Ready or Not

5

When I got home from work that night, it was to find a sight so confusing that for a minute, I thought I had entered the wrong house. I almost turned around and went back out again. That’s how bizarre I found what I was seeing.

Lucy was sitting at the dining room table with a bunch of books spread out in front of her.

On a Friday night. A Friday night. Lucy is never home on Friday night. Up until recently, she’s always either been at a game or out with Jack, who travels down almost every weekend to see her. Lately, of course, she’s been working the Friday night shift at Bare Essentials, over in the mall.

But not this Friday night. This Friday night, she was going over SAT vocabulary words with—and this was the part that had me convinced I had the wrong house, the wrong sister, the wrong everything—Harold Minsky.

There are a lot of places I might have expected to see Harold Minsky. Potomac Video, for one, in the very anime section I’d just spent an hour organizing. Or possibly the sci-fi shelves. I would definitely have expected to see him in the computer lab at school, where he practically lives, in his capacity as teacher’s assistant to Mr. Andrews, the computer lab supervisor.

I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Harold in the manga aisle at our local Barnes and Noble, or standing in front of Beltway Billiards, where he and his friends spend hours attaining high scores on Arcade Legends.

But I can’t say I expected, in a million years, ever to find Harold Minsky in my house…much less sitting across the dining room table from my sister Lucy.

“Waggish,” Lucy was saying thoughtfully as I walked in. “You mean, like a dog?”

Harold said, in a bored voice, “No.” Then, when there was no reply from my sister, he prompted, “It’s an adjective.”

“Waggish.” Lucy looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting the vocab fairy to tumble down from the chandelier and help her out. Instead, she noticed me standing in the doorway with my mouth sagging open.

“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said brightly. “Do you know Harold? Harold, this is my sister Samantha. Samantha, this is Harold. You know. From school.”

I did know. Harold was my computer lab TA. I said, “Uh, hi, Harold.”

Harold nodded at me, then turned his bespectacled head (how could it not be, when his parents had named him Harold?) back toward Lucy. What could they have been thinking, by the way? Didn’t they know that naming a kid Harold was a self-fulfilling prophecy, guaranteed to turn him into all that the name stood for: glasses, a crop of weedish brown hair that was badly in need of cutting, an unsteady gait stemming from a frame that had shot up six inches over the previous summer, making him one of the tallest guys in school not actually on the basketball team, and an orange Hawaiian shirt, the tail of which flopped out from the waistband of his too-short Levi’s?

“Come on,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that I’m sure no male member of the species had ever used on my sister before in her life. “You know this one. We just went over it.”

“Waggish,” Lucy said obediently. Then, to me, added, “Oh, I got that thing for you, Sam. That thing we talked about the other night? It’s on your bed.”

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then, when she winked slowly, it hit me—and I blushed. Deeply.

Fortunately, Harold was too caught up in getting my sister to come up with a definition for waggish (SAT word meaning “mischievous in sport; roguish in merriment or good humor; frolicsome”) to notice me.

“Lucy,” he said severely, “if you aren’t even going to try, I see no point in wasting my time and your parents’ money—”

“No, no, wait,” Lucy said. “I know this one. Really, I do. Waggish. Doesn’t it mean ‘happy’? Like, the football victory left him feeling waggish?”

I had to pass by the living room to get upstairs. My parents were both sitting in there, pretending to read. But I knew they were listening to Lucy and her new tutor.

“Hi, honey,” my mom said, when she saw me. “How was work?”

“Workish,” I said, keeping my head ducked in the hope that she wouldn’t notice my still-bright-red cheeks. “How long’s that been going on?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, toward the dining room.

“Tonight’s their first session,” Mom said. “I called the school, and they told me this Harold is the best SAT prep tutor they’ve got. Do you know him? Do you think he’ll be able to help her?”

“Well,” I said slowly. “If anyone can, I’d guess it would be Harold.”

“They tell me he’s a shoo-in for Harvard,” my mom said. “All the Ivies, actually.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like Harold, all right.”

“I asked for a female tutor,” my mom said, making sure to lower her voice so that Lucy and Harold couldn’t overhear her, “because I didn’t want there to be any…romantic complications. You know how boys can be about your sister. But when I saw Harold in action with her, I knew he’d be perfect. It’s almost as if he doesn’t even realize she’s…well, the way she is.”

It was nice of my mom not to come right out and say what we were all thinking: That Lucy is so gorgeous, guys on the street routinely fall in love with her on sight, and often trail after her, holding out scraps of paper with their cell phone numbers scrawled on them, which Lucy always politely takes, then deposits without a second thought in her bedroom trash can when she cleans out her purse every evening.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. That’d be Harold, all right. He doesn’t go in for that popularity stuff.” Or girls much, really. Unless they’re named Lara Croft and live inside a Playstation.

“I don’t care if he falls in love with her,” my dad said, roughly turning a page of the newspaper he was holding. “So long as he gets her score up, I’ll be happy.”

“Oh, Richard,” my mom said. “Not so loud. David called while you were at work, Sam. He said to call him back when you get a chance.”

“Huh,” I said. “Great.”

Only I didn’t mean great. I actually meant the opposite of great. Because I knew why he was calling. To find out what Mom and Dad had said. To find out whether or not we were going to get together over Thanksgiving to play Parcheesi.

And the truth is, I’ve never actually been the hugest fan of board games.

What would he do, I wondered, if I said no? No, I don’t want to go to Camp David with you for Thanksgiving, David. Would he dump me? I mean, if I just came out and told him that while he might think we’re ready for sex, I’m not so sure?

No. No way. David’s not that kind of guy. For one thing, he’s a total nerd—I mean, card carrying, with his vintage Boomtown Rats T-shirts, Converse high-tops, and long, strictly sci-fi related TiVo To Do list. And let’s face it, nerds simply don’t dump their girlfriends for not putting out, the way jocks seem to. Or so I’ve heard, not actually being acquainted with any jocks.

And for another thing, I know David really loves me. I know that because of the way he can be making fun of my hair one minute, and nibbling on my neck, telling me how hot he thinks I look in my new Nike shirt the next. I also know because I’m the last person he speaks to every night before he goes to sleep (he never forgets to call my cell….if I’m already asleep—or pretending to be, like I was last night—he leaves a message) and the first person he calls when he wakes up (not that I always answer, since I am not fit to be spoken to before my morning diet Dr Pepper).

And he doesn’t call just because he feels like he has to or I’ll have a breakdown—the way Lucy does with Jack—but because…well, he wants to.

No, David’s not going to dump me if I tell him I’m not ready. He loves me. He’ll wait.

I think.

Besides, if he did dump me, the press would eat him alive. Not to sound braggy, but I am quite beloved by the American people for saving the life of their leader.

Although that was pre–dye job. Who knows how Margery in Poughkeepsie is going to feel about me once she sees my new apparently Ashlee Simpson–esque do?

“This Return to Family initiative David’s father is promoting,” my mom said, breaking in on my musings about my sex life—or lack of one. “I really like the idea. Sometimes I feel like I never get to see you kids, you’re all so busy.”

I just stared at her, completely shocked.

“Whose fault is that?” I practically yelled. “This part-time job thing wasn’t exactly MY idea, you know.”

My dad lowered his paper again. “It’s important for you kids to learn the value of a—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted my dad. “A dollar. I know.” Like anything even costs a dollar anymore. “Speaking of which, did Lucy switch shifts, or what? Why is she home so early? Usually she doesn’t get back from the mall until ten.”

I noticed the glance my mom and dad exchanged. Don’t think I didn’t.

“We decided that, given Lucy’s SAT score, she needs to devote more time to her schoolwork, and less to her social life and work schedule,” my mom said lightly.

It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. Then, when I finally did, my jaw dropped all over again.

“Wait a minute,” I cried. “She gets to quit her job just because she bombed the SATs? That’s not fair!”

“Shhh, Sam.” My mom glanced nervously toward the dining room. “Lucy’s very upset about having to give notice at Bare Essentials. You know how much she loved that employee discount—”

“So if my grades start to slip,” I demanded, “can I quit Potomac Video?”

“Sam!” My mom gave me a reproachful look. “What a thing to say. You love your job. You’re always talking about your little Donna friend, and how cool she is—”

“Dauntra.”

“Dauntra, I mean. Besides, you can handle a fuller schedule than your sister can. You’ve always been able to.”

“Count your lucky stars about it, too,” my dad remarked, returning to his paper, “or we’d make you quit art lessons the way we’re making her quit cheerleading.”

I stared, totally shocked.

“Wait…you made her quit cheerleading?”

“The SATs are more important than cheerleading,” said my dad. He would think that, seeing as how in high school, he was pretty much like…well, like Harold, from the stories I’ve heard.

“She’s just taking some time off,” Mom said. “If she brings her grades up, she can get back on the team. We spoke to the coach. She understands that it just got to be too much…cheerleading, homework…”

“It wouldn’t have gotten to be too much,” my dad said, from behind the paper, “if a certain person didn’t come down every weekend and expect to spend every waking moment with her.”

“Now, Richard,” Mom said. “I spoke to the Slaters. And they agreed to have a word with Jack—”

“Lot of good that will do,” my dad said with a grunt, still not looking out from behind the paper. “The guy never listens to them—”

“Richard,” my mother said.

I took this as my cue to leave the room. It is never fun listening to my parents fight about Lucy’s boyfriend. Which they do almost every time his name comes up. Not that they aren’t in complete agreement in their opinion of him: They both hate his guts. They just have different ideas over how best to handle the situation. My mom believes if they in any way try to thwart the relationship, that will only make Lucy’s affection for Jack stronger—sort of like how Hellboy’s affection for Liz just got stronger after they tried to keep him from seeing her when she fled to the mental institution.

My dad, on the other hand, thinks they should just forbid Lucy from seeing Jack anymore, and that will take care of the problem.

Which is why Lucy and Jack are still going out. Because everyone (except my dad) knows that telling a girl she can’t go out with some guy just makes her want to go out with that guy even more.

This is another way in which Lucy’s life is vastly superior to my own. She gets to date a guy my parents don’t like or trust, causing them to worry about her all the time.

Lucky Lucy.

Although, if you think about it, her luck has kind of run out—at least about the cheerleading thing. I mean, it might be undermining the feminist cause, but she really loved doing it. And now it’s been stripped away from her.

And yet, she hadn’t looked too unhappy down there with old Harold. Which is weird, because, regardless of whether or not she misses cheerleading, one thing she’s definitely going to miss, if Mom and Dad have their way, is Jack…. Where IS he, anyway? Why isn’t he beating down the door, insisting on seeing her? Had Dr. and Mrs. Slater had “a word” with him, as my mom had said they were going to?

But Jack, being an urban rebel and all, isn’t the type to agree not to see his girlfriend just because his parents say she’s having trouble in school, and he needs to give it a rest, or whatever. In fact, since he started at RISD, Jack has been playing up the malcontent artist thing more than ever, what with the new motorcycle, and all.

And okay, my parents have expressly forbidden Lucy to ride it, even though Jack bought her a helmet (not that Lucy was particularly thrilled with it. She’d wanted a pink one. Also, she says it mashes her hair down).

But that doesn’t mean Jack can’t use the bike to cruise by our house, as I often hear him doing, in the middle of the night….

Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t actually heard the roar of Jack’s Harley too often lately. What’s up with that? I would have to find out from Luce after Harold leaves.

In the meantime, I had the package Lucy had said she’d left for me.

It was sitting right where Lucy had said she’d left it, in the middle of my bed. I looked inside the nondescript brown paper bag and saw two boxes. The first said, RIBBED FOR HER PLEASURE! in masculine-looking type.

Oh my God. My sister bought me a box of condoms.

Feeling a little sick, I looked at the other box. It had curly writing with flowers on it. Inside, I found a canister and a plastic, tampon-like applicator, along with an insert.

HOW TO USE CONTRACEPTIVE FOAM, the insert said.

Oh my God.

OH MY GOD.

I shoved everything back into the box, and then the boxes back into the bag, and the bag under the bed.

This was not something I was ready for. No, no, no. Not ready. SO NOT READY. So very, very not ready.

I mean, was I, Samantha Madison, really going to do this? Was I really going to have sex with my boyfriend?

I couldn’t help thinking about that girl Kris had mocked earlier in the day…Debra, or whatever her name was. She had had sex with her boyfriend. Allegedly, anyway. What if David and I Did It, and word got out, like it had about Deb? Would people call me a slut behind my back?

Probably.

Although it would hardly be worse than what they already call me (Freak, Goth, Satan Worshiper, Punk, Psycho, etc.).

But it wouldn’t just be people at school. I mean, with my uncanny ability to get my picture in magazines (mainly their Fashion Don’ts lists, but whatever), news of my sex life would probably be spread all over the tabloids. Not that I’d ever made it a point to go around telling everyone I’m a virgin or any of that. But, you know. It would be embarrassing if my grandma read about it….

It was right then that Lucy came barging into my room, without knocking, of course.

“Hey,” she said breathlessly, having clearly just run up the stairs. “Can I borrow your calculator?”

I glared at her. “What happened to yours?”

“I loaned it to Tiffany the last time we were at The Cheesecake Factory and were trying to figure out how much tip to leave, and she forgot to give it back. Come on, just let me borrow yours for tonight. I’ll get mine back tomorrow.”

I handed her my calculator. It was actually the least I could do, considering the present she’d left me.

“Oh, thanks,” she said. And started to leave.

“Wait—” I said. Thank you for the condoms and spermicide. That’s what I wanted to say. What came out instead was, “How’s it going? I mean, with, um, Harold?”

“Oh,” Lucy said, smoothing a silky strand of titian hair behind one ear. “Fine. You know, Harold thinks it isn’t because I’m not smart that I did so poorly. He thinks I suffer from test anxiety.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Harold thinks if I apply myself, I can raise my score by a hundred points—maybe more—just by practicing some breathing exercises before I go into the examination room.”

“Wow,” I said, wondering if that’s why Harold always seemed to need his inhaler. You know, from all the breathing exercises he must have to do to keep up his perfect GPA.

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Harold’s really nice, you know. Once you get past the stuff about Deep Space Nine and how mad he is that they canceled Angel.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’ve always liked Harold. He’s nice. Like when you mess something up in computer lab, he doesn’t get all, Well, did you make a back-up disk? the way some of the TAs do.”

“Aw,” Lucy said. “That’s sweet. I can’t believe he’s not more popular. I mean, how come I’ve never met him before, like at a party or something?”

“Um,” I said. “Because guys like Harold don’t get invited to the kind of parties your friends throw.”

“What are you talking about? My friends aren’t exclusionary.”

I raised my eyebrows. This was clearly an SAT word, courtesy of Harold.

“Um,” I said, again. “Yeah. They kinda are.”

Lucy didn’t like hearing that. I could tell, since she looked right at me and went, “Well, thanks for the calculator. I better get back to Harold.”

Then she left, before I even had a chance to thank her for what she had loaned me. Well, not loaned me, exactly, since I highly doubted she wanted any of it back….

It was right as I was thinking this that my cell phone went off.

I so wasn’t expecting it to happen—my cell phone to ring and all. I’m still not completely used to it—that I totally screamed, causing Rebecca, in her room down the hall, to call, “Do you mind, Sam? I’m at a really crucial stage in this larvae dissection.”

Which, actually, I would rather not have known.

I could see from the caller ID that it was David calling. David, with whom I hadn’t spoken—sort of on purpose—since last night’s discussion beneath the weeping willow in my front yard. I had already ignored two of his messages. I had to pick up.

Only…what was I going to say?

“Hi,” seemed like a good way to start.

“Hey,” David said.

Except that this was no simple “Hey.” Never, in fact, had more been conveyed in such a short word in the entire history of time. All of David’s happiness that I’d finally answered, as well as his frustration over not having heard back from me in over twenty-four hours, and—I really don’t think I’m imagining this—even his lack of certainty about how I felt about his invitation to “play Parcheesi” with him over Thanksgiving weekend was in that Hey.

I’m pretty sure.

That’s lot of stuff in a single word.

“Where have you been?” David went on to ask. Not in any sort of angry way. Just curious. “I left two messages. Are you all right?”

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. Sorry. Things have just been crazy.” I noticed the brown bag containing Lucy’s “gifts” to me sticking out from under the bed and quickly toed it back so that the dust ruffle covered it. Don’t ask me why. I mean, it wasn’t like David was there in the room with me. Except that he was. Sort of. “With school, you know. And work.”

“Oh,” David said. “Okay. Well, what did they say?”

For one second, I honestly forgot what he was talking about. “What did who say?”

“Your parents,” he said. “About Thanksgiving.”

And it all came flooding back.

“Oh, Thanksgiving,” I said. Oh my God. Thanksgiving. He wanted to know about Thanksgiving.

Well, of course he did. I mean, that was why I’d been dodging his calls for the past twenty-four hours. Because I knew he wanted an answer about Thanksgiving.

It was just that I wasn’t sure I was ready to give him one.

“Um,” I said, glancing at Manet, who as usual was collapsed across my bed, completely oblivious to the fact that his owner’s life was being turned completely upside down and inside out. Dogs have it so easy. “Yeah. Sorry. I…I haven’t had a chance to ask them yet.”

Okay. Just lied to my boyfriend. For the first time ever. More or less.

“Oh,” David said.

Just like with his “Hey” a few minutes earlier, that “Oh” conveyed a lot. It actually had been less of an “Oh,” than an “Oh?”

I was so dead.

“It’s just,” I said, suddenly speaking a mile a minute. “It’s Lucy. She bombed her SATs and now my parents have made her quit cheerleading and get a tutor and everyone is freaking out.”

“Whoa,” David said. He sounded as if he believed me. Well, why shouldn’t he? That part was the truth, anyway. “How badly did she do?”

“Really badly,” I said. “So now isn’t the best time to ask. If you know what I mean.”

“Totally,” David said. “I hear you.”

The thing was, for a guy who was waiting to find out whether or not he was going to, you know, get to have sex with his girlfriend next week, he sounded awfully…calm. I mean, not like the guys in those books of Lucy’s, who are always all, “Phillippa…I must have you. My loins burn for you.”

I was fully not getting any burning-loin vibe from David. Like, at all.

Which I guess I can understand. I mean, it’s good he isn’t getting his hopes up too much. Because it’s not like, when we Do It and all, I will actually know what I’m doing, in spite of having read up on contraceptive foam usage.

Of course, he won’t know what he’s doing, either. Because it’s not like he’s any more experienced in the boudoir than I am.

But still. There’s a much stronger possibility of me messing things up than him. I am not the world’s most coordinated person. I barely passed P.E. (well, to be fair, that’s because I’m so non-competitive that I refused to participate most of the time. I just didn’t see the point. Catch the ball, chase the ball, throw the ball. Who cares? It’s just a stupid ball.).

I guess I was just going to have to trust that, when—or if—the Big Moment came, my body would tell me what to do. I mean, it hadn’t let me down so far.

Except for that whole rope-climbing thing in P.E.

“Well, listen,” David said, still not sounding like a guy whose loins were aflame, or whatever. “Just let me know. Oh, and about tomorrow night?”

Tomorrow night? What about tomorrow night? Were we supposed to be doing something tomorrow night?

Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow was Saturday. Date night. Oh my God, were we going to go out? If we went out, would he bring it up? The whole Thanksgiving plan, I mean? Tomorrow’s too soon! I can’t decide about all of this by tomorrow! I’m still getting used to the idea! I don’t know! I don’t know what I want!

“Um,” I said, amazed I could sound so calm about the whole thing. “Oh, right. Tomorrow. What about it?”

“My dad’s got a thing all day at the Four Seasons. It’s a Return to Family thing, to garner support with some special interest groups, and so he wants me there, because…you know.”

“Right,” I said. “Family and all.”

“Right. But you can totally come, if you want to.”

So I can sit next to you in front of a plate of gross congealing hotel food I didn’t even order myself while listening to another one of your dad’s boring speeches on the off chance that we might get a chance to make out in my front yard later? Um, no thanks.

That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Gosh, that sounds fun. I think I’m busy, though. Have a good time.”

David laughed. “I thought that’s what you’d say. Okay.”

And just like that, I was off the hook. For the whole Thanksgiving discussion.

“I know things must be weird,” David said, “with Lucy and all of that. But call me, will you? I really miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, either. I did miss him.

“Love you, Sharona,” David said.

“Love you, Daryl,” I said. And hung up.

And thought, God. I am the worst girlfriend on the entire face of the planet.