The following is an excerpt from the novel The Brittanys by Brittany Ackerman. The Brittanys is available now from Vintage.
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My cousin Liza works as a receptionist at our pediatrician’s office and gave me a bunch of earring starter kits a while back. They’re these little punch machines that shove an earring into the desired spot. It doesn’t really hurt, and it’s mainly used on babies. I told her I needed more studs, and she just let me have a whole bunch of these kits. Jensen and I both have our first and second holes pierced, one on top of the other, both somehow approved by our parents, but we want more, of course. Jensen wants to do one more hole above her second, and I want to do the very front part of my ear, the little piece of cartilage called the tragus. After much research from Katherine Bennington on the varsity volleyball team, who is a grade above us and has piercings all up and down her ears, this seems like the best plan. And today feels like the perfect day to put the plan into motion.
When we get back to my house, we start sorting candy, making a small pile for my mom. My dad gets back from New York early this afternoon, so I make a stack for him as well, but my brother doesn’t eat candy so I don’t worry about him. After we eat a sufficient amount of after-breakfast candies, we sterilize our hands with Dial soap and water. We pull our hair into tight buns and clip back any pieces that might slip out during piercing. I go first, to show Jensen how to use the piercing mechanisms. I draw a tiny dot in permanent marker on the spot where the earring will go, then line up the sharp end of the earring with that dot, and squeeze the plastic until the earring and stopper click together. I aim for the center of my ear and end up going a little too close to the edge, but it still goes in. It hurts like a bitch. The tragus is thick toward the center, and I have to keep pushing, because it’s cartilage. There’s a sense of control, but I’m definitely going to need to ice it after.
I remove the plastic, and we can see the piercing’s a little off-center, but you can’t really tell unless you’re up close, so I’ll just have to show people from far away. It’s going to take time to heal anyway, but it’s fun to show people right when you first get it. Jensen begins working on her third hole while I go grab ice from downstairs. I make sure to cover my ear with my hair so my mom won’t see it if she’s in the kitchen. She’s not, so I grab a paper towel and wrap it around a few ice cubes and run back upstairs. Jensen’s already done and admiring her new piercing.
“It was so easy!” She beams. “I squeezed it just to line up the earring and it went right in.”
We’re both happy and in a little bit of pain. We watch a movie and take a nap, careful to sleep on the opposite sides of where we just pierced so nothing catches and tears.
Jensen leaves later that afternoon, because I have to go to some party for my brother. He’ll be off to college next year, and a family that lives in Margate is having an open house for the University of Miami. Brad’s already pretty sure he wants to go there, but my mom wants him to meet some other kids who might end up attending, too. He’s applied for a bunch of scholarships, and my parents are convinced he’ll get funding because of his good grades—he’s got a 5.6 GPA, which isn’t even possible, but he got an award for it. They have all the faith in the world in him when it comes to his schoolwork and his genius.
It’s Sunday, and I don’t have anything better to do, so I don’t object to coming along. I like being driven around by my parents anyway. In two years I’ll get my license and be free to do whatever I want, but there’s something nice about listening to my iPod in the car and staring out the window, watching the Florida scenery drift by. Jensen and I already have plans for the day she gets her license, which is about a month before I’ll get mine. She’s going to pick me up and take me to the mall, and we’re going to listen to *NSYNC on the way. We made the plans back in fourth grade, when *NSYNC was really popular, but we want to stick to it, because it’s what our nine-year-old hearts wanted. It’s our dream to go to the mall and find a parking spot and go inside all by ourselves, without one of our parents waiting at the entrance of Bloomingdale’s, without walking around the mall in fear or embarrassment that we might run into them.
I get overdressed for some reason. I feel like looking nice, even though it’s not my event. There’ll be older boys there, juniors and seniors, maybe even some college freshmen, so I wear a navy-blue dress from Abercrombie & Fitch and straighten my hair as best I can. I wear small wedge heels that aren’t too bad to walk in, but the lady who owns the house insists on no shoes inside, so they come off anyway. My mom drags my brother around to talk to other parents and kids of those parents who are going to the University of Miami. My dad finds a seat on the couch and talks to another father about something I have no interest in. I try to find a phone to call Jensen, but the only one I see is in the kitchen, and it’s too out in the open, even if I stretch the cord. Any others must be upstairs, which is off-limits. There’s a big sign tacked to the wall telling people not to go up, which makes me want to, badly. Instead, I go to the bathroom and examine my ear. It’s not doing so well. When I pierced my second holes, the area was itchy, which meant it was healing. But this time it’s pulsating red and hot. I think it might be infected. I decide to take it out, and luckily the hole doesn’t bleed. I wrap up the earring in tissues and toss it into the trash can next to the toilet. I take a hand towel and wet it with cold water. My tragus is on fire. I feel stupid for trying to pierce that part of my ear, something that probably needs to be done professionally. I also feel stupid because now Jensen will be the only one with a new piercing tomorrow at school.
I wet my ear and there’s a little relief. It needs time to heal. Back in the living room, I beg my dad to let me use his cell phone, and he agrees. I go out back, to the pool, where some older kids dressed in shirts and ties are eating chips. I feel cool with my dad’s cell phone. I dial Jensen, and she knows my dad’s number when it comes up on her phone, so she answers.
“I had to take out the earring,” I say. “So don’t tell anyone we both have piercings tomorrow. Or before tomorrow, if you talk to anyone before then.”
“I took mine out, too!”
“Why?”
“I think those kits are defective. Mine was hurting so bad.”
“Was it hot?”
“On fire. That means it’s infected, right?”
“I think so.”
“I showed my brother, and he said you’re supposed to leave it in if it’s infected, but I already took it out. It feels better already.”
“Mine too. I didn’t tell my brother, though. He’d probably tell on me.” I look around the party for a minute. In a few years, this will be me and Jensen in someone’s backyard, getting ready to venture off to another place, somewhere bigger and better than Boca.
“How much candy do you have left?” I ask.
“Too much.”