Free Gawky by Margot Leitman Page B

could even take a deep breath and ask to speak with Jordan, then Donnie, then Jonathan, a recorded message from all five New Kids, including gross Danny, began to play. They kept using their song titles in their sentences, “Thanks for calling, ‘We’ll Be Loving You Forever.’ You’re our ‘Cover Girl.’ What, do you have to go so soon? ‘Please Don’t Go Girl.’” I slammed down the phone, completely disappointed. I knew I should have called 1-900-909-JEFF for the DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince hotline instead.
    I was about to storm down the stairs when I made the bold choice to call Amanda and tell her my big news. Of course I’d pretend everything was fabulous. Getting my period was the one thing I had over her, even though it was painful and messy.
    â€œHey, Amanda, guess what? I’m a woman now, if you know what I mean. And my mom felt so bad she let me call the New Kids on the Block number!”
    â€œNo way,” Amanda said.
    â€œOh yes. I spoke with Donnie Wahlberg for a while. Jordan couldn’t come to the phone. He was recording in the studio.” I chose to play up my second-favorite New Kid; that way it was more believable.
    â€œWow! I wish I got my period. You. Are. So. Lucky. NKOTB? For real?”
    For once I was cooler than Amanda, even if it took a painful shedding of my uterine lining to accomplish it! I wanted the moment to last, but Mom was calling me from downstairs, so I told Amanda I’d talk to her later, and walked back to the kitchen for my first lesson on maxi pads and tampons. I found the last remaining unripped wicker chair and sat in it, leaning into the wooden table. I hoped my Girl Supplies 101 lesson would be slightly less traumatizing than that nightmare-inducing birthing video from health class. It would be impossible for this to be worse.
    â€œOkay, Margot, as you know, this is a maxi pad,” my mother said, daintily sliding a maxi pad across the kitchen table as if she were a hand model in a Lee Press-On Nails commercial. She seemed to really be enjoying this. My grandmother always had perfectly manicured long red nails so she could elegantly showcase the items she was selling at Cartier. She used to say the secret to keeping your nails long was “How you use them.” My mother seemed to be using her medium-length nails with chipped beige nail polish to the absolute best of her ability while displaying this maxi pad. My grandmother would be so proud!
    â€œ Aaand . . . this is a tampon.” She delicately removed the tampon from the wrapper, careful not to damage her two-week-old home manicure any further. “And this is the tampon applicator.” She separated the tampon into two pieces. The applicator looked very familiar to me. My mom continued, “Some girls, older girls, prefer this to the pad. We’ll worry about that later.”
    I looked at the applicator. It looked familiar. It was a four-inch-long plastic tube with a claw-like top and some ridges around the bottom . . . Hey! I knew where I’d seen one of these before! The beach cleanup! The poor man’s Airplane ! lady had duped me—that bitch! Beach Cleanup Lady was in her forties; she knew exactly what a tampon applicator was. Why did she think it would be more appropriate to suggest a tamponapplicator might be a device used to smoke crack? Why did she pretend not to recognize it? Why couldn’t she just pretend it was a crack pipe and let me have my moment for once in my life?
    â€œThat’s a tampon?” I seethed.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd that’s a tampon applicator?”
    â€œMargot, I just said that, yes.”
    â€œSo why did the woman at the beach cleanup tell me she had ‘absolutely no idea’ what it was?”
    â€œWell, maybe she was trying to protect you,” my mother said, fiddling with a Carefree pantiliner wrapper.
    â€œProtect me from what? Menstruation?” I was