hazelnut, no sugar, extra cream.
“Watch where you’re sitting. You’ll squish the bagels.” Lindsay frowns into the rearview mirror.
“You know you want a piece of this.” Elody gives her butt a smack and we all laugh again.
“Save it for Muffin, you horn dog.”
Steve Dough is Elody’s latest victim. She calls him Muffin because of his last name, and because he’s yummy (
Elody’s the most experienced of any of us. She lost her virginity sophomore year and has already had sex with two different guys. She was the one who told me she was sore after the first couple of times she had sex, which made me ten times more nervous. It may sound crazy, but I never really thought of it as something physical, something that would make you sore, like soccer or horseback riding. I’m scared that I won’t know what to do, like when we used to play basketball in gym and I’d always forget who I was supposed to be guarding or when I should pass the ball and when I should dribble it.
“Mmm, Muffin.” Elody puts a hand on her stomach. “I’m starving.”
“There’s a bagel for you,” I say.
“Sesame?” Elody asks.
“Obviously,” Lindsay and I say at the same time. Lindsay winks at me.
Just before we get to school we roll down the windows and blast Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama.” I close my eyes and think back to homecoming and my first kiss with Rob, when he pulled me toward him on the dance floor and suddenly my lips were on his and his tongue was sliding under my tongue and I could feel the heat from all the colored lights pressing down on me like a hand, and the music seemed to echo somewhere behind my ribs, making my heart flutter and skip in time. The cold air coming through the window makes my throat hurt and the bass comes through the soles of my feet just like it did that night, when I thought I would never be happier; it goes all the way up to my head, making me dizzy, like the whole car is going to split apart from the sound.
Popularity’s a weird thing. You can’t really define it, and it’s not cool to talk about it, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn.
Lindsay’s gorgeous, but the rest of us aren’t that much prettier than anybody else. Here are my good traits: big green eyes, straight white teeth, high cheekbones, long legs. Here are my bad traits: a too-long nose, skin that gets blotchy when I’m nervous, a flat butt.
Becky DiFiore’s just as pretty as Lindsay, and I don’t think Becky even had a date to junior homecoming. Ally’s boobs are pretty big, but mine are borderline nonexistent (when Lindsay’s in a bad mood she calls me Samuel, not Sam or Samantha). And it’s not like we’re shiny perfect or our breath always smells like lilacs or something. Lindsay once had a burping contest with Jonah Sasnoff in the cafeteria and everyone applauded her. Sometimes Elody wears fuzzy yellow slippers to school. I once laughed so hard in social studies I spit up vanilla latte all over Jake Somers’s desk. A month later we made out in Lily Angler’s toolshed. (He was bad.)
The point is, we can do things like that. You know why? Because we’re popular. And we’re popular because we can get away with everything. So it’s circular.
I guess what I’m saying is there’s no point in analyzing it. If you draw a circle, there will always be an inside and an outside, and unless you’re a total nut job, it’s pretty easy to see which is which. It’s just what happens.
I’m not going to lie, though. It’s nice that everything’s easy for us. It’s a good feeling knowing you can basically do whatever you want and there won’t be any consequences. When we get out of high school we’ll look back and know we did everything right, that we kissed the cutest boys and went to the best parties, got in just enough trouble, listened to our music too loud, smoked too many cigarettes, and drank too much and laughed too much and listened too little, or not at all. If high school were a game of poker, Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I would be holding 80 percent of the cards.
And believe me: I
So now I have first pick of everything. So what. That’s the way it is.
Nobody ever said life was fair.
We pull into the parking lot exactly ten minutes before first bell. Lindsay guns it toward the lower lot, where the faculty spaces are, scattering a group of sophomore girls. I can see red and white lace dresses peeking out under their coats, and one of them is wearing a tiara. Cupids, definitely.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Lindsay mutters as we pull behind the gym. This is the only row in the lower lot not reserved for staff. We call it Senior Alley, even though Lindsay’s been parking here since junior year. It’s the VIP of parking at Jefferson, and if you miss out on a spot—there are only twenty of them—you have to park all the way in the upper lot, which is a full .22 miles from the main entrance. We checked one time, and now whenever we talk about it we have to use the exact distance. Like, “Do you really want to walk .22 miles in this rain?”
Lindsay squeals when she sees an open space, jerking her wheel to the left. At the same time, Sarah Grundel is pulling up her brown Chevrolet from the other direction, angling it into the spot.
“Oh,
“Nice.” Lindsay pulls into the spot and throws her car in park. Then she opens her door and leans out.
“Sorry, sweetie!” she calls to Sarah. “I didn’t see you there.” This is obviously a lie.
“Great.” Elody is mopping up coffee with a balled-up Dunkin’ Donuts napkin. “Now I get to go around all day with my boobs smelling like hazelnut.”
“Guys like food smells,” I say. “I read it in
“Put a cookie down your pants and Muffin will probably jump you before homeroom.” Lindsay flips down the rearview mirror and checks her face.
“Maybe you should try it with Rob, Sammy.” Elody throws the coffee-stained napkin at me and I catch it and peg it back.
“What?” She’s laughing. “You didn’t think I’d forget about your big night, did you?” She fishes in her bag and the next thing that flies over the seat is a crumpled-up condom with bits of tobacco stuck to its wrapper. Lindsay cracks up.
“You’re pagans,” I say, taking the condom with two fingers and dropping it in Lindsay’s glove compartment. Just touching it gets my nerves going again, and I can feel something twist at the bottom of my stomach. I’ve never understood why condoms are kept in those little foil wrappers. They look so clinical, like something your doctor would prescribe for allergies or intestinal problems.
“No glove, no love,” Elody says, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. She leaves a big circle of pink lip gloss there.
“Come on.” I get out of the car before they can see I’m blushing.
Mr. Otto, the athletic director, is standing outside the gym when we’re getting out of the car, probably checking out our asses. Elody thinks the reason he insisted his office be right next to the girls’ dressing room is because he rigged up a camera feed from his computer to the toilet. Why else would he even
“Move it, ladies,” he calls to us. He’s also the soccer coach, which is ironic since he probably couldn’t run to the vending machine and back. He looks like a walrus. He even has a mustache. “I don’t want to have to give you a late slip.”
“I don’t want to have to spank you.” I do an impression of his voice, which is strangely high-pitched—another reason Elody thinks he might be a pedophile. Elody and Lindsay crack up.
“Two minutes to bell,” Otto says, more sharply. Maybe he heard me. I don’t really care.
“Happy Friday,” Lindsay grumbles, and puts her arm through mine.
