Chapter 9

“I could get used to this,” I said.

Julia and I lounged by the pool while Sarah and Rebekah went sailing for the morning. Jimmy Buffet played softly as we sipped mimosas and worked on our tans. Julia sat up and rubbed Vaseline on her heels and toes. I looked over my sunglasses at her. “I’m relieved to see that you now believe in shaving your legs and under your arms. When did that start?”

“When guys started feeling me up,” Julia said.

We stretched out under the sun and my pale skin tingled with gratitude. I wore a blue bikini and played with my diamond-studded belly button ring without a care in the world. Julia wore a yellow bikini that showed off a slight golden tan and I nearly gasped out loud when she rolled over and ribs poked through her skin.

“Julia, I thought the Karen Carpenter-look was out?”

“You should talk,” Julia replied.

“I’m going to be watching you. Tonight at dinner, if you move food around your plate or run to the bathroom after eating, I’m doing an intervention.”

“I eat,” she assured me. “I eat when I have time.”

“Who doesn’t have time for a candy bar every day?”

“My life is a wreck and working with Barry doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Why?”

Julia paused and looked away. “Why talk about it? It doesn’t do any good to complain.”

“Come on,” I said, reaching for her hand. “You can tell me.”

Julia gently moved her hand away. “If you promise not to ask me any questions about my work, I won’t ask you any questions about yours.”

Julia smiled and took a sip of her mimosa. I didn’t want to drop the subject; however I didn’t have much of a choice.

“Deal,” I finally said.

“Why didn’t you want to go sailing?”

“I’m not that crazy about water.”

“Are you afraid you’d melt?”

“I get seasick when I’m out too far. Why didn’t you go out with them?”

“Someone had to keep you company.”

“You get seasick, too?” I asked.

“Yup,” she nodded.

“So, tell me about Barry,” I inquired, humming along with Margaritaville. “How did the two of you meet?”

“You never heard this story?”

“Maybe one of you wrote me about it; who can remember? I want to hear it from you.”

“Okay. Rebekah and I went to the movies at Mission Bell one night. Remember that place?”

“In North Tampa?”

“Yeah,” Julia said, “and while I’m not proud of it, sometimes we’d get curious about how the other half lived. Anyway, when Rebekah and I walked out of the theater, a car full of guys pulled up and started flirting with us. See, by the end of sophomore year, Rebekah had gone to third base with most of the boys and some of the men in our own neck of the woods so she was looking for new blood and decided to make it interesting. She told them we were British models and needed directions to the airport because we had to pick up another model coming in from France. Rebekah sounded like Eliza Doolittle and I didn’t know what to say. I had a hard enough time talking to guys in my own accent, so I froze and just looked uncomfortable. The guys about shit themselves. They didn’t seem to notice that I could only model those ‘before’ pictures next to makeover ads. Males, especially boys, have a hard time thinking rationally once their dicks get hard. They told us to follow them so we did. On the way, we planned to say this made-up girl missed her flight and then we’d all hang out watching the planes take off.”

“Life was really that boring?” I asked.

“Sure was. So we got to the airport and I jumped out of the car first. As I’m watching the guys get out of their car, I noticed that one of them, Barry, looked familiar. Then it hit me, I recognized him from school.”

“What was he doing on that side of town?”

“Liv, it wasn’t like there was a law that we had to stay south of Kennedy Boulevard.”

“I see. Continue.”

“At that point, I figured we’re busted, but Rebekah didn’t realize a thing. She continued talking like a limey until she spotted Barry and then turned red and silent. It was so humiliating but it gets better. I immediately fell for Barry, but he had it bad for Rebekah.”

“He went after Rebekah first?”

“Who didn’t? Guys always liked her before they even looked at the rest of us and Rebekah loved every minute of it. She and Barry dated for about a month, which is an eternity when you’re a teenager. Eventually I wore him down and stole him away from her. We were at some party; I got drunk and told Barry how much I liked him. He took pity on me and we made out for hours. Afterwards, we kept it a secret for a while.”

“Did Rebekah really like him?”

“They hadn’t slept together. We were all still virgins at that point so it was just puppy love and very innocent. Our clandestine relationship didn’t last long; Rebekah caught us the following weekend. We were walking down Bayshore holding hands and she drove by with her mom and screamed. I felt so bad; she didn’t talk to me for six months.”

“Six months,” I said, rolling over. “Talk about an eternity.”

“She told me she was heartbroken, but within a matter of days she found someone else. Her pride just got bruised a bit. Rebekah wasn’t used to her second fiddle, smelly, tomboy friend getting the guy. That’s all.”

“So, let me ask you this. Did you guys make it out of high school as virgins?"

Julia laughed and sipped her drink. “Obviously Sarah made it and is still going strong.

Technically, Rebekah made it because she left school halfway through junior year. Her virginity disappeared way before mine; I think she beat me by six or seven months. I finally gave in to Barry’s constant begging on my eighteenth birthday. That was his gift to me. I only had two months to go until graduation anyway.”

“Barry was your first and only?”

“Hell no. I messed around in college. Thank God. Otherwise I’d have thought it was normal for a guy to last two minutes, grunt, and fall asleep. I had three lovers at FSU and another at Stetson. What about you? Did you make it out of high school a virgin?”

“Easy to do when you’re in a home filled with girls,” I replied.

“Did you and the other girls ever—”

“Not my cup of tea.”

“Me neither. Rebekah went that way when she first started modeling. We were drunk once and she said something about experimenting with Kate Moss. I didn’t have the nerve to bring it up during a sober moment.”

“I never did anything sexual in high school. I was a late bloomer.”

“How old?”

“Twenty-five.”

“No shit!” Julia yelled and sat up. “Twenty-five?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, who was he? Superman?”

“He didn’t know I was a virgin when we got together. I didn’t feel the need to bring it up. Besides, I didn’t seem like the virginal type.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I wasn’t interested in sex before him. I would think about it, but ultimately sex meant being naked in someone else’s arms.”

Julia looked at me over her sunglasses. “That is how it’s done.”

“I never understood how people regarded that as a casual thing.”

“You never thought of it as just getting laid?”

I shook my head.

“And who is this man who went where no man had gone before?”

I applied more sunblock and shrugged my shoulders. “He’s just a guy I know.”

“You still know him?”

“I still know him.”

“I’m guessing that you didn’t go nuts for the cock afterward? You are a one-man woman?”

“Don’t spread it around.”

“No one would believe me anyway.”

Julia stared at me for a moment before stretching out and lying back down.

“Hey, whatever happened to Jimmy Preston?” I asked suddenly.

“Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in years."

“He wrote me one letter when I was at Creep Home. For one reason or another, I never wrote him back. He didn’t end up with the Less Than Zero crowd, did he?”

“Nope,” she said with a smirk. “He ended up with the Coming-Out Gay After High School crowd.”

“Really?”

“There were about ten of them from our class. That has to be some kind of record. Rebekah dated seven of them.”

“Another record,” I said. “Did she date Jimmy?”

“Not once; I don’t think he even asked her. You were it, babe. After you left, he decided to switch teams, quit school, buy a dress, and move to Vegas.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Next time you’re there, don’t miss his drag show. It’s the best on the Strip.”