Little Panic

by Amanda Stern

  “What?” I’m hoping she’s horrified by my bathing suit, which means Taylor will be, too.

  “Nothing,” she says, crossing her arms over her high-set boobs.

  “My bathing suit’s really ugly, isn’t it?” I ask, trying to sound like that wasn’t the whole point.

  “Not really. I kind of like it,” she says. “How did you get—” She stops herself.

  “Get what? The bathing suit?”

  “No, your body,” she mutters. “It’s just, I never saw you like that before, without baggy clothes and…you have a really nice body.”

  I put my T-shirt back on. “Same as yours,” I say and nudge her out the door.

  “No, my boobs are too high and my waist is really short. You have no fat on you. Like, not anywhere.”

  I don’t want to hear an assessment of my body. My body is defective, and I hate it. All it does is fill with dread and static and noise, holding me back from being independent from my mom and home, and it won’t let me be like everyone else. Yet, somehow, it also alerts men that they can comment on it or, worse—touch it without my permission. After all that waiting, my puberty came in so slowly, I barely saw it change, but now that I finally have boobs and hips, I don’t want them pointed out to me. My body is girlish, and it is trying to betray who I am trying to be. Anytime anyone says anything nice about my body, I black out a little. Other girls would be flattered, but I’m broken, and I don’t want this kind of attention. I don’t want to look at it, and I don’t want anyone else to look at it. I hurry to the pool. Everyone’s telling me to take my shirt off and come in the water, and it’s so hot out that I finally tear it off at the last second before jumping in, staying there until I’m freezing. But it doesn’t work: When I finally get out of the pool, Taylor is waiting there with a towel.

  “Damn. I knew you’d look good in a bathing suit, but this I did not expect,” he says into my ear.

  I try to laugh it off as I pull away from him, keeping my body toweled up. I sit on one of the chaise lounges and watch everyone, feeling Taylor’s eyes on me. I don’t like this. I’d always counted on the fact that my preteen body made me invisible, but now that I have a teen body, I feel molested when people look at me. Why can’t adults just take care of me without their needs getting in the way? I go into the pool house and put my baggy clothes back on. I had planned to brag to Taylor about my suspension, but I no longer feel the urge.

  When I return, Taylor is at the barbecue. The sky isn’t dark yet, not even close, but I feel desperately alone and sad and want to go home before the sun sets and triggers that homesick kid inside me.

  “What train are we taking?” I ask Paul.

  “I thought you were sleeping over,” Paul says.

  I feel my face drop. “I…I’m not sleeping over.”

  “Oh. I am. Taylor can drive you back to the station if you want. You can figure it out with him.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

  But I don’t want to figure anything out with Taylor. He’s been watching me all day, and I’ve been avoiding him. The Taylor I like is the one who wants to be my savior, not the one who can’t wait to fuck me. Gwen is counting out marshmallows and I go over to her.

  “Hey, you think you could drive me to the train?”

  “Taylor’s gonna drive Claire, so why don’t you just go with them?” she says.

  “Okay.” Oh joy.

  “Do you need any money?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  The air is hamburger-flavored and dinner tastes of summer. Claire flirts with Taylor, and despite the fact that I don’t want that type of attention from him, I’m envious that he’s paying her any at all. When he puts his hand on her arm, I feel pained by it. When he gives her his one-armed hug, I’m shot through with butterflies.

  He catches me watching and I look away, but he knows, and he’s heading over. “Hey, I’m driving you and Claire to the station. Can you be ready in ten minutes?” he asks me.

  “I’m ready now,” I say.

  He smiles. “Man, I can’t wait until you’re eighteen,” he says, knocking me with his hip.

  1984

  Dr. Parker Prentice

  Amanda needs individualized attention, and the opportunity to engage in dialogue with her teachers. Monitor her progress carefully.

  When I Turn Eighteen

  There is nothing anyone can do about it, not even me: I am Taylor’s favorite. In the plays we write, he always sees to it that I play his sidekick. When class is over, he and Gwen and I walk away together and take a cab downtown, where we all have dinner, watch movies, and go to parties; and when Gwen’s not around, Taylor and I do coke. When she is around, we just smoke pot, which is fine now that I’ve come up with a creative work-around. Whenever it’s my turn, I take the joint and stand, go to the kitchen to get a beer or open a window, never actually taking more than a baby hit. Sometimes I don’t smoke any at all. My mom knows I spend time at their house, but she has no idea what we’re doing, and she never asks. I don’t know why they don’t have a child, but Gwen acts proud of me at random moments, the way mothers are proud of their children. When I cut Taylor’s hair, she remarks on my talent, and when I sit and work on a play for hours at their desk, she crows about my focus.

  I have the keys to their apartment now, and when they’re going out of town they tell their doorman I’m allowed to stay there. Madison and Tatum have both left for boarding school and Amelia transferred to Trinity. My group of in-school friends has dwindled down to one: Libby, who lives downtown and, like me, is a Village kid with the freedom of an adult. Although I’ve admitted to nothing, she doesn’t think she’s smart either. We spend our time aimlessly walking around the Village, flirting and picking up boys. Sometimes we go to the Palladium, the World, or Area to dance.

  Since I’m perpetually terrified of being abandoned again, not just by my school friends but by Taylor, I feel constantly forced into doing things I don’t want for approval. If I knew how to get myself out of situations that scared me, maybe I’d be less afraid, but I still haven’t learned how to rely on myself for my own safety. Sleepovers still frighten me, but I’ve bragged about having access to an apartment, and Libby wants to use it. Taylor told me I could bring boys back to his place. “Just think, you have your own apartment to have sex in,” he says. Libby and I eat their food, drink their alcohol, and do whatever drugs we can find in Taylor’s sock drawer. We are grossed out when we find condoms, and I’m shot through, again, with the fear of turning eighteen. Sleeping away from home, it turns out, isn’t so scary when you’re too drunk to remember falling asleep, and once it’s done and over, and I didn’t die or disappear, I might even be able to do it again.

  Everything I do is done as though Taylor is watching me. Even when I’m at home, I imagine he can see me, watching me on some secret closed-circuit TV. Whenever my body starts to float away, or thrum with dread and darkness, I do a line and it supplants my despair and fear with levity and courage. I carry the drug with me all the time. Soon, I am afraid of nothing.

  I’m failing out of all my classes. Even though I keep it in my backpack, I’ve worn my uniform only once or twice during ninth grade, and I’m told I won’t be invited back if my grades and attitude don’t improve and I continue to show up in my combat boots and half-punk wardrobe. Predictably, my mom responds the way she always does, with a (metaphorical) magic pill: I can leave if I’m unhappy and go somewhere else. But I know better this time: You have to test into the public schools I like, and I won’t pass that test.

  Although my dad provided my mom with child support, Jimmy paid my phone bill, and bought me clothes and presents and chipped in for doctors and school, when he didn’t have to. Late one night in the kitchen, while he’s eating a contraband steak secretly delivered by the gun club across the street, I thank him for giving me so much, and he winks and tells me to take out the garbage. A Wall Street “You’re welcome.”

  Knowing I can’t stay where I am, I s
tart looking at schools: Calhoun on the Upper West Side is too noisy; there are no walls, and I can’t hear anything the teacher says because I’m distracted by everything the other teacher is saying in the adjacent classroom. Dwight is fun because I get to hang out with Paul, but I don’t want to be lumped in with the other dumb white idiots getting high together. Finally, I visit Friends Seminary in the East Village, and it’s there, when I’m walking up the stairs, following behind my guide, that a cute boy with a curly mop of hair races past me singing David Bowie. “There’s a Starman, waiting in the sky…” This is the school for me.

  I don’t know how I get in, because they surprise all applicants with a test, but I do. By the time I start my new school, I’ll be the only kid left in this house, and I feel homesick for the chaos. It’s been hard without Kara here, but she lets me call her with my problems. With Eddie leaving, though, now I’ll have to go to my dad’s house by myself, and I know I won’t be able to handle that.

  One night Eddie and I are watching TV in my bedroom and my mom comes in.

  “Can you turn off the TV for a minute? I need to talk to you two,” she says.

  “Can you wait for a commercial?” Eddie asks.

  “No, I can’t,” she says.

  We’re annoyed and turn the volume down, but we don’t turn it off. “What?” I ask.

  “Well…I’m pregnant,” she says.

  I stand. “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  “Well, you’re not going to keep it, are you?” I ask.

  “Of course I’m going to keep it.”

  “But you’re so old,” Eddie tells her.

  “I’m forty-two!”

  “Exactly,” I say. “Old. Does Kara know?”

  “Not yet,” she says.

  I leap across the room to the phone and call her. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Mom’s having a baby,” I tell her.

  “Amanda, I’m studying for exams. I don’t have time for jokes,” she says.

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “I’m hanging up. College is really hard and I have a lot of work to do.”

  “Hang on,” I say, and I hand the phone to Mom, who tells her the news. I’m mortified. Forty-two is too old to have a baby. Having a baby is a young person’s job. Everything about this news feels gross and embarrassing. A person my mom’s age shouldn’t be having babies. Plus, she’s not even around. What does she do all day, anyway? I’m supposed to be her youngest!

  “Wait!” I call out while she’s on the phone. “When are you due?”

  “October,” she answers.

  Oh Jesus. I’ll be at my new school already. What will people think of me when they find out my ancient mom is pregnant? I might as well just walk into my new school and say to everyone I meet: “Hi, my name is Amanda. My mom had sex, and now we all know about it.”

  But then, as the days and weeks pass, I realize that I’m getting what I want: another kid in the house with me. I start warming up to the idea. Maybe a baby will bring the family closer and give my siblings a reason to come home more often.

  School starts and I’m one of three new tenth graders, which makes it easier and harder at the same time. I like my classmates, but most of my friends end up being in the grade above me, the one I should have been in all along. We hang out at one another’s houses, or in Washington Square Park, or I invite them to the garden. I am out of uniform every day and never get in trouble for it. The kids are free-spirited, more my type of people, and we call our teachers by their first names. I quickly develop a crush on my math teacher, who’s a young, cool guy named Paolo. He’s the reason I’m excited to go to school every morning, hurrying out the door in case I can catch a glimpse of his beat-up blue truck on the way. He knows I exist because I’m in his class, but that’s about it. Still, Taylor doesn’t like hearing about Paolo, even though he keeps asking what he looks like and whether we had sex, which is such a dumb question—he’s a teacher, jeez—I don’t even bother answering.

  One of the first weeks of school, I tear down the front steps and Taylor’s there, waiting for me. “I was just walking by,” he explains. “Thought I’d pick you up. See the new school, meet your friends…” He looks around.

  He wants me to take him inside, though I’m not sure this is a good idea. Everyone I introduce him to looks at us strangely: Why am I walking around with a thirty-year-old man who’s not my brother or my father? I have no idea how to even begin to explain who he is to me, but I feel pride that he’s mine. I show him the art room, and my locker, and when I’m all showed out, I tell him we’re done, and let’s go.

  “Where’s, uh…what’s his name?” Taylor asks. I pretend not to know who he’s talking about. “You know. Cute teacher. Marco?”

  “Paolo. Dunno.” I walk into a classroom and look out the window and see Paolo loading his guitar into the back of his truck. “There,” I say, pointing.

  Taylor stands next to me at the window. “The dude with blond tips? He’s gay.”

  “He’s not gay,” I say, defensive.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” he says, rushing out. I follow behind him and we make it outside before Paolo’s gone. He’s surrounded by students, adored by boys and girls alike, and when he sees Taylor, and then me, I can tell he is perplexed, maybe even a little worried. They stare at each other for a minute. Taylor’s pissed. He puts his arm around me like I’m his. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he says, steering me with his proprietary hand toward his apartment.

  Gwen’s in Connecticut for the weekend, and Taylor and I watch Platoon and power through a third of the eight ball he just picked up from his dealer, Misty. God, I love this drug. There’s literally no other drug I ever need to try. Any trace of fear I felt before, any fear I may feel ever again in the future, is entirely gone. Erased. I’m in control. Off the drug, I have to pretend and lie so I don’t expose whatever is wrong with me, but I feel guilty every time. On the drug, I believe my lies, even if I never remember them. I am a different version of me. No, I’m a different person entirely. I’m better, stronger, smarter, funnier, cooler, a leader. It also makes me realize things about myself I didn’t before; like right now, after about ten lines of coke, I finally understand that I’m not the problem—it’s intelligence itself that is misunderstood. People think intelligence is knowing the answers to test questions, memorizing information and facts, but I know intelligence is about a type of understanding and knowing that can’t be tested or measured. It is about depth, a depth that involves not just your brain, but your entire body. And I have that kind of intelligence, but because others don’t value it, it doesn’t count, which means that everything I say and do will be wrong because the entire world is predicated upon measuring a type of intelligence I don’t have. As I start to crash, I realize maybe I’m wrong and it’s not the world that’s defective, it’s me, and I’ll never amount to anything, so the best I can do is more coke.

  Taylor puts his head on my lap and I’m not sure what to do with my hands. I fold them across my chest. We talk all through the movie. We gossip about the other kids in the acting school. He knows how in love with Paul I am, but although Taylor seems jealous of Paolo, he’s not jealous of my crush on Paul. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be replaced, and he knows Paolo could replace him. Paul’s just a teenager. Taylor tells me that when he met Gwen the first thing he said was, “I want to make mad passionate love to you.”

  “Gross,” I say. I don’t want to think about him and Gwen having sex. I don’t want to think of Taylor in any way that’s sexual.

  He laughs. The credits are rolling, and he sits up. “Hey, so it occurred to me the other day. Do you know how to give a hand job?”

  “Yes!” I say, defensive. I’ve never given a hand job.

  “What about a blow job?” he asks.

  “Yes!” I say. “Stop asking me these thing
s.”

  “It’s just that if you don’t know how, I’ll show you. I can teach you,” he says, his hands going toward his crotch.

  “I know how!” I say and stand. “Jesus. I know how to do everything. I know how to do things that would appall you,” I say. The whole point of pretending I know more than I do is to keep him from asking me things like this, to get him to stop saying these things to me and making clear that he’s looking forward to having sex with me in a few years. I have no idea how to stop these conversations without losing him.

  I head to the bathroom and sit on the side of the tub. The winter air has a smell that seems to grow stronger whenever I’m in over my head. Sometimes my body feels like it’s growing too big for the world, which makes me feel exposed; other times it feels like it’s shrinking and I’m invisible and being left behind. Now, it’s growing. I try to focus on the smells: Taylor’s Irish Spring; Gwen’s Suave shampoo. It helps.

  “I gotta go,” I say, walking past him as he sits on the couch.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks. Then, “I’m serious. If you need to know how to do ‘biblical’ things, just ask me.”

  “Yeah, I’ve fucked enough dudes to feel pretty solid on that front, but you know, thanks anyway,” I say and try not to seem like I’m fleeing.

  * * *

  Taylor returns to school the next day to pick me up, but this time he’s in his car.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” he says. At the first red light, he hands me a vial. “Help yourself.”

  I haven’t mastered how to do coke this way, but I manage to get a little. It’s not enough to stop the fear that begins surging through my body as it becomes clear we’re leaving the city.

  “Where are we going?” My mouth is very dry. My stomach is souring, and my body starts closing in on itself. You cannot vomit in Taylor’s car. You cannot vomit in front of Taylor. If you vomit in front of Taylor, you will have given everything about yourself away.