Stories we Tell Scene 185

 

Monday at school was a little tense. Alex and the birthday girl Georgia’s along with the other two invited slumber party guests, Cindy and Riley, clearly had bonded through the experience. Jordan was the only person to turn down an invitation.

To make matters worse, Jordan had left it up to Alex to share the bad news with their shy acquaintance Georgia, which turned out not to be a wise move. Alex couldn’t think of a good excuse in the moment and so just announced that, ‘I dunno – Jordan doesn’t wanna come’.

The birthday girl hadn’t taken it well – she had poured over her classmates for hours with her Mom – apparently to put together the perfect combination of friends (she didn’t have many). She furthermore had spent several more hours creating the invitations for the perfect classy gesture. Jordan simply not showing up without a word made it too late for Georgia to regroup and re-plan many of the personalized activities.

Over the course of the evening and Sunday morning, the girls (with Alex in tacit support) had spent a great deal of time talking about Jordan and what might have caused her to be so horribly rude to Georgia. In fact, Jordan had become the focal point of the party in some sense. Alex had felt caught in the middle (but yet strangely and happily included) of a new friend group that saw her best friend as an enemy. Of the many suggestions floated regarding Jordan’s absence, bedwetting was quickly laughed off among the crowd of others which included her innate bitchiness, ‘that time of the month’, her ‘bastard’ of a father, and innuendos to ‘perverted desires’.

The four had gossiped about Jordan’s aloofness at school and her overall reluctance to make any friends at all. They had agreed that indeed, this invitation from Georgia was an act of kindness; an act of charity which only would’ve helped Jordan’s social life in the long run. But she had coldly and callously decided to destroy their fun and continue on her crash course for social irrelevancy at BCS.

The four had gone on to discuss what they had perceived to be Jordan’s lack of interest in boys. None of them had ever heard her talk openly about her ‘crushes’ at school (that is, except Alex – and given her new place in the social pod she too afraid to risk it just yet to stand up for her old friend). They had talked about how at the final dance of their 6th grade year, Jordan hadn’t come because she had been sick; more like “sick” (Cindy made quotation marks with her fingers as she said the word). They had all laughed, judgments swimming in their heads that Jordan might secretly be……lesbian.

Homosexuality was beyond taboo in the snugly knit Christian community although that more generalized American shame had been wearing off in 2001 Seattle. Jordan was in fact, entirely heterosexual as far as she was aware at twelve years old – and she actually at present had a crush on a boy at school (Joey Michael, a fellow 7th grader and the brother of Chrissy whom she and Alex had attacked with water balloons the week before school) although she hadn’t bothered to share it with anyone.


In the bathroom that morning before class at school, Jordan overheard some of the girls from the party talking about her.

“So she still hasn’t called you or said sorry or anything yet?” Said one voice.

“No but I’m not really expecting anything from that bitch…” said another.

“I just don’t see why Lexi–” (Is that what they’re calling her now?, Jordan thought still in the stall.)”–was even friends with her. She’s got about as much personality as a petrified log.”

“Yeah!” A third voice laughed, “and she looks like a power forward in a skirt.”

A chorus of laughter echoed through the room.

“Amber and Nicole were calling her Giraffe at the beginning of the year – more like T-rex from what I can see!” more laughter came and then water running.

“Well let’s just say you dodged a bullet Georgia.”

“Without a doubt. When I have my birthday party next….” the voices faded as they walked out of the bathroom and the door shut.

In shock and almost in tears, Jordan sat there frozen. I can’t believe that just happened…

Although she was introverted and kind of aloof, Jordan was quite sensitive and longed for connection like. Like any budding adolescent girl, she wanted almost more than anything to be liked and accepted by her peers. It wasn’t her first choice that Alex was her only friend.