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

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    Eleven forty-five on a Sunday morning and nothing to do all day but contemplate suicide.
    I called Rebecca's cell.
    "Hey," she said, even before I said hello. "Why didn't you let me wipe that stuff off your chin last night?"
    "I was experimenting with a new look," I said sarcastically.
    "Were you upstairs fooling around with Josh?"
    "Okay, I guess we can make it official: you have no future as a detective."
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    "Why are you pissed at me? I tried to warn you." I told her about Tom and about taking the cab home with Josh.
    "That blows," she said.
    "Clearly. Do you think I should call him?"
    "Tom?"
    "Josh!"
    "And say what, exactly?"
    "Well, I was thinking I could call and ask him about the English homework and then slowly work the conversation around to how I'd probably had lipstick smudged on my chin when we were in the cab because I always try to rub my makeup off before I get home because my parents won't let me wear any since they're Amish."
    "I really don't think you should say that," said Rebecca.
    "But I don't want him to think my lipstick was smeared because I was fooling around with another guy. Then he'll never ask me out."
    "But he's not asking you out anyway."
    "Thank you so much for reminding me."
    "Sorry. Listen, I have to go. My mom's pretending to care about my welfare, so we're having a day of beauty at Estée Lauder."
    "When my mom wants to show me she cares about my welfare, she yells at me for not doing my college applications."
    "Yeah, well. Some people have all the luck. I'll call you later."
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    "Bye."
    I needed to stop thinking about last night. I needed to stop thinking, period. I hung up the phone and looked around my room for something to distract me. My backpack was crouched threateningly on my desk. There, a mere five feet away, lay hours and hours of distraction. I crawled to the edge of the bed, unzipped my bag, and got out Romeo and Juliet and the sheet with the essay questions. The second question was, "Romeo and Juliet is, in some ways, really a play about Juliet, who changes far more than Romeo does. Trace her evolution from child to adult over the course of the play." I had already decided to write on that one. Given my current situation, I couldn't help relating to a character whose love life gets so screwed up she fakes her own death.
    The essay was due Monday, and I hadn't started it. I went back to the beginning of the play and started rereading scenes with Juliet in them, but returning to the scene of the original crime was not exactly getting my mind off Josh. Not to mention the fact that every time I blinked I was assaulted by the image of...
    I had to focus on Shakespeare.
    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
    Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss....
    To call or not to call? Wrong play, right question.
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    Sophomore year Rebecca and I took a sociology elective called Gender Roles and Courtship Rituals. After reading about Aborigines in Australia and the Bushmen of the Kalahari, the class used magazines like Cosmo and Maxim to determine what rules govern modern American courtships. It didn't take long for us to conclude that the motto of the women's magazines is, Let men pursue you or they'll think you're a desperate slut, while the motto of men's magazines is, Women who pursue men are desperate sluts.
    Twelve-thirty. Why shouldn't I call? Fact: Josh describes himself as "shy." Fact: I am not shy. Fact: If women ever hope to be liberated from the oppressive models provided by our misogynist culture, we must grab the mantle of power. I wasn't calling Josh for me, I was calling him for women everywhere. For our daughters and granddaughters. For our great-granddaughters. I picked up the phone, dialed, and hung up before it could ring.
    I would never have a great-granddaughter. I would live with my parents until they died, and then I would grow old alone, wearing tacky,