I hated what I’d done to Kerry, but I pushed it into a dark recess where actions had no consequences. It was a thing I’d done, but the necklace would soon be back in proper hands, and the actual letter was something nobody could possibly take seriously. The movie for the night was a romance slightly more adult than we usually went for, which initially prompted a lot of talk. We were rarely quiet when we watched a movie together—someone was always interjecting an opinion, laughing at the stupidity of a character, or guessing at the ending. But after watching one scene where the woman was shown topless and a sex scene unfolded beneath the sheets, Maggie and Carly were uncharacteristically quiet. Nobody reached for the popcorn bowl or uttered a word. The fact that the Kitty Committee focused on friendship rather than boys had always been a huge relief to me—I was far from being ready for boys. But for a group of hormonally appropriate teenage-girls, we talked a lot less about sex than one might expect, surprising even me and leaving me to wonder why the subject was off limits or not at least a priority.
“Have you ever kissed a boy?” I blurted out, breaking the awkward silence.
“Umm, yeah!” Maggie snorted out a laugh, to which Carly responded in kind.
“What’s so funny?” I didn’t know much about Maggie and Carly’s past. I knew that Maggie liked someone and kind of had a boyfriend in the eighth grade, the year she lived next door to Jane. I knew Maggie liked someone else her freshman year of high school, but he turned out to be a jerk who dumped her. But I’d never heard too much about Carly’s experiences with boys.
“Carly’s gone all the way.” Maggie’s impish smile turned into a leering smirk.
“What?” I’d have been less shocked to learn Carly had robbed a bank. Who was this boy who must have played a somewhat major role in Carly’s life and yet was never discussed?
“I fucked Rich Benson,” Carly said, still unable to control her giggles.
“I thought you hated him.”
“I do. I did. I just wanted to see what he’d be like. And I was tired of being a virgin.”
“It was at a party,” Maggie said. “Freshman year.”
“What was . . . he like?” I wasn’t sure how a person could be judged other than maybe if he had bad breath or was cute.
“Little dick,” Carly said. “And he didn’t even know what to do with the little he had.”
Would I know what to do with what I had? And what exactly did I have? How did Carly know? Was she just born knowing? And how had she escaped pregnancy and venereal disease? There were so many things I wanted to know but was too embarrassed to ask. Sex was a frontier I hadn’t even considered exploring.
“How about you, Grace? Have you ever kissed a boy?” Maggie asked. By then, the movie had been forgotten and only served as background noise.
“Yeah, Grace. Enquiring minds want to know.” Carly sidled up beside me and started to tickle me, with Maggie quickly joining in. Soon, I was robbed of my breath by heaving gulps of laughter so intense they were one step away from tears.
“Stop!” I pleaded half-heartedly. It was torture and pleasure, as tickling often is.
“We’ll stop if you tell us everything.” Maggie’s face was pink with hilarity, and her smile, always contagious, pushed her cheeks apart.
“Everything!” Carly repeated, her fingertips still digging into my ribs.
“Okay, I promise,” I gasped. “No, I haven’t,” I said after catching my breath and wiping the tears from my cheeks. My face hurt from laughing.
“We knew that,” Maggie laughed. “We’re not idiots, but I’ll bet Luke has kissed plenty of girls. Have you ever walked in on him naked?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Has he ever fucked a girl?” Carly asked. “I mean, you guys being all religious the way you are.”
“Shut up!” I threw a pillow at her head, but her reflexes, even under the influence, were too fast. “No . . . I don’t know. How should I know?”
“Are you going to be ready when someone wants to kiss you, Grace?” Carly asked, suddenly sober.
“You’d better be,” Maggie said. “Otherwise they’ll think you’re inexperienced and take advantage.”
“Boys can tell,” Carly said. “Like a sixth sense. Do you want me to teach you how to kiss?”
Maggie unspooled on her back on the floor. Princess Leia, who had been warily observing us from a distance, moved quickly toward her, curling up under her arm. “Carly’s a good teacher,” Maggie said. “She taught me, and I haven’t had any complaints.”
It didn’t occur to me to ask how Carly could be such a good teacher if she’d only had one sexual experience, albeit all the way. It seemed important that I should know how to kiss so no boy would judge me as inexperienced and use that fact for his devious purposes. But the truth is, at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss Carly. If I was completely honest with myself, hadn’t I been thinking about it since the day I had first laid eyes on her?
“I guess,” I said, and with those words all my anger toward Carly simply vanished.
She didn’t hesitate, nor did she seem at all embarrassed. We were already sitting next to each other on the sofa, so she turned to face me.
“First thing he’ll do is hold you like this,” she said, slipping one arm around my ribcage, centering her hand between my shoulder blades. Her eyes latched onto mine so completely that I was incapable of looking away or laughing to ease the awkwardness. “Then, maybe he’ll mess around with your hair a little—guys like to do that.” With her free hand, she ran her fingers lightly through the hair above my temple, smoothing it behind my ear. My entire body shivered with delight. She was close enough that I could feel her breath, warm and moist, smelling sweetly of Pepsi and vodka. “Then he’ll move in for the kiss.” She brought her lips to mine so tenderly it was hard to imagine a boy could be that gentle. That sensitive. Her full lips were insistent, playing against mine, leading me as if in a dance until my lips softened and parted. Her tongue darted in, playing lightly and teasingly with mine while she pushed forward, lowering me until I was lying on my back and she was on top of me. A spark lit between my legs. “Then, if you’re not careful,” she said, “he’ll go for the feel like this.” Her hand slipped under my sweater where it lingered on my bare breast for just a moment too long. She gently grasped my already erect nipple between her thumb and forefinger, releasing a gush of slippery wet into my panties. “Oh my God!” she cried out, pulling abruptly away. She sat upright, leaving me floundering for a foothold back to reality. “Grace isn’t wearing a bra. I just accidentally touched her boob.”
“Gross, Grace,” Maggie laughed. “You should’ve warned Carly.”
I was ashamed of the way my body had betrayed me. The pleasure. The tingling. The release of fluid I initially took for an early start to my period. I knew nothing about the continuum of sexuality. The spectrum across which people could slide back and forth. I knew only that my parents had taught me that homosexuality was a sin, one that another person could lead you into. If this subject had been taught in health, it must have been before I arrived in Indian Springs. Even though I was losing my religion, I feared I would be damned. But if I was damned anyway, then I wanted to do it again and again.
A week later, the Kitty Committee was having lunch at our usual table at school.
“Guess who got fired?” Carly said. “Kerry.”
“What happened?” I looked meaningfully at Carly, hoping for a sign it had nothing to do with me.
“She was a new employee and on probation, so they didn’t have to have cause. They just told her they were laying her off, but one of her co-workers told her someone reported her for stealing.”
“Serves her right,” said Maggie.
Chapter Fourteen
Two events cast a pall over what should have been a joyful time of year—the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation. The firs
t happened in November when the SAT results came out. I’d taken multiple practice tests under Carly’s tutelage with the insight she’d gained from her own tutoring sessions with Mr. Sutherland. I was thrilled with my results, which were above what I had expected, although nowhere near Carly’s league. Maggie skipped the SAT, and Jane had scored reasonably well—better than me, lower than Carly. Everyone was happy except Carly.
“That fucking asshole Tim got a 1580,” she said a few days after most students had received their results. “It’s no wonder because Sutherland has a hard-on for him.”
“I think he’s got one for you too,” Maggie said. “And every other girl in school.”
“I don’t mean it that way,” Carly snapped. “I mean it’s obvious that he gives Tim the special treatment. Spends way more time with him. My session is right after Tim’s, and Sutherland’s usually running fifteen minutes late by the time I go in. And then he always lets me out early. I’m telling my dad he should prorate what he pays for tutoring because I’ve been keeping track of the exact number of minutes he spends with me.”
“So why would he care so much?” I asked. “About Tim?”
“Duh, he’s a guy. Guys are always looking out for each other. The system is so rigged against women.”
I’d never spoken to Tim since the incident in health class, but he did strike me as slightly arrogant. Entitled even, as though he occupied a different hemisphere of intellect than the rest of us mere mortals. Tim seemed to me the kind of guy who felt that women weren’t his equal. Just like Mr. Sutherland, the way Carly explained him.
“Tim really screwed me over last year,” I said. “In health class.”
Carly’s angry face unscrewed into curious wonder. “In what way?” she asked.
I obliged her and the other two girls with all the facts, which I was still able to recall in visceral detail. I left out the only humanizing anecdote—the one where Tim turned his back to me, ignobly concealing his shame. Tim’s shame had been my shame that day. It had been the day I had unwittingly and unconsciously cast my lot with the girl I had yet to meet.
“Oh, Grace,” Jane said when I finished telling the story. “I’m sorry for you, that must have been so embarrassing. Tim’s locker is right next to mine, and he’s a little annoying, but he’s never been mean. In fact, he’s usually super nice.”
“But everyone’s nice to you,” Carly said, and I thought I detected a sour undertone in her delivery. “Because you’re so nice.”
I had to admit I would never put the name Tim in a sentence with the word nice.
“Carly, I don’t get it,” Jane said, ignoring Carly’s sarcasm, if indeed that’s what it was. “You should be thrilled. If I got your score I’d be doing a happy dance right now. 1500 is awesome. You’ll get in everywhere, for sure.”
A week later, Mr. Sutherland announced the winner of our school’s National Student Essay Contest. The winning essay would be sent to state finals where it would be judged against other local winners. The winner’s name was announced over the school’s intercom system right before the bell rang at the end of first period: Timothy LeClerc.
Maggie and I exchanged nervous glances—once again Tim had triumphed over Carly. I think we both knew there would be hell to pay, and one of us would have to pay it. I had already fulfilled my obligation to the Kitty Committee, but Maggie and Jane hadn’t, nor had Carly. We had two new enemies. Mr. Sutherland, who was instrumental in selecting the winner of the essay contest, along with a handful of the junior and senior class teachers. Mr. Sutherland, whom Carly was sure had demonstrated favoritism, costing her at least eighty points on her SAT. And Tim LeClerc.
Of course, we all knew that Jane’s locker was next to Tim’s. I avoided Jane’s locker because Tim made me acutely uncomfortable ever since the health class fiasco. I never believed his explanation. Sometimes I had felt his eyes on my back and imagined his delight at having pulled one over on the new girl. I noticed other students also avoided him in health class. He had his own tight-knit group which I saw at lunch, but to most people he was off-putting. Arrogant. That’s why he had selected me.
Carly avoided Jane’s locker because she instinctively disliked Tim for the competition he presented. Without Tim at Indian Springs High, Carly would have cleaned up. She would have been the brightest, most successful student in our class without a doubt—the shining star. But Tim was always a dark cloud hanging over her. And as clouds are wont to do, particularly the dark variety, Tim was stealing Carly’s thunder.
But Maggie had neither of our issues, and Maggie loved Jane. So Maggie spent as much of her free time as possible in the company of Jane. Maggie cared for me too, but she didn’t respect me the way she respected Jane or Carly—one out of admiration, the other out of need and years of habit. Maggie and I were close, and I never doubted she’d do anything for me. I think she believed I’d acted selflessly to defend her honor against Kerry, although she never knew or asked exactly what I’d done. She was never anything but lovely toward me—nurturing as well. But I was the kid sister, at least in my own mind.
I suspected that Carly-free zones (like Jane’s locker) were especially enticing for Maggie, who must have grown tired of Carly’s occasional wrath and fierce judgments, although they went hand-in-hand with her unshakeable devotion. Maggie had been the one for nearly her entire life, and it must have been a heavy burden for her to shoulder alone before the Kitty Committee came along. I sensed Maggie reveled in her newfound freedom. She could still count on Carly’s strength and vision as well as what passed for her love. But now she could share that with Jane and me. It must have been a tremendous relief.
“Everyone has to have some skin in the game,” Carly said one night. “Not just Grace. There has to be some risk to yourself, and we have to stick together. If we don’t, who will? These people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what they do to any one of us.”
It was like a pep talk before the big game. Maggie had been wronged, and I’d taken care of it. Now it was established that Tim had wronged me. And Mr. Sutherland had wronged Carly. Maggie listened intently, probably already aware she’d be the next to be called upon. Jane was skeptical.
“How about you? What are you going to do?” Jane asked, but Carly was unruffled.
“I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be something big. Bigger than any of you.”
“Yeah? Well, let us know when you decide,” Jane said, and I was shocked by her boldness.
A few days later, Rita invited us all over to Jane’s for a barbecue. The weather was changing—we’d already had the first rain of the season, and the nights were too cold to go without a jacket. Mr. Swanson braved the cool temperature to tend to the barbecue, eventually delivering a plate heaped with chicken, lamb, and sausages to the kitchen table. After we ate, Leann turned to me.
“Wanna help me feed Frosty?” she asked, knowing I was the only one who shared her interest in the horse.
Frosty had a stable that protected us from the wind, and Leann went to work, cleaning and refreshing Frosty’s supply of hay and oats, while I mainly just stroked Frosty’s neck. “Do you wanna ride?” she asked once she was done.
Riding for me meant sitting bareback and clutching Frosty’s mane while Leann led me around the corral. I loved it.
“Something’s going on between Jane and Carly,” she said during our third circle around the corral. “Jane won’t admit it, but I can tell.”
The wind was picking up, driving dust and small bits of hay up my nose. I sneezed three times in a row. “I don’t know,” I said, sniffling. “Nothing that I can tell.”
But I had noticed. Things were tense. It was clear to me there was no love lost between Carly and Jane. They seemed to be play-acting for the benefit of Maggie and me. Mostly Maggie, if I were to be completely honest. Maggie’s soul was the prize. If Leann had noticed it too, things must be worse than I real
ized.
After that, things moved quickly. Carly announced she’d be fulfilling her pledge to the rest of us by getting back at Mr. Sutherland. She’d be striking a blow for every girl he’d ever groped (including Maggie), and every girl whose aspirations he’d crushed in order to give the advantage to some boy. She wasn’t squeamish about sharing the details of her plan with us the way I had been. Her plan was twofold. First, she informed her father that she’d been cheated out of tutoring time and given him a detailed accounting, adding up the number of minutes she’d been shortchanged. Carly’s dad promised to look into it and have a talk with Mr. Sutherland after the holidays. But that was only part one.
Knowing that Mr. Sutherland’s daughter (a freshman at Indian Springs) was usually doing homework in the sitting area outside his office while she waited for him to drive her home, Carly made a final appointment to discuss her test results. At just the right moment, she turned to leave his office and drew the back of her hand roughly across her lips, smudging her lip gloss in the process. She quickly unbuttoned her blouse to below her bra, having worn an easy-access blouse that day for just that purpose. She assumed an expression of shock and surprise when she exited, as though caught totally off guard, while fumbling with her buttons and drawing a hand up to cover her lips. Carly got extra lucky that day. Mrs. Sutherland was in the waiting room with her daughter as Carly hurried past them, hanging her head in feigned disgrace.
All of this she shared with only Maggie and me. Jane was around less and less, drawn more to her drama friends than to the Kitty Committee those days.
The Kitty Committee Page 22