Things My Father Doesn't Want to Hear

Last night I was on the phone with Professor Girl. We were discussing what we usually discuss: people we don't so much like, people we love, the weird things we've been up to, food, my other former professors, and the most important thing in the entire world: boys.

Of course, after we start talking about boys it's only a matter of time before we slip into the next logical topic: sex. And I find it troubling that I can no longer talk about sex at a normal volume. It's one of the non-perks of having failed at getting a full-time teaching job and then moving back home to save rent because you won't be able to have an apartment and pay all your bills on a part-time instructor's salary.

If ever I want to talk about anything even remotely scandalous, I have to drop my voice, hide under a pillow, or, if the thing I'm talking about is particularly naughty, then I have to leave the main part of the house altogether. The living room and my bedroom are not that far from my father's own bedroom, and even if he's sleeping the last thing he needs to wake up to is me giggling and saying,"Something something something CONDOM!"

In this lifetime, my father has already caught me doing many stupid things, and I don't need to add "talking about boys and sex with Professor Girl" to that list. So last night there came a point where I had to say, "PG, hang on. Hang on for just a second, okay? I'm going to tell you a story, but I have to go outside."

And I gathered my cell phone charger, my slippers, and I tromped out into the garage, past the woodpile, past the stack of winter boots, past the bag of pop and beer cans we're saving for refund, and into the tiny room that juts off the garage. We call it the office, but it's not an office. No one works out there. There are some filing cabinets, sure, but it's mostly filled with boxes of my things, old clothes, wrapping paper, and board games.

I felt like I was fourteen years old again. I sat on the floor and folded my legs underneath me. I told the story of that one time—oh, that one time—and I gave her all the details, and I was able to do that in a normal voice, because I was now separated from my father by three doors, a woodpile, and a very long hallway.

It reminded me of how things used to be when I was in high school. I wasn't a very advanced girl—in fact, I didn't get my first kiss until I was sixteen years old. I'd lied about that, of course. I had friends who all got their first kisses and moved swiftly on to other things that kids were trying out in middle and high school, so I, under the pressure of their constant questions "Who do you think it's going to be?" and "Don't you want to hurry up and get it over with," caved. I caved. I told people I had been kissed. I told people it was a boy from my church. He was in the Sunday school class that met in the next room over.

The boy was real, the kissing was not. The boy did go to my church, and I had a giant crush on him. His name was Marc. He worse a varsity jacket from the next school district over, which made him a perfect candidate because no one would ever be able to check up on my story. How would they get information about him if he didn't even go to our school? So I spent most of the time in my Sunday school classes planning my next lie. I planned our dates (we went to watch baseball games at the town park) and I planned our kisses (which often took place on hills while the sun was setting) and I did this in a church. I planned elaborate lies in church. This is how real the pressure of the first kiss and being "normal" was.

By the time I got around to being in a place where it was feasible that I would get my first real kiss, stuff got turned around, things went backward. The boy who was my first kiss just assumed that by the time a girl is a junior in high school she would have already been kissed. Maybe I seemed worldly, with it, normal, and charming enough to have been kissed millions of times. I hadn't, of course, but that didn't matter. I was going to be now. But the thing is, other firsts—small milestones—happened before I ever got my first kiss. That's just the way it happened.

And after those other firsts happened, I had to try to tell my best friend. There was no way we could talk about it over the phone, because there was the chance that one of our parents was listening, would pick up the phone, or would walk into the room at the wrong time. So we had to do it face to face, to eliminate distance and the possibility of interference.

I remember one of those nights like it was yesterday. I had things to tell Amy. Many, many things. We went into her basement to get as far away from her parents as possible, and we sat on teetering high stools in front of the computer they kept down there.

I couldn't look at her. I couldn't. To properly tell the story I had to describe things. I had to say words that I wasn't comfortable saying out loud when sitting in the corner of Amy's basement. So I relied mostly on hand motions and the phrase, You know...

When my voice would raise because I got nervous or wrapped up in the storytelling, Amy would have to shush me. Her father was upstairs. We didn't want him to hear. We didn't want that at all. So I kept telling my story, kept trying to tell her how the night had gone, how dark and mysterious everything seemed and how I wanted it to keep going forever, and then there came a noise.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

It was Amy's father. He could hear us. We had woken him up. He was thumping on the floor to tell us to be quiet.

I was mortified.

As you can see, I have been scarred. I don't want more fathers to hear things I have to say about boys and what happens when a girl is alone with a boy she likes. And so I'm back in this house, taking precautions against such a thing, and I'm walking out to the office to sit in the cold, to plug my phone in and talk about things that can't—and shouldn't—be said in the main part of my house, near the cozy fire, near blankets, near the new couch that has a heat coil in one of the recliners. I'm wrapping my arms around my knees to keep myself warm, and I'm realizing I'm not so very far from where I've come. I'm not so very far from that sixteen year-old version of myself. I'm really, really not.