Second Helpings (10 page)

These are the types of things I think about when Sara talks at me. Her verbosity is such that my brain can take a two-week Club Med vacation right in the middle of the conversation. When my gray matter comes back, its all refreshed and relaxed, knowing it hasnt missed a thing while it was away.

Omigod! shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping bag. I will look so cute in this!

I was not fooled by her buddy-buddy behavior. Sara was simply thrilled to have the opportunity to brag about her diet, how much weight she had lost over the summer, and all the guys shed hooked up with as a result of her makeover blahdiddyblahblahblah. Sara was very proud of her accomplishment: She had finally mustered enough discipline to become the full-fledged anorexic of her dreams. For years, she had hated herself for not having enough stick-figure stick-to-itiveness. Now she showed off her physique in a backless apron shirt and hoochie shorts that were so tight, I could see ample beavage. Foul.

Omigod! I cant believe you eat that stuff. Ive lost all taste for junk food.

The saliva fizzing in the comers of her mouth said otherwise. I must admit that I took much pleasure in biting into the oozy, caramel-coated, bizillion-calorie Bon. However, I was also afraid that she would grab my hand and bite off my frosting-sticky fingers.

Throughout this conversation, Manda acted like she couldnt have been more bored. She lazily skimmed her new paperback copy of Reviving Ophelia she must have read the old one down to shreds. She just stood there, popping another piece of Doublemint, or reapplying her lip gloss, or slapping her ever-present pack of Virginia Slims against her palm. (Insert oral fixation jokes here, here, and here.) Her hairusually dishwater brown and wavyhad been straightened and bleached the color of sweet corn since the last time I saw her. I couldnt help but wonder if this was an attempt to look more like Bridget. Unlike my beauteous SPECIAL friend, whose visage demanded overblown metaphors (sapphire eyes! rose-petal lips!), Mandas features were dull and forgettable. She didnt need a cute face, or the new hair for that matter. Just when I thought she had maxed out on hooter hugeness, it seemed that whatever poundage Sara had lost over the summer had turned up in Mandas bra.

So Sara said in a pinched tone that tried too hard to sound nice. What did you do all summer?

This was good news. The fact that Sara had deigned to make an inquiry about my life meant that she had zero gossip on me. If shed had the slightest trace of secondhand info, she wouldnt have bothered asking at all. I decided to respond with the most snoring of possible answers, one that would end the interrogation right then and there.

I spent all summer in a classroom taking a college-level creative writing seminar.

Stupefied silence. Mission accomplished.

Omigod! Have you heard about the new hottie whos gonna be in our class? asked Sara.

As always, Sara was good for a teensy bit of information, which makes her annoyance factor all the more annoying because you cant ignore her completely.

No. Who is he?

Manda shot Sara a quick, disconcerting side-glance.

Dunno, said Sara.

Like hell she doesnt. I swear Google goes to Sara for information. Manda was just pissed that Sara had mentioned the mystery hottie in front of me. If Manda hadnt been standing right there, Im sure Sara wouldve spilled the gory story Id already heard from Bridget about how Manda and Burkes on-again, off-again sex fest had finally come to an end. Burke had dumped Manda two weeks ago, the day before he left for college, because he couldnt be tied down by a high-school girl. Yet that hasnt stopped him from trying to woo back Bridget via a series of corny, incredibly incriminating e-mails ever since.

The point is, Manda is currently boyfriendless and on the rebound. She is out for hot-blooded American male companionship, but shell settle for frozen plasma if the search takes too long. This situation is extremely fortuitous for the new honors hottie, whom I will take the liberty of assuming will enjoy making the beast with two backs with a girl he barely knows. You know, like any other male between the ages of twelve and death.

Seeing the Clueless Two for the first time since June reminded me of everything I hate about school. Its amazing. Two minutes with them is all it took to suck whatever waning optimism I had right out of me. Why do I feel that sweet taste of Columbia will only make the toxic cocktail that will be my senior year harder to swallow?

Hence, my decision to apply for early decision.

I dont know why I didnt think of this before. By applying for early decision, I get all my worries out of the way. My application is out there and Im done with it. Once accepted, I am contractually obligated to go there, and nowhere else. Surely my parents would rather send me to Columbia than suffer the humiliation of having a daughter living at home and working on the boardwalk while the rest of their friends children are attending their freshman year of college. Whoo-hoo ! Its genius. Now that Ive made this decision, theres no point in putting it off. Theres no penalty against getting it in too quickly. The sooner I get it in, the sooner I have one less source of stress.

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September 1st

Dear Hope,

This year, Im going in prepared. If I stay focused on these objectives, my final year of Pineville imprisonment might prove to be slightly less painful.

Six Goals for My Senior Year That I Hope Will Make It Suck a Teensy Bit Less, Though I Wouldnt Wager an Eyelash on It

HHHH1.I will not be a college-unbound senior. I will send out my application to Columbia ASAP and not get caught up in the mass hysteria of the selection process. I will sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Or/ull ride, as the case may be.

HHHH2.I will try not to be such a buzzkill. If I succeed, I will write happy journal entries. When I get psyched about something this year, Lord knows I should document the rarity for posterity.

HHHH3.I will be nicer to Bridget and any other misguided individual who for reasons I cant comprehendpursues a friendship with me despite the inevitable incompatibility at its core.

HHHH4.I will ignore the Clueless Two. This requires herculean effort, as Manda and Saras skanked-out adventures are too front-page tabloid to go unnoticed.

HHHH5.I will refuse to read, watch, listen to, or take in through any other means of sensory absorption as of yet undiscovered by man, anything related to Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace and her so-called Gen-Whatever masterwork, Bubblegum Bimbos and Assembly-Line Meatballers.

HHHH6.I will accept that it is my primordial nature to focus all my hormones on one guy as opposed to taking the sluttier scattershot approach. I will learn from my mistakes and make a wiser choice for my OOOH (Obsessive Object Of Hominess) for the 2001-2002 academic year. Specifically, one who is not (a) a homosexual or (b) He Who Shall Remain Nameless.

Dogmatically yours, J.

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september

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the fourth

My first period class is gym. My second class of the day, which starts at 8:35 A.M., is lunchor should I say, brunch. It takes place in the gymnasium, which is convenient because its followed by two more back-to-back gym classes. After that, I have freshman-level basic-skills English and another lunch. The last period of the day is blank. I interpreted that as a study hall.

This slacker schedule is not a manifestation of early-stage senioritis. A wonky 404 hacked into the guidance departments new scheduling program, and now not one of Pineville Highs students has a schedule that makes any sense. Approximately 25 percent of the student body was in my first gym class. We all squeezed into the bleachers in a flagrant fire-code violation and sat there for the remainder of the day while the guidance department tried to sort out the glitch.

What up, my white soul sista?

I turned around and was so happy to be face-to-face with someone I actually wanted to see.

Why, if it isnt my token black friend!

Pepe and I bumped fists.

I thought this scheduling mistake was the administrations way of keeping the brothas down, he said. But I see that you crackas are getting harassed by the Man, too.

This ongoing joke about his blackness and my whiteness never gets old. I dont find it annoying or offensive when Pepe acts ghetto, because (unlike Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace and countless Wiggaz at Pineville High) hes doing it to be funny, not to keep it real . (Also, unlike Hy and the PHS Wiggaz, Pepe benefits from actually being black.) There is much fun to be had upsetting too-uptight, politically correct people.

Last spring, Pepe and I also bonded over the stupidity of everyone else in our French class. Hes a big fan of my editorials in The Seagulls Voice , too, which I totally appreciate. We even got over our first totally awkward moment, crucial to the well-being of any friendship. I was sure that his Pepe Le Pew-on-E crush would fizzle as soon as he got to know me better as a person. I mean, its a lot easier to have a crush on me when you dont know what a total psycho I am. So I was shocked when after eight months of daily conversations, he asked me if Id like to go to see a French flick that was showing at the local librarys International Film Festival. I was even more floored when he decided we could still be friends after I turned him down, which I did because (say it with me now) I will not get obsessed with anyone who is anything less than perfect for me . This mandate pretty much guarantees that my hymen will continue to stay so intact, so airtight that it could be used as a flotation device in case of an emergency.

Hey, Jess!

Bridget was also in the ridiculous gym class. She was flapping her arms in the air to get my attention.

Over here!

Bridget was sitting alone in the gym bleachers. Sort of. She was surrounded on all sides by a ring of fawning freshmen who kept a very safe distance. The very fact that they were gawking at Bridget with awestruck admiration clearly IDed them as freshmen. (All sophomore, junior, and senior girls have already moved on to bitterly envying Bridgets entry into quasi-celebritydom, as evidenced by all the fingernail-pointing and Who does she think she is?-ing coming at her from all directions beyond the ring of fans.) Furthermore, in the attempt to put their middle-school days behind them, these Hoochie Babies were dressed in the most revealing items in their whoredrobes. Lucky for them that the administration was too preoccupied with the scheduling snafu to enforce the dress code.

If Bridget noticed the freshmen, she didnt let on. I climbed up the bleachers to sit next to her.

You coming with? I asked Pepe.

He shook his head. Nah, you go ahead. Shes A-list. Im still fighting for walk-ons. You tell her I saidsup.

Will do.

And with a complicated, palm-slide-slap-behind-the-back-finger-snap-chest thump-soul-brother-number-one maneuver, Pepe was gone.

Hey, Bridget, youre being gawked at again, I said, motioning to the girls, who were tryingand failingto keep their cool.

Am I? Bridget looked around, uninterested. Whatever. How come Percy didnt come over here to, like, say hi or something.

Oh, hes too intimidated by your celebrity, I said.

Thats so, like, duh , she said, watching him retreat. I dont know why everyone acts like the video is such big deal.

Me neither. Personally, Id be more than a little mortified to be the subject of false rumors involving a member of a bargain-bin boy band. But you know, thats just me.

So have you seen Sara and Manda yet? I asked.

Skank and Skankier? Bridget replied, grimacing. No. Have you?

Not today, I said. But I bumped into them at the mall last week.

Oh. Im surprised Skankier wasnt, like, too busy snaking someone elses man to go shopping.

I really wasnt in the mood to rehash the details of how Manda slept with Burke while Bridget was with her dad in L.A. Christ, it happened two summers ago. Even though Bridge is obviously over Burke, she relishes any opportunity to remind everyone how slutty Manda is. But I was tired of talking about it, and seized this perfect opportunity for a segue.

Sara seriously downsized over the summer.

Bruiser finally lost the fat? Bridget was so stunned that she temporarily forgot to refer to her as Skank and had regressed to using Saras slightly less damning nickname. Ten pounds? Twenty pounds? Fifty pounds? Like, how much?

Ive never been on a diet in my life. I have no idea how much weight would transform Sara from a stout trapezoid into a slender, rectangular shape. And I think my geometric explanation would be lost on Bridget. Math is not her strong suit.

I dont know, I said. A lot, I guess.