at the deep end. He has been asking about some girls I know. I am vaguely dismayed that his taste in women is running to the obvious-tall blondes and dark-haired girls with chests everyone stares at. Plenty of the boys have received favors from these girls, but they wouldn’t look at my cousin nor his geeky friends twice, and he knows it.
Our friendship is becoming uneasy. Because we are related, we can and do share everything. Because of our age, attraction is possible-but, obviously, off-limits. When the subject of sex does come up, being shy and clever as we are, we couch it in the most neutral terms possible.
“If I wasn’t your cousin, and didn’t know you, I’d probably be attracted to you.”
“Me too. If I wasn’t your cousin. And didn’t know you.” And we know what we mean. Then an awkward silence, usually followed by a simulated farting noise to bring things back to the mundane. These conversations foretell the sort of relationships I will have with men through university, a parade of pale, gentle boys who are too shy to admit their desire until they are too drunk to care. A lot like the few people I dated at school, really, but with better access to alcohol. Sometimes my cousin’s friends express an interest in me; he fends them off with protestations of my tomboyishness (“She would break you in half if she heard that”) or maturity (“She wouldn’t look twice at a child like you”). I was terribly mature; I’d even tossed a boy off in a cinema, don’t you know.
There are other things as well. We don’t know it for a year yet, but I’ll be going to university, my cousin won’t. His A levels were good, and he had offers, but he didn’t follow through and his mother didn’t press. He thinks he wants to be a Royal Marine or a mechanic. I think he’s crazy. A decade later he ends up working prep in a commercial kitchen.
I pull myself up the side of the pool and scramble out in the direction of our towels, grab them both, walk back to the water.
“Hey,” he says, a little louder than absolutely necessary. “You’re walking differently. Does that mean you’re not a virgin anymore?”
“Yes,” I say, straight-faced. He starts to get out of the pool, and I throw his towel in the water. This is how he knows I care about him.
He’s not sure whether I’m kidding or not, and doesn’t press for details. I prepare a fake story anyway, just in case. When his mum comes to collect us, we both sit in the back of the car, and he just whispers names.
“Marc?”
“No.” Marc was in my year, and taller than the rest of the boys. He also spits when he speaks without realizing it and follows me around too often.
“Justin?”
“No.” I have a crush on Justin; my cousin is the only person I’ve ever told; I hope he doesn’t tell anyone else. Before leaving for university, I will tell Justin all this in a letter, and he will never speak to me again.
He senses my discomfort. “Eric. Has to be.”
The joke candidate. “No way!” I say, but refrain from giving him a nipple-twister, because to do so would compromise the new air of maturity this lie has conferred.
It doesn’t matter much anyway. Within a month it happens for real, with my cousin’s best friend. While I flinched, I didn’t make a noise. And as far as I can tell, my gait was no different the day after than it was the day before. vendredi, le 30 avril
I fly east, to Italy, to meet friends. The plane is small and crowded and the heavily made-up flight attendant screams at a child who keeps running up and down the aisle, even when the plane is taking off and landing. It’s not clear whom he belongs to; his parents are making no effort to stop him.
The first thing I do after setting my bags in the cool tile hallway is go to check e-mail. And there’s a small surprise, a message from Dr. C over in San Diego, who must have gleaned my e-mail address from A2. It’s a short but affectionate note dating from two days previously. I reply with an equally short and cheerful message.
Mai
T-V
T is for Taxis
I usually ring a minicab for the way out and find a black cab on the way home. Minicabs will not necessarily know where you’re going, and I’ve ended up reading their maps more often than not. Black cabs will get you somewhere smoothly, but might try to take you on a scenic tour to push up the price. Sometimes I hail a black cab on the way out, but can’t count on finding one near home except on weekends.
Collecting local minicab cards is useful; it wouldn’t do to always get the same drivers.
T is also for Timewasters
Theoretically, working through an agency should prevent ghost bookings: the people who express interest in your services and even go so far as to reserve a time and agree on a price. Only to find that they have meetings later than they thought, or the wife did come along after all, or he forgot the phone number (my personal favorite- this is what mobiles are good for, no?). So sometimes you will go through all the prep and end up on the shelf. At least you can reassure yourself that unlike in real relationships, it’s not you, it really is them.
U is for Underwear
Matching underwear, sexy and luxe. For looks, not for comfort. Early on, the manager emphasized the particular look she likes the girls to have: big, expensive, lacy pants. No thongs. More is more. Garter belts are cliched but a nice touch. Don’t invest in anything that will be difficult to get in and out of. It must be clean and well fitting; there’s nothing more unattractive than rolls of back fat or the dreaded double cleavage from an ill-fitting bra.
V is for Vagina
Keep it clean. If you don’t wax or shave clean, keep the hair trimmed. Look out for any odd swelling, redness, discharge, or discoloration, and if you notice these symptoms, get yourself to a clinic as soon as. Do those squeezy tightening exercises gynecologists are always on about. Men love that. samedi, le 1 ^er mai
The flat I’m staying in is within smelling distance of the city’s fish market. This in itself is not a problem. No cracks about whores and fish smell, please.
The major drawback to the location is the trucks that rumble in at 4 a.m. to drop off the day’s catch. The men standing off the backs of the trucks, shouting to each other, unloading. Then it goes quiet for an hour or so before the first customers start coming to market.
Still, it’s probably about time I started learning what rising with the sun is good for. Nabbing the best fish, for one thing. dimanche, le 2 mai
I went to the beach with a small group. There was me and one other girl; the boys sat slightly separate from us on the pebble shore as everyone stripped down and tanned on their towels.
The other girl is not a close acquaintance. A few days ago we were talking, and she asked my age.
“Twenty-five,” I said, knocking a couple of years off. She is nineteen at the oldest.
“Wow!” she said, looking genuinely surprised. “I never would have guessed.” I shrugged. When I was younger, everyone thought I was far older; now, the situation is reversing itself. “You know, you don’t have to tell people your age,” she said helpfully. “You could probably say you were twenty and people would believe it.”
Only if said people were teenagers. Bless her, though.
I was reading. One boy, a blond, was listening to music and singing loudly-and tunelessly-along. You couldn’t help but smile. Some of the other boys threw a Frisbee around and splashed in the shallow water. When they got bored with that, they came back to where we were lying.
The other girl, who was flipping through a magazine and listening to music, turned toward me. “Are my sunglasses very dark?” she asked under her breath.
“Yes, they’re quite dark,” I said.
“So if I was looking somewhere, you couldn’t see my eyes, right?” she asked.
“I couldn’t, no.”
“Good,” she said, and turned away again, facing the boys, her head propped on one hand. Gazing, I noticed,
