My birthday came a week later. Normally, turning 18 would be a milestone and I would be ecstatic. There was a small sense of pride in my being an adult, but it was overwhelmed by my sadness and anger.
I was surprised when my mom actually granted me the smallest reprieve from my grounding—she let me drive down to a gas station and buy a lottery ticket. Of course, she told me to be back in five minutes and if I wasn't, she'd take away my computer for a week.
As e-mail and instant messaging was just about the only communication source with Jesse—besides occasional 10 or 15 minutes phone calls during lunch with Cee Cee's cell phone—I didn't risk being late one bit.
When I came back, we had my birthday dinner (a type of pasta Andy makes with a tomato, onion, and bacon sauce), and then he brought out a cake to the table, and I blew out the 19 candles (I wished to see Jesse again).
I was pretty sure my mom didn't have much to do with the celebration. She was still angry at me beyond belief. We haven't spoken a word beyond anything necessary, and she hasn't relented at all with my punishment. She still doesn't even let me hang out with Cee Cee or Adam after school.
After cake, I got my presents. Gift certificates to different clothing and shoe stores, which was pretty nice, and CDs mostly. Just when I thought I had opened the last present—a necklace with big, round wooden beads—my mom came into the room (she had left before presents. Andy was the one who gave them to me, along with David. Brad looked bored, but Andy made him stay. Same with Jake, who looked asleep.) She put down a pile of wrapped rectangular presents.
"These are from me," she said. I was surprised. Was this some sort of reconciliation, giving me presents just from her? Ever since she married Andy, the cards had always said, "Love, Mom and Andy."
I took the first of the four packages and unwrapped it. I realized when I felt it that it was a book. I wondered vaguely if it was the new book in a series that I like, before I ripped the wrapping paper off the cover.
My elation at a compromise evanesced, and anger boiled up as I read the title.
"Sex Smart: 501 Reasons To Hold Off on Sex."
I put it down, glaring, and picked up the next book and unwrapped it.
"Celibacy, Culture, and Society."
Again, with only a glimmer of hope that the next and last book was different, I tore off the wrapping paper.
"A Hard Choice: Sexual Abstinence in an Out-Of-Control World."
And get this: the last book was written by a guy named Jesus.
My mom got be a book on not having sex by a guy named Jesus.
Now, I'm not stupid, I know he was probably Hispanic and it was pronounced Hay-zeus, but still. Subliminal messaging, much?
I glared at my mother, picked up my presents—my other presents—and started up the staircase.
"You're welcome," she said snidely. "You forgot these." She picked up the books, and placed them on top of the two or three boxes, the envelopes, and a few CDs. I gave her a sarcastic smile, and then stalked up to my room.
I groaned as I threw the books in a drawer in my desk, not wanting to even look at them. My mom was taking the whole sex thing way too far. I was going to go insane if I didn't get out of the house soon.
I sighed, and turned on the computer to check my e-mail. I was just entering my password when I saw a shimmer out of the corner of my eye. Not now, I groaned inwardly. I minimized the screen and turned to face whatever ghost had just showed up.
I glanced quickly at the woman standing next to my bed. The woman there was in her mid twenties, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. Her eyes were framed with angular glasses, and she was dressed casually, in a pair of jeans and a plain brown tee-shirt.
"What do you want?" I asked rudely. I was still pissed off at my mom, and didn't feel like dealing with a ghost just then. I wanted to read Jesse's e-mail.
She scowled a bit at my tone, but didn't say anything. "You're the mediator?" I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, I'm the mediator. I'm talking to you, am I not?" She ignored me.
"I need you to do something for me. To pass a message on to someone." I yawned. At least she knew what was holding her back. This should be relatively easy.
"Okay. Who and what's the message, and who is it from?" She looked sad for a minute.
"My name is Nicole. It's for a woman named Ángela."
"Is she local? Where does she live?" She sighed.
"She lives in Spain. Outside of Seville." Okay. Maybe not so easy.
I stared at her blankly. "What does a woman 6000 miles away have to do with you?" She sighed again.
"A few months ago, I met a man in San Francisco. His name was Felipe, and he was there on business from Spain. He was a wonderful man, and he just… swept me off my feet."
"Uh huh," I said. Nicole looked happy, remembering what I was sure was a torrid affair, and her tone was reminiscent.
"It went on for a few months. He'd go back to Spain for a week or two at a time every once in a while, but he always returned to San Francisco. To me." Her happiness faded away, and her face turned sad and upset. "But whenever I asked him if I could come with him and visit his family, he refused. It was sort of suspicious, so I did some research, and I found out why he refused to take me—he had a fiancé back there with him."
I straightened my chair from where I had been tilting it. I felt sympathy for Nicole. I mean, it kind of sucks to have a two-timing boyfriend.
"So I confronted him. I told Felipe that he had to break it off with Ángela, his fiancé, and tell her, or I'd tell her myself."
"So what happened?" She looked depressed.
"He strangled me. And then dumped me in the bay, and caught a flight back to Seville a few hours later. They found my body the other day, but don't have any leads. The water washed away all the evidence, or something."
"I'm sorry," I said. "What did you want me to tell Ángela?"
"That she's marrying a cheating murderer. She deserves to know." I nodded.
"Do you have a phone number or a last name or something?" She picked up a pencil and wrote down a name, address, and phone number. "I'll try to call her, or something… but it might be a while."
"It's urgent," she said. "They're getting married in two weeks. She needs to know before then." I nodded. In hearing Nicole's own story, my anger had ebbed away and I did want to help her. "But, do you speak Spanish?"
"No, why?"
"Ángela only speaks Spanish… she doesn't know any English." I closed my eyes and groaned. Then I was struck with inspiration.
"Listen, I know another mediator who speaks Spanish, my boyfriend Jesse. If you can, um, go visit him and tell him everything that you just told me. Oh, and… tell him I say hi." She nodded, and disappeared. I sighed with relief that she'd be getting help.
I went back to my e-mail, but five second later, Nicole returned. This time, she was on the verge of tears. Her eyes were filling up, and her pretty face was screwed up unattractively.
"Nicole, what's wrong?" I asked, perplexed. "Did you find Jesse?" She let out a sob.
"He… he… looks just like my Felipe!" She cried more. If this Felipe guy looks just like Jesse, I couldn't blame her for falling for him. "I can't go to him! I'm sorry!" She clung to a pillow from my bed. I was surprised at this unbridled display of emotion.
"You have to. I can't help you." She was getting a bit angry.
"Why not? Can't you just call him and get what you need to say in Spanish?" One more thing to blame my mom for. Because she took away my phone, a poor, ignorant Spanish girl will marry a man who murdered his mistress, and said mistress will never get eternal rest and peace.
Wonder how that would weigh on her conscience.
"I can't call him… it's a long story, but I can't."
This woman was just a rage of emotions. She got really angry at my vague refusal to help her.
"Why can't you just call him? What, did you two have a fight or something? You're too proud to be the one to call? Are your personal problems more important than a dead woman's last wish? And the life of a woman who is about to marry a terrible, terrible man?" I rolled my eyes angrily at this unnecessary personal attack, her thinking that I was selfish and uncaring.
"I want to help, but I can't!" I cried. "Why can't youjust suck up your emotions and talk to Jesse your self, if you need Ángela to know so badly?"
This was not the right thing to say. Through her tears, she glared at me. "You don't know what I'm going through!" she screamed. And then, with a pop, my computer screen turned black, and the humming stopped.
"What did you do?" I gasped, hurrying over to my last connection to Jesse. I pressed buttons, punched keys on the keyboard, did everything I could think of.
But Nicole's emotional breakdown had fried my computer.
This was the suckiest birthday ever.
Suddenly, the room was silent, and I knew Nicole had left.
Too late, I realized that I could have e-mailed Jesse and he could have given me a translation… and then I could have mailed a letter to Ángela.
I groaned, feeling close to tears myself, and put my head down on the desk.
Even though it was only a little past nine, I was too depressed to think. So I just changed into my pajamas, and climbed into bed.
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Nothing changed over the course of the next week I didn't get a chance to talk to Jesse, because he was on the way to class, or was working. I managed to talk to him for about five minutes during lunch, while he was walking to physics, and let him know the basics about Nicole—and that she had fried my computer.
He did his best to reassure me, and promised that he would keep in touch even if it meant resorting to snail mail. In fact, he said, just before he hung up, he'd write me a letter after class and mail it the next morning.
Even though I was really peeved at Nicole, I wanted to help her. I felt a guilt at not being able to tell Ángela about Felipe. I considered briefly asking the Spanish teacher what the translation was. But then I realized, asking a teacher how you say, "The man you're going to marry is a cheater and a murderer. The woman who he cheated with and killed wants you to know," might raise a few questions I wasn't keen on answering. My inability to help nagged at my brain, along with everything else I wasn't able to do, until it drove me to the brink of insanity.
Which might explain why I spoke up at dinner a week after the Nicole incident, after remaining silent around my family ever since I came back from Jesse's.
Andy was serving grilled salmon. I was eating it unenthusiastically. It was good, of course, but whenever I was around my mom lately, it turned everything sour.
I was spearing an asparagus stalk on my fork when my mother spoke up. "Oh, Andy, did I tell you? I'm starting a new investigative piece tomorrow. My producer gave me the go-ahead to start it this afternoon."
"What's it on?" he asked, the dutiful husband of a journalist.
"The real lives of teenage boys." I sighed, trying to ignore her.
"Helen, do you really want to get into that?" Andy joked. "The minds of teenage boys are not something the light hearted should try to enter."
Brad grunted as he shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth.
"I'm positive," she said. "It is something that needs to be exposed. So many parents are in the dark about what really goes on. Especially the mothers of teenage girls who fall victim to the facades teenagers put up."
I rolled my eyes. The three teenage boys at the table looked bored. Even David. I sympathized with them. Here was my mom, telling their dad how terrible his sons were. Not directly, of course, but it was basically the same thing.
"Even the boys who seem nice are no better than the date-rapists and the ones who are abusive. Coercing young girls to do things they would otherwise wouldn't do… even going as far as deflowering them…"
And that's when my common sense disappeared, when the anger and insanity took over. There was no other explanation for why I opened my mouth just then, except that I could no longer stand hearing her tell me that Jesse and Paul were exactly the same.
"Mom," I said, "Stop it! Stop talking about things you know nothing about! Jesse wasn't the one who 'deflowered' me, and never, ever hits me or pressures me like Paul did. So just lay off and stop talking bullshit about all guys being girlfriend-hitting sex maniacs!"
Even though no one but me was talking, when I stopped the table seemed to have grown eerily silent. No forks scraped the plates, no mouths chewed their food, and five sets of wide eyes were fixed on me.
One set, though, were livid. My mother's eyes were shooting fire at me.
And that's when I realized what I had said.
If I wasn't in trouble then, I sure as hell was then.
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Hmm. Okay, review.
P.S. Special thanks to Stephanie for her help