Ready or Not

by Meg Cabot

  And he doesn’t call just because he feels like he has to or I’ll have a breakdown—the way Lucy does with Jack—but because…well, he wants to.

  No, David’s not going to dump me if I tell him I’m not ready. He loves me. He’ll wait.

  I think.

  Besides, if he did dump me, the press would eat him alive. Not to sound braggy, but I am quite beloved by the American people for saving the life of their leader.

  Although that was pre–dye job. Who knows how Margery in Poughkeepsie is going to feel about me once she sees my new apparently Ashlee Simpson–esque do?

  “This Return to Family initiative David’s father is promoting,” my mom said, breaking in on my musings about my sex life—or lack of one. “I really like the idea. Sometimes I feel like I never get to see you kids, you’re all so busy.”

  I just stared at her, completely shocked.

  “Whose fault is that?” I practically yelled. “This part-time job thing wasn’t exactly MY idea, you know.”

  My dad lowered his paper again. “It’s important for you kids to learn the value of a—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted my dad. “A dollar. I know.” Like anything even costs a dollar anymore. “Speaking of which, did Lucy switch shifts, or what? Why is she home so early? Usually she doesn’t get back from the mall until ten.”

  I noticed the glance my mom and dad exchanged. Don’t think I didn’t.

  “We decided that, given Lucy’s SAT score, she needs to devote more time to her schoolwork, and less to her social life and work schedule,” my mom said lightly.

  It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. Then, when I finally did, my jaw dropped all over again.

  “Wait a minute,” I cried. “She gets to quit her job just because she bombed the SATs? That’s not fair!”

  “Shhh, Sam.” My mom glanced nervously toward the dining room. “Lucy’s very upset about having to give notice at Bare Essentials. You know how much she loved that employee discount—”

  “So if my grades start to slip,” I demanded, “can I quit Potomac Video?”

  “Sam!” My mom gave me a reproachful look. “What a thing to say. You love your job. You’re always talking about your little Donna friend, and how cool she is—”

  “Dauntra.”

  “Dauntra, I mean. Besides, you can handle a fuller schedule than your sister can. You’ve always been able to.”

  “Count your lucky stars about it, too,” my dad remarked, returning to his paper, “or we’d make you quit art lessons the way we’re making her quit cheerleading.”

  I stared, totally shocked.

  “Wait…you made her quit cheerleading?”

  “The SATs are more important than cheerleading,” said my dad. He would think that, seeing as how in high school, he was pretty much like…well, like Harold, from the stories I’ve heard.

  “She’s just taking some time off,” Mom said. “If she brings her grades up, she can get back on the team. We spoke to the coach. She understands that it just got to be too much…cheerleading, homework…”

  “It wouldn’t have gotten to be too much,” my dad said, from behind the paper, “if a certain person didn’t come down every weekend and expect to spend every waking moment with her.”

  “Now, Richard,” Mom said. “I spoke to the Slaters. And they agreed to have a word with Jack—”

  “Lot of good that will do,” my dad said with a grunt, still not looking out from behind the paper. “The guy never listens to them—”

  “Richard,” my mother said.

  I took this as my cue to leave the room. It is never fun listening to my parents fight about Lucy’s boyfriend. Which they do almost every time his name comes up. Not that they aren’t in complete agreement in their opinion of him: They both hate his guts. They just have different ideas over how best to handle the situation. My mom believes if they in any way try to thwart the relationship, that will only make Lucy’s affection for Jack stronger—sort of like how Hellboy’s affection for Liz just got stronger after they tried to keep him from seeing her when she fled to the mental institution.

  My dad, on the other hand, thinks they should just forbid Lucy from seeing Jack anymore, and that will take care of the problem.

  Which is why Lucy and Jack are still going out. Because everyone (except my dad) knows that telling a girl she can’t go out with some guy just makes her want to go out with that guy even more.

  This is another way in which Lucy’s life is vastly superior to my own. She gets to date a guy my parents don’t like or trust, causing them to worry about her all the time.

  Lucky Lucy.

  Although, if you think about it, her luck has kind of run out—at least about the cheerleading thing. I mean, it might be undermining the feminist cause, but she really loved doing it. And now it’s been stripped away from her.

  And yet, she hadn’t looked too unhappy down there with old Harold. Which is weird, because, regardless of whether or not she misses cheerleading, one thing she’s definitely going to miss, if Mom and Dad have their way, is Jack…. Where IS he, anyway? Why isn’t he beating down the door, insisting on seeing her? Had Dr. and Mrs. Slater had “a word” with him, as my mom had said they were going to?

  But Jack, being an urban rebel and all, isn’t the type to agree not to see his girlfriend just because his parents say she’s having trouble in school, and he needs to give it a rest, or whatever. In fact, since he started at RISD, Jack has been playing up the malcontent artist thing more than ever, what with the new motorcycle, and all.

  And okay, my parents have expressly forbidden Lucy to ride it, even though Jack bought her a helmet (not that Lucy was particularly thrilled with it. She’d wanted a pink one. Also, she says it mashes her hair down).

  But that doesn’t mean Jack can’t use the bike to cruise by our house, as I often hear him doing, in the middle of the night….

  Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t actually heard the roar of Jack’s Harley too often lately. What’s up with that? I would have to find out from Luce after Harold leaves.

  In the meantime, I had the package Lucy had said she’d left for me.

  It was sitting right where Lucy had said she’d left it, in the middle of my bed. I looked inside the nondescript brown paper bag and saw two boxes. The first said, RIBBED FOR HER PLEASURE! in masculine-looking type.

  Oh my God. My sister bought me a box of condoms.

  Feeling a little sick, I looked at the other box. It had curly writing with flowers on it. Inside, I found a canister and a plastic, tampon-like applicator, along with an insert.

  HOW TO USE CONTRACEPTIVE FOAM, the insert said.

  Oh my God.

  OH MY GOD.

  I shoved everything back into the box, and then the boxes back into the bag, and the bag under the bed.

  This was not something I was ready for. No, no, no. Not ready. SO NOT READY. So very, very not ready.

  I mean, was I, Samantha Madison, really going to do this? Was I really going to have sex with my boyfriend?

  I couldn’t help thinking about that girl Kris had mocked earlier in the day…Debra, or whatever her name was. She had had sex with her boyfriend. Allegedly, anyway. What if David and I Did It, and word got out, like it had about Deb? Would people call me a slut behind my back?

  Probably.

  Although it would hardly be worse than what they already call me (Freak, Goth, Satan Worshiper, Punk, Psycho, etc.).

  But it wouldn’t just be people at school. I mean, with my uncanny ability to get my picture in magazines (mainly their Fashion Don’ts lists, but whatever), news of my sex life would probably be spread all over the tabloids. Not that I’d ever made it a point to go around telling everyone I’m a virgin or any of that. But, you know. It would be embarrassing if my grandma read about it….

  It was right then that Lucy came barging into my room, without knocking, of course.

  “Hey,” she said breathlessly, having clearly jus
t run up the stairs. “Can I borrow your calculator?”

  I glared at her. “What happened to yours?”

  “I loaned it to Tiffany the last time we were at The Cheesecake Factory and were trying to figure out how much tip to leave, and she forgot to give it back. Come on, just let me borrow yours for tonight. I’ll get mine back tomorrow.”

  I handed her my calculator. It was actually the least I could do, considering the present she’d left me.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said. And started to leave.

  “Wait—” I said. Thank you for the condoms and spermicide. That’s what I wanted to say. What came out instead was, “How’s it going? I mean, with, um, Harold?”

  “Oh,” Lucy said, smoothing a silky strand of titian hair behind one ear. “Fine. You know, Harold thinks it isn’t because I’m not smart that I did so poorly. He thinks I suffer from test anxiety.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Harold thinks if I apply myself, I can raise my score by a hundred points—maybe more—just by practicing some breathing exercises before I go into the examination room.”

  “Wow,” I said, wondering if that’s why Harold always seemed to need his inhaler. You know, from all the breathing exercises he must have to do to keep up his perfect GPA.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said. “Harold’s really nice, you know. Once you get past the stuff about Deep Space Nine and how mad he is that they canceled Angel.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’ve always liked Harold. He’s nice. Like when you mess something up in computer lab, he doesn’t get all, Well, did you make a back-up disk? the way some of the TAs do.”

  “Aw,” Lucy said. “That’s sweet. I can’t believe he’s not more popular. I mean, how come I’ve never met him before, like at a party or something?”

  “Um,” I said. “Because guys like Harold don’t get invited to the kind of parties your friends throw.”

  “What are you talking about? My friends aren’t exclusionary.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This was clearly an SAT word, courtesy of Harold.

  “Um,” I said, again. “Yeah. They kinda are.”

  Lucy didn’t like hearing that. I could tell, since she looked right at me and went, “Well, thanks for the calculator. I better get back to Harold.”

  Then she left, before I even had a chance to thank her for what she had loaned me. Well, not loaned me, exactly, since I highly doubted she wanted any of it back….

  It was right as I was thinking this that my cell phone went off.

  I so wasn’t expecting it to happen—my cell phone to ring and all. I’m still not completely used to it—that I totally screamed, causing Rebecca, in her room down the hall, to call, “Do you mind, Sam? I’m at a really crucial stage in this larvae dissection.”

  Which, actually, I would rather not have known.

  I could see from the caller ID that it was David calling. David, with whom I hadn’t spoken—sort of on purpose—since last night’s discussion beneath the weeping willow in my front yard. I had already ignored two of his messages. I had to pick up.

  Only…what was I going to say?

  “Hi,” seemed like a good way to start.

  “Hey,” David said.

  Except that this was no simple “Hey.” Never, in fact, had more been conveyed in such a short word in the entire history of time. All of David’s happiness that I’d finally answered, as well as his frustration over not having heard back from me in over twenty-four hours, and—I really don’t think I’m imagining this—even his lack of certainty about how I felt about his invitation to “play Parcheesi” with him over Thanksgiving weekend was in that Hey.

  I’m pretty sure.

  That’s lot of stuff in a single word.

  “Where have you been?” David went on to ask. Not in any sort of angry way. Just curious. “I left two messages. Are you all right?”

  “Um,” I said. “Yeah. Sorry. Things have just been crazy.” I noticed the brown bag containing Lucy’s “gifts” to me sticking out from under the bed and quickly toed it back so that the dust ruffle covered it. Don’t ask me why. I mean, it wasn’t like David was there in the room with me. Except that he was. Sort of. “With school, you know. And work.”

  “Oh,” David said. “Okay. Well, what did they say?”

  For one second, I honestly forgot what he was talking about. “What did who say?”

  “Your parents,” he said. “About Thanksgiving.”

  And it all came flooding back.

  “Oh, Thanksgiving,” I said. Oh my God. Thanksgiving. He wanted to know about Thanksgiving.

  Well, of course he did. I mean, that was why I’d been dodging his calls for the past twenty-four hours. Because I knew he wanted an answer about Thanksgiving.

  It was just that I wasn’t sure I was ready to give him one.

  “Um,” I said, glancing at Manet, who as usual was collapsed across my bed, completely oblivious to the fact that his owner’s life was being turned completely upside down and inside out. Dogs have it so easy. “Yeah. Sorry. I…I haven’t had a chance to ask them yet.”

  Okay. Just lied to my boyfriend. For the first time ever. More or less.

  “Oh,” David said.

  Just like with his “Hey” a few minutes earlier, that “Oh” conveyed a lot. It actually had been less of an “Oh,” than an “Oh?”

  I was so dead.

  “It’s just,” I said, suddenly speaking a mile a minute. “It’s Lucy. She bombed her SATs and now my parents have made her quit cheerleading and get a tutor and everyone is freaking out.”

  “Whoa,” David said. He sounded as if he believed me. Well, why shouldn’t he? That part was the truth, anyway. “How badly did she do?”

  “Really badly,” I said. “So now isn’t the best time to ask. If you know what I mean.”

  “Totally,” David said. “I hear you.”

  The thing was, for a guy who was waiting to find out whether or not he was going to, you know, get to have sex with his girlfriend next week, he sounded awfully…calm. I mean, not like the guys in those books of Lucy’s, who are always all, “Phillippa…I must have you. My loins burn for you.”

  I was fully not getting any burning-loin vibe from David. Like, at all.

  Which I guess I can understand. I mean, it’s good he isn’t getting his hopes up too much. Because it’s not like, when we Do It and all, I will actually know what I’m doing, in spite of having read up on contraceptive foam usage.

  Of course, he won’t know what he’s doing, either. Because it’s not like he’s any more experienced in the boudoir than I am.

  But still. There’s a much stronger possibility of me messing things up than him. I am not the world’s most coordinated person. I barely passed P.E. (well, to be fair, that’s because I’m so non-competitive that I refused to participate most of the time. I just didn’t see the point. Catch the ball, chase the ball, throw the ball. Who cares? It’s just a stupid ball.).

  I guess I was just going to have to trust that, when—or if—the Big Moment came, my body would tell me what to do. I mean, it hadn’t let me down so far.

  Except for that whole rope-climbing thing in P.E.

  “Well, listen,” David said, still not sounding like a guy whose loins were aflame, or whatever. “Just let me know. Oh, and about tomorrow night?”

  Tomorrow night? What about tomorrow night? Were we supposed to be doing something tomorrow night?

  Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow was Saturday. Date night. Oh my God, were we going to go out? If we went out, would he bring it up? The whole Thanksgiving plan, I mean? Tomorrow’s too soon! I can’t decide about all of this by tomorrow! I’m still getting used to the idea! I don’t know! I don’t know what I want!

  “Um,” I said, amazed I could sound so calm about the whole thing. “Oh, right. Tomorrow. What about it?”

  “My dad’s got a thing all day at the Four Seasons. It’s a Return to Family thing, to garner support with some special interest groups
, and so he wants me there, because…you know.”

  “Right,” I said. “Family and all.”

  “Right. But you can totally come, if you want to.”

  So I can sit next to you in front of a plate of gross congealing hotel food I didn’t even order myself while listening to another one of your dad’s boring speeches on the off chance that we might get a chance to make out in my front yard later? Um, no thanks.

  That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Gosh, that sounds fun. I think I’m busy, though. Have a good time.”

  David laughed. “I thought that’s what you’d say. Okay.”

  And just like that, I was off the hook. For the whole Thanksgiving discussion.

  “I know things must be weird,” David said, “with Lucy and all of that. But call me, will you? I really miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, either. I did miss him.

  “Love you, Sharona,” David said.

  “Love you, Daryl,” I said. And hung up.

  And thought, God. I am the worst girlfriend on the entire face of the planet.

  Top ten ways you can tell that your boyfriend really loves you:

  10. He puts up with your weird mood swings, even the one where you have PMS and you accuse him of liking Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas better than he likes you, although you know perfectly well he’s never actually met Fergie.

  9. He lets you pick the movie most of the time.

  8. Ditto what dessert you guys are going to share.

  7. He knows your friends’ names and asks how they’re doing (although in David’s case this isn’t exactly hard, since I basically have only one friend).

  6. He makes sure (to the best of his ability) that when you come over for dinner, the White House chef is serving something you will actually eat.