The Numbers Game (22 page)

            Tabitha
was amazed at how many well-meaning suggestions came shooting her way. They
spoke of high schools, yellow pages, and friend of a friend who might know
more. But without a surname it all required further research, more time, and
more effort.

            "Which
I can do, if push comes to shove. But ideally I'd like the boys to come to
me."

            Ultimately
they did. When Tabitha put the same request out again that night, she had her
answer almost immediately.

            Do you
mean Ramiro de Soso? He manages a plastering company and all the other details
fit. Still hangs out with his BBB boys at the local pool room and probably will
until the day he dies. 

            Yes, yes,
yes it fit, Tabitha replied with relief. It had to be him; her gut told her
this was her golden egg. After sending off a personal reply to the respondent,
she emailed forth her home number as well, citing it was probably best to
continue this conversation off the forum. There were already too many annoying
queries re: this very significant gift. The girl was great too and called her
back within ten minutes.

            "How
exciting," the girl said, after introducing herself as Louisa from the
forum, "it's so good to finally speak to someone live off the forum. My
fingers get so tired doing it the other way."

            "Yeah
me too," Tabitha agreed impatiently, saying anything to get her on side.
"So where can I find these boys then?"

            "I
have Ramiro's work number. That will probably be your best bet. He'll most
likely die of shock when he hears from you. Does he have any idea you’re trying
to contact him?"

            Louisa's
voice was full of curiosity.
Please tell me more
, it was saying.
I’ve
shared with you, now you share with me
. Tit for tat. That seemed fair
enough. Especially seeing as Tabitha planned for this to be the chief domino
setting off a chain reaction of events:
Tabitha gets boys together, Serena
sees all four, picks one and falls out of infatuation with Jasper, ends up
reuniting with Markie and one Sunday afternoon invites Rick over who
immediately falls in love with Tab.
Yes, she had a lot to thank Louisa for.

            "No
he doesn’t. Let's just say this present is one he and his friends are never
ever going to forget."

“Guess what, we’re
gonna have a party,” Tabitha announced, plopping her pert bottom onto a stool.

            “A party?
That’s nice. ”

            Serena
picked up another two eggplant fritters and shoved them straight into her
mouth. She wasn’t normally a big vegetable fan but today, what with being
ravenous, she made an exception.

            “Damn a
person would think you haven’t seen food in days, the way you’re eating.”

Serena
shrugged and kept stuffing her mouth full.  

            “Maybe that’s
because you haven’t,” Tabitha snapped. “Eaten, that is. “

            Serena looked
up surprised. Hello? What was this? Tabitha’s comment was filled with snide
tension and jealous innuendo, hardly an appropriate comeback for gluttony. 

            “What’s
the deal?” Serena asked, “You’re not pissed off at me by any chance?”

            It was
always good to check in at times like this – because in the realm of unresolved
issues little things quickly escalated to gigantic things.

            “Me?
Pissed off?” Tabitha laughed, tucking into her dinner of tofu and veggies. She
was still avoiding eye contact though. “Why would I be?”

            Tabitha
paused here for effect, not giving anything away and this only made Serena more
suspicious. It obviously had something to do with being jealous because Tabitha
was acting like a love-jilted mate. The last time she reacted this way was when
she drunkenly accused Serena of flirting with all the good-looking boys at a
party. Jasper, of course! She’d been spending too much time with him lately
thus making Tabitha feel rejected, unwanted etcetera. Serena resolved to insert
some quality best friend time into later this week.

            “No
reason,” Serena replied. “So what are your plans for the weekend?”

            Tabitha
sighed and rolled her eyes unnecessarily.

            “Weren’t
you just listening to me? I said I had a party to plan.”

            Damn,
Serena did vaguely recall her mentioning a party of some sort. Her mind must
have been elsewhere. Was she invited to one? If so, she’d have to check the
invite and see whether partners were included. Jasper had mentioned visiting a
planetarium this weekend but that could always wait till next week if something
better popped up.

            “Hang on;
did you say you’re
planning
a party? As in here, in this house.” Serena
tapped the table with her pointer finger. This was the first she’d heard of it.
Obviously she was suffering from delayed hearing.

            “Yep, next
Sunday week.”

            It was
only now that Serena noticed the haggard notebook by Tabitha’s dinner plate.
Lots of colored paper had been shoved into its center and a fountain pen was connected
to the cover. It was Tabitha’s special pen, the one Rick accidentally left in
Serena’s car and which she saved for special occasions. Something had to be up,
definitely.

            “So?”
Serena smiled, while wiping eggplant juice off her plate with rye bread in an
attempt to restrain herself. “Tell me more about it. What are we celebrating?”

            Behind the
scenes a million other questions were running through her head. First and
foremost being: can I please see what you have written in that bloody book?

            “Your
new-found freedom, of course,” Tabitha replied. “Like duhhhh! In two weeks
you’ve off to live in your own house and Lord knows I won’t see you anymore
after that what with Jasper around. To think I used to feel tearing you away
from Markie was like pulling out molars.” 

            Oh so this
was about Jasper and her possessive streak. That’s okay. Possessiveness was
apparently a very normal reaction in best friends who didn’t have boyfriends.
Sometimes Serena thought things would be totally different if Tabitha finally
shagged a boy more than once in a row. No, let me rephrase that – she knew things
would be different. Because at the moment it was like they were existing on
opposing planes and living poles apart. Both twenty-eight but in the head, one
of them was pre-teen and the other, well, Serena felt she acted
at least
twenty-one.

            “Thanks. I
think having a party is a great idea. Who have you put on the guest list?”

            “Just the
usual,” Tabitha said. She then proceeded to shoot out some names. Champagne, Violet, Becca, Norma-Jean, Ainslie….

             “But
they’re all girls. What guys did you invite?” Serena estimated that the
boy-girl ratio had to be at least four-to-one. Tabitha, with her ongoing hunt
for a partner, wouldn’t have it any other way.

            “That
part’s a surprise. You see it’s a surprise party, only I had to tell you about
it in case someone else whisked you away to Las Vegas.”

            “You mean
Jasper? You’re allowed to say his name you know.”

            “That’s
alright. Anyway, it starts at eight; the theme is sexual predators so make sure
you’ve got on all your good stuff.”

            “Like
what?”

            “Oh boots,
leather, anything short, tight and sexy.”

            “You’re
invited Jasper though… haven’t you?” Serena tried to imagine spending an
evening without her knight in shining armor by her side. Nup, she couldn’t do
it. Tabitha on the other hand looked as if she considered him a disposable
object.

            “Don’t you
worry about Jasper,” Tabitha insisted, waving the thought of him away. “He and
everyone else knows the party is a secret so I’d like you to keep it to
yourself. Just concentrate on coming up with a realistic “gosh I’m so surprised”
face.”

            Mmm, a
planned surprise face…

             “Why do I
think it actually won’t take much effort, Tab?” Serena groaned.

           
Tell me
why…

Chapter
15

Just between you and
me, Serena sort of slept with Jasper last night.

            Ordinarily
this was the sort of thing a girl rushed to tell her best friend but not when
the aforementioned best friend was behaving like a sulky mad-hatter. No, Tabitha
would probably have a mental breakdown upon hearing the news.

            The sex
had caught Serena off guard. She wasn’t expecting it thus the appearance of her
worn purple panties with a mismatched hot pink bra. Luckily purple and pink
still fell into the category of sexy without trying but if she could turn back
the hands of time Serena would have substituted them with lingerie of the black
variety.  Oh and thrown in a blow-dry and fresh wax while she was at it too.

            Jasper
took her out on the pretence of visiting the planetarium. Actually they did
visit a planetarium – a space-domey type structure that looked remarkably like
the one out of a South Park episode, only without the spellbinding scientist.
As they lay back into the soft reclining lavender chairs, Serena remembered
thinking “How many planets are there again?” Honestly, not that she was dense
or anything, but just being there, side by side with Jasper, made her mind go
totally blank. 

            Given that
she had never given astronomy much thought the whole slideshow, which simulated
them being in a spacecraft, flying through space, was totally fascinating. She
re-learnt things like the fact that Mars takes a staggering 687 years to orbit
the Sun and how Pluto has a satellite called Charon (which some actually
considered to be the tenth planet) which joined it in orbit, acting like a
binary pair. Other interesting tidbits included: Venus actually rotated
clockwise every 243 days (all the other planets rotate anti-clockwise),
Neptune’s surface temperature was -230 degrees Celsius and Uranus was four
times the size of Earth with four rings (yep not only Saturn had them).

            By the
time Serena left the planetarium, her eyes were as big as saucers and filled
with wonder.

            “How do
they know all that?” she asked Jasper, “I mean, how do they know Neptune has an internal heat source and that Jupiter is 90% hydrogen and 10% helium?”

            “Research,”
Jasper shrugged, “that’s why we have NASA.”

            “Yes but…”
Serena let the next question fall into the abyss. She was already thinking
about where she could buy some good quality binoculars. Apparently they didn’t
need to be too expensive to work. She would use them every night, to see
whether these supposedly easy to locate planets and star clusters were in fact
easy to find. At the moment she couldn’t even pick out the Milky Way with her
naked eye.

            “How about
we go away next weekend?” Jasper said, as they made their way back to the car.
“Somewhere wide and open-spaced, so we can take in the falling stars at night.”

            “Yes!”
Serena squealed, nodding. Talk about great minds thinking alike. A weekend away
fit perfectly in her plans to appreciate and enjoy the universe on a greater
scale. They could wake up early and see the sunrise, trek through the
rainforest, maybe even find a nest with a chick about to break out of its egg.
Oh and she’d need to buy a good quality digital camera for that as well. Maybe
even see if they have any short photography courses nearby. Serena had always
loved the idea of having a professional portfolio of bright and interesting pictures.

            “We could
go to Yosemite National Park. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

            Jasper
nodded his head back. “Yosemite it is then. If you can take Friday off, we’ll
make it a long weekend.”

            “No,”
Serena frowned sadly. “My work and time off do not fit in the same sentence.
Unless…” She feigned a half-hearted cough.      “There is a bug going around
the studio. It would be a shame if I caught it off someone.”

            “Yes it
would be a shame,” Jasper smiled deviously. “But if not, don’t worry, there’s
always the lovesickness excuse to fall back on.”

            Then they
could come back just in time for Tabitha’s party on Sunday night. It couldn’t
have been more perfectly planned…

            At this
stage, Serena had no intention of sleeping with Jasper but the whole notion of
going away threw the imminent possibility in her face. Oh my gosh, next
weekend, they would be sharing a room, a bed together… So far he’d only seen
her at her very best, now he’d have to witness the very worst. Even though
Serena was used to the lounging around sans makeup around Markie, she didn’t
feel that same level of comfortability around Jasper yet. It was as if around
him she still felt a need to impress.