Sprout

and squeezed the same nonexistent breasts she’d brandished four years ago on the Buhler Grade School playground—“I’ve looked at the world a little differently. I mean, it kind of makes you wonder if biology really is destiny. Estrogen and cholesterol start racing through your system, and before you know it the boys you used to think were so icky and like, gross and oh my God I’m gonna PUKE if he sticks his tongue down my throat suddenly seem”— BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP —“the word I’m looking for, honey? Ian? Honey? What’s the word I want?”
    “Um … ”
    “Vital! That’s the word! Boys just suddenly seem, like, vital for your continued existence. Like text messages, or the right shade of lipstick, or, I don’t know, one of those Balenciaga bags Nicole Richie is always carrying around. I mean, Nicole Richie is so over, duh, but whatever: why was Ian the right bag for me? It’s not like I even liked him before. Heck, I kind of hated him if you want to get right down to it. I’m not saying I spent my nights fantasizing about him driving his car into a telephone”— BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP —“and going through the windshield and cutting his pretty little face into Freddy Krueger hamburger or, I don’t know, reaching his arm into an auger and getting it chewed off or having an engine fall off a passing 747 like it did in Donnie Darko and kill him while he slept. Nothing like that. But he was such a guy’s guy. Know what I mean, Sprout? A guy’s guy? The kind of guy who goes boo-ya! whenever someone mentions the Crusaders, and makes farting sounds when the teacher’s back is turned, and has to take his whole”— BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP —“ing shirt off just to wipe the sweat from his forehead in gym. But, you know, off goes the shirt, and out come the abs. Show Sprout your abs, baby.”
    “I’m pretty sure he’s—”
    “ Show him your abs! ”
    Ian squirmed like a nervous dog looking for a place to pee, then finally pulled up his shirt to expose a couple inches of skin.
    “Pretty nice, huh? Right, Sprout? Ian’s abs? Nice?”
    “Yeah, they’re, um”— BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP .
    “They’re hard to tell if she was acting or not. “Ugh,” she said. “I hate myself, but I’m a slave to these abs.”
    Ian’s face was as red as a paddled bottom, but at the same time there was an excited glint in his eyes, a half-proud, half-sheepish smirk on his face. He had great abs, and he knew it.
    “But I mean he’s not all abs—or biceps, for that matter, or those cute li’l dimples when he smiles.”
    Ian’s smile, still nervous, widened, and the dimples obligingly appeared.
    “He’s got a great butt too!” Ruthie’s laugh burst from her mouth like a cuckoo jumping out of its clock. “Kidding!” she sang. “I’m kidding! No, he’s actually a reasonably nice guy”— BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP —“for-crap taste in music though.”
    “Hey, Daughtry is—”
    “ Crap taste in music,” Ruthie emphasized, “and that whole Abercrombie look is—how can I put this delicately?—a bit homosexual mall. But his little brother has autism—”
    “Asperger’s—”
    “—and Ian is like totally sweet to him. Like he helps him with his homework and plays catch with him and lets him sit on his lap to watch TV for hours at a time. I mean, it almost makes you wish every little kid had autism—”
    “Asperger’s—”
    “—just so Ian could be as nice to them as he is to his little brother, and so—”
    BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.
    Ruthie stopped.
    Turned.
    Glared at me.
    “Okay, I give up. What is the deal with the bleeping?”
    Let’s pause to catch our breath, okay?
    In case you haven’t figured it out, we’re in the back of Ruthie’s mom’s hand-me-down BMW convertible. I mean, I’m in the back of Ruthie’s mom’s hand-me-down BMW convertible. Ruthie and Ian are in the front, and you’re just along for the ride. And so whatever: I apologize if you’re a little confused as to how we ended up here. I mean, I ended up here. But trust me, you’re not half as confused as I am.
    The simple explanation is that Mrs. Miller said, “You still drive your mom’s hand-me-down car, don’t you, Ruthie? That BMW? A dark blue convertible?” and then she said she was running late for the hairdresser and asked Ruthie if she would take me home. That part was probly pretty obvious, right? And I mean it probly makes sense too that Ruthie was macking on Ian, since she’d told me at the beginning of the year