Christmas Presents and Past. Janice Johnson Kay

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      He reached across the table and took her hand. “I know. It scares me, too. But it makes me mad that I should have to spend years more in school because of Nixon, even though it’s a waste of time for me.”

      She nodded. It didn’t make sense. There must be tens of thousands of guys taking college classes they didn’t even care about, just to keep from having to go to Vietnam. And that was horribly unfair to the ones who couldn’t get into college and win a deferment.

      “None of it’s fair,” she said.

      He squeezed her hand. “Let’s not worry about it right now. I don’t even have to apply to college until fall. That’s a long time away. The war might be over by then.”

      She nodded. “If Nixon starts withdrawing troops, the way he’s talked about, they might not need to keep on with the draft anyway.”

      “Right. So let’s forget it.” Will grinned at her. “You want to split a hot-fudge sundae?”

      While they were eating it, laughing when their heads bumped as they dueled with plastic spoons for luscious drips of chocolate, Dinah thought of all the things her mother was afraid she did whenever she was out at night. Mom lay awake worrying that she was smoking pot, at least, if not dropping acid or having wild sex. Here she was instead, eating a hot-fudge sundae with a boy who hadn’t even had a drink. How innocent could it get?

      Their relationship stayed innocent for a couple of months. Will always drew back when their making out got too hot and heavy, as if…She didn’t know why! Did he think she wasn’t ready? Just because she’d stiffened a couple of times when his hand touched her waistband? She was a virgin! But even though Dinah was nervous, she wanted him to unbutton her jeans and slip his hand inside her panties anyway. She just didn’t know how to tell him.

      The night Dinah started lying to her two best friends about her sexual experiences—or, actually, the lack of them—the three girls were having a sleepover at her house. The family room was downstairs from the bedrooms, so they had complete privacy. Christina had run ahead and claimed the sofa, so now she was queening it over Dinah and Susan, who sat on the floor where they’d spread their sleeping bags.

      “So, what did you and Will do last night?” Susan asked.

      “His parents weren’t home, so we just hung out.” She hadn’t planned to lie, but when she blushed at the remembrance of what she and Will had done, they both got wide-eyed.

      “You finally did it?” Christina crowed.

      She was too embarrassed to say no. So she nodded, and they both cheered.

      “Far out. It’s about time!” Christina exclaimed. A curvy brunette, she’d always been ahead of the other two. She had her first boyfriend when she was thirteen, and lost her virginity when she was fifteen. She always got this rosy glow when she talked about sex. Dinah could tell she really liked doing it.

      “You know, we only started going out two months ago,” she argued, knowing it was futile.

      Susan, who’d lost her virginity on her sixteenth birthday, gave Dinah a look. “Two months is forever.”

      Christina’s eyes widened. “He wasn’t a virgin, was he?”

      “Of course not!” Dinah disclaimed, although she started to wonder. He was a really good kisser, but that would explain why he might be shy about going further, too. “Thank goodness. One of us had to know what to do.”

      Her closest friend from the time they were in the same kindergarten class, Christina gave her an evil grin. “Haven’t we given you adequate instructions?”

      They had, although secondhand descriptions of sex didn’t make it sound very appealing. Which might be one reason, Dinah thought privately, she hadn’t been in any hurry to try it.

      The other reason being guys like Toby, who thought sticking his tongue in a girl’s mouth was enough preamble to sticking his dick into her, too. Forget romance or anything approaching tenderness.

      Susan moaned, “Wow, bummer! If you’d waited just a few weeks, you could have done it for the first time on your birthday, too. That would have been cool, having something like that in common.”

      Her birthday would be perfect, Dinah thought. One of the things she’d wondered was whether Will thought she was too young, but on her birthday she was turning seventeen, and he was still eighteen for a few more months. Officially, only one year older than her until summer.

      Immediately scheming, she realized she would never be able to tell her best friends when she did finally have sex with Will, now that she’d lied. No, maybe someday she could, when they were old, like maybe thirty, and still best friends and could laugh about her being totally humiliated to still be a virgin when she was ready to turn seventeen.

      Her birthday was on Thursday, but her party was planned for Friday night. Thursday would be for family, and for Will.

      Mom invited Will to dinner—by this time, he practically was family—and he was there when Dinah blew out seventeen candles on her cake. Then she opened her presents. Mom and Dad gave her a shirt that was actually okay, and a promise that Mom would take her shopping for a dress to wear to Will’s senior prom.

      Stephen was disgusted. “I can’t believe you’re going to the prom. Nobody goes but the cheerleaders and jocks.”

      Will didn’t act insulted. “I guess I’m a jock.”

      Dinah stuck out her tongue at her brother. “It’ll be fun. You’re just skipping yours because nobody’ll go with you.”

      Stephen was a senior at Half Moon Bay High School. It was a little bit irritating, following him through school. Teachers always remembered Stephen, because he had a big mouth. Fortunately, after a couple of weeks they’d forget she was Stephen Gallagher’s little sister, because she was an A student and always good. Nauseatingly good, according to him.

      He gave her the new Grateful Dead album she’d been wanting. Will’s present was a paring knife, which brought puzzled looks from her family.

      “Will knows I like to cook,” she said. “Chefs have their own sets.”

      “Oh.” Her mother smiled. “How thoughtful.”

      Her father scowled. Of course, he wouldn’t approve of anyone “encouraging” her in such an unsuitable ambition.

      Stephen, of course, looked disgusted. He probably thought Will should have given her some really high-quality LSD, right in front of Mom and Dad.

      “Smothers Brothers is on,” Mom said. “If you two would like to watch with us.”

      But they were okay with it when Dinah said they thought they’d go out. “I did my algebra problems right after school,” she said, anticipating any objections.

      Once they were in Will’s car, she suggested they just go to his house. “Your parents will be bowling, right?”

      “Yeah, they won’t be home until nine.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “We can do anything we want.”

      She wriggled over to snuggle against СКАЧАТЬ