Nerd Romance — Dinner with the Family and a Trip to the Bookstore
“Kids these days know so much more about sex than we did!” (Oh, I don’t think so!)
K was finishing setting the dining room table as Jenn arrived home. His sister surveyed the table at a glance before asking, “So, we’re not to be graced with the presence of Lady Dork tonight?”
He gritted his teeth and took a breath. She’s baiting you, she’s baiting you, don’t fall for it. “We have chem lab tomorrow, so there’s no homework to work on together. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Jenn gave him her phony smile. “Ah, yes, because if you don’t work on school stuff, why spend time together? That’s why I never have a boy over unless we have things to work on. School things, I mean. Of course.” She turned to her father, who had just entered the room unsuspectingly. “Hey, Dad, I’m heading over to Lisa’s house after dinner, okay?”
Their father nodded agreeably. “Sounds good. You two should be enjoying senior year while you can. Check with Mom to see if she needs help in the kitchen, please?”
Jenn nodded and almost collided with her mother, just entering with a soufflé dish. “Hi, sweetie, can you grab the green beans off the counter and bring them in? Thank you!” His mother put the soufflé on the hot pad next to the head of the table and took off her oven mitts before instructing K to get the bread basket with the dinner rolls. “And the butter — wait, never mind, I see it, you already got it, thank you.”
Everyone sat down, their father said grace, and started to dish out the food. Oh, it’s a good thing E is not here! I’ve had her mother’s spinach soufflé, and E would not be able to avoid commenting! Or just wonder out loud what in the world we were actually having. When K had dinner at his practice girlfriend’s home, he was surprised that Dr. W. had not asked the question that his father did, every time his mother’s spinach soufflé was served: “Would you like wet or crispy?” Instead, everyone got a generous serving of light, fluffy egg and spinach mixture that was delicious, but was most definitely not his mother’s recipe. Or maybe it was the cooking process that resulted in the outer portion (crispy) and inner portion (wet) of his mom’s soufflé. K was not sure he wanted to investigate.
“So, everyone have a good day at school?” This was his father’s way of heading off any questions about his day, meaning that there was no news on the job front. And it opened the floor to everyone, with both kids and their mother all going to the same high school.
His mother shook her head. “So I had my malingerers in today,” referring to a set of girls who routinely spent time in their mother’s nurse’s office at the high school, “and I overheard some of their conversation.” She half-glared at Jenn. “I don’t know what your teachers tell you girls in your sex-ed classes — ”
“Health-ed, mom, it’s called ‘Health Education’ now,” Jenn supplied helpfully.
“ — but they have the scariest notions about basic feminine hygiene and birth control. Who told them that a Coca Cola douche was a birth control method?”
K had, fortunately, just finished swallowing; his father was not so lucky. After he finished coughing, he wheezed, “Honey, I don’t think that is appropriate dinner conversation — ”
“But they need to know these things!” His mom put down her fork and assumed her “lecture” stance, elbows on the table, fingers laced in front of her. “Jenn will need to at some point, I’m sure, and now that our son has a girlfriend — ”
“Ooooh, I don’t think so!” chortled Jenn. “Birth control? Never gonna be an issue for my baby brother!”
His mom gave a sharp look at his sister before turning her attention on him. “Not just that! Every young man should have an awareness of his girlfriend’s basic needs, whether she’s a practice girlfriend or not! Do you even know when E is expecting her next period?”
There was sudden silence in the room. K felt himself turning a deep, dark red as he wished he could simply slide below the table. Oh no, Mom actually expects me to answer?
Jenn, unexpectedly, came to his rescue. Or tried to. “Mom, guys don’t exactly know a lot about — ”
“Well, it’s about time they should! Girls would be much more appreciative if boys carried a spare tampon in their wallets instead of a spare condom, don’t you think?” She was still intent on her son.
I don’t have a condom or a tampon in my wallet. How would that even work? He stalled for time by trying to take a quick swallow of water, ingested an ice cube by mistake, went to spit it out, and made a mess on his plate.
“Mom! Much as I hate to agree with the guys, Dad’s right, this is not the right conversation for dinner. I’m going to be an only child if you keep grilling my baby brother like this.”
“Well…” His mother relented and picked up her fork again. But she seized the opportunity for one last point. “The next time she’s over here, you and I and your girlfriend will have a conversation! A much needed one!”
Eating resumed, in silence. As they were cleaning off the table later, Jenn whispered to K, “So I guess we won’t be seeing Lady Dork here any time soon?” And grinned evilly for his benefit.
E darted into The Book Stall as soon as she saw K drive off to do his book deliveries. I get in, buy the book, get out. If Mrs. Williams is at the register it’ll be easy, she’s not a big talker, but if it’s Mrs. Fowler then I might get cross-examined. If it looks bad I can always abort.
She headed down the rightmost aisle, stopped halfway back, scanned the shelf where she had last seen the object of her mission… and then scanned the shelves above and below. Without success.
They moved it! Why do they keep re-arranging the shelves? It can’t be that boring during the day! Run down all the aisles? Or ask for help? The store wasn’t very large, as book stores went, but the idea was to be done before K got back and asked awkward questions. Or died from embarrassment, more likely. Drat, drat, drat!
She took a breath and headed up to the register, where she was greeted by the “Book of the Month.” And now I know where they moved the books! E blinked, removed one of the books from the display pile, and smiled at Mrs. Fowler, who looked delighted, both at her presence and her selection. “Oh hello, dear! So nice to see you again! You just missed him, but he only has two deliveries, he should be back soon if you want to wait.”
All the more reason to make this quick. “Thanks, Mrs. F., nope, just a quick purchase, I need to get home. I’ll just buy this and get going.”
Mrs. Fowler smiled. “Oh, I hope you’ll like it! I wish I’d had something like this available when I was your age! Or even after Mr. Fowler and I got married. Chapter 10 and Chapter 13 would have been very useful — well, if I had had Chapter 10, I wouldn’t have needed Chapter 13 so soon, would I? I love our son dearly, of course, but if we could have held off a few years our lives would have been easier. Still, it is what it is, yes? Sorry, didn’t mean to blather, that will be two dollars and thirty-two cents with employee discount and sales tax.”
E had been adding coins to the three single bills in her hand in anticipation of a higher price. “You don’t have to give me the employee discount, Mrs. F., he was just joking before.” But I’m not going to make a big deal about it if you insist!
The older woman chuckled and took the three dollars, then opened the cash register. “He’s a good boy, dear, and you’re good for him! Even I have seen how much happier he is since you two started going out together. And it’s my shop, so my rules, okay? There you go!” She handed E the change, put the book in a plain paper bag, and handed that over as well. “Have a nice day, dear!”
“You too, Mrs. F.!” E proceeded out the store door, then paused to put the book in her backpack before walking home. She went up to her room immediately to unload, shutting the door behind her. Mom will flip if she sees this. She’ll think anything that has stuff like this must be pornography. She started to put the book into the space behind one of her desk drawers — a hidey-hole that had protected her diary for many years — but then paused to take a quick look at the table of contents.
Chapter 10 was “Birth Control”; Chapter 13 was “Childbearing.” That jibed with what Mrs. Fowler had said. E leafed through the pages of the book, pausing at some of the headings and illustrations, before turning to the front to skim through the Preface. Near the end she read:
Picture a woman trying to do work and to enter into equal and satisfying relationships with other people when she feels physically weak because she has never tried to be strong; when she drains her energy trying to change her face, her figure, her hair, her smells, to match some ideal norm set by magazines, movies and TV, when she feels confused and ashamed of the menstrual blood that every month appears from some dark place in her body; when her internal body processes are a mystery to her and surface only to cause her trouble (an unplanned pregnancy; cervical cancer); when she does not understand or enjoy sex and concentrates her sexual drives into aimless romantic fantasies, perverting and misusing a potential energy because she has been brought up to deny it. Learning to understand, accept, and be responsible for our physical selves, we are freed of some of these preoccupations and can start to use our untapped energies. Our image of ourselves is on a firmer base, we can be better friends and better lovers, better people, more self-confident, more autonomous, stronger and more whole.¹
E read the passage again. Yeah. I think this will be worth two dollars and thirty-two cents. She made sure Our Bodies, Ourselves was tucked away safely before she headed downstairs to say hello to her parents.
¹Preface to the 1973 Edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves.
My mother was the school nurse at our high school when my sister and I were attending. We never had discussions around the dinner table like K’s family had (my father would have died!) but I did hear stories — and complaints about how badly educated kids were about basic health and sex knowledge, with examples — years later. If I had had a girlfriend in high school, I suspect I would have been treated to discussions with my mother about a girlfriend’s needs. Since I learned nothing in high school, I had to learn the hard way to be supportive of a wife with endometriosis and female friends who just wanted to curl up around a hot water bottle once a month. Anyone who doesn’t have a uterus should learn how to be supportive of people who do.
And I loved her dearly, but my mother’s cooking ability was consistent with someone who learned to cook growing up on a farm, where the meals had to be big, cooked quickly, and made cheaply. I really did grow up being asked if I wanted the wet or crispy part of a soufflé (I liked crispy).
Roz Warren and I were discussing how kids back in the 70s would have learned basic stuff about sex. I can see E as the type who would glom onto Our Bodies, Ourselves as a way to learn about all the things that no one would teach in school back then.
My Nerd Romance series ran in P.S. I Love You before it went defunct. Fortunately I finished it all before they went under. Okay, I almost finished it all. Alas, this (and other late arrivals, if any) will be orphans, other than in my own collection.
Next, it’s hard to fool your classmates when they’re also very bright:
And the complete collection:
