by Desiree Day
His family owned a soul food restaurant that he worked in part time. And the menu was crazy good. His grandmother made the desserts and cookies were her specialty.
Matt grinned. “These are all right. Nothing beats my grandmother’s cookies. Now let’s get started on our project,” he said, impatience lacing his words.
“What’s the rush?” Samantha teased, then her eyes suddenly widened. “Is this your first time in a girl’s room?” Matt began squirming. “It is. This is his first time in a girl’s room!” she shouted then burst out laughing. Jessica joined her.
“Is not. Stop tripping. I’ve been in a lot of females rooms.”
“Who? Whose room have you been in?” Samantha pressed.
“What?” Matt sputtered. “I don’t talk about that kind of stuff.”
“We’re all friends. Tell us.”
“Yeah, tell us!” Jessica said, enjoying herself. She loved Samantha and Matt and the camaraderie they shared.
“I’m not talking,” Matt answered and bent his head over his journal. He started writing.
“I hate that Chloe,” Samantha suddenly announced.
“Where did that come from?” Jessica asked.
Samantha shrugged. “I was just thinking about what happened and it pissed me off.”
“What happened?” Matt asked. Jessica set down her pen and told him the story, leaving out the part about her tears. “It sounds like she was having a bad day.”
“What?” Jessica and Samantha yelled simultaneously. “She’s a butt wipe. A big butt wipe.”
“How can you say that?” Jessica asked, hurt that Matt would take Chloe’s side.
“All I’m saying is try to look at it from her point of view. She stood in front of the class and it sounds like they booed her.”
“Nobody was booed at,” Jessica said impatiently. “She got a non-reaction. Nobody cared.”
“Well, wouldn’t that hurt your feelings?” Matt asked.
“I guess,” Jessica answered.
Samantha rushed in. “But she didn’t have to insult Jessica in front of the whole school,” she said.
“I don’t think she insulted her. I think she just wanted somebody to talk to.”
“What the hell are you drinking?” Samantha asked. She grabbed Matt’s glass of milk and sniffed. “You must be drinking something because you’re talking crazy.”
“I just think you guys are being hard on her. You really should try to look at things from her point of view.”
Samantha inhaled sharply, then: “You like her don’t you?” Matt vigorously shook his head. “You do. You like her.” Samantha jumped off the bed. “You’re crushing on her, that’s why you’re taking up for her.”
“No, I’m not!” Matt denied.
“You like Chloe?” Jessica asked. “Butt wipe Chloe? You like her?”
“I don’t,” Matt denied. “I mean…she’s nice,” he admitted.
Samantha studied Matt through narrowed eyes. “How do you know that she’s nice?” she wondered out loud.
Matt shrugged. “We have a class together.”
“What class?” Jessica asked.
“Math.”
“So you two sit next to each other and have cozy little conversations?” Matt shook his head. “So you guys meet before class and talk?”
“Nope!”
“Have you even spoken to the girl?” Samantha pressed.
“Not yet. But I will,” Matt insisted.
“You’re crushing on the enemy,” Samantha said disgusted. “I don’t think we can hang out with you anymore. It’s almost like you’re a spy. Don’t you think so Jessica?”
Jessica looked from one friend to the other. She loved them both. “Well…”
“I don’t know if you can hang out with us any more. Right Jessica? Tell him that he can’t hang out with us anymore.” Samantha pinned a gaze on her friend.
Chapter 6
“I’ve never had one before,” Jessica shyly admitted.
“You’ve never had one? Even with all your money?” Samantha repeated. Her voice loud with surprise. “There is so much I have to teach you.”
Jessica’s face flamed. “I know enough. It’s not like I’m a caveman or something. I don’t know why you keep saying that,” she fumed.
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said soothingly. “I talk too much.”
“That’s okay,” Jessica said, somewhat mollified. Samantha rarely apologized. “So where should we go for our mani and pedi?”
“There’s this hot shop downtown. In Style Nailz and Toez.”
One of Fifty Cents’ song blared through the speakers. Jessica tentatively bounced to the music.
“Do it girl,” Samantha encouraged while sidling next to her friend, then confidently moved her body. Jessica blushed then stilled. Big girls shouldn’t move too much.
“Scaredy cat,” Samantha teased.
“I love this place,” Jessica said as she admired her surroundings. The nail shop wasn’t what she had imagined. She had images of rows of chairs with women hunched over hands. Instead there half a dozen small stations that dotted the shop, walls painted a soft orange, a fifty-two inch flat screen filled the wall. Half a dozen shelves of nail polishes decorated a wall like little rainbows. They each picked a bottle of nail polish.
A matchstick size Asian lady greeted them.
Jessica caught Samantha’s eye. “Zero,” she mouthed and they grinned as they followed her to chairs.
“Sit!” she instructed. “I’ll be right back.” She whizzed to the back room.
Jessica stood around as Samantha sank into a leather chair. Samantha nodded to one next to her. “Would you relax and sit down. Gheesh, it’s not going to be that bad.” Jessica stuck her tongue out at her friend and settled into the recliner. “Hey grab that thingie and make a selection.” Jessica picked up the small machine and studied it. “It’s the control for the massage chair, pick something.”
Jessica pressed a button and she let out a surprised, “Oh.” Then she let herself relax and it felt like she had died and went to heaven. She moaned softly.
“Yeah, that what’s up!” Samantha said as she enjoyed her massage. “I come here just for the massages.”
Moments later the nail technician and her co-worker knelt in front of Samantha and Jessica.
“Nice color,” the nail technician told Jessica, she grinned at Samantha.
Jessica closed her eyes and relaxed as her feet were being massaged. A shriek pierced the air, her eyes popped open. Babbling carried across to her. A woman holding a phone motioned to the ladies.
“Excuse us!” Jessica’s technician announced. “We have a phone call from home. We have to talk to them.” The two of them scurried to the back room.
“This happens all the time. They get all excited whenever they get a call from home. That’s cute.”
Suddenly Chloe, Tamia and the rest of their crew fell through the door.
“Omigod!” Jessica moaned as her hands itched to cover her face. “What are they doing here? I have to see them five days a week, now this.”
“Do you want me to tell them to leave?” Samantha asked. Jessica considered her friend’s request, then placed her hand on her arm. “Let ‘em stay. They’re all butt holes anyway.”
Samantha’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’re learning,” she said and Jessica giggled.
Chloe strolled by and glanced at the bottle of polish at Jessica’s feet. “Do they have enough polish in that bottle for your feet? They are kinda big,” she said meanly, with a smirk.
“No bigger than your mouth!” Jessica shot back, the room went silent. Jessica’s hand shot to her mouth and her eyes widened.
The smirk melted off Chloe’s face. She squinted her eyes and twisted her lips. “What did you say?”
“Don’t be scared,” Samantha whispered. “I got you.”
“Nothing,” Jessica mumbled and averted her eyes to her toes. Suddenly her feet did look big and the tanger
iney color made them look like clown feet. She suddenly regretted her decision.
“You said something, because I heard you. You heard her didn’t you Tiffany? Becky? Ansley? Morgan?” They all chorused their consensus. “Tamia?”
“I-um-um-wasn’t really paying attention,” Tamia stuttered.
“You can hear can’t you?” Tamia nodded. “So you just heard me ask you a question?” Tamia nodded again. “But you didn’t hear that,” she jutted her chin at Jessica. “That, pig just told me I had a big mouth? And you didn’t hear that?”
Tamia’s eyes darted from Chloe to Jessica. “She didn’t mean it. She’s always blurting out things.”
“Well, she blurted out to the wrong person.” Three sets of eyes homed in on the bottle of polish at Jessica’s feet.
“Don’t you dare!” Samantha hissed.
“Oh I do dare,” Chloe said. And before anybody could stop her she snatched up the jar of polish. Seeing the angry look in her eyes, Jessica and Samantha struggled to get out of their chairs. Chloe tilted the jar of polish over Jessica’s feet and the polish poured out over her feet and the towel.
Just then one of the nail technicians returned. “Get out! You girls get out!” The Asian lady screamed. “Get out of my shop. I don’t want to see you in here ever again.”
Chloe gave Jessica and Samantha the finger before turning on her heel and strutting out the shop with her friends closely behind her.
Tears ran down Jessica’s face. “Why does she hate me so much? I did nothing to her. Nothing!”
“Mean girls! Just mean girls!” The Asian lady chanted as she dabbed a towel with nail polish remover and scrubbed Jessica’s feet.
“I want to leave. I just want to go home and forget about everything. I want to forget about The Mac, I just want to forget,” she sobbed.
“It’s okay, we’re going to get her. We’re going to make her cry!” Samantha vowed.
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said once Jessica calmed down.
“For what?”
“I couldn’t get my big butt out of the chair fast enough to help you.”
“Nothing today was your fault. I shouldn’t have said anything. I talk too much.”
“You don’t talk enough,” Samantha said. “People aren’t used to hearing you talk. And you aren’t used to talking. Once you get that I don’t take any crap from anybody in your voice. You won’t be taking crap from anybody. Believe that.”
“Oh, like your voice?”
“It’s true. You’ve seen me in action.” Jessica nodded. “Except today,” Samantha said sadly. “I’ve been thinking.”
“What?”
“I think it’s time for me to lose weight,” Samantha admitted.
“I thought you were happy with your body.”
“Oh, I am, trust me. I love my curves. But there are things that I can’t do, that I wish I could.”
“Like what?”
“Like getting my big butt out of this chair for one. But I want to be able to sit in the chair at the movies without feeling like a sausage being squeezed into a straw. I want to have a profile, right now if you look at me sideways I look like a big donut.”
“You’ll lose it. You’re one of the strongest people I know. And once you put your mind to it, you’ll do it.”
“Thanks. So what are you going to do to Chloe? You keep saying that you’re going to do something but you never do.”
“I think I finally have an idea,” Samantha said mysteriously. “I had to make sure I had my team in place. I’m gonna make her so sorry that she was even born.”
Chapter 7
“So this is your fantastic idea”
“Yep!” Samantha answered as she took a sip of her drink.
“How is this going to help us lose weight?” Jessica tasted the drink again then grimaced.
“It’s a diet drink. Two babies of these a day, then dinner and the weight will melt off.”
“This tastes like rotten apples. I can’t drink this,” Jessica said pushing her glass away.
“Come on, keep drinking,” Samantha cajoled. “It’s an acquired taste. See.” She gulped down the entire contents of her glass. “See girl, I told you so.” She smacked her lips. “Don’t hate a sista when I become a Zero.”
Jessica giggled to herself. The only time Samantha would be a zero is if she lost a limb or two. “I’ll love you whatever size you are. So, have you thought of a way to get back at Chloe?”
Samantha grinned. “I did.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “You do. And you weren’t going to tell me?”
“I was. I just wanted to make sure it’ll work.”
“So you tried it out already,” Jessica asked earnestly.
Samantha dodged her friend’s gaze. “Well no. I just need to work out some technical difficulties.”
“Technical difficulties?”
“We’re going high tech, girl!”
“So no drenching her in blood?”
“That’s so Seventies,” Samantha said breezily.
“What about putting a bag of flaming dog poop on her doorstep?”
“Ewww that’s just sick.”
“What are you going to do?” Jessica asked perplexed. She absentmindedly took a sip from her drink, then shoved it away a second time after tasting it.
“We are going to show Miss Thang not to mess with us. This is a new century, computer age, we have access to millions, heck billions of people at our fingertip. We’re going to show her not to mess with us.”
“How?”
Samantha grinned and leaned toward her friend. “This is how.”
“I need some food, I need some nourishment,” Matt demanded. He was sitting on Jessica’s bed, balancing his laptop while he furiously typed.
Jessica punched the kitchen’s extension into the intercom and ordered lunch for her, Matt and Sam. “You should have your food in about twenty minutes. You think you can last that long?”
“I guess,” Matt mumbled.
Jessica looked at the computer screen. “Are you almost done?” He had been banging away on his computer for the last two hours.
“Chill for a minute. I’m almost done.”
“I don’t think that I’ll ever get used to how you live. I mean this place can be on MTV Cribs. You’re living large girl.”
“You get used to it. Trust me,” Jessica said.
“What’s wrong? Most people in your situation would be balling. You don’t even have your limo driver give you curbside service. Why not?”
Jessica gave her friend an exasperated look. “I told you. I don’t want people to know how I live. It’s bad enough I’m fat, but then I’ll be the fat rich girl.”
“Give it up Jessica, nobody will think that. You’re being paranoid.”
“Oh, so now Chloe, Darryl and everybody will welcome me with open arms? That’s BS!” she said angrily.
“Jessica!”
“I’m sorry. I just want to be treated like everybody else. And having a driver will piss them totally off. I just want to fit in,” she said sadly.
“I’m sorry, girl. But rich or poor, big or small you have to love your situation and yourself, so deal with it.”
“I’m dealing with it the best way I know how.”
“I know. I know. Let’s put on some makeup,” Samantha said suddenly.
“Whoa! Slow it down. I didn’t sign up for a Mary Kay party,” Matt said.
“Hey, whacha know about Mary Kay?” Samantha asked.
Matt grinned then turned the computer toward them. “Ta da! Check it out!”
A picture of a half naked Chloe, wearing nothing but a bra and panties while licking a lollipop, served as a backdrop to a dozen more pictures of Chloe in questionable poses and dress. There was one of Chloe wearing only a pair of bright red boy shorts with her hands covering her breasts. One of her wearing a bikini that was no bigger than three doilies sewed together. The more Jessica and Samantha looked the more risqué the pictures got.
“Oh my God!” Jessica shouted and pointed to the screen. “Is she naked in that picture? Samantha is she naked? Oh my God Matt, where did you get these?”
Matt winked. “I know people and I’ll never reveal my sources,” Matt said smugly. “Keep looking.”
“You created all this?” Jessica said awed as she paged through the site. Matt had mad skills. “This looks so real.”
“It does,” Samantha chimed in. “It looks like that asshole created this herself.”
Matt had gone to OurPlace, a popular online community and created a bogus profile for Chloe. He loaded it with fake hobbies, her favorite music, favorite books, and listed her sexual orientation as bi-curious.
“Check out her blog.” With a grin, Matt clicked on a link and sat back to enjoy his friends’ reactions.
Samantha began reading it out loud. “We got a new beeatch in our crew. Her name is Tamia.” Samantha stopped reading and peeked at Jessica.
“Keep going,” Jessica instructed.
“Her name is Tamia,” Samantha continued. “And she has a secret, but I know it. She used to be a fatty just like that beeatch Jessi—” Samantha whirled toward Matt. “How could you write this about Jessica. A ‘former fatty?’”
“I only did it to make it sound like her. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings. Honest.”
Jessica pushed away from Matt and Samantha. “So that’s how you see me? As a fatty. I know I’m fat, but for some reason,” Jessica stopped to swallow the sob that threatened to come up. She gulped deeply. “But for some reason, I thought you saw me as a friend.”
“I thought he did too,” Samantha said as she put her arm around Jessica’s shoulder.
“You are my friend, both of you. But I only put that in there to make it authentic. Everybody knows she hates your guts, so who else is she going to rip apart,” he hurriedly explained. “I’m sorry. I’ll take it out if you want.”
Jessica thought about it before responding. “You’re right. She hates me. So it would seem genuine if she wrote those things about me. But what about Tamia, she’s going to be devastated no one knows about her past.”