The Numbers Game (31 page)

            As it
turned out if there was one way to turn a man on, it was by displaying a little
bit of violence…towards other women. As Fern tore a shocked Tabitha off in one
direction, Dominique took Serena by the waist and led her to his car, even
stopping to open the passenger door, which was something he had never done
before.

            “Are you
feeling okay?” he had asked, his green eyes sparkling like emeralds. Serena
half expected the Wizard of Oz to tap on the window and ask for the return of
all the jewels, surreptitiously hidden in Dom’s eye sockets.

            Serena had
tried to nod but Dominique wasn’t convinced.

            “Why don’t
I take you for a ride somewhere, until you’ve settled down?”

            This time
Serena nodded with full force.

            “I would
love that,” she had said, demurely. Inside her stomach, butterflies were
popping bonbons and bottles of champagne. Ah, finally, the moment she had been
waiting for had arrived!

            This was
when Serena learnt the meaning of Anti-Climax: the bigger the build-up, the
harder the consequential fall. In smaller circles this was also known as Wham
Bam Thank You Ma’am. One minute Serena and Dominique were parking their car
somewhere discreet and romantic in Lovers Lane, the next her panties were off
and her legs twisted up in air. There was no time to even say condom.

            “Ar, I
don’t think, I don’t think we should be doing this…” Serena muttered under the
weight of Dominique. As far as she could tell, his thing wasn’t inside her yet
but even still, it was too much too soon.

            “Relax,”
Dom murmured, running his fingers through her hair, “I promise I won’t hurt
you. I’ll take care of you I promise.”

            “Mmm,”
Serena replied, loosening her grip. She let herself fall into a make-believe
world where a promise is never broken and boys think with their hearts and not
their dick.  “I trust you Dom, so you can do what you like.”

            Let’s call
those words a big mistake. Fifteen minutes later his thing was laying limp,
having already dispersed of its load and Serena was stepping out onto her
driveway, fully dressed but a bit shaky. She wasn’t quite sure what had
happened. They had had sex right? But if that was the case where were the
cuddles, where was the loving feeling? She certainly hadn’t felt any love
inside; only shame and self-pity. Oh and let’s not overlook feeling very, very
ripped off … in her dreams, having sex with Dom had seemed so much more fun.

            Doing it
with Fernando, now that was fun… if anything it helped Serena get over her
wrath towards Tabitha. One day she was feeling pissed at Tabitha for being a
stubborn bitch (who refused to admit it was her temper tantrum that got their
friendship into this mess). And the next, Serena was drowning in guilt. Oh gawd
what had she done? She had slept with her best friend’s love. Suddenly it
didn’t seem valid that it was an accident, an alcohol-fuelled hump in Café Bar
South America.

            Honestly
Serena had thought it was Dominique coming at her again, when the bathroom
lights flicked off and some man bent over her body flat against the wash
basins. If she had known it was Fernando lifting up her skirt, inserting his
thing through the side of her briefs, she would have resisted, she would have
walked away. And that was saying something, because by Lord it was good.

            Tabitha
didn’t forgive her though, and thus the Cold War period coincided with Serena
feeling like a big, big slut. She knew Tabitha had every right to be fuming mad
(she would be too if the shoes were reversed) but that didn’t stop her from
feeling miserable. Serena wasn’t used to been apart from Tabitha, she wasn’t
used to having an empty space beside her in the car. Worse yet Serena felt
stupid calling other girls from college to go out with her, because they all
knew it was only because of the Cold War episode.

            “As soon
as Tabitha comes back into the picture, you’ll be dropping us like hot potatoes,”
they would say. It was irritating because they were right.

     Sometimes Serena
would make her way alone to Café Bar South American, in hopes of bumping into
Tabitha or anyone familiar. More often than not, Tabitha wasn’t there but the
Awesome Foursome was and they would call her to their table and make room right
in the middle of the couch.

            “Join us;
what would you like to drink? Whatever you want, it’s on us.”

            They
treated her like a fragile princess, which was a one hundred and eighty degree
turnaround and a small price to pay for Serena ruining her own life.

            Back then
if Serena had told anyone that she had slept with two of the four boys, they
would have looked at her like a freak. Make that a freaking whore.

            “You did
what? Banged two best friends?”

            But it
wasn’t like that, honestly. When she was with them, Serena forgot about the
sexual interludes. They were like hazy, distant moments in the past. It was
quite liberating to feel like that because it meant she jumped the highest of
hurdles and become one of the boys. To screw and not lose your heart, now that
was an art. To screw and then be able to drink beer together with your
conquests made you a master.

            That
summer Serena became a master, with a doctorate degree. Sleeping with both
Ramiro and Enrique were part of the final exams. The other girls who hated her,
who were in fact jealous of her closeness with the Awesome Foursome, looked at
Serena with envy. How did she do it? The questions lurked in their eyes. Not to
be thrown away like a dishrag, that was an achievement in those days.

            Soon after
Tabitha and Serena started college again and got paired up as partners in a
tutorial by a teacher who didn’t know better. The Cold War lasted only ten
minutes in that environment. Try as they might, they couldn’t keep the smirks
off their faces as Mister Plonkington got mini-stiffies in front of his
students and let out tiny poofs of silent gas whenever he bent over to pick up
a dropped pen.  If silence and distance were poison in arguments then laughter
was the definite antidote.

            They made
up, of course; Tabitha was even willing to put that sordid experience with
Fernando aside when she learnt that from him Serena had also caught crabs. The
only condition was that they promised never, ever to go to that Café South
American Bar again. No more sucking up bad boys asses; no more putting wankers
onto pedestals.  It was time they got some self-respect, Tabitha decided, let’s
put that feeble past behind us.  As from today, their future years and lives
ahead were going to be all about empowerment.

Getting back to
reality, Serena found herself suddenly pleased to be in the company of three
ex-lovers. At a time when her emotions and confidence were feeling quite
unstable, thanks to her tiff with Jasper, it helped to have her attractiveness
validated.

            “You look
so much more beautiful now,” Ramiro swooned, and Serena beamed, despite been a
bit bothered by the now part. Did that mean she was ugly before? No, no,
good-looking men like these didn’t sleep with ugly women. It had to do with the
‘matching hypothesis’ she learnt back in her Introduction to Psychology class.
People were attracted to and formed relationships with those that were similar
to them in particular characteristics, such as physical attractiveness.
Hopefully they didn’t just mean personality, because on that count the boys
were lost causes.

            “Can I get
you a drink?” Dominique asked, proffering Serena a bottle of her own home wine.

            “I would
love one,” she replied, passing her freshly emptied glass his way. It was time
for a refill anyway; time to let her hair down and reminisce of good times with
old pals.

            “So what
have you guys been up to?” Serena inquired next because that was the first and
only question she could think to ask.

            Damn how
original. It was this very reason she didn’t turn up at her ten-year high
school reunion. Really what would she and any of her ex-cohorts have to talk
about? Anyone worth talking to Serena had kept in contact with and the rest
could get quite easily stuffed. Sharing a classroom together once upon a time didn’t
give anyone automatic access to Serena’s biography nor to her dramatic story of
big rise to movie-set make-up artist. Especially since it wasn’t really a
dramatic rise; more like a break-in followed by a five-year plateau.

            “Ah the
usual,” Enrique said, “working, resting, playing.”

            “Not still
at Café South American?” I hope, Serena added silently.

            “Yes, yes,
of course at Café South American. I own it now.”

            “I guess
that makes it all right then.”

            The boys
continued to fawn over Serena for the next half hour. Surprisingly it was not
so much the past they were interested in as the present, as in right now.

            “Will you
dance with me?” Dominique begged.

            “No
dancing,” protested Ramiro, “I want to take you outside, show you the stars.”

            Serena
giggled at all the attention, no matter how pathetic it was.        “You guys
were nothing like this back when I was nineteen.”

            “That’s
because we were stupid then and now we’ve grown brains,” Enrique winked with a
grin.

            Oh my, THE
smile! Serena looked at Enrique in awe and tried to remember how many times she
had made a wish at a wishing well to be the benefactor of that beam. A hundred,
a thousand? Weren’t she and Tabitha once so desperate that counting Enrique’s
smirks seemed like a good way to pass the time? First one to get five has to
buy the other a sickly sweet cocktail.

            Though a
bit drunk, Serena could tell the boys were all fighting for the alpha male,
king buck position. Their flirting was on full speed and unless she soon showed
more interest in one and not the others their Casanova behavior was going to
get ridiculous. Embarrassing not just for her but also for them.

            Not that
she minded Ramiro and Dominique making up for lost time and fighting over her,
but the groveling was akin to corrupt politicians about to be deposited in jail
for life. Plus the heart never forgets; seeing Ramiro and Dominique now
reminded Serena how it took both of them less than fifteen minutes to zip up
their pants after sex and fifteen days to speak to her civilly again.

            This was
why she liked and always had liked Enrique the best. Maybe it was because she
screwed him last or maybe because he at least acknowledged her crush by giving
her a stack of his sister’s old Cosmopolitan magazines to keep. Though she was
supposed to shred them for an art class assignment, Serena was sure Claudia
Schiffer still dwelled in a box of old mementos somewhere.

            “Enrique,”
she said, taking her pick by the arm and leading him towards an empty dark
corner. “I would love to hear how you came to be the owner of Café Bar South
America.”

            Ramiro and
Dominique were left standing in their wake; mouths dropped open, unable to
suppress their shock. Ah sweet revenge, Serena thought to herself as she sat
Enrique down and plopped her bottom right into his lap, this gesture had been
almost ten years in the waiting.

Serena wasn’t planning
to kiss Enrique. She swears to God she wasn’t.

            All she
wanted was a bit of fun to pass the long-winded yet despicably wild party
faster.  If she hadn’t positioned herself with Enrique, Serena knew what her
doom would have been. Tabitha would have alternated between showing Serena
extreme attention while force-chugging liters of cheap and nasty alcohol down
her throat and completely ignoring her, thanks to the sighting of a potential
goat-keeper. Hiding herself away with Enrique was a preferable option. 

            Enrique
thought so too.

            “Ah
Serena, why did you not ever come back to say hello all these years? We were
all such good friends and then one day, kaboom, it was like you fell off the
face of the earth.”

            Serena
laughed.

            “I doubt
that you really gave a crap Enrique. You were all too busy flocking your
feathers to even notice Tabitha and I were gone.”

            “You think
I am that shallow?” he asked, eyes wide open. There was hurt flicking on and
off at their edges. “You think I did not miss our conversations about fashion
and pop stars that we said had to go? Leg warmers, stonewashed jeans, Bros and
Skid Row, didn’t we predict their downfall way ahead of time? I am today still
waiting to see that 1988 December MAD magazine issue you promised me.”

            “What?”
Serena exclaimed. Then she remembered, she did promise Enrique a funny MAD
magazine. She’d even bought at one of those second-hand comic shops for him. At
two dollars it was a bargain but Enrique would have paid fifty for it. It was
the only one missing from his collection.