Just Ask (8 page)

Okay, is that a cop-out? I'm not sure. But at least its honest. I mean, how am I supposed to answer something like that? Or any of those other letters lurking beneath my bed? Give me a break!

I'm just hoping that this answer might work for everyone who's written with those kinds of questions. I, for one, would just like to move on from here. I am sick of worrying about life and death and God. There aren't any real answers anyway, so why should we torture ourselves by obsessing over it?

Just when I think I am getting over this nonsense about life and death and feeling guilty for not answering the JUST FORGET IT box—seriously, I was about to bum those letters—my world caves in. Or sort of. It started at lunch. Natalie and I were sitting with Cesar, Jake, and Marissa when Chloe (our local celebrity) joined us.

I was just sitting there minding my own business when they suddenly began talking about the “Just Ask Jamie” column. Well, by now I'm used to playing it cool, and I don't think anyone suspects that I'm Jamie, but I
almost lost it when my own best friend, Natalie, starts slamming her (or me).

“Jamie is a total idiot,” Natalie says after Cesar mentioned my response to Casey Snow's letter. “She should hang up her keyboard and call it a day”

“How do you know Jamie is a girl?” I ask.

“She just is,” says Natalie.

“Yeah,” agrees Jake. “She's a girl all right. And she's totally clueless, if you ask me. People shouldn't be allowed to write an advice column if they don't even know what they're talking about.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Chloe, clearly oblivious about the column. “Who is this Jamie person anyway?”

“She writes this stupid advice column in the newspaper,” Marissa says, like she knows everything. Naturally that doesn't make me feel too brilliant, but then I remind myself that Marissa is just like that. She's a girl with a serious attitude problem. In her opinion, the whole world is messed up.

Sometimes I wonder what Cesar and Jake see in her. But for some reason they seem to be old friends. And Chloe likes her too. I rank her right down there with Spencer Abbott, who I feel pretty certain is into drugs. But then Spencer only hangs with these guys occasionally since Jake usually ends up preaching at him, which is actually kind of funny.

“Jamie so missed it this week,” says Nat. “Some
poor kid asked her about what happens after you die and—”

“Then Jamie goes and says to just be cool with it.” Jake finishes for her in an affected voice that I find rather insulting. “like no big deal, and no hope or nothing. Man, it was so disgusting.”

“Oh, come on,” says Cesar. “Don't be so hard on Jamie. He probably doesn't even have a relationship with God yet.”

“What makes you think Jamie is a guy?” I ask with what I hope seems like nonchalance, although I'm trying to distract them from the content of yesterday's column.

“I don't know,” admits Cesar. “Just the way he writes, I guess.”

“Maybe Jamie goes both ways,” teases Marissa.

“Well, he or she should give it a rest,” says Jake. “If you don't have an answer to a question as important as that, you shouldn't be giving kids advice. I'm starting to think that Jamie is really an old man who sits behind a desk and gets his kicks out of tormenting teenagers.”

“I don't even see why you guys read that geeky column.” Marissa rolls her eyes. “It's so totally lame.”

“Sometimes it's pretty good,” argues Nat. “Jamie's had some good answers.”

I suppress a smile and the urge to hug her.

“Not yesterday's,” says Jake. “Yesterday's advice was totally flaky.”

“Well, maybe you guys should be praying for Jamie,”
Chloe suggests as she squirts ketchup onto her fries.

‘That's a great idea,” says Natalie. “Why don't we all agree to really start praying for this Jamie chick?”

“You mean Jamie dude,” teases Cesar.

“Jamie the gender bender,” adds Marissa.

“Did you guys ever see those old 'saturday Night Live’ reruns where no one knows whether that secretary is a girl or a guy?” says Cesar.

“Yeah.” Chloe laughs. “Wasn't her name Pat?”

“You mean his name?”

And suddenly they are all chasing after a totally different subject. And while I should be relieved, their comments about yesterday's column make me feel sick to my stomach. In fact, I feel so bad that I eventually leave the table and actually call my dad at the office.

“I want out,” I tell him.

“Out of what?”

I lower my voice now. “Out of the column. I'm tired of being Jamie.”

He laughs. “But everyone at the office thinks Jamie is great.”

“I don't care.” Then I notice someone approaching.

“But Kim, we had an agreement.”

“We'll talk at home,” I say, then hang up.

I know I shouldn't take this stuff so personally, but it just really gets to me that my friends are so down on Jamie. Okay, I realize that I'm not really Jamie. Or am I? Crud, I'm not even sure right now. Am I having an
identity crisis? A personality meltdown? Could something like this turn me into a split personality? I wonder if I'll be able to sue the newspaper for my therapist bills someday down the line.

But seriously, I'm the girl who always tries to keep a low profile, and I absolutely hate criticism of any kind. I work really hard to do everything just right, and I want to succeed at all I do. Too much to ask? Well, of course. But it's just the way I am.

I won't admit it to anyone, but I'm sure I'm a really uptight type A personality. And as much as I hate thinking of myself like that, I know that it's true. As a result, to hear my friends dissing Jamie like that totally bums me. And I'm starting to really dislike my life.

I feel slightly better when I get into my Jeep to drive Natalie home. Having wheels was part of my incentive for writing that stupid column in the first place. And without the column, I couldn't afford the Jeep. Talk about stuck.

“Why are you being so quiet?” asks Natalie.

I shrug then tell her I have a headache. Okay, I feel bad for lying, but there's no way I can tell her my feelings are hurt by the fact that she and the others were so harsh on Jamie today

“Sorry.” She leans back in the seat and looks slightly disappointed.

Now I'm feeling guilty for being such a lame friend. I know I can't be much fun for Natalie. “It's okay I'm starting to feel better now.”

She smiles. “Hey, I almost forgot. Do you want to go to a movie on Friday? There's no home football game that night.”

“Sure,” I say “Which one? I heard that—”

“I already have a movie picked out.”

“Huh?” Now I'm confused. This is very unlike Natalie. If we go to a movie, we usually discuss what we're going to see.

“It's kind of a surprise, Kim.”

“A surprise? What do you mean?”

“But it'll be my treat.”

“What are you talking about, Natalie?” I think maybe I'm getting a real headache now.

“Come on, Kim. Just say you'll go.”

“To a surprise movie that's going to be your treat? Why are you being so nice? It's not like it's my birthday or anything.”

“Maybe I just like you.” She gets this crazy grin now, and despite myself, I have to give in.

“Okay, I'll go to your surprise movie.”

She nods. “Cool. So do you wanna drive?”

I roll my eyes at her. “Sure, you just invited me so you'd have a ride.”

“That's not it. I just figured you'd prefer your Jeep to my old beater. But if you really don't want to drive.

“Yeah, you're right.”

So I stop at her house, and even after I question her, she still won't tell me what we're going to see. Then I go
home and check online to see what's playing, but nothing seems interesting enough to be such a big surprise. I can't figure Nat out today. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

Well, I went to the movie with Natalie last night. And she was right—it was a surprise. Actually, it was more of a shock. I'm not even sure what I think about the whole thing yet. The truth is, I feel sort of numb.

First of all, the movie wasn't playing at an actual theater. It was at Natalie's church. Okay, I'm thinking when she lets me in on this bit of crucial information, a church movie, great, just what I need right now.

“Why?” I ask her when I realize what's going on. “Why on earth are you taking me to a movie at your church?”

“You're not backing out, are you?”

“I didn't say that. I just want to know why you'd put me through a church movie.”

“It's not a church movie.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It isn't. Mel Gibson is in it.”

Suddenly I remember something about this Jesus movie that Mel Gibson produced last year, although I don't think he starred in it. As I recall it was pretty controversial, but I never saw it when it was playing at the theaters. Could this be the same one? “You mean he's actually in the movie or that he produced it?”

“Both.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, Kim. Don't be a wet blanket. This is a really amazing movie, okay? Just trust me.”

And so I quit arguing, and, feeling like Natalie's puppet, I drive past the big message board sign that her church has prominently placed near the street. Today's gem is: “Open your heart, open your mind, open your Bible.” Yeah, right, whatever. I try to keep my mouth shut as I drive around and around, trying to find an empty space in the huge parking lot.

Then we're walking through these big glass doors that make me feel like we're going to the mall instead of church. And never mind that I avoid going to church with my own parents—a small traditional church where nothing unusual ever happens—but here I am going to Natalie's megachurch where the pastor has been known to yell occasionally. Just great. I can hardly wait.

Okay, in retrospect, I can admit that the movie was well done, at least on an artistic level. But it got to me on an emotional level too. Maybe even deeper than an
emotional level. I'm still trying to sort that out.

But like almost everyone else in the sanctuary, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably at scene after scene of violent brutality. It's the story of Jesus Christ's last day on earth. After being arrested, He was viciously beaten and ridiculed—over and over—and then He was finally nailed to the cross where He slowly died. It was very sad. And very gruesome.

But it's weird that I reacted like that, because I can usually handle violence in movies. I know it's all just actors and special effects and fake blood. I watch shows like “CSI” without even flinching. And I've seen all kinds of crazy action flicks with my dad, ones that my mom totally refuses to watch. I mean, I've seen all the “Terminator” movies several times over, and they never bothered me at all. I honestly didn't think there was a violent movie that could undo me. But I was wrong.

I didn't let on to Natalie how much this movie got to me last night. I just tried to act cool and like I wouldn't hold it against her for dragging me to her church for something like this. I even laughed afterward and told her she owed me one now. Of course, she'd noticed me crying during the film. But to my relief, she was crying even more than me. Anyway, I just pretended like it was no big deal.

But when I got home, I couldn't get those painful images out of my head. It's like it wasn't just a movie, but something real and living, like we'd really gone back in time and witnessed that awful day And maybe it was
real. I mean, in the sense that it really happened. History seems to support that Jesus actually lived and was even killed like that (even Buddhists believe this).

Just the same, what does this really have to do with me? And why can't I just forget about the whole thing? Really, I keep asking myself, why should I care so much? But despite myself, I do care. And I can't deny that I do.

I haven't told my parents about the movie. I'm not even sure what they'd think. I don't know if they've seen it themselves, but I suppose it's possible. Although it seems as if they might've told me if they had. like how can you watch something like that and not tell your own daughter? Yet here I am, keeping this to myself. I have no plans to tell anyone how I feel. I wouldn't even know how to say it out loud.

Okay, I guess I've never really thought of Jesus like that. I mean, the way He was portrayed in the movie. A real live man—a living, breathing, bleeding, hurting man. And for some reason, this is just really getting to me. like I have this heavy feeling about what happened to Him…His pain, His death…and I know it has something to do with me. I actually feel like I could be one of those heartless people who spat on Him while He was beaten. Like that's who I really am. But I can't stand it. Its eating away at me.

Last night, while driving home and trying to act cool about everything, I questioned Natalie about the movie. Maybe I thought this would deflect her attention from me.

“I thought you said Mel Gibson was in the movie?” I said in a slightly accusing tone.

“He was in it.”

“I never saw him.”

“It was just his hands.”

“His hands?”

“Yeah. He's the one who pounded the first nail into Jesus’ hand.”

“Oh.” Like how do you respond to that?

“I heard he wanted to do that part because he feels personally responsible for Jesus’ death.”

“That's stupid. He wasn't even born yet.”

“Jesus died for all of us, Kim,” she said in a quiet voice. “Even before we were born.”

“Yeah,” I said in a voice meant to convey that I knew that. I mean, it's not like I've never been to church in my life. Maybe I don't go now, but I haven't exactly had a lobotomy to remove all the stuff I've heard over the years.