Three Sisters by Norma Fox Mazer

start eating like a normal person.” Liz leaned on Karen’s shoulder. She smelled of shampoo and lemon skin lotion.
    Karen moved her pawn, hoping it was a decent move, and ate a doughnut hole.
    “Look, look what you did, Karen!” Tobi said. “That was dumb! You opened up your queen-bishop. Liz, I have to teach you to play this game. Karen is hopeless.”
    “Come on, Tobi, don’t take it so seriously,” Liz said.
    “What other way is there?” Tobi bent over the board, pulling at her lip. “You missed the fireworks this morning, Liz. Mom and Dad got on me about Jason.”
    “Dad, too?”
    “You betcha. Real united front. It’s just pure prejudice, because Jason’s older than me. I call that narrow-minded.”
    “Well, maybe they’ll get used to the idea,” Liz said.
    Tobi made her move and Karen was in trouble. Tobi sat back. “He’s not an ordinary person. He’s an artist. Probably a genius. People like Mom and Dad ought to be falling down on their knees in front of somebody like Jason!”
    “1 don’t think you’ll get them to do that,” Liz said. “But, Tobi, you know how you are—don’t rush into anything—”
    “Oh, God! I can’t stand it. You sound just like the parents. I don’t get you, Liz. I really don’t. Why do you always play it so safe?”
    Liz’s freckles brightened. “You call quitting my job safe? You call writing poetry safe? I guess our ideas about safety are pretty different. I don’t know where you get this idea that you’re the only one who can do things, Tobi.”
    “Did I say that, Miz Liz?”
    Karen moved a knight.
    “What’d you do that for?” Tobi said. “You have to move your king. You have to think when you play this game, damn it.”
    “Leave her alone,” Liz said.
    Karen sprang up, knocking over the chessboard. “Stop your damn arguing. Just stop it!”

Ten
    Daveeey… .” “Daveeeey,” he mimicked.
    “My sister’s going to be home any moment.”
    “Which one?”
    “Tobi.”
    “Invite her in.” He tried on a leer.
    “She says you’re too young.”
    “Oh, just for that—” He kissed her again, a really fat kiss, big, sloppy, and wet. She knew him—he did it just to be annoying.
    She wriggled free. “Davey, remember our first kiss?”
    “Total novices. I remember bumping your nose and being so embarrassed.”
    “I guess we’ve learned a few things since then.”
    “I don’t know about you, but I have.”
    “How do you rate yourself?”
    “Off the chart.”
    “He said, modestly.”
    “Well, look, Karen, if a thing is so, it’s so. We
     
    could give lessons in kissing. We’ve had plenty of practice, since we don’t hardly do nothin’ else.”
    “You are so subtle.”
    “Do you have anything against sex?”
    “David.” She tried for a heavy dose of irony in her voice. “I have nothing against sex. I’m a card-carrying member of the majority party—I approve of it.”
    “So?”
    “So, it still doesn’t mean I want to do it—the ultimate—immediately.”
    “How do you know that?” he demanded. “How do you know you like steak or don’t like steak if you’ve never eaten it? If-you never had ice cream, wouldn’t you be dumb to be sitting around here saying, Oh, no, I don’t want to have any ice cream, that’s not for me.”
    “I don’t think we’re talking about the same things,” she said. She wished she got as worked up as he did. It would make life easier. She was so tired of saying no and feeling in the wrong. Right then, in the middle of his big speech about steak and ice cream, he was also shoving one hand under her sweater and fiddling with the elastic of her pants with the other hand.
    “What clever hands,” she said, grabbing for them. Useless to be subtle with Davey. He was slippery as an eel, had at least ten hands and twenty different approaches. She finally settled for the basic defend-yourself approach and pushed him away.
    “Very nice,” he said. “What am I, on your Enemy Number One list?”
    “I