Chapter 36: Making it up

I phoned my mom a few minutes later. My mom was okay. She was just wondering if I'd be home for supper. I said I'd call and let her know, but probably not. Charlotte said that her parents usually celebrate after a business trip and that there would be food and drinks flowing like a king's banquet. She said this to Amy, but I got the idea that I'd be included as well.

Before I hung up I got the strangest urge to tell my mom that I loved her and I missed her, but I couldn't make the words come out. I don't know why. All I said was, "See you later, mom," and then goodbye. After I hung up I sat there wanting to call back too, but I didn't. She knew where I was and trusted me to look after myself. That was a nice feeling.

Charlotte was acting kind of weird over the next while. I'm not sure why, but she seemed to be all nervous, and at the same time, all giddy and excited. I gather it was the stress of the weekend, added to the idea that Amy wasn't doing well, added to the idea of Amy finally meeting her dad. I guess that can kind of frazzle a girl's nerves. It was weird to watch though, because Charlotte was normally completely poised and unflappable, even when things were getting to her deep down inside.

"See ya later, Mickie! Lick ya later, Jeanie!" she giggled.

Janine hugged her big, and they exchanged a kiss that had us boys raising our eyebrows. Mick and I bumped fists and they headed out the door.

"Don't you just love them!?" Charlotte said after the door closed. "I hope they're together forever."

I grinned at Charlotte but she looked distracted and far away again. Amy's gaze faded away into dreamland as well. She noticed me watching her, and yanked her knuckle from her mouth. Charlotte grabbed her arm.

"Come on, Aims! Let's go change!"

Then I realized something else weird. It occurred to me that maybe Charlotte was acting completely normal, still the same girl I'd always known, but now I knew her a lot better, now I could see through her attempted cover-up and pick up on her deep down insecurity about the whole situation. I watched her bouncing around and babbling to Amy about every little thing that popped into her head and the more I watched, the more I became convinced that I was right—I'd finally penetrated Charlotte's mask. She just seemed so worried, but above that she looked like she didn't want anyone to know she was worried, so she talked fast and excited and bounced and giggled a lot. When I'd first met her, I only saw the bouncing and giggling. Now I saw the heart behind it. Charlotte was terrified. Of what though?

The girls were getting dressed. They were in Charlotte's closet helping Amy pick out something to wear. She was down to the last few scraps from her own suitcase and needed something new. The shopping she'd done with Janine hadn't helped either apparently, not for the kind of impression she'd hoped to make on her dad.

Amy for her part was completely transparent about her nervousness. Her voice kept getting higher in pitch and louder every time she got worried, and then she'd stop herself and take a couple of deep breaths to calm down again. Charlotte would giggle.

"What about this shirt with this skirt?"

"Too short!"

"This one? This is a cute one!"

"No! No skirts! I don't wear skirts! Especially not this kind of skirt!"

(Ouch! Charlotte looked like she'd been slapped.)

"You should just try it on. It might look sexy on you."

I interrupted, hoping to reassure both of them at once.

"You should try it, Aims. I'd like to see you in it, even if it's just for a moment."

Amy looked at me with an almost shocked expression on her face, as though I'd just walked into a change room and seen her completely naked.

"Do it!" Charlotte said. "I wanna see too."

"You can't hide behind baggy black clothes forever, girl."

"Can too!" she said, pouting defensively. But she took the little skirt off the hanger and shut the closet door on me. I was lying on my tummy on Charlotte's bed, watching them with my chin resting on my thumbs. I heard them whispering back and forth in there and I waited with a smile.

"Okay ... wow! Yeah..." Charlotte said. "But we gotta fix up your hair and put some makeup on you too."

"Makeup!? No!"

"Shh! Don't worry. You'll look fantastic."

"I don't wanna look fantastic! I wanna look like me!"

"You'll look like a fantastic version of you!"

Amy whimpered in resignation and Charlotte came running out, closed the door behind her as though hiding a surprise, and grabbed her makeup bag and some hair styling implements. She grinned at me. I rolled over onto my back and just stared at the bed canopy, listening to them argue about who and what Amy was.

"Okay, hold still ... look up, like this ... Yeah ... I just gotta ... there ... wow..."

"This feels so wrong!"

"Wrong!? Why is it wrong to look pretty?"

"I feel like one of those sluts my friends hate, those girls who are all about makeup, and hairdos, and short skirts, and screwing whatever boy comes along. It's just so ... not me!"

"The more I hear about these friends of yours, the more I feel like they wouldn't like me at all. You just described me to a tee, and it makes me wonder what you must think of me."

"Well I know you're not like that. You're with Anthony. You're my sister. The kind of sluts I'm talking about are just, like, so insecure and shallow and stupid!"

"I'm insecure and shallow and stupid too," Charlotte said, dead serious. "But you know what? So are your friends. So are you in a way."

"What!? As if!"

"If you try and tell me you're not insecure, I'll laugh in your face right now. If you were secure you wouldn't worry about wearing make-up and a short skirt for a second. You wouldn't be hiding behind baggy clothes all your life, covering up all your prettiness because your friends think skirts are slutty. And if you weren't shallow, you wouldn't be judging girls you don't even know, just by how they dress. And as for being stupid, well, we're all stupid. We all make mistakes. The best we can do is learn from them and hope the people we hurt still love us when it's over."

Amy was quiet for a moment. I sat there staring at the closet door, thanking God once again that Charlotte was mine. She was so cool.

"I'm sorry, Char," Amy said. "I didn't mean anything against you. It's just what I'm used to I guess."

"If there's one thing I've learned the past couple weeks, it's that we're all still sort of learning as we go, we're all making it up as we go along. Nobody's got it all figured out, and if they act like they do, they're lying. So no worries, sis. We'll just have to make it up as we go together, kay?"

After a silence, Amy said, "Don't stick that thing in my eye, bitch. I'll kill you."

I laughed out loud.

"You look awesome! You shoulda got me to doll you up like this before you went and fucked my boyfriend."

"M'eh. He was drunk out of his mind. He wouldn't have noticed."

"He'll notice now."

Amy didn't reply.

"You still sore, by the way?" Charlotte asked.

"Kinda. But nah. I don't know."

"That's right, you're on the rag. I guess it's hard to tell which ache is which down there."

"Thanks for announcing it to the whole world!"

"Anthony already knows."

"Still! Like, shut up! God!"

"How long does you cycle usually last?"

"Can we talk about this later?"

"Just wondering. If you're gonna fuck my boyfriend again, we should probably plan ahead."

"Oh my god! You did not even just say that!"

"Well, why not? I'd rather you do him than some other sketchy dude. Why? You don't want to fuck him again?"

"No!"

"Well who then?"

"How about nobody!?"

"Well you say that now, but once all the pain goes away you'll start getting that yummy, hungry, feed-the-kitty feeling again. Then what? Turn around I gotta do your hair now."

"Then nothing! I don't know. How am I supposed to know?"

"The first thing you gotta do is quit pretending like that feeling doesn't exist. And then you gotta quit trying to convince yourself that it's something dirty and wrong. And then you gotta just enjoy that feeling. Just enjoy it. It's awesome."

"Sometimes it is wrong though."

"Sometimes, but that's why it's called using your head and not being a stupid little slut. Guys will try to get into your pants, constantly, and they'll lie, cheat, and steal to do it too. Sometimes it'll feel like you're in a bullshit storm and the shit's piling up so fast you need wings to stay above it, but in the end you will be able to pick and choose. Just do it for the right reasons and everything will be fine. You'll probably have an easier time with it than I did."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're smarter than me."

And Charlotte giggled.

"I'm not smarter than you. I'm just more paranoid."

"Maybe, but I don't see you making some of the mistakes I did with guys. Not in a million years."

"Maybe they weren't mistakes. Maybe they were just lessons you had to learn."

"The difference between a mistake and a lesson is the fact that I have to put up with half the guys in school grabbing at my tits and ass every chance they get, and just expecting me to go ahead and do them whenever they ask, just because I did it the first time. Doing guys like that is a mistake. I used to think that's who I was, but now..."

"Now you're Anthony's."

"Yes. Exactly."

Silence, except for stammered breathing ... Amy I think.

"I wish I had tits like yours though. That would be awesome."

"What? These? Ha! I can't believe you said that!"

I could just picture Amy blushing.

"Well they are! They're so ... huge!"

"Does your mom have big ones?"

"I guess. Kinda."

"Then don't worry about it. You'll get there."

(She did too. By the time she was fifteen she was filling a C-cup bra rather nicely. Not huge, but very nice handfuls.)

"And anyway, it's not how big they are. It's how nice a guy can make them tingle that matters."

"Easy for you to say. Your body is like, totally perfect!"

Apparently girls notice these things too.

"So I've been told."

"I'm not a les or anything, but if I was a guy I'd wanna jump you too. Anthony is so lucky. You're all curvy, and round, and firm, and bouncy. I'm just a little rack of bones. Look at me."

"How many periods have you even had so far?"

"What!? What's that got to do with it?"

"How many? Like ten?"

"No. More like seven."

"Kay. I guarantee you, by the time you hit 20 periods, you'll have just as many curves, and bumps, and bulges in all the right places as I do. This may sound crude, by my dad doesn't have sex with ugly people, and he had sex with your mom, so I'm guessing you've got some very hot genes stored away in your blood, just waiting to come out and say hello. It just takes a while for them to get going."

"So you're saying I'm gonna be a full-out hottie one day, just like you."

Amy sounded doubtful.

"Look at yourself, silly! Except for a few extra bumps and curves, you already are! And then, when those bumps and curves fill in, guys won't even fuckin' notice me."

"I highly doubt that."

"Just watch. There'll come a day when you'll be kinda wishing to be a skinny little bone rack again. As much as I like being pretty and curvy and sexy, there are times when certain guys leer at me like I'm just a vagina on two legs; it's creepy and scary, but it doesn't make me not want to be me I guess. You just gotta be happy with who you are, and hope at least one person out there truly appreciates it."

"Like Sheila said in the movie."

"Yeah, and like mom's been telling me for years too, but I never really got it until I met Anthony."

"He just looks at you a certain way and it makes you feel ... special, like he sees right through you, into your soul."

"You feel it too, huh? You feel completely naked, but then you realize that he's still there, he hasn't run away, and you just feel totally safe."

"Something like that, I guess. For me it's like I just feel protected somehow, like he'd never let anyone hurt me in a million years. But I can see what you mean about the thing with his eyes. He's got killer deep eyes."

Apparently they'd forgotten I was even there. I liked it just fine that way though. They were so damn girly and pretty and sweet, just standing in the closet, two sisters just being themselves, just talking about girl stuff. I lay there quietly listening to them, wondering if they were even talking about me. It was hard for me to think about myself as anyone but plain old me. It sounded like they were talking about some Hollywood hunk or something.