Read Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume for Free Online Page B

Linda.
    â€œWho?” I say.
    â€œThe door guy.”
    Beverly gets us in, as we knew she would. Beverly herself is beautiful—long blonde hair bright as a supernova, delicate features, a wide-open smile. She’s dressed carefully in a flute-shaped skirt and a leather blazer that she peels off to reveal a shiny but tasteful bustier the color of champagne. It’s the bustier that does it, I think. Or maybe the hair, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, the men in the packed bar step aside for Beverly as if they are making way for Heidi Klum in her teeny underwear and her enormous Victoria’s Secret wings. When Beverly takes a place at the bar, they surround us, each waiting their turn for a chance to bask in her bright bombshell glory (’cause boys like shiny things).
    Two Venezuelans reach her first. One of them corners Beverly and dares the other men to approach her. The other makes elaborate sweeping gestures with his arms. When he talks to you, he presses his lips against your ear. He has impossibly thick dark hair that waves back from his forehead. I like the hair, but Linda thinks it’s stupid. “What’s with the hair?” she says to me. “Is it alive?”
    The evening has barely begun and already bombshell Beverly is text-messaging her various boyfriends while the other boys vie for her attention. Linda says a few acidly funny things and the men sense a challenge. Linda has icy Nordic eyes, a long Nordic nose, and the lush body of Salma Hayek. Her father studied physics under Oppenheimer. She is smarter than everyone in the bar. She is smarter than everyone on the planet. Her eyes sparkle like the fjords.
    The men look from Beverly to Linda, Linda to Beverly. They are fascinated. They are frightened.
    From the men, I get polite questions about what I do (writer) and where I live (Chicago). Do I like it? Is it really that windy? The men don’t listen to the answers. This is okay, I tell myself. I’m not here to meet frightened or fascinated men. I don’t have to understand Venezuelans and their complicated hair. And yet it is obvious that I’m neither the smart one nor the pretty one, and no one knows what to make of me.
    And, for a moment, neither do I.
    Â 
    My youth is punctuated by two things: trips to the library and trips to the doctor. On one library visit, I find Judy Blume and I can’t stop reading her books. Sometimes I read my Judy books while waiting in the doctor’s office, trying to keep my mind off the intrusive and embarrassing medical things that are surely about to be done to me. Judy seems to know all about intrusive and embarrassing things.
    Judy knows a lot.
    I fall into my books to pretend I am someone else—I am Sheila the Great, I am Margaret, I am Deenie—for good reason. At the allergist’s, my arms are abused by dozens of little needles. At the pediatrician’s, it’s Nurse Evil with her Pressure Cuff of Torment and Thermometer of Doom. I have a dentist who doesn’t believe in Novocain when he drills my teeth and an orthodontist who wants to pull half of them out because I seem to have too many. How I ended up with too many teeth is one of life’s eternal mysteries.
    Another eternal mystery: why do I run like a duck?
    â€œLaura, pretend it’s a race. Up and down the hallway, okay?”
    We are at the orthopedist’s again. The doctor already examined me, and I’m hoping that these insane laps around the office will be the end of it. He watches me for a few minutes and issues his verdict: “Well, that has to be the funniest run I’ve ever seen. But I can’t find a thing wrong with her.”
    My stepdad and I drive home. I have the feeling that my mother isn’t going to be happy with this answer. My mom also thinks there is something wrong with the way I run, but she doesn’t think it’s funny. She thinks maybe I need some sort of treatment. Orthopedic shoes. Leg