“Against a cisgender white girl with blond hair,” Pam says. “Okay then.”
I flop down on the carpet next to Kayla and enjoy this floor’s-eye view of my ’80s bordello-themed bedroom. A few years ago, I convinced Mom to take me to all the Goodwill stores in the area and we bought all the most depraved stuff — her word, once she got into it — which is why I have a disco ball with half the mirrored panels broken off above my bed, and one of my walls is covered in pink wallpaper with black velvet designs on it, and the others are adorned with album covers by Shaun Cassidy, Shalamar, and Duran Duran. It explains why the desk where I write my poems is replete with three lava lamps and vanilla candles. It’s why my night table is a brassy cocktail waitress, with the glass table resting on her ample boobs.
“Let’s play How Many Bodies! Teachers’ Edition!” I say. It’s this game we play where we try to decide how many bodies various people have hidden in their backyards. Because apparently everyone is a serial killer.
Pam laughs from the bed and puts a sequined pillow under her head. “I like how nothing ever gets done with us. We have literally done no things all day. We keep starting and stopping. We may be the least effective people ever.”
“Speak for yourself. Mom and I did the food truck today for the first time,” I say.
“Thank God!” Kayla says. “I was wondering if you were going through some teen boy phase where your pheromones smell like fried cheese.”
I sniff my arm. I smell nothing. “Is it that bad?”
“Depends,” Kayla says. “Are you looking to attract someone at a carnival?”
I curl my lip as if I’m upset. I never am with them.
“My mom freaked. She’s done.”
Pam cackles. Like literally cackles. “Oh my God I love Lydia. There should be a reality show about Lydia.” She wraps herself in a pink feather boa that was hanging on my bedpost.
“Yes!” Kayla says. “Vaguely Bipolar Housewives of Chandler.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t even give you the most random part of all this. Guy Smiley. He’s taking my mom’s place.”
Kayla inhales dramatically. “What? From AP Comp? Back-row dude? That’s not even random. That doesn’t make sense. How the? Why? Is he like a chef or something? Is there like an Uber app for chefs, and did you pick him because he’s hot?”
“He was just there. When Mom freaked.”
Pam raises an eyebrow. “Super random. I give it a day. You and Guy Smiley? You know when you hear something and you know it isn’t happening? This is one of those times.”
Kayla nods and sits up. “Pam is right, for once. Anyway. We need to up the ante on this makeover, because if he doesn’t get a date soon and I have to hear more whining, even ONE MORE TIME, I am going to spontaneously combust.”
She jumps up and goes to my closet.
“Don’t!” I yell, and Kayla looks over at me, amused. Pam jumps to her feet and puts her arms out like she’s blocking me. She’s joking, but I’m not. That’s my private stuff. Mine. Whatever happened to asking permission?
“Please don’t,” I say, my face turning red. When Pam sees this, she lets me go, but Kayla has already opened my closet door. Pam goes over and they both look inside, and I hide my face.
They don’t see it right away. “It” shall be described only as a marital aid here, because I do not think I can bear to go into specifics on this particular aid to my nonexistent marriage.
I didn’t hide It, though, after the last time It was maritally aiding me. I did wash it, thank you very much, but then I just put it behind its shoebox home instead of in it, because Mom wouldn’t step foot in my closet and I am so fucking stupid and lazy.
“Oh. Oh …” Pam says, stretching out the second “oh” into three syllables. Low-high-low.
“Oh …” says Kayla, elongating but staying on the same note at least.
“Please just close the door and let’s not —”
They look at each other, and it’s like they communicate something but I have no idea what.
“Who cares?” Kayla asks as she sits back down on the shag carpet. “Do you really think I don’t have one? I got it at Castle Boutique. The saleslady hooked me up. Rabbit.”
“Yeah, but —” My face has never been redder, and I feel particularly stupid in my current Ludwig outfit. It feels like steam could erupt from my ears.
“You have tons of butt shame,” Kayla says, and Pam snickers until Kayla hits her in the arm. “You do, Jordan. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people have butt sex. It’s like, so what?”
I go over to the closet, pick up the It that is currently making it a possibility that I might literally die of embarrassment, and stuff It back in its shoebox home. I close the closet door and sit down against it, as if there’s a monster in my closet and by sitting against the door, we’re momentarily safe.
“I just … That’s where poop comes from.”
Pam laughs. “Are we really talking about this?”
Kayla isn’t laughing, though. “Did you know that biologically speaking, the rectum is cleaner than the mouth?”
I roll my eyes. “What boy told you that, and what did you let him do to you?” I ask.
Pam cracks up and shakes her head. “It’s true. My mom told me. Poop is like the great equalizer. There is not a person in the world who can say that they don’t poop.”
“It’s just what makes you real,” Kayla says. “Guys like real. Remember Dennis? One time I had to go and you know how the bathroom in our house is right next to my bedroom? And I know he heard everything. I wasn’t, like, embarrassed, but I was a bit concerned because guys can be so stupid about stupid things. But I came back to the room and you know what he said to me? He said, ‘I like that you’re real. Real is sexy.’ ”
“Amen, sister,” says Pam.
“I don’t know. I think me and my friend” — I point behind me — “are going to be together for a long time. Because who the hell wants someone gross like me?”
Kayla gets up and sits next to me. She puts her arm around me, which is not a thing we do at all. “You’re not … old.”
I crack up and curl my lip at her like my feelings are hurt.
“I am. I’m gross because I’m a human being and that’s the worst.”
“If you’re gross, I’m gross. And I know you’re not calling me gross. You’re totally normal like everyone else.”
“Ugh,” I say. “Normal is so boring.”
Pam rolls her eyes. “What the fuck did Lydia do to you?” She comes over and sits down with us on my other side.
“I have no idea.” I put my head in my hands.
The street in front of Phoenicia smells like cumin and creosote even though the restaurant’s been closed for hours. Because ASU is done for the summer, it’s actually quiet beyond the bleating of cicadas and the occasional automobile heading down University, one block south. My heart is pounding because I’m walking next to Kevin, and I know what’s coming. Or I think I do.
“Do you have protection?” I ask, not daring to look to my left but yearning to see his blue faux-hawk.
He laughs a little and says, “Relax. I’ve only been with like five guys.”
Flash forward two hours and I’m in his dorm room. It’s a night of firsts. First night after the end of junior year. My first college party. My first time in a dorm room. My first time turning off my phone and knowing that Rosa might freak if I don’t get my brown ass back home soon. My first time, period. It’s like I’m high, but I’m not. A couple beers. Things are getting real, fast. My heart is in my throat. My ears are stuffed up like when I fly to Colorado Springs to see my dad.
Kevin’s shirt is off. Skinny-chested and narrow, with purplish nipples that stand out against his pale skin. He stands at the foot of his single bed, staring at me. I’m shirtless too. He shakes his head over and over, like I’m some beautiful thing, which is awesome and scares me shitless.
He says, “Are you my dark-skinned boy?”
A bubble of something slushy fills up my esophagus. I don’t answer.