Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [91]
I’m starting to think I don’t know a damn thing about anyone. Or anything. My entire notion of sex and love is totally, completely, and irreversibly screwed.
the seventh
What does it mean when your true love turns out to be a homosexual?" I asked Marcus on the phone tonight.
"Well, Darlene, I’d assume that means he’s not really your true love."
Darlene is my alter ego. She was born last week. Marcus was lying on his bed, smoking a cigarette, waiting for me to call. He said he started saying my last name over and over and over like a mantra until darlindarlindarlindarlin became Darlene. Marcus says Darlene has sort of a trailer-trash allure that makes her more fun than I am. Jessica Darling had always sounded too cute, a cheerleader or head of the Clueless Crew or someone else I’d hate. So I welcomed the mutilation.
I tried to explain how much I thought I loved Paul Parlipiano.
"I was totally convinced I loved him, even though I barely knew him."
I could hear Marcus suck on his cigarette. I pictured the orange tip growing and glowing, and Marcus closing his eyes and holding his breath.
"There’s an explanation," I said. "I learned in Psych that sometimes the sensory receptors send impulses straight to the amygdala, which controls emotional responses, bypassing the hypothalamus, which processes and relays the information to the brain."
There was a thoughtful pause.
"I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re talking about," he said. "But you’re basically blaming your love on biology."
"Biology," I repeated, imagining a thin ribbon of smoke reaching for the ceiling, the sky.
"That’s interesting …"
"What?"
"It just makes me wonder what subject you blame for talking to me every night."
I’m still settling on an answer for that one. Probably Chemistry.
Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I just wrote that.
the ninth
Marcus called me tonight and said, "Let’s do something."
We’ve been talking for two months. Not only have we never "done something" together before, but he’s never even called me on a Saturday night. It was understood: Weekdays at midnight were for me. Weekends were for Mia.
"Where’s Mia?" I asked.
"Mia?"
"Yeah, the girl you mack with in the hall every day."
"Oh, her." I knew he was joking around even though he sounded serious. "Mia is in Philly for her grandmother’s birthday."
"Oh."
"So I was thinking, I’m free, why not see if you wanted to do something with me? Maybe go to Helga’s?"
My tongue inflated to a bizillion times its normal size. It must have, because I could barely breathe, let alone speak.
"Darlene, are you there?"
I had to be cool about this. I had to be his nonsexual female friend who could care less if he was asking me to do something on a Saturday night, which was the closest thing I’ve had to a date, uh, ever. I had to make a joke out of this. Or else.
"So I’m sloppy seconds, is what you’re saying."
"Oh no, Jessica," he laughed. "You’re sloppy firsts."
Have truer words ever been spoken?
I sighed and told him I’d be ready in fifteen minutes.
Sixteen minutes later, we were cruising in the Caddie on Route 9. I was surprisingly not nervous. The Caddie was in the same exact condition it was in the last time I rode in it. Only no Roja. The fact that he hadn’t cleaned it up especially for me reinforced that this was no big deal. Just two friends, going to the diner on a Saturday night. The radio was busted, so Marcus popped Barry Manilow into the eight-track player. Rain pounded on the roof, and the volume was turned way up:
When will our eyes meet?
When can I touch you?
"I know this song!" I shouted over the crescendo. "My mom plays it when she does housework."
"Did you know that Rolling Stone called him ’the showman of our time’?"
Wow. I actually did know that. It’s what my mom says every time I complain about Manilow on the stereo. But the fact that Marcus knew it freaked me out. I mean, how many seventeen-year-old guys know that Barry Manilow is the showman of our time?
Fortunately, we got to Helga’s Diner before I had a chance to