"No."
"—I thought I might tell him I've changed my mind." "Earth to Tiffany!"
"Why not?" she exclaimed. Translation: If you can have sex with a drug offender, why can’t I have sex with the salutatorian?
"I could probably think of twenty reasons. Since I haven't slept today, I can think of only three. First, you don't want to get back together with someone who gives you the Silent Treatment."
"The Silent Treatment isn't so bad."
"Obviously it's driving you crazy. Second, you're trying to get drunk and have sex because everyone else is doing it. At least, you think everyone else is doing it, because they're bragging about it. But you need to do what's right for you."
There was silence on the other end of the line. I waited for her to thank me for my infinite wisdom. Instead, she said, "I thought I could count on your support. You wear a T-shirt that says Peer Pressure."
"Today I'm going to peer pressure you into not doing something rather than doing something. Look, I use m protection when I have sex. It's over, and I never think much about it again. With you, it would be different. You would use a condom, it wouldn't break, and there would be no problems. The next day, you would go to the doctor to make sure you weren't pregnant and didn't have AIDS. You would go back every day for a month." I raised my voice over Tiffany's giggles. Three years later, you would still be obsessing that you were having a delayed reaction. You might be pregnant and you might have AIDS. You would do everything you could to keep Brian from breaking up with you. because if he did. he might call your mama and tell her you weren't a virgin."
"Am I that obvious?" Tiffany asked.
"Yes. And I'm not saying that's a bad way to be. I could probably use a little obsessive worry in my life. It would make me more balanced."
I realized with a start that I'd been pacing madly up and down the parking lot, as if Tiffany's sex life really concerned me.
I walked back to my motorcycle and continued, "I'm saying you would not be comfortable with casual sex. Or whatever we're talking about here. The National Honor Society version of prostitution. When it's right, you won't have to call me to check. You'll know. And here's the third reason you shouldn't do it. Sex isn't that great."
She was quiet. "Touch My Body" played in the background, like she'd been psyching herself up. "Oh, come on."
"It's not."
"It's supposed to be no good the first time. I thought you were way past that."
I laughed shortly. "Thanks, Tiff. It's still no good."
"Then why are you doing it?" she shrieked.
A gust of wind made me shiver in my wet sweatshirt. "I want to make sure I've lived, in case I don't have a lot of life left."
"You told me you finished jogging and you don't have leukemia!"
"I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"That sounds a lot like obsessive worry," she said.
"About this particular thing."
"It's a pretty intense particular thing, Meg."
"Yeah, well, you're one to talk. Go ahead and proposition Brian, and I'll tell the whole school you're a beer-swilling slut-whore."
She hung up on me.
I was just stuffing the phone back into my bag when it rang again. I clicked it on. "Okay, you're not a slut-whore. If you're going to run with the big dogs, you have to learn to take a joke."
Silence on the other end of the line again. But no "Touch My Body."
My heart stopped. "John?" I asked.
"The other one," Eric said.
My heart beat again, slowly. "Oh, hey! I've been expecting your call. And I take back what I said about you not being a slut-whore."
"Right back at ya," he said. "Booty call." "I ain't no hollaback girl." "Yes, you are."
A cop car cruised slowly by the park. Not John, of course. Some lucky soul on day shift. But my heart stopped again for the split second before I realized it wasn't him.
I was far gone. And I needed to come back. Otherwise I'd end up like Tiffany, making sacrifices on a boy's behalf.
"Okay, I guess I am. I need some sleep first, though."
"Leave your motorcycle at the police station tonight," Eric said. "I'll pick you up there at nine, and I'll have you back at the beginning of John's shift—when—ten?"
It never took Eric long.
"I couldn't get any pot," he warned me. "I'll have some beer, though."
"Are you crazy?" A couple of elderly ladies speed-walking on the track in sequined workout suits turned to stare at me. I lowered my voice. "I can't drink beer and then ride around for eight hours with John."
"Then I guess we'll have to do it sober." I could almost hear Eric shudder as he hung up.
Me too.
That night, I walked to the drugstore across the street from Eggstra! Eggstra! and bought condoms. I always brought condoms. Eric was liable to forget them and not care. Somehow I had known this about him from the very beginning.
Then I rode my motorcycle to the police station, as we'd agreed. Eric was fifteen minutes late picking me up, as predicted. And he would be fifteen minutes late dropping me off again, so John was sure to be steamed.
That was Eric's plan, and it was good.
I didn't even say anything when he turned the Beamer onto the dirt road and parked in the clearing beside the bridge.
He cut the engine and turned to me. At least, it sounded like he turned to me. Clouds covered the moon and stars. With the engine and the dashboard lights off, the darkness was total and heavy.
"This time I want you to take all your clothes off," he said, "not just pull your pants down six inches."
His tone was light. But for some reason, I took the words as a warning. I needed to see the look on his face.
"That's not how I do it," I said.
"I want you to do it my way this time."
"What? No foreplay?" I asked drily.
"Foreplay," he murmured, like this was a new idea.
And then he kissed me.
I wished I hadn't brought up foreplay. Eric was not a good kisser. Too wet, too deep, too much tongue, too too too. His hands were already in my shirt, like there was no point in easing me into the mood, like I was just some little high school senior with blue hair and a reputation for putting out.
I kept my eyes closed and thought of John. The way those sleepy dark eyes would watch me as he put his hands down my shirt. The way he would take his time.
Honestly, it was no use. There was this whirling dervish in the way.