On the morning of February 27th Jig yawned as she woke up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge for a few moments as she felt for the switch on the lamp next to her. She still couldn't believe how dark a morning could be. There was always light in LA. After she turned on the lamp she safely made her way over to the wall switch and lit up the entire room. She walked past her mirror to her closet and made the mistake of looking in it. She jumped in surprise at her appearance and tried to pat down her stray hairs with her hand, an act which was ultimately useless. She mumbled something to herself, it being too early to form actual words and thoughts.
Fifteen minutes later Jig emerged from her room dressed and combed in the proper places. She was still tired and yawned as she made her way down the hallway to the living room. When she reached the threshold she stopped, her mouth hanging open either from a yawn or from shock.
The living room was filled with California poppies. All over the floor, on every chair, sofa, table, all over the fireplace mantel and the piano, everything in the room was filled and covered with bright yellow and orange California poppies. Jig walked slowly into the room, gazing shocked at all of the flowers around her. Carefully she pulled one flower away from the others, holding it in her hands, making sure the beauty was real.
"What the Hell?" she asked under her breath. As if on cue someone who had been sitting in a free space on the couch stood up and turned to her, dressed in a tuxedo with a single red rose in his hands. Jig gasped in surprise and covered her mouth with her hands, dropping the poppy to the floor.
"What the Hell!" she yelled.
Ephram jogged down the stairs that morning and right over to the front door. He looked out the window and saw a light layer of snow on the ground. He dressed for outside quickly and grabbed his breakfast on the go. True it wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, but it would be enough to throw Jig into a fit of panic. So he, as her best friend, had to walk her to school. He didn't mind, though, he liked walking in the morning, and the cold air helped wake him up.
Irv's bus was already gone, making the rounds, and Edna's motorcycle was missing as well, probably going to work early. He knocked on the front door and received no answer. He knocked again with no answer. Worried that Jig was hurt (or worse, decided to brave the icy walkway herself,) Ephram opened the door. His first sense to be affected was his sense of smell. His nose was filled with a wild, outside, and almost warm smell as he entered the house and closed the cold out behind him. Then his sight took in the huge arrangement of yellow and orange poppies.
"What the Hell!" he said walking into the living room, looking around in amazement. Jig walked out of the kitchen hearing his voice.
"Ephram!" she yelled in surprise to see him. Walking up behind Jig from the kitchen came a guy about Ephram's height, with tamed, wavy black hair, and the kind of brown eyes that girls would follow forever. He stared menacingly at Ephram, and without knowing it or understanding why, Ephram returned the same. Jig cleared her throat and rubbed her hands nervously in front of her.
"Um, Ephram, this is Isaac de la Vega, Isaac, this is Ephram Brown," Jig said nervously. Once the two boys realized who the other was, well, utter joy did not overcome them…
In Bright's lab class, while all of the other students were busy working on their labs, Bright made his way over to his little chess champion Georgianna Prescott, who was less than thrilled to see him.
"What the Hell do you want?" she demanded from him. He gave her what should be an award winning smile, and the girls around her giggled at his attention, but Georgianna retained her frown.
"Oh come on, you know you like me…" Bright told her in his deep, sexy voice. She narrowed her eyes like she was about to punch him.
"I wouldn't like you if you were the king of England. Now shoo, ball jockey, here is no place for you!" she yelled at him. Some of her friends laughed, but whether they laughed at her insult or her decision to shun Bright was unclear. Bright sighed.
"You know, I don't get you. All of the other girls in school wouldn't even hesitate to go out with me," he boasted.
"Well you did ask all of the other girls…" she said and smirked, "or have you?"
Bright frowned and huffed through his nose. He shook his head and went back over to his table and slumped down in his seat.
"No luck?" one of his friends asked him. Bright looked up and scowled at him.
"Shut up!"
Jig was in the kitchen pulling three cans of pop from the fridge while her two best friends sat in the living room glaring furiously at each other. Jig sighed and breathed in a few deep breaths. She opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen Irv kept in the kitchen for when Edna was being… Edna. Jig took two of them to calm the headache she knew she was sure to have. Having Isaac and Ephram in the same room was a truly lose/lose situation. There was no good that could come from this.
As afore mentioned, Isaac de la Vega, formerly Isaac Graham of Los Angeles, and Ephram Brown of New York City were sitting in the living room across from each other. Each stared menacingly at the other, mostly out of jealousy. It was an odd type of jealousy, the kind that sprung from a question that repeated itself over and over in the two men's minds. Who was Jig's best friend? The boy who knew her pain better than anyone else, or the boy who had grown up with her and knew almost every secret? Both men feared that evidently, they would lose.
Actually there was something else that caused the hatred in their eyes. They knew each other. Not personally, they had never met, but they knew each other's face. Actually, though they didn't know it, they had once been in the same magazine together. If someone was reading through the TIME magazine that featured a story on Dr. Andrew Brown's departure from medicine, they had only to turn a few pages more to read an article about a boy from the slums of LA, who grew up to one of the world's most famous actors.
Isaac de la Vega was in fact a very good actor; he worked hard for his stardom and earned every bit of it. But there were those who despised him for his popularity, mostly boyfriends who had been yelled at by their girlfriends for not being more like him… Actually, the majority of the people who despised him were jealous of him for one reason or another, none of them knowing all of the hard work, all of the defeats, all of the turn downs, run downs, and backed downs he had to live through to get where he was. None of them knew how many failures he went through to become a success. No one really knew how hard it had been on him, all of these years of trying so hard and getting no where, no one knew but Jig, who knew everything.
There probably wasn't a person in the United States who hadn't heard of teen sensation Isaac de la Vega, and where the hell did Jig get off knowing him? She grew up with the guy! She was his best friend! How the hell does that happen! Isaac de la Vega was the type of person no one 'grows up with'! This was a little too much for Ephram. Sure he knew if he ever met Isaac there'd be some tension, but he never expected the guy voted Sexiest Guy of the Year by every teen magazine in the United States and most of Canada! That was worse then even Ephram could have imagined, and he has a pretty dire imagination… It was hard to find a situation worse than how Ephram had predicted it.
Jig walked back into the living room and handed each boy a can of grape pop and kept one for herself. Had someone been placing the three people into positions that would have the most symbolism of the current situation, they would have placed the three in the exact positions they were now sitting in. Ephram and Isaac were in chairs facing each other angrily, and Jig was sitting in a chair directly between them both, torn. Of course flowers had been moved aside to make room.
Jig let out a sighed and rubbed her hands in her lap. There were reasons she had never told Ephram, or anyone for that matter, exactly who Isaac was. 'I grew up with a teen sensation' sounded kind of, well, stupid, and silly, and, completely unbelievable. But there he sat, real and believable enough. A poor boy that became a star. Jig sighed again. She supposed all stars had friends growing up, even Isaac de la Vega…
