“Who are you,” Carl said slowly, “and what have you done with April?”
I sighed but really, after my panic attack and breakdown over them pushing me to go to the event just last night and my and May’s new understanding, they had to be wondering if I was going bipolar or something. Taking a bite of my dinner roll to give myself a moment, I cleared my throat.
“I thought about your points,” I said with what dignity I could muster. “And— It was a spur of the moment thing. Papa was there at lunch, and I trust him. He’s a gentleman, he was very cool about everything at the party.”
Mom had gotten the full story of the party after my sleepover at Pinky’s, but I didn’t think I’d named Papa and after a look that somehow told me she’d uncovered to take my mental temperature, she looked at Carl and he looked at her. It was such a parental look I almost groaned; only a month and we’d come to this. “Chet somebody,” Carl said because obviously Mom had telepathically told him that clarification was needed (and she really could do that). “Big guy. Junior, football player, waited with her until I picked her up. Seemed steady.” When Carl had seen Papa, his “Sooo, who’s the boy?” had earned him a punch in the shoulder (weak) and rolled eyes before I told him all about the Hemingways and my new nickname.
Mom’s eyes turned back to me, now above a twitching smile. “Do you like them big, sweety?”
Sliding my plate away I dropped my head to the table, knocking my forehead on it a couple of times before just sagging. Steph thought I was hilariously funny and started burbling in her highchair. “I swear to God,” I said to the table, “if I hear one more question about what I like I won’t even look at a boy until I graduate.”
“Do you promise?” Carl asked and I heard Mom swat him. Hah, hah.
“So do we get to meet him?” she asked, sounding like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Not Friday,” I said, deciding that right there; I couldn’t do that to Papa. I lifted my head. “You can drop me off at City Center but I’m slapping a preemptive restraining order on the two of you. You don’t come within fifty feet of Pa— Of Chet.”
Mom started laughing. “Deal, but we’re both driving you so we can see him.”
“And he can see us.” Carl winked. “We can flex at him from a distance.”
“And we’re getting you a new outfit for it,” Mom said. “We’re going to embrace the party’s 40’s bobby-soxer theme. Poodle skirt. Ankle socks. Saddle shoes. I’m going to take pictures.”
I was doomed.
Back in my room for the night, I changed into a loose tee and sweatpants—braless now, I didn’t know if I’d ever really get used to the band and straps—before flopping on my bed and RSVP’ing the number on the invitation. Texting Papa using the number from his card, I let him know about the drop-off and pickup plans (and the 50-foot rule) and warned him about the parental enthusiasm with the party theme. He must have done some quick internet research because his reply text ten minutes later was,
There was a winky emoji and kissy emoji after it, and I stared at them, biting my lip. Then I groaned. Less than two months as a teenage girl, and I was lying on my bed ignoring my homework while pondering a boy’s text and what it meant about his feelings. How cliché.
I still saved his number under ‘Papa’ on my phone. Then wondered if he expected me to reply back. Then almost threw my phone at the wall.
Rolling off my bed, I got back to work. My math assignment wasn’t going to do itself. Sitting at my desk, I brought up the assignment, pencil and notepad ready, and . . . glared at the screen as I squirmed. What was going on? The weak but there pulse between my legs told me.
Fuck.
Just texting Papa had me thinking about his big hands, broad shoulders, deep voice, curly dark hair, easy boyish grin when he looked down at me beside him at lunch and that was making me . . . God, I’m pathetic. And I had to study.
There was only one thing to do, and I went to pull down my panties and sweatpants then stopped, remembering what I’d felt beneath the table when I’d crossed my legs. I’d read about it in A Pillow Book, could I . . .
Skootching my hips forward a bit, I braced my arms on the armrests and crossed my legs again, thighs squeezing tightly enough that if I was still a guy I’d have been crushing my nuts, and inhaled at the feeling, the pressure it put on my vulva. While the furthest thing from a male stiffy, it still throbbed arousal between my legs.
Imagining big warm hands on my hips, I rocked, squeezing and rubbing my thighs together to heighten pressure and friction. Oh. Oh . . . A hand went up under my tee to cup the soft swell of my breast and pinch a poky nipple as I closed my eyes and sank into the sensations. I could feel the heat of my rising sex-flush and knew I was already red from my chest to my cheeks as my muscles tightened.
Minutes of rocking and squeezing had me climbing the slope, breath quickening, flashes of images flipping through my mind. Big hands, broad shoulders, curly hair, soft words, and I was getting more and more frustrated, my ascent stalling just short of the peak and holding there. Finally remembering something else, I clenched my core, once, again, and— Throwing back my head I inhaled and shouted as the tension through my body snapped and released and I shook and shuddered until I came down.
That was. Wow.
Not the strongest orgasm I’d had, but a decent one; I huffed a laugh to think I was rating them now. And practically hands-free, too; I wondered idly if I could repeat it without the breast play. Later. Math now.
I got back to work on the dread numbers.
***********************************
The next morning Pinky popped up beside me at our lockers. “He’s a Galahad.”
“What?”
She leaned against her locker. “Papa’s a Galahad. Started dating last year, went out with three girls in our class. One asked him out, he asked two out, all of them report he’s the ‘perfect gentleman.’ Two of them were disappointed about that. One of them spread stories that they ‘did it,’ which he’s never confirmed or denied.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Not thinking about last night, nope, nope, nope. At least it meant he wasn’t secretly a Gropy McGroper who’d be on me like an octopus—not that I’d even thought he might be, considering how thoughtful he’d been at Delia’s party. “Good?” I put my street dress and phone away, closing up.
“Good? This is great. It means he’s in casual mode right now. Want fun? He’s fun. Want to go a bit further? He’s probably up for that but he’s not going to push it or tell tales. The pace is up to you.”
So he’d be waiting for signals? He wasn’t going to get them from me. “Thank you, Agent Pinky. Your service has been invaluable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Laugh it up, I wouldn’t let you go out with him if I got a bad report.”
“Is that a Big Sister duty?”
“Yyyyup. Also, to arrange for his suspicious disappearance if he makes my little sister cry. Oh, and Vice wants to see us during lunch.”
“Vice?”
“Vice Headmistress Fordice? The woman who brought us together?”
The vice headmistress wanted to see us? I started walking, schoolbag held in front of me, as I tried to think of anything that might warrant a trip to her office. Pinky fell in beside me. “She texted me this morning and ‘requested our presence,’ during lunch, wants to ask us a favor.”
A favor, I repeated silently to myself. What could that be? Well, sufficient to the day—or the hour—was the evil thereof, I supposed. “Meet you at the office?”
“Nah, let’s grab sandwiches and stuff first. Don’t want to get caught out of time.”
I nodded, still wondering but a bit reassured that Pinky wasn’t acting like it was a big thing. “Okay. See you in gym.”
“A place I’d be happy to never be seen in again,” she groaned. “Later!”
I was getting the rhythm of school, and Ms. Hollander’s civics and history class was turning into my easiest class of the day. I’d always been interested in history, read a lot of books after college, so even where I hadn’t read the particular authors she chose I knew the broad outline of national and social events we were covering, how it all fit together.
My science and Japanese classes? Not so much; there I was struggling to remember long-forgotten science and I had no grounding in Japanese at all (it still seemed more relevant than French or German, the other two language choices). But old study habits were shaking themselves awake; while I was now pretty sure that thinking with a teenage brain drowning in hormones and not finished developing was destroying my focus, I had developed organized habits in my sixty years and I could brute-force it when I needed to.
But those were evils for after lunch; gym passed at its predictable sweaty pace—today after warmup calisthenics they introduced us to the climbing ropes, weighted medicine balls, and other instruments of upper-body torture—and then it was lunchtime and I was brown-bagging a sandwich and apple instead of filling a tray. Not far ahead of me in line, Pinky waited for me to finish gathering my fuel, and with a wave to everyone at Delia’s table (returning Papa’s wave not at all awkwardly), I followed her to the office.
****************************************
“Thank you for coming, girls. I’ll try not to take too much of your lunch hour.”
Sitting across from us, hands folded on her desk, Vice Headmistress Fordice was as pleasant and intimidating as I remembered, narrow glasses and graying hair in its severe bun giving her effortless authority and gravitas, her fit and trim figure with proper posture made apparent by her closely tailored blazer and pencil skirt. I absently hoped I’d look as good when I came around to her age again.
“Sure, Vice!” Pinky quipped. “So what’s this about?”
“Well, first I wanted to congratulate April on her successful start at Hadley. Ms. Maddison has had only good things to say, and then of course there is the Golden Whistle.” She smiled with friendly humor at my groan at the reminder of my first day of gym class. “Well done, April. But the main reason I asked you to come in is I hope you will do something for us.”
“If we can,” Pinky said immediately while I wondered what we could do for the school.
“That’s what I like to hear. And really, it’s something you’ve already done, Ms. Patton. What I would like for you and Ms. Seever to do is take on a little sister.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry? How could we— I mean, Pinky is great but how could I be a big sister?”
Her lips twitched. “I will not address the biology of that, but speaking less than literally, what has happened is that one of our new eighth-years has had to suddenly withdraw. Her father has accepted an emergency promotion overseas and is taking his family with him. We will miss her, she came up from Hadley Lower, but her departure in the first month of the school year leaves a hole we can fill from our waiting list. Starting late is not ideal, but Ms. Daphne Porter has accepted and will be here beginning Wednesday. And this allows me to address the situation that you would have faced in two years.”
“Situation?”
“Simply, in two years Ms. Patton graduates. Everyone loses their big sister to graduation of course, but they are not sisterless because they have their little sisters, and in their twelfth year they get new baby sisters. Grand-sisters, you might say, their sister’s sister.”
“. . . But I don’t have a little sister.”
“Correct. I had thought to give you one for your eleventh year, but as you’re older than your academic year-mates as it is, it would make you as much as five years older than your new little sister rather than the usual two. It would also mean your little sister would lose her big sister to graduation a year early. Giving you a little sister this year is best and now we have this opportunity.”
“So Pinky provides the actual experience and I provide . . . moral support?”
“Oh, much more than that I should hope, but Pinky will certainly help you. Well, girls? Will you do it? I’ll arrange a locker shuffle and lock change to put her next to you, such things happen, and you’ll meet her before school tomorrow morning to give her the proper welcome.”
************************************
“So . . . what do you think?” Pinky asked. Leaving the Vice Headmistress’ office, Pinky and I had gone back to the same small empty conference room she’d pulled me into last week to eat our lunches, and now she looked at me over her roast beef sandwich. Ms. Fordice had given us till end-of-classes today to decide.
I shrugged. “I’m thinking why us? The departing eighth-year left a big sister with no little sister, right? So wouldn’t it be best for Ms. Fordice to put Daphne with her? Like what happened with you and me?”
“Huh.” Pinky looked struck. “That’s a good question.”
I nodded. How could the Vice Headmistress think this was a good idea? I sure didn’t. Okay, think this through. All the way back in business school, I’d been taught that when you didn’t understand someone’s decision the best thing was to ask what circumstances or incentives could account for it. So really, what was she thinking? “How are sisters matched, anyway?”
“Commonalities,” Pinky said. “Most little sisters come up through Hadley Lower, and even newcomers have extensive school records. So, academic interests and standing, clubs, achievements, all that stuff.”
“So sporty students get matched, academic achievers get matched, that kind of thing?”
“I think it’s more of a ‘Hadley Personality’ profile? But yeah, you don’t see academic opposites matched, or geeks and sporty girls, students that just don’t have anything in common. Hey, that’s probably it—the big sis left just isn’t a good match for Daph, not like she was for whoever moved to Europe.”
Taking a bite of my apple, I sipped my water, trying to be calm about it. “And I am?”
Now she shrugged. “You can certainly sympathize with her? Being a last-minute admission. A past-minute admission.”
Fuck. Fuck. That much was true and probably part of what Ms. Fordice was thinking. And Pinky’d already displayed her ability to insert a newcomer into the Hadley social order. Those were good reasons. Good HR was all about teaming the right people, and it couldn’t be any different with students. From the school’s perspective we were a fit, or close enough anyway, for their needs. “So you’re compulsively super-helpful and I’m as lost as she’ll be so we can commiserate.”
My big sister snorted. “Hey! Mean.”
“Pinky, you’re amazing. Okay, compulsive isn’t the best word, but you’ve been above and beyond. I’ll bet a lot of big sisters just settle for a card on the locker and making themselves available for advice, but— Yeah, I’d have been lost without you.” I sighed. “I think Ms. Fordice thinks you can do it again.”
And Pinky as elder sister meant me as big sister.
I put down my apple. As much as I needed the fuel, I’d lost my appetite. “We’re going to do this, aren’t we? Think Delia will object to one more at the table?”