Free Snark and Stage Fright by Stephanie Wardrop Page B

hand and saying with a bow, “I bid you good evening, madam. And on the morrow, after my parents depart, I will compromise you in any number of ways you find acceptable.”
    When he closed the door behind him, I buried my face in the pillows. Despite that rather risqué promise as he left, I was afraid that I was close to driving him away for good. I’d let go of most of my anxiety about his illustrious family, but now I found that I couldn’t let go of myself, of this last little bit of myself, and I don’t know why I was clinging on to it, or what I was clinging on to. I loved him. I knew that. So why was I afraid to “go all the way,” as they say? Millions of people do it every second of every day, and they do it with people far less attractive and wonderful than Michael Endicott.
    What was wrong with me?
    I tried to call Tori, but she didn’t answer, no doubt because she was off having fabulous sex unencumbered by neurosis with her BF of almost a year now.
    I’d have to figure this out on my own.
    I had about twelve hours.

7  In Which Sigmund Freud and I Get it all Wrong
     
     
    After saying goodbye to his parents in the morning, Michael and I spent the next day at the beach, lying on enormous plush towels and looking at the water whenever we decided to take a break from kissing. It was pretty much perfect until Catalina showed up with her own beach bag and towel and made herself at home. I wanted to spend the afternoon with her about as much as I’d like to be handcuffed to a rabid baboon, but I was resolved not to say anything snarky, which meant that I didn’t say much of anything at all for the next two hours. Even when she batted her eyes at Michael and asked him to slather her back with sunscreen because she had a photo shoot in two days and if she came to work with a burn apparently the terrorists would win or something. Michael said he thought I’d do a better job, and I appreciated the gesture, even if it meant I had to play lady’s maid. It must be a tremendous responsibility she bore to be freckle-free because she was very exacting about where the lotion should go.
    “You’re so lucky you’re not fair-skinned, Georgia,” she assured me at one point with a catlike glance over her Chanel sunglasses. “You could probably be out in the sun all day and just turn brown as a migrant worker!”
    “Yeah, I come from tough peasant stock,” I agreed, and Michael laughed as I tossed a bit of apple to a gull that I hoped would peck out her eyes. I tried not to think that, while he thought I was funny, he had obviously found Catalina pretty alluring last summer. While they debated which restaurant had the best chowder in Hyannis, I wondered how exactly they had ended up in bed together. If Catalina initiated it, how did she do it? And what did she do when they were there, wherever it was—in his room or hers? I felt sick in my stomach as I tried to block out any mental pictures and the knowledge that whatever they did that night—and possible subsequent nights—she knew a hell of a lot more about what she was doing than I did. Which meant that despite what Michael had said last night, I was bound to be a disappointment. And the more I thought about that, the more I wanted to bury myself up to my neck in the sand. It definitely did not help to hear Catalina laugh at every single thing Michael said—or to see his responding grin.
    It felt like a few weeks went by before Michael put his arm around me and finally said, “Georgie and I have something special planned for tonight, so we’ll have to say goodbye.” My heart felt like it grew two sizes like the Grinch’s in the Christmas special as we gathered our beach gear and walked back to the house. We then made out on the couch for about an hour, which was almost enough time to short-circuit all trepidation and worry about Catalina until the phone rang and we pulled apart, startled back to reality. Michael decided not to answer it but sat there, his