by Amber Kizer
“No.” Not really. Short of wondering how Jennifer gets her hair to stay like that, it sucked.
“Sucked?” Maggie clarifies.
“Still,” I add. Sucked once, sucked twice. I think it’s safe to say it’s not a gay thing.
“Then it’s simply a bad kiss.” Clarice sounds so confident.
“You think?” I’m still not convinced. Do bad kisses exist? All kisses are good kisses, or aren’t they? I’m stuck just a little on the gay thing. I like looking at the Victoria’s Secret catalog. I even sticky-note pages for exercise motivation. Seriously, what’s the diff between wanting to be that body and wanting to do that body?
“Have plans tomorrow night?” Maggie asks.
“No.” Both Clarice and I answer.
“Come over. I’ll rent all the best-kiss movies and we’ll figure it out,” Maggie says.
Exhale. “I’ll bring junk food.” Screw the waifish models with SUV headlights on their chests, this calls for Reese’s Cups and Twizzlers.
“I’ll bring tunes and gossip mags.” Clarice hangs up.
“Don’t worry, Gert. He’s just a really bad kisser.” Maggie sounds so sure. I wonder if she’s ever kissed him. I hear a click.
“Happy New Year,” I say to dead air. Happy Freakin’ New Year.
“Rise and shine, porcupine!” Mom thinks she’s so clever.
“Time?” It’s not even light out. Have they no courtesy?
“Almost time for the parade. Your brother and Heather will be here soon. I made eggs Benedict.”
Oh, Holy-Mother-of-Food-Poisoning, doesn’t she remember last New Year’s? Does she think we all happened to get sick and fight over porcelain thrones on a whim?
“Great.”
“Mike’s also bringing Krispy Kremes—at his insistence—and I think Heather made her family’s special breakfast casserole.” Mom fluffs the pillow that’s still warm from the head she pulled it out from under.
Thank God Mike has told Heather the truth about this family’s cuisine. When in Rome, bring a picnic. I will surreptitiously throw away my eggs Benedict, make lots of yummy noises and eat donuts instead.
I wander down the stairs. I got about two hours of sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, tongues attacked. I’d wake up gagging and then panic that not only might I not be hetero, I’m anti-tongue. I don’t want to be anti-tongue. That leads to other anti things that will leave me alone and talking to parakeets.
“About time.” Dad thrusts a mug at me. For some reason his idea of me celebrating the new year is drinking coffee with milk and sugar in it. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve been going to Starbucks since I was in first grade. Maybe the caffeine and sugar will burn off the haze of spit clouding my vision.
He peers at my face and I briefly wonder if I have an enormous zit somewhere. “Okay night?”
“Fine.”
He grunts and turns back to the TV.
I hear a car. “I’ll get it.” Mike and donuts to the rescue!
“Hi!” I’m involuntarily loud as I throw open the door. Buttocks! Mustn’t appear too eager to avoid Mom’s cooking.
“Hiya, Gertie.” Mike hands me three large boxes of assorted. “I brought lots of extras, since we get to leave later and you don’t.” He says this last bit under his breath. “Heather’s family is having us over for dinner.”
“Thanks.” I inhale all sorts of artificial molecules and feel slightly more human, thank Goddess. “Hi, Heather.”
She smiles at me and kisses my mom on the cheek. “Thanks for letting me make my family’s traditional breakfast. It means a lot.”
She’s good. Laying it on, but not too thick to be unbelievable. I wonder if she picked a recipe out of the cookbook last night or if she actually planned ahead.
“It smells lovely, dear. And we always love trying something new.”
We do? Have my parents tried anything new in the last decade? Must consider at length later after I swallow half a box of Boston crèmes.
“The parade’s starting.” Dad doesn’t get up from his chair but instead growls in our general vicinity.
I’d love to report scintillating conversation about world issues, or in-depth discussion about the latest bestselling novel, but alas, we all sit, watch the floats and the horses and listen to the same John Williams medley played, with varying degrees of success, by marching bands from all over the country.
I pass out extra paper napkins and put a garbage bag between me and Heather while Mom serves up plates of edible and highly inedible glop. I figure with Heather’s help, we’ll avoid serious puking for dinner.
Who designs band uniforms? It’s an insult to the blind, deaf and mentally disabled to suggest that there’s a commune full of rejects designing band gear to get back at the society that displaced them, but is there any other explanation? No one looks good in triple-ply poly and ten-gallon hats with pom-poms or feathers. I mean, not even the remotely cool drum majors can pull it off. I just spend time feeling sorry for them all.
Tangent: sorry.
Why doesn’t someone stick banders in jeans and white T-shirts? Maybe baseball caps and sunglasses if it’s necessary to accessorize? Go wild and put everyone in matching sneakers, but please not uniforms that get recycled each year to the freshmen. That’s just cruel and unusual, especially since kids are getting bigger and bigger and poly only stretches so far. And yes, I have seen just how far poly can go several times today.
“So, Gert, what are your plans for the rest of break?” Heather doesn’t understand the no-talking thing yet.
I turn my head and speak out of the side of my mouth in a low almost-whisper. “I have a sleepover with some friends and then it’s back to school.”
“That sounds fun.” She smiles and doesn’t lower her volume. Poor girl will need the rules spelled out for her after all. Must e-mail her later and bring her up to speed. Obviously, her boy toy isn’t good on family prep.
As the last horse craps on the parade route, I stand and stretch. “Later, people.” I’m going back to bed. I have serious sleep to make up for. I only feel a teensy bit bad about leaving Mike and Heather to escape on their own. I take the last box of donuts with me—they will be safest in my room, where I can devour them later.
I’m thoroughly enjoying my sleeping emptiness when Mom knocks and pokes her head in. “Gert, honey, your phone keeps ringing. Is it important?”
Don’t you think I’d have answered it if it was important? How stupid do you think I am? I can’t ignore the damn phone to sleep instead? Is there some rule that says the phone must always be answered? I say, revolt, people! Rebel! Let the phones ring!
“Okay, I’ll get it.” I turn over and grope for the phone. “ ’Ello?”
“Gert? It’s two. Why do you sound funny?” Stephen has the gall to act all perky and chipper.
I clear my throat and lie. “Getting sick.” I have no makeup on and I’m sure I’d stink if I were to smell myself.
“Sorry. Sucks.”
There’s a long pause. I’ve momentarily forgotten my script.
“How are you?” I ask, blinking the sugar coating out of my eyes. Fell asleep on the box of donuts.
“Good. Good. You have a good time at the party?”
“Yeah.” Lie numero dos. Oh, Holy-Mother-of-Long-term-Relationshipage, I am doomed. “Lots of people.”
“Jenny’s pretty cool. The guys really liked you,” he says, like I passed the major exam.
“Yeah, liked them.” Ricardo was cool; the rest were a little too drunk to apply adjectives to.
“Ricardo kept going on about you after you left. Should have heard him saying your name. Hilarious.”
Sure. That sounds rocking funny. Apparently, my boyfriend thinks I’m an object of humor and the exchango-mano enjoyed my company. Funny. Real funny. This is why I got a ride home from Maggie’s NYU sister—that and the fact that I was so not riding in a vehicle with drunk Stevie behind the wheel.
“So?” Stephen dr
aws it out.
“So? Family good?” I really should be more attentive. I’m sure I’m not being a good girlfriend.
“They are. Crazy. You see that show this morning?”
“We had to watch the parade.”
“Rose Parade? That’s cool. We were treated to Dr. Phil’s Holiday Family Makeover. My mom TiVo’d it so she could stop it and make us all do the exercises.”
That’s hideous. I thought my mom was the only one who watched bad talk show reruns. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Look, I really like you.”
“I like you, too.”
“I feel all, you know, safe with you, like I could tell you anything.”
Wow, um, really? Because I don’t think I feel that way at all. “Me too,” I say, since the silence kinda demands it.
“So I’m not sure how to say this—”
Oh, Lord, he’s breaking up with me. I sit up and blink in the dark. I’m getting dumped on New Year’s Day. I was a ball-dropping kiss and nothing more.
“I have a small dick.”
What? He did not just say that.
“I’m sorry?” The bacteria on the eggs must be replicating in my brain, causing all sorts of irrevocable brain damage. And ear damage.
“My penis. It’s small,” he says again.
Good God, what the hell do I say? I have to say something. Your tongue makes up for it. I try to laugh a little to break the tension. That makes it worse. Are we really in the place in the relationship where you can fart freely and overshare insecurities? God, that was quick. I thought you had to have sex half a dozen times and do holidays at the other family’s house before you got to be this free.
Must say something supportive and not totally mortified. “I’m sorry.” Think. Think. Is there anything worse for a guy? I don’t know. Think. “Maybe it’s not. I think my boobs are small.” Not really, but I’m so not using the V-word on the phone with a guy I’ve been dating for a couple of months. Besides, I’d be lying if I mentioned my vagina. I have no idea if it’s small or humongous. I’d like to keep the lying to a minimum.
“You think your boobs are small?” he asks.
“Yep.” Brain hemorrhage right now, please. Quick death.
He’s grunting and breathing. “Well, they are a little small. Have you thought about getting a boob job?”
Have you thought about getting your dick expanded? “No, they’re still growing.”
“Oh.” He sounds deflated.
I feel the need to soften my last comment. “I’m sure yours is, too.”
“What?”
“Growing. Your penis. Is still growing.” I’m almost whispering this, hoping my mother isn’t listening for the first time ever at my door. She’ll never believe I’m as shocked as she is. We are not having this conversation. I’m in an E. coli–induced nightmare. I will wake up in a hospital surrounded by balloons and flowers.
“Sometimes, but I don’t think it stays that way.”
This could not get worse. Couldn’t. Must get off the phone. “I have to go. My dad is yelling for me.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure. Later.” Like when I know what to say to you. I just can’t get the image of a teeny-tiny dick out of my head. I don’t want this picture in here. Get it out. Get it out!
I hang up the phone and stare at the ceiling. Did that really happen? Let me be hallucinating.
Please. I am not that lucky.
“How was your New Year’s?” Adam’s much-needed call breaks my small-penis-am-I-gay-inflicted trance.
“Uh.” Language is beyond me.
“What’s that mean?”
“Uh.” The idea of Stephen’s small dick is just painfully mortifying—so is that proof I’m gay? Although frankly, if Stevie was a girl I’d have to kill myself. What does this mean?
Adam waits a second to launch. “Whenever you’re ready, but in the meantime we had a fabulous time. Incredible. Love cuddling. He’s so cute and smells so—”
“I—I—gay?” I stammer.
“What?”
I try again. “Am I gay?” I have to move the phone away or risk the laughter damaging my eardrum.
Adam calms down long enough to ask again, “What?”
“I am not repeating myself.” He so heard me the first time.
“No.” He sounds adamant.
“You’re sure?” Don’t gay people have a sixth sense about these things? I smell gay people or something?
“Why do you ask?”
“Cuz,” I hedge.
“He’s a bad kisser?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re gay, a kiss can be nice but take-it-or-leave-it. Don Juan could kiss you with a millennium of knowledge and you’d ask him to pass the salt.”
“Oh.”
“But if you’re with a bad kisser, your orientation is so not the issue.”
“Oh.” Really? Could it simply be a case of badness? Thank Goddess, or God—the devil even. I’m just happy.
“Stephen lack chops?” Adam wants details.
“His tongue seems abnormally large.”
The cough can’t conceal a laugh. “I’m sure his tongue isn’t setting records for size.” For Adam’s sake, I’m glad he’s not eating right now, because he’d so be needing a long-distance Heimlich.
“And that’s the other thing.”
“What?”
“Size.” I can’t even bring myself to repeat this. It sounds like bad reality TV even in my head.
“Of his tongue?” Adam sounds confused and frustrated. Not that I blame him. I’m not Miss Articulate at the moment.
“Are you happy with your size?”
“Of my tongue?”
“Your codpiece,” I clarify with what little dignity I have left.
“My what?”
“Your dick.” Oh my Lord, I am reverting to a nine-year-old wannabe Pops language.
“My dick? Am I happy with the size of my penis? You want to know—”
“No. Forget I asked. I don’t really want to know. But are you?” My face is burning. I hate being a girl. We are so unprepared for genital insecurity. We’re too covert for this.
“I’m not throwing myself on any swords.”
“Meaning what?” Please, now he gets all cryptic. Spell it out for me.
“I’m about average, I guess. Maybe a little more. Nice size when erect. Nothing I’m worried about. Where does this come from?”
“Stephen called me.”
“And said what?”
“He’s uncomfortable with his … size.” And I know I’m totally perverse, but all I can think about is the baby boy I babysat whose teeny-tiny didn’t seem to matter when he peed all over me. Never change a boy’s diaper. Let them sit in it. Or bring a change of shirt for when they decide to engage in water sports.
“He did not. I am not falling for this crap. You have to be joking.”
“Have I ever in my life joked about penis size?” Knock-knock jokes, an occasional ironic comment, sarcasm, yes. But a shtick about sticks? Not my style. “I’m not kidding. Honestly.”
“Swear on the Barbie you mutilated.”
“I swear on Barbie’s double mastectomy, I am not kidding.”
“Oh my God.”
There’s a long uncomfortable silence.
“Adam?”
“Yeah.”
“You there?”
“Hmm. Trying to figure out what to say.” He sounds as blown away as I feel.
“Is it as weird as I think it is?”
Adam hmphs. “How long have you been going out?”
“Almost two months.”
“Yeah, it’s a little odd.”
“I mean, do guys talk like that? I thought you were supposed to be all silent and hard to figure out even after years of marriage.”
“Well.”
“Breathe, Gert, breathe.”
I gasp for air, but with a little oxygen, I get going again. “We’ve kissed. Once his tongue touched my spleen, but that’s it. Shouldn’t we date long enough to, I don’t know, meet each other’s families before the issue of dick size is even raised? Isn’t that something that should be talked about in marriage counseling before the divorce? I bring up how small it is, and how he can’t use it, and he makes cracks about size not mattering, but then when it gets down to it, he’s been ashamed of the small size all his life?”
“You’ve been watching too much Lifetime Television.”
“I have not.”
“I guess it’s good to know now.” Obviously Adam is reaching.
“How so?”
“Well, if dating a horse is something you aspire to, then you need to look in a different stable. Saves time.” He’s chuckling. I can’t believe it. He’s finding humor in this.
This is not funny. “This is not funny.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.” Okay, it’s a little funny. I swallow a chortle.
“Yeah, it is. Very.” Adam giggles.
I giggle. I hate growing up. I am not prepared for this crap.
Adam says something and then repeats it. “Did you”—pause for gasp of air—“did you reassure him?”
Tears stream down my face. I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts. “I don’t remember. Isn’t that horrible? I don’t know what I said.” I am the worst girlfriend in the world.
“Maybe he wanted you to convince him. You know, check it out and pronounce it worthy.”
“That’s as likely as me having sex in a room full of people.”
“He doesn’t know that. Maybe it’s a new line.”
“Maybe he thinks dating means actually being honest about all that.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“I don’t want to know. I want to kiss and cuddle and have someone to go to dances with. It was nice having a guy on New Year’s.”