Sixteen And Now I Know
Named Gene

I. Eleven

10:31. "Wait," I hiss. I cup the receiver with a hand and clutch it to my chest.

Leaning against the doorframe, peering out into the hall, I listen. Downstairs, my mother huffs, the defiant clinking of utensils evading the dishwasher. At one end of the hall my grandfather snores in his room with what Father calls insolence, while my brother echoes him from the other end. The night is mine. I slink back into the room, catching my reflection as I pass a mirror.

My sundress billows out and swishes like a window curtain. I tighten the satin green ribbon tied around my waist, in vain hopes of hourglassing my figure. Last year I decided I wanted boobs like Annalise, who is my age, but with the body of a high schooler. Still waiting. To compensate my skirts are getting shorter and sometimes I even wear eye shadow, thick and weighted like those girls I see on 7th Street. Once my sister told me to wash it off before Mom got home and threw a hissy fit, and that I looked like a raccoon. I'm eleven, she is three years older than me, that makes her right most of the time.

I slide barefoot across carpet onto tile, and close the bathroom door behind me. It smells like my mother's shampoos, peaches and vanilla and sophistication, and I hop onto the sink counter and tuck my dress beneath me and take my hand off the phone. "Okay."

"So...?"

"So..." I bite my lip, wondering if Annalise will understand these new developments. After all, she likes Pat, and Pat likes boys - everyone knows but Annalise. I click my heels together as if they're sparkling sequined red, like Dorothy. "I talked with Keith today."

"Which one?"

"Keith Keith, who else?"

"And?"

"He wanted to know when I was going to kiss him."

"Well don't! Did you?"

"Course not." I finger the old lace bordering my hemline. "I said he had to wait 'til I'm ready. And he said okay, if we can hold hands and sit together at lunch still. So I said okay." A fine white strand comes loose from between my fingers. I let it fall. "Why, what's wrong with Keith?"

"Lots. Like since he's stopped being friends with the Tim's he's been hanging around Sean."

"So?"

"So Sean picks his nose everyday during math and wipes his hand under his desk. And sometimes he doesn't even wipe and goes up to the board when Mr. Denski asks. He thinks no one sees him, but," she takes a breath, "I see him."

"That's not something you catch, Annalise."

"Not something you catch, Annalise," she mimics. "Besides," she says, "Jeffrey is cuter and so right for you."

"He is not."

"Is too. And he skateboards now, just like Pat. I heard him tell Pat at recess."

"He only said it because you were listening."

"I know. Hold for a sec." There is a dull thud, and then I can hear her faucet running, the swisha swasha of her toothbrush. I know. Annalise couldn't know. She hadn't found anyone yet as close to a man as Keith was, large long painter hands, low jazz voice, butterfly eyelashes.

I met him when he walked into the classroom and said they were moving him from Mrs. Rizzo's class, and sat himself in the desk behind me. Mrs. Mitchell told the class to introduce ourselves, and when I did, he wiggled my chair with his feet and said my name, Daria, Daaaria, stretching out the syllables.

While Mrs. Mitchell wrote on the blackboard, he slipped a origami pinwheel in my hair, behind my ear. I felt it prick my skin and I turned, startled, and it fell out of my hair. The back row erupted into giggles. He must've picked it up again, because when no one was looking, he slipped it into my back pocket. He almost touched my butt...

When the bell rang, I ran out before anyone else, into the bathroom, and locked myself in a stall, accidentally slamming the door with unceremonious jitters. Took it out, unfolded it with delicate fingers, a fluttering in my chest.

Hi...

She spits. "Back," Annalise says.

"Mm hmm," I say.

"My parents are being so unfair..."

She's changed the subject, there's no going back. I swing my legs off the sink counter, clicking my heels again like Dorothy, dress billowing like a window curtain. Maybe it's for the better. Boys are a girl topic, designed for sleepovers, under the covers, giggling and chittering in the darkness, lighting candles and blowing them out again. But kissing, you aren't supposed to talk about it.

These things just happen, like cakes, or babies.

10:35.