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  I decided that this sex conversation needed to be a face-to-face thing. So I put on my L.L.Bean jacket (it didn’t contribute to the global economy, but my mom said it was okay because we bought it at a thrift store so the environmental footprint is very small) and walked the ten blocks to my aunt Zo’s house. Her real name is Zoe, which, as she’s pointed out, is a name short enough not to warrant a nickname. But I’ve been calling her Zo since I was a kid, and she’ll always be Zo to me.

  Zo is cool. She’s got this fab rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West and she’s a pit musician for shows on Broadway. She plays the upright bass, but for the Lion King, she plays all kinds of African string instruments too. When I was a kid, she did every show I ever wanted to see: Grease and Into the Woods and Annie Get Your Gun. Now she’s doing Lion King, and she says, “I’ll probably be playing ‘Hakuna Matata’ until the day I die.” She loves the show, and for a working musician, nothing beats a steady gig. Whenever she takes me out to dinner or shopping and I say, “Thanks, Zo,” she always says, “Don’t thank me. Thank Uncle Disney.”

  Still, as much as I love her, as I walked down Broadway, I wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of having the sex convo with my mother’s sister. But I figured I needed advice, and Zo loves to give advice.

  When I got to her building, I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. I rang again, no answer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of calling before I came over, but I guess that was it. I wasn’t thinking. Zo had given me a key, so I let myself in and left her a note on the kitchen table. I considered writing some semblance of the truth:

  Dear Aunt Zo,

  Came over to get advice about sex. You’re not here, so I guess I’ll figure it out.

  Love,

  Bee

  But instead I just wrote:

  Hey, Auntie Zo,

  Where you at? You never call, you never write. Why don’t you treat your favorite starving niece to brunch sometime soon? I’m free on Sunday.

  Love,

  Bee

  Then I put the frog paperweight she keeps on her desk on top of the note. Aunt Zo says she keeps Froggie around to remind her that in real life when you kiss a frog, they never turn into princes. I gave the frog a kiss anyway. Maybe it would give me good luck.

  I looked at my watch and realized I had just enough time to make it back to campus. I tutor this guy Kevin Manning in math twice a week. It’s a pretty good gig. He pays me twenty bucks an hour, and we usually work for about two hours at a time. All he’s got to do is fulfill the basic math requirement. Everyone calls the class he’s in “Math for Poets,” but he acts like it’s plotting vectors and orthogonal coordinate systems. I mean, really. That said, Kevin is an aspiring rapper and super-sweet, so it’s fun to hang out with him. He says that he’s happy with a C and that I do a great job explaining everything. But I can’t help but think that if I was a really good tutor, he’d manage to pull a B. Maybe that’s just the overachiever in me speaking again.

  I was halfway there when I noticed a Victoria’s Secret store. I thought about the fact that I was wearing Snoopy Day of the Week panties—Friday, with Schroeder playing the piano and Lucy staring dreamily at him—and it occurred to me that I needed to step up my lingerie game. If I rushed, I would only be fifteen minutes late in meeting Kevin. And Lord knows, he kept me waiting all the time.

  Inside the store was like another world. Everything was pink and black and so grown up. Not all of my panties have cartoon characters on them, but I didn’t own a single piece of underwear that looked anything like this. Right away, some gorgeous blond girl asked me if I needed help. Why? Why do people always ask you if you need help when you are trying so hard to be invisible? I’m pretty convinced that if I was ever in a situation when I actually needed help, like if a well of quicksand opened up in the asphalt on Amsterdam Avenue, not a single soul would ask me if I needed help.

  I thought I could grab something quick, but as Lenny Kravitz blared out of the speakers and I wandered from rack to rack, I grew more and more confused. There was a cute everyday bra-and-panty set, purple with cream ruffles, which could be a good choice. Make it seem like I wasn’t trying too hard. But it was my first time; I wanted to look like I was trying, just a little bit. There was a whole section of garters and belts and corsets that looked more like torture devices than something you’d want to seduce your boyfriend with. There were long nighties, short nighties, camisoles, and tap pants. The music seemed to be getting louder and louder. Lenny Kravitz was singing, “Are you going to go my way?” and I just wanted to scream, “I don’t know which way I want to go! Do I go ‘girl next door’ or ‘ever so slightly slutty’? That’s why I’m here in Victoria’s Secret, trying to figure it out!”

  In the honeymoon section, there were all these baby doll nighties with matching robes. I looked at the price of the whole outfit and thought I must need glasses. This stuff was expensive. I’ve got a credit card, but my dad sees all the bills, and how was I going to explain a hundred-dollar charge at Victoria’s Secret? I looked over in the corner and saw that they had these nice big fluffy bathrobes with matching slippers. That’s what I’d tell him: bathrobe and slippers. And if I budgeted my food money super-carefully and saved some of my tutoring money, I could buy a robe and slippers before my parents’ next visit.

  I looked at my watch. I was now thirty minutes late for my tutoring session with Kevin. This is all I have to say: it’s hard. On TV shows, they always make it seem so easy to be a teenage girl who’s about to have sex. Even on stupid reality shows, the girls have nice hair and know how to do their makeup. They are always wearing the right kind of underwear, and they never look afraid. They look totally ready and into it, like they were standing in line to ride a roller coaster at Six Flags. But that’s not how I felt. I felt nervous and scared. My hair was totally flat, and I had no idea what to wear. I loved Brian and I wanted him to be really impressed, just the same way he was impressed with the fact that I’m premed and that even though he’s a sophomore, I can help him cram for his organic chemistry exams.

  I grabbed a red lacy night thing, paid for it as quickly as I could, then raced out the door. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be waiting for me in the student center, but I went anyway, figuring that there was always a chance that he was even later than I was.

  When I got there, he was texting on his BlackBerry. “What’s up, little mama?” he asked.

  Kevin is the only person in the world who would call a giraffe of a girl like me “little mama.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said, sitting next to him.

  I took a whiff. I have no idea what kind of cologne, or shampoo, or body lotion Kevin wears, but it’s really delicious smelling. Clean, like green apples. But kind of peppery too. I always want to ask him what he’s got on, but I try to keep things professional since I’m his tutor. I also don’t want to feed his already massive ego.

  The fact that Kevin is preternaturally good looking has not escaped my attention. He’s tall, with a short Afro and the kind of square jaw that brings to mind old-fashioned movie stars in films that I watch with my aunt Zo. He also has the most beautiful brown skin. He’s like that Christina Aguilera song, “Lady Marmalade”: Kevin is the epitome of “mocha chocolata ya ya.” The thing is, the fact that he’s good looking hasn’t escaped Kevin’s attention either. He’s always dressed to the nines. Today he was wearing a kelly green cashmere V-neck, white shirt underneath, slate gray pleated pants. He never dressed like the other guys at school. He always looked like he’d just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad.

  “No problem, Bee,” he said. “Why don’t we just chill for a few minutes? You want a smoothie or something?”

  I was starving like Marvin. “I’d love a smoothie,” I said.

  “I remember your drink. Strawberry-orange-banana with a femme boost,” he said with a wink.

  I could feel myself turning red. Maybe it was because I had sex on the brain. Or maybe it was the way Kevin winked a
t me. But the way he said “femme boost” made it sound much more sensual than what it actually is, which is a vitamin combo of calcium, iron, and folic acid.

  Kevin went and got the smoothies: the usual for me, mango for him, and he came and sat back down.

  “Hey, thanks for the drink. I’m sorry again about being late,” I said. “Can we do a makeup session on Monday? I’ll give you the hour for free.”

  He said, “What about tonight? I could take you to dinner.”

  Kevin’s asked me out before, but I’m pretty sure that he asks a lot of girls out. Maybe that’s why he always smells so good: it must be Eau de Player.

  I smiled. “Sorry, I’ve got plans tonight.”

  Kevin looked down at the Victoria’s Secret bag. “I see.”

  I blushed again and shoved the bag to the side with my foot. “I needed a robe,” I said.

  He wasn’t going to let me off the hook. “Tiny bag for a robe.”

  “Whatever,” I said with a grin. “So what are you up to this weekend?”

  “You know, I’m just going to be in the studio, trying to get my rap thing going.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, laughing. “I thought you did your ‘wrap thing’ in the gift department at Macy’s.”

  “So you got jokes,” he said, smiling. He had a smile like a toothpaste commercial.

  It was so easy to talk to Kevin. I’ll tell you something I’ve never told another soul. Sometimes, just to keep up with Brian’s conversation, I have to prep before I see him. I turn on CNN, listen to NPR podcasts, do a quick skim of the New York Times. Because if I’m talking to Brian and I don’t know that Darfur is in Africa or what tribe was displaced in Sudan, he gives me this really pitiful look and says, “That’s the problem with America. We think we’re the center of the world.” With Kevin, I may not discuss global issues, but I could be myself.

  “So when do I get to hear this album that’s going to the top of the charts?”

  “At the album release party next month. You’re going to be there, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, distracted. No way was I getting Brian to go to a hip-hop release party unless it was some kind of benefit.

  “You should come hang out with me in the studio sometime,” Kevin said.

  “And be one of your groupies?” I said. “I don’t think so. How many times do I have to tell you? Me, premed. You, flunking Math 101. We, plenty of work to do.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I know, I know. But you don’t get how much pressure I’m under. The label doesn’t even want me to be in school. I’ve got all kinds of things to do: interviews with Vibe, King, the Root, photo shoots, a track for DJ Clue’s mix tape.”

  “I don’t even know what half that stuff means,” I said. “But if you have your degree, you’ll have it forever. Don’t you want to have something to fall back on?”

  For the first time, Kevin looked really hurt. “Fall back on?”

  “In case this music stuff doesn’t work out,” I said, slurping the last bit of my smoothie.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Kevin said. He has this square jaw, which sometimes, when he’s serious, makes him look like the sheriff in an old-fashioned western movie. “Music is my passion. I want a college degree because I want to be an educated person, but I’m not here to get a job. Music is my job. It’s my life. There is no plan B.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I really hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings, and I was having such a good time hanging out with him that I’d forgotten all my stress about the big sex weekend again.

  “I’m sorry, Kevin,” I said. “I know your album’s gonna be hot.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that,” he said, the tiniest smirk hinting at the side of his mouth. “I got ears. I know how good I sound when I’m on the mike.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” I said, pretending to wipe imaginary perspiration from my forehead. “I was worried that for one second you might have doubted yourself.”

  “Never,” he said, flashing his pearly whites. His BlackBerry started buzzing.

  “You need to get that?”

  He looked over the number and then turned the BlackBerry facedown. “I’ll holler at them in a second. I’m wondering about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “What’s your passion, Bee? What do you think you can do better than anybody else? What do you love to do so much that you’d do it for free?”

  Ooh, I thought. Now he’s getting deep on me. But I didn’t mind.

  “Well,” I said. “You know I want to be a doctor.”

  “Have you ever worked at a hospital before? Or is all this ambition based on marathon reruns of Scrubs?”

  “No,” I said sheepishly, because it was true, I kinda loved Scrubs.

  “Then how do you know you’re going to love medicine? How do you know that’s your passion?”

  All of a sudden, the fact that I was good in math and science didn’t seem enough.

  “Sorry, I guess it’s none of my business. Anyway, I gotta bounce, Bee,” he said, standing up and giving me a little hug.

  As I walked back to my apartment, Kevin’s words stuck in my mind. Maybe before I dedicate the next seven years of my life to becoming a doctor, I should get some sort of internship to find out if this is really the job for me. Or maybe next semester I should sign up for that class on terrorism. Because I have to tell you, I could get pretty excited about being a spy.

  3

  Bee Stung

  After hanging out with Kevin, I went back to my apartment to get ready. I was really glad I had that smoothie because even though I’ve got a single apartment, I really, really can’t cook. There’s a coffeemaker, a food processor, a pressure cooker, some pans, and an oven, and I don’t know how to use bumpkis. If I didn’t eat over at Brian’s or go to the cafeteria on his meal ticket, I would starve.

  I was about to take a shower, and then I thought, You know what? This is my last night as a virgin. I should take a bath. So I poured a nice foaming bubble bath and settled in with an issue of Cosmo that I’d picked up especially for this occasion.

  I took the red thingy out of the Victoria’s Secret bag and wondered what exactly I was supposed to do with it. Should I put it on underneath my clothes and wear it over to Brian’s? Should I carry it in a bag and change when I got there? I held up the red lacy panty and the baby doll camisole and decided that the best thing to do was to put it on underneath my clothes. I put the panties on. Itchy. But maybe it was like wearing heels for the first time. It feels a little uncomfortable, but you get used to it.

  I put the baby doll nightie on, but none of the tops I had were long enough to cover it. I tried an oversized button-down shirt that used to belong to my dad. That worked, but it kind of creeped me out to be wearing my dad’s shirt to go have sex for the first time. I tried my favorite V-neck sweater. A Columbia U. sweatshirt. Finally, I decided to wear this old seventies wrap dress I’d found at a thrift store over my favorite pair of wide-legged jeans. I put on some high-heeled wedges, some mascara, eyeliner, and lip gloss. And I was good to go.

  I was locking the front door when I remembered how good Kevin always smelled, and I turned back to spritz myself with some Sarah Jessica Parker perfume my aunt Zo had gotten me for Christmas.

  The whole way over to Brian’s, I was spazzing out. I had a toothbrush in my bag. A large box of condoms. Some spermicidal jelly. I was so scared about getting pregnant that I’d asked the campus doctor for the pill and the patch. She’d said no, that using both methods of birth control was going to make me sick. Not as sick as I’m going to be if I get knocked up, I thought. I took the prescription for the pill from the campus doc, then I made an appointment at a free clinic downtown and got the patch too. When I stopped to think about it, I did feel a little woozy. But I was pretty sure that it was just a bad case of the nerves.

  Nothing bad was going to happen. I was only seventeen, but I was a freshman in college. Not to mention, I was in love. In
love with a guy who was so smart and so committed to changing the world that he would probably end up running for office someday. He was worthy of my virginity. I was totally going to give it up.

  When I got to Brian’s apartment, he was as cute as ever. He wasn’t dressed as fancy as Kevin was, but nobody dresses as fancy as Kevin. Brian was just wearing an old Coldplay T-shirt over a navy long-sleeve thermal tee and some jeans. He gave me a kiss, the kind of long kiss that I never understood before I went to college. When I was in high school and I saw kisses like that,

  I thought, Oh my God, what could they possibly be doing with their tongues for five whole minutes? Tongue calisthenics? Tongue push-ups? Counting each other’s teeth with their tongues? But then I met Brian and I got it. With the right guy, a five-minute kiss is like a little slice of heaven.

  I put my bag down, and Brian looked at me and said, “You know nothing has to happen tonight.”

  I nodded and said, “But I want something to happen.”

  I said it, but deep down inside I didn’t feel it. I loved him. I wanted to MARRY him. But on that particular night, I didn’t want to sleep with him. But I didn’t think I could say anything because it’s all part of the love-marriage package. Somewhere in there, you start having sex.

  He looked surprised. “Well, let’s have dinner.”

  Brian’s dad is a chef, so he’s a really good cook. While almost everyone I knew at school subsided on cafeteria food, ramen, and Chinese food from Ollie’s, Brian actually made real meals.

  “So what’s for dinner tonight?” I asked, trying not to tug at the baby doll underneath my wrap dress.

  “Risotto with mushrooms,” he said. “It’ll be ready in ten minutes. I’ve just got to keep stirring.”

  I sat down at the table and took a sip of the hard lemonade Brian had put out for me.