Totally and Completely Fine(37)

I could see the struggle on Gabe’s face—wanting to brag about all the girls he’d hooked up with （especially after he’d joined the football team） but also knowing that it probably wasn’t what his current girlfriend wanted to hear.

“I did okay,” he mumbled, eyes down at the floor.

“I was never popular with the guys in high school,” Allyson said with a sigh. “I didn’t see a penis until college.”

Chani and I laughed at that, while Gabe just looked even more uncomfortable.

“I can’t count the number of penises I saw before I even went to college,” Chani said. “Jewish summer camp is the horniest place on earth.”

Gabe opened his mouth to say something but then seemed to think better of it.

“How old were you?” I asked.

She thought about it. “Sixteen? Fifteen?”

I glanced back at the office door, hoping that Lena hadn’t heard any of this. Then I lowered my voice.

“Lena’s probably too young for the sex talk, right?”

Gabe looked horrified. Chani amused. Allyson thoughtful.

“I don’t remember when my parents told me,” Allyson said. “I’m sure they taught me about it at my Berkeley Montessori elementary school.”

“Elementary school?” I echoed.

There was no way we’d had sex ed in elementary school.

“It was dinner conversation,” Chani said. At Gabe’s look, she continued: “Liberal Jew, remember? There’s no such thing as an inappropriate topic with my family.”

“I’ll take that as a warning,” Gabe said.

“Don’t worry.” She patted him on the arm. “I don’t think they’ll ask you anything too personal. At least not at the first dinner. After that, you might want to think about how you’re going to answer blunt questions about your finances and what it’s like doing nude scenes.”

I stifled a laugh at my brother’s shell-shocked look.

Chani winked at me and went to check out some books.

“She’s joking, right?” Gabe asked.

“Sure,” I said.

He disappeared after her, probably hoping for confirmation that it was, in fact, a joke.

“What about you?” Allyson asked. “When did you have the sex talk?”

I thought about it. “Never,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken about sex with my mother.”

“Really?”

“I’m just lucky that I wasn’t taught that sex was sinful and dirty,” I said, thinking about Spencer. “Just that it was dangerous and bad.”

“Isn’t that basically the same thing?”

I shrugged. “One involves god judging you, the other involves everyone else judging you.”

“I think I’d prefer god,” Allyson said, going back to her book.

I chewed my bottom lip.

“I should probably talk to Lena about sex, right?”

“Probably.” Allyson didn’t even look up.

“I probably should have done it already.”

At my tone, Allyson’s attention focused back on me.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re doing your best.”

I snorted. People needed to stop saying that.

Even if it was true.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said with conviction.

“Great,” Allyson said.

Lena came out of the office, a pile of books in her arms, an annoyed expression on her face.

“One of the books isn’t there,” she said. “The new Mona Morris.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I looked everywhere.”

I put my hand to my head, realizing. “Sorry,” I said. “I think I shelved it.”

Lena’s look told me she was not impressed.

“It’s just in the fiction section at the end,” I said.

She let out the loudest, most aggrieved sigh I’d ever heard and trudged off to get her friend’s book.

“That kid really has it rough,” Allyson said.

“She thinks so,” I said.

“EW! GROSS!”

Lena came tearing out from around the corner, her face red and scrunched with disgust, hands balled into tight little fists.

I was about to ask what was going on when Gabe and Chani emerged from behind her. Their sheepish expressions, and the way both of their shirts were now untucked, made it clear exactly what they’d been doing.

“You’re kidding me,” I said. “You literally live upstairs!”

“I’m scarred for life,” Lena said, rubbing her eyes as if she’d been blinded.

“We were just, we weren’t—” Gabe tried but I stopped him.

Because they were, and they would.

“You’re coming in this weekend and moving those shelves,” I told him. “The stacks are closed for business.”

* * *

—

There was something in the air. I would have chalked it up to the weather, but we’d been surrounded by the same lousy gray sludge for weeks now. Maybe it was making people feel like entering an extended hibernation, getting all warm and snuggly with someone else, but whatever it was, I hated it.