Mrs. Everything Page 5

  “Does he want to go all the way?” Jo asked, careful to keep her voice neutral.

  “He tried to put his hand down my pants, but I told him to forget it.” Lynnette wagged her finger in Bobby’s imaginary face. “I said, ‘Mr. Bobby Carver, not until there’s a ring on my finger.’ ” She touched the class ring that she wore around her neck, as if to reassure herself of Bobby’s commitment, and how one ring would lead to another.

  “Did you like it?” Jo asked. Lynnette tilted her head sideways as she considered.

  “It was kind of like brushing my teeth,” she finally said. “Or, no, that’s not quite it. Maybe it was like clapping. Just, you know. Clap clap clap squirt. Then it’s over.” Their sneakered feet crunched against the cinders. “I don’t know,” Lynnette said, sighing. “It was kind of exciting to see how excited he was, you know? To know that I could make him feel like that. But I didn’t really feel anything at all.” She sighed again. “Maybe real sex will feel better.”

  “Maybe.” Jo was secretly relieved that Lynnette hadn’t enjoyed ministering to Bobby Carver. Lynnette interpreted her response as an indication of Jo’s frustration over her own lackluster love life.

  “It’s going to happen for you,” she said, reaching up to pat Jo’s shoulder. “You’ll find the right guy.”

  Jo shrugged. She’d been out with plenty of boys, usually on double dates with Lynnette. She knew their moves. At the movie shows, the Redford or the Senate, the boy would stretch his arm up high, then casually drape it around her shoulders. At the Bel-Air drive-in, they’d try to get her into the back seat, and at school dances, they’d ask if she needed some fresh air, but their clammy hands on her shoulders, their cool, wormy lips against her mouth had all left her feeling less than nothing.

  “Have you ever . . .” Lynnette looked at her, a brief glance from underneath her curled bangs. Jo saw her cheeks blushing pink. “Have you ever touched yourself?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, after making sure there was no chance that any of their classmates would be able to hear them. A few times, when she’d been fastening a sanitary napkin to her belt, her fingers would drift over the soft triangle of hair between her legs. There was, she had discovered, a tender place right at the top, and when her fingers brushed against it, jolts of pleasure would shoot through her lower belly, making her nipples get hard. The feeling was so strong that it frightened her, and she would hastily take her fingers away. She looked at her friend, gathering her nerve. “Have you?”

  Lynnette’s lipsticked mouth curved up in a smile, and when she spoke, her voice was so low that Jo could hardly hear. “When I went to Camp Tanuga last summer,” she began. Jo moved so close that their shoulders were touching. “One of the counselors there really liked me.”

  Jo nodded, unsurprised. Everyone liked Lynnette. When she realized what Lynnette meant, about this girl who’d really liked her, she felt her body flush again, this time with jealousy.

  “She had something that she let me borrow.”

  “What?” Jo asked. “What is it?” She felt envious of this counselor, angry that Lynnette had waited all this time to tell her, and, above everything else, desperate to keep Lynnette talking.

  “I can’t tell you.” Lynnette giggled. She’d turned a color past pink, closer to red. “But I can show you. After school,” she said, and gave Jo a saucy smile. “My house. I am going to change your life.”

  * * *

  Lynnette’s family had once lived in a house like Jo’s, but when Lynnette was in junior high, her father, who’d been working at an accounting firm in Detroit, got promoted. He moved his family into a much bigger house, a four-bedroom redbrick mock Tudor with a finished basement and an in-law suite. The Bobecks’ house had a kitchen with two ovens and creamy white Formica countertops, a living room with a bricked-in wood-burning fireplace and a big color television set, a card table with padded chairs and special lighting where Mrs. Bobeck played bridge. The basement featured pine-paneled walls, a pool table, and a wet bar. Lynnette planned to host the senior class for a party after they finally graduated.

  After school, Lynnette and Jo bypassed the kitchen, where normally they would stop for a snack (apples if Lynnette was dieting, cinnamon toast if she wasn’t). They went right to Lynnette’s bedroom, which had pink and white patterned wallpaper, a dresser, a bookcase, and a nightstand all made of the same painted white wood, and a lacy white canopy over the queen-sized bed. Lynnette locked the door, even though the house was empty—both of her brothers went to the Boys’ Club after school, her father worked downtown, and her mom volunteered at the Hebrew Home for the Aged most afternoons. As Jo watched, Lynnette took the chair that sat in front of her desk and wedged it underneath the doorknob. She crossed the room, bent down in front of her record player, and put on a Connie Francis album. Finally, with great care, she slid her hand underneath her mattress and removed something that looked like a handheld eggbeater, complete with an electrical cord and plug. The body was encased in hard tan plastic, but in the space where the beaters should have been there was only a hard rubber disk.

  “What is it?” Jo asked, and Lynnette whispered, “It’s a vibrator!”

  Jo stared. She had only the vaguest idea of what a vibrator was, thought she’d heard the word but wasn’t one hundred percent sure of its meaning, and she’d assumed that something meant for sexual pleasure would be shaped more like a penis than a kitchen utensil. “And it’s for . . .” Jo gestured vaguely toward the lower half of her body, feeling the strangest combination of excitement and fear as Lynnette nodded.

  “Carla—she was my counselor—she showed it to us, and she told us how to use it, and we decided every girl in our bunk would get a turn. You get it for two weeks, and then you have to wrap it up and mail it to whoever’s next on the list.”

  “You wash it first, right?”

  Jo felt like her entire insides were contracting, squeezing tight around the space between her legs, making it throb. There was an ache in her belly, and she wanted to take her friend by her rounded, cashmere-covered shoulders and kiss her. She knew, somehow, that instead of feeling wet and wormy, Lynnette’s lips would be firm and sweet, and that instead of feeling faintly revolted, she’d feel happy and content. Had Carla, the camp counselor, kissed Lynnette? I’ll kill her, Jo thought, feeling jealousy fighting with desire, and both of them at war with shame, because she wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way about her best friend, or any girl at all.

  “See, look,” said Lynnette, unfurling the cord, plugging the little machine into the wall.

  Jo’s heart was beating hard. “I don’t know if we should do this,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse. “Maybe it’s, you know, bad for us or something.”

  Lynnette looked amused. “Just wait,” she said, “until you find out how good it feels.” With that, she flicked a switch. The little rubber cup began humming. Jo could see that it was, indeed, vibrating, so fast that its motions were almost imperceptible. She imagined how that humming cup would feel against her and felt her lower body contract like a cramp.

  “Are you sure the door’s locked?” she whispered.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” said Lynnette. She got on the bed, leaning back against a pile of pillows. “You’ve really never done anything with a boy? Not anything?”

  Jo shook her head. Somehow, the half-darkness made it easier to tell the truth.

  “What about with Leonard?” Lynnette asked. Leonard Weiss had been Jo’s only long-term boyfriend. They’d dated that winter, during the four months of basketball season, when Jo had been the starting center for the girls’ team and Leonard was a guard for the boys. Jo sometimes thought that the only reason she’d stayed with Leonard for so long was that he was one of the few boys at school who was significantly taller than she was. She liked how he made her feel small, how he actually had to bend down to kiss her. But when he did kiss her, it was the same as it had been with Stan and Donald and Paul. She would feel the spit in the boy’s mouth, a
nd hear the sound of teeth clicking together, and she’d have to fight to keep herself from shoving away and running immediately for a hot shower and a bottle of Listerine.

  “I told you about Leonard,” Jo said. “I let him go up my sweater, but that’s all.”

  “Inside your bra or outside?”

  “Inside. Once.” Jo winced, remembering the way Leonard had fiddled with her nipples, squeezing and pinching them like they were tiny mouths he was trying to shut.

  Lynnette widened her eyes in mock horror at Jo’s daring, then smiled a wicked, pleased-with-herself smile. “Lie down.”

  Jo tried for a casual, teasing tone. “I thought this was going to be a visual demonstration.”

  “This is how Carla showed me.” Doubt flickered across her friend’s face. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  Jo had never wanted something so much in her entire life, but she kept her tone casual. “I guess if I’m going to be a writer, I need to have some experiences,” she said, lying back on Lynnette’s pillows, trying not to appear too eager and scare Lynnette away.

  “Take your pants off.”

  Jo closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see her friend’s face, and wriggled out of the jeans she’d worn, the ones that her mother despaired of and said made her look like a coal miner. Underneath them, she wore plain white cotton panties. Her legs were smooth—she’d shaved that morning—and already tanned from the spring sun. She felt her belly contract and flutter when Lynnette brushed it with her fingertips. When she felt the rubber cup of the machine thrumming against her thigh, just above her knee, she gasped, jerking up straight.

  “Ooh!” Jo said. “It tickles.” But Jo could tell that what felt ticklish on her leg was going to feel different, and much better, someplace else.

  Lynnette smiled as she turned the disk onto its side and slid its edge up, tracing a line along the inside of Jo’s leg. She moved it toward the leg band of Jo’s underwear, her pace excruciatingly slow, before pulling it away and running it back along Jo’s thigh. Jo found herself squirming as Lynnette continued to drag the vibrator up and down, moving closer, each time, to Jo’s underwear, which had to be soaking wet. Jo wondered if her friend could see. Just when Jo was getting ready to say something—please—or take her friend’s hand and move it between her legs, Lynnette moved the cup over Jo’s belly before she pulled it down slowly, until it was almost at the place where her pubic hair began. Jo’s hands were clenched into fists, and she was rocking her hips, pumping them up and down, desperate for Lynnette to bring the buzzing cup to where Jo needed to feel it. She could feel sweat gathering at her temples and the small of her back, and her breathing was drowning out Connie Francis.

  “Do you like it?” Lynnette’s voice sounded a little husky.

  “Yes!” Jo managed.

  “Want me to keep going?”

  Jo nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She grabbed on to Lynnette’s comforter with both her hands, spreading her legs wider.

  “Okay,” Lynnette said, and slid the edge of the cup down from the waistband of Jo’s underwear, down to that spot Jo’s fingers had brushed a few times in the bathroom, the spot she never let herself touch at night or in the shower.

  The effect was electric. Jo felt her body arc off the bed. Her nails dug into the comforter, and she gasped once, harshly, the sound almost like a sob.

  “There?” Lynnette asked, sounding very pleased with herself.

  Jo took her friend’s wrist in her hand and shifted the cup’s angle the tiniest fraction. Heat and delicious tension were blooming in her belly and between her legs, the sensation threatening to overwhelm her. She felt her entire body stiffen, in preparation for some delicious release.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice cracking, her hips lifted. Before she could stop herself, before she could think, she reached up with both arms, wrapping her hands around the back of Lynnette’s neck, pulling her best friend down on top of her until they were chest to chest and mouth to mouth. She’ll slap me, she thought dimly, as the vibrator, trapped between their bodies, tilted at the perfect angle, still thrumming against her. Widening waves of pleasure were rolling out from that place, all through her body. Her toes curled. Her legs locked, muscles shaking, and Lynnette’s mouth was as sweet as she’d known it would be, her tongue hot and vital and absolutely necessary, as essential as air as it stroked against Jo’s own. Jo felt her hips jerk sharply upward once, twice, then again, and her whole body trembled as bliss swept through her, sharp and sweet and overwhelming.

  Jo fell back, breathing hard, and somehow Lynnette ended up tucked beside her, a flushed, sweet, fragrant bundle. Now, thought Jo. Now she’ll see what is wrong with me. Now she’ll tell me to leave. Only Lynnette, giggling and supremely pleased with herself, didn’t seem to be in any hurry for Jo to go anywhere. Leaning over Jo’s half-naked body to consult the clock on her dresser, she said, “No one’s going to be home for another hour.”

  Jo nodded. As soon as she could catch her breath, she rolled over, pinning Lynnette’s arms above her head with one arm. With the other, she pulled off Lynnie’s skirt. Her friend squealed, but not in disapproval, and she didn’t try to get away. Jo located the little humming device and straddled her friend’s thighs, one leg on either side. “Tell me if I’m doing it right,” she said, and bent to her task. She wanted to make Lynnette feel what she’d felt, those widening waves of ecstasy, wanted to feel her best friend roll her hips and shake, hear her gasp and sigh, to watch as her fists clenched and her face turned pink and her carefully set curls wilted. Five minutes after she began, Lynnette was gripping Jo’s upper arms, eyes shut and gasping. A minute after that, Lynnette pulled Jo down beside her, and, with her eyes still shut, whispered, “I am never ever EVER putting that thing in the mail.”

  Bethie

  When Bethie came home from roller-skating with her friends on an unexpectedly warm Saturday afternoon in March, the house was quiet. There was no smell of roasting chicken or tuna-noodle casserole emanating from the kitchen (Sarah had started cooking on Shabbat, dispensing with cholent years ago, saying she was done being old-fashioned, washing two sets of dishes and following all of the rules). Bethie hadn’t seen her father in the driveway, washing his car, the way he liked to do on pleasant Saturdays, and she found her mother in the living room, which was weird, actually sitting on the couch, which was weirder. “Keep your voice down,” Sarah murmured before Bethie could say a word. “Your father’s got an upset stomach.”

  Bethie winced. Their house had only one bathroom, with a small window that overlooked the backyard and a noisy ceiling fan that seemed to move the air around more than clear it. Sarah kept a box of kitchen matches on the windowsill and a can of Lysol spray beside it, but when someone in the house had, in their mother’s delicate phrasing, “an upset stomach,” the entire small house ended up smelling.

  “Ken?” Sarah called down the hallway, stretching his name until it was two syllables, her voice rising on the second one: Ke-en? No answer came. “Honey? Are you going to want dinner?”

  No answer came. Twenty minutes later, Jo’s friend Lynnette dropped Jo off. “What’s going on?” Jo asked, breezing through the door in blue basketball shorts and a dark-blue T-shirt, as Lynnette backed her parents’ car out onto the street, narrowly missing the Steins’ mailbox, which she’d already hit twice. Bethie explained the situation as their mother stood in front of the bathroom door, conducting a one-way conversation with their dad. “We’ll have a chef’s salad for dinner! Does that sound all right?” No answer. Sarah came into the kitchen, looking anxious. “Bethie, why don’t you give a knock?”

  Bethie did not need to be asked twice. She had plans for the night, a first date with Donald Powers, who was a junior, the student council treasurer, and a member of Key Club. Donald was going to pick her up at seven, to take her to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She’d need to shower and use the mirror.

  “Daddy?” she called, knocking at the bathroom door and breathing
through her mouth, just in case. No answer came. Bethie couldn’t hear anything—no words, no bathroom noises, not even breathing.

  Bethie knocked again, even harder. “Dad? Daddy?” Fart once if you can hear us, she thought, and had to bite her lips to stifle her giggles.

  “It isn’t funny,” Jo said. Her sister’s brow was furrowed, and she wore the same look of intense concentration that Bethie had seen when she stood at the free-throw line on the basketball court. That expression gave Bethie her first twinge of unease.

  Jo went to their bedroom and came back with a wire hanger. She pulled the curved end straight, inserted the tip into the lock, and twisted it as Sarah stood next to Bethie, both of them a few feet behind Jo. They all heard the sound of the lock popping open. “Dad?” Jo called, and pushed the door open. Sarah gasped.

  “Don’t look,” Jo said, her voice low, but Bethie did, standing on her tiptoes to peek over her sister’s shoulder. Her father was sitting on the toilet seat, his pants pulled up, his torso slumped against the wall. His face was a terrible purplish-gray color. His eyes were shut, and Bethie knew, before she heard her mother scream, that her father was dead.

  * * *

  Sarah and the girls didn’t get home from the hospital until ten o’clock. When Jo opened the front door that no one had remembered to lock, Bethie saw that Donald Powers, her forgotten Saturday-night date, had left a note tucked into the door jamb. Guess we got our wires crossed. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow. Bethie stared at the words for a long time. It was as if they had been written in a foreign language, or sent from a different lifetime. She folded the note into her pocket and followed her mother and sister into the kitchen, where Jo filled the kettle, lit one of the gas rings, and pulled out three mugs and three teabags.

  Bethie had been the one to call the operator and ask for an ambulance, and Jo had been trying to do CPR that they’d both been taught in gym class when the ambulance finally arrived. The paramedics, two young men in white pants and white shirts, had ordered her out of the room and lifted Ken’s body, but even before they’d gotten him onto the couch, and then into the back of the ambulance, a long, white-painted Cadillac that looked distressingly like a hearse, Bethie had known, from the looks they exchanged, that it was hopeless. They’d followed the ambulance to the hospital and been told to sit in the waiting room. Jo had paced restlessly, prowling the floor in her sneakers and shorts. Bethie had tucked herself into a chair in the corner and made up stories. The woman playing solitaire was there because her daughter was having a baby, the fellow who stood by the vending machine, shifting his weight from side to side, was there because his little boy had slammed his hand in a car door. Sarah sat on one of the molded plastic chairs, with her legs crossed at the ankles and her purse in her lap. She seemed perfectly normal if you didn’t look at her eyes, or at how her knees were trembling. When the young doctor came out and quietly gave her mother the news, Bethie braced for hysterics, for screaming and tears. But Sarah just nodded and got to her feet, gathering up her pocketbook and her daughters and leading them out to the car.