Thirty-One
I FOUND IT very cruel that the sun shone and the weather was perfect during the darkest of my days. I sat in front of the fan in my T-shirt and undies and adopted the European lifestyle of taking siestas at two in the afternoon for five days when the exams ended, until I noticed that even my mother had a tan compared to my pasty, tear-blotched face. So I finally emerged from the house and had pizza with Lee, Anna and Sera. To celebrate the end of the exams. Not that I was in any mood to celebrate.
The four of us went for pizza at Harley’s, where I was bombarded by unwanted sympathy that made me feel even worse.
“If it helps, Angelo and I aren’t really going strong anymore,” Sera said.
“I think your situations are a bit different,” Lee said, looking over at me.
“He hasn’t rung?” Anna asked sadly.
“Don’t talk about it,” I whispered, because I could hardly talk.
It had been a week since my big confrontation with Jacob and I had almost lost my voice from all the crying.
“It’ll work out one day. Maybe when you’re older,” Anna reassured me gently, handing me a tissue.
“This from the girl who still leaves a stocking at the end of her bed on Christmas Eve,” Lee said. “There’s a good chance that things won’t work out, so don’t spend the rest of your days thinking he’ll come back.”
I shook my head and sat up, blowing my nose.
“Forget it,” I sniffed. “So what’s going on with you, Anna?”
“Oh, Josie, Anton is Jacob’s best friend and all. I don’t want to upset you.”
“What are you going to do? Wipe out Jacob and everyone he knows from existence?” I asked.
Anna shrugged, giving a small smile.
“Well, I’m going to Anton’s formal and I’m taking him to ours.”
“Has your mother met him?”
“Adores him.”
“My mother adored Jacob,” I cried into the tissue.
“Oh, Josie.”
I wiped my tears again and tried to control myself.
“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t cry again.”
“What’s happened so far, Anna?” Sera asked.
“Yeah, tell us all the nitty-gritty details,” Lee said sarcastically, looking at Sera with a scowl.
“Just a few kisses,” Anna said, going red.
“Did he slip you the tongue?” Sera asked.
We all groaned just as the pizza came and the waiter looked offended.
“He’s not as tough as he’d like people to think. He’s gentle, really. He said I had nice skin and I don’t even need all that junk women put on their faces.”
“That’s what they all say, and then when you try looking natural, they’ll puke at the sight of you,” Sera said, patting Anna on the hand.
We all looked pensive for a while as the pizza cooled.
“Well, I’ve got news,” Lee broke the silence. “I slept with Matt last night.”
“What?”
“Where?”
“Was he good?”
We all spoke in unison.
“I slept with Matt,” she said with a shrug. “It was no big deal.”
“Where?” I asked.
“In his friend’s flat.”
“Did . . . did it hurt?” Anna asked.
“Not really. Weird, actually. I thought pleasure was what sin is all about. I don’t see the pleasure in sex, so I can’t see the sin in it.”
“You mean you didn’t like it?” I asked.
“It was nothing like the books,” Lee said, thinking. “No rising above the clouds or things like that.” She shrugged. “No big deal.”
“I don’t think pleasure is supposed to be a sin,” I said. “I think guilt is a sin.”
“Why should she feel guilty?” Sera snapped. “Maybe if you’d slept with Jacob you’d still be with him now.”
I remembered what Jacob had said and ignored her.
Lee gave a humorless laugh, picking up a piece of pizza.
“What do you think?” I asked her. “Would sex have changed things with Jacob and me?”
She shrugged.
“Men are different. They satisfy themselves easier than we do. One poke and they’re happy.”
“So you think, Sera, that I should have let Jacob use my body for his own pleasure?” I asked her.
“How about your pleasure? What makes you think you wouldn’t enjoy it?” Sera asked scornfully.
“Lee didn’t enjoy it.”
“I didn’t say that,” Lee spoke up. “I just said it wasn’t as great as people make out, and to answer your question, Josie, you would’ve felt guilty now if you’d slept with Jacob. You were too unsure, for one thing. You think that guilt is a sin, and when you think you’re sinning, you don’t enjoy things as much.”
I nodded. “If I slept with Jacob, maybe I would still have him. But I probably would also need a therapist.”
We all had a bit of a laugh and Sera hit the table a few times.
“Listen, first times are never great. The guy has to be fantastic for it to be good. But it gets better,” she explained to us between mouthfuls.
“I always think, what happens if I get married and I’m not good in bed,”
Anna blurted out.
“That’s why I don’t believe you should be a virgin when you get married,” Sera said. “You should experiment. Men do.”
“Yes, but only if you’re in love with them,” I said.
Sera nudged Lee as if they were now part of a secret society.
“That one believes in Santa Claus and this one believes in the tooth fairy.”
We finished our pizza and paid the bill and decided to walk to Anna’s house instead of taking a bus.
“You did right,” Lee said quietly to me as we walked alone while the others walked ahead.
“What do you mean?”
“Not sleeping with him. You’re different from me. Different from Sera.
You’re the type who’d suit being a virgin until she’s in love, or even until she’s married. You could probably make it look trendy. Anna will probably be a virgin six months after her wedding night from fear of not being good in bed.”
We laughed and I looked at Anna.
“I don’t know. Not if she keeps on with Anton.”
“I’ll give them two weeks and it’ll be over,” Lee sighed.
“So you think that even if I did sleep with him I wouldn’t have been able to hold on to him?”
“Jose, your loss of virginity will be written in a diary and you’ll probably go to confession on its anniversary every year for the rest of your life.
Losing mine was just a page in my life. No big deal.”
“You keep on saying that. You’ve convinced me it was a big deal,” I said, looking at her. She looked pensive.
“It is a loss of innocence, you know,” she said, thinking about it. “Just like everyone says it is. I think it’s the only thing you have left that belongs to you and that belongs to that cocoon of childhood.”
“Are you going to see Matt again?” I asked.
Lee shrugged.
“You know what I wish?”
“What?”
“I wish I was a little girl again,” she whispered quietly.
“So do I,” I whispered back.
We put our arms around each other’s shoulders and followed the others home.
