Calling Maggie May (4 page)

Thurs, Nov 13

Oh God, I've never been so humiliated in all my life. I'm such an idiot! Why did I ever get it into my head that I could be like Ada? Ada . . . she's from a different planet from me. We're not the same species. As if a dress and some lipstick could change that!

All right, might as well record my foolishness, so I can read it over every day for the rest of my life as a reminder not to ever do anything risky again.

We had a swim meet. Remember when this journal was for tracking my success at things like swim meets? Yeah, well, forget it. I did terribly. I just couldn't focus at all. I don't know why; it just all seemed so unimportant.

Anyway, after my terrible swim, I was sitting there watching the boys get ready for the next event, dealing with pitying looks from the coach and a couple people on the team, and there was Tyler and . . . I know what Ada said. I know he's a creep, but he's just so incredibly perfect-looking. I haven't seen the whole world yet, but I swear there is no more beautiful physical specimen of masculinity to be found anywhere.

And that's when it came into my head . . . the most terrible idea in the universe. I remembered then and there that I still had Ada's dress and the lipstick she gave me in my gym bag, and I just thought, what if? What if I put it on? What if I got on the bus home tonight looking like . . . like . . . well, not like Ada, obviously, but like a person. Like a girl, instead of some invisible nothing, like I usually am. Ada said it. She said I could get Tyler if I wanted him. Well, goddammit, I want him, and if willpower and lipstick are all it takes, I have both of those.

So after the meet we were all getting changed, and I did it. I slipped on Ada's dress instead of my usual track pants and T-shirt. And I lined up with some of the other girls at the mirror to apply my lipstick. I made a mess of it, of course, because I'd never really done it before, and my hands were shaking with nerves. But eventually, by copying what I'd seen and felt Ada do, I managed a reasonable, not sloppy-looking mouth. Eiko, of course, gave me a hard time about it. She could
not have acted more shocked and appalled to see me in a dress. I guess it was more than just a dress. I mean, it doesn't have a whole lot in common with my recital dress. She was all, “What are you doing?” I didn't know what to say, so I thought about what Ada would do in that situation, and I ignored her.

When we got on the bus, I was so scared my knees were shaking. But I took a deep breath and got a grip on myself, and I walked right by Eiko and the empty seat next to her and went to the back of the bus. Obviously, it would have been ideal if I could have approached him alone, but I couldn't think of any way to do that, so I just kept moving forward, deeper and deeper into this terrible plan, letting the momentum of it carry me through.

Tyler was sitting at the back of the bus, surrounded by all his friends. They were laughing and talking and not paying any attention to me at all. At first. One by one, they started to notice me . . . the friends, that is. Not Tyler. Some of them just looked at me in confusion or surprise, but at least a couple of them were looking at me in a particular way. A way I'd only ever seen boys look at other girls. Girls who aren't me. But I wasn't interested in them.

I thought about saying something to get Tyler's attention, but I knew I wouldn't be able to come up with anything that didn't make me sound like an idiot. And Ada didn't need to do a bunch of talking to get people to notice her. If there's one skill
she has mastered, it's smoldering silently until every eye in the room is drawn to her. So that's what I did: I tried to smolder.

It probably looked pretty ridiculous.

Eventually, Tyler took note of his friends not paying attention to him anymore, and he looked in my direction. Plan on target! Unfortunately, I hadn't thought the plan through at all beyond this point.

“What?” he said at last. Which, all things considered, is not an unreasonable thing to say to someone who is staring at you. But it wasn't exactly the conversational opener I was hoping for.

So I just kept staring at him. Smoldering. In silence. Like a complete idiot.

He stared back. I kept staring. He raised his eyebrows. I stood like a statue. Finally, he said, “Could you, uh, leave? You're kind of creeping me out.”

That broke the spell. I turned around and went back to my seat. Eiko, of course, asked me what the hell was going on, but I just stared ahead of me the whole ride back and tried not to cry. What the heck has gotten into me? I definitely won't be trying that again.

Fri, Nov 14

I saw Ada again today. Well, that makes it seem like I just ran into her, like I did the other times. This time was a little
different. I went looking for her. I found her pretty easily, not surprising, given how well I'd committed her habits to memory back when I was basically stalking her. At lunch she was lurking in one of her usual corners with a cigarette and her phone, wearing a closely fitted dress with a subtle golden shimmer.

“Hey,” she said as I approached, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. As if we were actually friends. It threw me off a bit. But then I remembered how angry I was.

“You lied to me,” I said without preamble. I had to get it out before I lost my nerve.

Ada looked up from her phone, surprised. Then she narrowed her eyes. I got the impression that she was willing to accept she had probably lied to me at some point and was just trying to figure out what particular untruth I might be referring to.

“You said,” I went on, building steam. “You said that if I really tried, if I wore your clothes and your lipstick and did everything just like you, I could have him. Did you really think it would work? Or did you know all along exactly how hopeless it was and set me up so you could have a good laugh?”

Ada gave me a puzzled look. “I'm pretty sure I never said any of that.”

I opened my mouth to object, then closed it again. I guess it was true that she hadn't said precisely that.

“What I told you,” she said pointedly, “is that boys like Tyler
are interchangeable. You don't need Tyler—you need someone else to put him out of your head.” Ada's eyes moved back down to her phone, and I seemed to have been dismissed from the conversation. But just as I was turning to leave, she looked up again and caught me in her gaze.

“Hey,” she said without elaboration. She cocked her head and looked me carefully up and down, as if considering something. Whatever she saw must have made up her mind. “What would you say to a date tonight?”

“With you?”

Ada gave me a strange look—surprised or amused, maybe. “A date with a man, not a boy.”

I shook my head. “I really don't . . .”

“You'd be doing me a favor. I double-booked by accident.”

My mouth went dry, and I had a feeling in my stomach like I get before a test.

“I don't think anyone in the world would confuse me for you,” I said.

“It won't make any difference. He's a nice guy, and he'll like you. I promise. I wouldn't set you up with a jerk.”

A million objections ran through my head. The last real date I had been on was more than a year ago, with a boy from the swim team, and Mom drove us to the movie and home again. There was no way she was going to let me go out with a
total stranger who was out of high school. It was a completely insane idea. But what came out of my mouth was, “I don't have anything to wear.”

Ada smiled. “I'll take care of that.”

Fri, Nov 14, later

Writing this while I wait. What am I even waiting for? I don't know exactly, but Ada says not to worry. I don't know why I trust her, but I do.

I am sitting in a hotel bar at the convention center downtown, with a Coke in front of me. They put a lemon in it, but I fished it out. Sorry. That was a stupid detail. I'm just nervous, I guess. But writing calms me down.

I told Mom I was going to sleep over at Jenny's so we could work on our Science Olympiad project, and I went home with Ada after school. She found an outfit for me—a minidress with a fun geometric print—then fixed my hair and did my makeup. Not much, though. Too much would make me look older, she said.

“Isn't that good?”

“Don't be in such a rush,” she said.

She took me to the convention center and went in with me. She ordered this Coke for me, in fact, and said something to the bartender before she brought it over to the table. This is all so mysterious.

Then she said she had to go.

“You're not going to stay and introduce me?”

“I told you, I double-booked. I really have to run.”

“How will he know who I am?”

She smiled. “He'll know.”

Then she gave me her cell number and told me to call her if I needed anything, or if I wanted to get out of the date, and she'd take care of it. “We have to look out for each other,” she said, just like the other day. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Don't worry. You'll be fine.”

Oh, someone just walked in! Is it him?

Sat, Nov 15

Wow. I kinda can't believe where I am right now. Or what I've done. Or how much I can't wait to do it again.

Last night . . . I'm not sure I even have the words. It was the most incredible night I've ever had. I've never been on a date like that with a boy . . . with a man before. I didn't even know dates like that were real. It was like something out of a movie.

I was so nervous in the beginning, looking around at every person who walked in, trying to figure out if they were looking for me, because I totally didn't believe Ada that the guy would just know. I mean, how could he know? But then, just as I was
craning over my shoulder to look at a dude in a baseball cap leaning against the bar, a man slid into the seat across from me. I jumped a little when I realized what had happened.

“Um,” was my opening conversational gambit.

“Hi,” he said. He put out his hand to shake mine and he introduced himself as Damon. By that time, I had caught my breath enough to take in what he looked like. And he looked good. Really good. He was older, definitely not in high school, or probably college even. Maybe twenty-five? And he had dark curly hair and friendly brown eyes, and his smile . . . When he smiled it made me feel like I was the most important thing in the whole world.

He asked if I wanted to get out of there and suggested we go for a walk in Myrtle Edwards Park. We walked and looked at the ocean. I told him about how I've lived in Seattle my whole life but I've hardly ever seen the ocean even though I know it's nearby. It always seems to be a touristy thing to do, to go down to the waterfront, and I just never bothered. He told me he was kind of a tourist, though he's been to Seattle before, and he loves coming here.

He asked me about myself, and I told him all about swimming and how I used to love it but how it had gotten complicated recently, tied up with competition, so it just wasn't fun anymore. I almost slipped up and told him about how I
tried to make a pass at a boy on the swim team, but I stopped myself. It occurred to me that that maybe wasn't appropriate first-date conversation.

Anyway, we talked and talked, and he was just really nice. So much nicer than Tyler. Ada was right about that. And I couldn't believe it, but he seemed really interested in me. No one has ever been that interested in me other than my mom. Mom always has to know every single little detail of my day, and I think she would dig into my brain to know every thought I have too, if she could. But she has her own reasons for that. It's more about control than caring.

So we were walking and talking about being tourists in our hometown, and I happened to mention that I'd never even been to the Space Needle. There was a class trip there when I was in first grade, but Mom kept me home that day because she didn't see the point in me wasting time on something “nonacademic.” I'd always regretted it. I mean, it seems like a silly thing, but every time I see it, it's just another reminder of how I'm never allowed to do anything for fun.

And then Damon was like, “Let's go.” I was like, what, to the Space Needle? He said yeah; he was getting hungry, and they have a restaurant up there. So he took me to dinner in the Space Needle! How cool is that? Wait, no, it gets better. Did you know that the restaurant spins around? So you can see
views of the whole city while you eat dinner. Basically, it was the most perfect, most romantic thing ever.

We walked around some more after dinner, and the moon was so pretty and the weather was just perfect, and we sat on a bench and just talked and talked. Or rather, I talked and talked. Damon was mostly listening. I started to feel really awkward about the fact that I was talking so much, so I shut up. I wanted to give him a chance to talk, but he didn't. So I looked at him and he was looking at me and . . . This is a terrible analogy, but it was like a car crash, or how people talk about them, anyway. How time slows down and you see your life flash before your eyes. Because I just had this moment of,
Oh my God, he's going to kiss me
, and then he did!

It was sweet. Honestly, the only time I've kissed anyone before was in seventh grade at a birthday party, and it was awful, really awful. Really wet, and the boy was basically choking me with his tongue. I remember thinking at the time,
I don't ever want to do that again
. But this wasn't like that at all. He was really gentle and slow, and he just held me there like that until all I could think was that I wanted more. So I put my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

After a while I felt his hand on my knee. It shocked me. Literally. It felt like a shock of electricity, and I pulled away from him. He immediately pulled back.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and he looked really guilty. “I shouldn't have done that. I can take you home now.”

But I realized that wasn't what I wanted at all. I didn't want to leave and go back to my boring, awful, normal life. More than anything, I wanted to keep kissing Damon.

So I said, “Don't stop.” And I moved closer to him again and pulled him in for another kiss. We kissed for what felt like ages, and it was fantastic, but after a while this feeling came over me and I wanted more again. So I reached out and took his hand, which was nice but not quite what I wanted. So I put it back on my knee. Except not really on my knee . . . farther up. And we kept kissing, and I noticed his hand creeping higher and higher until my breath caught in my throat. He pulled back then and looked me in the eyes and said, “Is this okay?” I nodded. And he said, “Are you sure?”

I meant to say yes, but instead what came out was, “Please don't stop.” That was really embarrassing and I blushed hard, but he just smiled.

“We're starting to put on quite a show for all the people walking by,” he said. I think I must have turned super red at that. I started to pull away, but he said, “How about coming back to my hotel room?”

I hesitated a second, and he started babbling, apologizing and saying he shouldn't have said it. But the truth was, it was exactly what I wanted. And I told him so.

So we went back to his room at the hotel, and I couldn't believe how nice it was. I've stayed in only a couple roadside motels in my whole life, and they were nothing like this. There was an iPod docking station, a huge flat-screen TV, and a bowl of pretty little candies. I grabbed the bowl of candies and took it with me as I checked everything out. The best part was the bathroom—there were heated towel racks, a huuuuge tub, and another flat-screen TV so you could watch from the tub! I turned it on, and they were having a
SpongeBob
marathon and I got so excited. I haven't seen that show in ages. Plus, can you imagine watching
SpongeBob
while taking a bath? The whole concept made me giggle.

I called out to Damon to come see, like a big dork—as if he doesn't know his own hotel room. And he found me lying fully clothed in the bathtub, watching
SpongeBob
with a bowl of candies balanced on my stomach. I must have looked like an idiot, but he just stood in the doorway, grinning at me. So I was like, “What?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I had kind of thought you might like to see the view from the window. Maybe have a glass of champagne.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry.” I was embarrassed that I'd been so rude when he was being so nice. “I'll come and see.”

Damon shook his head. “I guess we got enough views from Space Needle.”

“I don't really like champagne,” I admitted. “Do you want
some candy?” I lifted the bowl toward him, and he crouched down to take some.

“You're cute,” he said.

I laughed. “No, you're cute.”

“Is that right?”

And I couldn't believe he didn't know how cute he was. I wanted to show him, wanted to prove it to him. So I grabbed on to his shirt and tugged him closer to me and kissed him. He tasted like candy—there were still little bits of it in both our mouths, like little pockets of hard sweetness mixed into the soft kiss. It was awkward and uncomfortable and delicious and amazing. Eventually, he pulled back and asked if I thought the tub was big enough for two. Which it definitely was. I mean, it was huge, so I tugged on him a bit harder until he got into the tub with me. It wasn't exactly comfortable, lying in a dry tub with all our clothes on, but kissing him felt so good it didn't matter. Except then I guess his elbow or something knocked into the tap and turned it on, and suddenly we were both getting drenched with freezing-cold water!

I screamed at first, and then when I realized what happened, I couldn't stop laughing.

“Maybe that was a sign,” said Damon.

“Did you want to stop?”

“Do you?”

I told him no, and he grinned and said, “Me neither. But maybe we need a change of venue.”

He got out of the tub and put out a hand to help me up.

“And clothes,” I said. Ada's sopping-wet dress wasn't the most comfortable anymore. Damon reached behind me and tugged the zipper down, then slipped the dress off me until I was standing there in my underwear. He wrapped his arms around me.

“That better?”

And that's when it really hit me—we were going to have sex. I guess it seems pretty idiotic that I didn't realize that earlier. In some sense, I guess I knew when he invited me back to his hotel room. But I didn't really believe it. It just seemed so unlikely that this guy really wanted me. I kept waiting for him to realize what a boring loser I am and tell me to leave. But when he took my dress off, that's when I realized—he was not going to change his mind.

Suddenly I felt nervous and awkward. Kissing was great, but sex was scarier. I started worrying that it would hurt, that Damon would expect me to know what to do, or that he would notice all the blobby bits on my body and get grossed out. But Damon put me at ease. He was undoing the buttons on his shirt, and he leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

“Are you scared?”

I held my breath and nodded a little. I could feel his breath on my neck and his lips on my earlobe.

“Do you want to stop?”

And even though I was nervous, I didn't want him to stop. I was still just so shocked that it was happening at all. I mean, I had more or less given up on this whole idea, on anyone ever wanting me—especially someone I actually wanted back. At school no one ever looked at me that way, and I got used to the idea that I was invisible to the world except as a geek and a nerd. But here I was, in a situation I always thought was reserved for other girls—prettier girls, cooler and more confident girls. At best, maybe one day I'd talk another virginal geek into it, or someone gross and desperate, someone selfish. But Damon was none of those things.

Of course I knew it wasn't love—I'm not naive. I don't expect him to marry me or send me love letters or whatever. But what we were doing . . . It felt good. Just kissing him felt better than I had thought it possibly could, and I would have been happy to keep kissing him all night. But if he's so good at kissing, it made sense that he'd be good at other stuff too.

So I kissed him again by way of answer, and I let him pull me over to the bed. He was really slow and careful and it did hurt at first, but it also felt really good. Afterward I felt sore in
places I hadn't even realized existed, but he held me and stroked my hair until I fell asleep.

I guess it sounds super slutty, since I'd only just met him. But it felt right, and you know what? I don't regret it at all.

Damon was gone when I woke up, which at first made me a little sad, but honestly, it was kind of a relief too. Last night was so amazing, and I needed some time to process it all this morning. I feel like if he were around, odds are I would do something stupid or embarrassing or awkward that would sour the whole experience. And I don't want that. I want to cherish this night forever, no matter what else happens.

He did leave a really sweet note saying that he was glad he got to meet me and apologizing that he had to catch a really early plane this morning. And he told me to go ahead and have breakfast sent up to the room, on his tab! The other hotels I've stayed in were definitely the “coffee and doughnuts in the lobby” kind of places, but the room-service menu here has all kinds of amazing things. Would it be bad to order one of everything?

Oh! I have to call Ada and tell her all about it. I can't forget I really owe all of this to her.