“I didn’t. I borrowed Lily’s diaphragm.”
“Gross.”
“I washed it first, duh. For, like, two hours,” she laughs.
“That’s still gross,” I say.
“Whatever. Better than getting PG.” She hops off the bed and walks to the window, picks up the avocado plant, holds it to the light. “I need to change this water.”
“I’m going to wait,” I say.
“Wait for what?”
“Until I fall in love.”
Anna puts the jar back down, says nothing, stands with her back to me, whatever window she opened between us, shut.
“Maybe I won’t wait. I don’t know,” I scramble. “I guess it sounds dumb.”
“No, I think it’s a good idea,” she says, turning to me.
“You do?”
“For you. Just not for me. I doubt I’ll ever fall in love. I’m not the type.”
* * *
—
We drive home in the dark. The car smells of fresh apples. Becky and I sit in back playing coochie catchers.
“Pick a number,” she says, going first.
“Three.”
She opens and closes the beaky paper mouth three times.
“Pick a color.”
“Blue.”
She unfolds the blue triangle to reveal my fortune.
Inside she has written: You will go to third base with a fat oily pig. She has the handwriting of an eight-year-old.
“You’re so gross,” I laugh. “Your turn.” I pick up my own catcher and put my fingers into the paper triangle slots. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open. She points to red.
I open the flap.
“A mysterious stranger will soon come into your life.” She reads what I have written in a whisper. “And he will put his penis in you.”
“I did NOT write that. Psycho,” I say.
“Wait.” Becky leans across me and unzips her father’s duffel, careful not to let him hear. She pulls out a white book with no cover. “You think I’m gross?”
The book is filled with black-and-white drawings. Picture after picture of a couple doing it. The woman looks like the wife on The Bob Newhart Show, except naked. The man has long dark hair and a beard. He is wearing an open shirt and nothing else. His penis dangles out from the bottom of his shirttails. He’s revolting. I think about Anna having sex with that college guy. The thought of her with someone she barely knows makes me feel sad for her, and I wonder if, deep inside, she regrets it. Because once you do it, you can never undo it.
Becky turns the page to a different illustration: the woman is leaning against a wall. The man is on his knees with his face in her crotch.
“Blech,” Becky whispers. “Can you imagine anything more disgusting? She probably tastes like pee.”
“Ewww.” We start laughing so hard it hurts.
“What’s the joke?” Dixon asks from the front seat. “I want in.”
Becky shoves the book back in her dad’s duffel.
“We were reading,” I say.
“Elle, you know reading in the car makes you sick,” Mum says. She opens the glove compartment and takes out a plastic baggie. “Just in case.” She hands it to me. “But for god’s sake, if you do feel sick, try to hold it until we can pull over. The smell of vomit makes me want to vomit.”
4:10 P.M.
I let my lungs ache until, unable to bear it another second, I wrench my head out of the water, breaking for air. Something bites my ankle, sharp, quick. I panic, feeling its pull. Jonas pops up out of the water in front of me. He laughs at the look of panic on my face.
“Are you insane? I thought you were a snapper.” I swim away from him, furious, but he grabs my bikini bottom.
“Let go.”
“I’m not letting go.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“I’m not.” He yanks me closer to him. “You know I’m not.”
“You were late.”
“Your children are fish. They wouldn’t come out of the water.”
“I know.” I sigh. “Sometimes I want to put their boogie boards through a wood chipper. I don’t know how Peter has the patience.”
We tread water, apart but together.
“Gina senses something,” I say. “There was a weird moment when I first got there.” In the distance, Maddy and Finn chase each other around on the shore. Behind them, my mother hangs a white linen tablecloth on the line. I hear a door slam, the linger of Gina’s laugh. Jonas hears it, too. I look away from him.