Sloppy Firsts

by Megan Mccafferty

  the twenty-ninth

  The date of Bridget’s return came and went and I didn’t hear from her.

  Or the next day.

  Or the day after that.

  Today, Bridget finally called. By then I had already heard via Sara about how her appearance was considered "too apple-pie Americana" and "not edgy enough" by every talent scout in Hollywood, and how her agent wanted her to drop Bridget Milhokovich for a more attention-grabbing stage name like "Bridge Milhouse," "Gette Miller," or "Bebe" (no last name, just Bebe). But I was too pissed off to enjoy a good laugh over any of that. Obviously, confirming Burke’s fidelity wasn’t as big a priority as I thought it was. All my anxiety was for nothing.

  "Hey! I’m back!"

  "So I hear."

  "Sorry that I haven’t called you or anything, but I’ve been like, way busy, you know unpacking and stuff," she said.

  "Uh-huh."

  "And I had to like, readjust to East-Coast time."

  "Uh-huh."

  I was waiting for her to finish making excuses and get down to the real issue at hand: Did Burke bang anyone this summer?

  "And you know, Burke and I have been busy," she said. "Like, reuniting."

  Here it comes, I thought. I got ready to tell her the truth: The only girls Burke hung out with all summer were Manda, Sara, and me. Okay. So it wasn’t the whole truth. When Bridget blew me off, she blew her shot at being set 100 percent straight. Let her find out the ugly truth by herself. Leave me out of it.

  Looks like the fine line between lie and not telling the truth turned out to be irrelevant. Bridget wasn’t interested in the truth at all: she never asked for it. Why should she when the fictionalized Burke offers her everything she ever wanted in her relationship and more?

  Burke has been so sweet to me! Like, I can tell he really missed me all summer! I think he was worried I was going to run off with like, Brad Pitt or something! He was waiting at the airport with a dozen roses and a big box of Jujyfruits, my favorite! We would’ve totally started going at it like, right on the floor of the airport if my parents hadn’t been there! This summer was tough, but soooooo good for us! It made us appreciate each other more than ever. Moremushygushymushygushymushygushgarbage!

  I can’t believe I was actually feeling bad about the idea of B. and B. breaking up.

  They deserve each other. And as much as I am amused by the concept of watching the Clueless Crew lie to each other all year, the reality of all the bitchy backstabbing that is bound to occur makes me less excited about being a junior than ever.

  September 1st

  Hope,

  Matthew Michael Darling died twenty years ago today. Although our situations are very different, I know you can relate.

  I’m mourning him in a weird way: by trying on my back-to-school clothes.

  I tried them on in my bedroom to see if I still looked like me when I wore them outside the dressing room. I tucked the tags up in the sleeve. Cutting them off meant commitment. And I was uncomfortable making that commitment because I felt like I was never going to wear them outside my bedroom. I felt as if they’d always be unfamiliar articles of clothing with no memories attached.

  What would my mom do with them if I died? I can’t ask her. Especially today.

  Actually, is there an appropriate time to ask that question?

  Every year girls like Sara wear their flyest fall clothes on the first day of school. They get all decked out like the September covers of YM and Seventeen in their turtleneck sweaters and wool miniskirts and boots, despite the fact that it’s still eighty-five degrees outside. I used to think that they just wanted to show off how stylish they were. But maybe I’m not the only one afraid that I’ll never get a chance to wear them.

  I doubt it.

  I know this is stupid, but every time I go back-to-school shopping, I always imagine that my purchases will bring me a new-and-improved life. Like that new T-shirt or lipstick will finally make Paul Parlipiano realize how amazing and offbeat I am. Only I don’t even have Paul Parlipiano to hope for anymore.

  Now what will I do to try to get my mind off the fact that you’re gone?

  Quixotically yours, J.

  september

  the third

  I was lounging under the covers, bittersweetly enjoying my last Sunday morning free of school-on-Monday dread, when Bridget came bursting through my bedroom door.

  "Everything was a lie!" she shrieked.

  Wow, I thought. I knew Sara would spill about Burke and Manda, but I expected her to hold out longer than this.

  "Like, everything about Hy was a lie!"

  "What?"

  "There’s an article about her in today’s New York Times!" Bridget yelled, waving a newspaper in my face.

  "What?!"

  "See for yourself!"

  I wiped the sleep crust out of my eyes and took the paper from Bridget. There, on the front page of the "Styles" section, was a picture of a very bored-looking Hy, chin in one hand, cigarette in the other. The caption read: Will Cinthia Wallace Be Gen-Y’s Literary "It" Girl?

  "Cinthia Wallace?!"

  "That’s what the Park Avenue Posse calls her," Bridget said.

  "Park Avenue Posse?!"

  "It gets worse," Bridget said, nervously twisting her ponytail around her hand.

  I read on, and finally found out the truth about Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace.

  Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Wisteria Allegra-Wallace and banking billioniare Nicholas Wallace, who divorced when she was four years old. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, "the cream of the crop of the hip-hop debutantes who zoom through their young lives at warp speed." Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, who, at thirteen, was caught by her nanny at her father’s Park Avenue penthouse having sex with an underwear model twice her age. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, "clubber, raver, precocious party girl," asked to leave no less than six chi-chi private schools for smoking, drinking, and drugging. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, who, by sixteen, "was bored by champagne, cocaine, promiscuous sex, and Prada." Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, who "craved the normal life she never had" and decided to move in with a "normal" family acquaintance (a former maid) and attend a "normal" public high school in a "normal" town in New Jersey just to see what "normal" girls her age were like. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, who claims that she was shocked to discover that these "normal" New Jersey girls were "just as superficial and sex-crazed as the girls in the Park Avenue Posse—only severely challenged fashion-wise." Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, who just snagged six figures to write her first novel, which she hopes will give her the credibility she needs to get accepted to Harvard on merit, instead of on money and family name. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, whose fictionalized account of her "normal" New Jersey experience is tentatively titled (GASP!) Bubble-Gum Bimbos and Assembly-Line Meatballers.

  "Bubble-Gum Bimbos!"

  "I know! It’s like, totally horrible!" Bridget yelled right back. "She’s calling us bubble-gum bimbos!"

  My stomach spun around faster than the Himalaya ride on Funtown Pier. Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace wasn’t the first one to refer to the Clueless Crew as bubble-gum bimbos. She stole the title from that conversation we had at her house over spring break. Then I thought: What if she writes about the conversation we had at her house over spring break? What if she writes about me? What if I’m lumped in with the bubble-gum bimbos?

  Bridget read my mind. "Can she do this? Can she write about us? Is she like, gonna write about us?"

  I couldn’t answer her. I was speechless.

  Within a half hour, Manda and Sara had arrived on the scene. It was the first time all four of us had been in the same room together since school let out. Only now we were joined by an elephant named MandabangedBurkeallsummer that stood quietly in the corner while we all ranted and raved about Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace. It went something like this:

  Sara: Omigod! I should’ve known. I had a
hunch she came from money, too.

  Manda: I should’ve known. Virgin Mary? Puh-leeze.

  Bridget: I should’ve known. Like, I sort of felt we were being used somehow.

  Me: I should’ve known. Her street slang never sounded right.

  After hours of Hy-steria, the apex was a hilarious conversation about the ethics of friendship. It went something like this:

  Sara: Omigod! How could Hy lie to us like that? She was our friend. Friends don’t lie to each other.

  Manda: Grrrrrrr … I can’t stand liars! Liars are the lowest of the low!

  Bridget: I’d take the ugly truth over a lie any day. Like, at least you know where you stand.

  Manda and Sara: So true!

  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Junior year sure is starting off with a bang. More like a gunshot through the back of the head.

  the fifth

  I’ve imagined Marcus Flutie in many places.

  I’ve imagined him sneaking up on me on my walk home from school.

  I’ve imagined him hitchhiking on Route 9 in the rain.

  I’ve imagined him in a bar years from now, ordering me a beer for old time’s sake.

  I never imagined him sitting in his assigned seat in homeroom this morning.

  Or sitting right in back of me in History.

  Or English.

  Or Physics.

  But that’s where he was. Again and again and again. And that’s where he’ll be—because he’s back.

  Leave it to Marcus to outdo the Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace scandal. All morning everyone was wondering, Why the hell is the school’s biggest drug addict in our honors classes? Why isn’t Krispy Kreme with the Dregs where he belongs? And why is he wearing a jacket and tie?

  Of course, no one would dare open their mouths to ask him. And our teachers were no help. Once they acknowledged him during roll call (Sara D’Abruzzi … Jessica Darling … Marcus Flutie …) they ignored his presence altogether. For his part, Marcus just sat quietly and mysteriously in his seat. He knew that the longer he kept his mouth shut, the more mythological the PHS legend of his return would be. I couldn’t even look at him, let alone talk to him. If I looked at him, I just knew I’d break out into a nervous, neo-Saint-Vitus’ herky-jerky.

  Our alphabetical destiny guarantees that he sits behind me in every class, and I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head all day. I could feel it so intensely that I swear he was trying to tell me his story telepathically: I’m back, Cuz. I told you I wouldn’t narc on you. But I didn’t pick up on any signals. By our third silent class together, it was clear that Marcus wasn’t going to say a word to me. I appreciated his stealth and understood that it was meant to protect me. Yet Marcus sitting six inches, yet a bizillion miles, away was bamboo-under-the-fingernails-variety torture. Especially when he wouldn’t stop jiggling my chair with his feet. My seat vibrated all day.

  Sara was pissed off at herself for having missed out on not one but two of the biggest Pineville High scandals of all time. Since the New York Times had already scooped her on Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace, Sara took it upon herself to find out everything about Marcus’s return. And by God, if she didn’t redeem herself by getting the lowdown by lunchtime, she’d contemplate taking on another extracurricular activity other than gossiping. Of course, not even Sara could procure the bit of information I needed most: the message inside the origami mouth. Still, Sara’s nosy tenacity makes her useful to have around sometimes.

  "Omigod! You’re not going to believe this!" she said. "Krispy Kreme is a quote genius unquote."

  Apparently, the staff at Middlebury were flummoxed by Marcus’s complex philosophical takes on his self-destruction. So much so, that they ordered a battery of intelligence tests to see if he was gifted or just plain insane. It turned out to be the former: His scores put him in the top 2 percent of the population. The staff concluded that Marcus wasn’t being challenged in school, which is why he turned to drugs for amusement. With the support of his parole officer, Mr. and Mrs. Flutie threatened to sue the school system that had mislabeled him as a troubled kid way back in elementary school, and therefore did not encourage him to develop his many gifts. The administration caved, let him back in school, and placed him in our honors classes.

  "He won’t be bothering us for long, though," Sara said, smugly.

  "Why?" I asked, a bit too concerned.

  "If he’s caught engaging in any illegal activity, he’s out for good," she said.

  "What makes you so sure he will?"

  "Get real," Manda said. "Like he’s gonna go straight-edge just so he can have the pleasure of sitting in our Physics class all year."

  "Maybe he will, Manda," I said, wishing it were true. "Maybe he wants to turn his life around."

  "Jess?"

  "Yes?"

  "Puh-leeze."

  Puh-leeze. Please. Please, Marcus, please. If not for you, then for me.

  the seventh

  In the past week, I’ve received no fewer than two dozen urgent E-mails from nycinthiahotmail.com. I’ve sent every single one into the trash, unopened. Any message from Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace is more treacherous than the I Love You virus.

  Still, every time I log on, I hope that in addition to my daily dose of Hope, there will be an E-mail in my inbox from a sender named krispykreme36hotmail.com, containing a message that is cryptic, yet significant. Something like …

  I have no idea. I can’t even get inside Marcus’s mind long enough to make something up. Maybe that’s why I can’t hear what he says to me in my dreams. For the past few nights I’ve been having almost the same dream. The setup is identical: Marcus and I are sitting side by side on the cot in the nurse’s office. His mouth is moving. He’s saying something but I can’t hear him because there’s too much noise drowning him out.

  The noise is part of the dream that changes from night to night. The first time it was PHS football fans chanting in the bleachers: PINE-ville! PINE-ville! PINE-ville! The second time it was a stereo blasting a medley of treacly hits from the Backstreet Boys’ first CD: "As Long As You Love Me," "All I Have To Give," and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)." Last night it was the boardwalk’s buzzers and bells.

  The point is, if there is any secret message, I’m not meant to find it out. And he’s certainly not going to tell me. It’s only been two days, but I know that this is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year, or for as long as Marcus can stay on the level and in our honors classes.

  the tenth

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Of all my twisted fantasies, why oh why did this one come true?

  After falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow all summer, it took less than a week of school to restart my insomniac streak. Granted, as far as the first weeks of school go, mine were unbeatably bizarre. Every night I lay wide awake, trying to figure out what would be the next mind-blowing thing to happen—a slight variation on the bad-things-happen triptych.

  Tonight I got my answer.

  At about three-thirty this morning, I knew there was no chance I would fall asleep before sunrise. So I decided to go for a run in the dark, like I have dozens of times before, just not since the end of my sophomore year. Thankfully, it was as cathartic as ever. With each step, I felt more at ease with everything that was going on.

  Maybe that’s why something had to go wrong. I was only about a tenth of a mile away from my house when it happened: I tripped over an exposed tree root in the sidewalk and twisted into the pavement, ankle first. It was exactly how I had tried to orchestrate it last spring, only my dad wasn’t there to hit me with his bike.

  Or help me.

  The pain in my right ankle was blindingly immediate. No way hydrogen peroxide would fix me up this time.

  I literally baby-hopped home on my left foot. I cried every inch of the way. When I hopped through the back door of my house, I called out for help. My parents stumbled down the stairs in their pajamas and fre
aked out when they found me on the floor of the kitchen, my ankle blown up like a purple balloon. They thought I had been kidnapped and beaten or something. When I explained through my tears that no, I had snuck out in the middle of the night to go running all on my own, they really freaked out.

  They rushed me to the ER. I was given a major painkiller that made me feel like I was moving in syrup. I don’t remember much about getting X rays or my cast.

  Later at home, my mom read the doctor’s word-for-word diagnosis, as she had transcribed it on a yellow legal pad in the ER: I fractured both my tibia and fibula bones where they join at the ankle. This requires complete immobilization in a cast for six weeks, and it will take months of physical therapy and maybe even surgery to heal properly. My stability will never be the same.

  My mom told me all this because my dad isn’t speaking to me.

  I can hear him ranting and raving to my mother behind their closed bedroom door, though. How could she be so careless? This is the year college coaches look at for awarding athletic scholarships! She’s blown it! She could have been a superstar! What a waste of talent!

  So it looks like my dream has come true. I ended my running career. Of course now that it’s happened, I can’t believe I ever wanted it in the first place.

  the eleventh

  I knew my parents were taking this all too well. Mom had been too quiet and concerned for my health. Even Dad’s rant was nowhere near as intense as I thought it would be. It turns out they were just waiting for the heavy narcotics to wear off so they could inflict some major parental pain on me when they got home from work today.

  I was in my room, listening to the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, when I heard three short, sharp knocks on my door. They came in. Dad told me to shut off the stereo. They sat down on the bed, flanking me on either side. The wrinkle in Mom’s forehead was more pronounced than usual. My dad’s hands were tightly clasped, barely containing his anger, his bald head gleaming with sweat.