passed
down to her from her grandmother and mother.
A
debutante ball was the Southern equivalent of selling off their marriageable
age daughters. It felt crude, but also old school classy. I wasn't sure how to
feel about it. Lots of feminists might consider it a form of slavery. But, what
woman in her right mind wouldn’t be thrilled to get all dolled up to be the
center of attention? It was very aristocratic. Generally younger ladies ready
to be debuted were introduced to society formally and were to display how ready
they were for a marriage to a man they didn't know.
I
loved it and hated it. I would be the IT girl. I would also be seen as the
newest entrant to 'society', which I assumed I had already joined.
Jess
watched my hesitation, and like a good poker player, bet more.
"If
you do not land a guy before the end of the semester, then I am allowed to
throw you the most audacious debutante ball that was ever thrown north of the
Mason-Dixon line , girl!"
I
couldn't argue with that. A virginity party that struck its
name in the history books? But also a public declaration of being a
virgin...
"Deal,"
I said with more confidence than I had.
Jess
yelped and giggled and ran to her computer.
"Where
are you going?" I said.
"I’m
going to make an online dating profile for you. We need you to go through a few
bad ones before you are ready for whatever good ones," she wisely intoned.
That
made sense. Practice.
"So,
you are twenty two, stacked and ready to fuck," Jess said.
"Okay.
No." I grabbed her hands off the keyboard. She smiled up at me kindly.
“Do
you think I’d really put that? I want you to have fun, not get attacked.”
She
continued with my profile settings. I had a job. I was continuing college and I
liked cats. I could imagine thousands of other men who shared the same traits
with me and were hiding bodies underneath their porches.
Jess
uploaded a very charming photo of me that was taken by her when we decided to
spend an entire snowed-in day in our beds, watching Woody Allen movies. It was
a bit too intimate for me, but Jess wouldn't budge on it. She answered a few
questions for me, getting it right for the most part although I feel like I
should put less out there on the internet. Oh well and so it began.
On with the show. Little did I
know it would be the Barnum and Bailey freak show.
-----------Chapter
6-----------
The
sparse rooms that served as the offices for We Can Do It! were curiously empty
for a weekday morning. Of course, this didn't mean anything less would be
expected from me. In fact, knowing Battle-Axe Betty, this would mean quite a
lot more would be expected of me. And I still had enough homework left to choke
a horse.
Then
it hit me. I realized that it was a Friday morning. Thirsty Thursdays did not
make for well-staffed Fridays. Or even for classes with more than one-half in
attendance. This was something I was sure the teachers on-campus and the bosses off-campus had accepted long ago, but somehow I still
never was sharp enough or bold enough to skip out on Friday mornings because of
a sore throat.
I
trudged into the offices. No one had even made coffee.
After
my talk with Jess a week ago, my initial impression of the welcome into the
online dating world of OKCupid and my terror of not being able to fulfill my
end of the bet with Jess, giving her free reign to basically pimp me out, I was
exhausted. If a girl spent this much time thinking about sex ... scratch that. If a girl spent this time worrying about sex,
sex that she'd NEVER had, how was she ever supposed to sustain work and school
at the same time? I had heard it joked about so many times before that you
can't do them both unless you're poor and then you usually manage to.
"KIIIITRIIIDGE!"
Bartok.
The sound of her shrieking was as recognizable as Professor - that is, Michael
- Tunde's bourbon and chocolate syrup tone. Her always accusatory voice rang
through the small one-floor office like a banshee
Matt Christopher, Stephanie Peters