“People act like virginity is some big deal,” she told Nicole after the first time, “but I don’t feel any different, except that maybe I understand what it’s all about, you know? It’s really just body parts touching, though, and feeling good. What’s wrong with feeling good?”
“You’re right,” Nicole said, and looked at her like Jennifer was daring, and adult, and mature. Jennifer felt off-balance and giddy and confused, and every time she lied to her mom, to her grandpa, she felt horrible, but Danny told her he needed her, that this was the only good part of his life right now. That she was helping.
And that he loved her.
And then there was the night when he didn’t show up. Jennifer sat on the picnic table by the lake as dusk turned slowly to dark, getting colder by the minute, and finally walked home, thinking of all the things that could have happened to him. About an accident in the mill. A car wreck. He could be lying in the hospital right now, and she wouldn’t even know. When she tried calling him, though, his mom answered and said he wasn’t home, and she didn’t sound worried at all. And when Jennifer left a message, he didn’t call back. She called three more times, and finally, his mom said, “Hon. I’ve told him. You need to stop calling now.” And she ran to the bathroom, the embarrassed heat overwhelming her, and threw up.
What had happened? She couldn’t find out, and she couldn’t concentrate on school. She wanted to tell her mom, but how could she ever do that?
The next Saturday, Danny was at the lake with Eileen Gerrity, who was a senior, and he didn’t look at Jennifer once, even when she tried to catch his eye. The next day, he didn’t come to the lake at all, and neither did Eileen. She hung around all afternoon, then walked home, her throat dry and her eyes burning, and wondered what she’d done wrong, what immature thing she’d said. She didn’t call Nicole, because she didn’t wanted to admit that it was true. But it was. He was gone.
She never told Nicole, not exactly. She was too embarrassed. Too ashamed. They lay on Nicole’s rug, the last couple weeks of summer, listening to music and looking at magazines and painting their nails, and Jennifer indulged in long daydreams of a future meeting, when she’d have moved away to do … something that made her famous. Writing for TV had been her favorite one. She’d come back to town for a visit, or maybe to give a talk, since she was so successful and all, and run into Danny at Yoke’s market, and he’d come up to her and say, “Jennifer, right? I can’t believe it.”
Her hair would be perfect, and she’d be wearing a pretty, floaty dress. She’d look at him, laugh, and say, “Danny? Oh, my gosh, that seems like so long ago.”
Even in her daydreams, she hadn’t managed to dismiss and humiliate him. It had never even occurred to her to try. She’d clung to the fantasy that the whole thing had been romantic, but that she somehow hadn’t measured up. She wasn’t pretty enough. Wasn’t sexy enough. Wasn’t special enough.
When her jeans wouldn’t button that winter, she safety-pinned them closed and went on a diet. She didn’t wear tight shirts anyway, not since her breasts had started developing, so nobody could see that she was getting chubby. That was what it was. She didn’t even let herself think about being pregnant. She wasn’t sick, and everybody knew that you threw up if you were pregnant. She didn’t feel different at all, except that she was more tired than usual, but that was because she was hungry. The diet, that was why.
It was PE that gave her away, a couple weeks before Christmas. They were doing gymnastics. Tumbling, that day. Somebody must have seen something during an upside-down moment, because Ms. Guthrie, the nicer of the two teachers, pulled her aside after class and asked, “Jennifer. Is everything all right?”
“What?” she asked, turning red right on cue. “I know I’m not very good at cartwheels, but that’s just because I’m not coordinated. I mean, I’m trying. I’ve been practicing headstands at home, and I’ve almost got it.”
Ms. Guthrie searched her face, and Jennifer couldn’t meet her eyes. “Have you been sexually active?” she asked.
“What? No. Of course not. I wouldn’t.” Jennifer’s fingers pleated the ugly yellow PE shirt, and she stared at the school logo on Ms. Guthrie’s polo shirt. Then she thought Ms. Guthrie would think she was staring at her breasts, so she looked up, caught the teacher’s searching gaze, and looked over her shoulder. “I have Algebra next,” she said.
“All right,” Ms. Guthrie said. “Go on. But if you need to talk to somebody, I’m here.”
Jennifer had fled. Now, she wondered what exactly she’d thought she’d been escaping from.
Not much, as it turned out, because that night, after dinner, her mom asked her the same thing. Afterwards, Jennifer realized that Ms. Guthrie must have called her.
“Of course I’m not having sex,” Jennifer answered. Well, she wasn’t now. “How could I? I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
Her mom said, “Baby. Let’s just check. Pull up your sweater.”
Jennifer didn’t. She just stood there, the blood draining from her head, her body suffused with heat, then with cold. Her mom pulled up the sweater instead, saw the safety pin on her jeans, and said, “Oh, honey.”
Jennifer would never forget the sound of her voice. The sadness. The disappointment. The sound of her dreams dying. Part of her had curled up small and tight in that moment, and it had never quite uncurled again.
After that, nothing got any better. Especially not once her mom went to the cops, and everybody in town found out. And knew she was a slut.
She knew that was what they thought. They spray-painted it on her locker.
“I don’t get why you didn’t just get an abortion,” Dyma said now. “I would have. I bet you’d have told me to. And don’t tell me that if you had, I wouldn’t be here. That’s a logical fallacy. Of course I wouldn’t be here. That’s the whole point. It also means I wouldn’t know, because my consciousness wouldn’t exist. And you could’ve had a better life.”
Oh, great. This conversation was getting better and better. Harlan and Owen still weren’t saying anything, either.
One thing, though, she’d learned by now. Wishing didn’t make anything go away, and problems stuffed under the surface always swam back up again. Problems were like seals that way. They popped up exactly when and where you didn’t expect them. Like, for instance, now.
She said, “I’d love to have you think it was some noble reason, but in fact, it was pretty late by the time Grandma forced me to face reality. We could’ve gotten somebody to do it, given the circumstances, but you were kicking so much that even a first-time mom could feel it, and …” She laughed. “Again, I’d love to sound nobler here, but in reality, I had these notions of myself with an adorable blonde baby who smiled all the time and loved me best of all. Our hair backlit, both of us laughing as I lifted her high over my head. Hallmark Channel all the way. What can I say. I was young. I had no clue. I only got two things right. You were a girl, and you were blonde. I didn’t quite anticipate the furious bundle of personality you ended up being.”