Firsts (12 page)

“Mercedes, honey, wake up! We have yoga in half an hour! I made you a detox tea; it’s waiting in the kitchen.”

A nightmare. That’s my first thought. But the knocking doesn’t stop. And when the knocking does let up, doorknob jiggling commences. That’s when I bolt upright.

“Kim! I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Okay, honey, but your tea is getting cold.” The voice on the other side of the door is unnaturally chipper. I groan and fall back on my pillows.
Since when do Kim and I do yoga together?
She hasn’t even been home all weekend. She told me she was spending it with Fred from the bar, or was it Ted the investment banker? Maybe they’re the same person. If this is one of her ideas for a bonding ritual, it couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time.

“Morning, beautiful,” Jeremy whispers in my ear. He has an unfortunate case of morning breath, so I turn the other way. I feel hungover, even though I had nothing to drink last night.

“You need to leave,” I say, but it’s muffled by my pillow. He could probably sneak out the front door easily enough—Kim is most likely in the kitchen, reading the entertainment section and drinking her disgusting detox tea, so she probably wouldn’t hear him slip down the stairs. But it’s risky. I can’t help wondering what he told his parents. Most parents would be concerned if their teenager didn’t come home at night. Maybe Jeremy and I have more in common than I thought.

“Come on,” he says, stretching out his arms. “Let’s have one more round, as a good-bye.”

“Absolutely not,” I say, rolling out of bed and gathering his clothing from the floor. I ball it up and toss it at his chest without looking at him. “Here’s the plan,” I continue. “I’m going out with my mom. When we get back, you won’t be here. Just go out the back door and pull the screen door shut.”

I sit on the side of my bed and pull on my underwear. It would be easy to flaunt Jeremy in front of Kim. She would know that I’m keeping myself busy, that I’m taking advantage of being young and thin, the two attributes in which Kim places the most value. But that would be giving her what she wants. So I’d rather slip him out the door and pretend I’m a regular teenager going to yoga class with her regular mother on a regular Sunday morning, even just for an hour.

“Don’t I get any feedback?” Jeremy says. He’s making no attempt to move. I feel my face get hot, but I never blush. I walk to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Jeremy whistles as I walk away.

When I’m safely in the bathroom with the door shut, I sit on the toilet. My body shakes and my throat swells. Worst of all, I feel hot tears prick the back of my eyelids. I never let guys sleep over. I never let guys have a third time. Not even a second time. That’s not part of the plan. My system only works because it is a system, a routine with an order to it. I am reliable, or at least I used to be. My system has rules, and I just broke a big one.

I stand and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. Jeremy won’t tell anyone. He can’t. That’s the system. That’s how it works. He won’t mention this to his friends at school, because that’s how rumors start. If the rumor is about me, it’s also about him. And if it’s about him, his girlfriend will find out. But his not mentioning our sleepover to anyone rides on my pretending nothing is out of the ordinary. I push my bangs off my face and blow my nose. I need to get my shit together and go to this fucking yoga class and get Jeremy out of the house.

When I leave the bathroom, he’s fully dressed. I find a T-shirt and shorts in my dresser drawer that will suffice as yoga gear. By the time I turn around to face Jeremy, my hair is in a perky ponytail and I have a smile pasted on my face.

“Ten out of ten. Extra points for your confidence, because that’s usually the thing that needs the most work. Technically flawless. That’s your report card.”

Jeremy grins. “I could get used to this,” he says.

“You will,” I say. “With your girlfriend.” I find his shoes on the floor and hand them to him, suddenly aware that I don’t even know his girlfriend’s name. The realization hits me like a punch in the stomach. He didn’t bring her up once, and I didn’t ask. I was supposed to sleep with Jeremy to ensure she gets a perfect first time, and I have no idea if she even exists, or if he just sent me that message because he wanted to get in my pants. If that’s the case, I’m not sure who I’m more horrified with—Jeremy or myself.

I clear my throat. Now would be the time to bring the mystery girlfriend up, but I don’t even want to. I would rather not know the truth.

“See you Monday at school. Don’t forget: we have that poetry thing due.”

He slaps his forehead. “You’re amazing,” he says. “Best sex ever and saving me from failing English.”

“Bye, Jeremy,” I say before closing the door behind me. I rush to meet Kim downstairs, hoping that forcing myself to go through the motions quickly will clear my head of all the jumbled thoughts inside it. By the time we’re in the downward dog position in a class full of women, Jeremy is the furthest thing from my mind. Almost.

“How did you get so flexible?” Kim whispers. “This position is impossible.” When I shrug, she says, “You must be a yoga natural.”

But when our instructor stops talking and tells us to lie in corpse pose and clear our heads, all my thoughts come rushing back.
Best sex ever
. That’s what Jeremy said before I shut the door in his face. Normally, best implies having something to compare it to. And if Jeremy lied about being a virgin, how many other guys have lied to me, too? The whole point of doing this was to provide the perfect first time and to teach the guys how to give their girlfriends the perfect first time in return. But when did it stop being about that?

When did it start becoming about me?

When Kim and I are back at home, Jeremy is gone, just like I told him to be. He even made my bed and fluffed the pillows. Maybe he has hope for being a good boyfriend after all. Maybe.

I retrieve my notebook from underneath the boxes of condoms and make an entry for Jeremy. His nickname is easy. Unlucky Thirteen. The rest is harder to write, but I write it anyway. Maybe it’s good for me, to put my thoughts into words. If numbers and facts are my lifeblood, maybe words can be my therapy.

We had great chemistry. But it’s bothering me that it was that great. It shouldn’t have been that great. I have my doubts that this guy is a virgin. But if he isn’t, why wouldn’t he just go sleep with somebody else? I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask about his girlfriend, but I didn’t. Maybe I don’t care about her as much as I thought, since I don’t even know her name.

I stare at the words on the page and then at the hand that wrote them. I wasn’t even thinking that, but there it is. What I didn’t want to see. I sound like a monster, like somebody who doesn’t care about anyone but myself. Maybe I am.

I tuck the journal back into its spot, grateful for the secrecy of my nightstand, grateful to the dark wood for concealing so many of my secrets. I walk into my bathroom and lean over the sink, taking a series of deep breaths. Then I walk down the hall to Kim’s room.

I’m almost hoping Kim will want to make a day of it. After all, this is the first time she ever woke me up to attend a yoga class. Maybe she wants to spend time with me, go for brunch or take a walk through the park. Things that mothers and daughters do. But I set my expectations way too high, as usual.

“I have a mountain of work to do,” she tells me as she stands in front of her giant bathroom mirror, applying way too much eyeliner to ever constitute a “mountain of work.”

“What work?” I say. “You don’t have a job.”

My voice sounds caustic, but Kim doesn’t notice. She just blinks her eyes and applies coat after coat of mascara in rapid succession. “I don’t have a paid job, but I do
work
. I’m on the board for that big charity gala. You remember, the one you went to? You wore that gorgeous dress.”

I roll my eyes behind her back. The event she is talking about was three years ago. I had wanted to wear a dress I found while shopping with Angela, but Kim bought me one to match hers, a size smaller than I wore. She refused to have it taken out, so I had to starve to fit into it.

“Fine,” I tell her, turning to leave her room. “I’m going to spend a bunch of your hard-earned money.”

“Have fun,” she calls absentmindedly after me. I slam her bedroom door for good measure, but she probably doesn’t notice that, either.

I always shop by myself for lingerie, and I never go to the obvious choices, like the plaza near our school or the bigger shopping center downtown. I go to an out-of-the-way mall with a swimwear-lingerie section. It’s more expensive than Victoria’s Secret, but I don’t care, since Kim is footing the bill. Besides, it just looks better. None of this neon, uber-padded crap. I don’t believe in padding, not because I’m all that well-endowed but because guys are going to know what’s under there when the bra comes off anyway, and why disappoint them? Nobody really looks like the Victoria’s Secret Angels.

I don’t even know why I’m shopping for lingerie, considering I’m done with the virgins for good now. I feel weird about ending with the number thirteen—how unlucky is that?—but if the experience with Jeremy taught me anything, it’s that I have completely fallen apart. I used to love helping the guys plan a special night, and now the thought is utterly exhausting. My patience used to be my trademark, but it’s conspicuously missing in action. I guess I’m shopping for lingerie because it’s what I know how to shop for. Besides, I’ll need a fresh collection, now that I’m done with my good deeds. A fresh start. New lingerie to take with me to MIT, where I might eventually have a normal relationship. Nothing that reminds me of anybody else.

After shopping here monthly for the past four months, I have never once run into someone I know. So today, when I hear a familiar voice as I’m holding up a pair of white lace panties, trying to determine if they’re too cutesy, I almost jump out of my skin.

“Mercy,” she says. It’s Faye, wearing a name tag, the letters in loopy cursive so that it looks more like Fate. She’s squinting, and I’m not even aware that I’m clutching the underwear to my chest until she pries them out of my hands.

“No offense, but these aren’t really you,” she says. “Unless you’re shopping for Angela.” She leans in and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I call these first communion panties,” she says. “They’re like those lace dresses all the girls had to wear.”

I let her put the underwear back.

“What’re you doing here?” she says. “Shopping for a hot date?”

I shake my head. “No, just looking for some new pajamas.” Except pajamas are the one thing this store does not sell.

Faye raises her eyebrow. “Good God, you’re a terrible liar,” she says. “So you have a hot date. You don’t have to tell me who it’s with. Just let me help you find something more you. I’m thinking green, emerald green. Something to match those big beautiful eyes of yours.”

I look at the floor. Nobody has ever told me I had big beautiful eyes before. I feel a rush of affection for Faye, affection mixed with frustration. Does she use that tone of voice with everyone? Because the way she said it didn’t sound like a mere compliment.

“How was your date?” I hear myself say the words before I can take them back.

She smiles at me, but it’s almost a smirk. “I don’t know. It’s just hard to find someone you’re interested in these days. Everyone’s a version of somebody else.”

She bends over to open a drawer full of bras. Her shirt rides up, exposing the arch of her lower back and the tattoo there, the one I noticed after the soccer game. It looks like a winged insect, maybe a butterfly.

“Dragonfly,” she says without looking away from the drawer. “So typical, right? A dragonfly tramp stamp. But I really wanted to rebel against my mom, and I was dating a tattoo artist at the time.”

I nod. I know exactly what she means. This sounds like the kind of thing I would have done years ago, if I thought getting a tattoo would have any impact whatsoever on Kim. But I know it wouldn’t. Kim has a giant rose on her left shoulder and a heart with some guy’s name on her hip. I wish I didn’t know this.

Faye sorts through negligees, pushing the hangers at a rapid-fire pace. “Nope, not this one, definitely not this,” she keeps saying, without giving me enough time to even see them. She pauses at a black nightgown, then pushes past it. “Too cliché,” she says.

My rush of affection runs cold. I remember the missing negligee from my closet, the black lacy one, and wonder if Faye could be the thief after all. But she works in a boutique and probably gets a 50 percent discount, and I’m not exactly jumping to admit that I noticed a sole negligee missing from so many in my closet.

“This,” she says loudly, stopping at a spaghetti-strap concoction that looks black at first, until she holds it in front of the light and I realize it’s very dark green. “This is you.”

I want to say,
You don’t know me well enough to know if that’s me. You don’t know me well enough to recommend something for me to wear in my bedroom. You don’t know me enough to form an opinion.

But I don’t say this. I say nothing and follow her to the dressing room in silence.

She got the size right—I give her that. It cups my breasts, skims my hips without being too clingy. I hate lingerie that’s too tight. It’s right up there with jeans that create a muffin top.

I’m just getting ready to step out of it when Faye steps in. To the dressing room. She just pushes the curtain aside and stands there, staring at me.

“You could knock first,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

“It’s kind of hard to knock on a curtain,” she says. “I was right, though. That’s a great look for you. Whoever you’re buying it for will be a lucky guy.”

“I’m not buying it for anyone,” I say.

“Of course you are. Nobody buys lingerie that they don’t expect somebody to see. Who is it? Is it Chemistry Boy? I knew he was looking at you a lot.”

Damn Zach and his stupid puppy-dog eyes. But she has a point, so I come up with a lie.

“It’s a college guy,” I say. “We’ve been out a few times. I thought I should be prepared, in case, you know.” I look down at my feet.