I have to admit, I was howling. Everyone was. Even Ed.
"Woodard," Ed told her, "Here’s the scenario. One to nothing, us. Bases loaded, one out, top of the ninth. Tailor made double play ball to Ed. Right through his legs. Onpurpose. Runs score, Lily loses, Ed laughs."
"You’d never. You like winning too much," Lily told him.
"I think you just lost me," I admitted.
"Baseball. Lily’s our star pitcher."
"Really?" I said, surprised. A girl was the star pitcher?
"Yup," Mike put in.
"I love baseball," Lily told me. "And, yeah, I’m good. Mike’s on the team too, he’s our catcher. Frankie’s one of our other pitchers and center fielder."
"Let me understand this," I said. "You’re a pitcher, Mike’s a catcher, and you guys are going out?"
"Makes for an interesting locker room, I’ll tell you that," Ed butt in.
"Ah, we’ve never done a thing in the locker room, and you know it," Lily teased him. "Right field, that’s a different matter." Everyone else chuckled, and she turned to me. "The first time we ever made love was in right field."
"You’re kidding," I said.
"Nope. It’s now become a running joke on the team. Mike kissed me the other day while we were standing on the sideline at practice, and Ty Christopher-that’s our first baseman-yelled, ‘Take that crap out to right field!’"
"Frankie keeps joking about putting up a sign," Ed said. "Mike and Lily slept here."
"There wasn’t any sleeping going on, Frankie," Lily said.
"OK, Mike and Lily fucked here?" Frankie joked. "Mike and Lily came here would work, too, I suppose."
"Oh, you bet your ass it worked," Lily said.
I was dumbfounded. Just the way the conversation had gone, it just dumbfounded me.
"How’s the program going, Natalie?" Amanda asked me from the other side.
"Uh, not well," I admitted.
"It gets easier," she told me. "I had a lot of troubles too."
"You did?" I said. I knew who Amanda was, and she had always been known as outgoing.
"Yeah. I was pretty repressed when it started. I was also a virgin. The whole thing terrified me. Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."
"It did?" I said.
"Yeah. I got unrepressed in a hurry," she laughed. "Lost my virginity, and found a boyfriend," she told me. "Jared and I started going out then, but gave each other the rest of the week to experiment, because we’d both been repressed."
"You started going out, but you experimented? With other people, I take you mean?" I asked.
"Yeah," Jared told me. "We even had a threesome-the two of us and another girl."
"And I got gangbanged shortly thereafter," Amanda said.
"You’re kidding," I was shocked. "Did you like that?"
"It was fun. Once, mind you. I’ve never done it again and don’t really want to. But I’m glad I did it once. Jared’s a lot more fun." She grinned at him. The way those two looked at each other! "Anyhow, what I was saying about The Program-it loosened me up, let me discover myself sexually, got me a boyfriend. Discussions about it also led to my mother loosening up. Which was a small miracle. And that just about saved my parents’ marriage-to the point where I’m going to have a little brother or sister in July."
"Wow," I said.
"How’s your Mom doing, by the way?" Mike asked her.
"Great. She’s had amniocentesis-she is 42, after all-and everything looks great. My parents are over the moon about it. Mom’s five months along now and starting to show. I thought that would, you know, bring her down-but she’s glowing."
"I bet you’re thrilled to be the handy live-in babysitter," Lily teased.
"Ah, only for a year or so, before I go to college. That’s the only thing that really sucks, actually, is that I won’t be around for a lot of the kid’s growing up. So, for that year I’m there-and when I come home on breaks-I’ll probably be volunteering to baby-sit." She grinned at me "I’ll just have Jared help. Feed the kid, change the diaper, put it to bed-and then find other ways of amusing ourselves."
They seemed so into sex. Which just amazed me. I really am a freak.
"Hey, Natalie," Mike asked. "You’re in Trig last period with Ed and I, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Ed says you’re a brain." I giggled at that. "Did you get what Mr. Frey was saying at the end yesterday?"
"Sure." I explained what Mr. Frey had talked about at the end of class yesterday.
"OK. I get it now. Thanks, Natalie, you made more sense than Mr. Frey. Ed’s right, you really are smart, aren’t you?"
"Yeah, he told us you were seventh in the class?" Lily said.
"Yeah," I said sheepishly.
"That’s awesome," Jared said. "I’m pretty proud of being twenty-third. Seventh is awesome." I just blushed.
"So, you ready to play third base in the nude?" Mike asked Ed.
"No, I am not. But I figure if Lily can pitch in the nude, I can handle it."
"I was in The Program the week of tryouts," Lily told me. "Me and this gorgeous talented catcher, who helped me out."
"I taped her boobs," Mike laughed.
"They were getting in the way of me throwing, and sports bras were forbidden, so he came up with this ingenious solution involving an ace bandage," Lily laughed.
"So, you went to tryouts wearing nothing but an ace bandage around your chest?" I asked.
"Well, they let me wear socks and my cleats," she laughed. "And not just tryouts, but out first game. Which I pitched."
"And won," Mike jumped in. "And scored the winning run."
"And tore my entire right leg up sliding into home with said winning run," Lily laughed.
"You guys on the baseball team seem to have a lot of fun," I commented.
"We do, it’s a blast," Ed said. "We’ve got a home game today at 3:30. You should come."
"I don’t know," I said.
"Sure, come on," Amanda told me. "You can sit with Jared and I, we’re going."
My mother would be furious. Did I care anymore? "I’ll think about it," I said. Changing the subject, I said, "It seems like those of you who have gone through the Program actually enjoyed it."
"I think we all did," Mike said. "At this table, it’s just the four of us, Lily and I and Amanda and Jared-well, now we can add you and Ed."
"Yeah," I said. But what I thought was this-you all enjoyed it. But Ed’s not. He brought you all over here to help me out. He’s spending this entire week-which normal people, apparently, enjoy-watching over a terrified mentally-scarred hopeless case. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to him.
I think that’s when the light started to dawn on me.
Ed was being so nice. And his friends were being nice, too. I now know why he valued his friends so much. I had a feeling he asked them to come sit with us. And they were friendly, they included me in the conversation, Mike asked me about Trig. I realized, it was like talking to Ed yesterday. I forgot, for a few minutes, how naked I was.
That’s when I made a decision. No more ‘woe is me’ stuff, not about The Program. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was going to stick it out. I was going to try to relax about it as much as I could.
I didn’t think I’d ever enjoy it, per se, but Ed deserved to. He didn’t need me bringing him down.
Anyhow, lunch was over, and it was time to go to Bio. Ed, Jared, Amanda, and Maggie all walked with me.
The guys were stopping me, as usual. I was getting felt up, as usual.
After one, Amanda asked me, "Why do you get all stiff and vacant when they do that?"
"I don’t like it much," I admitted, blushing.
"Really? That’s a pity. When I was in the program, I loved it," she giggled.
"I thought you said you were repressed at the beginning," I said to her.
"Yeah, and having a few fingers in your pussy will unrepress you in a hurry," she laughed.