HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
There were newly graduated senior high students everywhere. It was truly a party for the record books. Nearly every senior attended, and it was all too exciting. Best of all... Darcy turned out to be such an awesome friend.
She convinced her boyfriend's band to play live music. Even though they weren't professionals, the list of different genres of music they had mastered was quite impressive.
Thank the lord her mother informed the neighbors about the live music and the fact that a large group of teens most likely would be attending Jolie's eighteenth birthday celebration. If they hadn't communicated that fact early on, most likely, the police would have shown up to shut them down once the band started playing.
Proof of the noise was seen when the glass in her own house was rattling from the band's performance and the noise from well over one hundred and fifty excited teens.
"Darcy, thank you so much." Jolie jumped up and down as she hugged the young woman and kissed her on the cheek for one of the best presents of the night.
"What are you thanking me for?" The surprised glare on her face was her response to Jolie's emotional outburst.
The birthday girl wiped tears away for the thousandth time.
"You brought the band. They've made this party totally awesome. Look at everyone. The entire class is having the best time and I can guarantee the music is the star in all of this." Jolie cried as she wiped away more tears.
"I'm glad you like it. I hoped you would. Now, stop crying or your face is going to be lobster-red and puffy. This is your special day. You don't want people to see you looking like a hot mess after all the work you put into the party and that outfit." Darcy reminded her.
To Jolie's surprise, the girl she once believed to be dark and scary was actually quite nice and considerate. Darcy turned out to be a really good friend to her when she was in desperate need of a friend. With her support, Jolie was able to pull it together and get back to enjoying herself.
"This is the best party ever. Oh, my word. You have live music... food. You are the best. The only thing missing is the... BEER!"
Chad Flannery ran across the backyard being the crazy fool everyone knew him to be. He was just being himself as always and most people laughed until their sides hurt because of his antics.
Darcy gravitated to the band to support her guy as Jolie moved around to greet her other classmates and was overjoyed when she looked up and saw Tish. She was accompanied by her boyfriend Cordell as they made their way through the crowded backyard.
"Hey, stranger. I'm glad you were able to take time away from your busy life to grace me with your presence." She tried to guilt her friend for being late for her party.
"I know you're not coming at me with your sorry little self. You were the one who was way too busy being secretive about your old man." Tish responded to Jolie's taunting.
"What are you talking about? What do you mean by my 'old man'?" She tried in vain to divert the conversation.
"You can pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about, but you have already been caught, so let's go have this long-overdue conversation so we can clear the air and enjoy the festivities."
Tish grabbed Jolie's arm as she excused herself and her friend. Cordell informed her that he would join some of his buddies and wait for the two ladies to have their little battle before joining him.
The girls laughed at him because he knew them so well. Yes, it was time for Jolie to give it all up. Everything she had been hiding for months was on the line, but if she didn't prove to her friend that she trusted her, their friendship might not survive her deception.
Tish gave her just enough time to close and lock her bedroom door before her eyes said it all. It was time to spill the beans and they both knew it.
"When did you figure it out?" Jolie asked the question as if she didn't already know the answer.
"At the party," Tish replied.
"Why haven't you said anything about it before the other day?" She continued.
"Because I hoped you would come to me on your own." The girl sat next to Jolie on the floor next to the bed.
"I really had no intention of hiding things from you, but this is so complicated." She continued to make excuses.
"I understand it may be hard for you to discuss your feelings with others, but I'm your best friend, Jolie. We've never hidden anything from each other." Tish continued in a voice that conveyed how she felt betrayed by her friend's decision to hide what was going on.
"But, he's so much older than me and we know if the wrong person finds out the way I feel about him too many people will have a problem with it." Revealing what was going on was harder than she imagined it would be.
Jolie focused her eyes on her beautifully painted fingernails to relieve her mind of the heaviness of what she had to admit.
She recalled sitting in the nail salon watching how well the Asian woman shaped and designed the birds and flowers on the fake nails. Jolie wondered if working in the nail shop was the woman's dream. With such talent for painting, she reflected on the potential reasons why the woman hadn't attended an institution to learn how to put her skills to better use.
Seeing someone's artistic talents being squandered in a place like a nail shop made her feel a greater sense of determination to get the heck away from the small town in search of a better life.
Sitting on the bed gave her time to reflect on everything she had secreted away in her heart. From hiding her relationship with Ben... keeping her rendezvous from her best friend, and worst of all, the knowledge of how her people would ostracize her if it ever came out that a black girl was intimate with a white man.
Thinking about the situation reminded her of the one artist she held in the highest regard. The woman's life was always inspiring in spite of the way she suffered for being the product of an illicit affair between her white father and her black mother.
Madame Jacqueline Diamonique Valois suffered from the effects of a type of extreme racism Jolie wasn't sure she was strong enough to endure.
As she sat alone in her room with Tish, she feared what could happen if her situation with Ben was discovered and made its way to the wrong people. Jolie wasn't equipped to deal with the anger and ugliness of the black or white community.
The thought of sharing her feelings with her friend terrified Jolie because of the potential backlash that could become a real result of their conversation.
"I knew you liked him. When I saw how focused his attention was on you at that party. Ever so often, you gave it away all by yourself while seeking him out. Sure, you tried to hide your interest in him. Grow what I saw, it was so obvious that the two of you were more than you tried to make everyone believe. I figured you were trying to come up with the right way to approach the situation. Because you're my best friend, I waited patiently for you to tell me on your own, but you didn't." Her friend laid it all out.
"Instead of confiding in me, you continuously walked around here with your lips zipped tight and that's not fair." Tish finished her rant forcing Jolie to finally break down and tell her everything.
After they hashed out the details, the girls hugged and agreed to never lie to one another or hide anything again.
It was strange to say, but Jolie already knew how this would end.
She still hid the upcoming event. She wasn't ready to tell anyone about the night she had planned with Ben. In time, everything would be revealed to Tish when or if it happened. Until then, she accepted the fact that her friend might be mad at her for a few days, maybe longer.
In her mind, this was just how things had to be for now.
The girls hugged it out and made up. Exiting the room, the young ladies headed out to enjoy the fun with the rest of Jolie's birthday guests.
She walked around the room adoring the time spent with her classmates. Jolie caught a glimpse of a few guys hanging around the punch bowl. They were always trying to spike something at one party or another, so she made a mental note to steer clear of the punch at all costs. There was no telling how much liquor was in it already.
Jolie laughed to herself as she imagined how many of them would be laid out drunk before the night was over. Her merriment was interrupted as she strolled out the back door and across the lawn.
"As I live and breathe, you truly are more breathtaking every time I see you." The familiar silky southern drawl jerked Jolie's mind in the direction from which the words came.
"Mr. Rothe... I mean Tad, what are you doing at my house?" She asked in disbelief.
He had to be around the same age as Ben, but unlike her crush, Tad was here uninvited. There was no excuse for a man in his thirties to be at a birthday party full of teenagers.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to alarm you. My nephew asked if I would bring him over. I had no idea this was your house until he pointed you out. When I looked up to see you walking this way, well... I must say... you really look astonishing, Birthday girl." He stated gently coaxing her hand up to accept the small box he held out to her.
On instinct, Jolie attempted to jerk her hand away from him and return the gift but thought to herself that it would be unnecessarily rude if she chose to do so. In her inexperienced mind, she wasn't prepared to dissect his intentions. Jolie didn't identify the contradiction in his statement or she would have caught the fact that Tad stated he wasn't prepared to attend the party but he somehow managed to show up with a birthday gift anyway.
"Thank you."
Her mouth fell open as she opened the box to display what appeared to be a pair of gold open-heart earrings with a diamond set in the middle of each one. Jolie attempted one last time to return the gift but to her dismay, it didn't work.
Tad witnessed the frustration and shock on her face. He made her completely uncomfortable as he grasped her hand once more caressing it as he insisted she have fun.
The smile on his face as he turned and walked away made her feel really icky so Jolie placed his gift back in the box. She had no intention of wearing them because it somehow felt wrong to accept anything from him.
Jolie was saved from the awkward moment as she linked arms with her friends joining them in some of the party games. Caught in the moment, she drank from a cup of punch that someone handed her, and boy was it spicy. No, it actually burnt like she poured hellfire down her throat.
After just one cup, Jolie was higher than a Georgia Pine.
She and the girls danced with each other as some of the guys in their class surrounded them trying to get in on the fun.
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