Rules for Being a Girl Page 5

  “Seriously?” I interrupt. “How does kissing me make it less weird?”

  “I don’t know!” she says. “I’m just trying to make sense of it, that’s all. And if you feel like you need to, like, go to the authorities or whatever, then I’m not going to tell you not to.”

  “But you wouldn’t,” I say, flopping back onto the carpet.

  “I mean, no,” Chloe says quietly. “I wouldn’t try to ruin somebody’s whole life over something I wasn’t even sure I interpreted correctly.”

  “I’m not out to ruin anyone’s life!”

  “Of course not,” Chloe says. “But that’s what would happen, right?” She shrugs again. “You tell DioGuardi, and they fire him or whatever, and then he can’t get another job because he’s got this thing on his record that maybe wasn’t even . . .” She trails off, reaching out and balancing a tortilla chip on my knee. “I don’t know. It’s Bex, Marin. He’s literally your favorite teacher.”

  And mine, I can hear her adding in her mind. And everyone’s.

  “It’s not like we have a totally normal relationship with him anyway,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say, closing my eyes for a moment. I don’t know why all of a sudden I feel like I might be about to cry. “I guess you’re right.”

  For a long time neither one of us says anything. Finally Chloe rolls up the bag of chips. “I’ve gotta go,” she says, reaching for the plastic clip on my nightstand. “I told my mom I’d have the car back by eleven.”

  She gets to her feet before offering a hand to help me up, the two of us heading downstairs and past my parents watching an old Tom Hanks movie in the living room. “Have a good night, Mr. and Mrs. Lospato!” she calls brightly, pulling her jacket off the overloaded hook in the foyer before turning to me one more time.

  “He really did all that stuff?” she asks now, and her voice is very quiet.

  “Yeah,” I say, still swallowing down that crying feeling one more time. God, how could I have been so stupid? “He did.”

  Chloe nods, and for a moment it looks like she’s going to say something else, but in the end she just reaches out and unlocks the deadbolt, icy December air slicing into the house. “I’ll see you Monday,” she promises, and just like that she’s gone.

  Eight

  I spend the rest of the weekend helping my parents get the Christmas decorations out of the attic and watching Home Alone on cable, trying with extremely limited success not to think about what happened. By the time third period rolls around on Monday morning, I’m a nervous wreck. For a minute I honestly consider skipping English altogether, but that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? What am I going to do, just cut every day for the rest of the year?

  Bex isn’t in his classroom as we’re filing in, and for a moment I wonder—with a mixture of hope and deep, horrifying dread—if maybe he isn’t even here today. Did somebody find out what happened between us? Did Chloe turn around and tell? I’m about to hiss her name across the room when Bex ambles in and shuts the door behind him, raising a hand to say hello.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he says, dimple popping in his cheek as he slings his messenger bag over the back of his chair. “Vending machine in the cafeteria is eating dollars today, just FYI. Not that I was just in there trying to make breakfast out of some barbecue chips and a KIND bar or anything.”

  He launches into a detailed biography of Joseph Heller, because we’re supposed to start Catch-22 this week. I feel like someone hit me over the head. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this bland, aggressive normalcy; for one disorienting moment it occurs to me to wonder if maybe I really did make the entire thing up.

  Then I remember the press of his mouth on mine, and shiver inside my uniform blouse.

  “First forty pages for tomorrow,” he calls as the bell finally rings for the end of the period.

  I’m shoving my notes into my backpack when he catches my eye from the front of the room.

  “Hey, Marin,” he says, the very theology of casual, “stick around for a sec, will you?”

  So we are acknowledging what happened, then. Right away my skin prickles tightly and my face is on fire. I nod, hanging back as everyone else heads out into the hallway, ignoring the look I can feel Chloe shooting me as she makes for the door.

  “So hey,” Bex says once we’re alone, perching on the edge of his desk and scrubbing a hand over his clean-shaven face. “I feel like we should probably talk, yeah?”

  “Um,” I say, pulling the sleeves of my uniform sweater down over my hands and crossing my arms like an instinct, shifting my weight in my beat-up Sperrys. “I mean—yeah, I don’t know if—”

  Bex smiles. “Marin,” he says, holding his hands up. “It’s just me, okay? You don’t have to be afraid of me, or stand here looking like you wish you were dead, or anything like that.” He rubs his cheek again, looking sheepish. “Obviously, I . . .” He trails off. “We just . . . I think maybe we had a little bit of confusion there, that’s all.”

  I blink. “Confusion?” I repeat, before I can stop myself.

  “Bad communication,” Bex continues with a shake of his head. “Mortifying for both of us, obviously. But it happens.”

  “Um.” I swallow. “Sure. Yeah.” On one hand, there’s something reassuring about the way he’s talking about this, like it’s just a dumb, awkward thing that happened and not the end of the breathing world. On the other, it occurs to me that he hasn’t actually apologized for doing it.

  But maybe he doesn’t owe me an apology?

  After all: I went to his house. I flirted with him. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about it before.

  “In any event,” Bex says now, sliding off the edge of the desk and heading for the doorway, “I just wanted to clear the air and make sure we can both move on without any weirdness. Honestly, you’re such a great student, and I’d hate for this to get in the way of whatever amazing thing you’re going to do when you get out of this place.” He holds his hand out, like we’re about to finish a business meeting. “So. We cool?”

  “I—yeah, of course,” I say as we shake, the touch of his smooth, cool palm sending a fresh wave of ickiness through me. “We’re cool.”

  Nine

  Chloe’s waiting for me at our usual spot in the cafeteria, her untouched tray sitting on the table in front of her. “What did Bex want?” she asks, as soon as I sit down.

  I shrug. “Just to make sure everything was good, I guess. Like, after—” I glance around. “After.”

  Chloe nods. “And you told him it was?”

  “I mean, yeah.” I pull a baggie of grapes out of my lunch bag, plucking them all off the stem at once to avoid looking at her. “What else was I going to say, right?”

  Chloe frowns, her signature red lipstick slicked neatly across her mouth. “So it’s not?” she asks. “Good, I mean?”

  “No, it’s not that, I just—” I break off. It’s . . . confusing. After all, Chloe and I have been obsessed with Bex for the better part of the school year. But people get crushes on their hot teachers, right? That’s a thing that happens. It doesn’t mean I wanted—that I was inviting—anything real to actually happen between us.

  Right?

  I’m still trying to figure out how to answer when Jacob and a couple of his lacrosse buddies sit down at the table, their trays heaped with mac and cheese so gloppy you could use it to lay bricks.

  “Ladies,” he says, and I grin. “What’s up?”

  “Just talking about newspaper stuff,” I say, shooting Chloe a look across the table. “We’ve got a print deadline at the end of the week.” I pop a grape into my mouth. “Actually, did you get those article pitches I texted you?”

  Chloe nods, noncommittal. “I had a bunch of ideas too,” she tells me. Then, nodding at the mac and cheese on Jacob’s tray: “Do you want to write something about the new menu, maybe?”

  I laugh out loud, I can’t help it.

  “What?” She shrugs.

  “It’s
not exactly hard-hitting journalism, that’s all.”

  Chloe frowns again. “Is that what you want to be doing now?” she asks. “Hard-hitting journalism?”

  “I just—” I break off, not entirely sure why she seems so testy all of a sudden. “Isn’t that always what we’re trying to do?”

  Chloe makes a face at that. “I mean, it’s a high school paper, Marin,” she reminds me. “Not the Globe Spotlight team.”

  I’m starting to reply when there’s a commotion up at the front of the cafeteria—it’s Principal DioGuardi yet again, a miserable-looking Deanna Montalto in tow.

  “Attention please!” he yells out across the room. “Since apparently some of you ladies have still not gotten the memo about the new uniform guidelines, I thought I’d have my friend Deanna here help me show you all what you should not be doing!”

  “Seriously?” I look from Deanna to Chloe and back again. “Is he really about to make an example of her right now in front of everyone?”

  “Looks that way,” Chloe murmurs, biting her lip.

  DioGuardi paces back and forth at the front of the cafeteria like a basketball coach watching a scrimmage. “Now,” he begins, “who can tell me how Deanna is violating the uniform code today?” He nods at a freshman girl sitting at a table by the window. “How about you?”

  “Um,” the freshman says, her small voice barely carrying. “She isn’t wearing tights?”

  “She isn’t wearing tights!” DioGuardi echoes cheerfully. “That’s certainly one of the problems here. What else?”

  Deanna stands silently as DioGuardi points out all her uniform violations one by one, from her untucked shirt to the too-big hoop earrings she’s wearing. He even has Ms. Lynch, the school secretary, bring him a ruler so he can measure the length of her skirt.

  “This is awful,” I mutter, though when I look over at Jacob for confirmation I realize he’s watching the proceedings with a good-natured smirk on his face.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, jabbing him in the ribs harder than I necessarily mean to. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Aw,” Jacob says with a shrug, “it’s a little funny. Besides, Deanna doesn’t care. A whole cafeteria full of dudes looking at her at once is probably her dream.”

  “You’re being freaking gross,” I tell him, even as his buddies bust up laughing. I look back at Deanna’s vacant face. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat back and thought super hard about why everyone says she’s a slut in the first place beyond the fact that her boobs are big and she had a boyfriend back in seventh grade. Even if she has been with a million guys, I think suddenly, even if she is dressing to get attention, how is that anybody’s business but hers?

  “Ms. Montalto,” Mr. DioGuardi finishes finally, “I will see you in detention this afternoon. As for the rest of you ladies, please remember to dress yourselves in a way that’s befitting of the values we uphold here at Bridgewater.”

  “Yeah, ladies,” Jacob teases. “Have some values, why don’t you?”

  “I can count three different uniform violations on you right now without even trying,” I say. “You’re lucky DioGuardi didn’t drag you up to the front of the cafeteria in front of everyone.”

  “Eh.” Jacob shrugs, unconcerned. I glance over at Chloe for backup, but she’s fussing with her phone inside her bag.

  “Can I eat these?” Jacob asks, pointing to the rest of my grapes, and I hand them over without protest. Suddenly I’m not hungry at all.

  Ten

  That night I sit at my desk eating all the pink Starbursts out of a giant bag I picked up at CVS and staring at the blinking cursor on the screen of my laptop, trying with extremely limited success to put together a draft of this article about the new cafeteria menu. Normally I really like writing for the Beacon, but now it feels all mixed up with what happened with Bex, all those afternoons we spent in the newspaper office supposedly having such a good time. I mean, we were having a good time. At least I was. But now . . .

  Also, damn if it isn’t a tall order to make grilled chicken on top of limp romaine lettuce sound exciting and novel.

  Finally I push my chair back from my desk, catching sight of myself in the mirror on the back of my closet door. My hair has gotten long, the ends still bearing traces of last summer’s sun-and-lemon-juice highlights. When I was little I wanted to look like a mermaid—I remember how Chloe and I used to sleep in braids the night before a beach trip, then hole up in her bathroom or mine slathering on self-tanner, spending way longer getting ready than we ever did messing around in the waves. All at once it occurs to me how much time I’ve wasted in my life trying to make it look like I haven’t spent any at all.

  I stand up and face myself full-on in the mirror, taking in my cropped shirt and the sliver of belly that peeks up over my high-waisted jeans and wondering briefly what I’d think if I was a stranger and saw a picture of myself on Instagram. What would I say to Chloe about that girl’s flat butt and smudgy mascara? Probably not “She looks smart and like a good friend,” that’s for sure.

  I glance over at the empty place on the carpet where Chloe sat the other night, our conversation replaying like some bad radio earworm inside my head: You’re freaking out a disproportionate amount. I got so amped up at the thought of it, but what if she’s right? I went to his house, I remind myself again. I reapplied my ChapStick right there in his front seat. But was that an invitation? I didn’t mean it that way—at least, I don’t think I did—but maybe we did just have bad communication.

  And then I remember: it happened. I was there. God, it’s like even I want to make myself doubt myself. How messed up is that? But there are so many unspoken rules for navigating high school—for navigating life, maybe—that I can’t help but try to figure out which one I broke to get myself into this situation. There are so many rules for girls.

  I stretch my arms over my head and think again about what happened to Deanna at lunch today, the caught-animal look in her eyes as DioGuardi called her out in front of everyone. The longer I think about it the angrier I get—at DioGuardi, sure, but also at myself. I want to tell Deanna I’m sorry for all the casually nasty, sexist stuff I’ve ever heard about her, for all the times I could have said That’s not funny and didn’t. I want to tell her how unfair the whole thing is. Like, every guy wants to hook up, but if you actually do hook up, you have to worry about this? I want to ask her if she also feels like there are all these guidelines we’re supposed to be following in exchange for the alleged privilege of walking around this world as a teenage girl: Be flirty but not too flirty. Be confident but not aggressive. Be funny but in a low-key, quiet way. Eat cheeseburgers, but don’t get fat. Be chill, but don’t lose control. I feel like I could keep on going, like a full list would cover one of those old-fashioned scrolls from cartoons about Santa Claus.

  I dig through the bag and unwrap another Starburst, chewing thoughtfully for a moment before laying my hands back down on the keyboard.

  RULES FOR BEING A GIRL

  I type frantically for the better part of an hour, my fingers flying over the keys and my tongue caught between my teeth. I’m just finishing up when Gracie knocks on the door. “Are you going to come watch TV?” she asks, leaning against the jamb in her buffalo-check pajama pants and fuzzy slippers. “Dad’s making popcorn.”

  “I— What?” I feel wrung out like a washcloth; I glance at the clock in the corner of the screen, sure that hours have passed and it’s the middle of the night, but to my dazed surprise it’s barely nine o’clock. “Um. Sure.”

  “Okay.” Gracie looks at me for another minute. “Are you all right?”

  I glance at my editorial, back at my sister. “I’m good,” I tell her, smiling a little. And for the first time since that day in Bex’s apartment, it actually feels like the truth.

  RULES FOR BEING A GIRL

  BY MARIN LOSPATO

  It starts before you can remember: you learn, as surely as you learn to walk and talk, the rules for being a girl. Yo
u are Princess. You are Daddy’s Little Girl. Are you ticklish? Give him a hug. You’re sweet, aren’t you? You’re a good little girl.

  You don’t remember those early days, but here’s what you do remember: You remember ballet class, the way your tummy stretched your pink leotard and your parents fretted over some future eating disorder, and then you were trying tap, or soccer, or what about a musical instrument? You remember “We just want you to be happy!” and you remember you said you were happy because you knew that’s what they wanted to hear. How long have you been saying what everyone else wants to hear?

  Time went on, and GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING! So speak up, I can’t hear you! But also: Manners, young lady. A boy is bothering you at school? Stand up for yourself! A boy is bothering you at school? He’s just trying to get your attention. Do you like sparkles and unicorns and everything pink? Oh that’s stupid now. Can you play in this game? Sorry, no girls allowed.

  Put a little color on your face. Shave your legs. Don’t wear too much makeup. Don’t wear short skirts. Don’t distract the boys by wearing bodysuits or spaghetti straps or knee socks. Don’t distract the boys by having a body. Don’t distract the boys.

  Don’t be one of those girls who can’t eat pizza. You’re getting the milk shake too? Whoa. Have you gained weight? Don’t get so skinny your curves disappear. Don’t get so curvy you aren’t skinny. Don’t take up too much space. It’s just about your health.

  Be funny, but don’t hog the spotlight. Be smart, but you have a lot to learn. Don’t be a doormat, but God, don’t be bossy. Be chill. Be easygoing. Act like one of the guys. Don’t actually act like one of the guys. Be a feminist. Support the sisterhood. Wait, are you, like, gay? Maybe kiss a girl if he’s watching though—that’s hot. Put on a show. Don’t even think about putting on a show, that’s nasty.

  Don’t be easy. Don’t give it up. Don’t be a prude. Don’t be cold. Don’t put him in the friend zone. Don’t act desperate. Don’t let things go too far. Don’t give him the wrong idea. Don’t blame him for trying. Don’t walk alone at night. But calm down! Don’t worry so much. Smile!