Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

December rolls around, and the rules start to change for the Four PTS meetings. The girls no longer use their secret names, and the Boy Books fall by the wayside because the girls never list anyone other than Philip Leroy. However, Margaret starts to wonder if Janie and Gretchen actually like Philip Leroy or if they are only saying that because he’s “so good-looking” and the girls are actually “ashamed to write who they really liked” (78), just like Margaret. One day, Gretchen sneaks her father’s anatomy book over to Margaret’s house, and the girls marvel at the diagrams and illustrations of the male body. The girls are amazed and a little disgusted by what they see, and Janie declares that she never wants to walk around naked, not even when she’s married. Nancy says that Janie will change her mind once she grows, and she’ll want people to look at her body, just like the girls in Playboy. Nancy urges Margaret to find one of her father’s issues of Playboy, and the girls are shocked to see a naked girl who is only 18, just six years older than they are. The girls are impressed by the model’s breasts, and although Margaret tries to point out that the girl looks “out of proportion,” like there’s “something wrong with her” (81), the girls are so inspired by the model’s body that they end their meeting with 50 rounds of “We must—we must—we must increase our bust!” (81).