Good Girls Part 19

He kept his hand where it was, his thumb touching my lips. I heard the words before he said them: "I know you will."

220 Born Again After church, while waiting for Joelle, Cindy, and Pam, I tell Ash about arguing with Luke in the hallway after school, about how mad he was, how stupid and horrible I was. Angel is officially closed for inventory today, but we sit whispering on the floor in the prom dress section of the store, far away from the back office, where 221 my dad is ripping through a pile of paperwork.

"Jesus," says Ash, "Luke actually, like, liked you all along?"

"I think so," I tell her. "Maybe."

"Whoa," she says. "And you were such a b.i.t.c.h to him. Worse, you were like this crazy stalker psycho- b.i.t.c.h."

"I thought he was with other people. I thought he slept with Pam. And for a while I wondered if he had something to do with the picture," I say.

Ash shakes her head. "You're so weird." She counts off on her fingers. "First you're doing this casual thing, then you're with him every weekend, then you do it with him, then you're not casual anymore, then you think he's slept with someone else because Chilly-h.e.l.lo? ew?- said he did, then you blow him and break up with him in the same night, then someone takes a picture of you, and then you decide to be friends with the girl you think Luke slept with. Does any of this make sense to you?"

I wince. "Feel free to shut up at any time."

"I'm just trying to understand."

"I didn't want to be one of those girls who doesn't get mad at the guy when he cheats, who only gets mad at the girls he cheats with, okay? Besides, I thought he was playing everyone. It wasn't about Pam. It was about him."

"And now it's about you. What are you going to do?"

222 "Nothing," I say, miserable. "What can I do? I screwed everything up. So not only am I a s.l.u.t, I'm a s.l.u.t who isn't having any kind of s.e.x. What is up with that?"

Ash winds Angel's single available boa around her neck. "All I can say is that I'm glad I'm me and not you."

"Thanks," I say.

"You never did tell me about it, you know," she says, spitting a feather out of her mouth.

"Tell you about what?"

"Doing it," she says. "How was it?"

"Well. . . ," I begin. When I get to the part about the b.l.o.o.d.y sheets, Ash pulls a Joelle and falls to the floor .

"Ack! Gross!" she says. "I can't believe you had to do his laundry."

"I couldn't leave it like that," I say. "Could you?"

"We read Forever. You should have used a towel."

"Forever didn't say anything about losing four quarts of blood."

Ash pats my hand. "Next time you won't need the towel."

"Next time?" I say. "There isn't going to be a next time."

"No next time for what?" Joelle says, running over and flopping down to the floor next to me. She's got the goofiest smile on her face, a smile she's had since she started dating O/Joe.

223 Ash wags the boa at her. "Audrey doesn't think she'll ever have s.e.x again."

Pam and Cindy push through the racks of purple and pink dresses. "Join the club," says Pam.

"What do you mean? Why won't you have s.e.x again?" Joelle shrieks.

"Shhh!" I say. "My dad's in the back."

"Go ahead," says Ash. "Tell them the story."

They all sit on the floor so that I can go over the whole thing. Pam nods sympathetically, but Cindy covers her mouth with both hands and Joelle looks a little pale.

"I read somewhere that you won't bleed if you did lots of gymnastics or rode horses when you were little. I did both of those," says Joelle. "You don't think I'll bleed like that, do you?" I figure she must have big plans for O/Joe to be asking that question.

"Everybody bleeds," says Pam, sounding a bit like an extra from an action movie. "No big deal. Doesn't even hurt that much."

"Were you upset?" says Joelle. "Were you so so so embarra.s.sed?"

"Yes, Joelle. I was. And please keep saying it exactly like that, because it makes me feel so so so much better ."

Cindy pipes up. "In some cultures the fathers take the b.l.o.o.d.y sheets and parade around the town with them after their daughters' wedding nights to prove their daughters were virgins."

224 "Did you read that in one of your books?" Ash says sarcastically.

"I saw it on the History Channel, for your informa- tion!"

"Great," I say. "And I didn't even save the sheets. I'm going to bring shame on my family."

"I guess we'll have to stone you," Ash says.

"I don't want to stone anyone before we pick out our prom gowns," Joelle says.

"Our gowns?" says Ash. "I'm not going to the prom.

I'm here to help you."

"But I thought that guy, what's-his-name, asked you to go," Joelle says.

"Who? Nardo? I'm not going with Nardo," Ash says.

"Why not?" I ask her. "What's wrong with Nardo?"

"Nothing," she says. "I don't want to go with him, that's all." Her face has her don't-ask-me-any-questions- or-I'll-light-a-cigarette-and-burn-you-a-new-eye-socket expression, so I leave it alone.

"What about you, Pam?" Joelle says. "Aren't you going?"

"No way," says Pam. "I've given up on stupid high school stuff, and proms have to be the stupidest high school stuff there is."

"n.o.body asked me," says Cindy. "I want to go, but . . ." She trails off, plucking wistfully at a fluffy pink 225 number that would make anyone look like a giant cup- cake.

"I'm not going, either," I say.

"No!" says Joelle. "I cannot be the only one of us going to the prom! That's not right!"

"But that's the way it is," says Pam. "So why don't we just pick out your dress and get the h.e.l.l out of here.

All this pink and purple c.r.a.p is making me nervous."

"I don't want to go if you guys aren't there," Joelle wails. "I mean, I'll go anyway, but . . ."

"I might go if I could wear one of those," Pam says, waving her hand toward the wedding gowns. "That would be funny."

I laugh. "It would be, wouldn't it?" I think about what Pastor Narcolepsy said, about people trying to let go of their past mistakes. But I don't think he understood what the real mistakes were. Even though he talked about a guy calling himself a born-again virgin, we all knew that it was the girls he was talking to. I know I was supposed to fight Luke off. That's what girls do, isn't it? You can only do this much and go this far, and then only if he promises to love you forever. Or you can do anything and every- thing, but only because the guys want it and it's what you have to do to keep them around; it's not really your fault-you know guys, they're just big walking erections, ha ha. No one ever talks about what girls want, because we're not supposed to want anything, not really. No one 226 talks about how hard you have to fight yourself some- times. No one tells you about how the want gets in your blood, eating everything in its path, how every time you hear a certain name, or see a certain face, the cells divide and multiply and you are just. so. hungry.

How do brides wear white when we're all sinners? I have a friend who likes to call himself a born-again virgin. . . .

I'll give them born-again virgins.

"Hey," I say, "I have an idea."

Because Joelle's the only one who has a date, it takes us a while to convince her to go along.

"Come on, Joelle," I say. "It will be so great, all five of us together. So much better than going with a guy. No arguments, no bad breakups on the dance floor, no mis- takes. Just us, the Born-Again Virgins, wiping out the past."

"What are you talking about? What past?" Joelle says.

"It's ironic," I say. "We're not really wiping out the past. We can't. n.o.body can. We're just making a state- ment."

"But I'm not a born-again virgin! I'm an actual vir- gin!" Joelle says. "Where's the irony there?"

"I'm a virgin, too," says Cindy, "but it sounds fun to me."

227 Joelle puts her hands on her hips. "You don't have O/Joe waiting for you at home!" She digs around in her purse and pulls out her phone. "See? He's already called me twice and text-messaged me once today-I heart you. See that? He hearts me! How can I not go to the prom with O/Joe? He's already rented his tux! Plus, the prom's practically on my birthday! He was going to be my present!"

"You can go to his prom with him," I tell her. "He's got one more year, remember? This year, you have to be with us. Please, Joelle? Please?"

"If we do this," says Pam, "no one will be able to take their eyes off us. We'll be it, you know what I mean?"

Joelle glances at the wedding dresses. "That's proba- bly true."

"No one's ever done this before," I say. "We'll be the first. They'll be talking about it for years."

"If I'm doing it, you can do it," Ash says.

"You know," says Pam, "you would look amazing in one of those, what do you call them? Crown things?"

"Tiaras," I say.

"You have tiaras here?" says Joelle.

"You'll have to get something lacy," says Ash.

"Maybe a straight skirt."

"Sleeveless, to show off your arms," I say.

Cindy nods. "You have such great arms."

228 Joelle thinks about this. "Do you think I should do a veil? And maybe those white opera gloves that go all the way up past the elbows?"

I smile. "Whatever you want."

I have my friends on board, but now I need to ask my dad.

He looks up from the pile of paperwork. "You want to do what?"

"Renting the gowns will cost less than buying a prom dress. You only wear this stuff once anyway, right? Isn't that why you started the rental business? Because women didn't feel like wasting their money?"

"But they're wedding gowns, Audrey. Not prom gowns. Your dates will be terrified."

"We're not going with dates. We're going together.

The five of us."

He frowns. "But why?"

Because, I think. We've made mistakes and ruined things, but that doesn't make us any more horrible or s.l.u.tty or sinful than anyone else, it makes us human.

Because we want to make an entrance. Because we want to be beautiful, but not for a guy-for ourselves.

I don't say any of this, though. "Because it will be cool."

"They are very expensive gowns, Audrey," he says.

"I know, Dad. We'll be careful with them. We can't 229 afford to rent the designer ones. We'll do the cheaper ones."

He taps the desk with his pen. "I don't know if I understand this."

There is so much he doesn't understand, and I'm tired of all that he doesn't understand. I wonder if this is on purpose, like he's mentally sticking his fingers in his ears and saying La la la, Audrey, I can't HEAR you, or if we've reached some sort of crossroads and there's no going back. "Do you have to understand it?" I say, tired now. "I mean, can you not understand it and let us do it anyway?"

He sighs. "I suppose I can. Are you sure this is what you want to do? Won't it spoil things for you when you go to shop for your real wedding dress?"

I snort. "I'm not going to get married for a thousand years, Dad. By then, people will be wearing tinfoil biki- nis when they get married, for all we know. And anyway, we're not going as brides. We're like the opposite of brides. We're the anti-brides. Like nuns, only fancier.

Well, not really like nuns at all, but-"

"Okay, okay," he says. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I suppose it's fine. But please, nothing with a price tag of over $750. That will keep the rental fee down to $175, which I'll give to your friends for $125 each."

I pump my fists.