Young Jane Young(74)

If you call him, turn to page 130.

If you don’t call him, turn to page 146.





130


You decide to call him even though you know you shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve explicitly been told not to. You haven’t been alone with him or even spoken to him since the night of the crash.

He doesn’t answer his phone so you leave a message. As you are babbling abut Choose Your Own Adventure stories, you realize that the thought that seemed deep sounds incredibly lame over the phone.

A few days later, Jorge Rodriguez shows up at the house. He’s important in the congressman’s organization. You don’t know exactly what his title is now, but he used to be the head of fund-raising. You’ve spoken to him a few times, but you’ve never had much interaction. He’s charming, and very handsome. He looks like the congressman, but he is shorter, Cuban, younger. He’s maybe five years older than you.

He knows your mother because of an event she did for the congressman at the school. “The beautiful Grossman women,” Jorge says. “Good to see you, Rachel. How are you? How’s BRJA?”

“I was fired,” your mother says to him, in an odd, spiky, almost confrontational way.

“Sorry to hear that,” Jorge says. “Well, Aviva, I’m actually here to see you.”

You go out to the back patio, and you sit under the bougainvillea, and your mother brings you both iced teas. Jorge waits for her to leave before he says genially, “You can’t contact him anymore, Aviva. It’s best for everyone that you move on.”

“It’s best for him,” you say.





131


“Everyone,” he insists.

“I’d move on if I had anywhere to move on to,” you say. “My whole life is ruined,” you say. “No one will ever hire me. No one will even fuck me.”

“It seems that way,” Jorge says, “but it’s not that bad.”

“Respectfully,” you say, “how the hell would you know?”

Jorge doesn’t have an answer.

“You know about politics. You know about PR. What would you do if you were me?”

“I’d go back to school. Get a degree in law or a master’s in public policy.”

“Okay,” you say, “let’s assume I can get a single teacher to write me a recommendation letter. Let’s assume I can manage to get accepted to a school. I incur an additional one hundred thousand dollars or so in student loan debt, and then I apply for jobs again. How is it different? You search my name, and everything’s still there, fresh as the year it happened.”

Jorge drinks his iced tea. “If you don’t go back to school, you could do volunteer work. Make a new name for yourself —”

“Tried that,” you say. “They don’t want me either.”

“Maybe what you need is witness protection,” he jokes. “New name. New town. New job.”

“Probably so,” you say.

“I honestly don’t know what you should do,” Jorge says. “But I do know something…”

“Yeah?”

“You said no one would fuck you. That’s not true. You’re a beautiful girl.”





132


You are not a beautiful girl, and even if you were, you know that is not related to how much sex a person has. Plenty of ugly people have sex. Plenty of ordinary people have sex. Plenty of beautiful people spend their nights alone.

You are not beautiful. You are interesting looking, and your large breasts signify to men that you are sexy and easy and a little dumb. You know exactly what you are, and since the scandal and its ensuing coverage, you know exactly how people see you. There is nothing that anyone could say about you or to you that is surprising. You have not spent the summer in your parents’ pool and suddenly turned beautiful. And again, there are always people to have sex with, if you set your standards low enough. What you’d meant is, No one I’d want to sleep with will want to sleep with me.

This is to say, you know that Jorge is flattering you.

If you decide to sleep with Jorge anyway, turn to page 133.

If you ask him to leave, turn to page 148.





133


You walk over to where he is sitting, and you kiss him. You don’t want him, so much as you want anyone. You take him upstairs, and you decide you’d rather have sex in the guest room than your childhood bedroom, surrounded by high school yearbooks and framed drama club ephemera.

You go in the guest room, and you lock the door.

You can tell he’s experienced, which is fortunate. You, despite being the star player in a sex scandal, remain as inexperienced as can be.

When he touches you, you shiver with pleasure. You feel like a blade of grass, and he is a warm summer wind.

“So much lusciousness,” Jorge says.

Turn to the next page.





134


You miss a period, but you don’t even notice.



Turn to the next page.





135


You miss another period.

A few days later, you find yourself with your head over the toilet.

“Aviva,” your mother calls. “Are you sick?”