It couldn’t have been scripted more perfect. Except for that “perfect” wouldn’t exactly be how I remember that night. It was 10 years ago now. I was just 18 years old, about to leave for Air Force boot camp. I can’t remember now whose birthday it was, but I’m pretty sure it was somebody’s birthday. I drove down to my friends, Kristin & Kerry’s apartment. I only got in one minor collision on the way. I was almost there, too. I stopped at the local BK for some food, and on my way out of the drive-through, I got trapped in line, and someone backed into the front end of my Pontiac. It wasn’t even my car–it was my mother’s.
Well, I finally made it to Kristin’s. We were all sisters of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. Several of the sisters were there. Someone invited some guys over, but it was just us girls for a while before they arrived. I don’t remember much before the guys arrived, but I remember quite well when the guys did arrive. There were only 3 or 4 of them–to our 10 or 12 girls. 10 or 12 apparently very horny girls. I watched from the couch as the boys were mobbed. One was slightly more mobbed than the others. He stood in the center of their circle, looking a bit bewildered as my sisters attacked him. They commented to him at least 14 thousand times in 2 minutes that he looked just like Pacey. You know, Pacey? Joshua Jackson? From Dawson’s Creek? He told the girls his name was Mike. But the girls insisted he be called Pacey. I watched from the couch, somewhat embarassed that my sisters were so ferocious and insistent.
Mike looked over at me and caught my eye. I grinned a “sorry” towards him. And then like something out of a movie, he put his arms out to move the girls aside so he could get through them. He approached me and sat down on the couch next to me. “Hi. I’m Mike,” he introduced himself to me. The looks on my sorority sister’s faces went from the kind of excitement you get from a puppy at the pet store whose cage has just been opened, to that of utter disgust. Their upper lips curled. Their eyes narrowed. And they dispersed. There were other guys here anyway, right?
Mike and I talked pretty much all night. The only part of the conversation I remember was when we were in Kerry’s room, laying across her bed. We found a list she had created. It was a list of no less than 50 attributes her future boyfriend had to have. Mike and I read through her list, and he demonstrated each of those qualities, whether he possessed them or not. His sense of humor. His hairless chest. His sensitvity. Etcetera, etcetera. He was adorable. He was charming. And I… had sincerely zero interest in him. I had a mission. I was joining the military, and I could see no reason to get caught up with any guys, no matter what they looked like, or how charming. And I was serious. Anyone who knows me personally knows how serious I can be when I am being serious. Seriously.
After a while, Mike and I went outside for some reason. We sat on a couple of stones beneath the bathroom window, talking. Then he had to pee. He got up and walked off into the wooded area behind the house.
That was the last time I ever saw Mike. I don’t know where he went, but I didn’t wait for him to return. As I had sat there waiting for him, two of my sisters entered the bathroom over my head. The window was open and I could hear them clearly. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I had already been sitting there, and they were a little bit loud. And the window was directly over my head.
“I don’t know what Pacey sees in Cheryl,” one of them bitched.
“Oh, I know, he could do so much better,” the other remarked.
My eyes grew to the size of saucers. I couldn’t believe my ears. Weren’t these girls supposed to be my friends? I had paid my dues the same as them last semester! Literally! They didn’t know I was sitting out there, hearing their every word. But I sat there and listened. And when they finished peeing and bitching about me and Pacey-whose-name-was-actually-Mike, I got up and stood in the front doorway. I glared at them as they came out of the bathroom. I didn’t say anything, but I wanted them to think that I had heard them–which I had in fact.
I was so upset. I didn’t even care about Mike. I didn’t make him talk to me. I was just being myself. I didn’t approach him. I didn’t try. I didn’t want him. I didn’t kiss him. I just treated him like a person.
I rushed into my friend Kristin’s bedroom in tears. She was just getting into bed with her boyfriend. I announced to her that I was leaving, that I couldn’t bear spending the night in the same house with those sisters who dared to call me friend. I told her what I had heard. Kristin really was my friend. She sounded as hurt as I was. She insisted that I stay the night and not drive the hour home. She said I could sleep in her room, where no one else but the three of us would be allowed, and I could go home in the morning. And that’s what I did. And I never saw Mike again. And I hoped to never see those sisters again, either.
A few months ago, one of those girls from the bathroom friend requested me on facebook. I really considered not accepting her request, still bitter about the whole thing. And honestly, I never did really jive with her even before that night. We both had the same big sister in the sorority. I think she felt sibling rivalry or something. Maybe she felt like our big sister should love her more, being her first little. But I was her baby sister. (And I was cuter.) But I accepted her invitation anyway. Maybe she would see what a kind person I was. What a good life I have had the past 10 years. I posted a photo that had the other sister from the bathroom in it. I’m sticking my swollen tongue out, showing my shiny piece of tongue jewelry. She was laughing. I used to argue that we didn’t buy our friends when we were in the sorority. I argued that we would have been friends even if we didn’t have to pay dues. But maybe I was right for a different reason. We didn’t buy our friends. They were never our friends, with or without the money.