SOMETHING’S UP WITH Vicks. She’s been hyper all morning, which Mel might think is normal, but it isn’t. Not for Vicks. Not this early, without even half a cup of coffee in her.
“You talk to Brady last night?” I ask, thinking that might explain her mood. “Is that why you’re such a Mary Sunshine?” I pull into traffic, balancing my muffin on my thigh.
“Brady who?” Vicks says. And laughs.
It irritates me, that laugh, ’cause it feels like she’s making fun of me—or maybe making fun of Brady, which is just plain rude since he’s the whole reason for this trip. Kinda.
Or maybe I’m still put out about how she acted at the party. Drinking and flirting, while Mel was passed out in Robbie’s room after getting into all kinds of trouble of her own.
So I say, “Brady, your boyfriend? Who loves you and wants to marry you, and who one day in the far, far future you might even lose your virginity to? After you become Mrs. McKane, of course.”
I didn’t plan on throwing in the “virginity” bit like that—unless maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to remind her—and Mel too—that life’s not one big party, much as they might want it to be. Or maybe I’m just being mean, since I have a pretty big hunch that Vicks and Brady didn’t wait for no wedding vows.
“Jesse, you’re wacked,” Vicks says. “Do you seriously think—”
“Do I seriously think what?”
She doesn’t answer. I glance in the rearview mirror, and she’s scowling.
“What?” I say. “Do I seriously think what?”
“That I would take Brady’s last name?” she snaps. “Or anyone’s? Uh, no. Maybe you want to be someone’s chattel, but not me.”
“Geez, don’t bite my head off.” Now that I’ve stirred Vicks up, I wish I hadn’t. I don’t do so well with fighting, not the out-and-out kind where you actually say what you feel. I glance at Mel, but she’s facing straight ahead and pretending she’s not listening, like La la la, nobody here but me and my good buddy the windshield.
“And babe?” Vicks continues. “For your info? My ‘virginity,’ as you so quaintly put it, was lost long, long ago. So you can say good-bye to that little fantasy, ’kay?” She waves into the mirror. “Buh-bye! Sayonara! Adios!”
Well, she doesn’t have to be so sarcastic! My heart’s all poundy, but I don’t know what to do about it, so I chomp off a big chunk of muffin. Then I’m stuck with the mess of it, ’cause I can’t seem to force it down.
“Jesse?” Vicks says.
I shake my head. I can’t come up with any words for her right now. Through the speakers, Fergie’s singing all nasty about her London Bridge going down every time her guy comes around, and I say to Mel, “Will you switch the dang song? Please?”
Mel registers the badness of her music selection and looks aghast. “Sorry,” she says, punching at her iPod. “Sorry!”
A new song fills the car: Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” My jaw drops, and Mel hyperventilates.
“No, wait!” she stammers. “Not on purpose. Wait!”
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Vicks says, and she’s being unfair, ’cause I’ve shut up and there’s no reason for her to keep going off on me. “Because you freak out about the dumbest stuff. Because you’d have lectured me about premarital sex and how sinful it is. Admit it!”
“Where Is the Love” by Elvis Costello replaces “Let’s Get It On.” I know this song. Penn played it in his car once when he was giving me and Vicks a ride. It’s sad and beautiful, all about truth and forgiveness and looking deep into your own heart. Not that I’m in any mood to appreciate it.
My voice is pinched when I say, “Maybe yes and maybe no, but we won’t ever know now, will we?”
“Oh, God,” Vicks says, like I’m wearing her out. Like I’m the problem here, when she never gave me a chance. Never even tried saying, “Brady and me…and it was special…and I know it goes against your faith, but Jesse, I am in love with this boy!”
“Let’s just drop it, all right?” she says.
“Fine,” I say. She might not know it, but I could tell her a thing or two about “where is the love.” Could tell her how my gut says Brady’s one of the good ones, so different from R.D. and Mama’s other losers, who never in a thousand lifetimes would kiss her all sweet at the movie theater and say “anything for my girl” if she asked him to refill the popcorn tub right at the most exciting part.
“Anyway, I don’t know why you’re playing all innocent,” she mutters, still carrying on. “I asked you to go to Planned Parenthood with me.”
“Which you know I couldn’t, because all that place does is—” I break off, realizing that any talk of teenage sex and immorality is just going to bear out her own position.
It’s with a sinking feeling that I realize something else. I guess maybe she did try to tell me about her and Brady. Okay, fine, she did. It was before the actual deed (at least, I hope it was before the actual deed), but by asking me to go with her to that place, she was bringing up the subject, one friend to another.
And what did I do? I shut her down and we never talked about it again, not in any true way.
“At best you are a cruel coward,” Costello sings in his woeful way. “At worst you are a worthless hypocrite.”
I peek at Mel. I need to know how she’s taking this. She’s in a scrunched-up ball on the vinyl seat, iPod clutched like a Teddy bear, and I can tell from her expression that she thinks I’m a jerk.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Vicks says. “It’s just sex.”
Whatever. I accelerate to pass a white Pontiac, and Mel’s coffee sloshes onto her fancy shorts, which is just great. Now she’s got even more reason to hate me. Only all she does is curl up tighter and hide the stain with her hand. Why? ’Cause I’m Freaky Religious Girl, apparently. Freaky Religious Girl who isn’t worthy of being told secrets and who terrifies spoiled rich girls in their million-dollar shorts.
There’s something sticky in my hand, and it’s the remains of my durn muffin. I scowl and peg it out the window.