âEIGHTEEN PERCENT!â I could hear my voice echoing through the cinderblock-walled laundry room. âEighteen percent is for nuns and small children. Eighteen percent is not for twenty-seven-year-old single girls living in Los Angeles.â
Carla yanked open the dryer and started scooping her pinkish whites into her laundry basket. An hour ago, her whites had actually been white, but with Carla, these things tended to happen. âI still canât believe youâre so upset just because you got a crappy score on some Internet Slut Test.â She flashed me a look designed to underscore just how much she didnât believe Iâd do something so foolish. Ridiculous, really, given that Carla had known me since kindergarten. I was Mattie Brown and she was Carla Browning, which meant that fate had pretty much destined that weâd sit beside each other in every class until graduation. Being relatively pragmatic, we figured we could either be best friends or vile enemies. Weâd opted for the friend route. At the time, it had seemed the more prudent option.
Today, Carla was probably having second thoughts, a supposition that quickly proved true when she pulled out a pale pink bra and shook it at me. âYouâre as bad as you were in high school, only now you donât have Angie dogging your heels.â
Angie is my stepsister, although the âstepâ part has never really been part of the equation for either one of us. We were both three when our parents married, and sheâs my sister, for good, bad or indifferent. And since weâre separated by a mere four months (sheâs the eldest), we grew up sharing each otherâs clothes, coveting each otherâs boyfriends and busting tail to outdo each other academically, socially and every other way. I love her, but Iâve never stopped trying to beat her. Andâdamn the womanâthe truth is that she usually beat me. In everything from boyfriends to grade point average. (In the latter, she edged by me with one grade point, taking the lead in our very last semester of high school, and wresting the valedictorian slot away from me. Not that Iâm bitter or anythingâ¦)
I took a breath and tried to stop scowling. âIâm not trying to be the slut valedictorian. For that matter, itâs not even really about the test. I mean, another test said my perfect job would be analyzing actuarial tables, and how ewww is that?â
âVery,â she agreed, and we both paused for a moment, reveling in the mathematical horror. âBut if it wasnât the test, then what?â
I shrugged. âThe realization that came with it, I guess.â I paused for emphasis, then spit out the horrible truth. âMy sex life is boring.â
Carlaâs perfectly plucked brows rose infinitesimally. âI thought you didnât have a sex life?â
So much for slipping one past Carla. âFine. You win. My sex life was boring. Back when I was with Dex, it was duller than dirt. And now that Iâm single again, itâs not boring. Itâs nonexistent.â Dex had dumped me about four months ago, a little fact that had pretty much blown me out of the water. Weâd been together two years, and I expected weâd stay together, ending up with a marriage and two-point-five kids and a dog.
Yes, our sex lifeâand the rest of our relationship if you want to get right down to itâhad been spiraling downward, but we were comfortable. Or, at least Iâd thought we were.
But my dirty little secret? Even though I was blindsided by the breakup, I wasnât all that disappointed. What I was, was angry. I should have been the dumper, not the dumpee. As it was, Iâd completely lost face. With myself, even if with no one else.
With a dramatic sigh, I hefted an armful of white cotton undies out of my dryer, then frowned at the laundry basket, wishing it were filled with shocking bits of red satin and black lace. Underwear with a raison dâêtre more provocative than simply keeping my private parts hidden in the event of a catastrophic highway accident. Like every other normal mother on the planet, my high-powered attorney momâs list of constant worries placed clean underwear higher than poverty, nuclear war or starving children in China.
Too bad for me, Mom had taught me well. There wasnât a frivolous panty in the bunch. No satin, no lace, nothing even remotely Frederickâs of Hollywood about my unmentionables. Not even Victoriaâs Secret. Weâre talking K-Mart all the way.