is not one of those amazing, superathletic competitive teams—there are no backflips off crazy-high human pyramids at halftime. The most acrobatic thing that goes on here is a synchronized hair flip. And being on the cheerleading team at our school isn’t like being a cheerleader at the private school in Union— Here, it doesn’t mean you’re at the top of the food chain. Yes, some of the cheerleaders are beautiful and go out with hot jocks, but some are average-looking girls who just happen to know how to dance. Some are smart, some not. Some have money, some don’t. In other words, not all of them are popular. And to top it all off, Union High cheerleaders have kind of a slutty reputation on the whole. At least, that’s what I heard Peter say once.
So even if Tracy does make the team—and I kind of don’t think she will—she’s not automatically granted access to the top tier of Union High popularity. But I’m not about to tell her that. She’ll just accuse me of being a snob. And in some ways she’s right—after all, I think Union High’s brand of cheerleading is a waste of time and teenage girls.
But I’d still rather talk about cheerleading than virginity.
“I don’t think fifteen is too young to lose it, do you?”
I hate this part of the conversation. “I don’t know,” I mumble.
“You always say that.”
Well, what do I know? I can’t really imagine letting a guy see me naked, never mind letting him do that to me while I’m naked. So I don’t really know what to think. I don’t want to think about it at all, most of the time. Which makes me think that fourteen is probably too young. And is fifteen really that different from fourteen?
“Maybe I should go on the pill,” she says.
I nearly fall through the floor. I suddenly feel like she’s thirty and I’m still in nursery school.
“Tracy, you can’t go on the pill.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. You have to use condoms. It’s too dangerous not to,” I say.
“You’re so paranoid about sex, Rosie. You always have been. You better relax.”
She’s right about this, too. I am paranoid about sex. Maybe it’s because I have an older brother who decided to tell me all about the dangers of sex the night before he left for college. I’m not sure why Peter was so worked up about the whole thing, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was because he felt he had to fill the parental void. Since Dad died, Mom hasn’t exactly been “available” or “present” or whatever you say, which is kind of ironic, since she’s a shrink. Who specializes in adolescent psychology. When she does talk to me these days, she uses her therapy voice, which makes me go deaf almost instantly.
Thanks to her job, we have enough books on teenagers in the house that I could find the answer to pretty much any question I might have, if I felt like looking. Which I don’t. Maybe that’s why Peter called me into his room to talk about sex while he was packing.
He was listening to Coldplay and I assumed he just wanted to dissect the album and explain why he thought Chris Martin was such a hack. But, no. “Never, ever let some guy talk you into sex without a condom,” Peter had said without any sort of warning. I froze in the middle of his room. “He’ll try to tell you that he can’t feel anything, and that it will be better for both of you if you don’t use one, but he’s just being a selfish asshole. You can get all sorts of diseases from sex. Girls can even get cervical cancer from sex. So don’t listen to some loser who claims he can’t get it up with a condom on. That doesn’t happen to guys until they’re, like, old. And don’t go on the pill for anyone. But you’ll learn all about this stuff in Ms. Maso’s class—she’s the bomb.”
Peter scared the crap out of me, even though I didn’t understand half of what he said. Or maybe that’s why he scared me so much. I barely know what a cervix is. For someone with the aforementioned abnormally large vocabulary, I can be intentionally dumb sometimes.
Tracy hops off the bed and goes to her full-length mirror to check out how her butt looks in her new Rock & Republic jeans—again. You’d think we were going to a fashion show, not out for pizza. I suddenly notice that all of her boy-band posters are gone. Her walls are blank. I can’t believe it, given the amount of time we spent decorating and redecorating our walls last year. I open my mouth to ask about the posters when she says, “Matt wants me to go on the pill.”
Peter’s words about guys who don’t want to use condoms replay in my mind, and I instantly want to punch Matt. “That’s insane, Tracy. Why?”
“How about not getting pregnant? The pill protects better than condoms, you know.”
“Not against STDs.”
“Rosie, Matt and I are both virgins. He’s not going to give me anything.”
Apparently I’m not the only one who is intentionally dumb sometimes.
The words form in my mind, and I know I shouldn’t say them out loud. But I kind of can’t help myself these days. If I want to say something, I say it, for better or worse.
“Do you really know he’s never done it before, Tracy?”
She turns from the mirror and looks at me suspiciously.
“Do you know something I don’t know?”
“No!”
“Because if you do, Rosie, you’d better tell me now—”
“I don’t! But I’m just saying, Trace, how do you know Matt is a virgin?”
“Because he told me so. And I trust him,” she says slowly, as if speaking to someone who doesn’t understand English.
I can already tell it’s going to take her days to forgive me for this one. “Okay, okay, sorry.”
She stares at me for another second and then turns back to the mirror, brushing her straightened brown hair so hard I’m amazed it stays in her head.
“And he’s not going to cheat on me, either.”
At least she’s thought about that possibility. That’s a positive sign, even if she is in denial.
“I’m just saying that things happen. And it’s never a bad idea to protect yourself.” I impress myself for a minute—I actually sound like I know what I’m talking about, which is ironic because Tracy is way more experienced than me, as she often likes to point out. Even if she did get all her “experience” this summer. Which was basically last month.
The doorbell rings downstairs, and Tracy’s mom calls up to let us know that the boys are here. Tracy finishes putting on more eyeliner and leaves the room without another word to me. I grab the bag she lent me when she insisted I’d look like an idiot if I brought my backpack, and I follow her. It’s definitely going to be one of those nights.
* * *
Cavallo’s is packed. Matt stops to talk to some of his friends from the swim team—they’re seniors and they’re huge. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were on steroids. But as I’ve noticed these last four days, there is a pretty big physical difference between a fourteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old.
