Maidenhead

‘What?’

My mom leaned in towards me. I wrapped my blankets up to my chin.

‘I’m sorry. You can’t really understand right now, can you?’

I knew my mom had gotten married to my dad when she was nineteen, like all those girls on Spring Break. She was pretty much the same age as Jody was now. It almost didn’t seem possible. I was hugging myself. My mother was sitting on the edge of my bed telling me that she was going to teach English in Korea for a year.

‘A year? Korea? That’s so far. Did you tell Jody?’

‘She’s okay with it,’ my mom said. ‘But are you?’

‘You’re going alone there?’

‘No.’

‘God, I knew it ... ’

‘Wait, Myra. My god, what do you think? I’m going with Sarah and Jon, the couple I met at my Spanish class this year.’

‘I can’t believe it, I mean we just went away! Jeff is only fourteen!’

‘Myra, I know you can’t understand this right now.’

I didn’t know if my mother ever had a boyfriend before marrying my father. I didn’t want to be so upset. I wanted her to get the fuck out of my room.

‘Your cheek is going to clear up before school. Things are going to be fine if you keep using that cream.’

My mother hugged me heavily then, on top of my blankets. I couldn’t untangle myself to hug her back or push her off. I ­couldn’t believe she was leaving. We had to live alone with my dad?

‘It’s okay that you’re mad at me, Myra,’ my mother whispered into my hair. ‘I might be mad too, if I were you.’

‘You don’t know what’s going on with me,’ I croaked.

‘It would make me feel a lot steadier right now, Myra, if you could just try to understand things from my perspective.’

My mother was always so young-looking that strangers thought me and Jody and her were all sisters. I held on to my necklace and closed my eyes. Elijah made me this necklace, this chain that was locked on me now. He said it was beautiful that I didn’t know how beautiful I was.

GAYL: She’s forgetting things! Tripping. Like what about me?

LEE: No, no, she’s managing all right.

GAYL: Man, I just want to get to the dirty stuff now.

LEE: Leave her alone, she’s lonely. Let’s leave her alone.

§

My red shiny miniskirt, white leather booties and cut-off white V-neck T to distract from my face. I was supposed to meet Jen at her place with Charlene. I was supposed to show off my tan lines and trade stories about March Break. But at my mother’s makeup table with the daytime light setting, I thought my cheek looked medieval or something: I was a leprous species close-up. I shoved my hand down my skirt. Thank god I could make myself come. That was the only thing I could be thankful for. I could come in seconds now just by squeezing my legs together, squeezing inside. My mom had at least fifty different tubs inside her table. I dipped into two of the peach-coloured foundations and rubbed my entire face with the stuff. Then I turned the light setting to night and blue-purple dots bounced off my fresh mask. It didn’t look bad, it looked kind of glamorous, actually. I painted on another layer of the stuff, then I dusted with powder, smoothing over the cracks. The lights on my skin were like cars on the road.

‘You look hot, My!’ Jen came bounding down the stairs of her place. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. At least my cheek didn’t hurt as much anymore. ‘You look like an actress or something!’ She smelled like coconut cream. Jen said once, drunk, that she thought I had a good body. I knew by the way she checked me out, without wanting to be too obvious, that she had that thought again. She was always tabulating thoughts and weighing them out. I was thinking I should give her a compliment too. Jen was tanned to the point of near-burn. She always wore the right amount of makeup because her dad’s girlfriend was a clerk at Holt Renfrew and she’d taught her how to do it right. All the guys liked Jen. She’d had three boyfriends already, all in Grade 12. I followed her up the stairs t

o her bedroom. There was a flask on her pillow. She gave me a swig.

‘Our trip was fucking awesome. My, you have to tell me all about yours when Char comes. Tell us all the dirty details. Oh god, Dave and my mom were totally relaxed in Cabo and we tried to get the Mexican guys at our hotel to sneak booze into my drink. This guy, the bartender, did stuff like that, he said, for caliente girls like me. He was nineteen and Dave knew I was hot for him and he almost tried to set us up. He kept making jokes at dinner saying, You know this girl is going to be at the pool later, right? His name was Ricky, but I called him his real name, Ricardo, he was so fucking embarrassed that Dave was doing that. It was cute though, really. I’ve got his email, we’re gonna talk.’

Jen smiled. She took three long chugs off the flask. She was already planning our graduation trip. I was thinking about how I was going to tell Jen about Elijah. Charlene was black and I wondered if she’d think it was weird that I was with a black guy who I met on the beach. Who wanted me to touch his cock. Who pissed on me. Who was going to come here. Jen would fucking freak out if she knew.

‘That’s cool about Ricardo,’ I said.