Free Suitable Precautions by Laura Boudreau Page A

did it first and it’d be fine.
    It’s not like this stuff is any more slutty than what Margot wore in Cuba last year. She had this bikini that was the sluttiest
thing I’d ever seen, honest to God. First of all, it was crocheted. And not crocheted like some Polish grandma spent hours pulling the stitches tight, but totally loose so you could see patches of skin. Wide weave, for sure. Her boobs were hardly even covered, and it’s not like she had a lot of boobs then. She was just coming off the no-food diet and a quarter would have covered things up. I don’t even know what would have happened if she’d got it wet because when she came out of the hotel and started walking to the beach, my dad freaked and smothered her in his beach towel like she was on fire or something, and Margot started screaming that he was trying to oppress her. It was wild.
    Everyone at the hotel beach bar was totally on Margot’s side. Think about it: you’re at the beach when all of a sudden a girl in a skanky bikini is screaming for your help because some fat dude is wrestling her to the ground. What do you do? These Brazilian guys who didn’t speak English ran up and tried to pry them apart, and my dad kept saying, She’s my daughter, she’s my daughter, but who knows what that sounds like in Brazilian or whatever, and so one of the guys punched him in the face and broke his nose. There was blood everywhere. Seriously. There was a bunch of screaming and crying and my mother kept saying, You’ve ruined Christmas, you’ve ruined Christmas, but it was hard to know who she was saying it to. Probably Margot, because Margot has a habit of ruining everything. After that the hotel people hated us because they had to close the pool to clean out the blood that got sprayed in there. And Margot bought that bikini at The Bay. I mean, get over it.
    If I were Margot, I’d have a plan. I mean, what is she going to do, spend her life at Food Giant watching old ladies cruise the aisles for Depends? Whatever. Maybe that’s why
she was trying to starve herself to death. Her life was just too depressing to put another Pop-Tart in her mouth. I don’t know. But I can tell you that by the time I’m seventeen, I’m not going to be slicing salami for picky moms in stretch pants. I’m going to move to New York, or L.A., or just someplace where people don’t get excited about the new roof on the community centre. I’ll get a job in a restaurant and write postcards home so my parents don’t flip: Hi Mom. Alphabet City is nice. The local Welcome Wagon brought me a Brie wheel. Whatever. That’s what I’m saving for now. I even quit smoking. It’s too expensive.
    So I think, what do I care if a bunch of nerds see these? It’s not like that does anything to me. I’m not an idiot. I know what I’m doing. And yeah, Alice will totally do it too. I’m her best friend. She trusts me. But the point is your ad said that if I brought in another girl I’d get paid more, and you never said how much.

Hurricane SEASON
    M AIRIN WAS ON HOLIDAY, in the strictest sense of the word. The sense in which she was entitled to wear oversized sunglasses and red toenail polish, a black head scarf, should the wind prove too much for her pale blonde curls. She was trying not to think about the missed appointment, because that’s what holidays were for, weren’t they? Trading hard decisions for simple ones. What would you like? José the bartender had asked her on the first day as she dangled her painted toes in the pool, legs covered in goosebumps. Rum and Coke, please, she said after a moment, and within seconds, ta da—breakfast. The efficiency both startled and pleased her; it was so easy to get exactly what she wanted.
    And that was why people came. For the sun, the sand, the cheap drinks mixed by attractive, dark-skinned men who smiled and said, De nada when you thanked