Men Are Like Cars

by Mariana Reuter

End of June. The cafeteria was packed. Jenny and I were having lunch by the window, the one overlooking the baseball field. Game going on. Outside, lots of people on the bleachers. Inside, overcooked pizza smell mixing with French fries smell, hamburger smell, and with God-only-knows-what-else smell. Most of us followed the game from our tables and a few diehard fans pressed up their noses against the windows.

  My life sucked. I didn’t say that out loud. Didn’t have to. Jenny could read me. She knew I had serious problems I needed to share and she was the best because she cared.

  She frowned. “¿Qué pasa?”

  I said: “They just fired this bitch waitress at the Happy Hamburger where Mom works and now she ain’t coming home early ‘cause she’s covering her. That’s pissing Yago off sooo much. They’re fighting every night—I’m fed up. But that’s not the worst of it. Yago wants me to babysit the twins all day long during summer vacation. I’m so fed up living in Yago’s trailer.”

  “Hold it right there, Alex.” Jenny raised an open palm like an officer stopping the traffic. “When did you turn into the guy’s babysitter?”

  “Blame Mom.” I pouted and crossed my arms. “She Nazied me.” I mimicked Mom’s tone. “‘Yago’ll be happier if you take care of the twins and help at home ’, she said. ‘Remember, I finally found a man that’s taking care of us ’. Crap!”

  “But you told me he’s paying a babysitter for the twins, isn’t he?”

  “Only half day. She leaves once I come home from school and freaks out if I’m ten minutes late.”

  “But he’s paying you then, isn’t he?” Jenny picked an apple from her lunch tray and bit it. A fat drop of juice streaked down her chin and her lips glistened just as if she was advertising lip gloss. Why was I finding her so sexy, so alluring? Just looking at her stimulated the volcano inside me.

  “Me? I’m working for nothing, zilch, nada. Freakin’ convenient for him, don’t you think?”

  “Unbelievable!”

  Outside, the ’Whack!’ produced by a bat hitting a baseball triggered cheering from the bleachers and loud booing inside the cafeteria.

  “Listen to this,” I grumbled. “The other day, they raped this teen girl in one of those unoccupied trailers by the Route 133 exit. I was like, ‘This trailer park’s crowded with hoods and criminals. Don’t be surprised if one of these days I’m the one gang-banged!’

  “And Yago just laughed! He was like: ‘Don’t worry, Alexandra. Tomboys like you only hook gays or pervs, and we don’t allow gays in our trailer park.’ Can you believe it? He’s such a freakin’ idiot! I have to put up with his insensitive crap on top of all the work.”

  “Did he actually say that?” Jenny scowled.

  “Yeah! He’s a bastard! Do I really look that tomboyish?”

  “Like, seriously?”

  “Yeah, seriously. Tell me what you think, Jenny.”

  She placed the apple down on her tray. Her eyes avoided mine. “You do look very tomboyish, Alex. Take your hair, short like a soldier’s. You never wear earrings or use makeup. No girly stuff, I mean. And you’re always wearing these baggy clothes. Nobody would ever guess you’ve got boobs, girl. Which bra size are you? 30AA?”

  Omigod! If anybody had taken my face temperature, it would have been feverish. Why was she asking that? Why did I want her to ask that? And why was there a sudden sinking feeling as if my stomach was sliding down into my gut?

  I glanced sideways, wondering if the kids at the nearby tables could overhear us. Jenny had just confirmed I was a tomboy, and maybe reason assisted her. Being a girl was so complicated! Sometimes I entertained it would be easier to be a guy. She said something else, but I didn’t listen to it, concentrating more on her glossy lips than on her words.

  I pictured myself taking off my tee and Jenny kissing my boobs, but then she was rejecting me, disappointed because of their small size. I whispered, “Not even 30AA. I still use the training thing.”

  “You still use training bras!”

  Yes, I still did, and Jenny was at least 36C. Her tone oozed a mixture of amusement and disappointment. The rejection felt like being out in heavy rain without an umbrella. Part of me rejoiced—what I’d just pictured had been totally out of place.

  “Hush Jenny! I don’t want it posted in Facebook.”

  “Look,” she said quietly—a nameless emotion lingered in her eye. I couldn’t place it but I worried I shared it. “You’re always wearing those dark sunglasses, even indoors. Nobody can tell you’re a girl, the very reason why idiots like Clara Benson keep saying you’re a lesbo and I’m your girlfriend.”

  Girlfriends? Jenny sometimes squeezed my hand, but taking hands didn’t mean we were lesbians. Unless…

  Another ’whack!’ outside triggered more booing inside the cafeteria.

  I pulled the glasses down a bit and looked from over the rim. “You know why I wear the sunglasses. It pisses me off when people gawk at my eyes like idiots.”

  When I didn’t hide my eyes, people would stare at me like idiots exclaiming ‘wow!’ and ’ahhh!’, praising how lovely my eyes were until it’d get annoying. Today, however, another reason kept the sunglasses on my face: I worried Jenny would be able to spot the perversion in my face.

  Looking down at her hands, Jenny seemed to be fighting that confusing appetite too, like the desire was wrong, but it was too powerful to resist. When she gazed directly at me, her dark dilated pupils and rosy cheeks beaming lust told me were both in trouble.

  “Alexandra...”

  Jenny had just said my name. Alexandra. No, she’d sighed it. Something like Aaaleksss , softly hissing the last letter. It gave me goose bumps, as if my name was too intimate, too precious for anything more than a whisper. Her hand rested on mine across the table, squeezing it softly—it felt like I’d just pushed my fingers into an electric wall socket. My face turned hot, burning, almost melting my cheeks. One more degree and the cafe’s fire alarm would have set off. My heartbeat accelerated and my whole body tingled in anticipation, starving for Jenny’s warm touch on the rest of my body—even on my intimate parts.

  Jenny beamed a super sweet smile whispering that lust I feared, but compelled to heed. A lusty appetite I knew I had little will to resist. I almost dropped the Minute Maid orange juice I was holding. A shiver ran through my body when she removed my sunglasses and ran her hand through my hair.

  She locked her eyes with mine, hers still smoky. “Yeah, I know. But I love your amber eyes. You shouldn’t wear the glasses when you’re with your future girlfriend.”

  Jenny caressed my cheek with the back of her fingers. Slowly, my hand grabbed hers, pressing it against my cheek. When her knuckles touched the corner of my lips my heart missed a beat.

  Another hit outside and this time the people in the cafe cheered like crazy. I squeezed the Minute Maid in my other trembling hand and it exploded, spilling the juice on my hand and tray. Jenny seemed not to notice, fully concentrated on me, not breaking our eye contact. She kept breathing hard, her nostrils flaring rhythmically and her cheeks rosy in a fashion I was finding sexy as hell. Her gaze drilled inside me, her bright blue eyes summoning me into an off-limits world of passion. I pressed her hand harder on my cheek and then softly bit one of her fingers. She tasted bittersweet, like blackberries. If the rest of her skin tasted the same, I could well—No! I had to stop daydreaming dirty stuff.

  More cheering reminded me we were not alone. I glanced around to see if anyone watched us. A group of guys in football uniforms two tables away seemed to be talking about us, but I couldn’t be sure because they also seemed interested in a ton of French fries on their table. Inside my head, everything had turned upside down. My internal voice demanded I get up and run away. But I couldn’t. Excitement filled me. The warm hand I was pressing so hard against my cheek made me feel so alive, so wanted for the very first time.

  Jenny’s freckled face reddened with excitement—she was feeling the same. Her breast kept going up and down as she breathed hard. Jenny�
��s lips curved into a mischievous smile. The corner of her eyes issued me a silent invitation to lock ourselves inside the nearest janitor’s closet and start making out like crazy. I opened my mouth to talk, but then bit my lip because I had been about to say ‘yes, let’s go’.

  A tall blonde girl walked by our table carrying her lunch tray, leaving a trail of hot spaghetti smell behind her. Jenny said, “Cat got your tongue?”

  Not the cat… her. I had to say no, I had to reject whatever she was proposing. It was the right thing to do. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? Two girls cannot be girlfriends. That’s… gay!”

  The bell rang and I flinched. The spaghetti girl, still looking for a table, cursed. The sound of chairs being dragged all at once filled the cafeteria. Everybody stood and carried their trays to the front. In seconds, I was surrounded by lots of towering kids stirring around little me, and I got this feeling of getting smaller and smaller. Like ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ but in real life. I remained nailed to my seat, still holding the squeezed Minute Maid in one hand while pressing Jenny’s against my cheek with my other. She kept beaming at me in her best Trident smile. I opened my mouth to say something else, to ask her why, to remind her we were at a public place, but she placed a finger on my lips. The bittersweet taste of her skin paralyzed me as if just hit by one of those tranquilizing darts they use on lionesses in African parks.

  “Shhh, Aaleksss ,” she whispered, my name caressed by her lips. The anticipation to an intimate moment between the two of us. “I’m not kidding. You do look too tomboyish, but I luv the look. And I don’t care if anybody says we’re lesbians. I want to be your girlfriend. You don’t have to answer me now, just think about it.”

  Had I just been announced America’s Next Top Model winner, I’d have been less stunned. I even doubted whether I’d heard right. The bustle around us and her whispering might have twisted her words.

  “Th-think about it?” I stammered. What I really wanted was to yell: ‘Yes, I want to be your girlfriend, Jenny!’ but everything was happening so fast, was so new to me, and seemed so wrong that my tongue got tangled up. Besides, I was scared. Clara Benson and her gang had bullied me when I’d arrived at this school three months ago and they only stopped when I started hanging with Jenny. I imagined what would happen once somebody caught us kissing in the restrooms. Tons of gossip, and lipstick signs on the girl’s restroom mirror: Zimmerman rides Jennifer Edwards.

  Jenny rose from her chair, leant both hands on the table, and stooped across it toward me until her freckled, upturned nose stood only a couple of inches from mine. Her floral, freakin’ awesome perfume suddenly made me feel high as if I’d smoked weed, tons of it. I was now the one breathing hard.

  “Yeah, think about it. I’m being deadly serious, Aaaleksss . Just don’t mess around with any other girl while you make up your mind, deal?”

  She approached me so close our lips touched. Hers tasted way sweeter than her skin, like strawberry and candy. Like vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice-cream. The football guys at the nearby table, not even remotely bothered by the bell and the only people still lingering the cafeteria besides us, were all staring. I hoped none of them were aiming their cell phone cameras at us, I didn’t want be the hot topic on Facebook tonight. Jenny apparently had no such fears. She raised her middle finger and flipped them off. I wanted to bury myself under ten tons of earth.

  When I finally rose from the table, not a single kid lingered in the cafeteria, not even the football players or Jenny. The baseball game had ended too, and the bleachers were empty. I started pacing the room towards the exit, forsaking my tray on the table, feeling I was walking on cottony clouds floating in the sky. I took a hand to my hot lips and whispered to myself, “I think she kissed me…”

  I couldn’t figure out whether Jenny and I had kissed each other wildly or whether it’d only been a fleeting contact that had made time eternal. While my heart wished it’d been a crazy making out, my mind trusted it’d only been as ethereal as the brush of a bee’s wing. Either way, my first kiss ever represented my debut in a play I’d never rehearsed for.

  About Mariana Reuter

  Thank you for reading this short story. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favourite retailer?

  Thanks!

  Mariana Reuter AKA Gacela

  Mariana Reuter is a 25 year-old French-Mexican girl who loves to write. Her main gender is young adult. She loves to write about teen girls discovering themselves, challenging the status-quo, and changing their worlds. She lives with her parents and works as an industrial engineer. Currently, she has no boyfriend, but she is accepting applications. Her friends like to call her Gacela since she was a little girl.

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