by Earl Sewell
“Something real sneaky and mean.” Sabrina jabbed the tabletop with her index finger three times.
“I got to give it to her. She has a real twisted way of seeing things,” Mike said.
“Hey, guys.” Keysha and Wesley walked up to our table with smiles on their faces. I guess they kissed and made up with each other. Lauren and I said hello to them.
“Well, Mike and Sabrina, I see that you don’t care to have dinner with me and Wesley, so I guess he and I will just get our own table.” Keysha made a smart remark under her breath before she turned on her heel and followed behind the hostess.
“Later,” said Wesley as he trailed behind Keysha and the hostess.
“Okay, Mike, tell me why you think Bernita is twisted,” I asked.
“I’ll let Sabrina tell you,” he said as he slouched down in his seat. At that moment our waiter appeared with glasses of water for us. I told him to give us a few more minutes to look over the menu. Once he had stepped away, Lauren and I looked at Sabrina and waited for her to share the details of her rivalry with Bernita. Sabrina took a sip of water and then began talking.
“It happened earlier this year. I accepted a Facebook friend request from a guy named Shawn. I didn’t think anything of it because friend requests pop up all of the time. Next thing I knew, Shawn started posting stupid comments on my wall as if we had hooked up.”
“What!” Lauren said as she leaned in closer to Sabrina.
“You heard her correctly,” Mike chimed in.
“So what does Shawn have to do with Bernita?” I asked.
“Wait, it gets better,” Mike said and then waited for Sabrina to continue.
“Next thing I know, Mike sees the posts from Shawn and calls me up shouting at me.”
“I thought she was playing around on me,” Mike said.
“I had to tell Mike to calm down before I gave him a real reason to be mad. Anyway, I explained to Mike that I didn’t know Shawn personally and told him that I would delete him as a friend. Well, I didn’t get around to it right away and Shawn posted another comment talking about the birthmark that I have on my back and how he loved kissing it.”
“What!” I said. “If you didn’t know him, how does he know about the birthmark on your back?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. Because when I saw that comment, my anger went into a sprint and I was ready to crack both of their skulls,” Mike broke in again. I glanced over at Lauren, who had just taken a sip of her water.
“Will you let me finish, Mike?” Sabrina had grown tired of his interruptions.
“Mike is all ticked off because he truly thought that Shawn and I had a thing going on behind his back. So Mike decides to come over to my house to confront me about it.”
“I wanted to see her in-box on Facebook and her cell phone so that I could read the messages.” Mike jumped in once again.
“Do you want to tell this story?” Sabrina snapped.
“I’m sorry, babe,” Mike apologized.
“When Mike came over, I told him that I didn’t have anything to hide. I let him go through my Facebook in-box and my text messages. When he didn’t find anything, it left us both curious as to who Shawn was, so we sat at my computer and did a Google search. We saw another Facebook profile show up with the same picture, but the name was spelled Shaun with a u instead of Shawn with a w. I clicked on the link and sent a friend request to the real Shaun. When he accepted my friendship, Mike and I both saw that he was friends with Bernita. In fact, he was Bernita’s cousin.”
“Wait a minute. I’m confused,” Lauren said.
“Bernita created a fake Facebook profile using her cousin’s name and then acted like the fake Shawn and Sabrina had been hooking up. You get it now?” I said to Lauren.
“Wow. That ain’t right. Why did she do that?” asked Lauren.
“That’s what I wanted to know, so I confronted her,” Sabrina said.
“Ooh! I know you wanted to beat her down,” I said, feeling my dislike of her boiling up.
“Yeah, I did, but I really wanted to know why she did it,” Sabrina said.
“Did she even own up to your assumption that she’d set up the fake profile?” Lauren asked.
“Yeah, she owned up to it,” said Mike.
“Really? Wow!” I said.
“So when I saw her, I asked her why she did it. She gave me a smart-ass answer of ‘why not,’ which really wasn’t an answer at all. I was about to slap her, but Mike stopped me. That’s when she started saying a bunch of bull about Mike being too good for me and how she wanted to break us up so that she could get with him. And blah blah blah.”
“Oh, hell no.” Lauren leaned back in her seat and glanced over at me with a hollowed look of disbelief in her eyes.
“That’s exactly what I said to her,” Mike added.
“So, that’s why I don’t like Bernita. She’s bad news and will do anything to get a boyfriend. My grandmother used to tell me about girls like Bernita. The ones with a pretty face and ugly ways,” Sabrina said.
“She’s crazy,” I said as the waiter reappeared. We all took a quick glance at the menu and placed our orders. I made a mental note to myself to shoot Jeremy another text message, warning him of how treacherous Bernita could be.
four
On Saturday evening I was in the family room lounging in my favorite chair with my laptop. I was watching the YouTube channel of a girl at my school named Allison Rivers. Allison’s mom is a local television reporter named Angela Rivers, who had come to our school for career night last year. Allison took it upon herself to create a reality video blog about life at our high school. A lot of kids relished the idea of having a brief starring role in the happenings at Thornwood High. She had posted various videos of her friends doing obnoxious things like scribbling a smiley face with a Magic Marker on the cheek of a student who had fallen asleep on a school bus. Another video showed a bunch of students dancing while waiting for the school bus to arrive. I had seen several of those students around school, and one of them was even in my psychology class. I clicked the link to another video and watched as Allison videotaped her boyfriend at a local park going down a sliding board on his stomach. When he got to the end of the ride, he inadvertently tumbled off of it. I could hear Allison in the background laughing as he pretended to be injured.
“Hey.” I looked up from my computer screen and saw my cousin Viviana, who now lived with me, my sister and my younger brother, Paul.
“Hey,” I said back and noticed how great she looked wearing a patchwork denim top with matching jeans. “Where are you going?”
“Out with Red,” she said, stepping into a nearby bathroom.
“Are you guys dating now?” I asked. I knew that Red liked her, but I wasn’t sure that she was all that crazy about him.
“Yeah, we’re dating. We made it official a few days ago. He’s not such a bad guy. I’m glad I took a chance and got to know him. Maya, Misalo, Red and I are going out to a movie. Would you like to go?”
“No. I would be the only one there without a boyfriend. I don’t want to be the fifth wheel of the group,” I said, feeling awful about being single.
Viviana exited the bathroom and said, “It’s okay. We won’t make you feel awkward.”
“No. I’m cool with just hanging out at home. Say, are you going to the holiday dance at school?” I asked.
“Of course. Everyone is going. In fact, now that you’ve said that, I need to send myself a reminder to pick up Red’s Christmas present.” Viviana removed her phone from her back pocket and typed in a reminder notice.
“What are you buying him?” I asked.
“You know where the T-shirt place at the mall is, right?” Viviana asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m having his an
d hers T-shirts made with a photo of us.” Viviana smiled proudly.
“That’s so sweet.” I felt my heart swell with envy. “I hope he likes it.”
“Sure he will. Red likes everything I do for him.” Viviana laughed. I heard a car horn blow, followed by the voice of Maya calling for Viviana.
“Viviana, Misalo and Red are here. Are you ready?” Maya called out from the top of the staircase.
“Yeah. I’ll be right there,” Viviana said.
“Have a good time.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come along?” Viviana asked sympathetically.
“I’m positive,” I assured her and clicked the link for another video. I watched several more of Allison’s videos. One was about how to make up with your best friend after an argument and another showed her stopping random guys and asking them why they think girls are more attracted to drama than guys. One boy said that he believed it was because girls felt that if they didn’t have drama in their lives, they would die. That’s a real dumb answer, I thought. Another guy said that girls like drama because they’re complicated.
“Anna, can I ask you a question?” Paul, who was in eighth grade, sat down on the sofa near me.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked. He turned the bill of his baseball cap in the opposite direction so that it was at the back of his head. His eyebrows, which were thick like my own, were knitted in frustration.
“I want to buy something for this girl at school that I like, but I don’t know what to get her,” he said.
“Wait, you have a girlfriend?” I asked, utterly shocked that he pulled himself out of skateboarding and video games long enough to notice a girl.
“Something like that. I really like this girl and I want to do something nice, but I don’t know what girls are into,” he said sincerely.
“Well, what does she like?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He slouched back against the sofa and placed his feet on the nearby coffee table.
“Have you asked her?”
“No. Then it would seem like I wasn’t paying attention to her,” he said.
“Well, were you paying attention?” I asked.
“No, but I don’t want her to know that. Come on, Anna, help me out here. If you had a boyfriend, what would you want him to get you for Christmas?” Paul wanted me to give him a quick answer to a complex question.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“What’s what supposed to mean?” He looked confused by my question.
“You said if I had a boyfriend. Do you think that I’m not cute? Do you think that guys aren’t interested in me? Are you making fun of me because Maya and Viviana both have boyfriends?”
“Wait. I thought we were talking about my issue and not yours,” Paul said cautiously. He then shrugged his shoulders and turned the palms of his hands toward me.
“Get her whatever you think she’ll like, Paul,” I said. I was done talking and listening to him. I wasn’t mad at him; I was just trying to navigate the thoughts and feelings that came with not having a boyfriend to share the holidays and spend time with.
“Geez.” Paul stood up and headed back upstairs. “Why are girls so complicated?”
* * *
A week had gone by since I had last spoken with Jeremy for any length of time. When I saw him at school, I wanted to have a face-to-face conversation with him about Bernita and what I had heard about her. But she seemed to have Jeremy radar because the few times I got to see him passing in the hallway, she’d magically materialize like a witch appearing from behind a cloud of green smoke. She’d come over and try to act friendly with both of us, but I could see right through her phony ways. Jeremy was totally oblivious to the tension between Bernita and me. He actually suggested that we all hang out sometime. When he said that, I thought, Are you freaking kidding me? Please tell me you’re not that blind. Bernita and I are two totally different types of girl. Heck, we’re not even in the same universe. When he made his suggestion, Bernita and I both offered up phony smiles and blatant lies. I would have preferred to spend time cleaning out dog cages at the local animal shelter before I spent time around Bernita. Although we never officially declared war against each other, Bernita and I sensed that we were competing for the affections of Jeremy. After I realized that I couldn’t chat with him at school without Bernita appearing, I decided to give him a call one evening.
“Hey. What’s up?” I said when he picked up the phone.
“Drama.” His answer caught me off guard.
“Drama?” I sighed. “Who is bringing you drama?”
“Bernita,” he answered.
“I told you that chick was no good.” I jumped all over the opportunity to bad-mouth her. I told him that Bernita would never be the type of friend that I am to him. I told him that she was sneaky and malicious.
“Whatever.” He brushed off my comment like it was an uninvited fly at a picnic.
“What did she do?” I tried a different approach to get him to open up to me.
“First of all, she sends me text messages constantly.”
“So she’s a text-message stalker?” I laughed loudly.
“She sends me, like, fifty text messages a day. She knows my every move. I don’t know how but she does.”
“That’s your boo thang,” I teased him and was secretly happy that she had gotten on his nerves.
“She’s about to be fired,” he said.
“About to be? When did you hire her and why can’t you just do it now?” I pushed him to make a decision at that moment.
“I told her that I didn’t like her acting like a stalker and that I’m trying to give her another chance,” he said.
“Another chance? Did I miss something? Are you guys officially dating?” I closed my eyes and waited for his answer to punch me in the gut like a cold fist.
“I don’t know what we are. Right now she seems too needy to me,” he said.
I exhaled. There is still hope, I thought. “Well. Again. That’s the chick you decided to hang around,” I said, hoping my comment carried enough power to break the spell that Bernita cast so that he could see her the way I did. My comment didn’t work because he avoided acknowledging it and changed the subject.
“So what are you doing this weekend?” he asked.
“Just chilling out. What about you?” I asked, feeling a bit disappointed.
“About the same. Do you want to hang out this weekend? Maybe we could go bowling,” he suggested.
I smiled so hard my cheeks ached but I still gave him crap because I knew he had a good sense of humor. “I don’t know. Will your stalker girlfriend let you?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said.
“That’s what you say, but I’m sure she thinks of you as her boyfriend.”
“So can you hang out or not?” He jumped right to the point.
“Well, if you’re not afraid that Bernita might catch you, I guess I can hang out with my friend,” I said jokingly.
“Ha, very funny, Anna. Have your mom drop you off at the bowling alley around 8:00 p.m. Saturday.”
“Wait. You’re not inviting Bernita, are you?” I asked, fearing that his judgment was still clouded.
“No. It will be just you and me. I need a break from her. I want to hang out with my girl,” he said. I liked the sound of that. I only wished he had said “girlfriend.” But at least I knew that I still had a fighting chance.
“Okay. I’ll see you then,” I said.
five
I arrived at the bowling alley ahead of Jeremy. When I went inside I discovered that it was cosmic bowling night, which meant there were dancing lights, hot new music, glow-in-the-dark lanes, pins and balls. It was so cool to step inside and suddenly notice how everything glowed.
I sat down in a common area and sent Jeremy a text.
Where u @?
I will b there in a minute.
Ok.
A short time later Jeremy arrived and joined me.
“Are you ready to have some fun?” he asked as he gave me a hug.
“Yeah.” I smiled. We rented red-and-blue bowling shoes and got our lane assignment. We each searched for the perfect bowling ball before beginning the game.
“Do you want some food?” Jeremy asked.
“I’m not hungry right now. Maybe we can get a sandwich later,” I said.
“You’re really cool to hang with, Anna,” he said with the cutest smile, and his eyes seemed to make promises that his mouth refused to admit.
“You’re just now figuring that out?” I laughed over my words and playfully punched his shoulder.
“Ha-ha,” he answered with sarcasm. As we bowled, I noticed that he kept checking his cell phone and it was more annoying than walking into a spiderweb.
“Are you going to pay attention to how I am kicking your butt or are you going to fumble with your phone all night?” I asked.
“You’re my friend, right?” he asked.
“Of course I am,” I said, hoping my agitation didn’t come through.
“Check this out. Bernita sent me a text message and asked where I was. I didn’t feel like any drama, so I told her that I was at home. She just sent me a text message saying that I’m lying and sent me my exact location. She’s been doing that for the past few days and I can’t figure out how she’s doing it.”
“Let me think for a moment,” I said. Sitting down on a nearby chair, I pondered how Bernita was pulling off her trick. “Did you give her your cell phone recently or let her keep it for a while?” I asked.
“No. Wait. She sold me her iPhone 4S because she noticed the screen on my iPhone 3 was cracked. She used some of the money I’d given to her to upgrade to the iPhone 5.”