“What about them? Why would you rat yourself out to the chairwoman of SYFM? Then you’ll be stuck with it forever.” Jennifer was astonished by her friend’s naiveté.
“I guess you’re right, but they’re my parents. Don’t I have to tell them?”
SYFM stood for Save Yourself for Marriage, a teen support group advocating abstinence that Betsy had helped establish at their church. Grace’s mother seemed convinced that monthly meetings in which she and the pastor talked about virginity being the ultimate gift of love to one’s future spouse would be enough to keep a bunch of horny teenagers from gifting and regifting each other in the backs of cars and boats all around Silver Lake. Well intentioned but seemingly trapped in some 1950s health class film, Betsy actually believed that all twenty-six members of the group, boys and girls, were saving it for their wedding nights, when in fact only Grace, until six weeks ago at least, and four others, two of whom probably couldn’t have gotten laid if they stood naked in the middle of Main Street, had actually taken the vow to heart.
“Exactly. They’re your parents, the Super Christians, and they would never let you get rid of it. As much as they’d hate it, they’d make you keep it. So if you don’t want to spend the next eighteen years staring at the five minutes of bad judgment that ruined your life, you’d better keep your baby news to yourself. We can handle this on our own, and then it will be like nothing ever happened. Betsy and Brad don’t need to know everything that goes on in your life just because they’re your parents.” Jennifer found it hard to believe that as smart as Grace was when it came to calculus and chemistry, she was just that dumb when it came to real life.
“I’m not sure I can keep such a big secret from them. Besides, if I’m not going to tell them, then why would I tell Nick?”
If she and Jennifer could make this problem disappear without anyone else ever having to find out, then perhaps someday it would be like it had never really happened. To be able to erase this chapter from her life story was an incredibly appealing prospect.
Trying to keep her growing impatience out of her voice, Jennifer explained the situation. “Do you have a few hundred dollars for an abortion lying around? I’m broke since my parents started making me chip in for gas, and last time I checked, Habitat for Humanity was a volunteer job, so I’m guessing your pockets are empty, too. Nick has to know, because he’s going to pay for the doctor. Get it? But nobody else needs to be in on your dirty little secret.”
“You’re right about the money — I’ve got nothing.” Grace’s parents didn’t believe in giving their daughter an allowance when they already provided her with the necessities, and Grace hadn’t been allowed to get a paying summer job because she needed to focus on college applications and volunteer work. “But what if Nick doesn’t have the money, and what if he wants me to keep it?” She couldn’t shake that white picket fence fantasy with Nick playing the doting husband and father, no matter how absurd she knew it was.
“Really? You believe a guy who thinks with his dick is suddenly going to turn into Father of the Year?” As harsh as she knew she sounded, Jennifer wanted to knock some sense into Grace before she fell too far down the rabbit hole.
“I guess, but I still think I have to tell my parents. They’ll know something’s wrong. It’ll come out in the end, somehow, so I might as well get it over with.”
Keeping a secret this major from her mother and father seemed impossible. Parents had the right to know everything about their children’s lives, didn’t they? Grace wanted to believe that in spite of her parents’ strict, somewhat prehistoric views on premarital sex, their love for their only child would overcome their prejudices. She was their baby — their love for her was unconditional. Hate the sin but love the sinner, and all that. It had to be that way.
“Fine. It’s your funeral, Grace. But consider yourself warned. Life isn’t that simple, and parents are just regular people, full of flaws and prejudices and lots of good old righteous anger. So don’t expect too much from them. Trust me: you’ll be disappointed.” Even as she pointed out the pitfalls that awaited, Jennifer hoped she wasn’t right, but she had a bad feeling that her prediction was going to be directly on target.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Grace whispered, knowing in her heart that Jennifer was rarely wrong, and feeling even more alone and confused than she had before she’d spilled her dark secret.
“I hope so, too,” Jennifer whispered back, wiping away the tears that were rolling down her own cheeks.
CHAPTER 2
Waking at 10:30 the following morning, Grace pressed her hand against her stomach, halfway expecting to feel her uninvited guest pushing back. Each day was one day closer to an ending she hadn’t figured out yet, and this uncertainty about what to do next was a sensation she wasn’t used to. Grace was the kind of person who always had everything all figured out.
She contemplated pulling the sheet over her head and going back to sleep for the rest of the day. As agitated as she was, she was also exhausted, and sleep was a welcome escape from her bulging new reality. In her dreams, Grace was still her old self, a zit on her nose being a major tragedy, breaking out in hives about a history exam even though she knew she was going to ace it. Life at seventeen had seemed so complicated before. The issue of what to wear to school or out to the movies, should she cut her hair or let it grow, red nail polish or purple. There had been so many decisions to make, decisions that seemed to matter: her happiness had actually hinged on picking the right pair of shoes. Now the easy perfection of her old life made Grace want to weep — pretty much everything made her want to weep — her life had been so ridiculously simple and she hadn’t appreciated it for a second. Her world had collapsed, and there was no going back, no matter how hard she cried or how many times she threw up, and nothing would ever be simple again. In the last few weeks, she felt as if she’d lived three lifetimes.
The doorbell sound effect on her phone roused her from her miserable reverie. Maybe Nick was texting her to apologize. Maybe he had a good reason for blowing her off all summer. Maybe … not. It was Jennifer. MEET ME AT JOE’S.
“Two coffees, please, milk, no sugar, and two sesame seed bagels with nothing on them.” Grace had been placing this same order for the past three years, since they’d entered high school and decided that they were too old to order chocolate milk.
“Make that one decaf and one regular,” Jennifer corrected. “Caffeine’s not good for the baby,” she whispered in Grace’s ear.
“But ….” Grace couldn’t understand why Jennifer was suddenly worried about the bean’s health when she was pushing Grace to get rid of it as soon as possible.
“Just in case,” Jennifer said.
Not at all sure that Grace had it in her to go through with the quick and dirty solution to her little problem, Jennifer thought it didn’t hurt to play it safe. There was a baby in there somewhere, or there almost was.
The two girls sat on a bench in the park, sipping coffee and gnawing on their breakfast, just as they had so many times before, but as with everything else, today was different. Everyone who walked by was pregnant, or pushing a stroller, or holding hands with a kid. There were little people everywhere, and they all seemed to be wailing, snot streaming out of their miniature noses. Grace wasn’t sure whether she simply hadn’t noticed those things before, or this was just the beginning of the vast karmic joke that had become her life, and all the ironies of her situation would now be displayed before her at every opportunity. A wave of nausea washed over her, and she took several deep breaths, clenching her teeth until it passed.
“So?” Jennifer prompted, facing Grace, sitting with her feet tucked under her, as if waiting to hear a bedtime story.
“So what?” Grace knew what Jennifer was asking, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to put it on the record yet, to describe all the lame-brained things she had done that had led to this horrible place.
“Aren’t you going to tell me how it happened?” Jennifer asked.
Her curiosity was eating away at her, and she assumed that Grace would want to talk about it. Wasn’t catharsis supposed to be good for the soul? Besides, there had to be way more to this story than Grace suddenly deciding she wanted to live life in the fast lane.
“Well, the boy takes his boy part and puts it in the girl’s girl part ….” Grace’s closed lips smiled, just barely.
She really did want to tell Jennifer about that night, but she was sure her friend would lose all respect for her, maybe even want nothing to do with her for so casually abandoning her dignity. At this moment, Grace wanted nothing to do with herself.
“I’m glad you at least have the basics down. Now stop it. I want to know how he managed to cross the moat and storm the castle. You’re not one of those dimwitted, insecure girls who gets talked out of her clothes by the first boy who says that she’s pretty and that nobody else understands him.” Jennifer was growing impatient. “What made you decide that July second was freaking opposite day?”
“It’s really pretty simple. I was a moron, and I talked myself into having sex with him. That’s how it happened.” Even though Jennifer was her closest friend in the whole world who knew almost every secret Grace had ever carried, Grace still had enough pride to be ashamed. “I can’t say it was his fault. He didn’t hold me down or anything.”
“You’re not getting away with that. You need to talk about it. What made him so special? Besides the obvious.”
Like an amateur detective, Jennifer was determined to figure out the mystery of the lost virgin. As hot as Nick was, it still didn’t make sense that Grace would drop her knickers on the third date. Jennifer could never imagine being desperate enough to do naked gymnastics with some random guy in the back seat of a dark car, no matter how hot he was. Not that any guy had ever come close to asking.
Knowing that Jennifer had been out on exactly one date in high school, Grace never talked to her best friend about her own dating experiences. Jennifer was pretty, but there was something about her that sent guys screaming in the opposite direction. Maybe it was her mouth, which felt compelled to say whatever she was thinking, even if it was rude, or maybe it was because she had no patience for anyone who wasn’t as smart as she was, which meant she was impatient with pretty much everyone.
“Somehow I just felt different that night, like I was the last virgin in our class, and that I was just tired of being the good girl who never did anything on a whim, who always researched everything and made thoughtful, mature decisions. I wanted to be young, instead of always being middle-aged and responsible. I thought he liked me, and I needed to do what he wanted so he would stay interested, and then my life would change. Blah, blah, blah.” It didn’t make much sense to Grace either, now. But at the time, it had felt perfectly logical and right.
“Your life changed, all right. But that kind of thinking is so not you.” Jennifer placed her hand on Grace’s forehead, feeling for a fever.
“I was tired of being a geek. Haven’t you ever felt that way?” Grace assumed that Jennifer considered herself a card-carrying nerd as well — if you did really well in school and were lousy at sports, what other label was there?
“No, I’ve never felt that way. Just because we’re co-captains of the math team doesn’t mean we’re geeks. I resent that.” Jennifer crossed her arms defensively. Intelligence was a gift, not a curse, and Jennifer had the foresight to understand that in ten years the head cheerleader who studiously ignored her now would probably be answering the telephone and making copies at the law firm where Jennifer would be an up-and-coming young associate with a window office and a Porsche. High school was just a brief layover before real life started. “Someday you and I are going to be running the world while all those idiots who rule the school are going to be working for minimum wage and spending their weekends flipping through their yearbooks, dreaming about the good old days.”
“I know you’re right, but it’s hard to think about life so far in the future. When he looked at me, I could see myself as important right now. It was a stupid reason to give it up, but it’s the truth.”
“But in your heart you knew it was a load of bullshit, because otherwise you would’ve told me about your pretend love affair the day he asked you out. He scammed you, and then you scammed yourself.”
As much as Grace knew she deserved having Jennifer tear her a new one, it was hard to listen. “I guess so, but it didn’t register when I was in the middle of it, when he was unhooking my bra.”
Jennifer snorted. “That’s ridiculous. A sudden attack of uncontrollable horniness? Isn’t that a guy thing?”
“I know — it makes no sense. But what difference does it make why I did it, at this point? I’ve still got this bean inside of me, my parents will still hate me, and I still want to jump off a cliff.”
“Because I think you’ll feel better if you talk about it. Besides, I’m your best friend, and I need to know so I don’t get talked into the same shit storm by some guy who knows exactly where to put his finger.” Both Grace and Jennifer knew there was no danger of that happening anytime soon. Jennifer picked up Grace’s hand and held it to her own chest, whispering, “And don’t you say you want to die. Ever. You can’t leave me alone to finish high school.”
Thank goodness for Jennifer, thought Grace as she squeezed her eyes shut to push back the tears that were never too far from the surface. Was it just a side effect of her hormones working overtime, or was her whole life just so overwhelming? “All right. I’ll talk about it. But no judging … out loud, at least. I’ve already sentenced myself to life without parole, so you don’t need to remind me what a fuckup I am.”
“Not a word. I’ll keep all my rude comments to myself. I promise.” Jennifer crossed her heart and blew Grace a kiss.
“Everything about him was completely normal and so nice. I really thought he liked me. I can see you rolling your eyes.” Grace playfully punched Jennifer’s arm, almost spilling her coffee. “He kissed me goodnight both times and that was all. He didn’t try anything else.” Grace paused and squinted at Jennifer who sat expressionless next to her. “Don’t you have anything to say yet?”
“You just told me not to say anything. I was following orders,” Jennifer said.
“It’s not working for me. You always have something to say, and when you don’t, it feels like you’re not listening. Give me your comments so far.” Grace braced herself for the inevitable lecture on falling for a cheesy line.
“Fine. It sounds like he was behaving himself … until he wasn’t. Even sexual predators can have good manners. Did he kiss with tongue?” Jennifer wasn’t kidding about getting all the details.
Grace blushed and made a face. “Not on the first date, but on the second. Is that significant? If I’d kept my lips together, maybe I wouldn’t be in this fix?”
“No, don’t be silly. I was just curious. I assume he was a good kisser.” Anybody who looked like Nick had to be blessed with talented lips as well. It was usually a package deal.
“Unbelievable.” Unconsciously she licked her lips as she remembered his tongue exploring her mouth. Her entire body had felt as if it were about to spontaneously combust. She had never known such a sensation existed, and now she was regretting that she had felt it with a guy like Nick. How amazing it would be to discover that kind of nirvana with a guy who thought of her as more than a place to park his junk for five minutes.
“That good, huh?” Not ever having experienced that sensation herself, Jennifer was still skeptical. It was nearly impossible to imagine how a little lump of flesh covered with tiny bumps could be that powerful. And in an elaborate rationalization to protect her own hulking ego from the lack of male interest, Jennifer had decided that all high school guys were drooling morons who didn’t deserve to put their tongues anywhere
near hers.
“Beyond. Anyway, that was it. Two dates, pretty much rated G, PG at most. I don’t know why date number three went at warp speed.” Grace worrie
d that she had somehow unintentionally communicated to him that she wanted more, and he was simply accommodating her. Honestly, she could hardly remember the sequence of events on that fateful evening.
“They say the third time is a charm,” Jennifer offered. “So, is he a turtleneck or a crewneck?”
“What are you talking about? He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Who wears a turtleneck in July?”
“I’m not talking about what he was wearing,” Jennifer said slowly, tilting her head slightly.
“Then what ….”
“I’m talking about his other head. Is he a turtleneck or a crew?” Pulling the neck of her T-shirt up over her head and then down to illustrate, Jennifer burst out laughing. “Sorry, but it is kind of funny.”
“Oh. That’s disgusting. I don’t know what he looks like down there. I didn’t examine it or anything.” After the third kiss, Grace had closed her eyes, not opening them until it was all over. His private parts could have been covered in red, white, and blue stripes for all Grace knew. “You’re sick. Have you ever seen one up close?”
“It’s called a penis, Grace. I think by this point you should be on a first name basis with it.”
“You’re avoiding the subject. Have you ever seen one, smartass?” It was time to give Jennifer a taste of her own medicine.
Barely able to keep a straight face, Jennifer said, “Sure, plenty of times.”
“When? Who? Now you’re holding out on me.” Still waters apparently ran deep.
“My six-month-old cousin, every time I babysit and I change his diaper. By the way, he’s a crewneck,” Jennifer said between giggles.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Just trying to lighten the mood. I’m sorry I interrupted. Please continue your story.” Jennifer took an imaginary key and locked her lips.
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