American Girls by Alison Umminger

or in school. When we finished The Great Gatsby, the last day of class, he asked, all sly and crafty, “While we’re on the topic of all things prohibited: Is there any chance that Nick Carraway was in love with Gatsby?” You could practically hear half the class snickering, not that it was funny. I technically had two moms, and I could have told all of them that it wasn’t exactly stand-up comedy. But Mr. Haygood waited the laughter out, and by the end we wondered if maybe he wasn’t right. Gatsby sure was more interesting than Daisy, or that weird golf pro who was always lounging around and passing herself off as a love interest.
    There were no classes like Mr. Haygood’s at Doon’s school, the school where I was headed in the fall since my parents had decided that sending me to private school was a waste of their ever-evaporating money. I knew what Doon read in her classes—boring books approved by the state of Georgia. She was always telling me about some book that got banned because a parent thought it was a scandal to read the word “damn” or “booger” or something stupid like that. All that was left in the library, Doon claimed, was young-adult lit as written by Barney the Dinosaur. No thank you. And there was no way they talked about which team Gatsby was batting for. Not on this earth.
    â€œWorry about that later,” my sister said, pointing at the door. “Move. Now.”
    Her boyfriend was back in town, and she was all hot and bothered.
    Overnight, the BMW had vanished and the Jetta that my mom had sold my sister after Birch was born had materialized in the driveway. Delia didn’t say anything about the switch, so I didn’t ask. The inside of the Jetta reeked of cigarettes. Delia spritzed on some perfume that smelled like window cleaner, shook her hair out of the ponytail, and reapplied the plum lipstick that she had wiped off for the shoot with Roger that had evidently taken place before I even woke up. My sister may not have been a zombie, but she definitely didn’t sleep.
    â€œI think you should take Roger up on his offer,” she said.
    â€œReally, because I think you should stop taking Roger up on his ‘offers,’ or whatever you two are calling that movie of his. He doesn’t even know what he’s shooting. Why would you do this? He’s an idiot. Haven’t you figured that out yet? He probably just wishes he were Charles Manson. Did you know that if a girl wore glasses, Manson would break them because he thought they should all be ‘natural’? He wasn’t just a psychopath, he was an asshole. Who cares why anyone wanted to listen to him?”
    My sister broke it down for me like she was some mafia boss. “I’m not saying you should care about Charles Manson, I’m saying it’s a good business opportunity. Do you know they’ve hired television writers as young as seventeen? It’ll be a great credit for you when the film gets released. Roger is going places. We stopped sleeping together at least a year before we broke up, not that it’s any of your business. He thinks he might like men. Okay? You happy now?”
    I wanted to say “ Ewwwww, ” not because of the men part, but because it was my sister and Roger and ewwwwwwwwwww . The thought of the two of them having sex was scarring, then I wondered if maybe she was just dating our mother, but in reverse, which was doubly scarring. Third-degree-psychic-trauma scarring.
    â€œSo if it’s so innocent, why can’t you tell your new boyfriend?”
    â€œDex? You don’t know men at all, do you, Anna?”
    â€œAm I supposed to?”
    Delia’s phone was ringing and she answered in a completely different voice from the one she’d been using. Good morning, sunshine.
    â€œHey, honey, yup, we’re on our way. Okay, I’ll pick some up but they’re poison and you know it. Love you too.”