Hot & Cold

A teenage girl is lying on her bed. The clock radio blinks twelve o'clock. A massive thunder storm that hit her town knocked out power for over an hour. Her stereo, the lights, and her clock have just come back on. She flips the pages of her US History book, carelessly jotting down notes on a sheet of loose-leaf paper clamped in her purple, three-ring binder. The phone next to her rings.

Three blocks away, a teenage boy is sitting in a bean-bag chair in his bedroom. His electricity has also just come back on. His keyboard is on his lap and he was chatting with a friend in a chatroom for basketball fanatics before he picked up his phone and dialed the number of the teenage girl lying on her bed doing US history homework. The seventeen-inch flat screen monitor he has lights up the room.

"Hello," she says, finishing off a sentence about Ronald Regan.

"What's up?" the male voice says.

"Nothing," she tells him.

"What're ya doin'?"

"Homework."

"Yeah, I just got finished," he lies. He had his homework finished hours ago. "You working on Miller's stuff?"

"Trying to," she says sarcastically.

The girl sits up on the bed and stretches out her legs. She can see her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall in front of her, and she sticks her finger in her mouth, making a gag gesture. And then she rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"Did the power go out over your way?" he asks. This boy stands up and places his keyboard on the desk in front of him.

"Yeah, for about an hour, I guess."

"It was out about that long over here, too."

"I'd guess so, Alex, you only live like three blocks away," she tells him, holding a finger- gun to her head and dropping to the mattress. A large stuffed panda bear falls to its side and topples off the bed.

"You don't have to be all like that, you know," he says, putting his hand over his heart. "I'm just trying to talk to you." His voice is calm. He drops into the bean-bag chair and touches the glass cage his tarantula lives in.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are trying to talk to me?" she asks more maliciously. But there is no response from the other end. "Why do you call me? Have I ever asked you to call? Don't you ever get the feeling that I don't want to talk to you?" A smile streaks across her face, evidence of the enjoyment she's getting from putting Alex down.

"You always do, though, so I thought that–"

"Whatever it is you thought, Alex, unthink it. I only try to be nice, but this is really getting annoying, you know. You call me at least once a week. What do you do? Go back and tell all your dweeb friends that you actually got a popular girl to talk to you?" She doesn't let him answer any of the questions, but keeps talking. "I'm afraid that you have fantasies about me at night and think that you have a chance in hell to get with me, but you don't. Hear me now, Alex. You-don't-have-a-chance-with-me. No matter how nice you are. Or how charming you try to be. The fact is that you're an ugly dweeb with ugly dweeb friends who wants to be part of the cool crowd so bad that you'll do almost anything."

She stops talking and hops off the bed. The phone is at her ear and she has her other hand on her hip. Her face is red. The toes on her left foot are raised and the look on her face is one of frustration and anger. Thin eyebrows are arched high above her deep-set, dark eyes.

Alex is leaning back on his chair with his head on the floor. His mouth is hanging open and his eyes are closed.

"Are you listening to me, Alex?"

"Yeah, I hear you."

"Do you get the picture? Or do I have to get one of my football friends to give you a special tutoring session?"

Alex rolls off the bean chair and gets to his feet. He stands up straight, pushing the brown bangs from his blue eyes.

"That supposed to scare me or something, Jen?" This time there is silence from her end. She sits on the bed and crosses her legs so that her right foot is dangling above the thin green carpet under her.

"Do you hear me?" Alex questions, pointing toward the blank wall as if Jen is standing in front of him. His tone has changed; his voice is more deep than usual.

"Of course I hear you, dweeb. That's not scary enough for ya, huh?"

"Why are all you bitches the same?" He grabs his crotch. As he talks, Alex walks all around his room in the dark, the only light coming from his alarm clock and his monitor. A glow-in-the-dark poster of the planets glows faintly from his ceiling. "Need someone else to take care of your own personal business. Does it get you off?" He grabs himself again. "Does it raise your security level? Your self-esteem? It must, or you people wouldn't do it all the time."

"What did you say to me?" Jen asks, her right hand above her head.

"Oh, like you're all high and mighty," he says. "You know what, babe? You're no different than I am. Want to be accepted. Want to go to all the parties. But you know what's the best thing about it? I stay real to myself," Alex says, poking himself in the chest. "I don't cash in to all that bullshit. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you. Is that so bad? You started out being really nice. Someone I thought was different from the rest when you were out of school. Away from the crowd and the crap. I was way wrong, Jen."

Jen's mouth is open and her eyes are squinted as she listens to Alex spout off at the mouth.

"And that's fine with me because now I don't have to waste my time on you. Me, I'm gonna make it big out of high school and have friends that really care about me. You, you'll probably have some stupid job that makes minimum wage, thinking you deserve better, marry some guy who'll cheat on you all the time while you're hanging out with people that don't give a rat's ass about you. And you'll long for the days when you were in high school, when you were a somebody."

Alex laughs and Jen's face crinkles up. She is slouching; he is now lying on his bed, his feet covered by white runners' socks and his ankles crossed. "Wake up, Jen. Those people you hang out with don't give a crap about you now and they won't later. My friends are good friends because we're not about outdoing each other with our jeans or cars. We're not about scoring with chicks like you just because we can and then spreading the news all over school. We don't use each other like paper towels."

She sits still on the bed.

"Finished?" she asks with a lot of attitude.

Alex shakes his head and gestures like he is slapping Jen upside the head. "There's still time to change, though. Let that be my advice to you, Jen. You're heading down the road to unhappiness."

"What makes you the expert on happiness? You can't be happy."

"What makes you think that I'm not? He sits up on the bed.

"Because you're you and your friends are just like you," she tells him in a matter-of-fact tone. "You wear crappy clothes. Drive a mo-ped to school. Play chess at lunch. Answer all the teachers' questions. Get pushed around by the guys I hang around."

"Why is that?" Alex asks, pulling his legs into a butterfly position. There is a slight smile on his face, as if he already knows what Jen will tell him.

"What?"

"Why do those idiots think they can just push people around? What's so great about them? Talk about insecurity." Amused, Alex laughs into the phone.

Jen starts to say something then stops. She slouches on the edge of the bed then lies back, staring at the 12:00 blinking on her clock.

"Do you even know why?" he continues. "You don't, do you? Can't come up with anything besides what you just said, right? That's just stupid!"

Alex gets off the bed and walks to his dresser. He looks at himself in the mirror above the dresser as he talks to Jen.

"Maybe because you go out of your way to be different."

"Oh, so now we get down to the nitty gritty. That's still a stupid answer. I need more than that. Think, Jen. Why do they push guys like me around. Think really hard."

"You're starting to piss me off, Alex."

"Why? Am I digging too deep for ya? Or do all these questions confuse you? Afraid of the answer you'll come up with? Or are you afraid that you can't come up with an answer?" He winks at himself in the mirror.

"You're being a real ass right now, you know," Jen says with a raised voice. Her face is still very red.

"No different than the asses you hang out with every day. Can you begin to see my point?"

"Why ask me if you're so interested? Why not ask one of the guys who talks crap to you? You might get a way different answer."

"No, I think it's all the same. There is no answer. It's just pure insecurity. Trying to make yourself feel better by trying to make someone else's life crappier than your own. Spread the dismal mood around the school. Around the world. But, for your information, it doesn't get me down at all. I know I'm a better person all around than those idiots who can barely write a complete sentence and disrespect whoever they can. Think everything's a joke because they're too stupid and unmotivated to study and actually do some work. Think it's not cool enough. That's so dumb."

"If you've got it all figured out, dweeb, then why keep talking?"

"Because you don't have it all figured out. I'm just trying to salvage you. Trying to make you see how stupid all the name-calling is. How pointless all the competition is. I probably shouldn't tell you this–should make you find out for yourself–but I'll be kind."

"What, Alex? Tell me. I'm so intrigued." Jen rolls her eyes again, seemingly bored with this whole phone conversation.

"I was at Burger King last night with my friends–my real friends–and we were sitting a few tables away from a group of girls that are supposed to your friends. You probably didn't even know they were there. They had nothing but crass stuff to say about your clothes and hair and how you think that they like you." Alex stops. There is no sound on the other end. He shrugs and continues. "They're using you for your car, Jen, and the free food you get them from your parents' deli. The one bitch, the one with the straight black hair, Janessa or Vanessa, whatever her name is, said that you're such a push-over that you'd drive them anywhere they want to go and pay for the gas, too. And then Bridget Barnes said that you thought all of them were voting for you for homecoming queen when they were telling people not to vote for you. All four of them were cracking up so hard I thought they'd get kicked out by the manager."

Alex walks back to the bed and lies down, crossing his ankles.

"Yeah, those are great friends, Jen. Wonderful. So, can you come up with an answer now? Why do those asses think they're so much better than me and my friends?"

She stares at the blinking clock with tears in her eyes.

"You're lying," is all she can say.

"I'm not. It's the truth, Jen. Feel used and abused?" His tone is light, almost giddy.

"You're lying. They're my friends. You're just a jealous dweeb who can't get a date if your life depended on it and you're...you're...trying to make me feel bad for you or something so you want to make up lies."

"Really? Ask one of them in school tomorrow if what I said is true. See how she reacts. I guarantee that girl can't look you in the eye. I'll put money on it."

"I'm gonna get someone to really kick your ass if you don't shut up."

"Oh, that's just great. Typical."

"What's that mean?" she asks.

"Typical response from a girl like you. Can dish it out all you want, but you can't take it. Why is that? Oh, yeah, it's that whole insecurity thing again. Do you really like your life, Jen? Playing the game all the time? You're not really one of them. I know it. I've been talking to you for a long enough time. You started out giving me the time of day, then when one of your very good friends answered the phone when I called, you got embarrassed. Why is that? What are you afraid of?"

Jen cannot answer the last two questions. She tries a couple of times to talk, but she just can't get any sound to leave her mouth. The best thing she can mumble is an insult.

"I can tell that you're still pissed off because I'm getting down to the nitty gritty and you hate it. Get out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat, baby. Can't stand someone telling it to you like it is? Telling you what you're afraid to hear? That's okay, Jen. No one likes to be thought of as weak or used or taken advantage of or discovered to be a fraud. Take your time and think about it. I'm actually surprised that you haven't hung up the phone yet. Why is that? Just can't get enough? Or maybe you really want to talk to me like a total human being–a fellow classmate–a, do I dare say, friend of sorts?"

"No, it's just that you just keep blabbing away. I'm humored, really," she says, rolling her eyes, yet biting her bottom lip and taking a deep breath.

"Remember what I said a minute ago about guys spreading news? Well, I'm sure you'll be intrigued now. Remember how you begged Tim Lewton not to tell anyone that you two did the nasty a few weeks ago while your parents were away? Guess what he's been talking about the past week in the locker room? Your little whimpers and moans while he gave it you all different ways and told you how special you are." He smacks his rear three times. "Well, deary, he's laughing and joking about it now. Has he even called you?"

Jen curls into a ball on the bed. She is unable to speak. Her eyes are closed; her lashes wet with tears.

"It's been nice chatting. Gotta be going now. I have some studying to do before I head up to my roof to watch for UFOs and think about how I can purposely go out of my way to be different. What is different, anyway? Sleep tight."

Jen holds the phone to her ear, listening to the dial tone. Tears flow from the corners of her dark eyes, dampening the hair by her ears. She hits the TALK button on the phone then hits it again. She dials a number then quickly hangs up. This gesture is repeated three times, as if she wants to ask one of her friends if what Alex said was true. Or perhaps she is trying to call Tim. The tears keep coming and Jen's chest begins to heave. She throws the phone down on the bed and it slides onto the floor with a thud; then Jen twists her body around so she can cry and scream into the big round pillows on her bed.