Free Confessions of a Not It Girl by Melissa Kantor Page A

family like he's a guest and we're the
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    servants, and how he can't just do whatever he wants wherever he wants to. I was kind of psyched because that's the kind of stuff she's always yelling at me about. But then she started yelling at Rogier about how he has a little sister to think about, and how he can't behave around me the way he behaves around his college friends, and he said, "Well, Mom, she's hardly in kindergarten." So then my mom says, "I'm not saying she's in kindergarten, I'm just saying she doesn't have to feel pressured into doing things she's not ready for because she sees her big brother doing them!"
    The only thing worse than having no sex life is having people scream at each other about your hypothetical sex life while you're in the next room listening.
    I guess I should be glad Rogier's become such a Don Juan since it means there's hope that my sex life will improve next year. I definitely don't remember any girls at Lawrence ever liking him except for this one friend I had back in eighth grade named Tanya. She moved away sophomore year, but until then she was always asking me a million questions about Rogier and begging to come over to my house after school. Once when she was over, he came home from squash practice and walked from his room to the bathroom in a towel. I thought she was going to pass out.
    "HELLO!" I shouted at the ceiling. "Some people are trying to get some SLEEP around here."
    I pulled a pillow over my head and lay in bed replaying the end of last night. I started with when we were on Clinton Street and ended with closing the cab door,
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    focusing exclusively on lighting. I was pretty sure it had been too dark for Josh to notice my lipsticked chin while we were out on the street, and during the actual ride it was pretty dark, too. That meant there were only a couple of brief minutes when he could possibly have seen that the bottom half of my face was dripping with saliva and Plum Berry! Objectively, how bad could it have been? Maybe he hadn't even noticed. I mean, everyone knows guys are completely oblivious to things like makeup and fashion. Maybe Josh just assumed I was experimenting with a new style: the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus-gone-psycho look. The door opened.
    I lifted the pillow high enough to see my mom standing in the doorway in her green corduroys, a flannel shirt, and no makeup. Rebecca told me that in France, ancient secrets of fashion, perfume, skin care, and seduction are passed down from mothers to daughters. Looking at my mom, it was no surprise I was about as much of a femme fatale as Tinky Winky.
    "Your dad and I are going into Manhattan. Do you want to come?"
    I rolled over and pulled my pillow back onto my head. "Haven't you heard of knocking?" You'd think after what happened with Rogier this summer she wouldn't come near one of her kids' rooms without a written invitation.
    "Look, Yahn, I'm sorry I forgot to knock. But it's not necessary for you to use that tone of voice with me."
    "Well is it necessary for you to wake me at
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    dawn?" I took the pillow partway off my head, but I didn't turn toward her.
    "Yahn, it's eleven-thirty!"
    "Studies show teenagers need to sleep later than other people. It's in our BIORHYTHMS!"
    "Nobody needs to sleep later than eleven-thirty." She was using her I-know-you-need-to-be-patient-with-teenagers-but-this-is-ridiculous voice.
    I put the pillow back over my face. "Well, I'm sure the Nobel Prize committee will be thrilled to hear about your groundbreaking research on teenage sleep patterns."
    She walked out and shut the door. I wanted to shout No wonder Rogier wants to spend Thanksgiving with his girlfriend! but I had the feeling she was in the mood to punish one of her children, and I didn't want it to be me.
    I pulled the covers up to my chin and lay on my back, perfectly still, trying to go back to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes all I saw was a lipstick-covered chin floating against a dark