“Are you a virgin?” she asked, speaking slowly and deliberately.
“Of course,” I said, nodding several times. Perfectly reasonable question.
“Well, I lost my virginity … ah … the summer between ninth and tenth grades. Don’t lose it too soon.”
Oh, sure, that’s a big problem of mine. Losing it too soon.
“How about, you know, getting to third base?* Have you ever done that?”
“Uh, no,” I gulped.
“Uh-huh.”
She sipped her drink. There was silence. I saw what was coming: more questions.
“So you never got laid? Have you ever felt a girl’s breasts?”
After each of these, I shook my head, and she looked even more stunned.
I stopped her with a speech. “Uh, I don’t think you understand. I’m a nerd. See, what we do is”—I counted on my fingers—“(1) go to school, (2) get good grades, (3) come home, (4) play Magic. I’m just not good with girls.”
She didn’t give up. “Are your parents really overprotective or something?”
“Nope. They’re great.”
“And no girls like you?”
“Maybe some do. I don’t talk to them much. It’s probably my crooked mouth.”
“Your mouth? Noooo. I don’t think it’s crooked. I think it’s very sexy.”
Whoa. I was talking with Amy Sohn, New York Press columnist, at the paper’s annual “Best of Manhattan” party.* I had wanted to meet her all evening. She wrote some amazingly dirty things in a weekly newspaper read by a hundred thousand people.
I liked her. She was shorter than me, wearing something black. Stylish red glasses. Perfectly arched eyebrows. A childlike face. She reminded me of a fifth-grade teacher—not my fifth-grade teacher, a brown-toothed psychotic who had throttled my friend Ben** during class—but a nice, normal teacher.
“Well …,” she said, more casually than before, as I sipped my cola. “If you ever do want to lose your virginity, call me. I’ll loan you my body.”*
My brain, which had churned out clever anecdotes just moments before, shut down. Was I being offered sexual favors by an older woman? Nah. Must have misheard.
“I’m sorry?” I squeaked.
“I said,” she moved in close, slowly mouthing each word, “I’ll loan you my body.”
For a few moments, before cynicism kicked in, I was utterly thrilled. Blood rushed to my ears. I inhaled sharply.
“That’s a kind offer, Amy,” was all I could say.
Images raced through my mind. Lisa, last year, wearing a dark bra under a see-through shirt, licking her lips at me during class, and then telling me later she was just messing with me. Rebecca, in fifth grade, staring at me and mouthing the words, “I want a vacuum”** over and over. Girls liked to see me squirm. I guess Amy did, too.
“Don’t forget,” she continued. “I’ll call you. We can have lunch. Or you call me.”
“Okay,” I said dumbly before grabbing my backpack* and running outside. The cool air cleared my mind.
She’d been joking, of course. Still, she’d told me to call her. I debated whether to do so for two days. It was nerve-racking to call a girl for anything but homework. Finally, I left a rambling message on her smarmy answering machine, asking when we could have lunch.
Later that night, while I was studying, the phone rang. It was Amy. She didn’t waste time.
“Ned, about the other night—it was late, and I’d been talking to so many people, and I’d had a little too much to drink. I forget exactly what happened. Did I say I’d loan you my body?”
“Pretty much. You said that several times, actually.”
“Oh, Ned, I’m so sorry. I mean, when I said it at the party you seemed calm. But your message was so nervous. I wanted to make sure your invitation for lunch was just for lunch, you know?”
“Yeah. No problem.”
“I’m so sorry. Embarrassed, really.”
“That’s okay.”
“As for lunch, I’m pretty busy now. How about we set aside time next Saturday to get lunch and go to a movie?”
“Sounds cool.”
After I hung up, I folded my arms behind my head and smiled. It was an innocent party joke for Amy. But I got a sexual thrill, an ego-boosting apology, lunch, and a movie. For once, an adult had messed up and I had done everything right.
*She was considerably more graphic with her terms, but to keep things PG, I’ll use the base system.
*By now I had been writing for New York Press for a few months, so they let me come to their catered soiree. I was the youngest writer there. I probably would have been the youngest busboy, too.
**Ben was jumping up and down saying, “I’m a froggy,” and the teacher got so mad that she grabbed him and started strangling him. She was fired that day.
*Once again, Amy was a bit more graphic, but you get the idea.
**You don’t get it? Go look at yourself in a mirror and mouth those words. You’ll see.…
*Yes, I brought my backpack to the party. I brought that backpack everywhere. I was terrified of losing it and failing high school as a result.