Like This And Like That

by Nia Stephens

  That “beach shindig” was the most highly anticipated event of the year. J. Marshall held it every spring, and usually around this time—right after Christmas break—her mom would ask about it. Gemma hated this subject.

  LeBron jumped up and made himself comfortable on Gemma’s lap.

  “Get the dog down, please,” her mother commanded. After LeBron had settled back down on the floor her mother added, “Well? Do you have a date yet?”

  “Nothing to report, Mom. I’m still dateless in OC,” Gemma told her, hoping the interrogation would end soon. She was running late for school.

  “Mike Thompson down the street is a hottie,” her mom suggested with a sly grin.

  Gemma rolled her eyes. Her mother thought she could relate better if she sounded “down with the lingo,” as her mom put it. So she said things like bling bling and hottie and generally embarrassed Gemma in the process. She did have her good points—and she definitely wasn’t like so many of the other mothers around here who dieted down to nothing and then enhanced their lips, boobs, and in some cases, rears, with multiple plastic surgeries. Her mother was thick and liked it that way. Apparently, so did Gemma’s dad, because he was as touchy-feely with Gemma’s mom as Manny was with Maria. Sometimes Gemma thought she would choke on all the love in the air.

  Her parents were both born and raised in Brooklyn, but they wanted a different life for their only daughter—beach houses, not brownstones. Even though they had money and lived out here with the “California Raisins,” as Gemma’s mother called them, her parents were not OC airheads. They couldn’t care less about how much money someone had, how many famous people they knew up in LA, or any kind of SoCal new age nonsense. Her parents still cheered for the Knicks, ate their pizza with pepperoni, not goat cheese and pine nuts, and they still used old school East Coast slang, like calling the partners at her father’s law firm “The Man.”

  Surprisingly, race wasn’t much of an issue for Gemma’s family, even though Orange County was mostly white. In OC, the color that really mattered was green.

  “You don’t want to wait until the last minute to find a date,” her mother scolded. Gemma’s dad glanced up from his morning paper and shot her mother a warning look.

  Her mother’s intense interest in Gemma’s love life began when her mother quit her job teaching African-American literature at UC Irvine. After fifteen years of department politics and the pressure to publish or perish, Dr. Williams needed something to do all day. Now she seemed to think that finding Gemma a boyfriend was her new full-time job.

  “Mike is a good-looking guy. You should ask him,” her mom said, making one last try. “Or maybe I should say something to his mother.”

  Gemma nearly choked on her eggs. Her spine went rigid at the prospect of her mother setting her up on a date, especially with someone like Mike Thompson. He looked good, all right, and she had known him forever, but he hadn’t tried to look any higher than her chest since they were fourteen.

  Gemma took a quick swig of juice to wash down the eggs then turned to her father. “Do something,” she begged him. “Stop her!”

  “Mona,” her father said between bites of toast, “if the girl doesn’t like this Mike then she doesn’t like him. There’s no use forcing him on her.”

  “She’s seventeen, Donald, and only has first dates.” Gemma’s face burned, knowing just how true that was. She sank lower in her seat as her mother went on and on. “She’s never had a steady boyfriend. We were practically married at seventeen.”

  “So now you want to marry off our only child to some kid because she’s never had a boyfriend?” her father asked.

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” her mother protested. “I don’t think ...”

  “Mona, please,” her dad interrupted. He took a sip of his coffee. “Gemma’s old enough to know what’s best for her. There are worse things than a girl who sets high standards.”

  Game, set, point. That was the way Gemma’s dad ended every disagreement. How could anyone be against setting high standards? The discussion of Gemma’s love life, or lack thereof, was over. Though not for long, Gemma knew. Enduring these conversations was just another painful element of dating that made Gemma just want to give up on the whole thing.

  At school, the first person Gemma ran into was Nick. He walked past her as if she somehow had faded into the concrete of the school hallway. If she had to call it, she would guess he didn’t even remember the night before. She noticed he still had that same raggedy Band-Aid stuck to his forehead.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Maria said, coming up behind her.

  Gemma watched as Nick charged Neal Hardly and both tumbled to the floor.

  Maria rolled her eyes. “There ought to be a law against being that stupid.”

  “I can’t believe I actually liked that guy. What was I thinking?” Gemma asked.

  Nick scrambled to his feet and crouched into a football stance. His backside was in perfect view.

  “I’ll tell you what you were thinking,” Maria commented. “Now that’s a tight end if I ever saw one.”

  Gemma whipped her head around. “I know you are not checking out the enemy.”

  “I’m just saying, that’s what you were blinded by.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “I’m not that shallow, Maria.”

  “I know. That’s your real problem.”

  “Huh?” English was Maria’s second language, but she wasn’t usually this hard to follow.

  “You’re tall, gorgeous, and you dress to impress—so you scare the crap out of ninety-nine percent of the guys at J. Marshall. But you do attract guys who think they can get hot girls— that is to say, hot boys. They assume that a hot guy is all you’re looking for.”

  “You can’t tell me that every reasonably attractive guy is just looking for hot sex with no strings. Manny’s not bad looking, and he’s all about relationships.”

  “Manny’s different,” Maria said slowly. “He’s a good Catholic boy at heart. And if you think that’s what you’re looking for—”

  “At this point, I’m not thinking about anything except my game this afternoon. You’re coming, right?”

  Maria nodded. “Of course I’ll be there. How can I not watch my girl kick some ass?”

  Gemma gave her friend a suspicious sideways glance. Maria was hardly a sports fan and most times Gemma had to beg her to come to one of her games. “Let me guess. Manny has another detention today and you’re killing time at my game until he gets out?”

  “Whatever. The point is, I’ll be there,” Maria said, laughing.

  The first bell rang. Gemma grabbed Maria’s arm. “Just get your little sneaky, lying ass to class before you’re the one with detention.”

  After school, at the game against the East Wellington Wailers, Gemma heard her dad up in the stands as she made her last three shots. “Go, Ms. Michael Jordan, go!” he shouted through cupped hands. Gemma had learned to block him out a long time ago, but today he was extra loud.

  Martika Schmidt, East Wellington’s six-foot-four starter, glared down at Gemma. “Hey, didn’t I see you in the Wizard of Oz ... as one of the munchkins? Be prepared to get sent back to Oz, little girl,” Martika taunted.

  “Your visa must be up. Shouldn’t you be getting back to East Germany?” Gemma shot back. Sometimes Gemma believed the girls talked more smack than the guys.

  The ball was thrown to Gemma. The crowd roared as she swiveled to the left and then to the right. She may have been shorter than the rest of the girls but that made her faster. She jumped, released the ball and swish. In for another two, just before the final buzzer rang. That was it. Gemma had scored twenty-two points. The crowd cheered wildly as she and her teammates embraced in celebration. They had beaten their biggest competition by seven points and had gotten that much closer to the championship game.

  “Hey, it’s Ms. Gemma Jordan!” Gemma’s dad yelled as he made his way onto the court. “I am so proud of you.” He lifted Gemma up and wrapped his
enormous, teddy bear arms around her.

  “Daaaad,” she whined. “Do you have to do that every game?”

  When he finally released her from his ginormous grasp, he offered to take her out for a celebratory dinner, but Gemma declined. She wanted to watch the boys’ team play.

  By the time the guys started their game, Gemma had showered and changed. She sat up in the bleachers with Maria and Manny, who had been released from detention.

  “Look at him play.” Maria nodded toward Ethan Jackson. “He’s good.” She leaned in close to Gemma and whispered, “And muy caliente.”

  Gemma’s eyes landed on Ethan. He was the star power forward and was, in Gemma’s opinion, one of the best high school players in the league. He was also one of the hottest guys at J. Marshall. She’d had a secret crush on Ethan for as far back as she could remember. He seemed to dance across the court, as if he had a completely different relationship with gravity. And he played smart ball—he always seemed to know exactly where his teammates were, and exactly what the other team was about to try. Basketball wasn’t just a sport for him: it was art.

  But today, as Ethan ran up and down the court, Gemma found herself more interested in his backside than his jump shot. She decided that this was a good thing.

  Embrace the shallow, she told herself. If looks are the only thing that matters to guys, maybe looks should be the only thing that matters to me. It would make everything a lot simpler.

  Bam! Ethan slammed on the other team and the crowd, especially the girls, cheered wildly.

  “You should go out with him,” Maria urged, leaning in close to Gemma so that Manny wouldn’t overhear them. “That boy is fine.”

  “He’s fine all right,” Gemma murmured. Ethan had an angelic face and a toned, hard body. His lightly toasted brown skin was matched with beautiful hazel eyes and dark, curly hair. He wasn’t Jamaican, but he looked like the rapper, Sean Paul, especially when he had his hair braided. He was sheer perfection. At least that was what Gemma and every other female in the free world thought. Ethan was one of those guys that Maria and Gemma called an equal opportunity dater.

  That last thought popped the bubble of Gemma’s Ethan worship. “Are you crazy?” she asked Maria. “I would never go out with Ethan. He’s had more women than are in a Busta Rhymes video. Besides, he’s hot.”

  Maria looked puzzled. “Have you suddenly decided to only date ugly guys?” she asked.

  “If you remember, I thought Nick Simmons was hot and that got me nothing but a ripped T-shirt—that I liked a lot, even if it was so last season.”

  Maria nodded in agreement. “I guess you’re right. But hey, you never know, Ethan may be the one. How stupid will you feel then?”

  “The one what? The one who will give me my very first STD? No thanks.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Manny asked.

  Sometimes Gemma felt sorry for the guy. It was like he was the third wheel in this threesome. He didn’t mind, though. He knew what he was getting into when he started dating Maria. The night he asked Maria to make their relationship “official,” Maria had called Gemma. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but Manny was still standing there waiting for Maria’s answer. He figured it out, though, when Maria screamed Manny and I are now exclusive! into her cell phone.

  “How gorgeous you are,” Maria told Manny. He reached over and tickled her. That was the type of relationship Gemma longed for. Manny was cool, good-looking, and smart. He had an adorable brother with the same handsome features and easygoing attitude. Unfortunately, Gemma didn’t date twelve-year-olds.

  Gemma’s attention turned back to the court as the final buzzer sounded. The guys had pulled out a tough win. The crowd rushed to the floor to congratulate the players. Gemma watched Angela Rattner head for Ethan. Angela was on the girls’ team but, due to her lack of skills, very rarely got the chance to play. Angela kissed Ethan’s cheek. What was up with that? Gemma wondered. Rumor had it they broke up months ago.

  Ethan and the rest of his team slapped high fives as Angela, now standing behind him, wrapped her arms around Ethan’s waist and gave him a peck on the back of his neck. Gemma felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy. Still, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  “I think someone wants a piece of Mr. Ethan Jackson,” Maria said mockingly. “Were you just staring at him?”

  “Girl, please. I was checking out—” Gemma searched the crowded court and pointed to the first person she saw. “I was checking him out.”

  Maria peered down at the court. “You were checking out Lyle Lundsford, the band geek?”

  “Yeah,” Gemma said, determined to keep her lust for Ethan under wraps. “If hot guys have no character, I’ll just have to start dating dorks.”

  “Okay, whatever,” Maria said. “Let’s roll.” They all stood up and gathered their stuff.

  Gemma took one last look at Ethan, dismissing her infatuation tonight as temporary insanity. Tomorrow she would return to normal. Ethan the player—on and off the court—may not be the guy for her, but someone with his physical assets just might be. If, and only if, he had the rest of the equipment: a heart, a mind, and a soul.

  “Hey, don’t forget we still have to check out that website,” Gemma said.

  Surprised, Maria turned to face her. “What made you think about that?” Maria followed the direction of Gemma’s gaze. “Ohhhh, I get it now. Don’t worry, we’ll definitely find you your own personal Ethan Jackson.”

  Gemma frowned. “I never said I wanted Ethan.”

  Maria grinned slyly. “You didn’t have to, mi amiga.”

  Chapter 3

  Prince Charmings

  “There she is, Ms. Michael Jordan herself.” Seth Cole, Gemma’s biology lab partner, applauded as Gemma walked into class the next day.

  “What are you, best friends with my dad or something?” Gemma asked, plopping down onto the lab stool next to him.

  Seth waggled his pale eyebrows suggestively. “Would making friends with your dad improve my chances?”

  Gemma raised an eyebrow. “Chances of what? Getting an internship at his firm?”

  Seth squeezed her elbow and grinned. “That’s not the firm I had in mind.”

  Gemma smacked his arm. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “Sure. But that’s just part of my charm,” Seth laughed, rubbing his arm.

  Gemma had met Seth this year when Mr. Sandler paired the two of them together for bio lab. At first she wasn’t too thrilled—he was even worse at biology than she was. But he was cute, despite his messy strawberry-blond hair and scattering of freckles—and always made her laugh. In the high school clique handbook, she would have placed Seth in the handsome nerd category. Or was that an oxymoron?

  “I swore you were going to dunk on that East Wellington Amazon, number thirty-three,” Seth said. “I would’ve paid good money to see that.”

  “Not quite there yet,” she admitted. “But I’m working on it.”

  One by one, the class began filing in. “So how was the party the other night?” Seth asked. “I was going to go but changed my mind.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “I wish I had been that smart. It was totally lame,” she finished in her best valley girl voice.

  “Really?” Seth asked. “You went with Nick, right?”

  Gemma’s face burned with embarrassment. Most of the time she appreciated the fact that Seth was an honorary girlfriend, someone she could talk to about her guy problems. But sometimes she regretted it. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Seth shook his head. “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  Seth picked up the lifeless frog lying in a small metal tray. He shoved it in Gemma’s face. “Kiss me,” he said in a Kermit the Frog voice. “If you do you’ll find your Prince Charming.”

  Gemma smirked. “You ever read the original version of ‘The Frog Prince,’ the one in Grimm’s Fairy Tales?”

  Seth’s face scrunched up while he thought about it. “No. I g
uess not. Why?”

  “Because the princess doesn’t kiss the frog. When he tries to get in her bed, she throws him as hard as she can against the wall. And then he turns into a prince.”

  Gemma grinned at the look of shock and horror on Seth’s face.

  As class was about to begin, Maria peeked in the doorway. “Gemma,” she called in a hoarse whisper, motioning for her to come to the door. Maria had two minutes before her gym class, and Maria was never late. She’d had a hard enough time doing well in school when she was first learning English. Now that she had the language down, she took school very, very seriously. Anything that brought her to Gemma’s class this late had to be important.

  Gemma hurried across the room, concerned. “What’s up?”

  “Don’t forget, I’m coming over to your house today,” Maria said quickly. “We’ve got to get you signed up to go boy shopping.”

  “That’s what you had to tell me?” Gemma asked, astonished that Maria would risk being late just to remind her about the website. Did Maria consider her that desperate? “Fine. Now go before you’re stuck in detention and miss my next game,” Gemma warned.

  When she returned to her seat, she was surprised by how excited she was about signing up for the website. When Seth saw her grinning, he pulled the tray on which their frog lay closer to his side of their shared lab table.

  “You aren’t throwing this frog anywhere,” he warned her. “I don’t care how bad your date with Nick was. I’m already getting a C in this class.”

  “Kermit has bigger things to worry about than just getting tossed around,” she declared, pulling a scalpel from their drawer. “And I have a better way to find my Prince Charming.”

  After school, at Gemma’s house, Maria lay on Gemma’s bed with her bare feet propped up against the wall that was covered with pictures of Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake. She was studying her new nail polish. They had just painted their nails a matching coral color.