"Yeah. right." I said.
She came in, closing the door behind her.
"You don't have your mother anymore. and Brenda was never the sort of sister who had the patience for your problems. I'm sure, she said, which surprised me. "It's all right. I'm not telling stories out of school. Brenda would be the first to admit it. Am I wrong?"
"No," I said, knowing well that Brenda would never pretend to be one thing when she was another. Often. I wished she would.
"It's terrible to be alone with your feelings, especially when they're coming at you fast and furious, and they're so new and even frightening," Celia said.
She sat beside me on the sofa. I glanced at her and looked away. She was right about that, too, of course. What could I say?
"You really like this boy?"
I hesitated for a moment, and then I relaxed my shoulders. "I think so," I said.
"It's confusing, I know."
"I might have made a big fool of myself." I confessed. "Oh? How?"
"When we said good-bye. I just... just kissed him on the cheek quickly and jumped into the car. I probably looked like a real idiot."
"I'm surprised. Usually, it's the
boy who looks like a real idiot." she muttered. "What did he do?"
"Nothing. He just turned away and walked back to his frontdoor."
"Maybe he's very shy. There are still a few of them around," she said.
I turned and looked at her. ''Do you really hate men that much?"
"Hate? No. I'm just, shall we say, a little cynical. I had a number of experiences when I wasn't much older than you are, and none of them left me satisfied. Most were quite upsetting, matter of fact."
"Is that why you like to be with a woman?"
"No. I wouldn't say it was only because of those experiences. It's not easy to explain what makes you feel this way or that. There's something inside me that takes me in that direction. And I'm comfortable with it," she added quickly.
"When did you first know about yourself?" I asked, feeling bolder. She was the one who had come into my apartment to talk to me, after all.
"I didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't first know about myself. Someone else did and showed me," she said.
"How did she know about you before you knew about yourself?"
"Sometimes, people can see you better than you can see yourself. You're not objective, and you have a number of issues that prevent you from facing up to the truth. I dated plenty in high school. I cared about my appearance. I was quite attractive."
"You're still quite attractive," I said with an underlying bitter tone. I couldn't help feeling her goad looks were wasted on her.
"I developed a reputation for being frigid. It wasn't something I could help. I didn't enjoy necking and petting and going farther. I wasn't comfortable. The boys in school began to call me the 'No Girl.' They wrote it on my locker, made up jokes about me. One day, they even pasted a large 'NO' on my back in the morning without me noticing, and I was the laughingstock of the school without realizing why for quite a while.'
"How horrible." I said. I couldn't help being impressed with her revelations. Here she had been presenting herself as Miss Perfect, brilliant, attractive, and stable even after a very sad home life.
"This other Girl at the school. Donna Cameron, befriended me while my so-called best friends began to distance themselves from me. After all. I wasn't being invited to the same parties anymore or going on double dates.
"Talk about your man haters," she continued. "Donna would have castrated the entire male population if she could. She had been the object of ridicule most of her life and had developed a very hard crust. But she was very sympathetic to me and always willing to keep me company. Our friendship grew. We talked a great deal on the phone, shared homework, went to movies together. We never really talked about sex or how I was being treated. It was almost like a grade-school friendship, you know. Boys were still in the distance or considered competition.