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I felt so awful, I couldn’t even VERBALIZE it. I felt like a total jerk. Kind of like how I felt at dinner, when Michael was talking about his Sociology in Science Fiction class, and how in Orwell’s 1984, the Lottery is used as a way to control the masses, giving them false hope that they might one day be able to leave their dead-end jobs, and how in Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s wife is totally unsympathetic to his problems with setting books on fire for a living and how all she ever does is talk on the phone with her friends about some fictional TV show called the White Clown. I couldn’t help remembering that all Lilly and Tina and I ever talk about half the time is Charmed.
But, hello, how can you NOT talk about that show?
But maybe that’s all part of the government’s strategy to keep us from noticing what they’re up to with the clear-cutting of the national forests and the passing of laws that keep teens from being able to seek reproductive health care without their parents’ consent….
Besides, sometimes I think Michael won’t ever stop talking about the shows he likes, like 24 and, lately, 60 Minutes.
Anyway, I did my best to make it up to Michael about the whole not-inviting-him-over-to-the-hotel thing. I put my hand on his and gazed deeply into his eyes and said, “Michael, I really am sorry. Not just about that, either. But the whole…well, everything.”
But instead of saying he forgave me or anything like that, Michael just went, “Fine. The question is, when ARE you going to be ready?”
And I was like, “Ready for what?”
And he said, “It.”
It took me a minute to figure out what he meant.
And then, when it finally dawned on me, I turned bright red.
“Um,” I said.
Then I thought fast.
“How about after the prom,” I said, “on a king-sized bed with white satin sheets in a deluxe suite with Central Park views at the Four Seasons, with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries upon arrival, and an aromatherapy bath for after, then waffles for two in bed the next morning?”
To which Michael replied, very calmly, “One, I’m never going to the prom again and you know it, and two, I can’t afford the Four Seasons—which you also know. So, why don’t you give that answer another try?”
Damn! Tina is so LUCKY to have a boyfriend she can push around. WHY isn’t Michael as malleable as BORIS?
“Look,” I said, desperately trying to think of some way to get out of the whole situation. Because it wasn’t going AT ALL the way I’d planned it in my head. In my head, I told Michael I wasn’t ready to Do It and he said okay and we played some Boggle and that was the end of it.
Too bad things never work out the way they do inside my head.
“Do I have to decide this right NOW?” I asked, deciding DELAY was the best strategy at this point. “I have a lot on my mind. I mean, it’s possible that at this very moment, my mom could be exposing Rocky to some very harmful stimuli, such as clog dancing, or even funnel cakes. And I have this debate thing on Monday…Did I mention that Grandmère and Lilly are working on it together? I mean, it’s like Darth Vader joining forces with Ann Coulter, only leftist. I’m telling you, I’m a wreck. Can I take a rain check on this whole thing?”
“Absolutely,” Michael said, with a smile that was so sweet, it made me want to lean over to kiss him….
Until he added, “But just so you know, Mia, I’m not going to wait around forever.”
This caused me to pause just as my lips were on the way to his.
Because he didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to wait around forever for my answer. Oh, no. He meant he wasn’t going to wait around forever to Do It.
He didn’t say it like it was a threat, or anything. He said it kind of lightly, even jokingly.
But I could tell it wasn’t really a joke. Because boys really do expect you to Do It. Someday.
I didn’t know what to
say. Actually, I don’t think I could have spoken after that if I’d tried. Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because there was a knock on the door, and Lars’s voice called, “The game is over. It’s after midnight. Time to go, Princess,” which of course caused Michael and me to spring to separate sides of the room.
(I just asked Lars how he has such an uncanny knack for picking the wrong—or right, as the case may be—moment to interrupt me when I’m alone with Michael, and he went, “As long as I hear voices, I’m not worried. It’s when things get quiet I start to wonder what’s going on. Because—no offense, Your Highness—but you talk a lot.”)
Anyway. So that’s it.
Lana was right.
All boys want to Do It.
