The Numbers Game (30 page)

            Of course
that got her scooting. In her head Serena pretended the whole scenario was an
episode of Seinfeld. She was Elaine and Tabitha was Kramer and they were at a
funny party, like the one Elaine and Seinfeld attended in Long Island
. Just
pretend you’re Elaine because she’s cool; she’d never let things like
ex-boyfriends and one-night-stands bother her. The whole audience would be
thinking this was so, so hilarious too.

            “Hello?”
Serena stopped right in front of the guys once she made it across and they
turned to look at her, eyes popping to the floor.

            “No way!”
one of them said followed by a “Jesus” and “Gosh you look…”

            “I look…”
Serena prompted, leaning forward.

            So far
this was not going well. She knew she should have gotten changed into something
more conservative, something with buttons or a sleeve.

            “It is
Serena, right?” Ramiro inquired, carefully.

            “Yes it
is…” Serena smiled, while drawing out the word just as slowly. “Why, can’t you
tell? Have I changed that much?”

            All three
heads started nodding, which was a bit worrying because it made Serena think
she was a bit of a dog back in her early days.

            “Was I a
dog before?” she asked.

            “No dog,”
Enrique exclaimed, shaking his head. “Definitely never a dog; maybe just a lamb
before in sheep’s clothing. But now you are fox.”

            Oh…a fox
was a good thing she guessed. Serena smiled, finding the foreign accent
situation suddenly very attractive. Mmm, she’d forgotten all about boys who
couldn’t speak perfect English despite living in the US all their lives. By
this point, she’d forgotten lots of things...

When Serena reflected
back on her early twenties, she asked herself just two questions:       

           
Where
in the world did she get her gall from and how the hell did she survive?

            Both
questions pertained really to her trysts with Dominique, Fernando and Enrique
(all at the age of um…nineteen) and then Ramiro at two weeks into her twentieth
year.

            No girl
liked to think of herself as a slut. In fact thanks to our paranoia of the slut
label women did everything within their power to portray just the opposite. In
our heads we were virginal – it was the other girls, the ones who sprouted
Pamela boobs at thirteen and gave blow jobs in exchange for ecstasy that were
the real hoes. She, on the contrary, was just a girl who liked to have fun and
only occasionally slipped into bed with a friend for the night. Very
occasionally mind you. You see she was anything but a slut.

            Serena had
almost convinced herself of this fact but then their thoughts somersaulted to
the day she had met the South American Quartet. It was summertime then and on
the day they met she and Tabitha had been driving around in just bikini tops
and short skirts because the temperatures were scorching. It was hot, hot, hot,
the type of day when one’s bottom burnt just sitting in the car, the steering
wheel felt like a hot iron and bucket loads of sweat kept pouring off their
faces. But a person drove around anyhow because they had no other choice; the
cool wind at least blew some of the frustration away.

            Now when a
girl is young they can wear very little and get away with it thanks to
still-growing awkward limbs and innocent eyes. And that was the stage Serena
and Tabitha were at: hot pants, midriff bearing tops and mini dresses were
staple pieces in their wardrobes. If an item didn’t fall into that category
then at the very least it had to be black, red or leopard print. Like most of
the wealthier kids who didn’t need to work during breaks thanks to ma and pa,
Serena and Tabitha wasted enormous blocks of time doing nothing but searching
for ‘potential boyfriends’. Their elders called them boy-crazy;
all you do
is talk about boys, boys, and more boys!
But that was only because they
missed what was lying beneath the picture; what Serena and Tab were actually
searching for was love.

            “Oh gosh
why don’t we head to the South American Festival downtown?”

            Serena
remembered Tabitha’s words as if they were the poison apple in the Garden of
Eden. She felt good blaming it on Tabitha, who was the original tempter, for in
biblical terms the sentence could be translated as: go on, have a bite Eve, one
bite ain’t going to kill you.

            Ordinarily
when one meets a group of guys one automatically knows which one is their
favorite. You just know. He stands out as if a sparkly halo has encircled his
head while all the other friends are either invisible or falling to the ground
around them, as a result of lethal dosage ugly pills. When your eyes connect
with his there is chemistry. You think that maybe, just maybe, he could be The
One.

            Serena
never had that feeling with just any one of the South American Quartet. To the
contrary, the sight of ALL four sent shivers down her spine and gave new
meaning to the word masturbation. Dominique had the greenest cat eyes like the
Afghan girl on the National Geographic cover; Fernando was a bodybuilder in
progress; Enrique’s claim to fame was his smile, as wide and compelling as the
Atlantic Ocean while Ramiro, well, he had dimples. Needless to say, if you put
them altogether you’d have had Mr. Perfect in the flesh.

            As one
already knows however it isn’t possible to cut and paste the features of four
men to create another so Serena was forced (she couldn’t help it) to project
volatile emotions upon all four, though she tried to avoid Fernando who was the
Untouchable. On that first day by the sweets stand Tabitha had claimed Fernando
for herself, saying that a good body was a sign of a sound mind. Yeah right…

While
slobbering away on slippery South American Apricots, also known as Mameys,
Serena decided who gives a hoot? Tabitha could have her Fernando as long as the
attention of the others was granted all to her! To her the boys were exactly
like a Mamey: on the outside, they may have looked a bit thick and russet
bitter but once you got a taste of it the sweet, juicy flesh was sure to
overwhelm.

            Unfortunately
to say the boys were as excited as Serena and Tabitha would be misleading. No
doubt, they liked being treated like movie stars and having star-struck budding
groupies was always an ego-booster. But the truth was the four-year age gap
between them was more like twenty to them. Dom, Fern, Ram, and Ric had little
time for teen puppets when they could have been and were screwing high-class
older ladies. Serena and Tabitha sensed this betrayal but ignored it; they were
happy to continue acting like flies around dog poop. That was even what they
boys nicknamed them, the Fly Girls. Here come the flies. Not that they really
cared, as long as they got to stay cozy under their wings Serena and Tabitha
were happy.

            This was
where Harry Met Sally infamous proclamation “a boy and girl can never be just
friends” got to be tested.  After spending packs of time together, almost every
night out at the water hole or local South American Café Bar, something was
bound to happen. Serena and Tabitha, fingers crossed, were counting on it.
After a few months the boys had taken quite kindly to their adoring behavior
and enjoyed treating them like kid sisters. Go fetch me another beer, buy me a
pack of cigarettes, that sort of thing.

            Thinking
back on it, Serena cringed and wondered why they didn’t just get DOORMAT tattoo
on their foreheads.  Yes, it might be requisite to go through that embarrassing
phase in order to build self respect (for how else does one know to protect and
cherish it unless it has been spat on a thousand times before) but must it be
so humiliating in retrospect?

            Funny
though, at the time the thought of sleeping with any of them was anything but
excruciating for Serena. Instead, every day that she didn’t feel the casual brush
of their fingers handing her over money for snacks was a killer. At night, when
the scent of Hugo Boss had long drifted from her halter neck dress, she dreamt
of kisses and walks and lots of hair stroking. Serena loved having her long
hair stroked back then. She was growing it and especially nourishing her locks
with mystic potions and oils, just waiting for the day it intertwined with any
one of those boys.

            Green-eyed
Dominique was the first in line. Fate wouldn’t have it any other way. Not long
before then Tabitha and Serena had started taking either metros or taxis down
to their local hangout, an descript café bar, in hopes of scoring back home an
elusive ride. They explained to the boys that they arrived in that fashion,
sans car, because they both wanted to drink and no one liked to be the
designated driver.

            “It’s
easier this way,” Tabitha had explained. “Don’t have to worry about getting
pulled over and losing my license, plus there’s a bus that drops us not ten
meters from my place.”

            “And if we
miss it, we can always score a ride with someone here,” Serena added on, “most
guys around here don’t live too far from us you know.”

            Serena and
Tabitha could tell from the looks in their eyes that this was not a valid
option. The Awesome Foursome, as they were coming to be known in private, might
not have felt Serena and Tabitha weren’t girlfriend material but they certainly
didn’t want other boys sinking their claws in either. All it took was one or
two lifts home with a few good-looking clean-cut college boys for The Awesome
Foursome to swing their way.

            The first
few times were a real mess-up however because Serena was usually spending the
night at Tabitha’s. They had figured it was easier that way so whoever was
driving them home didn’t have to go too far out on a limb. Dropping them off at
one house was one thing; making two stops was another and hence inconvenient,
even if only a few streets away. Plus they didn’t want to rock the boat.

            As one
would expect though, it got to a point where Serena and Tabitha were at each
other’s throats all the time.

            “Why don’t
you pretend to be sick and get a lift home with dork-face, so that Fernando and
I can finally be alone later?”

            “No way,
why don’t you?”

            They would
sit in Café South America, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed and lips pinched
together so they looked like one little slit. There was always a fight to see
who would get the good spot – on the black furry couch with the boys, because
whoever missed it had to sit alone, across the low table on a high
hard-bottomed stool with no back. The stool sitter always looked a bit
abnormal, like they weren’t really part of the gang, and uncomfortable, given
they couldn’t lean against anything nor keep their spine straight out of fear of
looking like a school-teacher. Taking turns (you one day, me the next) was also
never bound to work.

            Now if she
told you it was actually due to this tension, due to this kindergarten-like
rivalry that led to Serena sleeping with Dominique, you probably wouldn’t
believe it. But it was. Sad as it may sound, it was actually a fight over who
got to sit on the edge of the couch that led to the first sex episode. Tabitha
had simply had enough of getting the stool time and time again. Not that it was
Serena’s fault she got born small and Tabitha got born tall, but the height
difference definitely worked against Tabitha. She just couldn’t ease herself
swiftly or naturally in front of Serena.

            On that
Saturday night, Tabitha must have finally exploded from within.

            “That’s
it!” she said, stomping her feet and pounding her fists in the air. “I’ve had
enough, this seat is a fecked up boulder and I want to sit on the couch.”

            Serena,
horrified, looked at Tabitha’s display and put on her best “do I know this
person?” look. How embarrassing, she remembered thinking; because of you we
both now look uncool.

            But the
really uncool thing happened when Tabitha reached forward and started pulling
out chunks of Serena’s freshly washed and blow-dried hair. Serena had tried to
grab her arm, tried to thwart the assault, but Tabitha’s rage was unstoppable.
Tiny pinpricks of tears started popping out of Serena’s eyes; the hair pulling
was severely painful.

            “Stop it,
Tabitha,” she managed to let out while the boys looked on in delight. None of
them had ever seen a real live catfight before. “You can have the bloody couch,
just stop pulling my hair.”

            In the
end, it wasn’t Serena’s increasingly distressed pleas that led to the cessation
but a tap on Tabitha’s shoulder from Fernando.

            “Look,
chick. Maybe I should just take you home,” he said, licking his lips. Then
Dominique came forward and volunteered to escort Serena home too, separately.
It was as if they were Scary Sherry and Randy Macho’s Man Savage’s manager
Elizabeth on the wrestling show and Fern and Dom were the referees who stepped
in to help.