Part 2: Tuesday

Chapter 5: Ed

I had had a nice talk with my Mom Monday night-about Natalie. "Just do your best, that's all anyone can ask of you," she said. Mom always says things like that. That's why I love her.

Anyhow, I came to school more determined than ever to see this girl get through the week in one piece.

It did not start out encouraging. I met her at the entrance and we had to undress in front of all those people. It was painful to watch. She was visibly forcing herself to take her clothes off. And when she got fondled and felt up afterwards-it was just, I don't even know how to describe it. It looked like it was just nightmarish to her.

I wonder if she'd been abused. I'd seen that before. I wasn't sure, though. She was just completely closed off from her body.

We got to accounting second period, and she barely talked to me. I tried to make her laugh, and didn't.

When I can't make someone laugh, there's a problem. Not to brag, but it's the truth. I could come to your mother's funeral and at least get a chortle out of you.

Worried, I skipped third period. Went down to see Mr. Tilling instead.

"Hey, Ed," he greeted me. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"You can give me a note. This is important."

"All right," he said-I think he was surprised to see me so serious. "What's on your mind?"

"I think we need to call a time-out. The Program isn't working, not this time. In fact, it might be making a bad situation worse."

"Ed, I'm surprised. Of all the people I thought might have a problem, you are the last..."

"Oh, no," I cut him off, "not me. I'm talking about Natalie."

"Oh," he said.

"Mr. Tilling, she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

"I know," he said simply.

"You know? And you let her go into The Program?" I was incredulous.

"I didn't have a choice. You know how parental consent for The Program works. Her mother demanded she be placed."

"I have a strong suspicion that her mother is a big part of the problem," I told him.

"Yes, so do I. Ed, some of us know who Sharon Weinberg is. She works at Doc's. You know what Doc's is?"

"Yeah, it's a bar," I told him. "I don't drink, but I know some guys that have gone to Doc's. They're notorious for not checking ID's all that closely. The place is a real dive, though, from what I hear."

"Yes, it is. And it attracts the kind of guys who you'd expect to be hanging out at a dive. And it's common knowledge that Sharon Weinberg isn't averse to taking those guys home."

"Oh, Jesus," I said.

"Rumor has it that you can buy your way into her bed. I don't know how true that is, but that's the rumor."

"Oh, Christ," I said, "And this is Natalie's mother?"

"Yeah. We had her investigated by social services, but nothing came of it. Natalie, apparently, clammed up. Look, let me tell you something about Natalie Weinberg. Do you know where she's ranked in your class?" he asked.

"Yeah, seventh, she told me yesterday."

"Ed, the girl is gifted. She could probably be in contention for valedictorian if she had any kind of support from home. You know how gifted Lily Woodard is on the baseball mound-well, Natalie's that gifted in the classroom. But she has no friends, no support system, no nothing. She's completely closed off from everything. We don't completely know what her home life is like, but we strongly suspect it's not good. Quite frankly, we-that's me and her teachers and all-are afraid we're going to lose her."

"Yeah, I see what you mean," I told him.

"I can't do anything about her being in The Program. I had to put her in. But, I'm going to tell you something-we, Ms. T and I, deliberately chose you to partner her. We don't usually do that, but Natalie needs help. She needs a friend. And a lot of us remember what you did for Annie Zipelski."

I was dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. "You what?"

"We all know that you can't turn your back on someone in need. You got Annie out of hell-some of us know about that."

I took a deep breath. "This is not fair."

"What?" he asked.

"You say you know what I did for Annie. Do you know what that cost me? The only girl I have ever loved, and I lost her." I laughed mirthlessly. "I didn't get Annie out of the hell she was living in because I'm a fucking good Samaritan, I did it because I loved her. She was my girlfriend, for crying out loud! And now you've stuck me in a position where you expect me to rescue someone that, a day ago, I didn't even know. And as an added bonus, you've dredged up all of those memories of Annie-memories I try to bury. Memories of Annie accepting my help, showering me with gratitude, and then walking away. Forever." I sighed. "Mr. Tilling, I am no saint. There is a part of me-a part I deny, a part I'm ashamed of, but it exists. And that part wishes I'd never gotten involved in Annie's home life, that I'd left things as they were. She might have not left me."

"And she might be hopelessly screwed up, or even dead," he said.

"I know that! I said it was the evil part of me." I took a breath. "And now you want me to do it again. And I'm stuck, because you're right-I can't turn away from someone in trouble. And since you've so thoughtfully forced me to support a person in trouble, I'm stuck." I sighed. "You know what's worse? I like Natalie. We had a nice talk at lunch yesterday. She's a good kid, and we have a whole mess of stuff in common, surprisingly enough. I could really like her, I think. And now I can't, because I refuse to get emotionally involved with another wounded bird. I can't go through that again."

"Ed, I'm sorry," Mr. Tilling said. "I didn't realize how much this was going to affect you."

"I can't even come up with a joke. I'm looking at this situation you've put me into, and I can't even come up with a joke. Me, Ed Bauer, at a loss for humor. How pathetic is that?" I turned away from his desk and abruptly walked out of his office.

Damn. Damn him all to hell.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to wring his neck. How dare they do this to me? Girl in trouble, we can't handle it-let's call in Ed The Girlsaver to the rescue! After all, he saved Annie Zipelski's life, right?

Almost fucking took his own afterwards-but we'll just ignore that part. Damn them.

Walking through the halls, I calmed down. I did vow to myself, just this morning, that I was going to try to help this girl get through the week, didn't I? I guess being set up by Mr. Tilling didn't change that. It just made it more difficult, knowing that.

I had missed all of third period, and trudged into fourth, which was English. I got a wave from Lily, who shared that class with me.

That's when I got an idea.

I didn't have to do this by myself.

Natalie, I discovered yesterday, badly needed a friend. Friend is fine, friends-plural-is better, right? And who had a better bunch of friends than me?

So, on the way into the lunchroom, I rounded them all up, and asked for a favor. They all quickly and happily agreed. Like I said-nobody's got a better bunch of friends than me.

Chapter 6: Natalie

If it weren't for my desperate hope for a college scholarship, I wouldn't have come in today. Or I would've walked out. But I wouldn't be here. I can't do this.

I made it to lunch, don't ask me how. Dropped myself into my out-of-the-way chair. And here came Ed. Man, he really was trying, I'll give him that. It was sweet, actually. I know he was only doing this because he had to-and because he's a nice guy-but I would've given up on me long before this. He saw me in accounting, and I couldn't even look at him.

But here he came. "Hey," he said, sitting down across from me. "Want some company?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"Good, cause here it comes." Suddenly there were a pile of people sitting down at the table! Oh, shit, I couldn't deal with this.

"So, this is where you've been hiding," someone said, sitting down next to him. "Give me a french fry," as he stole one from Ed's plate. I realized it was Mike Kirkland, Ed's best friend.

"Hi," a beautiful redhead said as she sat next to me. "You must be Natalie. I'm Amanda Frazier."

"Hey, I'm Lily Woodard," the brunette sitting on the other side of me said.

"That stud across from me is Jared Wicklow, my boyfriend," Amanda went on. "The guy on the other side of Ed is Mike Kirkland, Lily's boyfriend."

"That's my identity now. Lily's boyfriend," Mike joked.

"The guy next to Mike is Frankie Gutierrez," Ed said. "And across from Frankie is the world famous Maggie Benson."

"No autographs, please," Maggie quipped.

"We know Ed's sitting here to help you through The Program," Amanda was saying to me, "but lunch is no fun without Ed, so we thought we'd join you."

"Nothing's no fun without Ed," said Ed.

"Hey, speaking of fun with Ed, I finished two verses," Lily said.

"Of what?" Ed asked her.

She grinned at him impishly and started singing:

"What's between Ed's legs is frightful

It's no bigger than just a mitefull

And the girls just don't want to know

So make it grow, make it grow, make it grow!

Yeah, the thing that Ed's got hangin'

Is a bit too small for bangin'

You'd do better with his left big toe

So make it grow, make it grow, make it grow!"

I have to admit, I was howling. Everyone was. Even Ed.

"Woodard," Ed told her, "Here's the scenario. One to nothing, us. Bases loaded, one out, top of the ninth. Tailor made double play ball to Ed. Right through his legs. On purpose. Runs score, Lily loses, Ed laughs."

"You'd never. You like winning too much," Lily told him.

"I think you just lost me," I admitted.

"Baseball. Lily's our star pitcher."

"Really?" I said, surprised. A girl was the star pitcher?

"Yup," Mike put in.

"I love baseball," Lily told me. "And, yeah, I'm good. Mike's on the team too, he's our catcher. Frankie's one of our other pitchers and center fielder."

"Let me understand this," I said. "You're a pitcher, Mike's a catcher, and you guys are going out?"

"Makes for an interesting locker room, I'll tell you that," Ed butt in.

"Ah, we've never done a thing in the locker room, and you know it," Lily teased him. "Right field, that's a different matter." Everyone else chuckled, and she turned to me. "The first time we ever made love was in right field."

"You're kidding," I said.

"Nope. It's now become a running joke on the team. Mike kissed me the other day while we were standing on the sideline at practice, and Ty Christopher-that's our first baseman--yelled, 'Take that crap out to right field!'"

"Frankie keeps joking about putting up a sign," Ed said. "Mike and Lily slept here."

"There wasn't any sleeping going on, Frankie," Lily said.

"OK, Mike and Lily fucked here?" Frankie joked. "Mike and Lily came here would work, too, I suppose."

"Oh, you bet your ass it worked," Lily said.

I was dumbfounded. Just the way the conversation had gone, it just dumbfounded me.

"How's the program going, Natalie?" Amanda asked me from the other side.

"Uh, not well," I admitted.

"It gets easier," she told me. "I had a lot of troubles too."

"You did?" I said. I knew who Amanda was, and she had always been known as outgoing.

"Yeah. I was pretty repressed when it started. I was also a virgin. The whole thing terrified me. Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."

"It did?" I said.

"Yeah. I got unrepressed in a hurry," she laughed. "Lost my virginity, and found a boyfriend," she told me. "Jared and I started going out then, but gave each other the rest of the week to experiment, because we'd both been repressed."

"You started going out, but you experimented? With other people, I take you mean?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jared told me. "We even had a threesome-the two of us and another girl."

"And I got gangbanged shortly thereafter," Amanda said.

"You're kidding," I was shocked. "Did you like that?"

"It was fun. Once, mind you. I've never done it again and don't really want to. But I'm glad I did it once. Jared's a lot more fun." She grinned at him. The way those two looked at each other! "Anyhow, what I was saying about The Program-it loosened me up, let me discover myself sexually, got me a boyfriend. Discussions about it also led to my mother loosening up. Which was a small miracle. And that just about saved my parents' marriage-to the point where I'm going to have a little brother or sister in July."

"Wow," I said.

"How's your Mom doing, by the way?" Mike asked her.

"Great. She's had amniocentesis-she is 42, after all-and everything looks great. My parents are over the moon about it. Mom's five months along now and starting to show. I thought that would, you know, bring her down-but she's glowing."

"I bet you're thrilled to be the handy live-in babysitter," Lily teased.

"Ah, only for a year or so, before I go to college. That's the only thing that really sucks, actually, is that I won't be around for a lot of the kid's growing up. So, for that year I'm there-and when I come home on breaks-I'll probably be volunteering to baby-sit." She grinned at me "I'll just have Jared help. Feed the kid, change the diaper, put it to bed-and then find other ways of amusing ourselves."

They seemed so into sex. Which just amazed me. I really am a freak.

"Hey, Natalie," Mike asked. "You're in Trig last period with Ed and I, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Ed says you're a brain." I giggled at that. "Did you get what Mr. Frey was saying at the end yesterday?"

"Sure." I explained what Mr. Frey had talked about at the end of class yesterday.

"OK. I get it now. Thanks, Natalie, you made more sense than Mr. Frey. Ed's right, you really are smart, aren't you?"

"Yeah, he told us you were seventh in the class?" Lily said.

"Yeah," I said sheepishly.

"That's awesome," Jared said. "I'm pretty proud of being twenty-third. Seventh is awesome." I just blushed.

"So, you ready to play third base in the nude?" Mike asked Ed.

"No, I am not. But I figure if Lily can pitch in the nude, I can handle it."

"I was in The Program the week of tryouts," Lily told me. "Me and this gorgeous talented catcher, who helped me out."

"I taped her boobs," Mike laughed.

"They were getting in the way of me throwing, and sports bras were forbidden, so he came up with this ingenious solution involving an ace bandage," Lily laughed.

"So, you went to tryouts wearing nothing but an ace bandage around your chest?" I asked.

"Well, they let me wear socks and my cleats," she laughed. "And not just tryouts, but out first game. Which I pitched."

"And won," Mike jumped in. "And scored the winning run."

"And tore my entire right leg up sliding into home with said winning run," Lily laughed.

"You guys on the baseball team seem to have a lot of fun," I commented.

"We do, it's a blast," Ed said. "We've got a home game today at 3:30. You should come."

"I don't know," I said.

"Sure, come on," Amanda told me. "You can sit with Jared and I, we're going."

My mother would be furious. Did I care anymore? "I'll think about it," I said. Changing the subject, I said, "It seems like those of you who have gone through the Program actually enjoyed it."

"I think we all did," Mike said. "At this table, it's just the four of us, Lily and I and Amanda and Jared-well, now we can add you and Ed."

"Yeah," I said. But what I thought was this-you all enjoyed it. But Ed's not. He brought you all over here to help me out. He's spending this entire week-which normal people, apparently, enjoy-watching over a terrified mentally-scarred hopeless case. It's not fair. It's not fair to him.

I think that's when the light started to dawn on me.

Ed was being so nice. And his friends were being nice, too. I now know why he valued his friends so much. I had a feeling he asked them to come sit with us. And they were friendly, they included me in the conversation, Mike asked me about Trig. I realized, it was like talking to Ed yesterday. I forgot, for a few minutes, how naked I was.

That's when I made a decision. No more 'woe is me' stuff, not about The Program. It wasn't going to be easy, but I was going to stick it out. I was going to try to relax about it as much as I could.

I didn't think I'd ever enjoy it, per se, but Ed deserved to. He didn't need me bringing him down.

Anyhow, lunch was over, and it was time to go to Bio. Ed, Jared, Amanda, and Maggie all walked with me.

The guys were stopping me, as usual. I was getting felt up, as usual.

After one, Amanda asked me, "Why do you get all stiff and vacant when they do that?"

"I don't like it much," I admitted, blushing.

"Really? That's a pity. When I was in the program, I loved it," she giggled.

"I thought you said you were repressed at the beginning," I said to her.

"Yeah, and having a few fingers in your pussy will unrepress you in a hurry," she laughed.

"Doesn't seem to work for me," I said. "I just feel like I'm being used." I'm surprised I admitted that to her.

What she said surprised me more. "Used? Natalie, that's your pussy. If they're using it, it's to get you off. If they really wanted to use you, they'd be whipping out their dicks."

I never thought of it that way.

Anyway, bio was fine. Ed made me laugh. But I was dreading gym. I got in and out of the locker room in a hurry. We were outside, playing tennis, which was an interesting thing to do in the nude. I think I pulled every muscle in my chest from those things bouncing around. But it was all right. It was the shower I was dreading.

On the way into them, I saw Ed. He grabbed me, and I noticed, also standing there, was this huge black kid. I'd seen him around, but didn't know who he was.

"Nat, I want you to meet Ty Christopher. He's the first baseman on the baseball team, and a good friend."

"Pleased to meet you, Natalie," he said I shook his hand. Wow, what a voice!