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But I didn’t want Lilly to see how much her comment hurt me, so I just shrugged and said, “Whatever. I know you touched Boris you-know-where. He told Tina.”
But Lilly, instead of gagging, as would have been the proper response, just looked up at the ceiling and said, “You are so juvenile.”
“Seriously, Lilly.” I couldn’t help but let a little of the hurt I felt creep into my voice. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Because it was no big deal,” Lilly said.
“No big deal? You TOUCHED one.”
“Do we really have to discuss this in the middle of the caf?” Lilly wanted to know.
“Well, where else are we going to discuss it? Back at the lunch table, in front of your BOYFRIEND?”
“All right,” Lilly said, turning back to the taco bar. “So I touched one. What do you want to know about it?”
I couldn’t believe we were having this discussion over vats of sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese. But it was Lilly’s fault. She couldn’t have brought it up at one of our slumber parties, like a normal girl. Oh, no, not Lilly. She had to keep it this giant secret, until BORIS, of all people, spilled the beans.
The thing is, even though it was totally embarrassing and sort of gross and all…I really wanted to know.
I know. It’s sick. But I did.
“Well,” I said. Fortunately there was no one else around, as everyone seemed to be going for the stir fry. “For starters, what did it feel like?”
Lilly just shrugged. “Skin.”
I stared at her. “That’s all? Just…skin?”
“Um, that’s what it’s made out of,” Lilly said. “What would you expect it to feel like?”
“I don’t know,” I said. It’s kind of hard to judge these
things through layers of denim. Especially button-fly. That is a lot of rivets. “In Tina’s romance novels, they always say it feels like molten satin over a steel rod of desire.”
Lilly considered this. Then she shrugged again and went, “Well, yeah. That, too.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m officially going to throw up.”
“Well, don’t do it in the guacamole. Will you go away now?”
“No,” I said. “What does Michael want to talk to me about at Number One Noodle Son?”
“Probably,” Lilly said, “that he wants you to Touch It.”
When I lifted the serving spoon from the sour cream and aimed it at her, she shrieked and said, laughing, “Seriously, I don’t know. I’ve barely seen him this summer, he’s been so busy with his stupid electrical engineering project.”
So I put the spoon down. I knew she was telling the truth. Michael had been busy with his Advanced Topics in Control Theory course, which he explained to me, when I asked what the heck that meant, was all about robots. His final project for the class had been a robotic arm that could be used to help perform closed-chest, beating heart surgery, “the ultimate goal,” Michael had said, “in the robotic surgery field.”
Yes. I have a boyfriend who builds robots. It’s SO COOL!!!!!
When Lilly and I got back to the table, it was really hard for me even to look at Boris’s face—although it’s actually semi-attractive now that he no longer wears a bionater and started seeing a dermatologist and got Lasik eye surgery and all of that.
Still. All I can see when I look at him now is Lilly’s hand down his pants. Right there with his sweater.
“Oh my God, Mia,” Ling Su cried as I sat down. “What happened to your hair?”
This is really not the kind of thing you want to hear when you’ve just gotten your hair cut.
“Astor Place Hairstylists,” I said. “Why? You don’t like it?”
