Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,23

whatever neutral topic I could. “I’m in my dad’s wedding,” I said.

“What?” Candace clucked her tongue. “I can’t believe he’s getting married already. What colors are they using?”

“Like, orange or something,” I said.

“Oh boy,” she said. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess. Polly is nice enough,” I said. She was, and in that sense, I was okay. It wasn’t like my dad was giving me a stepmother like Jacqueline. I found I didn’t have much to say about the wedding after all. I smoothed down the glossy page of Cosmo. “Are you ready for practice tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she said. “It’ll be nice to hang out with the girls.”

“Yeah, I can hardly wait to spend more time with Wendy Kowalski,” I said. “She’s a gem.”

“Did you see the way she leaned all over Coach McMann when she was spelling her name for his list?”

I had. I’d wanted to shove her out of the way. “Do you think everyone has a crush on him?” I asked, and my throat felt tight at the thought.

“He’s a teacher,” she said, like this explained something. “I doubt anyone’s, like, into him into him, but who wouldn’t like having a cute coach? And soccer’s something to do.”

“But so is pep club, or yearbook, or, like, badminton,” I said.

“Pep club and yearbook are run by bitches,” Candace said, reminding me that she’d gone to meetings for both of those things last year and quit right away. “And badminton is like tennis’s weird cousin.”

“I wish I were out of high school and met Bobby at the gas station or something.” I wanted to talk about Bobby but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it, even with Candace, who was my oldest friend. Of course she knew I thought Bobby was cute, but that I imagined meeting him outside of school was a new revelation that made my stomach rise up in my rib cage as I waited for what she would say.

“He’s a teacher,” she said again, but this time like it was a law I’d broken. My stomach dropped back down.

“I know,” I said, the edge of a whine creeping into my voice. “It’s just weird, because my dad was twenty-three when he met my mom, and she was eighteen. I’m seventeen and Coach McMann is probably about twenty-two.”

“I don’t know, Susan,” she said, sounding like her mom. “An older guy is different than a teacher, you know?”

“You’re right,” I sighed, because she was. “We don’t know anyone that hot, though.”

“Reggie is hot,” Candace said. I held back the gagging noise I wanted to make.

“But Coach McMann is like a movie star,” I said.

“That’s your problem. You always get crushes on movie stars because you’re afraid to confront a real-life penis,” Candace said, clearly enjoying her expertise as someone with many penis confrontations to my zero.

“It’s not fear. The penises in Powell Park are attached to the boys in Powell Park, is what it is,” I said.

“I don’t know. I think you should try to be more realistic and go out with someone at school.”

Like you do, with every single boy we know, who all treat you like shit, I wanted to say. I’d rather squeeze my legs together through a million of my fantasies than have to put up with some guy who thought it was sexy to pretend a girl’s nipples were radio dials. I bet Bobby wouldn’t do that.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, annoyed. “I’d better get some sleep.”

We hung up and I went back to the magazine, alone. Candace was wrong. Maybe actually dating Coach McMann was unrealistic right now, but at least I had good taste. Every real-life guy I’d met before was a gutter ball, but Coach McMann had bowled me over. If anyone was unrealistic, it was Candace, for thinking that a football team neanderthal like Reggie was going turn into boyfriend material because of one hand job. It was more likely that his dick would start laying golden eggs.

I read through Cosmo’s tips carefully, but I was confused over which would work best. So I fell asleep after deciding to try each one until something clicked.

Tip #1: Skip the bra. Men love a woman who embraces freedom. If you catch him looking, smile.

So Monday Susan went to practice without a bra.

It was hard to find a shirt that wouldn’t emphasize the unevenness of my breasts, but I finally settled on an old Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt of Tonia’s that was soft from the wash and clung just right. But I