it was a little pet. No matter what time it went off, he’d read it and respond. Like he was so important that he couldn’t even wait a second, like someone would die if he didn’t answer them right away.”
Fran nodded like he understood. He was just as confident as he’d been in high school, which surprised her. She thought maybe time or the breakup would have taken something off of him, but it hadn’t. After their second beer, he got them each another, and when he sat back down, he put his hand on her upper thigh, just letting it rest there right next to the crotch of her jeans.
He didn’t move his hand, just started moving his fingers, drumming them. Then he started moving his thumb in circles on the top part of her thigh, and rubbed his fingers on her inner thigh, his pinky just sometimes brushing against her, lightly, until she couldn’t sit still.
He kept talking while he did this—about his job, his old apartment, what he missed about the neighborhood—just kept circling his fingers, as though he had no idea what he was doing, until she couldn’t listen to him anymore, and when he leaned over to kiss her, she turned to face him, straddling one of his thighs, moving back and forth, grinding against him, both of them making appreciative noises as they moved.
Later, as they lay in bed and sniffed the dryer-sheet air, Fran laughed. “What?” Claire asked.
“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” he said.
“Surprised at what?” She rolled away from him and sat up, holding the sheets in front of her and feeling very, very naked.
“At this. You were always so quiet in high school.”
“I wasn’t quiet,” Claire said.
“Well, you didn’t talk to me.” He stretched his arms above him.
“I talked to you. We hooked up, remember?” She felt like digging her nails into his arm until it hurt.
“I remember,” he said. “Don’t get so worked up.”
“I’m not worked up.”
“Okay,” he said. He put his face next to her and started to kiss her, then pulled her on top of him. He still tasted like tobacco and cinnamon gum, but his face felt different now. He had stubble that seemed harder, more grown up. As they kissed, she was aware of all of this, and still had time to think, This is a dumb move.
LAINIE AND BRIAN HAD SEX freshman year of high school, and when Lainie told her about it, Claire tried to listen, but she was so far away from it, so far from that actually happening to her, that it didn’t make much sense. It was like somebody telling you about a safari that they went on; you understood why they were excited, but you couldn’t actually imagine a giraffe coming up and licking your hand, and so you just nodded and smiled.
After that happened, Lainie joined the Group of Girls Who Have Sex With Their Boyfriends. It was like a club. Claire never totally understood how they all identified one another, but somehow girls from all different groups of friends would smile knowingly at each other during the health portion of gym class, nod at each other in the hallways. Sometimes, Claire would walk into the bathroom at school and find Lainie whispering with Margie Schuller and Tracy King, two girls they weren’t even friends with, and she knew without asking what the three of them were talking about.
When Claire finally had sex, her junior year in college, she didn’t tell Lainie right away. She didn’t want Lainie to welcome her into the club, like she was the president, like she owned sex because she’d done it first.
And even now, as she told Lainie about Fran, it was strangely uncomfortable. Claire just blurted it out, knowing that Lainie would be hurt if she didn’t tell her.
“You’re sleeping with Fran?” Lainie asked her.
“Not sleeping,” Claire explained. “Slept. Once.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you right now. What did you want me to do? Call you from his bed?”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I sort of can’t either.”
“I do not see you guys together,” Lainie said.
“Yeah, I know, right?” Claire was offended, but tried not to show it.
“So, do you think you’ll see him again?”
“Who knows? Probably not,” Claire said.
But Fran called her the next day, as she thought he would, and they saw each other that night. And then the next night and the one after that.
“It’s fun,” she said to Lainie, as if that explained it all.
The truth was that most