Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [12]
Guys don’t go for me. I scare them. They like to feel they’re in control, but with me, let’s face it, they never know what’s going to come out of my mouth. (News flash: neither do I.)
This scoop would give Mom a heart attack. Every time I come home late or get caught sneaking out after she’s gone to bed, she’s certain it’s to see some guy. I get back and there she is at the kitchen table in her housecoat. Sometimes she’s Volcano Mom (“What have you been up to, young lady?”), but mostly she’s Long-Suffering Mom, wiping away tears with a box of Kleenex, trying to make me feel guilty.
Mom is afraid I’m going to end up pregnant. She’s especially worried when I come home smelling of beer. “What’s his name?” she yells, as if you need a guy to get drunk. All you need is to crash a house party. “Do you know about AIDS? Do you know about condoms?” She throws such big production numbers I swear she oughta be in show business. And she’s always leaving magazines around open to stories about the tragedy of teen moms. I think she watches too much Oprah.
I want to say, “Look, Mom, stop being so embarrassing.” But if she gets off on worrying, let her. Besides, actually talking to her would be awful. She doesn’t really want to know about my sex life any more than I want to know about hers.
With other girls, it’s trickier. I can’t let them think I don’t have a boyfriend. So when everybody’s talking about their big heartthrob, I invent one. They have names like Jaden and Caleb and Josh and are always mysterious, guys from far away who can be ditched whenever there starts to be too many questions, like when’s he going to drop by the school for a visit. When asked how far I’ve gone, I say, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” or “Guess” and let people think I’m this big make-out expert.
Katie’s crowd used to come to me for advice, because they’ve never gone further than sweaty hand-holding and lip kissing. “Frenching!” Katie made a face. “That’s so gross. I want to brush my teeth just thinking about it.”
But Katie blabbed the truth about me and boys to Ashley last summer, at their stupid youth leadership training camp, and as soon as they got back Ashley ran around and told everybody else. Needless to say, the next time the topic of boys came up and I mentioned I’d met this guy called Ricky at my dad’s apartment building, the girls all gave me these funny looks.
Katie turned red and her eyes popped, and right away I knew what had happened. But I didn’t crack. Instead, I laughed and said in a really loud voice, “Let me guess—Ashley’s pretending to be an expert on my sex life, right?” And then I turned to Ashley and practically shouted. “You are such a pathetic baby, Ashley Walker. Who are you to talk about anybody? You can’t even say the word ‘penis.’ Say it, Ashley! Penis, penis, penis!”
Seeing as we were hanging around the mall at the time, I got a lot of attention. I also made Ashley cry. Serves her right after how she treats me. Like, she’s lucky I don’t blog about her on Facebook. I mean, I wouldn’t, but she deserves it.
Getting even with Ashley was one thing, but I still worried about what the other girls thought. That’s why Frenching with Jason in broad daylight was extra fantastic.
Jason, you are my dream come true. But now I have something new to worry about: will I be his dream come true? He probably thinks I’m experienced, and I’m still wondering how far is too far on a first date.
Worrying about what to do is bad enough. But even worse is worrying about how to do it. Even simple stuff like kissing. That time on the football field doesn’t count, because it happened so fast and out of the blue I didn’t have a chance to tense up. But knowing it’s coming is a different story.
Your reputation can get ruined in one night. Back in grade eight, Rachel