by Paula Chase
“I do,” Brian said.
“But it’s not enough.” Mina sighed. “I keep needing more and more proof and it’s driving me crazy.” Her voice hitched and she waited until the feeling to bawl passed. “I’m letting shit go this time.”
“So you’re breaking up with me?” Brian said, strangely calm. His voice grew angry when she didn’t answer. “Mina, are you breaking up with me?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
In her head she screamed, No, I didn’t mean it, as Brian coolly played the whole thing off.
“All right, cool,” he said. “See you around then.”
He seemed unable to stand her silence.
“What? You speechless now?” He snorted. “You had plenty to say online. Where’s all that mouth from earlier, Cutieboomd?” He waited for her to respond and the silence hung between them until he sighed loud and exaggerated. “Bye, Mina.”
The line went dead.
Mina fell back on the bed, smashed the pillow on her face, and cried herself to sleep.
Epilogue: Beginnings and Endings
“Where do we go? I don’t even know.”
—Keane, “Bad Dream”
All due respect to her parents’ advice, time wasn’t healing Mina or the wounds of the clique fast enough. Every day, Mina awoke praying that some or all of Bloody February, as she’d come to think of it, had been a dream, and every day she had to face the grim truth that it was real.
The day after she broke up with Brian, he called her every half hour begging her not to end it. Too weak to resist his calls, she spent the entire day in her bedroom arguing with him, torn, wanting to forgive him but knowing her insecurity would be worse than before if she did. His pain ripped through her. She’d never seen him lose control and wasn’t used to being the “strong” one in the relationship. Hearing him cry and plead weakened her defenses, but the words of the chat were seared in her brain. She could literally quote from it. In the end, those words and what they represented were stronger than Brian’s pleas, eventually pulling her through the emotional torrent of his calls until they stopped.
The fight left her too weak to doctor the wounds of JZ and Michael’s friendship. But true to JZ’s words, their busy lives made it hard—though not impossible—to tell the clique was fractured.
Three weeks after “the implosion,” she sat in Jacinta’s family room, on the floor, browsing a magazine.
“Ooh, turn that up,” she said, nodding her head to T.I.’s latest jam.
Jacinta made a big deal of moving two inches to turn up the music. “How long am I supposed to be at your beck and call while you’re in mourning, Princess?”
“At least another three weeks,” Mina said, smiling through the pain in her chest. She wasn’t quite ready to joke about it but appreciated Jacinta’s ability to be normal under any circumstance.
They both looked up, startled, at a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Jacinta said, as she got up from the love seat.
“FedEx, ma’am.”
Jacinta frowned, then snorted when she opened the door to JZ’s grinning face.
“Hey,” JZ said. “Is it cool for me to pop in? I been looking for y’all.”
“Yeah,” Jacinta said, leaving the door open as she walked away.
JZ walked in. He put his foot on Mina’s back and rubbed gently. “What’s up, Mouthy Mi?”
“Nothing,” she said, pretending to be into the magazine.
Although JZ continued to give her and Jacinta a ride to school every morning—Mina riding shotgun—this was the first time JZ and Jacinta had said more than “hey” and “good morning” to one another since “the implosion.”
“Can I holler at you for a minute, Cinny?” JZ said.
Jacinta shrugged.
Mina kicked JZ’s leg with her heel and he removed it so she could sit up.
“I’ll give y’all some privacy,” Mina said. She grabbed her magazine and went into the kitchen, just off the family room, where “privacy” consisted of her simply not being in the middle of the conversation. She could still see and hear everything.
JZ sat on the edge of a fat overstuffed chair next to the love seat. He cleared his throat and rested his elbows on his thighs. He stared down at the floor, seeming to get himself together, then looked up at Jacinta suddenly.
“You’re one of the coolest chicks I ever met, Cinny.”
Jacinta’s eyebrows hitched.
“It was mad swazy hanging out with you at my crib.” His hand shot up to his head, then slid down. He looked down at the floor again. Mina saw his broad shoulders heave once before he looked up at Jacinta again. “Nobody was more surprised than me when I started digging you ... more than a friend. I should have just come correct with my feelings from the start but ...” He looked off at the wall behind Jacinta, shaking his head. “That’s not really me, you know?”
Jacinta nodded. The cool indifference in her eyes softened to warm understanding.
“But that didn’t give me no right to go all date rapist on you.” He chuckled nervously, wiped his hands on his jeans, and sat back in the chair. “I’m saying, I’m man enough to apologize ... even if I’m hella late with it. But I’m sorry I came at you like that. I hope we can be cool again.”
A tiny smile played at the corner of Jacinta’s mouth. “Dang, so I had to ice you for three weeks just to get an ‘I’m sorry’?” she said.
JZ’s hand went back to his head for a new round of hand brushing as he admitted sheepishly, “I’m just not good at this apologizing shit.”
“You can start by not calling it shit,” Mina hollered from the kitchen, unable to resist.
JZ and Jacinta laughed.
“Gee, thanks for the privacy, Mina,” he said over his shoulder.
Jacinta beckoned Mina back into the family room and she came over eagerly, relieved for them ... for the clique, what was left of it.
Pleased to have one brick of her friends’ foundation back in place, she threw herself into cheer Nationals, state basketball championships, work at Seventh Heaven’s, and homework with a fervor she’d forgotten she had. She watched Duke play in the NCAA tournament, alone (at the protests of Lizzie, Kelly, and Cinny), crying through every game until they were knocked out in the final four.
The end of college basketball season brought closure, and shades of the old Mina made an appearance, two weeks after Kansas was crowned the NCAA national champion.
She sat at her desk, laughing her head off at Vic’s IM.
BubbliMi: ROFLMAO
Udontseeme: im like dam tht shiggity burned into my brain! ugh!
BubbliMi: u wrong 4 dat
Udontseeme: naw she wrong 4 tryna rock a bikini. wrong like a mug. lol
Mina looked down as a text message from Jacinta popped on her phone: can u come down jzs pls? now!
Mina’s heart fluttered. She texted back: OK
What now?
She almost didn’t want to know. JZ and Jacinta had been cool since he’d apologized late February, and Mina was finally starting to deal with life’s new “normal.”
What now?
BubbliMi: gtg see u at work 2morrow Udontseeme: aight c u V
She smiled at Vic’s version of the peace sign and sent it back.
BubbliMi: V
She logged off, not sure whether to race down to JZ’s or take her time. She slipped on a pair of blue and gold spirit flip-flops, hollered her destination to her parents, grabbed the keys, and headed out. Seeing Lizzie’s car in JZ’s driveway sent her heart and feet racing. She shifted from right to left as she waited for someone to answer the buzzing of the doorbell.
Mrs. Zimms’s smile was warm. “Hey, Mina. Wow, everyone’s here ... haven’t seen all of you guys in a while.” She hugged Mina. “They’re downstairs. Must be a super-secret meeting of the clan.”
Mina’s smile was plastic as she walked away as fast as she could without being impolite.
Everyone was there? Even Michael?
She scampered down the stairs, not sure what she’d see when she turned the corner, expecting the worse but praying for the best.
They all looked up when Mina burst through the doorway, chest heaving, head whipping left to right as she scanned the room, sweeping it, wanting to see Michael standing there, his dark chocolate face scowling, fussing her out for being the last one to arrive. Disappointment kicked her in the chest.
JZ sat on the edge of the pool table, his shoulders hunched, his gaze on the floor. Jacinta and Kelly stood to his left, Lizzie to his right, faces somber, but no Michael. She battled tears as she joined them at the pool table.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes skated from one friend to another, then took another sweep of the room, still expecting Michael to pop out of the bathroom or out of the storeroom with the juice bar supplies.
Jacinta plucked a large white index card out of JZ’s hand and gave it to Mina.
Mina frowned at it. “What is ...” She skimmed the card, frown deepening. Unwilling to break the eerie quiet, she read it aloud in a low voice, breaking when she realized it was from Michael.
Jay,
I know you care what people think and that’s why you’re tripping right now. Maybe one day you won’t. Maybe one day you’ll realize that our friendship was one of the most important things in the world to me and it ain’t have nothing to do with me secretly digging you. ’Cause that’s what you think ... I know it is. Maybe one day you won’t.
You ain’t even my type, punk. LOL
A tear dropped on the letter and Mina swiped at her face to avoid ruining the card. She swallowed the tears in her voice and kept on.
But I can’t wait.That’s the thing. I can’t wait on you to get right about this. This is me, son. I was going to wait until senior year, then get ghost. Figured we’d just slowly lose touch and then do that 20-year reunion thing, where we catch up on things in our life. By then some things wouldn’t matter no more. But I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t do 365 more where I was scared it might come up. But you still my dude, son. So I made this for you.
Mina looked up scowling. “Made what?” she asked.
Jacinta’s head nodded to a suit hanging on the door of the supply room.
Mina walked over to the charcoal gray, pinstripe suit. She touched it lightly, caressing the fabric of the bold striping on the black vest. It was so JZ it made her heart ache. Unable to take her eyes off it, she stared at the suit until she realized she hadn’t finished the letter.
How fly you gonna be on stage, shaking the NBA commissioner’s hand in this? You know the answer, punk—fly as hell!
Do your thing, player. Umma do me.
Deuces,
Mike
Mina gazed at the suit again. She stepped toward it and caught the scent of Michael’s bedroom, vanilla apple candle mixed with the Sean Jean cologne he always wore. Her resolve broke and she cried like a baby. She jumped, startled, when JZ came up behind her. His arms wrapped around her, filling the ache in her heart, a little but not enough.
“I’m sorry,” JZ said in her ear. “I’m sorry I messed things up.”
Mina cried harder, because in JZ’s apology she knew what he hadn’t said. That he knew Michael was right. JZ wasn’t ready to accept Michael and Michael had moved on, no longer waiting for it. The bromance was over and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT
A Del Rio Bay Novel
PAULA CHASE
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The following questions are intended
to enhance your group’s reading of
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT
by Paula Chase
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Whether you have the type of relationship Jacinta had with Raheem or Mina with Brian, long distance romances (LDRs) are challenging. Are you for or against them? Debate your point presenting why or why not.
2. List five good reasons to remain in a LDR. Then list five reasons it’s best to break up rather than continue a relationship with someone who lives far away.
3. Mina caught Brian cyber-cheating, but what was worse—her pretending to be someone else online or him putting himself in the position to take the bait?
4. Michael has always remained on the edge of the clique, often lost in the shuffle as the clique deals with their various dating issues. Were you surprised when he finally admitted that he was gay? Why or why not?
5. Have you ever withheld something from a good friend because you feared their reaction to it or you? Describe how it felt to keep that secret. Describe how you handled what happened, if you ever revealed the truth.
6. JZ’s hang-up isn’t with Michael’s sexuality but how Michael’s sexuality reflects on him. Why do you think some people, even those who seem outwardly confident, are so afraid of “guilt by association”? How would you feel if a close friend revealed he was gay? Would it impact how you felt about him as a friend?
7. Why do you think it was easier for JZ to apologize to Jacinta than to Michael?
8. Do you agree or disagree with JZ’s philosophy “sometimes friendships die”? Explain your position.
9. Friendships definitely change as we get older. How have you handled a friendship that changed drastically?
Resources www.gaystudentcenter.student.com—A site for high school and college-aged gay, lesbian, and questioning students.
www.saclibrary.org/teens/yaglbtlist.html—A list by the Sacramento Public Library of books featuring characters who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
www.sexetc.org—A site for teens by teens about sex education. Includes resources on relationships, teen sex, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases.
www.stayteen.org—Facts on dating, relationships, waiting, breaking up, and more.
Catch up with Mina Mooney from the beginning!
Turn the page for a preview of
Paula Chase’s Del Rio Bay series,
now on sale at your local bookstore.
From So Not the Drama
Prologue
“They wanna know. Who’s that girl?”
—Eve, “Who’s That Girl?”
Popularity is a drug. You get a taste of it and suddenly the looks you get from people, the way you get treated, the things you get away with ... you need it.You honest to God need it. People make pretend that being popular is no big deal. Either those people aren’t popular and know they’ll never have a chance at tasting its sweet addicting juices, or they’re lying.
I got my first taste of popularity when I was four. No, seriously. My boy, Michael, and I attended Sunny Faces, a day care run out of his grandmom’s house. The day care was downstairs in her basement, a kiddie wonderland of toys in every corner and hugantic paintings and colorful decals on the walls. There was also a big playground out back.
Now the basement is Michael’s, remade over into a bedroom/ gameroom/den of boyness.
But back then, when it was our playpen, even with all the dazzling odds and ends and kidgets, the one place we all wanted to go was upstairs.We never got to see the rest of the house. It was off-limits. So naturally, that’s where we wanted to go. The stairs went up forever, gobbled up in the darkness near the top, with only a sliver of light coming from beneath the door.
With me leading the pack, we’d make up adventures about conquering the fantasy land beyond that door. Like, maybe it opened up into a lake of ice cream and trees of chocolate—since that’s where Ms. Mae Bell came from with snacks. That became our favorite fantasy and eventually, the truth, as far as a bunch of four-year-olds were concerned.
If only we could get beyond the dreaded baby gate, we could take a dip in a big creamy vat of vanilla and take a bite out of one of the choco trees.
You know, to his credit, Michael never said a word to dispel any of our myths about the rest of his house being a candy land. Then again, why would he? How cool would that be to live in a land of ca
ndy?
Since his grandmother ran the joint, Michael was always allowed to go upstairs. Sometimes he’d toddle after her and she’d let him help bring down the snacks. If anyone else tried, Ms. Mae Bell would scoop them up, plop them down at the bottom of the stairs, and secure the gate with a firm, “You’re gonna break your neck on these steps. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Man, but that gate made it irresistible. Some days we’d park right next to it and play because it was as close as we could get.
So, yeah, anyway, popularity and how it found me.
I became popular thanks to workaholic parents climbing the corporate ladder. Thank you, Fifty-hour work weeks! My mom had just started her own PR firm and my dad was a techie at a big company based out of Northern Virginia. They were mad busy scrambling to the top.
One day my mom called. She was running late and she couldn’t reach my dad. Could Ms. Mae Bell please keep me a little later than normal? Of course, she’d pay whatever penalty was required for having Ms. Mae Bell work beyond her usual grueling twelve-hour day of screaming toddlers and crying babies.
So as everyone else was leaving, Ms. Mae Bell announces, to no one in particular, I’m guessing—we were a bunch of four-year-olds—that I’d be having dinner with her and Michael. She lifted the latch on the baby gate and ushered us upstairs to watch television, while she waited for the parents of the three other kids still left.
My stomach sang and danced as my chubby, four-year-old legs carried me out of the dark coolness of the stairway into heaven. I was so excited walking up those stairs, so caught up in what I’d do when I got to candy land, that it took me a few seconds to realize that the plush brown carpet wasn’t, in fact, a river of chocolate.