Klepto

by Jenny Pollack

  “You must be Julie!” he said. He wore a gold chain and a pinky ring. “I’d kiss you, but I’m all shvitzy.” I’d never heard that word before, but I got the gist. Even though Josh was eager to leave, his dad didn’t seem to notice, and he launched into all these questions, like was I planning to be an actor professionally when I graduated or was I going to college first, and did I have a backup plan if acting didn’t work out.

  “Oh shit!” we heard Marlene’s deep voice shout from upstairs.

  “What’s the matter?” Mr. Heller yelled up to her. Josh looked up the stairs, waiting for Marlene’s response.

  “I forgot ice!” Marlene screamed. “Josh! Would you and your friend mind going out to get some ice? Just run down to Luigi’s and get a few bags. You have money?”

  Josh’s dad pulled a twenty out of his money clip and pressed it into Josh’s palm.

  “No problem!” Josh shouted up the stairs.

  “You’re a doll and I love you!” she called back.

  The party was pretty cool for a while ’cause the weather was nice enough to be out in the backyard. But a lot of people stayed inside in the nearly all-white living room singing along with the hired piano player at the baby grand. He was kind of a Liberace guy with totally sprayed silver hair and lots of rings, and he played Barry Manilow and Captain & Tennille songs.

  Marlene was drunk and acting pretty funny. She was singing at the top of her lungs in her husky manlike voice and kept introducing me to people as “Josh’s friend.” Josh must have sensed when I had had enough of being surrounded by all these grown-ups I didn’t know. He took me by the hand and led me to his parents’ bedroom. The first thing you saw when you walked in was the king-sized water bed across from a huge TV. Pretty cool, I thought, but then I noticed there wasn’t really any other place to sit. Josh kicked off his shoes and slid back into the rolling bed, then he patted the area next to him like I should do the same. We sat on top of the down comforter and Josh put his arm around me. We watched some old episode of The Twilight Zone, and I couldn’t help but laugh every time the water bed made us bob up and down. Luckily Josh laughed, too.

  We started making out, which I kind of knew would happen. I hoped I tasted as good as he did. We were kissing for what felt like a long time and I was playing with Josh’s black hair when we heard the Gilligan’s Island theme coming out of the TV.

  “That’s not exactly the right music, is it?” Josh said as he got up to turn it off. Just his getting off the bed left me riding a pretty big wave. As he walked back to me going up and down on the bed, I couldn’t help but look at his crotch. Oh my God, I could see through his jeans that he was hard, and I felt both scared and excited. He saw me look there—I guess I hadn’t really tried to hide it—so he looked down quickly, looked back at me, smiled, and shrugged. He turned on the clock radio and “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” by the Culture Club was playing.

  “It’s okay?” Josh said, referring to the music, and I nodded.

  “Wait,” I said, “aren’t you worried someone might come in?”

  “Nah.” Josh smiled mischievously. “The door’s locked.” He got back on the bed and we hugged lying down as the bed rocked us to the music. “So you’re trapped,” he whispered.

  Then he kissed me and I giggled, making our teeth touch. Boy George was singing and Josh’s hand snuck behind me and pulled the bottom part of my shirt out of my jeans to the beat of the music, which made me laugh again. I was wearing this white cotton top that was kind of like a pirate shirt—it had three buttons going diagonally from my collar bone down my chest. Josh unbuttoned them all pretty smoothly but I could tell he was stopping himself from reaching inside. He touched me over my shirt, and it felt so warm and nice. I stuck one of my legs between his and our legs hugged. Then Josh took my hand and moved it a little over his hard-on. Julie had warned me that guys did that sometimes, and it made me kind of nervous.

  “Um . . . wait a sec,” I said, interrupting our kissing. “Is it okay if we go slow?”

  “Okay,” Josh said, and I moved my hand away. As we lay there rocking in the waves, I realized I had had to pee since back when The Twilight Zone started, but everything felt so nice I just didn’t want to get up. We started to hear sounds of people leaving the party and I was wondering when Josh’s parents might knock on the door.

  “What?” Josh whispered, and I thought, Oh my God he’s so aware. How did he know my mind was wandering?

  “Uh,” I stammered. “I’m sorry, but I really have to pee.”

  “Oh!” Josh said, and laughed. “Down the hall, the first door on your right.” Then I heard him sigh, and I couldn’t tell if it bugged him that I interrupted us. Or that I asked to go slow?

  The bathroom had a seashells theme—the shower curtain had a bunch of different kinds of shells on it in various shades of tan and brown, and the towels all matched perfectly in beige with white seashells along the edges. I finished peeing and was washing my hands when I noticed there was no more music playing from the living room downstairs.

  Then I thought I heard Josh’s dad’s low voice outside the bathroom door saying something like, “Just be in separate bedrooms in the morning, all right?” I turned the water off to hear Josh’s response but I only heard some steps creaking a little on the carpet. I peeked back into Josh’s parents’ bedroom and no one was there, so I went down to the tennis room to change into my nightshirt. I had just finished brushing my teeth in my own private tennis bathroom, and there was a soft knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I whispered. Josh padded in wearing his socks, gray Yale sweatshirt, and sweatpants. He smelled like toothpaste and looked so incredibly cute. I wondered what was gonna happen with us in the tennis bed.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Do you mind if I stay down here with you for a little bit?” he said.

  “No,” I said, and I took a deep breath.

  Josh was kneeling on the bed. He reached over my shoulder and turned off the tennis lamp on the bedside table, so the room got pretty dark, but we could still see each other. He pulled me gently toward him, and we kissed again for a little while kneeling like that, and as we started to lie down, Josh said, “I’m really . . . into you, Julie.” He sounded out of breath. Then he very quietly whispered, “I want you,” and all I could think was that it sounded like a line on a soap opera or something—like this totally adult thing to say. And even though I was flattered, I had this feeling like Josh had said that line before. He was starting to really grind his crotch into mine—I could really feel how hard he was since all that was between us now were his sweatpants and my thin nightshirt and underwear. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing underwear under his sweatpants.

  “I’m into you, too,” I whispered back, and pulled away a little. “But I feel like I should tell you something.”

  “Uh-oh,” Josh said, propping himself up on his side.

  “No, it’s nothing bad. I mean, I’m sure you probably already figured it out. I haven’t gone all the way with anyone yet.” I felt kind of embarrassed, but at the same time I wanted to just say it. I giggled a little and put my hand over my eyes.

  “Oh,” Josh said. “Well, okay. So?”

  “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you. I just thought you should know. I guess I’ve kind of been holding out. I mean, not like I’m waiting to be married or something like that, I just want to be sure I really like the person it happens with the first time.” Josh looked slightly perplexed.

  “Okay,” he said again, but something told me it wasn’t. Then I started having a kind of yawning fit. Like when you’re so tired you feel like you’ve been up for twenty-four hours straight or something. I mean, I’ve never been up for twenty-four hours straight, but it just suddenly hit me how tired I was. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I knew it was late.

  Neither of us said anything for a minute. I wondered if Josh was sorry he had asked me to sleep over. But then he broke the tens
ion and said, “By the way, cool nightshirt,” as he ran his hand over my shoulder and upper arm. I shivered a little. “Are you cold? You want a sweatshirt?”

  “Sure,” I said, and he took off his Yale sweatshirt. I put it on. It smelled like him and was all warm.

  “I hope you can go slow,” I said, as we lay back down. “I mean . . . you know what I mean. Right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, snuggling with me. “I do. I think I can. And if I can’t, well, that’s just something I’ll have to find a way to deal with.” He grinned at me. I had no idea what he meant by that, but I don’t remember what I said next ’cause I think we kissed some more, and then I woke up and the clock said 9:10 in the morning and I was alone in the tennis bed.

  For almost the first two weeks of May, I tried not to go to clothing stores. I used the multicolored pen I got in my stocking at Christmas to put a big purple check on each day of my calendar that I didn’t go. I made it eleven days in a row. I stopped going to Reminiscence and even Poster-mat, where they didn’t even sell clothes, ’cause I thought if I was too close to a clothing store I might get tempted. I also decided to see how many days I could go without wearing any stolen clothes. This part wasn’t so easy. I actually did not own a pair of jeans that wasn’t stolen. Well, not any good jeans. I had this old pair of Lee’s that still fit me but I hated them ’cause they weren’t as cool as my Girbauds or Fioruccis. I couldn’t even count how many times Julie and I had been to Fiorucci and left with jeans. I had so many pairs.

  For every day I didn’t wear stolen clothes (I decided that jeans were exempt from this rule), I put a green star on my calendar. While I was at it, I started to write on my calendar whenever Josh and I were together, like an after-school time when we hung out with other people, or a Saturday-night date, or whatever. On those days I put an orange “J+J.” Since our first date that rainy night, we had seen each other nine times. I wondered how many dates we would have before I could call him my boyfriend. And did I have to be Josh’s girlfriend for him to ask me to the Spring Dance? It was about a month away. Although I wasn’t writing it down, I couldn’t help but figure out that it had been forty-seven days since Julie and I had spoken.

  About a week later, Jennifer Smalls and I were outside together at lunchtime—it was another really sunny, warm day. We were trying to decide where to get lunch.

  “I can’t believe how soon the last day of school is,” Jennifer said, as we walked down 46th Street toward a deli on Broadway.

  “I know,” I said. “Doesn’t it seem like this year went so fast?”

  “Yeah,” Jennifer said. “The juniors will be seniors next year—won’t that be weird?”

  “Totally,” I said, but I was thinking about the summer fast approaching and whether I’d see Josh.

  “I’ll probably cry at graduation,” Jennifer said, cracking her gum. “And I’m not even friends with any seniors!”

  “Wow, we’ll be sophomores,” I said.

  “Yeah. We’ll no longer be the youngest! Wheee!” Jennifer screamed, and started skipping ahead a little and spinning. She practically ran over two people turning the corner from Broadway.

  “Oops! I’m so sorry!” Jennifer said, and her gum flew out of her mouth and landed on her big chest.

  “Jen, your gum!” I said. We both started laughing hysterically. I stopped walking and was doubled over, laughing. Then I looked up and suddenly realized who Jennifer had bumped into—Josh and Leah Reemer. My heart kind of did a backflip into my stomach. Leah and Josh stood frozen, staring at us. Josh let out a little laugh.

  “What the . . . ?” Jennifer said quietly.

  “Oh, shit,” Josh said. “Hi,” he said to me, sort of looking down.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling my face get hot and a burning start behind my eyes. It was obvious Josh and Leah were just now arriving at school. The bell for lunch had rung like a minute ago and they couldn’t have been on their way back already. Oh my God, all I could think was that they were coming from Leah’s house, since Josh stayed at his friends’ houses in the city all the time. They had probably had a sleepover. I was positive he was wearing the same shirt he’d worn to school the day before. Sometimes it was a curse to have such a good memory, but I was positive. My eye fell to Leah Reemer’s chest. She was wearing a gray Yale sweatshirt. Oh my God. Josh slept with Leah Reemer. He slept with her because he thought I wouldn’t.

  23

  Boys Will Come and Go

  “What a total and complete asshole!” Jennifer Smalls said, angrily dropping the brown plastic tray on the table in front of me. The fries spilled out of the paper sleeve, and I watched all the individual grains of salt bounce onto the tray. We were at McDonald’s across the street from school. Jennifer must have dragged me or carried me or something, ’cause it felt like poof we were there. I had no memory of crossing the street. I had started crying as soon as we were far enough away from Josh and Leah Reemer, and now I felt like I’d never stop. I was slumped over in my orange chair where Jennifer had left me with the last tissue she found at the bottom of her book bag. She pushed the fries toward me and began squeezing ketchup onto the paper place mat.

  “Ugh! I can’t believe it!” she said to no one in particular. “That asshole thought he’d never get caught and bam! We run smack into him! I mean, what are the chances? What a complete and total asshole!” she said again. I just sat there sobbing.

  “Julie, have a fry. Do you want a fry?”

  I shook my head and wiped my eyes with the tissue. It was soaked and shredded.

  “Here. Have a napkin,” Jennifer said.

  I took a napkin to blow my nose and left the shredded tissue on the table.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Jennifer said, almost under her breath, shaking her head. She came and sat in the chair next to me, even though it was connected to another table. I just kept crying and watched my tears leave big dots on the thighs of my Fiorucci jeans. Jennifer put her hand on my shoulder. “What a fuckhead!” she said. “And Leah Reemer, that slut! I never liked her!” Jennifer watched me cry for a few seconds. “I’d totally be crying, too. It’s so fucked up. I just can’t believe it.”

  “I thought he really liked me,” I managed to say through my tears.

  “He totally likes you!” Jennifer insisted. “I mean, come on, you had so many dates! Maybe he’s just a big idiot.”

  No shit he’s an idiot, I thought, he just totally fucking cheated on me. I looked at Jennifer for the first time since her gum had fallen out on her chest. Why did she wear such tight shirts? It annoyed me. Why did she want to show everyone her big chest like that? I was suddenly hating Jennifer for not being Julie. I knew she was trying, but I didn’t want to hear that Josh was an idiot. If Julie were there, she would have said the right thing. I didn’t know what it was, but it would have been the right thing.

  “So, he probably had sex with her, right?” I said, not really expecting an answer, and it made me cry even more to say that out loud.

  “Oh . . . ” Jennifer said, her voice sympathetic, and she handed me more napkins. “I don’t know. . . . They used to date, right? I mean, yes, probably, Jule, they probably had sex. He probably doesn’t like her like her, though, you know? But it doesn’t matter anyway, you don’t need him! You deserve better! I mean, what a complete and total asshole.” Nothing she could say could make me stop crying. It felt like there were just oceans and oceans inside of me and the tears would never stop pouring out.

  “What do I do?” I sobbed. Jennifer kept trying to comfort me while I cried more.

  “I don’t know. . . .” Jennifer’s voice trailed off like she was thinking about something else. She chewed on her straw and stared off into space for a minute. “I guess he’ll take Leah to the dance now, huh?” she said.

  It felt like someone kicked me in the chest. I hadn’t even thought about the dance! Jennifer kept looking at me so sympathetically with her eyebrows all scrunched up in her forehead, but I couldn’t stop thinking it sh
ould have been Julie with me running into Josh and Leah Reemer. Julie would never have said anything about the dance. Julie probably would have yelled at Josh or told him off or something. Where the hell was Julie? Why wouldn’t she call me? How long was this stupid fight going to last?

  Once I got to Joyce Kazlick’s office, I started crying again, so everything was totally blurry. I got ahold of myself and launched into the whole Josh and Leah Reemer story. After about twenty minutes, I suddenly noticed that Joyce had gotten a perm. Now her Dorothy Hamill haircut was kind of like a tight little soft afro. The curls below her temples looked a little too long, almost like sideburns. I thought of this picture of me, Ellie, and my mom and dad taken on the beach at Cape Cod in, like, 1976 or something when my dad had huge sideburns. I was nine and Ellie was twelve. It was a black-and-white picture, and both my sister and I were squinting ’cause the sun was in our eyes. I wondered who took that picture since my dad was in it and he was usually the one taking the pictures. It was the only photo I could remember with all four of us. Then I thought of the conversation I had with Dad the other night when I just flat-out asked him if he and Mom were going to get a divorce. He laughed, like what a crazy thing for me to say. “Your mother and I have our differences,” he said, “but no. No plans for a divorce.” Then he changed the subject like we had been talking about the weather or something meaningless.

  “How long has it been since you talked to Julie?” Joyce asked, shifting her weight in the vinyl chair. This was totally weird, I thought, since I hadn’t even been talking about Julie.

  “I don’t know, about two months, I think,” I said. I sat there slumped in my chair, playing with the bottom edge of my bowling shirt. The whole run-in with Josh and Leah had happened only two days before, and I was still totally depressed about it.

  “Do you want to call her?” Joyce said.