Young Jane Young(65)

“Everyone thinks you’re doing a great job,” the congressman says. “We’ve had excellent feedback on the blog. Very forward thinking. Embeth and I were both impressed with the response.”





46


For a second, you forget what blog he is talking about. You are drowsy, and you wonder if he’s read your blog and how he knew it was yours, and then you remember that he’s talking about his blog, the official blog of the congressman. “Great,” you say. “I’m glad.”

He watches you gather your things – your floral JanSport backpack, your cloisonné keychain, your pen that looks like a flamingo – and you wonder why he hasn’t left yet.

“Cute keychain,” he says.

You wonder if he remembers he said that to you before.

What a lousy night.

You can’t stop thinking about Charlie.

You don’t like Charlie that way even though you know he likes you that way. Nonetheless, he has been a good friend to you. You are amused by the same things and you enjoy his company and you have a lot in common. You have spent hours talking about the campaigns you would run for yourselves, and whether you should get master’s in public policy degrees or go to law school, and whether it was better to do higher-level internships or try to get promoted within a lower-level internship (like you consider the one you are currently in), and which cities would be the best ones to establish yourselves in, and what your campaign slogans would be. You particularly love coming up with good, bad campaign slogans with him, like Politics Is a Dirty Business. Sometimes You Need a Grossman to Do the Job.

The fact is, you have spent more time talking about the future with him than with anyone else in the world.





47


When you were twelve, you threw a birthday party, and you invited everyone in your class, and only three people came because another girl in your class had a party the same day. Granted, Charlie is turning twenty-one, but still. You can imagine Charlie and his grandparents, sitting around the table. Should we eat without her? Charlie says, No, let’s wait. He keeps saying it, until finally, he gives up on you. You feel like a heel.

You need to do something to blast the guilt out of your brain.

If you call your roommate to see if she wants to go clubbing, turn to page 48.

If you call Charlie to apologize profusely and to ask him if he wants to watch Letterman/Conan, turn to page 50.

If you eat your feelings, turn to page 53.

If you kiss a handsome congressman, turn to page 54.





54


You don’t think about his unpleasant wife – you have heard the marriage is a political one, whatever that means. You don’t think about his sons. You don’t think about your mother the vice principal or your father the cardiac surgeon and how hard they both work so that you can work at an internship for no money. You don’t think about your grandmother Esther and your great-aunt Mimmy, who both survived the Holocaust. You don’t think about the only time you had sex, with a boy who was your boyfriend but who definitely did not ask permission. You don’t think about the summer you spent at fat camp when you were fourteen. You don’t think about how much you hate your body, which has never done a thing to you really. You don’t think about your body at all. You certainly don’t think about sweet, funny Charlie Greene. You don’t ask yourself whether you would even want a man like the congressman.

The point is, you don’t think. You didn’t want to think, and you don’t think. You wanted to feel something other than guilt.

You walk over to him, and you press your lips up against his lips, and you push your tongue into his mouth. You are bold and fearless and reckless. You like being this kind of girl.

His tongue meets your tongue for a second, and then his tongue propels your tongue out of his mouth with a muscular force. He pushes you away from him and then he holds you at arm’s length. He looks around to make sure you’re alone.

“I understand your impulse,” he says. “But this is inappropriate. This can’t happen again.”

You nod and you grab your backpack and you run out to your car.





55


That night, you consider the phrase, “I understand your impulse.”

Does he mean:



A.



I, too, had an impulse to kiss you.



B.

I understand why someone like you would want to kiss someone like me, though I do not, in fact, share your impulse.



C.

In general, I understand that people have impulses to kiss other people.





You decide that it is impossible to know what he means. Still, you pose the choices to your roommate, who is having a fight with her girlfriend. The roommate thinks the answer is A.

The next day, Saturday, Charlie Greene calls you on the phone.

“What happened to you?” he says.

“They held me at the office.”

“I thought it was something like that. Next time, like, call or something. Anyhow, my grandmother still wants to meet you,” he says.

“Okay,” you say.

“She thinks she knows your grandmother,” Charlie says.

You get a call on the other line. You don’t recognize the number, but you flip over anyway.