Chapter 7

A few days later the same woman called her to the office after class. "I have the results of your first evaluation," she said.

"Evaluation?" She'd pictured a day of taking tests, like the last day or two before the mid-Winter break in Tiburon. "When did they do that?"

"You're still new here, so we rely upon teacher's reports."

Oh great, she though. Now she'd have to suck up to the teachers. Some things never changed.

"Don't worry about it, though. They forwarded your quiz and test scores, and we went on those. There's only class that you've been taking that requires a written evaluation, and you're nowhere near that point."

She flipped through several sheets of paper, and then finally folded her hands on top of them. "You have a problem with math."

"I don't like it, if that's what you mean."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just do."

"Uh huh." The woman flipped through the pages again. "If you want to do anything, you're going to need higher math scores. I'm going to recommend a student tutor."

Oh great, Danielle thought, someone to lord it over me.

"She wants to be a teacher, and she's already done some assisting in class. This will be a good experience for both of you."

Danielle kept her face impassive. She'd learned that there were times you just went along, especially here. Some of these people acted as if you didn't have a brain.

"When will this start."

"How about tomorrow after school." The woman straightened up the papers and gave Danielle a smile. "I'll contact your aunt and uncle and make the arrangements."

Danielle dragged through classes the next day. A math tutor. Math was so ... so geeky. Only nerds and people like them took it. She wasn't sure she'd even call them people. True, Kendra took it, but that was different, she was going to be a doctor. She needed to know how to do the math so she wouldn't make a mistake with a prescription. But other than that ... The others at school were going to make fun of her because she was too dumb to pass their courses.

At the end of classes she still hadn't found out who her tutor was supposed to be. She was getting her sweater out of her locker when Fiona presented herself.

"You ready?"

"Huh?" Danielle frowned. "Ready for what?"

"I'm supposed to help you with your class assignments."

"You're ... what?"

"They asked me a little while ago, and I said sure. They told me that your last school didn't like to teach girls math because girls were supposed to be too dumb to take it. I figured that had to be why they asked me, because I know you're smart and all..."

She said more, but Danielle didn't hear it. Fiona? Teaching her? What was that going to be like? She only sort of knew the girl, so that would probably help. And if she wanted to be a teacher, then of course she would be pretty good at math. Teachers had to be.

"Sure, I guess," Danielle finally got out.

"Good. I'm supposed to help you with your homework, and they gave me all sorts of suggestions of how we can raise your grades. This'll be fun, you'll see. We can't do it at school, but I called my sister and she said we could do it at her place."

"Has anyone ... what about my aunt and uncle."

Fiona waved. "Oh, that's already taken care of. The school said they called them today, and they agreed. I'm surprised they didn't tell you. Of course it was during lunch, so..."

Numbly, and more than a little surprised, Danielle followed the girl. She kept silent while they walked down the street, but Fiona rattled on and on. They took the same way home Danielle normally followed, but after two blocks Fiona turned in at a white house with dark green trim.

"I thought you lived in Upper and Lower."

She grimaced. "I do, but only on the weekends. The first cable car doesn't leave until just a few minutes before school, so during the week I live here with my sister. She and some friends from Seaside are in college, and they rented this house."

She pushed open the front door. "I'm home, Christie, and I have someone with me."

"Boy or girl?"

"A girl."

"There's fresh lemonade in the refrigerator. Dinner isn't for a couple of hours."

"All taken care of," Fiona said. She pulled off her skirt and top and hung them in a closet next to the door. "I am so glad to get out of those things." She rubbed her thighs. "How do you stand it?"

"You learn," Danielle said. "You didn't wear a bra today?"

"It was dirty, and I put it in the wash. I guess I forgot to get my other one out this morning."

Danielle tried to picture what it would be like to forget something like a bra. Truly Fiona lived in a different world. She felt embarrassed by the girl's nakedness, but Fiona seemed totally oblivious to the idea that she was showing everything. Instead, she picked up her books. "C'mon, the backyard is private, and there's a place out there where we can work. Lemonade?"

"Um, yeah, I guess."

Fiona got a couple of glasses and filled them with ice cubes and lemonade. She handed them to Danielle, then got a towel and led the way into the backyard. Hedges surrounded them on all sides. There was one young woman sitting in a chair, reading, and another lying on a blanket, studying. Both were naked.

Fiona waved in their general direction. "That's Kirsten and Nan. They're both going to college in Terminus." She spread the towel on the bench and settled on it happily. "Feels good to get out of those things.

"Now I had a chance to look at your math scores and talk with one of the teachers. She had some suggestions, and I had a chance to put together a couple of things. Let's turn to page 138 and..."

Danielle forced herself to ignore Fiona's tanned body and focus on her math book. She's just a girl, she told herself. We're all girls here. Nothing to see that I don't see in the mirror every morning.

After an hour Fiona pronounced herself satisfied with the first session. Danielle wasn't so sure. She'd solved a couple of problems that Fiona had given her, but so what? She could always solve problems when she had plenty of time. Doing it during a test was still the problem.

Danielle was a little surprised that she didn't notice Fiona's nakedness all that much. Oh, she did, sort of, like when Fiona had got up to stretch, and showed off absolutely everything, or when Fiona had leaned over to show her something in the text book and Danielle had snatched her hand back when Fiona accidentally bumped it with her bare breast. Those incidents were hard to ignore, but Fiona so totally ignored her nudity that Danielle found she did, too.

She'd even managed to act blasé when Christie, Fiona's older sister, came out of the house with refills of lemonade. Like Fiona and the other girls, she was naked, and she seemed totally oblivious to the fact. She paid it so little mind that Danielle began to feel like the odd one out, and that she should get naked, too. She could never do that, though she'd once gone topless on a beach on a dare. But that was back home, and they'd gone over to the coast so there wasn't anyone around who knew them.

Fiona stuffed her notes into a folder, looked around, and then leaned over. "Have you ever kissed a boy?" she asked in a low voice.

"A few times," Danielle said cautiously.

"What's it like? There's this boy back in Lower that I've been seeing, and while he's never kissed me, I've been thinking about it a lot. How do you do it? I mean, of course you press your lips together, but where does your nose go? And how do you breathe?"

Danielle wanted to smile. She felt on familiar territory, and closed her textbook gratefully. "Well, you turn your head slightly so your noses don't squash into each other. That's first. It's almost an unconscious action, so you don't have to worry about it. Then..."

She walked home, wondering how couples in Lower kissed without getting a reaction from the boy. She remembered the first boy she'd kissed. The first time had been very chaste, as if both of them were afraid of what this meant. But a couple of times later she'd felt him pressing against her tummy. The kiss had made her hot, and she'd had all sorts of ideas that night when she'd been alone. But at least they'd both had clothes on. What would happen when the couple was naked?

She looked at those first kisses as a time when she'd been naïve. She'd kissed other boys, but it wasn't like her first time. They'd gotten excited, and they were at parties where the clothes had come off and things had happened. What did girls in Lower, and Seaside, do when boys had that reaction? Were there doctors there who routinely performed procedures? There'd have to be. This whole place was straight out of The Donna Reed Show, and sex outside of marriage just didn't happen.

She was trying to puzzle through that when she passed Jenny's door. She could hear her cousin's fierce whisper. "Harder! Harder! Don't stop!" and the rhythmic sound of a mattress being pounded by two bodies.

So much for not kids having sex outside of marriage. Maybe that only happened in Seaside and Lower. It almost had to, otherwise boys would be walking around with stiffys all of the time. And those boys she'd seen Fiona with a couple of weekends before certainly hadn't shown a typical guy's reaction to a girl's nudity.

If she pressed her ear against the wall she could hear her cousin moaning, and the stentorian breathing of Jenny's boyfriend. Then Jenny gave an "ahhh" and the heavy breathing abruptly stopped.

Danielle dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. She could just picture what was happening, she'd gone through it a few dozen times herself. She began shaking her head. "It's not right. It's just not right."

She went downstairs. Aunt Jessica was in the kitchen, putting the final touches on dinner. "What's bothering you?" her aunt asked.