I peeked over at Hannah, who stood on her head with her feet up in the air, totally still. A few other ladies balanced their legs against the wall. Cheaters.
"Remember, we learn from our failures," the Sunny Sadist said.
What a load of stinky cabbage gas! What had I learned today?
• Never, ever do yoga again.
• Never, ever eat cabbage anything again.
• Make peace with dying a virgin.
• No one decent will ever want a Super Schnozz.
The Sunny Sadist spoke in a soft voice. "Now, release your pose, keeping your mind clear. Breathe."
Huddled in a cloud of my own smelly gas, I tried not to breathe. How could I keep my mind clear? Ass Grabber never would've done that to a prettier girl. Ugly girls are supposed to be easy, right? I should've been grateful. Gideon probably noticed me only because my big red-from-crying nose shone in the lights; he probably figured he should talk to a member of the big-nose club. Just to be nice. The way Tyler always says flirty things to be nice but goes off to every single movie-you-have-to-read with Megan. And feeds her popcorn.
I skipped the next three poses, but when the teacher told us all to roll over on our backs, I happily complied. Plus, no one would be able to tell that I'd been crying. The Sunny Sadist told us to balance our legs in the air with our shoulders off the mats. My abs burned like my bellybutton had caught fire. I looked over at Hannah, who had bent her body into a graceful V shape. Long, perfect, tan legs. If Alex from Church didn't go for her, he must be planning to be a monk. She even smiled.
I tried to lift my legs straight but crashed down with a thump that hurt my back.
"Remember, this is not a competition," the Sunny Sadist said. "We're always striving toward something, pushing at the edge of sensation but not pain."
Pain walloped every part of my body as we lay in a cleansing twist, wringing out our organs. I pictured my heart as a sopping-wet rag. Focus, I told myself, but I kept feeling bad about being the worst one in the room in the over-two and under-ninety-nine category. Put me up against an infant or a 120-year-old woman, and I'd show you some yoga! I also had the biggest nose in the room, with the exception of Hairy-Feet Geezer.
The Sunny Sadist pulled down the shades on the windows and switched to weird, wordless wa-wa-thwang music. We lay flat on our backs with our hands facing the ceiling and our eyes closed. Corpse Pose. Or, in my case, Dead Virgin.
"You may repeat something inspirational to yourself if you wish," the Sunny Sadist said.
My nose tickled. I tried to make the feeling go away by doing strange contortions with my mouth and nose. Everyone had closed eyes, right? I peeked at the teacher, who was lying still with her eyes closed, smiling serenely, but then she picked a wedgie. I sucked in air instead of laughing out loud. I turned my head and looked at what other people were doing. One old lady's giant boobs oozed down the sides of her chest like lava. I sucked in another giggle. I watched Hannah mouthing Alex over and over again. I sucked in a huge gulp of air. Do not laugh. Do not laugh.
I let out a rip-roaring, make-my-little-bro-proud belch, followed by a big guffaw and a Nevada nuclear-test-site atomic fart.
Kaboom!
At least the Sunny Sadist stopped smiling.
Chapter Twelve
DICKENSONS AND WIENERS
One week of the Cabbage Soup Cleanse + Snobby Rich Caughlin Ranch Families + the Dickenson Lake House + an Old-Fashioned Bunk-Bed Sleepover = the Fourth of July.
I tossed some clothes into a duffel bag. Mom, in a fit of über-excitement about losing six pounds on the cabbage cleanse and daring to wear her bikini with a heavy-fabric sarong, let me borrow the minivan to drive up to the Dickensons' quote "cabin," aka "mansion bigger than our house" at the lake. She and Dad headed up early with friends to enjoy the full day of festivities—rich people fawning over one another's possessions and drinking too much.
I'd been up since six helping Katie with a Fourth of July wedding. She'd made this cake with red, white, and blue fondant decorated to look like the stitching on an old American quilt. Who gets married on the Fourth of July, anyway? Guess the bride had a thing for fireworks and old quilts. She looked pretty old—gray hair and the whole bit. Was she still a virgin? Had it really taken her an entire lifetime to find someone who actually loved her? Groom Dude had a weird beard, long ponytail, beer belly, and laughed too hard at his own jokes. Did she actually love him? Or did she just get too desperately lonely?
I imagined myself decades in the future, withered with age yet still virginal, designing my own quilted wedding cake. I shuddered. All week I'd dyed white carnations blue and red for this wedding. The only good thing about working the Fourth: time and a half. It added $108 to the nose fund, for a grand total of $1,100-ish.
After work, I raced home to pack my cutest shortie PJs, favorite bikini, and new casual but sexy mini, just in case a certain flirtatious someone happened to be there. He was last year. That's when the obsession began: fireworks, the beach, my first-ever margarita.
He had smiled at me and uttered the immortal words, "Weren't you in my English class?"
No, but I still fell into a crush deeper than Lake Tahoe. A year of "Hi, Jory" smiles in the yellow-tiled hallways of good old Reno High only deepened my feelings. Even Hannah's family didn't socialize with the Dickensons, so I knew Megan and her schoolteacher mommy wouldn't have scored an invitation—maybe that's why she'd called Hannah (as if I wouldn't find out!) last night to ask how much I really liked Tyler. Ha! She should worry. Jory's back! I'd blast into Tyler's consciousness like an M-80. Whammo. I'd do whatever it took. Prepare to have your world rocked. I turned up the stereo and sang along with Vampire Weekend, changing the words to "Jory's got a new face."
I took the freeway instead of the scenic route. Cops pulled several people over, but no one ever notices speeding in a minivan, so I made good time and caught my first view of Lake Tahoe—a deep Tyler's-eyes blue—right as the cocktail hour started.
Mom's minivan looked out of place in the Lexus/Mercedes/ BMW dealership—looking driveway. I glossed my lips, fluffed my hair around my shoulders, and strode up the driveway. I noticed a bit of red fondant under my fingernail as I rang the doorbell. No one answered, so I let myself in. Mom's high-pitched laugh echoed from the kitchen across the cathedral ceiling. Cocktail hour must have started much earlier.
"Oh, stop it," Mom said. "I look the same as always."
A blender whirred.
"You truly are the mix master, Barbara."
Barbara? As in Barbara Briggs? Excellent. I took a deep, cleansing yoga breath, but not one of the strange noisy ones.
"Hi, Mom! Hi, Mrs. Briggs."
"Jory, don't you look cute, as usual." Mrs. Briggs scraped salt off the rim of her margarita glass with a long red-white-and-blue polished fingernail. "Tyler and the kids are down on the dock."
"Uh, great. Where can I change into my suit?" I held up my duffel.
"You youngsters are up on the sleeping porch," she said. "We grownups get the bedrooms." Barbara clinked glasses with Mom, who looked at me with a blissful, slightly tipsy grin.
"So, I'll be sure to pick up that book tomorrow—I'm sure I can finish it in time." Mom winked at me and gave me a subtle thumbs-up. Looks like she finally swung an invite to the book club.
Upstairs, I examined each duffel bag and suitcase carefully to figure out which bunk belonged to Tyler. I peeked inside one and saw Tyler's LCD Soundsystem T-shirt. Bingo! I put my duffel on the bunk next to his, changed into my bikini, gave my hair a good flip-over brushing, and headed down to the water.
As I stepped down the path to the Dickensons' private dock, I soaked in the pine-scented air and enjoyed the tickle of my hair against my bare back. Anything can happen! Drew Dickenson's ski boat pulled a wakeboard out past the rocks. Only one person sat on the dock sticking his feet in the water. Yes!
"Happy Fourth," I sang out. Tyler wore red and blue swim trunks and nothing on his fabulously tan
upper body; his skin was the color of caramel pie.
"Jory," he said. "I wondered if you were going to come up. Your mom's trying to outdrink mine. Quite a challenge." He held up a pitcher of margaritas. "But she might be winning because her judgment was impaired enough to give me this. Want one?"
"Sure." I sipped the watery limeade with not much tequila. "Mmm. Good."
"Naw, they're watery as hell." He pulled out a bottle from a beach bag. "That's why I borrowed this." He tilted his head at me. I nodded, happy that Megan wouldn't be around to make some totally hypocritical drinking comment.
The burn of the tequila in my throat made me gasp. "That's better."
We stood up as the ski boat roared closer to shore.
Tyler laughed. "Your face is so red. Want me to dunk you in the lake?" He tugged on my arm.
"No!" I squealed. "I'm not hot enough yet."
"Oh, you need to get hot?" He stood so close, the tie from his swim trunks poked my stomach. "How hot?" I felt his breath against my ear, smelled his coconut suntan lotion.
I somersaulted into the icy water. Splash! My chest constricted. The outline of Tyler and his red and blue swim trunks wavered above me like a mirage. I pushed out of the water and pulled myself back onto the dock.
"I'm so going to get you." I moved toward Tyler, tugging on his arm, but he dug his feet in.
Drew waved to us as the boat slowed to no-wake speed.
"No messing with the hair." Tyler didn't smile. "Why do you think I'm sitting here instead of in the boat?"
"Fair is fair."
"Don't, Jory." He gave me the Look. Had Megan taught him that?
I swung my hair, but it only smacked against my back in one wet rope. I lay down on my beach towel and closed my eyes, feeling massive quantities of freckles popping up on my mountain of a nose. Would he have let me throw him in if I looked better? He'd been so flirtatious, but all of a sudden it had stopped—like someone had pressed the off button. Maybe with my wet hair, I looked too disgusting to even acknowledge.
I heard the glug-glug of Tyler pouring more tequila into his cup and the sound of water lapping against the dock, but he didn't say a word to me. We lay like that while Drew and the others tied the boat to the dock.
"Jory! When did you get here?"
Megan. The traitor times ten. She hadn't said anything about coming up to the lake when she'd called Hannah!
"You should go out on the boat. It's so fun. You should've seen Finn and Luke. Major enema, right, guys?" Megan wrung out her long dark hair and let it fall back against her dark tan skin. Her eyes matched the lake, just like Tyler's.
"Megan's a total sport," Finn said. "I'm surprised she's friends with such a klutz." Finn kicked my thigh with his clammy foot.
"Why are you here?" I regretted my bitter tone. "I mean, I wasn't expecting to see you."
"Yeah." Megan adjusted her uncharacteristically skimpy bikini. "Tyler invited me."
Maybe it didn't mean anything. Maybe it was a coworker thing, not a dating thing.
"Hey, guys. Want to go kick the ball around before dinner?" Drew toweled off his hair.
I'd forgotten that Drew, Finn, and Luke all shared the soccer-geek passion. I snuck a peek at Luke's toned legs as he walked by; usually, Kayla Neal hung all over him, and I half expected her to rise out of the water like a mermaid.
Megan squeezed between Tyler and me; he watched the soccer geeks race up the path, not acknowledging Megan, but her leg touched his knee in a comfortable, familiar way.
"This is going to be so fun," she said. "I can't believe we get to stay the night and watch the fireworks and everything. This will be the best Fourth of July ever."
I gave her the Look, but she didn't take the hint. The Look probably requires a small nose. How could she flaunt her coziness with Tyler right in front of me? Hannah had told her that I did like Tyler. A lot.
"I know. I'm acting like a dork, but this is the most fun I've had all summer." She hugged her arms around her long, lean legs.
"What about your great job? And all your hilarious nicknames? And inside jokes?"
"I thought I'd get to work on real law cases, but I'm stuck making copies."
"Well, what about all those movies you've been seeing?" Or not seeing.
"That's mostly to add diversity to my résumé." She bumped Tyler with her elbow. "Should we tell her?"
"We snuck into an action flick during German-drama night." Tyler's voice sounded flat.
"It was so much fun! I felt totally rebellious. I never knew how good a car chase could be compared to a guy drinking himself to death." Megan laughed, and a blue jay answered back as if she were a Disney-movie princess.
"I'm going to go change," I said.
"I'll go with you." Tyler wobbled as he stood. "I need to drink more if my dad's going to insist on singing the national anthem like he usually does. But goddamnit, I'm not playing the piano."
"Guess I'm coming too." Megan folded her towel into a neat square.
When Megan and I got back to the sleeping porch, Kayla Neal lounged on a bunk bed, reading a gossip magazine and kicking her legs up behind her. Red-white-and-blue toenail polish.
"Hi, I'm Kayla. Luke's GF." She waggled her finger at me. "I know you! You're Finn's sister. He's such a sweetie. And you're Tyler's...?" she said to Megan.
"Yeah." Megan combed her hair.
Yeah? What did that mean? Kayla hadn't asked a specific question. But the implication was definitely girlfriend, right? Had Megan and Tyler started dating officially? I glared at Megan for a few seconds, but she didn't look at me.
"The boys are out playing with their balls," Kayla said.
Megan laughed.
"What?" Kayla looked at us with Bambi eyes. "They're doing it on the grass out back."
I could see Megan biting her cheek. Hard. Not amused, I shuffled through my duffel. My clothes suddenly seemed so plain, plus I'd forgotten to bring anything warm to wear at night. Maybe I'd just stay inside and hide under the covers. No one would notice. I didn't need to impress anyone, right? Everyone was already taken; well, except for Drew, but he wasn't exactly into girls.
We endured dinner with the parents—including Mr. Briggs's worse than off-key rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" (Tyler did play piano)—before walking down to the beach to watch the fireworks. I wore my red mini with a white T-shirt, even though Drew teased me about wearing Wooster colors. Major soccer rival. Drew made me bring his blue Reno High sweatshirt in case I got cold. He and Finn talked about some Brazilian soccer goalie while Kayla publicly fondled Luke. Ah, the beautiful people. Tyler and Megan walked far behind us. Doing what? Kissing? More? A few minutes later, Megan stomped up next to me.
"Something wrong?" I didn't disguise my sarcasm.
Megan brushed under her eyes. Smeared mascara? Tears?
Tyler ran ahead of us, scooped Kayla—squealing—into his arms, and disappeared into the darkness. I couldn't stop myself from smiling.
"Meg. What's going on?"
"Nothing. Apparently, nothing. Always, nothing."
Drew brought a big beach blanket. I lay down next to Finn. Not quite the romantic vision I'd had. Current chance of dying a virgin: 98 percent.
Megan plopped down next to me, exhaling loudly but not saying anything. I imagined her giving the Look to the stars. Tyler sat next to Drew, while Luke walked around to the rocks with Kayla. Luke had a bit of a reputation, from what I'd overheard Finn and his friends say. Would anyone cute with half a personality ever want to take me to the rocks? Drew opened a cooler and handed me hard lemonade, but I refused it. I felt too confused already—as if someone had taken my life and flipped it over like a pineapple upside-down cake. Were Tyler and Megan together or not? Hannah sure thought they were, based on their phone conversation and the "vibe" Megan had given off in a recent text message. Whatever.
Soon fireworks flashed overhead—red, yellow, green bursts that reminded me of the volvox we'd studied in biology class. People all arou
nd me oohed and aahed. I kept looking over at Tyler, who stared straight ahead. Not at the sky. Not at the water. Just straight into the blackness. He guzzled from a flask. Why does Tyler make me feel so insecure? Why do I let his actions make me feel ugly? Who needs all his drama anyway? Megan can have him. Almost as if reading my thoughts, Megan sat up and glanced at Tyler. Then she lay back down with a huff. "He's a mere speckle in the vast quantities and qualities of males available to me," she said. "I'm done with him."
I thought maybe I was too.
Chapter Thirteen
DICKENSONS AND DOUGHNUTS
All the rustling around made it sound like raccoons had invaded the sleeping porch. Right after I crawled into bed, I overheard Kayla whispering to Luke, followed by some not-so-quiet kissing. What did it feel like kissing that mouth? I had watched him while we ate last night: those full lips, dark eyebrows, blond hair. He kept jiggling his amazing legs under the table at dinner. Once, he raised his eyebrows at me after Kayla had called the hot dogs wieners for the thousandth time. Megan had already spewed out her lemonade when Kayla told us her uncle Dick played ball with himself with a machine in his backyard. Megan made a nonsensical joke about potato chips and laughed at herself. Finn, Luke, Drew, and I laughed really hard too. Kayla was all "I don't get it, guys." That made us all laugh even harder, except Tyler.
Much later in the night, Tyler climbed down from his bunk and walked over to the other side of the room where Megan slept. I heard some whispering, but afterward Tyler ran down the stairs. By himself. Guess Megan really was over him. I lay awake for a long time, imagining running after Tyler in the moonlight. Forget her, I'd say. You've always got me. I tried to picture him embracing me the way people do in movies, but instead I kept seeing that cold, hard look he'd given me on the dock. I also kept hearing Megan say that he was a mere speckle in the vast quantities of men. But he was a speckle who paid attention to me. Sometimes.
My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters Page 9