The Trouble with Lexie by Jessica Anya Blau Page B

think I usually say something like Did you bring any protection? And then they know I’ll sleep with them and so they kiss me.”
    â€œWell, there’s no chance I’ll say that, so I guess I don’t have to worry.” Lexie was often stunned by Amy’s forwardness. It played so jarringly off her naturally blond (brown) hair, her sherbet-colored clothing, and her reinforced-toe panty hose. She looked like an Avon saleslady. Not someone who would blow you under an umbrella on a rainy night (last weekend, with another phone-app date who had yet to call back).
    â€œYou know Peter and I didn’t have sex until our ninth date, right?”
    â€œThat’s absurd. You’re adults.”
    â€œThere was no way I was going to sleep with him until he’d done an STD panel.”
    â€œAre you kidding? You made him go to a doctor, fill out insurance forms, pay some unreasonably high co-pay, and then sit mostly naked, in a blue paper gown, so that you could have sex with him?”
    â€œYes. And I made the other two guys I’ve had sex with do it, too.”
    â€œI can’t believe you found three men in the world to agree to that.”
    â€œBut I never have to worry about it again for the rest of my life, ’cause I’m gettin’ married, y’all!” Lexie put on an Alabama accent. One night when they were out drinking, Amy taught Lexie the regular sayings that came up in conversation back home: How’s your mama? And, cute shoes. And if you didn’t like the person under discussion: Well, bless her heart.
    â€œWell, bless your heart.” Amy sorted through the papers on her desk. “Now quit talking about fucking Frito Friday so I can get my work done.”
    â€œIt’s not Fucking Frito Friday. There will be no fucking, I promise.”
    â€œOh, I know there won’t, ’cause there’s no way you can get a doctor down there with a rapid-response STD kit.” Amy appeared to be reading something on one of the forms. She clicked open a pen and started writing.
    Lexie watched. After a couple minutes of silence she said, “It’s so strange to think that I’ve kissed the last person I’ll ever kiss in my life. And besides Peter, not another man on earth will ever see me totally naked . . . I’m gonna get fat now. And I’m gonna stop dyeing or washing my hair and let it get all flat and oily. Oh, and I’m going to grow out all that wiry black hair on my body, too. And maybe, if it’s at all possible, I’ll cultivate some big ol’ nipple-sized moles in my armpits or on my face.” Lexie was cracking herself up. She was going to keep going until Amy tuned in and responded. Finally, Amy put down her pen and looked up at Lexie.
    â€œHoney, even if you had greasy hair, nipple moles, and a bush the size of a Jackson Five afro, men would fall for you.”
    â€œThey would not.”
    â€œYeah, they would. But I don’t have time for this. I gotta finish all these health reports. So you be sweet and quit frettin’ about this Daniel Waite.” Amy turned back to her paperwork. Lexie said the words quit frettin’ over and over again in her head.

5
    A ND THEN IT WAS FRIDAY. AMY WAS STUCK IN THE INFIRMARY WITH a vomiting freshman, so Lexie had lunch with other teachers in the dining hall. The meal was almost unbearable as Lexie had no appetite and couldn’t focus on the conversation.
    â€œHave you heard that before?” Jim Reiger asked. He was the lacrosse coach, square-jawed; he called women gals and girls ladies.
    â€œMe?” Lexie pointed at herself with her thumb.
    â€œYeah, you.” Jim scraped his chair back and spread his legs even wider than they already were.
    â€œI was spacing out,” Lexie confessed. Frito Friday was monopolizing the real estate of her head. She felt like she had a date with the president or a movie star.
    â€œI was saying that you remind me of