He presented the idea of sex calmly and scientifically, like it would be an experiment. Nothing more than that.
“Okaaaaay,” I said. “I’ll do it, but you have to go buy the condoms.”
His face went pale.
“Or you could borrow some from somebody, I suppose,” I said.
He stared out through the windshield. It was drizzling, the windows were fogging up, and soon we wouldn’t be able to see to drive. “I don’t know,” he said. “I sort of wanted to do it right now.”
“Sex? You wanted to have sex right this minute? In your car? Are you crazy?”
“People do have sex in cars.”
“I know, but usually they do it in the dark. So all the other humans can’t see. Like, the police get involved if they see you having sex in a car.”
He twisted in his seat, drummed his fingers on the gearshift knob. “Anyway, I didn’t say it had to be in the car. We could go someplace, maybe.”
“Well, we’re not going to my house. My mother is in and out of there all day long.”
“We could go to my house. My mom is at work and my dad is back in the hospital.”
“Do your parents have any condoms?”
“What?” He stared at me. “Ewww. I can’t believe you said that.”
“Well . . . if no one has any, then you’re going to have to buy them. I am not going to have sex with you without a condom.”
“I know, I know.”
I looked at him and felt a stirring of interest. “Do you even know how to use a condom?”
“Yeah. In sex ed, they showed us with a banana.” I’d been absent that day so he pantomimed pulling something over an imaginary banana, and that made me crack up.
“I don’t know,” I said to him. “What if we did it, and it didn’t work out all right, and then we weren’t even friends anymore?”
“I’ve been thinking about this, and that’s one of my arguments for why we should do it. We’re good friends, we’ll always be good friends, and if it goes badly—like if we don’t like it or something—we can both laugh about it. That’s what we’re so good at—laughing at things.”
“Don’t you think we should be like crazy in love so we can get through it?”
“Get through it!” he said. “Do you think it’s going to be something bad? I think it’s going to be awesome, and then we’ll have it all out of the way so that when we end up with other people someday, we’ll already know what to do. For once in our lives we’ll be ahead of the curve.”
So we drove to the CVS, and he went in—I refused to go with him—and then he came right back out and said it was too horrifying. He knew people in there. One of his mom’s friends was buying shampoo right that minute, in fact.
So we didn’t have sex that day, and I remember feeling a bit disappointed when he took me home. I mean, if it had really been important to him, couldn’t he have worked up even an iota of courage?
So—and now we hit the tragic part for Jeremy and me—two weeks later he sauntered over to me at my locker and said out of the side of his mouth, “So, schweetheart, I got the goods. I ordered us some condoms by mail order, you see, and they came yesterday and somehow we’ve got ten boxes of the stuff. Enough for the rest of our lives.” He pretended to smoke an imaginary cigar.
The thing was, it was two whole weeks later, which is forever when you’re seventeen, and everything had changed. I had, against all odds, somehow been plucked from high school obscurity by a guy who was so out of my league that it was pathetic. Brad Whitaker, a guy that Jeremy and I had spent much of the semester making fun of, had asked me out! Never mind that I had had zero action before this point, now I was on the verge of achieving something approaching coolness. And, as I carefully explained to Jeremy, I was in love.
Jeremy was devastated, which I felt terrible about. We had an awful scene, and he said I was making a humongous mistake, that I was a traitor to the cause of irony and sarcasm and normal human intelligence, and by the way, good luck dating a guy who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Also—he couldn’t resist pointing this out—he’d bought a lifetime’s supply of condoms for me, and now what was he supposed to do with them? Sell them to Brad Whitaker?
Sure, I shot back. Why don’t you do that?
I was in that dopey state of first love, first passion, and so I was immune to Jeremy’s pain. I just wanted to get away from him. I was on the brink of one of life’s great moments, and why did he have to make me feel so guilty?
Later that week, I lost my virginity in Brad Whitaker’s bedroom while his parents were at work, to the soundtrack of the Backstreet Boys. I remember feeling slightly confused by the sweaty intensity of sex, all the writhing and the pushing, the way it felt more like an athletic event than what I’d been picturing from the passionate kisses in movies I’d seen. Jeremy and I could never have pulled off something that was this dead serious. We would have laughed ourselves sick.
Still, I was proud of myself for not complaining about the pain and the disappointment and also not minding the fact that, overall, Brad Whitaker didn’t really care anything about me. I just did what you do in those times of your life when you’re trying to make yourself be something you’re not: I stepped up my game, tried harder, shortened my skirts, wore my hair in a side ponytail (you’ll have to trust me that this was übercool), and took to lowering my eyes and holding my mouth in such a way that I looked charmingly bored.
It didn’t really do any good. Brad turned out to be a heartbreaking narcissistic toothache of a guy, and he forgot that guys are supposed to take their girlfriends to the prom, and he took some other girl instead. I got to be the Wronged Woman and everybody felt sorry for me, and my mother said, “You should have stuck with that Jeremy Sanders. Now there was a nice guy!”
So, great. Just great. He’s moved back home.
Cheers.
TWELVE
MARNIE
A week later, I’m at Natalie’s house painting a mural on a wall in the nursery, having decided that a scene with a budding dogwood tree, a rolling green hill, and a garden of purple tulips would be just the thing to welcome little Amelia Jane to the world, once she makes up her mind to get here, that is.
Natalie has been in the kitchen reorganizing her spice cabinet, but when I look up, I see her leaning against the doorway of the baby’s room, holding on to her belly and squinting at the wall. I do not think she really likes this mural. Her idea was to paint the baby’s room gray. Gray! Can you even imagine what that might do to a newborn’s psyche?
“Would you do me a huge, huge, huge favor?” she says.
“Drive you to the hospital because you’re now in labor?”
“Stop it,” she says. “Believe it or not, I have to go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, and I honestly don’t fit behind the wheel anymore. So will you drive me?”
“How is it that you have an appointment for teeth cleaning now? What if you were in labor? What if you’d already had the baby?”
“I know,” she says. “My appointment was actually for three weeks ago, but the dentist went on vacation, and they needed to reschedule.”
Natalie does not look so good as she gets into the car, tipping herself way back so that she can maneuver her huge stomach without banging it into the dashboard.
“How’s it going?” I say.
“Shut up.”
I start the car and fasten my seat belt. “Oh, Ameeeeelia? Did you hear what your mother just said to me? Don’t be scared to come out, baby. She’s really a very nice lady. It’s just that you’re pressing on some of her vital organs, sweetheart.”
Natalie bares her teeth.
I turn the car around to head out to Roosevelt Boulevard, and I’m surprised when she yells at me that I’m going too fast and that there are dips in the road I’m not feeling, but they’re there and they are KILLING HER. I slow down obediently.
And then she says, “OW!”
“Nat. Are you about to have this
baby?”
“No,” she says. “These are Braxton Hicks contractions. Fake.” She takes a deep, ragged breath.
“Because I’m just saying, since we’re already in the car and all, maybe we should go to the hospital.”
She doesn’t even answer that, just lies back with her hands on her massive belly and looks like she’s in the most amount of pain a human has ever endured, doing little puffing things with her mouth.
“Does it hurt . . . a lot?” I say. We pass a lumberyard and a row of shops. “I could pull in here, if you want.”
“Please. I’m concentrating. This is not pain. We don’t use the word pain. There is some . . .”
“Some what?”
“Marnie. Please. Be. Quiet.”
We finally get to the medical building—a low-slung little stucco building with banana trees and azalea bushes planted out front—and I pull up to the door and get out and come around to help her. But she waves me off and then—just like that—she loses her footing and she falls down on the pavement with a loud smack.
“Oh, no, no, no! Oh my goodness!” I cry, and I bend down to help her. “Don’t move. Let’s see . . . oh crap . . . did you land on your stomach? Did you hit your head?”
“No, I didn’t hit my head. Calm down, will you? That was my purse making that noise.”
She’s lying on her side in the flower bed, her head resting on a big old palm frond, looking up at me through her same old calm-as-anything Natalie eyes. She’s not frothing at the mouth or bleeding or giving birth. She’s just Natalie, lying there as if she meant to. Then she starts trying to pull herself up and can’t.
“Here, maybe you shouldn’t move. Really, Nat. It could be you broke something.”
“Stop yelling,” she hisses at me, which is weird because I’m almost positive I’m not yelling. “I’m fine,” she says. “Just help . . . just help me up, would you? And don’t attract attention.”
“Okay, here, hold on to me. Can you hold on?” I go around to the other side of her and get down on my knees, but I can’t figure out where to grab on to her, and she’s so big, but just then a man’s large hands show up in my field of vision, and somebody in a white coat is gently grasping my sister under the arms and gradually easing her upright until she’s on her feet, and then supporting her gigantic body against his until she can steady herself. I’m still on the ground, scrambling around to get the contents of her purse, which have spilled everywhere, and I can’t see his face, only that he has dark hair, and she seems to be leaning against him as he walks her inside.
“There,” I hear him say. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says, which is so untrue it’s not even funny. But leave it to my sister.
I finish picking up all her lipsticks and quarters and a wad of tissues, and then I run to catch up with them. A blast of cold air-conditioning hits my face when I open the door, and I can hear Natalie saying, “Oooh! It’s freezing in here!”
“Ridiculously cold,” he agrees, and that’s when I look up at his face, and it’s Jeremy Sanders holding on to my sister.
Jeremy Sanders! Of course it is! I almost laugh. At first I think this is all an elaborate ploy by my mother to get us together. She is a busybody with mysterious ways. The color seems to leave his face as he lowers my sister onto a bench next to the elevators. Once he gets her situated, he straightens up and looks at me with wide, round eyes.
I must look as shocked as he does.
I hear myself saying, “Hi, how are you?”
“Marnie.” He looks stunned. But then he manages to recover and says, “And oh my goodness, this is Natalie? Hi! Wow. Are you okay? That was quite a spill you took. Here, take my coat. You’re shivering.”
He starts removing his white coat, which I notice says JEREMY SANDERS, DPT embroidered over the pocket. Whatever that means. Something official, from the looks of him.
“No,” Natalie says. She’s back to being her brisk and competent self now, waving him away, thanking him for taking care of her, but saying she’s got to get to the dentist’s office, and she’s fine, really she’s just fine—it was just a little slip is all. Nothing to worry about. She’s just going to rest here for a second, catch her breath, and then she’ll be off.
I keep sneaking looks at him. He seems older, of course—but in a good, mature-guy way. My mind is filled immediately with the memory of his slouchiness, his nonconformitude, his sloppy snarkiness. None of that is left. He’s obviously become a fully invested member of society. Who would have guessed?
“Hey, dude, it’s great to see you!” I say. “So you’re a DPT now! Yay, you!”
“Yes,” he says and smiles at me with even, white teeth. I never noticed how really white and even his teeth were.
“And forgive me,” I say, “but what is a DPT?”
“Physical therapist,” he and Natalie both say at the same time, and then she grabs on to her huge stomach and lets out a yell.
“Um, I’d say your sister seems to be in labor. I think we should call an ambulance. That fall did not look good,” he says in a low voice.
“NO!” roars Natalie, holding up one hand while she clutches her abdomen with the other. We watch her in fascination, and after a moment she straightens up and says, “I’m fine. I’m prepared for this.”
“She’s a warrior,” I tell him. “So you’re still living here? Or did you move back?”
He tears his eyes away from Natalie and looks at me. “Came back about six months ago. My mom’s getting up there in years and needed some extra help . . . and so you’re back here, too? Or just visiting for—?” He gestures toward Natalie.
“The baby? No! I’ve moved back. This is home. Now. Newly.” I shrug and do a ridiculous little dance to show how carefree I am. I am beginning to regret that I’m wearing paint-splattered jeans and that my hair is shoved up into a big messy knot, although he’s certainly seen me looking worse.
“No, totally,” he says, which doesn’t really make any sense, but who cares. He looks back over at Natalie, who is shivering on the bench and breathing hard, and his eyes are round with alarm. “Really. We should call an ambulance.”
“No! This . . . is . . . false labor,” Natalie manages. “If the contractions were real, then . . . my Lamaze teacher . . . said . . .” Suddenly she can’t talk anymore and her face has turned pale and she slumps against the wall, panting.
Jeremy looks at me. “I don’t know what the Lamaze teacher said, but whatever. She’s not here, and we are. I think we’ve got to do something. So . . . I’m thinking hospital?”
“Definitely.”
“Definitely not,” says Natalie, resurfacing from her breathing debacle. “That’s not the way this works. You have early labor for a long time before you have active labor . . . and I did not have early labor. So these can’t be—”
Just then she looks horrified, and a huge gush of liquid goes all over the floor.
“My water broke!” she says. “Oh my God, this is not what I planned!”
“Ohhhkay. That’s it. Ambulance time,” Jeremy says, getting out his phone.
Natalie, who would still like to be running the world even while delivering a child, is not having it, however. “No. What we should do . . . is clean all this UP,” she says somewhat slowly in her new-normal voice. “When the amniotic fluid breaks, you still have time.” As though she’s reading from some textbook.
“Natalie, honey, Jeremy’s right. Let’s go to the hospital, sweetie.”
“But the birth plan!” she says. “I do not want an ambulance! Take me in your car. And call Brian. Tell him to bring my suitcase and the tennis balls and the lollipops.”
Then another contraction hits, and she has to stop talking.
“Jesus,” says Jeremy. “I’m definitely getting an ambulance.” And he starts to punch in numbers.
My sister holds up her hand, and as soon as the contraction is over, she says, “Take his phone, Marnie! I’ve got this! I have trained and prep
ared, and I am the warrior-queen, and I am READY. Do not get in my way because I—”
And then she stops. Falls back on the bench. Starts breathing through her mouth. Eyes round with panic.
Right after that one, there’s another.
And another.
Jeremy, looking more handsome and more in charge than I have ever known him to be, gives me a meaningful look and then quietly tells the emergency dispatcher the whole situation, and then when he hangs up, he suggests that I call my parents and Natalie’s husband. So I do as I’m told. No one answers, but I leave messages all around.
While we wait, he tells me it’s going to be okay, and somehow I believe him. Between contractions, Natalie is still screaming about her birth plan and yelling at me to get the car and then she gives us some information she learned in her childbirth class—information that no longer seems to apply, if you ask me.
“The warrior-queen is not going to be happy with you and me,” he whispers.
I am freaking out, but I say the wisest thing I can think of, which is, “When she gets a healthy baby by the end of this, all will be forgiven.”
And then I cross my fingers.
THIRTEEN
BLIX
On the morning of my Irish wake—aka the Blix Out party—I wake up to find the angel of death hanging out in my room.
So, okay.
“Hi,” I say to the angel. “I know it’s time. I can do this dying thing. I’ll die at the party if that’s what I’m supposed to do, although that is probably going to freak some of the guests out. But not me. I’m ready when death is.”
Then I lie back and close my eyes and ask for some white light to surround me, Houndy, and the entire borough of Brooklyn, and then, for good measure, the whole country and the world. I bless the whole planet. Little stars going all over the place.
The angel of death swirls up around the high ceiling, settles into one of the plaster cracks up there, the one that looks like a dog’s nose. That one may be my all-time favorite.
Matchmaking for Beginners Page 10