None of the Above(18)

There was way too much information, but I could understand how my dad could get addicted to all the research, because the alternative was to be adrift.

Alone.

“Earth to Krissy?” Sam said impatiently.

“What?” I’d zoned out.

“So Vee’s gonna start the circuit around seven, so maybe seven fifteen at your house? Don’t forget the hot tub.”

The flutter curdled into a ball of dread. I hadn’t.

As I waited for AP English to start, I swiveled back in my chair to ask Jessica Riley if she’d been to Andy’s post-Homecoming party.

She shrugged and twirled one of her curls around her finger. “Quincy and I stopped in for a little while, but we ended up meeting my sister and Darren at Carmella’s. I promised my mom I wouldn’t take her to a party with alcohol.”

“That’s nice of you.” I pressed on to the real question I wanted to ask. “How big was the hot tub? Could a lot of people fit?” Maybe if I waited long enough, there wouldn’t be room for Sam and me. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the bikini after all.

Jessica laughed. “I’m pretty sure it’s only supposed to hold eight people, but there were at least a dozen in it when we were there. It was a total group grope.”

Not what I wanted to hear. Before I could respond, Darren leaned in from across the aisle. “Did I hear my name taken in vain?”

“Yeah, I was telling Kristin that my sister thought you danced like a Muppet on crystal meth.”

Before I could tell Darren that she had said no such thing, he flashed a smile. “Sweet! Exactly what I was going for.”

On the way home that afternoon, as Vee and Faith debated whether to wear jeans or miniskirts to the party, or just wear a dress over their bikinis, I wondered how they would react if I told them. After all, there was almost nothing we didn’t know about one another. I knew that Vee couldn’t stand it when people laughed at her and wasn’t above white lies to protect her reputation. I knew that Faith was so afraid of hurting other people’s feelings that she never made decisions except by committee. And the two of them? They knew that I was horrible at keeping secrets, and that I had the fashion sense of a blind nun.

That summer’s Spartan Car Wash had, in fact, been the first time I’d ever worn a bikini. My mom would have sooner slit her wrists than parade her prepubescent daughter around wearing a two-piece, and after she died it wasn’t like my dad and I spent quality time bonding over what kind of swimwear I’d have each summer. The suit that I brought to the car wash at Hanna’s Quick Stop had been a freshman-year summer-vacation gift from Aunt Carla, who had used some Kohl’s Cash to buy it when she realized I’d outgrown my previous suit. It was a black two-piece, but not the sexy kind. The tankini top covered my entire midriff, and the bottom was cut like boy shorts.

Vee wrinkled her nose when I pulled out my suit in the back office that was our impromptu changing room. “Seriously? Boy-cut is so, like, five years ago. Why don’t you try one of mine?” She had brought four bikinis. I’d chosen the purple one because it had a little more substance than the others. At least the top part was padded. The one that Vee wore looked about as thick as a sheet of two-ply toilet paper, and wouldn’t have worked for me because I had a little more going up top than she did.

Until I stood at the side of Route 30 during rush hour, I hadn’t actually thought about how wearing a bikini is basically like being in public in your bra and panties. But we got a lot of donations. We also inspired an op-ed piece in the Observer-Dispatch decrying “the objectification of impressionable young women under the pretense of school spirit.”

“Hey,” Sam said when he read the piece. “There were some hot cougars out there objectifying me. Why didn’t they write about the poor, impressionable young men?”

“Whatever,” said Vee. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” She let me keep the purple bikini.

Stressed out as I was about Friday’s party, it took me a while to dig through the summer clothes stored under my bed. Eventually I found both Vee’s suit and the one from Aunt Carla. I shut my door and put on the bikini. I stood in front of my full-length mirror and stared at my groin. With the right lighting, you could see two little shadows that didn’t quite belong there—my hernias. I coughed just like Dr. Johnson had told me to, and something just above my bikini line jumped under my skin, like that moment in horror movies right before the alien pops out of the person’s stomach.

I tore off the bikini, disgusted with myself. It was just a matter of time before I disgusted Sam, too. Instead of trying on Aunt Carla’s suit, I pulled on a pair of sweats and a thermal top. Then I curled up in my bed, and thought up some excuses for not going to Andy Sullivan’s party.

Somewhere in between “I’ve got the stomach flu” and “My dad grounded me because I flunked a math test,” my phone went off. I panicked, thinking that Sam was the last person I wanted to talk to, but it was an unfamiliar number.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, is this Kristin?” a woman’s voice asked. It was a good voice.

“Yes. May I ask who’s calling?” I answered automatically. My mom had drilled that one into me when I was five.

“This is Maggie Blankman. From the AIS-DSD Support Group?”