Sloppy Firsts Read online

  Even Scotty is going to the prom. He was asked by Kelsey Barney. She’s a senior, the manager of the baseball team. Scotty said she’s going to some small college in North Carolina that I’ve never heard of. I don’t think she’s too smart. She’s got big crunchy hair. Borderline Hoochie. In my unbiased opinion, he could do so much better.

  Sara and I are the only ones with nothing to do on prom night. Fortunately, right now she’s so heartbroken about hearing nada from her Kappa Sigma soulmate that she can’t even muster enough sorrow to get depressed about the prom. So I have some time before I need to come up with some excuse as to why we can’t wallow in our loneliness together.

  the tenth

  A day of high highs and low lows.

  I had a track meet this afternoon. It started almost an hour and a half late because the visitors’ bus broke down or something. I easily won my first two races, but that’s not important to this story.

  Because their away meet started on time, the boys’ team returned to the school just as the 4 × 400 relay—the last event—was getting under way. Now, in a tense meet situation, I wouldn’t run this event because I’d have to do the Triple Threat: 800 meters, 1600 meters, and 3200 meters. But since we had already scored twenty points more than we needed to lock in the win, Coach decided not to kill me today and put me in the relay to help me build up my sprinting strength. (A strategy wholeheartedly supported by my unofficial coach in the bleachers.)

  The point is, under normal circumstances, Paul Parlipiano would not have been there to see me run. And not only did he see me run, he actually cheered me on. Me! As I came around the far turn by the flagpole I heard him yell, "Go Pineville! You’re kicking her butt!" Which I was. And I was going so fast that I didn’t even see him. I just heard that voice and knew. Once I passed the baton, I looked back just to confirm that I hadn’t made up the moment. He was still there, leaning on the fence. It really was him.

  Thanks to my enormous lead, the next three runners would’ve had to have been struck down by polio to blow the race. It was a totally insignificant victory in the grand scheme of things, but for me, it was one of the greatest triumphs of my life. Paul Parlipiano had noticed me, and I hadn’t totally blown it by collapsing at the sound of his voice. I was positively flying.

  A half hour later, I came crashing down.

  I was getting my stuff out of the locker room while a group of juniors and seniors were talking about (what else?) the prom. I heard Carrie P. mention Paul Parlipiano’s name. I could hear his name if it were whispered in a football stadium filled with 10,000 screaming fans. I was feeling gutsier than usual, so I asked, "What about Paul Parlipiano?"

  "He’s taking Monica Jennings. They’re sitting at our table."

  From blue skies to splat! Just like that.

  "You’re not gonna get all fucking depressed now, are you?"

  "No," I lied.

  Monica Jennings isn’t that blond, big-boobed bitch you love to hate in the movies. She’s sometimes pretty, sometimes plain. She’s in Honors, but isn’t ranked in the top five in her class. She’s on the tennis team, but isn’t the captain. She’s friends with members of the Upper Crust, but isn’t invited to all their private parties. She’s a totally normal girl.

  And that makes this hard for me to take. It means that there’s no reason why I couldn’t go to the prom with Paul Parlipiano—other than the fact that to him I’m just another girl in a Pineville uniform, one who has never said as much as Bonjour, mon ami to him.

  the twelfth

  Marcus and his latest ho-bagity Hoochie girlfriend were kissing each other by his locker this morning. I don’t know her name. I saw her from behind, so I don’t know what she looks like exactly. But like most Hoochies, she has over-dyed, over-everythinged hair. She’s also a size twelve who thinks she’s a size six.

  I had to walk past them to get to homeroom and I was trying to avert my eyes. Just as I got within a few feet of the couple, Marcus took his hands off her big ol’ Lycra/spandexed butt and waved at me. His eyes were on mine, but his mouth never stopped moving in and out and around hers.

  When he passed my desk two minutes later, I didn’t exist.

  This has got to stop.

  the sixteenth

  It was 4:20 A.M.and I was buzzing as usual. It was really warm out. Practically 50 degrees. I started thinking about how stupid it was that I was stuck in my room, 100 percent awake, waiting for the sun to come up to start my day. Why can’t I start my day when it’s still dark out?

  I decided to listen to the message my twitchy muscles were trying to tell me: Let’s go running. Right then. My dad was guaranteed not to follow me. I threw on shorts and a T-shirt and laced up my shoes. I crept to the kitchen and wrote a note: I Couldn’t Sleep. I Went Running. 4 A.M. Don’t Get Mad. Jess.

  I tiptoed out the back door and stretched on the patio. The air smelled like wet grass. Crickets chirped. Leaves rustled in the breeze. The moon was a sliver short of being full, so I didn’t have to worry about lunatics.

  I ran.

  Everything was different in the dark. My neighborhood’s bi-level, split-level, bi-level, split-level scheme seemed so safe and predictable in daylight. But at night, these same houses were secret and mysterious. Especially the ones that had a single light on. All the nights that I’ve been alone and awake in my bedroom, I never stopped to think about all the other people who might be tossing and turning too.

  After I don’t know how many miles, I stopped thinking. I know this sounds all Oprah–Chopra, but everything got in synch: the beat of my breath, the flow of my feet, the rhythm of the road, the bursts of color blurring by. I was running so effortlessly that I didn’t stop when I finished my loop. I kept right on running, as though my body made the decision before my brain had a chance to shoot it down.

  By the time I got back to the house, the sun was coming up all pink and orange over the horizon. It was a little past 5:45 A.M. I had run for a little over an hour, and for some strange reason, I wasn’t the least bit tired. More important, my mind had kept quiet for the first time in a long while. For more than an hour, I didn’t think about prom, or Paul Parlipiano, or my non-period, or anything.

  And that includes Marcus Flutie.

  My heart was pumping and I was intensely aware of being alive. Amazing. I wish life could be like that all the time, or that I could will it that way whenever I wanted. When my worries shut up, everything just feels right.

  I was feeling so optimistic that I made a vow to myself then and there: I will be normal. I will accept that Hope is gone. I will not be afraid of being friends with Hy. I will face up to the fact that Paul Parlipiano will not devirginize me. I will stop thinking that Marcus Flutie is trying to corrupt me. I will be normal.

  The first logical step in becoming a normal high school sophomore?

  Asking Scotty to my sister’s wedding.

  It made perfect sense. Scotty is normal. Scotty has fun. Scotty can sleep at night. I’ve been in public school too long to totally buy into Hy’s theory of revolution, but maybe she’s partly right. If I hang with him, some of his positive vibes might rub off on me. Maybe I can be normal—perhaps even popular—without losing myself in the process. I’ll never know unless I try.

  Just so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, I biked to Scotty’s house to ask him in person, as soon as I cleaned myself up after my cathartic run.

  When I arrived, there was an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. By the time I figured out who it belonged to and had the impulse to hop on my bike and ride home, it was already too late. I’d been spotted by Scotty and his cradle-robbing prom date.

  "Oh hey, Jess," called Scotty from the screened-in porch. "You know Kelsey Barney, right?"

  I said "yes" and smiled and she said "hi" and smiled and all three of us stood there and smiled and everything was swell.

  "She drove me home from this morning’s crack-of-dawn practice," he explained.

  "It’s on my way home," she said.
r />   "Buttcrack," I said.

  "Huh?"

  "Buttcrack-of-dawn practice," I explained.

  "Huh?"

  "Buttcrack … uh, because it sucks to get up so early."

  "Oh."

  This was not what I had in mind at all. Not at all. My first step to being a normal high-school sophomore was down a manhole, on a land mine, off a cliff, Wile E. Coyote–style.

  "Do you want to come in?" asked Scotty

  I was still on the opposite side of the screen.

  "Uh, sure," I said.

  "I was about to get going anyway," said Kelsey.

  Scotty got up and swung the door open. He let her out and me in.

  "See ya," Kelsey said.

  "See ya," Scotty said.

  "Good-bye," I said.

  Scotty and I didn’t say anything until after Kelsey started her car, pulled out of the driveway, and drove off with a honk and a wave. He sat down next to me on the porch swing.

  "So what’s up?"

  "Are you guys going out, or what?"

  He looked shocked. "Who, me and Kelsey? No. No way!" he said, as if he had honestly never considered it. "We’re just friends."

  "That’s not how she sees it."

  "Stop being an a hole. No way."

  Guys are total morons.

  "Scotty, she wants you."

  "Well, I don’t want her," he said matter-of-factly.

  "Fine."

  "Fine."

  I pushed the swing back and forth with my foot.

  "So why did you come over here?" he asked.

  Why did I come over here? Oh, yeah.

  "Are you sure you guys aren’t going out?" I asked.

  He laughed. "I think I would know if we were going out."

  Valid point. I took a deep breath. "Well, you know Bethany is getting married, right?"

  "Is that thing finally happening?"

  "Yeah. The thing is, I kind of need a date because I’m the Maid of Dubious Honor …"

  "Huh?"

  "Maid of Honor," I corrected, opting not to explain the joke. "It’s kind of a high-profile position, I guess. And if I go alone Bethany and my mom said it will look ’conspicuous,’ whatever the hell that means. So I was wondering …"

  "Are you asking me if I’ll be your date to your sister’s wedding?"

  "Well, not my daaaaaate," I said, feigning grade-school disgust. "The guy I go with."

  "Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?"

  "You know what I mean."

  He stopped the swing. "So it’s like a prom. Only with free booze."

  "Yeah. And I’ll be wearing a really ugly yellow dress."

  "Ooooooh, now you’re talking all sexy."

  I like that Scotty and I can joke like this. Scotty is the only boy my parents let me hang out with in my bedroom. Alone, with the door closed. Not that I have tested this by bringing many strange boys home. But one time P.J. came over to work with me on a science project and my parents insisted that he stay in the kitchen. It’s almost as though my parents want me and Scotty to have sex because then they could catch me and punish me for a normal teenagery reason instead of for my vaguely misanthropic behavior.

  "Sure, I’ll go with you."

  And we hugged. I was happy. And I was still happy when I called my sister to tell her the news. She was nicer to me than I can ever remember her being. Amazing, considering I called her a bitch the last time we spoke. And when I told my mom, she just about burst out of her twinset with excitement.

  Everything is going to be okay. Normal.

  the twenty-first

  I wasn’t surprised that the Clueless Crew was beyond thrilled that I had asked Scotty to the wedding.

  "Omigod! You must tell me everything!" said Sara.

  "That’s what I like to see, a woman taking control!" said Manda.

  "We can double date!" said Bridget.

  "¡Viva la revolución!" joked Hy, to the collective confusion of the Clueless Crew.

  And for a few days, I felt like I belonged. That’s why what happened today sucker-punched me in the gut.

  "When is your track season over?" asked Manda after homeroom this morning.

  "Not until June."

  "And you have games every Saturday, right?"

  "Meets," I corrected.

  "Meets, games, whatever," said Manda, waving away the mistake mindlessly with her hand. She was clearly tired of this conversation, and no wonder. I had explained the intricacies of my track schedule whenever a crucial social opportunity popped up.

  "Do you have one this Saturday?"

  "Yes. I have two duals a week, plus a relay, invitational, or championship meet every Saturday."

  "Oh," Manda said, glancing at Hy.

  "Why?"

  "Well, I’m taking them shopping in the city this Saturday …" Hy explained.

  "To look for prom dresses …" said Manda.

  "And other stuff," said Sara, defensively.

  I couldn’t believe it. After all the smack-talk about the Clueless Crew, Hy was willingly hanging out with them? And without my sane brain to bounce off of? Sure, I talked about the Clueless Crew behind their backs and then went out with them on weekends, but that’s because I’ve got history with them. I have to. But Hy is under no such obligation.

  At first, I was cool with it. You don’t even like shopping, remember? And New York City is a dirty, disgusting, dangerous place. But as soon as we got to history class and I saw them going over the New Jersey Transit bus schedule, I felt sick to my stomach. I told Bee Gee that I had to go to the girls’ room, giving him the conspiratorial raising of the eyebrows that implies "feminine problems." The teacher gave me a pass, no questions asked.

  I sprinted to the bathroom. I was so upset, I forgot to give the code as I burst through the door. Uh-oh. When I hit the tiles, I saw three Hoochies slicing up a cloud of cigarette smoke with their pastel-painted talons. One of them was Marcus’s girlfriend, whose synthetic pants were obscenely tight in the crotch.

  "Fuck! It’s just an IQ," grunted Camel Toe when she saw me.

  "Fuck! I just lit that cigarette," griped her friend.

  "What the fuck?" asked the third, murdering me with her black-lined eyes. "Why didn’t you give the fuckin’ code?"

  I apologized for forgetting to say "It’s cool" as I walked in. The code. The fuckin’ code.

  "You better be fuckin’ sorry," said Camel Toe. "You made me waste a fuckin’ cigarette."

  I wasn’t sure where wasting a fuckin’ cigarette fell on the Hoochie brawling scale, but I wasn’t about to find out.

  "I’m sorry," I said as I quickly hightailed it out of there.

  Their whoops and cackles echoed off the walls, loud enough that I could still hear them as I headed back to history class.

  I never get to be alone when I want to.

  A period later, I was still fuming. So I decided to confront Hy. I followed her to her locker, and tried to get some answers as she applied her lip gloss.

  "What’s going on?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You knew I had a meet and planned the trip anyway …"

  "Girl, I must have been trippin’," she said in between puckers. "You’re not mad at me are you? Ain’t no thing."

  I was mad. And hurt. And confused. Since when did I become "no thing" in Hy’s eyes? Since when did I even care?

  "I’m not mad."

  "You better not be. That’s some triflin’ shit."

  I watched her looking at herself in the mirror and a strange feeling passed over me. Stranger than I already felt.

  "What is it?" Hy asked.

  I said the first thing that came to mind.

  "Did you know that when you look in the mirror, that’s not what you really look like? Your image is actually reversed."

  Hy laughed, but it wasn’t a legit ha-ha funny laugh. "Girl, you don’t even know the half of it," she said softly, almost to herself.

  the twenty-fourth

&n
bsp; Scotty called me tonight. We’ve been talking to each other a lot more on the phone since I asked him to the wedding. But tonight’s phone call was different.

  "I think you’re right," he said. "I think Kelsey likes me."

  No kidding. Jesus Christ, I was tired.

  "She booked a room at the Surfside Hotel for post-prom …"

  This was one ballsy phone call. I know that he likes me. So was I still expected to take this conversation at platonic-female-friend face value? I don’t think so. He was doing this just to make me jealous. I have to admit, it was working.

  "She wants to devirginize you, huh?"

  "Gee dee, yeah. I guess."

  I was so tired—of this and everything else.

  "Are you going to let her pop your cherry? Oh, wait. Guys don’t have cherries. Traditionally, it’s the guy who is the popper, not the popee. So what do you a call it when a guy gets touched for the very first time?" I sang the last six words, of course.

  "You make it sound like I’m gonna eff the ess out of her."

  "Well, aren’t you?"

  "I told you I don’t like her."

  "Mutual like isn’t always a prerequisite for fucking the shit out of someone."

  "Gee dee, Jess. Why do you have to put it like that?"

  "You said it, not me."

  "That’s not how I said it."

  "Fine. I guess if you can’t say it, you can’t do it."

  Scotty sighed. "You’re doing this on purpose."

  "I’m not doing anything." My dulcet voice, innocent.

  "Yes you are. You’re pissing me off on purpose."

  "Me? No, you’re doing this on purpose."

  "Doing what?"

  Here it was. My chance to get this thing—this us thing—out in the open. "Trying to make me jealous."

  He sputtered into the receiver. "W-w-why would I try to make you jealous?"

  Get ready. Here it comes. "Because you like me. Because you want me to be your girlfriend again."

  Silence.

  "Did you really think Hope wasn’t going to tell me?"

  More silence. A barely-there groan, maybe.