“Honestly,” I say, “it’sRob. You’re making something out of nothing.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She links her arm through mine as we step into the kitchen. “But you know I always like to err on the side of caution.”
“Drama,” I correct her. “You like to err on the side of drama.”
My mom and dad are in the kitchen dancing around with theorange juice, still in their bathrobes. She has it over her head, and he’s tickling her.
“Sorry, girls,” she says, her face flushed. “Didn’t see you there.” My dad just winks. Gross. Also, neither one of them is sorry. They do this sort of thing all the time. They are constantly making out in our living room and leaving each other love notes on the fridge—“Peas for my squeeze,” that kind of thing. I guess it should make me happy, the fact that my parents are in love and still into each other after twenty years, but it sort of creeps me out.
“They definitely still have sex,” Charlie says under her breath, like she’s settling a debate. Trust me, it’s not up for argument. Factual truth: They do.
I guess maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I had, you know, done it myself. It’s not that I’m opposed to sex or anything. I mean, morally speaking. You want to know my problem, actually? It’s that Idon’tfeel particularly moral about the whole thing. It’s like this girl I used to know, Sarah, who never ate meat. Literally, in her entire life, she never had a hamburger. Her parents didn’t eat meat, and she was just raised that way. Anyway, one day her dad started eating it again, and all of a sudden it was in their house and on the table, and I remember her telling me how weird that seemed, how unnatural. Like all of a sudden she was supposed to just start eating meat and it was supposed to seem normal. She was a vegetarian, for crying out loud. It seemsweird to just start. Like changing something fundamental about who you are.
It also might have something to do with the fact that I’ve never really gotten close. There was Jason Grove, who I dated last year. We made out a few times, mostly in the back of his dad’s Audi and in his basement. It was okay, I guess, but he couldn’t figure out how to unhook my bra, and after a few tries we sorta gave up.
Charlie thinks this is tragic. Olivia’s and my virginity are like an affront to her values, or something. Mind you, she’s done it with two people already. The first was Matt Lester, her boyfriend sophomore year. They did it after homecoming, and she said it was awful and they never did it again. Now there’s Jake, her on-again, off-again boyfriend—and, as Charlie says, “I’ve lost count.” Which I guess is what’s supposed to happen. It’s not like you keep counting the number of times you have sex. At a certain point it just becomes sex, I think.
“This year is definitely your year,” Charlie told me last week. “You are not losing your virginity in a dorm room. Not an option.”
“What are my prospects?”
“Just one,” Charlie said. “Rob. You two are totally meant to be.”
Meant to be. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never thought about that phrase in relation to Rob and me. Ithasoccurred to me that something might happen between us. I haven’t admitted too much ofthis to Charlie, though, mostly because I recognize the real possibility that these thoughts about Rob could have more to do with all those television shows she makes me watch than my actual feelings. I mean, yeah, I care about him. He’s my best friend. Of course I love him. But do I want to kiss him? Do I want him to kiss me? And am I willing to risk our friendship on the off chance that a romance might really work out? Not to mention the fact that I don’t even know what he’s thinking. He probably regrets ever saying I was beautiful. He has probably already moved on. I mean, he’s been halfway across the country for the entire summer, and just because I haven’t managed to fall on anyone else’s lips in two months doesn’t mean he’s hauling around the same track record.
My mom pries my father off of her and sets the juice down. “You girls ready for your first day?”
“Definitely,” Charlie says, winking at me.
“Well, that’s good,” she says. She scoops some eggs onto a plate and hands it to my dad. “Rob back today?”
My mom would ask this. On top of everything else, my parents and his parents are also best friends. They’ve been neighbors for fifteen years. My parents moved to San Bellaro a few months before I was born. Rob’s family moved here two years later. My mom actually used to be a movie star in LA. Not huge or anything, but I think she might have been headed that way before she met my dad. He was a community organizer with big plans forbecoming a senator and got invited to one of her movie premieres. It was a screening ofThe Last Stranger, probably the biggest part my mom ever had, and my dad always says that he fell in love with her instantly, just by seeing her on-screen. That she washislast stranger. Six months later they were married, and a year after that they had me. My father never became a senator (he teaches history at our local college), but his brother did. I think it’s still hard for my dad, the fact that his brother got to realize his dream when he didn’t. They haven’t spoken in years, and every time his name is in the paper, my dad takes the pages out to the recycling bin himself.
My mom is still looking at me, waiting for an answer about Rob, but I just shrug and stick a piece of toast into my mouth. Charlie immediately snatches it away.
“Bagel Wednesday,” she says, dropping it down on the counter like it’s radioactive. “Hello?”
My father smacks the back of his hand against his forehead dramatically, and my mother sighs.
“Well,” she says, “have a great day.”
“Oh, we will,” Charlie says, slinging my book bag over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up.” She blows my mom a kiss and marches me outside.
Charlie has an old Jeep Cherokee we call Big Red. It’s not as fancy as Olivia’s car, but it doesn’t matter. Charlie would look good ona tricycle. We climb inside, and the familiar smell of Charlie’s perfume hits me. A combination of lilacs and plumeria she mixed for herself at the Body Shop last year. Her car is always stuffed to the brim, like she could take off at any minute and move somewhere else. There is a gigantic canvas tote in the back seat monogrammed with her initials, CAK, that contains absolutely anything you would possibly ever need. We were once at Olivia’s beach house in Malibu, and I got a piece of corn stuck in between my teeth so hard that my gums started to bleed. Charlie marched me out to Big Red and performed minor dental surgery.
She starts the car and backs out of my driveway, applying lip gloss in the rearview at the same time. I risk a glance over to Rob’s house, but it’s hard to make out anything between the trees. Or see if there are any cars still parked in his driveway.
I pick up her iPod and put on Radiohead.
“Ew.” She gives me a disgruntled look and yanks the iPod out of my hand. She puts on Beyoncé and turns to me. “What is wrong with you this morning? It’s the first day of school. We need to be psyched up. Starting things on the right note is the only way to succeed.”
This is one of her theories. Charlie is full of theories. She has a theory about everything. For instance, she believes firmly that you can only change your hair once over the course of high school. Olivia chopped all hers off when she broke up withTaylor, and Charlie told her she had used up her reinvention. “I hope he was worth it,” I remember her saying.
“I’m psyched.” I force my face into a smile and slip the lip gloss out from under her fingers.
Charlie sighs and turns onto the highway. “Come on. I’m serious. You should be psyched. Me and Jake, you and Rob, Olivia and Ben.” She swallows after she says “Ben,” like she has a bad taste in her mouth. “We’re so ruling school this year.”
Another one of Charlie’s theories is that we live in a high school movie. Olivia seems to think this is true too. What I mean is that they can say things like “We’re so ruling school” and not feel the need to add sarcasm. I guess we are popular. Charlie is formidable, engaging in a way that makes her feared and loved. Olivia, on the other hand, is basically the high school dream girl. Big boobs, cute nose, and good-natured. There is literally no guy in school who isn’t in love with her. Plus, her parents have more money than God. Her dad does something in the music industry. He’s a producer or a record label owner. I think maybe both. To be honest, sometimes I’m not sure how I ended up in this mix.
