To be Maria (11 page)

            "Going to socialize?" he says, nodding his head in the direction of the people-filled living room.

            "Yes." Her heart starts to race when she meets Melody's icy stare.

            "Oh, I almost forgot," he says, stopping suddenly.

            Anya whirls around to face him. "What?"

            "Can I take your coat?" This time, the smile on his face does not carry any hint of malice. Surprisingly, it eases Anya's frazzled nerves.

            "Sure."

            "I'll hang it in the closet beside the front door."

            "Okay, great. Thanks, Jose."
Wow, it sure didn't take him long to change his attitude towards me. Maybe I'm doing the right thing after all.
With the bottle of beer in hand, she walks over to the group of guys and girls. A couple of the guys welcome her with a cordial "hi". Anya smiles at them, then plops herself down on the rug, crossing her legs so that no one can see the uncomfortable red thong she is wearing. That is one piece of clothing she could have done without, but Maria said: "all of the girls in school wear them, so you should too."  

            Anya had given in and Maria bought three of them, each one a different color.

            Anya takes three generous sips of beer, trying hard not to wrinkle her face in response to the bitter taste. She is aware that she is on the receiving end of Melody's hateful look, but for the moment, she doesn't care. Anya looks into her steel, grey eyes and says, "Hi, Melody."

            "What are you doing here?”

           
Okay, that wasn't the response I was quite expecting.
"Uh…Jose invited me."

            Melody raises both of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. "Oh."

            Anya tips the bottle of beer once again. She downs the liquid, fighting the urge to vomit.

            A boy, sitting directly across from her, stares at her with his brow crumpled. "Do you want something else to drink?"

            Anya shifts her attention over to him. He is gorgeous with white blond hair, large blue eyes and a slender figure. But he looks too young to be at a party intended only for grad students: she guesses that he is around the age of fifteen.

            "Yes, please. I'd like an ice tea or a coke."

            He wrinkles his nose. "Sorry, no ice tea or coke. This is a drinking party," he says, putting heavy emphasize on the words 'drinking party'.

            Anya narrows her eyebrows. "Okay then, get me another alcoholic drink, other than beer."

            He shoots her a snide look. "Why don't you get it yourself?"

            Of course, Melody and her friends laugh at his smug response.

            Anya springs to her feet and stares at the boy, purposely making the look in her eyes fierce. "Well, since you had to point out that this is a
drinking party
, something I'm well aware of, you can damn well get me a drink." She then turns and gives Melody and her friends an even more threatening look, something Carly and Maria would do. But she doesn't care about her behavior. As of tonight, Anya is done with being pushed around, treated cruelly and made to feel less-than human.

            "Geez, I was only joking. Simmer down, I'll get you one," he says, visibly taken aback by her sudden outburst.

            But Anya can still detect the resentful look in his eyes. She narrows her eyes into slits.

"Don't lie to me! Oh, and since you like booze so much, you can drink the rest of this." She shoves the quarter-empty bottle at him, giving him no choice but to take it.

            By now, everyone in the room is looking at her, wide-eyed.

            Maria quenches the simmering coals of her third cigarette butt against the surface of the ashtray. Her head is clearer and she feels much more relaxed, something she hasn't experienced since she came here to Canada. Much to her delight, Jose sits close beside her and listens to her rant about uptight parents and Anya's apathy.

            "Well, Anya never wore anything revealing in front of people before, so the fact that she is now shows me that she's finally coming out of her shell." He squares his shoulders, then turns to look at her as if he has just remembered something. "That was quite gutsy of her to do what she did to Patrick in that skit a few days ago."

            Maria keeps her eyes locked on his. She can tell by the way he had spoken those words, he is filled with admiration for Anya, but it is all for the wrong reasons. And it is not even genuine. Maria begins to feel guilty for what she has done to Anya and for what she is about to do to her. She has grown quite fond of her. Anya is a wonderfully unique individual who has an ardent drive to achieve a very difficult goal in her life, one that most people fail to achieve. Somehow, Maria believes that Anya will one day become a star. So what if she's poor. She has everything going for her; good looks, outstanding talent, sincere personality and a positive attitude. What right does Maria have to rob Anya of this opportunity? She shouldn't force Anya to deny her true self. The girl doesn't deserve this kind of pressure.

           
I don't think what you guys forced her to do was cool.
"Whatever," she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
What the hell is your problem, Maria? Why don't you stand up for her?

           
"Are you okay, Maria? You look upset."

            "No. No, I'm alright." Her voice is drowned out by a chorus of boisterous voices in the street. She can easily pick Carly, Matt, Shondra and Kirsten's voices out of the crowd, but she can’t recognize the others.

            "Maria. Jose. Hi," Carly says in her usual sugar-coated tone of voice.

            "Hi, Carly," Maria says. Her eyes trace Carly's entire figure from her tall, high-heeled Gucci boots to her face. Her black skirt is scarcely visible underneath a fur coat and her long legs are bare. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail at the top of her head and her face holds a thick layer of make-up, thicker than what she normally wears on her face to school. If Maria had not known Carly, she would have thought that she's some twenty-two year-old misfit, unable to make friends her own age.  

            "Sorry we're late. Matt picked me up, but then we had to get Kirsten and Shondra from their dance class, and they took forever. And then, we had to get ready, and that took more than an hour."

            "Well, you're here now, so don't worry." Maria says, picking herself up off the cold pavement.

            "Yes. Where’s Anya?" Carly says.

            "She's--"

            A sudden loud bang from behind ruthlessly startles Maria. She spins on her heels to find Anya standing in the doorway, her face beet red and her eyes dancing with fury.

            "Anya," Jose, Carly and Maria all say at once.

            Maria gives her a horrified look. "Anya, what's your problem?"

            Anya glowers at Maria and at everyone else. "I'll tell you what my problem is: I have a problem with stuck-up, sons-of-bitches who don't know the meaning of respect and humility."

            Everyone bursts into a fit of laughter. Everyone but Maria.

            "And they're supposed to kiss your ass when they hardly know you," Shondra says.

            Maria whirls around to face her. "Shut-up, Shondra! Everyone just keep your big traps shut! Go on, Anya."

            "You know what, Shondra? I don't expect any of you to kiss my ass, but I do expect to be treated like a human being. All you've done is treated me like pure shit, and for no reason. And now, I've had enough of it. You can treat me how you like because I'm now beyond caring. But if you continue to be nasty, I’ll give it right back because I think you're all a bunch of pathetic shit heads," Anya yells.

            She then looks past Maria. "Carly, the only reason I chose to do your popularity test was because I wanted to be friends with you. I really, really wanted to feel accepted, and I wanted to be popular. But now I don't care. I just discovered that I'm way better off without your friendship. Besides, I don't wanna hang with a bunch of screw balls, so you can take your stupid test and shove it up your ass. I'm leaving!"

            "Anya, you can't leave. It's dark and cold; your place is too far of a walking distance from here," Maria says.

            Carly shoots Anya dagger eyes. "Forget it, Maria. Let her find her own way home.”

But as Anya tries to pass, Carly purposely blocks her path. Her friends huddle closer in anticipation of an impending fight.

            "Get the hell out of my way, Carly," Anya shouts.

            "No. You get the hell out of our way, loser!"

            Maria's heart races.
Oh no. There's no way Anya is going to take on everyone.
"Come one, Anya. Leave it alone, Carly and let her go."

            Carly ignores her. She steps so close to Anya that she towers over the girl's small figure. "So, you think that you can just leave now, loner? You owe me two-hundred-and-fifty dollars."

            Much to Maria's surprise, Anya does not back down. "No, I don't."

            "You know, I've never made any big mistakes until I took Maria's advice," Carly says, her voice stiff with rage.

            "And what advice was that?"

            "What do you think, loser?"

            "My name is Anya, not loser, bitch."

            "Oh shit, my parents are here," Jose yells.

            "What," Carly screams.

            "Well, I'm not staying here," Shondra says.

            "Come on, Carly, let's jet," Matt says, taking her by the hand.

            "Right behind you," Kirsten says.

            Maria, in haste, grabs Anya by the hand, then sprints down the driveway past the other fleeing teens. She doesn't know what Jose's parents' car looks like, but she can’t see them or hear them speak harshly to their son. "Let's get out of here," she says in a hushed voice. Unfortunately, they don’t get into her car in time to escape from Carly's ferocious glare.

            "I'm not done with you, Anya. I'll get you at school on Monday," she screams.

            Once inside the car, Maria shoves the gear into drive and stomps on the gas pedal, causing the car to lurch forward. The tires squeal loudly as they struggle to gain a grip on the slick road. The shrill noise instantly gains the attention of all the people milling around Jose's wide driveway. Maria flips them the middle finger, not realizing that it's too dark outside for them to see her hand in the formation of the demeaning symbol.
Rotten, self-centered idiots. They don't deserve my friendship, or Anya's for that matter. I should have never persuaded them to befriend her. What the heck was I thinking? Anya won't survive the rest of this school year, and it's all because of me.

           
For one second, her eyes drift over to Anya. Even in the dark, she can notice the tears streaming down her face. They are blackened from the heavy coat of mascara and they stain her face.

            "I have some tissue in my purse," Maria says, nudging the red, Juicy Couture purse at her.

            The only response she receives is the sound of Anya blowing her nose into the soft tissue.

            "I'm sorry, Anya," she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

            "Sorry for what," Anya says after a few painstaking minutes of silence.

            Maria breathes out a long, heavy sigh. "I'm sorry for everything."

            "My life is over. I can't go back to school, not after what happened, so I may as well throw away my dream."

            "No. You can't do that. You have to go back to school."

            "No I can't," she yells.

            "Yes you can, and you will," Maria says, surprised by the sharpness in her tone. She jerks on the steering wheel, veering her car over onto the right-hand shoulder. Once the car comes to a stop, she shoves the gear into park. She then turns her body partway so she can get a good look at Anya. "Look, Anya, you can't let Carly and her groupies ruin what you've worked so hard for."

            "What if I don't want to go back to school?" she says, flashing Maria an irate look.

            "Anya, school is only for another three and a half months and then you're done. Finished. You can move on with your life, and you will never have to return to that hell hole."

            "What about you, Maria?"

            "I'm not going back there."

            Anya raises her eyebrows. "What? I thought you were good friends with Carly and them."

            Maria purses her lips. "Not anymore. I don't need them. They're all a bunch of immature bum holes, and I don't need to be in school. I can do fine without it."

            "Well, what are you going to do job wise?" This time, her voice carries a strong undertone of concern.