Peach. Joanne Green

      She hands me the phone and decides that now would be a really great time to dust the phone table and hum a lot.

      I wait and let Jamesie ask me. It takes about five solid minutes for him to get it out. I pass the time by remembering all the tracks on the Woodstock album in order, from John Sebastian to Jimi Hendrix.

      After his last hiss, I say, “But wouldn't you rather go to the Moratorium?”

      He says, “Wh-wh-what?”

      I roll my eyes. “The Moratorium,” I explain. “It's this big antiwar protest. The government won't stop the war, so everybody's going to stop doing everything and go to D.C.”

      “So wh-wh-why do you have to go to D-D-D.C.?” he asks. “You c-c-could s-s-stop doing everything at the p-p-p-p-prom, too!”

      “But Allen Ginsberg's going to be there!” I protest. Though famous poets are probably not on Jamesie's must-see list.

      I don't know what to say.

      My mother mouths, “Be charitable.” So I ask if there's going to be a band.

      Oh, gross! The D-D-D-Duprees are going to play there—my mom's kind of music! I put my hand over the phone and hiss to my mom, “Maybe Jamesie should take you.”

      She swats me with the dust cloth, so I console him. “Well, Sha Na Na was at Woodstock.”

      Jamesie doesn't know who this jokey oldies band, Sha Na Na, is. Maybe he thinks I'm stuttering.

      Nobody says anything.

      I don't know where Jamesie's mom is, but she's nowhere near the phone. Jamesie says, “I th-th-think of you all the t-t-time, b-baby.” He says he wants to kiss me all over in the d-d-d-dark.

      I turn purple and say, “Look—I'll catch you at the prom.”

      I hang up. My mother's smiling and humming. Another smashing success for the Association of South Philadelphia Aunts. She needs to know what Jamesie said so she can report at the next meeting—in other words, as soon as she can get a dial tone.

      I say, “Mom, he wants to sodomize me.”

      Her smile goes a little wonky, just for a second. Then she makes believe she didn't hear. I yell, “I just want you to know that I will never, ever live this down!”

      She says, “Little one, it's a long life.”

      Everything my mother says would look good printed on a dish towel.

	ANCIENTWORLD HISTORYPeach Sweeney
	The Prom Story, by Mrs. Sweeney (as
	told—1000 times—to Peach Sweeney)
	“The Prom was the most wonderful
	night of my life. Your father was the
	best-looking boy in the room, with his
	broad shoulders and his lovely manners.
	We only danced a few dances, but I
	knew then that I wanted to spend the
	rest of my life with him. (Sobs.)”
	The End
	There's this picture of them that I've
	seen fifty times. They're on the dance
	floor at the gym, with paper roses for

	decorations in the background. When
	I was younger, I couldn't stop looking
	at it—not 'cause of the weird fancy
	clothes, the puzzling wrist corsage—
	but because my mom is smiling. She is
	actually happy.

      Track 4: Somebody to Love

       Jefferson Airplane

      Franco doesn't say he wants to kiss me all over in the d-d-dark on the phone. But when we're in bed, he says, “Oh, baby, baby, baby. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

      Franco and me spend all our time in bed. In South Philly, if you go all the way, you're a slut. I asked Luna.

      Luna says, “If somebody wants it, it's a point of honor to share.”

      Franco definitely agreed.

      I was sort of a virgin, in spite of the rape stuff that happened. At least, I thought so, and I wanted to hang on to the little bit that I had.

      Me and Franco cut school and lay in bed at Luna's house. We'd get high and naked and crazy and do everything except go all the way—I mean, make love—I mean, you know what I mean. Franco talked a lot about love and sexual politics and brain damage.

      Franco said, “Virginity is a form of brain damage.”

	HEALTHPeach Sweeney
	Sexual politics: sex · u · al
	pol · i · tics—having to do with
	the relationship between men and
	women, particularly in terms of
	power.
	What? Huh?

       Track 5:

      Ball and Chain

       Janis Joplin

      I go to mass with my mother and my brother. My brother ditches us right away to go sit with his buddies—he says, so he can make arm farts, but I know he's embarrassed. People still stare at me, Our Lady of the Miscarriage. I try to keep my eyes on the windows and the ceiling. In the chapel on the side aisle, there's a creepy statue of the Blessed Mother. I always feel like the BVM is eyeballing me, and that she doesn't like what she sees. When I look away, I glance back quick to see if her eyes have moved. My mom elbows me and tugs down her lace mantilla. Then I study the windows, two long rows of tall stained glass picturing the holy virgin martyrs. Like the saint they named my old school for, St. Agatha, who was some chick who got her tits lopped off for refusing to put out. It's like the Virginity Hall of Fame.

      Father Nick usually beats this topic to death. Maybe because in confession all the St. Ag's girls tell him how they whisper the St. Aggie Story to their boyfriends when they're parked down the Lakes. Or is it paranoid to think Father nags because of me? When I told him about the rape thing Father Nick thought I made up a fairy tale.

      “And who knows more about fairy tales than him?” Luna hooted.

      I know she was just trying to make me feel better, but I thought lightning might strike her.