“Yeah, grated parmesan cheese and ramen noodles is so five star,” Mina said, hopping onto the stool. She nearly fell off, kicking at JZ's stick poking at her feet.
“Whatever,” JZ said. “I don't care what we eat as long as we rolling with some shorties.”
Mina was constantly perplexed by her male friends' endless freedom.For the millionth time she griped aloud about it. “Why do boys always get to do whatever they want?”
“Brian, your mom isn't worried about you being on your own for two days?” Kelly asked.
“Well I'm potty trained and my address is sewn into all my shirts, in case I get lost,” Brian said, leaning into his shot.
The clique's laughter was a motley chorus of the boys' choppy, coarse guffaws and the girls' musical giggling.
Kelly ignored his sarcasm. “I just meant ... your parents really trust you. We have a condo in O.C. too. But I can't see my grandmotherletting me go down there solo before I'm eighteen.”
Mina chimed in, agreeing. “My parents have rules from here to L.A. The only way they'd let me stay somewhere with no chaperones is if there were nanny cams hidden in the condo everywhere.”
“That's y'all little boogee, sheltered girls,” Jacinta said. She crossed her legs primly as she boasted, “My father not
that
strict.”
“But would he let you go to O.C. and stay with the guys?” Kelly challenged.
The girls stared her down. Jacinta had more freedom than any of them, but none of them believed she had that much.
Jacinta's eyebrows worked, rising and falling as she thought about it. Finally she answered, “Yeah, I think he would.”
There was a collective, “yeah, right” eye roll from Mina, Lizzie and Kelly.
“That's my kind of pops,” JZ said. He and Brian exchanged a pound and a boys' locker room snicker.
“Cinny, I don't believe that,” Mina said.
“Maybe not with JZ and Brian, because he doesn't know them,” Jacinta said. “But I think he'd let me go with Raheem and Angel.”
“Your dad is way more liberal than my parents, then,” Lizzie said.
“No, that's not it,” Jacinta said. She schooled the girls in her worldly, I've-seen-things-you'll-never-experience voice, a mix of genuine sharing and light superiority. “My father already knows me and Raheem have sex. So, what's the point of him not letting me go? The ship has sailed.”
The girls were quiet as they considered this. But the guys had a field day with it.
“Like I said, my kind of pops,” JZ crowed again. He and Brian went for the double fist pound and handshake on that one.
Still skeptical, Mina shook her head in disbelief. “Wait ... Cinny, just because he knows y'all get down like that doesn't mean he's gonna send you off for a whole weekend to do what you want.”
“Alright, I'm not saying he gonna be like âyeah whatever,'” Jacintaadmitted. She spoke matter-of-factly.“Real talk, the only reason your parents have all those rules is to prevent the inevitable.”
Lizzie scowled. “Having sex isn't inevitable.”
Jacinta laughed. “Lizzie, you're like the poster child for innocence.Not everybody is into your fifteenth-century dating method, where you hold hands at the six month mark and kiss for the first time at a year.”
“First of all, it's seventeenth century,” Lizzie said, taking the teasingin stride. It was no secret she believed in taking things slow. She wasn't embarrassed by it and proved it by poking fun at herself. “And second of all, hand holding is allowed at the two month mark.”
Kelly and Mina laughed. But Mina's laugh was hollow. She and Brian were stuck somewhere between Lizzie's slow burn relationshipstyle and Mina's own desire to let the relationship go at its own pace. They were well past hand-holding and pecking on the lips, but nowhere near the “inevitable.”
It wasn't something she and Brian had discussed and she wasn't about to have their first conversation about it be in a group. She steered the conversation back to Jacinta's theory. “Alright, so you're saying that once your father found out about you and Raheem he let you do what you wanted? No curfew? Nothing like that?”
“No. I still have a curfew when I'm home but he stopped trying to plan every second of my day. Because he knew ...” Jacinta paused for a second then shrugged. “All the rules in the world not gonna stop it, if it's gonna happen.” She chuckled dryly. “And once it does, what are the rules stopping?”
Mina considered that. She wanted to ask Jacinta how her dad had found out. What had happened? What did he say?
The thought of having that kind of conversation with her father made her queasy. Her father was generally the good cop, compared to Mina's mom's hardnose inquisitions. But talking about sex with him? No thanks.
“All I know is, it sucks that you guys can go and we can't,” Lizzie said.
“And all I know is, it's gon' be wi-iild,” JZ hooted. “All those cheer shorties running around in their teeny skirts.” A tiny smile on his face, he shook his head like someone who'd just had a very pleasantvision of the future. He called over to Michael, “Son, we gon' have a blast.”
Michael took his time putting away the last of his pins before walking over to the pool table. “Ay, kid, I may not go,” he said finally, nonchalant.
JZ frowned. He and Mina both sang, “Why?”
“Okay wait,” Lizzie said. Her face took on a chiseled frown as if she were trying to solve a complex equation. “So me, Kelly and Jacinta want to go and can't ... and Michael, you're
not
going now? Did I hear you right?”
Michael shrugged it off. All eyes were on him but he pretended to be engrossed in some fuzz on the pool table. He picked at it as he spoke. “Ms. Jessamay doing some costume work for The Players and asked if I would help out.”
“For real?” JZ asked, in a strange high-pitched voice, as if Michael had just said he was heading to Mars for spring break.
Mina picked up on the flicker of frustration in JZ's face. Michael's costume work was still an awkward topic for him. Michael's drawing skills had always been fire. But once Michael had begun using those skills to draw outfits, JZ hadn't figured out how to take all the costumesketches, fittings and talk of how an outfit “fell” on somebody. He blocked it out anytime the conversation turned to it. And normallyanytime the clique got together, he always piped in first, volunteeringhis houseâMina assumed, to avoid coming to Michael's, since half of what used to be Michael's basement bedroom manpart-mentwas now what JZ called a dress shop.
“The only thing Michael missing in that corner of the room is one of those fashion dummies,” he'd told Mina, his mouth upturned.
Mina hadn't bothered to lecture him on how foul his attitude was. She and JZ sparred about it constantly but his stance on the topic hadn't changed for the better yet.
JZ regained his air of playful dissing. “I mean ... I'm not knockingyour hustle, playah. That's more shorties for me.”
The answer seemed to relieve Michael because he came over, his fist out for a pound.
“Yeah, I figured that,” Michael said as he and JZ banged fists.
“So what are
we
supposed to do over break?” Lizzie asked glumly.
“I say you, Kelly and Cinny cool out together,” Mina said. She saw Lizzie's green eyes deaden to a dull jade at the suggestion and quickly tried to help them plan a grand spring break. “Do a spa day on Thursday. And then Friday, go to the movies.You know that one with Nick Cannon comes out that day.” She huffed a little. “I really wanted to see it too.”
Lizzie huffed, “Oh my God. Do not act like your missing some Nick Cannon movie is the same as us having to stay home like the ugly stepsisters from the ball.”
“Who?” Jacinta scowled. She put her hands on her hips. “Maybe you and Kelly are ugly stepsisters, but not me.”
“Hey, me either,” Kelly said.
The girls joked back and forth about who got to be Cinderella.
With the tension eased some, Mina brought up the Extreme again.
“Jay, don't go thinking just because Brian is driving you're gonna have him all over O.C. cruising for chicken heads.”
JZ palmed her face. “Yeah, yeah.”
Mina pushed his hand away, lecturing on. “I'm serious. Y'all are planning to be at the competition ...” She arched an eyebrow, high. “Right, Brian?”
“Yes, dear,” Brian joked, never looking up from the pool table.
“Aw dag, he yes-deared you,” JZ howled. “You know that's code word for,
girl please, I'm gonna do what I want when I get there.”
“It better not be,” Mina said, giving Brian a look.
He looked up from the table and winked at her, dissolving her scowl into a smile. She stuck her tongue out at JZ.
“See, that's why I was hoping Money Mike was going.” JZ sucked his teeth. “Todd and Brian ain't gonna be no fun since they have
girlfriends
.”
He said it like it was a four-letter word.
At the mention of Todd's name connected with the word “girlfriend,”Lizzie grinned but quickly hid it when Mina looked her way.
“What?” she asked, at Mina's wide, cat-ate-the-canary smile.
Mina shook her head and went back to her ground rules for the Extreme. “Friday night is the Individuals and partner stunt event. So y'all meet me there at the convention center.”
JZ scowled. “Wait. Why do we need to sit at the events you're not even in?”
Michael laughed. “Sure you don't want stay home with me, kid?”
“Man, for real.” JZ rolled his eyes.
“Jay, come on,” Mina pleaded. “How else you gonna meet girls if you're not at the events?”
JZ thought about it for a second but didn't get a chance to answer.
“Exactly. So okay, Individuals on Friday,” Mina said.
She rattled on, laying out the entire weekend, letting them know when and what time the guys could hook up with her or with her and the Blue Devils squad, ignoring the clique as they teased JZ.
The look of irritation on JZ's face as his entire spring break was planned to the second was a mild victory for the ones being left behind.
Total BFF Control
“Another day, another drama.”
âBritney Spears, “Piece of Me”
Â
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A
cross town in Kelly's posh nabe, Folgers Way, Jessica sat in Mari-BethLinton's grand, pimped-out bedroom. She was so sure and confident about her plan, she'd been excitedly rambling on about it for the last ten minutes, oblivious to the scowl creeping across Mari-Beth'sface.
It rattled Jessica when Mari-Beth looked up from giving herself a pedi and blurted icily, “I don't get it. Why do you care?” She swung her lush, blonde hair to the side, rested her chin on her knee and reached for her toes with the polish brush. She frowned. “Shoot, I smudged it. Jess, can you come do this for me?”
Her hand was already outstretched, thrusting the bottle of pink dazzle polish Jess's way.
Jess looked down at her own still-wet toes.
Now my toes will be a hot mess,
Jess thought, clenching her teeth against the sigh building in her chest.
For a second she considered saying no or at least, “wait a minute”âbut only for a second before she walked over to the windowseat where Mari-Beth sat. Jess surveyed the emerald green, perfectlymanicured lawn beyond the window. So many times she'd pretended this was her house, instead of the boxy rambler with the patchy grass she shared with her parents and twin. And she was here so oftenânearly every weekend or as often as her parents allowed before mandating some Johnson Family Timeâsometimes it actuallyfelt like her own home, like today.
She and Mari-Beth had gotten up, eaten egg-white omelets preparedby the Lintons' personal chef, took a nice long sit in the Jacuzzi and now were freshening their nails. She'd been outlining her thoughts to Mari-Beth about how she planned to deal with Mina at the Extreme. Sitting there on the cool, shiny hardwood floor in the room four times the size of Jessica's bedroom, gave her power. It surged through her like voltage, making her voice tremble with excitement.
That's what had gotten Mari-Beth's attentionâthe excitement in her voice.
It was typical that as soon as Jess slipped into the skin of Mari-Beth'sluxe life and took on any role resembling the leader, Mari-Bethasserted her total BFF control, reminding Jess that she was only a visitor in the Lintons' paradise.
Jess could say no to polishing Mari-Beth's toes. MB didn't technicallydemand it. But Jess knew better.
She took the bottle and sat cross-legged in front of Mari-Beth. She brushed on a coat of polish, moved to the next foot and waited a few seconds for the polish to dry.
“I'm saying, what do you care who Mina hangs with? Not like she'll ever be down with us,” Mari-Beth said. She shrugged like,
so what does it matter?
Jess let a few seconds elapse, pretending to take great care to get the second coat of pink dazzle on smoothly. If she answered wrong, Mari-Beth, without saying it straight out of course, would trash Jess's whole plan and pull her support.
“Oh, I don't care who she hangs with,” Jess said, rolling her eyes. “Where's the topcoat?”
Mari-Beth's professionally manicured fingernail pointed to her makeup table.
Jess pushed herself up and went searching in the nail polish tray, where forty bottles of polish sat in rainbow order, lightest to darkest. She plucked out the clear topcoat and sat back down.
This had to be Mari-Beth's idea if it was going to work. She had to phrase her answers just right.
And that's exactly where Jess and Mina were differentâreason #110 Jess couldn't stand Mina in all her sunny optimism: The girl simply didn't live in the real world as far as Jess was concerned.
Mina wasn't cut out for popularity. It was too much work. And Jess had no problem letting Mina know that being middle of the pack was where she belonged.
I'm doing you a favor,
Jess thought, suppressing a chuckle.
Jess, on the other hand, knew how to play the game. Her friendshipwith MB was the perfect example. Even though the Lintons often had to foot the bill for Jess to come along, she was Mari-Beth's constant companion.
The price for admission to this world? Jess's total dedication to Mari-Beth. If Mari-Beth wanted it, Jess let her have it.
She followed Mari-Beth's lead and made sure the other Glams knew their place was well behind her. It was a full-time job playing second fiddle to Mari-Beth, especially when Jess wanted something that Mari-Beth didn't care about or was bored with.
Mari-Beth hugged her knees to her chest. Her toes dangled over the edge of the window seat for their final coat. Her voice had an annoyed edge to it when she said, “If you don't care, then why are we talking about her instead of calling Breck to see if he's definitely able to get the keg for Saturday's party?”
“I texted him a few minutes ago, remember?” Jess said, sure to keep the annoyance out of her own voice. “I'll ping him again when I finish your toes.”
Mari-Beth's breath blew out in a warm stream over Jess's head as she sighed, “Okay, so what's this whole plan again?” She bit her lower lip, squinching her eyebrows. Her voice lost its edge. “I kind of like the part about the simul-text messages and pics.” She erupted into a peel of giggles. “That part is cool.”
Jess kept her head down and smiled as Mari-Beth offered suggestionson how to make the plan better.