CHAPTER 4
Clueless
"Elaine, I'm so pleased you could make it this evening. The girls have always been close, but lately it seems that I need to refer to photos to remember what Mary Ellen looks like. I'm sure you feel the same way."
"I know I had a daughter, I still remember the labor pains. Otherwise I wouldn't be sure."
Janny interrupted. "It's called growing up, Mom! Near as I can remember you cancelled the diaper service a really long time ago and I seem to remember your buying me a few boxes of tampons on several occasions." She kissed the top of her mother's head. You don't see me quite as often but I still love you. Think on the bright side, at least I'm not dating some pierced guy with a library of tattoos."
"As far as I'm concerned you're still too young to be dating at all, but I've already lost that argument. Barbara, do you let Parks date?"
Mrs. Parker finished putting the food on the table, "You'd better not try to enlist me in your cause, dear. Mary Ellen and I had a long talk about this over a year ago and I agreed to trust her judgment as far as boys are concerned. Actually, you may not want to hear it, but I think Janny's a pretty responsible young lady herself."
Mrs. North sighed, "I'm being ganged up on! Next thing we'll be talking about birth control."
Janny suppressed a laugh. "Too late." Mrs. North's grew to the size of saucers. "Would you rather I had unprotected..."
Mrs. Parker interrupted Janny. "Enough! You girls are terrible and Janny dear; I think you're hitting your mother with entirely too much information in far too public a setting. Now if everyone still has an appetite, let's sit over."
Later that evening, after both girls had decided to spend the night at Janny's house, they were speaking in low tones on Janny's bed. Parks giggled, "All things considered, that actually went well. Your mother knows you've had sex, suspects there might be some untattooed boy lurking in the wings and we offset it all by giving her the comfort of having you under her roof tonight.
At least if you get knocked up she'll blame it on your lack of experience and not on the fact that you've had sex with 30 or 40 guys so far this month and before the month is over will probably wind up fucking another 40 or 50."
"Probably, but I doubt if any of them will have tats."
"So true. Well anyway, I've got to call a cab and get this delightful ass over to Landon for the guy who's rented it for the evening. He's spending the night for two grand."
"You little whore, when were you going to tell me and what should I say to my mother when she finds you gone?"
"I just did tell you and just tell her I left early in the morning."
"This is your third client of the day, right?"
"Fourth. My late afternoon turned out to be a twofer. You were right about the workout characteristics of a lot of sex. I'm tired, but in kind of a good way.
Oh, do you think... what's the real estate guy's name? "
"Peterson, David Peterson."
"Right, do you think he'll take cash for the rent and security deposit tomorrow?"
"That's what I'm going to try to give him. I don't feel like going from bank to bank getting cashier's checks."
Parks put an envelope on the bed. "Here's my half, eight thousand dollars. God, I used to think of that as being a lot of money. Now it's just a few pelvic thrusts."
"Don't kid yourself; it's still a lot of money. You're just a talented thruster.
You know, I was thinking, it may not be such a great idea to sleep with a client."
Parks tilted her head and then smiled. "Oh, you mean after I sleep with someone I shouldn't sleep with them."
"Yeah, your job is just fucking him. Sleeping with him is pretty intimate. Think about it."
"I will. I'm sure you're might be right, but I have to balance that intimacy against the extra cash. We'll see."
After Parks had left Janny added $8,000 of her own to the envelope and went to bed. She fell asleep quickly.
Since Janny spent virtually no time socializing at school, that time was spent studying. Consequently her grades started steadily rising so that by the onset of the Holiday season the social respect which she had lost was starting to be replaced by academic respect. No longer were all her lunch hours spent alone or with Parks. In fact, she was being increasingly sought out as a potential study partner. From what Parks had heard the 'automotive whore' stories had lapsed into a state of, if not antiquity, at least non-currency. Janny was sure that some of those who sought her out academically were, at least in part, interested in getting to know the girl with the notorious past, but she didn't mind that. As far as Janny was concerned that whole episode was more something for Kenny to be ashamed of that her. She was just a stupid, naΓ―ve virgin who fell for the wrong guy. She'd decided that the best way to play it would be to admit, if asked, the Tire Barn episode and the photo shoot but deny the tricking, claiming instead that Kenny wanted her to, but that she refused. She decided there was wisdom in Parks' philosophy of "deny, deny, deny".
Janny was jerked out of her reverie by a comment made by Laura Sage, the girl she had been studying Spanish with. "I just don't get the whole thing about sex in planes. Is there some general rule which might explain it all?"
"Laura, what are you talking about? I've never had sex on a plane!"
Laura blushed and began to stammer, "No, no, I didn't mean it that way. I meant gender. Why are larger multi-engine planes 'avion' and smaller single-engine ones 'avionetta', one masculine gender, the other feminine?"
She leaned forward and dropped her voice. "I would never have asked you about the other, I've never had sex at all!"
"No, it's my fault. I should have realized what you meant. I was just having a 'duh!' moment."
Since the door had been opened, however, Laura tentatively inched in. "I almost did it with Billy Carnes last Friday but I stopped just short." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "My biggest fear is that I won't be any good. I'd by completely mortified if I was bad doing it."