Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries)

Allison Burnett

Undiscovered Gyrl

Allison Burnett is the author of
Christopher
, a finalist for the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award, and
The House Beautiful.

ALSO BY ALLISON BURNETT

Christopher

The House Beautiful

“After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth and I
suppose for older people the love of youth in others.”

—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

 

Thursday, October 25, 2007

 

Last April when I decided to defer college for a year my friends said I was insane, but I’m not. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. What a waste of time and money to go to college if you don’t know. My mom was furious at me when I told her, although she pretended she wasn’t. She said “But, sweetheart, that’s what college is for. To discover your bliss.” That sounds great on paper but what if I don’t discover my bliss until the end of sophomore year and it has nothing to do with the classes I’ve already taken? I’d have to start over. Or what if it turns out my bliss is something that doesn’t require a college degree? Like jewelry design. Or horseback riding. Or sex. Ha!

The next morning my mother emailed me and said if I was really serious about deferring and wanted to go on living at home, I’d have to get a full-time job. What did she think I was going to do, hang around the house all day?

When I told my English teacher, Ms. Rath, of my decision, she took off her hippie glasses, rubbed the purple spots on both sides of her big-pored nose and said “I’m concerned. A
girl like you needs structure.” As if you can only get structure at college! That’s pretty harsh to all the kids who can’t afford to go. And what about the girls who do go but instead of studying get drunk every night and bone the whole football team? Is that structure? Ms. Rath said I should keep a journal or start a blog so that one day I will look back on my year off and learn from the experience. I told her that was a wonderful idea. I was lying to get away from her yellow teeth and vegan breath. At least that’s what I thought at the time. Guess not!

I hope I’m not a disgrace at blogging. I have always excelled at creative writing but I suck at grammar and punctuation and can barely write my own name without spell-check. (Ms. Rath thinks I’m mildly slysdexic. Ha!) Maybe this experiment will help me to discover my bliss faster. Hope so. Bye.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

 

Most blogs are just some boring chick telling you everything you never wanted to know about her stupid life. Every single day she tells you more boring details until you just want to write to her and say “Yo, bitch, when something actually happens, let me know!” My blog will be the exact opposite. I’ll only write when I have something fascinating
to report. Which is not now. Right now it’s Halloween. I’m going to put on my rotting corpse mask and get drunk.

Friday, November 2, 2007

 

Last night Dan called and asked if I wanted to come over and watch a movie. We both know what that means. Which is why I swore I’d never go back. But I did. In fact I ran the whole way. I have no will power. Outside his front door I put on my corpse mask and when he opened up I screamed “Boo!” He wasn’t scared at all. He just laughed.

It’s always the same with me and Dan. As soon as I get to his house, we light up cigarettes and start bitching about our love lives. Last night I complained about how when I got home really late Saturday night from a semi-rave, my boyfriend Rory was waiting outside my house. He flipped out and called me “a disgusting whore” even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. All I did was drink rum and root beers with a really funny skate-rat named Tobias who’s gay and doesn’t know it yet. Rory didn’t believe me. He got so jealous he yelled in my face and shook the shit out of me. When I told him to get the fuck out and never come back, he panicked. Within two minutes he was whining like a little bitch, telling me how much he loved me and begging
me not to break up. He is grotesquely insecure. I have to dump him.

Now it was Dan’s turn. He complained about his French girlfriend, Martine, and how she’s been getting crazier and crazier lately. Right before her period, she calls him terrible names and throws heavy objects at his head. He says that at these times she is “unfit for human consumption.” They had a major fight this week because he wants her to go on Prozac a few days before each period and she said no way, she’s not some stupid American who takes a pill every time she has an emotion.

Now that we’ve finished justifying what’s about to occur, Dan gets out the weed and I pick out a film from the three he’s Netflicked. Dan teaches cinema studies at a local college. He is absolutely brilliant and is writing his P.H.D. on Anti-Americanism in the works of Jean Luc Godard. The movies he picks for us to watch are all classics. No Hollywood junk. My relationship with Dan would be like my own personal film school if only I could get through a single movie with my pants on. Hahaha!

Last night it was so cold out that while Dan stuffed the bong, I borrowed one of his sweaters. I chose a big gray cashmere V-neck with holes in the armpits. Older men’s sweaters are the best.

•    •    •

 

We got totally stoned off two hits each then Dan hit play. The film was “The Seven Beauties” by Lena Vertmuller. (She also directed the incredible “Swept Away” which most people think is about sex but is actually about the class system in Italian society.) As usual we sat on opposite sides of the couch. Then about 15 minutes later, also as usual, I crawled over, pushed him down on his back and laid my head on his chest. I love watching movies like this, even though I can barely hear the dialogue sometimes, because of the noise his hand makes as he gently scratches my scalp. A therapist would say it’s because I get no love from my dad. I say so what? It still feels amazing.

I lose track of time on marijuana so I never know exactly how long it is before I kiss him. But I’m always the one who kisses first. If Dan made the first move he would feel way too guilty. He’s 32 and I’m 17. Can you say “jailbait”?

Once we start kissing, Dan goes insane. He pulls my shirt up, grinds me to death and in about two minutes my pants and underwear are on the floor. Is every older guy a master at oral sex or just Dan? I guess I’ll find out one day. Can’t wait!

Besides how good it feels, I also love it because I get to close my eyes and let my stoned mind wander wherever it wants to. A real journey. Last night I was back in our old house before my dad moved out. We were watching the
Greenbay Packers on TV. When he screamed at the TV so did I, even though I was only six years old and didn’t understand the rules. Then I was floating on my back in a perfectly clear lake where we used to go every summer and the sunny sky had no clouds and Mr. Silaggi, the Hungarian man with the cabin next to ours, was on the shore clapping for me because it was the first time I’d ever floated with no help. He was wearing plaid shorts with black socks to cover the earthworm veins in his calves. Then it was last June and Principal Wise was handing me my diploma and whispering “We’re all so proud of you, Katherine.” He said this because as a freshman I spent three days in a mental hospital. Instead of his kind compliment making me feel good, it made me feel sorry for myself because it reminded me that my dad was too sick and selfish to be there. And then all of the sudden I was back in the present and Dan was crawling up my stomach wiping his mouth and saying “You get so close. Every time. But you always hold back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s your loss not mine.”

Sad but true!

One wonderful thing about hooking up with an older guy is that you don’t have to reciprocate. Younger guys practically grab you by the hair and push you onto their dicks. “My turn!” Or else if they’re the sensitive type, they tell you how making love will bring you so much closer, and then they
start to whine and beg like a puppy. Yuck! Dan never makes demands. The only way I even knew I was sexually frustrating him is that one time at the door he said “I’m going to cum before you get to the corner.” He was joking of course but I got the point. The reason I’ve been so selfish with him is that I always thought if we did anything more, we would end up having sex. I’ve never slept with a guy older than 22. Will it be different? Will I hate it? Or will I love it so much I’ll never want to have sex with a guy my own age again? These are the questions I ask.

Anyway, last night lying on the couch with the charming sound of Italian coming from the TV, Dan told me some really bad news. He’s moving away. Not that far but too far to walk. And since there’s no bus in that direction, I would need a car to get there, which I don’t have. Yes, of course, Dan could pick me up but I know he won’t. I don’t really blame him. It’s one thing to hook up with an underage girl when she runs over to your house and leaves pretty soon after it’s over. It’s totally different to drive 30 minutes to pick her up, then take her all the way back to your place, fool around and drive her all the way home again. It’s much sleazier.

I told Dan I hated that we’re never going to see each other again all because of a stupid fucking car. He said “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’ll see each other. Just not as much.” He hated to see me cry. He started kissing my neck, my cheeks, my nose, my mouth. I don’t know why I did it—
maybe because I was missing him already—but I broke my rule. I unbuttoned his jeans and slipped my hand inside, over his boxers. He was unbelievably hard. You should have seen his face when I started pulling. Like he was seeing god! But the sounds he made were the exact opposite, like he was being tortured alive. I always thought if we did something like this it would instantly turn to sex but it didn’t. He was content with what he was getting and didn’t try for more. After he came, he just laid there sopping wet, smiling his ass off. He said “Thanks for the box job” and we both laughed.

Our dates always end with junk food. Last night it was popcorn, string cheese, caramel ice cream and baby carrots. I drank three beers pretty fast which got Dan going on his favorite lecture. He said I was flirting with alcoholism and that unless I quit drinking I am on my way to a shit life. I replied all bored and sophisticated like Betty Davis, blowing smoke from my cigarette.

I said “Oh, dahling, you really must find a new subject. This one is so dreary!”

He didn’t even smile.

He said “Your drinking is fun and exciting now because you’re young and beautiful but when you’re thirty it’s just going to be pathetic.”

I pretended to be overjoyed. “Seriously? You think I’m beautiful?”

“Stop joking around! This is important!”

I told him he was totally wrong and that I love alcohol way too much to ever let myself get addicted to it and have to quit. This made him laugh.

When Dan and I first met, I told him all about my dad. How two years ago he almost died of a heart attack. What I didn’t tell him was that this occurred right after my dad had surgery to remove like half his stomach because of ulcers he made worse by his horrendous drinking. If Dan knew my father was a boozer, he would know alcoholism runs in my family and that he was right to worry about my excessive drinking. This would be totally humiliating. The only thing bad about going out with older guys is that they’re almost always right. Grrrrrr.

Maybe the pot was stronger than usual or maybe the box job was too much for the old dude, but when I got back from the bathroom he was sound asleep. He looked pretty cute lying there. At first I was just going to tuck him in and leave but I was sleepy too. So I squished in next to him and closed my eyes. When I opened them it was morning. Dan was snoring softly with his hand up my shirt, cupping my boob. Birds were singing outside. I thought about Rory and felt guilty.

Thank god I didn’t stop for coffee on the way home, because right after I got back, Rory knocked on my bedroom door,
which means if I’d stopped for coffee, Rory would have found my room empty and known I’d slept out. The only person whose house I ever sleep over at (besides his) is my best friend Jade’s, but she’s visiting her grandma in Thailand right now. So Rory would have known I was with another guy and I would now be dead.

“I can’t believe you’re awake so early,” he said. “I was going to crawl in bed with you.”

“My mom and I had a huge brawl last night. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Hey, what’s up with your lip?”

I didn’t even have to look in the mirror to know what he was talking about. Whenever I hook up with Dan his beard scratches the shit out of my top lip. (Dan is half Italian and has manly stubble. Rory is all Irish and barely has pubes.) How could I explain the redness? I was so scared! I was in no mood to be abused.

“Photo-dermabrasion,” I said.

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a laser process that removes broken blood vessels and unwanted moles and freckles from your face. Didn’t I tell you I got it done?”

The only reason I know about the procedure is that last week I got my teeth cleaned and there was an Allure magazine in the waiting room.

“I think I’d remember. When did you get it done?”

“Tuesday. My dermatologist gave me a free sample. Just
for like a minute. Remember that little mole I had? It’s gone now. See?”

Rory inspected my lip and yup the mole was gone but only because I never had one. Ha!

“Does it hurt?” he asked. “It looks all scraped.”

“A little. But in a few days I’ll look awesome.”

“You mean even hotter?”

“Hard to believe, huh?”

“Impossible.”

We laughed and fell on the bed.

Our sex would have been so much better if I hadn’t been thinking the whole time how I hadn’t showered yet and how lucky I was that Rory didn’t notice I was wearing a huge men’s sweater.

Such a long post! It took me four hours to write, most of which was spent spell-checking. Hahaha! I’m serious. I wonder if all my posts will be this long or if it’s just because it’s all so new and exciting? When I was 11, I kept a diary and I wrote in it every single day for a month. Then I stopped forever. I hope I don’t do that again. I quit too many things. The only things I don’t quit are the things I should: drinking, smoking and Rory. Ha!

I’m sad about Dan moving away. I never really thought I was in love with him but maybe I am. I can’t stop thinking about last night and the sounds and faces he made when I touched
him. My heart aches at the thought that I might not ever kiss his mouth or hold him close again. Must sleep.