Princess in Training

But this wasn’t very reassuring, because I couldn’t tell if he’d really heard me or not. And besides, Tina had said Michael and I really needed to have The Talk about this, and I figured if she could talk to Boris about it, I should be able to talk to Michael.

So, I pushed him away again and said, “Michael, we need to talk,” and he looked at me all confused and went, “About what?”

And I said—EVEN THOUGH IT WAS THE HARDEST THING I’VE EVER DONE, EVEN HARDER THAN THE TIME I HAD TO ADDRESS THE GENOVIAN PARLIAMENT ON THE PARKING METER ISSUE—“The condoms in your medicine cabinet.”

And he said, “The what?” and his eyes seemed all swirly and unfocused. Then he seemed to remember and went, “Oh, those. Yeah. Everybody got them. As we were moving in. In that welcome pack they handed everyone at check-in.”

And then his eyes seemed to get VERY focused—like laser beams—and he pointed them at me and went, “But even if I’d bought them, what’s the big deal? Is it wrong that I care about you and would want to protect you in the event we do make love?”

Which, of course, made me feel all melty inside, and it was VERY hard to remember that we were supposed to be having The Talk and not making out, especially when it occurred to me that:

As good as Michael’s neck smells, the rest of him might smell EVEN BETTER.

Which is all the more reason why I knew we had to hurry up and have The Talk.

“No,” I said, moving his hand away from mine, because I knew it would be even harder to concentrate on having The Talk if he was touching me. “I think that’s a good thing. It’s just that—”

And then it all came spilling out. What Lana had said in the jet line. Wendell Jenkins. What Lana said in the shower (not the part about it backing up, though. That was too gross.). Corn princess. The fact that I love him but I’m not sure I’m ready to Do It yet (I said I wasn’t sure, but of course, I AM sure. I just, you know, didn’t want to sound too harsh). The fact that condoms break (if it happened on Friends, it could happen in real life). My mother’s excessive fertility. EVERYTHING.

Because, you know, when you’re having The Talk, you have to put it ALL out there, or what’s the point?

Well, almost all of it, anyway. I kind of left out the part about how I’m not so jazzed about the whole nudity thing. Well, MY nudity. His I’d be totally fine with. Plus, you know, on TV sex looks kind of…well, difficult. What if I mess it up? Or turn out to be not good at it? He might dump me.

Only, you know. I didn’t mention any of that, or anything.

Michael listened to the whole speech with a very serious look on his face. He even at one point got up to turn the music down. It was only when I got to the part about not being sure I was ready to Do It yet that he finally said something, and that was, in a very dry tone, “Well, that’s not actually a big surprise to me, Mia.”

Which was a surprise to ME, anyway.

But when I went, “Really?” he said, “Well, you made it fairly obvious where things stood when you invited all of your girlfriends, and not me, over the minute you found out you had a hotel room all to yourself for the weekend.”

HELLO. This is so not true. First of all, Lilly and those guys invited THEMSELVES over. And secondly—

Well, okay, he was right about this part.

“Michael,” I said, feeling completely horrible. “I’m so, so sorry. I never even—I mean, I didn’t even—”

I felt so awful, I couldn’t even VERBALIZE it. I felt like a total jerk. Kind of like how I felt at dinner, when Michael was talking about his Sociology in Science Fiction class, and how in Orwell’s 1984, the Lottery is used as a way to control the masses, giving them false hope that they might one day be able to leave their dead-end jobs, and how in Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s wife is totally unsympathetic to his problems with setting books on fire for a living and how all she ever does is talk on the phone with her friends about some fictional TV show called the White Clown. I couldn’t help remembering that all Lilly and Tina and I ever talk about half the time is Charmed.

But, hello, how can you NOT talk about that show?

But maybe that’s all part of the government’s strategy to keep us from noticing what they’re up to with the clear-cutting of the national forests and the passing of laws that keep teens from being able to seek reproductive health care without their parents’ consent….

Besides, sometimes I think Michael won’t ever stop talking about the shows he likes, like 24 and, lately, 60 Minutes.

Anyway, I did my best to make it up to Michael about the whole not-inviting-him-over-to-the-hotel thing. I put my hand on his and gazed deeply into his eyes and said, “Michael, I really am sorry. Not just about that, either. But the whole…well, everything.”

But instead of saying he forgave me or anything like that, Michael just went, “Fine. The question is, when ARE you going to be ready?”

And I was like, “Ready for what?”

And he said, “It.”

It took me a minute to figure out what he meant.

And then, when it finally dawned on me, I turned bright red.

“Um,” I said.

Then I thought fast.

“How about after the prom,” I said, “on a king-sized bed with white satin sheets in a deluxe suite with Central Park views at the Four Seasons, with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries upon arrival, and an aromatherapy bath for after, then waffles for two in bed the next morning?”