On Saturday, Crystal Harkins came over to take me to her aunt's for my fitting. I'd told Marilyn at the Melody Inn that morning that I was going to be in Crystal's wedding, and she'd said, "Have fun!" I never saw a woman so happy about another woman's wedding plans. As soon as Crystal was out of the picture, Marilyn would have Lester all to herself.

It felt really strange to be in this grown-up world of weddings and fittings and measurements and stuff.

"Ready?" she asked, when I answered the door. "You're going to love your dress, Alice. It looks great! Danny was asking about you."

"Who's Danny?" I wanted to know, climbing in the car beside her.

"The guy you'll be paired with in the procession. Peter's brother."

"What's he like?"

"Well, next to Peter, of course, he's probably the handsomest guy in the world. Just kidding. But he's a real hunk."

I gave a nervous giggle. Whenever I'm nervous, I giggle. I imagined walking down the aisle on my own wedding day, giggling. It would be just like me.

"Are you nervous?" I asked her. "About the wedding and everything?"

She laughed.

"I'm nervous about the wedding, all right, but what's 'everything'?"

"Oh, you know. What comes after."

"The wedding night? Sex?" She laughed again. "No. Not really. "

I was quiet and stared out my side window.

"Anything on your mind, Alice?" Crystal asked, and I remembered that this was the woman who had rescued me once when I had a permanent I couldn't stand, who showed me what to do with my hair. If I was ever to ask someone about sex, why not Crystal?

I took a deep breath. "What if after your wedding night, you . . ." I shrugged. "Well, what if you don't like it?"

"Sex?"

"Yeah."

"Why wouldn't you like it? It's a natural function."

"So is throwing up," I said.

"Listen, you like to eat, don't you? You like to sleep? To stretch? To sneeze?"

"But I don't like to eat everything."

"Well, you don't have to do everything, either. You can tell your husband what you like and what you don't, and then you can try something else. What you've got to remember, Alice, is that sex isn't like what you see in the movies."

"What movies?" I asked curiously.

"Well, almost any movie. There are lots of ways to make love. Not everybody uses the missionary position, you know."

I was about to ask how religion got into it when Crystal gasped, "Oops! We just went through a red light, Alice. See, you've even got me flustered!"

Ten minutes later I was standing on a low stool in a gorgeous jade green gown while a woman holding pins in her mouth moved around me on her knees, hemming up my dress. She took tucks here and there, at my waist, at the bosom, until I looked as though I had been poured into that dress.

"Now!" Crystal's aunt said, rocking back on her heels. "Just don't gain any weight until the wedding's over, okay?" Then she turned to Crystal. "She almost looks like a Barbie doll, doesn't she?"

"That anorexic thing?" said Crystal. "No way. Alice, don't you ever get as bony and malnourished as that nitwit."

As she drove me home again, I said, "Crystal, could I ask you something?"

"About wedding nights?" She grinned.

"No. I just wondered if you ever . . . well, think about my brother anymore. Do you ever miss him?"

"I don't miss his going for weeks at a time without calling. I don't miss calling him only to find out he's with Marilyn. I don't miss being in his arms and thinking he really loves me, and then discovering he says the same things to Marilyn Rawley. No, I don't miss that at all."

"But don't you miss some of the good things?"

Crystal suddenly grew quiet. "Yes. Some of the good things I miss very much. But I love Peter now, and I simply don't allow myself to think of Lester," she said.

That worried me some. I would have felt better if she'd said she'd never loved anyone as madly as her husband-to-be.

I guess I was thinking about it at dinner that night, because I realized I'd tried to wind up a forkful of spaghetti five times, and finally Dad said, "Something on your mind, Al?"

I didn't want to tell Lester what Crystal had said in the car for fear it would really mix things up, so I tried to remember what else we had talked about. Wedding nights . . . throwing up . . .

"I thought missionaries were preachers," I said finally.

"Huh?" said Lester.

"This is a topic of conversation, Lester," I said primly. "I just want to know what they do."

"They don't usually preach as much as they go to foreign countries and teach people how to do things a little better," said Dad.

"Sort of like sex therapists?" I asked.

"What?" said Lester.

"They show people the right positions and everything?"

Dad and Lester stared at me.

"Are we talking religion here, or are we talking sex?" asked Dad.

"Crystal said that there are lots of ways to make love," I said knowingly.

Lester dropped his fork. "When did you see Crystal?"

"We went for my fitting today, and we were discussing sexual intercourse, for your information."

Lester coughed.

"And she said that not everybody chooses the missionary position. So I was just wondering about missionaries."

Dad laughed. "Oh, honey, Marie would have enjoyed you so much at this age. It's too bad you only have Les and me to help you muddle through."

I still didn't understand. "So what's the missionary position, anyway?

"Well, it's been said that when missionaries went to foreign countries in the past to convert the natives, they talked them into wearing clothes and giving up what they felt were unusual sexual practices. They taught them that the only acceptable way to have intercourse was with the woman on the bottom and the man on top. So ever since then, that's been referred to as 'the missionary position.' Got it?"

"What are the others?"

Lester looked at Dad. "Will she never quit?"

"I want to know!" I insisted. "How will I ever learn if I don't ask?"

"Okay," said Lester. "Woman on roof, man on ladder; woman in boat, man on water skis; man on table, woman on chandelier . . ."

"Cut it out, Les," said Dad. "Al, whatever position a man and woman find themselves in, they can usually figure out a way to make love, and whatever is comfortable and gives them pleasure is the right way. Okay?"

"Just for the record," Lester said, "what did Crystal say was her favorite way of making love?"

"Lester!" I said. "I'm surprised at you. I'm her bridesmaid, after all. You don't think I'd give away Crystal's secrets, do you?"

And I grandly got to my feet, went upstairs, and called Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth, you know that missionary fund you collect for?"

"Yes?" she said.

"Do you know what missionaries do?"

"What do you mean?"

"They teach natives how to have sex."

"What?"

I love to tell Elizabeth things about the church that she doesn't even know herself. "I just found out. They go to primitive cultures and show them the right position."

Elizabeth gasped. "How do you know?" "Dad just told me." "Alice, I've been collecting for the missionary fund for two years!

"Well, think of all the good your dimes are doing," I said.

I was so thrilled with my new discovery that I had to tell Pamela, too. "Have you ever heard of the missionary position?" I asked. And then I forgot all about it, because I could tell that Pamela was crying.

"What's wrong?"

"I miss Mom and I don't want to leave Dad," she said, weeping. "Oh Alice, I've never been so sad in my whole life."

Copyright© 1997 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor