Girl Read Free Page B

subjects like people at school and how he scored twenty-four points in a basketball game. Then he told me a long story about when he and Scott Haskell went to the beach and snuck into a blues bar and Scott asked the guy if he could jam but they wouldn’t let him and so they got really drunk and made out with some sleazy beach girls.
    After that we drove around and parked and made out. Then we talked and Mark said how he thought Cybil was okay and how he defended her to his friends when she shaved her head. And he thought the Outer Limits scene was all right in some ways. He was leading up to asking me for sex but I changed the subject to clothes. I complained that my Gap skirt was too boring but he said I looked really cute in it and how I was the cutest girl at the show. And then he told me how sexy I was and how I had a great body. And then he let down the seat and got on top of me and we made out more intense than ever. And it was so strange because he was Mark Pierce, senior, with a car, and very cute, who millions of girls liked. And I felt like I should like him more and I tried to but it was hard in the dark when he was just this big weight grinding into you.
    At school I told Darcy she was stupid not to come to Outer Limits and Greg was no problem and anyway Mark Pierce would protect her. And then after school we went to a thriftstorein Sherwood Oaks and I looked through the dresses for something like the girls at Outer Limits had. But the dresses were all of gross material and not that cool. I found a couple that seemed okay and we went in the dressing room and I told Darcy about Mark Pierce getting on top of me and if you could have an orgasm from making out. And I was saying how easily I could have had sex with him and didn’t she think it was inevitable really, and was it dishonest if you didn’t like them that much? Darcy said it wasn’t about being honest, it was more about if you’re ready or not. And I asked how you know if you’re ready and she said, “If your friends are all doing it, then you are.” And she was trying on hats and I was trying on dresses and then we talked about Mark’s friend Scott Haskell and if he was Darcy’s type and if we should double-date. And I picked out the least ugly dress and as I put my regular clothes back on I watched myself in the mirror and imagined I was in Mark Pierce’s bedroom and we had done it and he was asking me to stay but I couldn’t because I had a meeting to go to or a flight to catch or something important to do.

4
    On my sixteenth birthday it just rained and rained. Cybil and Darcy and me went to a movie and had frozen yogurt at Scamp’s and then we went home because Cybil was bored and Darcy had homework and I was getting depressed. At home my parents had a cake andmy brother, James, called from San Francisco and his stupid wife, Emily, got on and talked for about ten hours about how she was finally pregnant. And then Grandma Marr called from Phoenix and she was sending money. And everybody made such a big deal about the fact that it was “sweet sixteen” and it seemed so stupid that a girl has to be sixteen and seventeen and everybody gushes over her like this is the big high point of her life. When boys are sixteen nobody cares. They get drunk and crash their cars and get in any kind of trouble they want. They can have pimples and smell bad because nothing matters for them until they grow up and have important jobs bossing people around. But if you’re a girl everybody says you’re
blossoming
, you’re so
beautiful
, here let’s take a picture so when you’re old and ugly you can look back and
remember
.
    Mom took the pictures. Dad gave me a card that said he would take me to the DMV on Saturday and I could get my license. And then my mom started crying for no reason and my dad was getting all weird and not looking at me. That’s another thing about sixteen, you’re a