I have this idea in my head that things will be different once I get to California, that the kids there are classy and drink wine with their pinkies out, that the guys don’t get drunk on Keystone Light and then try to smoke weed out of the empty can. But maybe people are the same everywhere.
We’ve been sent on a dumpster drive, so the car is piled with bags of trash we’re supposed to drop—empty bottles and cans that we couldn’t leave as evidence inside the house. I’m in the back seat with Hannah, who looks a little green, probably from the smell wafting out of the trash bags. Unfortunately for all of us, Ava loves musical theater, so we’re currently listening to a song from Wicked that’s about three octaves too high for the day after a party.
“For the love of God, can we turn this off?” Danielle reaches for the stereo, but Ava slaps her hand away.
“No! ‘Defying Gravity’ is literally the best song of all time. Are you telling me this doesn’t make you feel something?”
“Yeah,” Danielle says. “It makes me feel like I want to die.”
“Careful,” Ava says. “I could put on Cats instead. Cats is terrifying.”
Ava has been the star of every school musical since freshman year. She’ll be at NYU next year with Hannah, and although their majors are different, the image of the two of them exploring New York City together makes my heart hurt if I think about it for too long.
“Is there a musical where all the songs are just relaxing ocean sounds? Let’s listen to that,” Hannah says, leaning her head against the window.
We’re on a curvy back road lined on either side with pine trees. Prescott is full of roads like these, carving through the middle of nowhere. Downtown is only a four-block strip lined with shops and restaurants. In the summer, the nearby lake draws tons of tourists: families with inner tubes and giant tubs of sunscreen, or hikers with backpacks and dreadlocks passing through on the Appalachian Trail. Fall brings the leaf-peepers, city people from New York or Boston who drive so slowly on the roads they’re a hazard to traffic. But in early March, we’re a ghost town.
As we pull onto a busier street, Dunkin’ Donuts appears on our left, a glorious pink and orange beacon of all things good in the world. Danielle drives right past it.
“What are you doing?” Ava shrieks. “I need caffeine! I have a headache!” This is hard to believe from the decibel of her voice. Ava always projects like she’s trying to reach the back of an auditorium. Sometimes people get on her about being too theater kid, but I kinda like that about her. She always feels everything totally and completely. One time in ninth-grade English she cried while reading this poem out loud to the class and she wasn’t even embarrassed about it.
“We’re going to the one on Base Hill instead.” Danielle rolls her eyes as if this should be obvious. Dunkin’ Donuts locations dot our state like confetti. There are three in our county alone, even though we don’t even have a movie theater and have to drive almost an hour to get to a mall. “They just put one in right next to that gym where all the EVmU guys work out.”
Eastern Vermont University, our local college, is known for its herbology department, if you know what I mean. Lots of kids from Prescott go there on the weekends to crash parties, but I’ve never wanted to put myself through that; a college party sounds like literal torture.
“What, now that you’re a woman you only want college boys?” I ask Danielle, grinning.
“We’ve given high school boys too many chances,” she says.
“I hate that expression by the way,” Hannah says. “The concept that you have to get penetrated by a peen in order to become a woman. Like, why are we giving guys so much power?”
“And what about lesbians?” I add.
“Yes!” Ava says. “Chase Brosner does not have a magical penis.”
“Thank God,” Danielle says. “His ego is already big enough.”
“No guy has a magical penis,” I say, laughing. “They all just think they do.”
“Have you talked to Chase?” Hannah asks. “You know . . . since?”
Danielle pulls the car sharply into a turn, ignoring a yield sign. “We both got what we wanted. He’s an idiot if he thinks it’s ever going to happen again after that show last night.”
“He’s such an asshole.” Ava nods in agreement. “It’s like Charlie all over again.” She glances back at Hannah. “They act like they care about you, but it’s all a big joke, isn’t it? They only care about you until they cum.”
“There’s already a bag of trash sitting next to me,” Hannah says. “Do we really have to talk about Charlie?”
“I’m just being honest,” Ava says, her voice rising. “Isn’t it depressing that none of us is still with the guy we lost our virginity to? When you care too much, it just hurts you.” She turns around in her seat, eyeing me pointedly. “Keely, you’re lucky you’re still a virgin.”
“Whatever. I don’t regret it.” Danielle pulls into the parking lot and stops the car in front of the gym, shifting a little too forcefully into park. We watch as a beefy guy in his midtwenties pushes open the gym door, holding it for a girl behind him. She walks through into the cold air, wrapping her arms around his waist like she belongs there.
“It’s only going to get worse in college,” Danielle says. “You’re supposed to be done with the awkward part, right? You’re supposed to get that out of the way in high school.” She looks right at me. “Being a virgin in college is like having a disease.”
Ava was right about the espresso, of course. Penetration did nothing to change Danielle’s taste buds, and after one sip, she orders something that’s mostly whipped cream. While she and Ava wait at the counter for her second drink, Hannah and I walk our coffees back to a table in the corner.
“Danielle’s just putting on a show, you know,” Hannah says, taking a hesitant sip of her latte. “She’s pretending she doesn’t care, because Chase literally screwed her over. That thing she just said about having a disease is such an unhealthy mind-set.” She fiddles with the lid of her cup. “Honestly, virginity shouldn’t even be that big of a deal. We only make it a big thing because we put all this pressure on it. You shouldn’t worry about being a virgin. Everybody thinks it’s fine.”
“That’s the problem though.” I set down my coffee. “Everybody knows. Everybody shouldn’t think it’s fine, because everybody shouldn’t know.”
I went with Hannah to The Rocky Horror Picture Show last Halloween, dressed up in wigs and corsets. When we first arrived, the show’s emcee took a tube of bright red lipstick and drew a big V on each of our foreheads to let the rest of the audience know we were “Rocky Virgins” and this was our first time seeing the show. This is how I feel every day in the halls of Prescott—like everyone in school can still see that big red V on my forehead, like I never washed it off.