Brian’s roommate went out of town, so he called and asked me if I wanted to sleep over. “Sure,” I said, hanging up the phone and trying to be cool. But then I totally started freaking out. Everyone says I’m so lucky because I got a single apartment in the housing lottery, but these are the days when I think, yeah, right. I really wanted someone to talk to. I could call one of my friends in Cali, Rebecca or Haylie, but I felt so awkward. There’s always this whole long catchup about the weather and classes and folks from back home when all I’d want to do is say, “Look, I think I’m going to have sex for the first time tonight and I am SCARED OUT OF MY MIND.” I looked at the dingy beige dorm phone and it was like I had temporary paralysis. I could see the phone. I knew how to use the phone. But I was not going to pick up the phone and say those words. I just couldn’t.

I decided that this sex conversation needed to be a face-to-face thing. So I put on my L.L.Bean jacket (it didn’t contribute to the global economy, but my mom said it was okay because we bought it at a thrift store so the environmental footprint is very small) and walked the ten blocks to my aunt Zo’s house. Her real name is Zoe, which, as she’s pointed out, is a name short enough not to warrant a nickname. But I’ve been calling her Zo since I was a kid, and she’ll always be Zo to me.

Zo is cool. She’s got this fab rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West and she’s a pit musician for shows on Broadway. She plays the upright bass, but for the
Lion King
, she plays all kinds of African string instruments too. When I was a kid, she did every show I ever wanted to see:
Grease
and
Into the Woods
and
Annie Get Your Gun
. Now she’s doing
Lion King
, and she says, “I’ll probably be playing ‘Hakuna Matata’ until the day I die.” She loves the show, and for a working musician, nothing beats a steady gig. Whenever she takes me out to dinner or shopping and I say, “Thanks, Zo,” she always says, “Don’t thank me. Thank Uncle Disney.”

Still, as much as I love her, as I walked down Broadway, I wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of having the sex convo with my mother’s sister. But I figured I needed advice, and Zo loves to give advice.

When I got to her building, I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. I rang again, no answer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of calling before I came over, but I guess that was it. I wasn’t thinking. Zo had given me a key, so I let myself in and left her a note on the kitchen table. I considered writing some semblance of the truth:

Dear Aunt Zo,

Came over to get advice about sex. You’re not here, so I guess I’ll figure it out.

Love,
Bee

But instead I just wrote:
Hey, Auntie Zo,

Where you at? You never call, you never write. Why don’t you treat your favorite starving niece to brunch sometime soon? I’m free on Sunday.

Love,
Bee

Then I put the frog paperweight she keeps on her desk on top of the note. Aunt Zo says she keeps Froggie around to remind her that in real life when you kiss a frog, they never turn into princes. I gave the frog a kiss anyway. Maybe it would give me good luck.

I looked at my watch and realized I had just enough time to make it back to campus. I tutor this guy Kevin Manning in math twice a week. It’s a pretty good gig. He pays me twenty bucks an hour, and we usually work for about two hours at a time. All he’s got to do is fulfill the basic math requirement. Everyone calls the class he’s in “Math for Poets,” but he acts like it’s plotting vectors and orthogonal coordinate systems. I mean, really. That said, Kevin is an aspiring rapper and super-sweet, so it’s fun to hang out with him. He says that he’s happy with a C and that I do a great job explaining everything. But I can’t help but think that if I was a really good tutor, he’d manage to pull a B. Maybe that’s just the overachiever in me speaking again.

I was halfway there when I noticed a Victoria’s Secret store. I thought about the fact that I was wearing Snoopy Day of the Week panties—Friday, with Schroeder playing the piano and Lucy staring dreamily at him—and it occurred to me that I needed to step up my lingerie game. If I rushed, I would only be fifteen minutes late in meeting Kevin. And Lord knows, he kept me waiting all the time.

Inside the store was like another world. Everything was pink and black and so grown up. Not all of my panties have cartoon characters on them, but I didn’t own a single piece of underwear that looked anything like this. Right away, some gorgeous blond girl asked me if I needed help. Why? Why do people always ask you if you need help when you are trying so hard to be invisible? I’m pretty convinced that if I was ever in a situation when I actually needed help, like if a well of quicksand opened up in the asphalt on Amsterdam Avenue, not a single soul would ask me if I needed help.

I thought I could grab something quick, but as Lenny Kravitz blared out of the speakers and I wandered from rack to rack, I grew more and more confused. There was a cute everyday bra-and-panty set, purple with cream ruffles, which could be a good choice. Make it seem like I wasn’t trying too hard. But it was my first time; I wanted to look like I was trying, just a little bit. There was a whole section of garters and belts and corsets that looked more like torture devices than something you’d want to seduce your boyfriend with. There were long nighties, short nighties, camisoles, and tap pants. The music seemed to be getting louder and louder. Lenny Kravitz was singing, “Are you going to go my way?” and I just wanted to scream, “I don’t know which way I want to go! Do I go ‘girl next door’ or ‘ever so slightly slutty’? That’s why I’m here in Victoria’s Secret, trying to figure it out!”

In the honeymoon section, there were all these baby doll nighties with matching robes. I looked at the price of the whole outfit and thought I must need glasses. This stuff was expensive. I’ve got a credit card, but my dad sees all the bills, and how was I going to explain a hundred-dollar charge at Victoria’s Secret? I looked over in the corner and saw that they had these nice big fluffy bathrobes with matching slippers. That’s what I’d tell him: bathrobe and slippers. And if I budgeted my food money super-carefully and saved some of my tutoring money, I could buy a robe and slippers before my parents’ next visit.

I looked at my watch. I was now thirty minutes late for my tutoring session with Kevin. This is all I have to say: it’s hard. On TV shows, they always make it seem so easy to be a teenage girl who’s about to have sex. Even on stupid reality shows, the girls have nice hair and know how to do their makeup. They are always wearing the right kind of underwear, and they never look afraid. They look totally ready and into it, like they were standing in line to ride a roller coaster at Six Flags. But that’s not how I felt. I felt nervous and scared. My hair was totally flat, and I had no idea what to wear. I loved Brian and I wanted him to be really impressed, just the same way he was impressed with the fact that I’m premed and that even though he’s a sophomore, I can help him cram for his organic chemistry exams.

I grabbed a red lacy night thing, paid for it as quickly as I could, then raced out the door. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be waiting for me in the student center, but I went anyway, figuring that there was always a chance that he was even later than I was.

When I got there, he was texting on his BlackBerry. “What’s up, little mama?” he asked.

Kevin is the only person in the world who would call a giraffe of a girl like me “little mama.”

“Sorry I’m late,” I said, sitting next to him.

I took a whiff. I have no idea what kind of cologne, or shampoo, or body lotion Kevin wears, but it’s really delicious smelling. Clean, like green apples. But kind of peppery too. I always want to ask him what he’s got on, but I try to keep things professional since I’m his tutor. I also don’t want to feed his already massive ego.

The fact that Kevin is preternaturally good looking has not escaped my attention. He’s tall, with a short Afro and the kind of square jaw that brings to mind old-fashioned movie stars in films that I watch with my aunt Zo. He also has the most beautiful brown skin. He’s like that Christina Aguilera song, “Lady Marmalade”: Kevin is the epitome of “mocha chocolata ya ya.” The thing is, the fact that he’s good looking hasn’t escaped Kevin’s attention either. He’s always dressed to the nines. Today he was wearing a kelly green cashmere V-neck, white shirt underneath, slate gray pleated pants. He never dressed like the other guys at school. He always looked like he’d just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad.