Good Girls Part 22

Is he in a cast?"

247 "Hey," says Joelle, stomp-stomp-stomping. "It was my birthday!"

Back at the table, they're serving the entrees. We were so busy with Joelle's first o.r.g.a.s.m, we've already missed the salad.

"What is this?" Joelle says.

I inspect my plate. "Chicken, I think."

"An animal was murdered to end up like this," Ash says. "It's so wrong."

"I'm not much for eating," Pam says. "I'd rather smoke."

Joelle pushes the plate away. "I don't want to spill any food on this dress."

Cindy, who was wolfing her mashed potatoes, puts her fork down.

We sit at the table until the DJ decides to play some- thing decent and we get up to dance again. This time, a premature and idiotic conga line charges through our circle; Jo gets carried away and drags Ash with her . Pam, Cindy and me dance and dance and dance until we hear some commotion on the other end of the dance floor .

Pam uses her elbows to get us through the crowd, though we still can't see what's happening.

"What is it?" I ask the guy next to me.

"Fight!" he shouts, and holds up a fist.

"Who?"

248 "Who cares?"

Then we hear someone scream: "Will you stop it, Jimmy!?"

We look at each other. "Ash!"

Now we're really shoving. We push our way to the front of the crowd to see Jimmy and some other guy- Nardo?-rolling around on the dance floor , pounding on each other . In a cherry-red dress, Cherry stands on the sidelines, having such a fit that her b.o.o.bs threaten to bounce right out of her dress. I scan the scene for Ash.

She and Joelle are a few feet away from the wildly brawling Jimmy and Nardo, and Ash is . . . smiling?

I poke Pam and Cindy and point. Ash sees us and waves like she's never had so much fun in her life, so we run around the fight to get to her .

"What's going on?"

"First," says Joelle, "Cherry and Jimmy have a spat.

Cherry marches off to find herself a new dance partner .

Jimmy comes over and tries to give Ash all this you're- the-only-one-for-me-huge-puppy-dog-eyes c.r.a.p. She tells him to screw himself, he gets all pushy."

"Jerk tried to hug me," Ash says. "That's when Nardo stepped in." Her grin outdoes the Cheshire Cat's.

"Jimmy got up in Nardo's face and Nardo knocked him on his b.u.t.t."

Two chaperones leap into the fray and pull Nardo and Jimmy apart. Jimmy's nose is bleeding, and he's 249 already got a shiner cooking.

"Wow," I say. "Our little Jimmy doesn't look so good."

"No, he doesn't, does he?" Ash claps gleefully, like a five-year-old at a birthday party.

As the chaperones drag Jimmy and Nardo off the dance floor , Cherry following, Ash grabs Nardo's arm.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," Nardo says.

"My hero." Ash's lashes flutter, and her voice is tiny.

Ash never flutters, and her voice is never tiny. "Um, maybe you can call me? If you still want to?"

Nardo's about to faint with joy. "Yeah, okay," he says. "Tonight." The chaperones haul him away.

"Here's where Ash would say something auf Deutsch,'" I say. "Except Ash has been replaced by an alien imposter and we're going to have to destroy her with our ray guns."

"This calls for a cigarette," Pam says. She grabs my arm. "You come, too."

"We still have more dancing to do!" Joelle says. Ash's already bugging out to the next song, and Cindy's flail- ing away.

"When we get back, we'll dance the rest of the night," Pam tells her . "I swear ."

I follow Pam as she crashes right through the crowd on the dance floor , ignoring the dirty looks. She cuffs 250 Chilly upside the head and grins when he turns to glare at her.

"That one," she says to me, "was for you."

"Thanks."

Outside, the sky is deep purple streaked with a blind- ing orangey pink, like flavored lip gloss. Pam lights up.

"Walk with me," she says, strolling into the parking lot.

"Where are we going?"

"Around," she says. "We're enjoying this lovely evening. You want a cigarette?" She holds her pack out to me.

"Ugh. No, thanks."

We walk. She finishes her cigarette and lights another one. I wonder how many she's planning to smoke, because my feet are starting to hurt.

"I never thought I'd like you this much," she says. "I used to see you in school or at parties and I'd think, What a priss, what a princess, what a nerd. Who does she think she is?"

I laugh. "I didn't think I'd like you, either." I thought about what Ash said to me in the car last winter . "I guess I was kind of jealous of you."

"You thought I was a s.l.u.t," she says. "Don't deny it.

I heard what people said about me."

I blush, and I hope she doesn't notice. "What's a s.l.u.t, anyway?" I say. "Why isn't there a name for guys who do the same thing?"

251 "Player. Pimp," she says.

"Please," I say. "Those are compliments."

"Anyway," she says. "I was with a lot of people.

That wouldn't have been so bad if I was having a great time with all of them. Maybe there are girls who just have fun all the time-they're like boys or something.

But that wasn't me. Some of the guys were bad, some were boring, some were just nothing. After a while, what's the point?"

"Well, that's why you stopped. Isn't that the point?

Self-respect? Knowing what you want, blah blah blah?"

She drops her b.u.t.t to the pavement and grinds it under her shoe. "I have to tell you something. You're probably going to hate me for it, and I won't blame you.

I did it before I knew you."

My stomach drops and I wrap my arms around my waist. Luke. She's going to tell me she was with Luke. I wasn't wrong, I'm not wrong. But, I remind myself, it doesn't matter now. "You don't have to tell me any- thing."

She digs around in her purse and pulls out her little digital camera, flipping through the pictures. "Here,"

she says. "Look."

I take the camera. On the screen, I see Luke's naked chest, my blond hair streaked with black. I blink, not understanding. What is this doing on her camera? I don't get it, I don't . . .

252 Wait. "You took this?"

She pulls another cigarette out of her purse. "Yeah."

I realize my mouth is literally hanging open, and I snap it shut. "But why?"

"Because it wasn't fair," she says. "Everyone called me a s.l.u.t, but then there you are, sneaking off with him every minute. We all knew what was going on, but no one called you a s.l.u.t. No, it was just me. Cindy, too, and she's a virgin. Cindy just because she's friends with me."

Her hand is shaking as she brings the b.u.t.t up to her lips.

"At Joelle's Halloween party, I saw you go upstairs, and I saw Luke follow you. So I went, too. I opened the door and took the picture."

"And then you sent it around to everyone?"

"Only a few people," she says.

I grip the camera tighter. "But you sent it around."

"Yes, I sent it," she says. "I told everyone that some- one had sent it to me. I guess they sent it to all their friends, and then their friends sent it. Like that."

"My dad got this picture," I say. "My dad."

She nods. "I know."

"I can't believe this," I say. "I can't believe you'd be such a b.i.t.c.h."

One side of her mouth curls up, and she takes a drag on the cigarette. "Sure you can. It's why you like me."

"Like you? I want to freaking kill you!" My whole body feels hot and clammy. "Do you have any idea what 253 you did? The notes, the e-mails, the whispering, the star- ing? Mr. Zwieback found this on the library computers.

Mr . G.o.dd.a.m.n Zwieback! Even Ms. G.o.dwin thinks I'm some kind of s.l.u.t now. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

But of course she knows. "I was thirteen when I first went down on a guy."

"What?" I say. I'm used to her "sa.s.sy" p.r.o.nounce- ments about s.e.x, but now I have no time for any of it.

"Never mind. I don't want to know. I'm going back inside." I whip around and walk away, still holding the camera. Pam's behind me, talking to my back as if we were still having a pleasant conversation.

"Seventh grade. Aaron Roth. It was at his Bar Mitzvah. Funny, you know? Getting a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b at your Bar Mitzvah. Now, there's a rite of pa.s.sage."

I keep walking. She follows.

"Here's the thing," she says. "I didn't like it. I thought it was gross. But afterward, I felt so powerful. I couldn't believe that I could do that to someone else.

Make them lose control like that. I walked around the party, looking at every guy there, thinking, I could blow you and you and you and you and you. I thought I owned them all. I thought they were mine. I thought I was the s.e.xiest girl in the world."

I'm still walking.

"Aaron Roth did, too. For a while. And then he 254 broke up with me and told everyone I gave bad head.

Can you believe that? If I'd been two years older, I would have smashed his teeth down his throat for say- ing it. But I was thirteen. And I didn't know what to do.

Except maybe give more guys more head and try to get better at it. Prove I was s.e.xy. Prove it to everyone."

That does it. I stop walking and turn around. "Are you insane? Do you really think I'm going to feel sorry for you?"

Her face is veiled with smoke. "No. I don't feel bad for me, so why should you?"

I think she's full of it, but I'm still too mad. I don't want to care about what happened to Pam in junior high. Everyone on the planet has seen this picture, this picture that she took, a picture that she sent around. I didn't do anything wrong.

"It just got to me," she says. "Everyone thought you were this nice girl, this good girl, but you were doing everything that I'd done. So why were you still good?

And I'd quit guys. So why was I still a s.l.u.t?" She stares off into the distance, at the lights from the hotel. "I know it wasn't your fault. I know that it had nothing to do with you. It's all me. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."

I think about Joelle's party, what I said about Pam, what Ash said, what Joelle said, what we all said. Pam was a wh.o.r.e, she'd been with everyone, she'd do anything. We 255 said it out loud, and it didn't matter who heard.

I try to stay angry, to hold on to it. You were humil- iated in front of your parents and friends and the whole school, I tell myself. You had to live through Chilly taunting you and rockheads propositioning you and a doctor jamming his salad server inside you and your father shunning you.