Bittersweet Dreams Read online

  In her hands was a book I had lent to Allison. She opened it and held it up with two hands in front of herself like a shield so that the cover was facing me.

  “What’s wrong, Julie?” I asked in a calm, almost sweet-sounding voice.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? How dare you give this book to Allison!”

  “I didn’t give it to her. I lent it to her.”

  “You know what I mean. Why would you give her this book?”

  “She’s more than thirteen years old now, Julie. Four girls in her class are pregnant. They all probably have mothers like you, terrified to mention S-E-X. You should be thanking me. That happens to be a well-written book on the subject by a renowned expert in the field, presented in a clear, simple manner so someone her age can understand it all easily.”

  “Thanking you?” She swallowed hard. “Thanking you? A clear, simple manner? You call this simple?”

  She turned the book around, flipped some pages, and held up a drawing of a naked man and a naked woman in the missionary position. She turned it back to herself and read, “ ‘The missionary position is a male-superior sex position in which the woman lies on her back and—”

  “I know what it is, Julie. The problem is that Allison doesn’t, or she didn’t. I hope she got through most of it before you confiscated it, which I think was a mistake.”

  “Of course I confiscated it. I’m her mother!”

  “I know you’re her mother, but what world do you live in? Do you think Allison hasn’t watched soft porn with her friends, French-kissed at parties, had a boy’s hand in her blouse and in her pants?”

  She recoiled and then shot back like a rattlesnake. “That’s absolutely disgusting. Of course she hasn’t. I’d know if anything of that sort happened.”

  “How would you know?” I asked. “You treat her like she’s never menstruated.”

  She opened and closed her mouth without making a sound.

  “If you’re not going to permit her to read it, may I have my book back, please? I’m doing some research on the fruit fly and want to make some comparisons.” I wasn’t, but I thought that was a funny thing to say.

  She didn’t. She thrust the book at me. “You can be sure that your father is going to hear about this,” she said.

  “Hear about it? Sex? I think he knows about it.”

  “You know exactly what I mean. Don’t be . . . be . . .”

  “Facetious? I think that’s the word you’re searching for,” I said. “It means joking inappropriately, perhaps to satirize or show contempt.”

  She did what she usually did when she couldn’t get the best of me. She nodded repeatedly and looked like one of those toy dogs people placed in the rear windows of their cars. I felt like reaching out and putting my hand under her chin to stop her before her head rolled off.

  “I don’t understand you,” I said in an even calmer voice. “Didn’t you want to know these things when you were your daughter’s age? Aren’t you happy that there are better ways to learn this stuff than listening to misinformation other girls spout in bathrooms or sneaking terrible sex books into your room and reading them under the covers?”

  “Allison is . . . is . . .”

  “What? She’s probably masturbated. Are you saying she is a virgin? Are you absolutely sure? And what if she loses her virginity inappropriately? Wouldn’t that upset you more? When you calm down and think about it later, you will definitely thank me,” I said with that stone-cold confidence that assured most people that I was right.

  Her eyes looked like two balls lit up in a slot machine. I felt like reaching out for an invisible lever on the side of her head and pulling it down. If I got two bloodred pupils, her mouth would open and spill out silver dollars. She opened and closed that mouth, and then she spun on her heels and walked away with her back hoisted like a flag on her iron-pole spine. I envisioned smoke streaming out of her ears.

  I closed my door quietly and returned to my book. Usually, I could turn Julie on and off like a light switch, but for some reason, this latest confrontation between us annoyed me more than usual. I had trouble shutting it out of my mind, and it wasn’t because I felt any sense of guilt about it or was worried about how my father would react.

  My stepsister, Allison, was, in my view, very immature for a girl her age living in California in the twenty-first century. I really did believe I was doing her a favor. It was one of those rare times when I did something in this house without the initial purpose of annoying Julie.

  Like most mothers, Julie wasn’t even measuring her daughter in terms of herself at this age, recalling the questions and concerns she’d had. Worse, it was as if these mothers believed nothing had changed since they were teenagers. Information for those who sought it was accessible much more quickly and easily. They either were ignorant of or ignored what their daughters could learn on the internet, what sorts of materials they passed around and discussed, and what their personal experiences with boys already were. Had she even ever heard of friends with benefits? Didn’t she know the birth rate among teenagers? Didn’t she go to the movies or know about sexually explicit films deliberately targeting girls her daughter’s age? I could rattle off statistics that would make her head spin. I could have wiped the floor with her if she hadn’t run away.

  Although I tried, I was unable to shut it out of my mind. Maybe it was because I wasn’t happy about my own romantic life, which was a zero. Even though I was good at pretending that it didn’t bother me, acting convincingly as if I wasn’t interested, it did bother me. It bothered me a lot, and I was very interested. If my mother were alive, I’d have someone to talk to about it. I certainly couldn’t talk to Julie or my father, and at this time, I hadn’t connected with Joy and still had no girlfriend with whom I could spend hours on the phone, not that Joy was ever a great source of comfort or information for me. I didn’t even have anyone to email frequently. There was just no one yet whom I trusted enough to reveal anything more than the weather report.

  I couldn’t remember when I was last invited to a party or when other girls in my class asked me to do something with them. It was probably a few years, and back then, I was only invited because of my father and his business relationship with the parents of the girl. When I arrived, I could see that no one cared to talk to me. The parents of the girl whose house it was most likely pushed her to be civil to me, and she was barely that. It wasn’t difficult for me to see the lack of sincerity.

  The girls who finally did talk to me did so on their own initiative, speaking to me as if they were with some foreigner who had just barely learned English. The questions they asked gradually got more and more annoying as their confidence grew. I’m sure they saw how uncomfortable I was getting. Perhaps I wasn’t so hard to beat after all. Maybe if they were good enough, they could bring me to tears or send me running from the room. Then they could gather in a clump and giggle as they congratulated one another.

  “How come you don’t ever have a party at your house or hang with anyone at the mall?”

  “Don’t you think any of the boys are good-looking at our school?”

  “Are you afraid of boys? Is that what happens when a girl is so smart?”

  “Who do you dream of being with, at least? What actor?”

  “What sorts of fantasies does someone like you have?”

  They fired the questions at me so quickly I couldn’t answer one. Finally, they stopped and waited.

  “There are some good-looking boys at our school,” I said. “But when they open their mouths to speak, their faces fall off for me.”

  “Huh? Fall off? How can someone’s face fall off?” Willa Marley asked me. I remembered her question because I could see that she wasn’t quite sure whether I was speaking literally or figuratively. Perhaps I did know something about some sort of disease that caused a person’s face to fall off.

  “It just slides off his skull,” I said casually. “Like hot melting butter sliding off a pan.”

&nb
sp; “Ugh.”

  “That’s not true. That never happens. You’re just afraid of boys, aren’t you?” Victoria Walters asked. I remember how small her eyes were, beady, how they seemed to retract while her nose grew pointier, and how her mouth twisted, with her lips becoming pale.

  “I’m certainly not afraid of boys. Why should I be? Do you think they have some magical powers they hold over us? I’m not afraid of sex, certainly. It’s not a disease, and it doesn’t require a great deal of intelligence to perform it.”

  “Perform it?” Victoria said, and laughed with the others as her chorus. “Do you do it on a stage?”

  “You’re defining perform too narrowly.”

  “Huh? Just answer the question.”

  “Yes, I’m just as interested in boys and sex as any of you are. I’m just not as obvious about it. I don’t walk around with my tongue hanging out like some of you.”

  “Maybe you should,” Victoria flung back at me. “Maybe then you’d attract someone.”

  They all laughed and shook their heads but still peeled away like frightened birds. I watched them go off into corners to tell the boys about me and laugh. I told myself it didn’t bother me. After all, I had gotten the best of them, hadn’t I? Who cared what they thought?

  But sometimes I did feel like a potted plant, bored and unhappy, just waiting for someone to care enough to water me.

  Lately, I felt invisible in my school when it came to boys anyway, even though I had been returned to regular classes. That came as a surprise. I didn’t know it at the time, but both my father and Julie had gone to the administration and requested that I not be separated from the rest of the students when I was in high school. The guidance counselor, Mr. Martin, agreed. He said it was damaging to me socially.

  “She has to grow as a person and as a student,” he said. “I hope she considers joining one of the clubs or going out for drama, something that will help her have social intercourse.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Julie said. “We worry a great deal about her.”

  I had heard all about it afterward. My father told me about some of the things they’d said when he came into my room to explain why he wanted me returned to classes so I could be more of a regular student. How would I explain to him now that everyone, including some of my teachers, looked right through me most of the time, whether or not I was in a regular classroom? Actually, it was more difficult than ever for me to function within the normal classroom structure. I was happier working on my own. Being in regular classes held me back.

  As far as socializing went, I couldn’t force myself on the rest of the students, either, by joining a club or a sport, even if it was something like chess club. No one would want to play against me, and all of them would resent how I left them in the dust. The envy and resentment would only be compounded. How could I describe the situation without sounding like I was whining?

  Despite how much he loved me, my father would have to face facts, and some of those facts were that other students either were disinterested in putting in the extra effort to make friends with me or simply afraid of me or badly put off by me. We couldn’t depend on my teachers doing anything to help, especially those who knew they were incapable of motivating me very much and saw me as evidence of some failure on their part. It was very clear to all that I could do very well without them. Why should they have any concern for me?

  I couldn’t blame them entirely. The school day was already overwhelming them, with growing class sizes even in our expensive private school and the disciplining they had to do, without adding special attention to someone like me, perhaps special lesson plans or one-on-one sessions. They were struggling to keep up with their normal responsibilities. Watching them and how they were weighted down soured me on ever pursuing a teaching career of any kind.

  Yet I wasn’t going to disagree with my guidance counselor about all that he was trying to do. It wasn’t difficult to see what a miserable school life I was having, if it could even be called a school life. I might as well be attending school on a deserted island or maybe in a monastery where everyone had taken a vow not only of silence but of lack of sight. Never look at each other, and, especially, never look at me.

  After I was forced to return, it got so that in class, no matter what subject it was and what we were doing at the time, I could read whatever I wanted even while the teachers were talking. None of my teachers ever bothered me or reprimanded me for it. I had yet to get a grade lower than 100 in any of my subjects. If I ever did pay attention or raise my hand, it was because my teacher had done or said something incorrect. It got so that they looked frightened if I showed any interest in what they were saying. They tried to ignore me, and if they did so long enough, they knew I would put my hand down and go back to what I’d been doing.

  There was nothing a teacher hated more than being corrected by a student, especially one like me. Some reluctantly said thank you, but most brushed over it as if it were just a small glitch, not worth more attention. Lately, it had gotten so that even the other students resented me for doing it, as if I had no right to ruin their image of their brilliant teachers.

  I had met few teachers so far who would put their egos behind their interest in truly educating someone. Those who did were more secure about themselves and didn’t mind a student teaching them, too.

  One of them, my tenth-grade English teacher, Mr. Madeo, said, “You’re always a student, even when you become a teacher. Once you think you know it all, you’re a puppet, with ignorance pulling the strings. Don’t stop asking questions, Mayfair.”

  The point is that the attitudes of most of my teachers toward me spilled over onto my classmates. They, too, avoided talking to me, even nodding at me in the hallway. I usually sat alone in the cafeteria. Others could accidentally bump into me in the hallways and act as if they had bumped into the wall itself. No one apologized. Sometimes my father brought Allison and me to school on his way to work. Other times, Julie had to do it, and she usually picked us up. If I wanted to go somewhere else, I called a taxi. None of the students who drove ever asked me to go somewhere with them. This was supposed to be the year that I got my driver’s license, and my father was getting me my own car. No one even mentioned it now. Like most teenagers, I thought that once I had my license and a car, I’d gain in popularity. I didn’t want to admit to myself that it was a motive for getting my license and my own car, but it was.

  Of course, I told myself that those kinds of friends wouldn’t be sincere. They would use me and make me feel foolish for trying to win their friendship that way. I wondered why other girls and boys my age didn’t see all the phoniness hovering around them. Maybe they didn’t want to see it. Maybe that was the solution: ignore the truth so that you could feel happy. Perhaps, deep down, that was what my father was doing when it came to Julie. No one who fools himself wants to be reminded of it.

  I looked at the book I had given Allison and reread some passages describing foreplay and orgasm. Even though the other girls in my class never spoke to me about anything social, I couldn’t help overhearing them talking in the locker room before and after PE or in the cafeteria when they sat at a table close to mine. Most of them struck me as airheads, but I was still somewhat fascinated by the discussions. It surprised me just how much intimate stuff they would reveal.

  “He got behind me, put his hand under my blouse, and said I should let him pretend to be my bra,” Joyce Brooker told the others one afternoon. “While he kissed me on my neck.”

  “And?” Cora Addison asked when there was too long of a pause.

  “My father came home early.”

  She was doing this in her own house? Maybe that made it more exciting. Would I want to be alone with any of the boys in this school at my home, in my room? How would I feel if Julie or my father burst in on us? Embarrassed, titillated, or just annoyed at the interruption?

  “He got his hands out just in time, but . . .”

  “But what?” Denise Hartman as
ked.

  “My father looked at my face and knew something. He didn’t say anything, but he told my mother, and she gave me a lecture. I don’t know what would have happened if my father hadn’t come home early,” Joyce admitted. “And I still don’t know what will happen next time, despite my mother’s lecture.”

  I thought it was a stunning confession. The others looked mesmerized, lost in their own fantasies, wondering if they would surrender completely, even if it wasn’t safe sex. It was written on their faces. They were excited just by the possibility.

  As was I.

  A similar thing happened whenever I read information about sex and then thought of myself, just as I was doing after my confrontation with Julie about Allison. I’d see myself with a boy, even with a teacher. It wasn’t that I grew frightened as much as I grew nervous and unsure of what I would do. The only time I felt as if I were skating on thin ice at school was when it came to boys, talking to them, reacting to their rare flirtations or approaches. Being scientific about it or pointing out that I knew what they were up to was the only way I could be comfortable, but what boy liked that? It was like tearing off their masks or telling the emperor he was naked, that he wore no clothes.

  It was clear to me that boys were more comfortable with girls who were either really dumb about it all or good at pretending to be. Boys needed their egos pumped up more than girls did, I concluded. But what other girl would even care to think about it as much? Many times, I was tempted to say something to one of the girls after I overheard a conversation she had been having with a boy she apparently liked. I felt the need to warn her, to guide her, as if she and I were on the same team, but one look at her face told me that I would have my advice or concerns for her thrown back into my face.

  “What do you know about it?” she would surely snap at me. “You have the love life of a mannequin.” It would bring a crowd of gawking onlookers, who would surely enjoy my being taken down. I wasn’t going to put myself in that sort of jeopardy. It wasn’t worth it.