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Summary from the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:While attending a summer institute, fifteen-year-old N. meets another girl named B., falls in love with her, and finds the relationship to be difficult and confusing. [Lesbians – Fiction; Homosexuality – Fiction; Bisexuality – Fiction]
Notes/Excerpts:
“One of the Goth girls walks past our table… ‘What the fuck’s so fucking funny, bitch (32)?”
“K. looks as though she’s on her way to the electric chair…wearing…black leggings with a small white repeating pattern which, up close, is revealed as the word “Fuck” in tiny type (33).”
“oh, shit (37).”
“K. kneels next to me, getting her “Fuck” leggings dirty (38).”
“Don’t expect me to take your shit forever (47).”
I.’s parents write him to tell him they will visit him on Parent’s Weekend and that they are getting a divorce: “He must be going completely bugfuck, don’t you think (52)?”
“I saw you staring. You’re just a little thespian lesbian, aren’t you?’ I think I said, ‘Fuck off’…I see beautiful R. [a girl] in my head, but then I see shy, smart A. – the boy I spent all last year in Geometry trying desperately to attract…Thespian lesbian, thespian lesbian. How can I be a thespian lesbian when I filled up a whole notebook with ways to impress A. (67)?”
“God, N. – I thought you two were having this secret dyke thing behind my back…I thought you thought I was this fucking homophobe (83).”
“And drugs! Don’t forget drugs! Opium and laudanum and…uh…other stuff that ends in ‘um’! They did it all, I bet you anything!’ says K…she takes an extra long drag on her cigarette… ‘Can I picture T. in an opium den? Absolutely! He was a writer! If you’re a writer you want to have as many kinds of experiences as you possibly can.’ … ‘Actually I mean, have you guys done drugs?’ ‘Not since we moved. I can’t find anyone who sells out in the provinces…it’s easier to get liquor’ K. gives a thumbs-up sign… ‘…I don’t have anything, but I bet we could find someone who does…(90-91).”
Over a game of volleyball: “Bullshit! Girls kick ass (99)!”
N. and I. are talking, I tells her “Yep, that’s right! My aunt’s a big old dyke! Does that bother you?” She tells him no: “And I bet it wouldn’t bother you if I said I thought I might be one, too.” “I assume everyone I meet is a bisexual pagan.” “It’s because of B. …that’s what makes me think it, that I might be (102).”
“B. walks to the bed, leans over, and very carefully places the ice-filled washcloth onto my forehead…I hear her breathing, and mine, and then her face is so close and I lift my head just a little and out lips touch…I am kissing her, and she is kissing me back…Sweetest one, I give myself to you totally.” N. writes in a journal: “Kissing is wetter and softer than I with my romance novel education had expected…[I.]’s a little too excited about having ‘dyke friends.’ I said I thought I was bisexual…he [I.] said ‘by and by, you’ll be gay!’ …bisexual is a weird word…(108-109)”
Writing in her journal: “I’ve tried to look for other (ahem) same-sex couples, too, but it’s hard to tell…impossible to know if you’re looking at friendship or lust…or both…there’s another boy I’ve seen, I think he’s in K.’s class, who often wears long velvet skirts and lots of black eyeliner…observed him making out with various angst crows…suppose he could like boys, too...I of all people should remember that (117).”
“B. and I have been knocking on K.’s door… ‘Well, if it isn’t my two favorite lesbians…’ ‘Do you think we’re lesbians, B.?’ … ‘What the hell else would you be?’ ‘Seriously though, what’s wrong with being lesbians?’ K [says]… ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,’ I say… ‘I’m just not sure it describes us completely accurately…(119).”
B. finishes brushing N.’s hair: “…putting down the brush and leaning in to kiss me. Now I understand why so many songs talk about desire as electric (121).”
K. talked to B. and N. about having a crush on her teacher. B. and N. left her room and are talking about K.” “She’s had cybersex! She wears leggings that say ‘Fuck’ on them (126)!”
B. and N. sneak out past curfew with a bottle of wine: “I kiss her…we have more wine…cool night air on skin, hands and mouths moving over each other…the sound of breath (131).”
N. decides she wants to make something for B. and goes to K. to see if she can give her some material: “Oh, sure, raid my wardrobe for all your deviant needs…What are you making, some kind of fabric-covered sexual aid?’ K. holds up a pair of green velvet leggings. ‘ Here, these don’t really fit me, goddammit, so you can use them (133).”
K. talks about starting her period: “ ‘…I am bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig…maybe that’s why B. doesn’t want to see you.’ N. says: ‘Mine hasn’t started yet.’ K.: ‘…maybe you’re pregnant! Alert the media, it’s the first lesbian conception without artificial insemination!’ ‘Why are you so obsessed with the whole lesbian thing? I’ve liked boys before, I probably will again…the appropriate word is bisexual, since you’re so desperate to give me a label’ (139).”
B.’s been hanging around Ke. [one of their guy friends], and N. is jealous: “…goddamn Ke. (140).”
N. gives B. the present, she does not like it and then they have an argument. N. is now talking to her friend K.: “ ‘She didn’t like a present I made for her”… ‘Was it some weird sex thing? And then she wasn’t into it and she got mad?’” N. is now writing in her journal: “When you play the viola a lot, you get a red mark on your neck that looks not unlike a hickey. This causes people like I. to make lewd comments (148).”
N. is working on her assignments/experiments for class: “I am sifting through the contents of a medium sized Ziploc bag. I have ten of these bags. They contain samples from the contents of several different garbage cans…some of them are the kind of garbage cans that are just for cigarettes…other ones are worse…I’m convinced that I’m going to find used condoms in them, or worse (149).”
K. and I. are watching N. do her assignment and they begin discussing two cigarette butts she finds with lipstick: “ ‘You can’t be sure it was a woman. Men wear lipstick sometimes,’ I say, thinking of the skirt-wearing boy. I. has picked up one of the other plastic bags…he holds it up and says… ‘…this conclusively proves that our murderer is a chain-smoking transvestite (150).”
“ ‘Oh shit,’ says K. …I look up from my notebook… It’s B. And Ke. (150).” On page 154, N. catches B. and Ke. kissing on the elevator.
I. and N. are talking about it at the riverbank. I. tells her that she would like it in another city “Because there are tons of dykes! I’m sure some of them would be just delighted to console you in your sorrow…if you want to give B. a big old bitch-slap, I say go for that…turning around and running like you’re Bambi’s mom and they’re the evil hunters is doing dick for you (160-161).”
They start talking about his parents’ divorce: “I. shrugs. ‘Not your fault he’s [his dad] is an asshole (162).” He kisses N. she analyzes it and he says: “Jesus-crucified-Christ [N.]. If you didn’t spend every goddamn second of your life trying to analyze the exact meaning of every single thing that ever happened to you, B. might not have dumped you! (164).”
Two boys in the class tease N.: “ ‘Oooh, Little Miss Bleeding Heart Lesbian’s by herself’ … ‘What the hell are you talking about? ‘You know what I’m talking about…she ditched you, so now you wanna put some Chinese food on your menu.’ ‘Moo goo gay pan.’ Dammit. ‘Shut the fuck up’ (168).”
N. thinks about I. when he kissed her and makes a comparison: “…the kiss itself is like something I saw in a movie...everything with B. has been seared into my brain…Does that mean I’m definitely a lesbian, not bisexual, or just that I love B. and I only like I. (176)?”
They are going to a dance, I. says: “They figure we don’t get enough of this shit at our regular schools…N. and B., you guys should take the floor. Do a total gropefest and see if they try to stop you. If they do, you can slap an anti-discrimination suit on them and make a lot of money (201).”
All four leave the dance and go toward the riverbank; B. and N. go off alone: “…she [B.] suddenly puts her arms around me and starts kissing me, hard (212).”
While the book does not describe the way they have sex, they actually do by the way the ending reads: “I sit up and reach out to retrieve my shirt, which has ended up several feet away from us. B. giggles, ‘…Uh-oh – this dress is in pretty sad shape.’ …costume is severely grass-stained, and there are a lot of sequins missing from the bodice… ‘Zip me up?’ [B.] asks. I comply, pausing to kiss the back of her neck before I pull the zipper completely closed (213).”