The Bet (Persaud Girl)

by Mott, Teisha

  “Fern…”

  “Andie…”

  “Fern!”

  “Andie!”

  Andie sighed. She realised that her friend was not going to give up. Besides, Fern made an excellent point. Going to Preston and getting a bite, and calling home was her only option at that moment. Hopefully, she would not run into Nathan or Micah or Omar or Jeremy, or anyone who had anything to do with the bet.

  “Alright,” she finally agreed. “Let’s go. I hope you have peanut butter!”

  “I have something better than peanut butter for you!” Fern promised, looping her arm through Andie’s.

  As they head towards Preston Hall, Fern hoped that Samantha’s plan would work. It had to work, so that both Nathan and Andie could stop being so miserable. And Fern realised that she needed it to work for her own selfish reasons – if it didn’t, and Andie learned of her role in it, Fern anticipated she would be on Andie’s axis of evil. Already, it had taken Fern a while to convince Andie that she had known nothing of the bet, and was herself as disappointed in Nathan as Andie was. This further deceit would not augur well for their friendship, and that was not something Fern was happy to chance, especially since she knew she would need Andie’s help studying for Calculus final!

  Planning and scheming was no fun, Fern thought. She was just pleased that in a couple of hours, it would all be over.

  ***

  Andie dropped her books on Fern’s desk. A quick glance at her wristwatch told her it was five fifteen. That explained why she and Fern were the only ones in household A of Los Matadores.

  “Where’s Shauna?” Andie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fern replied.

  Andie kicked off her shoes, and loosened her ponytail. “By the way, what were you doing at the library? I thought you said you couldn’t wait with me for Sam because you had to go off campus.”

  “I went and came back!” Fern explained.

  “So quick?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you were at the library because…”

  “I went to drop off something to Shauna!”

  Andie was confused. “But you just said you didn’t know where Shauna was!”

  “What the hell is this? Twenty questions?” Fern rolled her eyes in annoyance, both at Andie, and at herself. She realised she was no good at coming up with excuses at a moment’s notice, and momentarily reconsidered going into Law. “You should just be glad I was there, or your ass would have been grass. Come, call your mother.”

  Andie looked at Fern, wondering why she was acting so weird. She appeased herself with the thought that Fern was a weird person – full stop. She took the phone from Fern, and dialled her mother’s cell number. Her mother answered after two rings.

  “Mommy, do you now see why I must get my own car?” Andie stormed. “I have been stranded on campus all afternoon. I’m hungry and I’m tired, and I can’t find Samantha, who, for the record, has stuff to do, and Daddy left for the board meeting, and Nursey chose today to take her car in for serving, and the twins have disappeared off the face of the earth, and I couldn’t reach you…!” Andie paused mid tirade to catch a breath. “And then, a girl in the library took liberty with me, and I want to go hooome. How soon can you come for me?”

  “I really don’t know, baby,” her mother said. She adjusted herself on the massage table so the masseuse could do her legs. “I am engaged in the middle of something very important right now. Could be tied up for hours…. Where are you now?”

  “With Fern, down by Preston.” Andie said.

  “Stay there!” Mrs Persaud thanked God that Samantha had beauty and brains. So far, her plan was going off without a hitch. “I should be free by about eight, and I’ll come pick you up then.”

  “What?” Andie screamed. “I can’t stay here until eight! I am on Preston, Mommy! Preston Hall! Suppose Nathan sees me?”

  Mrs Persaud tried not to laugh at her daughter. “Suppose he does?” She asked. “What will happen? Will either of you turn to stone?”

  “Ma….”

  “I’m sorry, Andie,” Mrs Persaud interrupted. “That’s the best I can do. I have to go now. See you in a few hours. Love you!”

  “Somehow I find that hard to believe!” Andie muttered, but she was talking to herself. Her mother had already hung up.”

  “Is she coming?” Fern asked.

  “In a few hours,” Andie told her. “She’s busy right now. I feel so deserted!”

  “Well, you always have me!” Fern said, trying to comfort her. “And I am going to make you peanut butter and banana on toast. Then after that, we can go through some Calculus problems until your mother gets here, or until time for hall meeting.”

  Andie wordlessly followed Fern to the kitchen. She did not say anything as Fern made the toast, mashed the bananas and spread them generously on the toast along with the peanut butter while yapping away a mile a minute. Her eyes kept drifting to the door. Although she would not admit it, she was hoping to catch a glimpse of Nathan when he came in. She saw Omar and Jervis and she even heard Jeremy Malcolm make his grand entrance, but there was no sign of Nathan or Micah. She guessed they were staying back at the library to study. Andie was strangely disappointed with the fact that she would probably be gone before he came in. A part of her wished that she were not in household A with Fern, eating her nasty banana and peanut butter concoction, but with Nathan in household C, enjoying his grandmother’s sweetbread, and drinking chocolate milk.

  Two hours later, Andie had finished eating, and was helping Fern with Calculus problems. It was turning out to be an exercise of futility, because no matter how she explained the problem, Fern just was not getting it. Andie was quickly losing her patience.

  “Fern, concentrate!” Andie said, pushing her hair back, subconsciously mimicking Samantha’s gesture of frustration. “We just did a problem like this. ‘An open rectangular box with square base is to be made from 48 square feet of material. What dimensions will result in a box with the largest possible volume?’ What is the first thing you should do?”

  “I don’t know!” Fern said, equally frustrated. “And in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?”

  “No, compared to the fact that crime in Jamaica, particularly in the lower income areas, is spiralling out of control, it doesn’t,” Andie told her. “But, be that as it may, can you at least try to think about the problem?”

  “I’m tired of thinking!” Andie thought Fern was on the brink of tears. “I am a dunce, plain and simple.”

  “You’re not a dunce,” Andie tried to pacify her. “You just have the concentration span of a mealy bug, and that is where your problem lies. Now, the first thing that you have to do is let variable x be the length of one edge of the square base and variable y the height of the box.” Andie took the pencil from Fern and began writing the solution in large letters. The total surface area of the box is given to be 48 = (area of base) + 4 (area of one side) = x2 + 4 (xy), so that 4xy = 48 - x2. Do you understand that?”

  Fern looked at her blankly. “Um…”

  “Were you even listening to me?” Andie was trying not to get cross and slap her.

  Before Fern could respond, the intercom buzzed and the voice of Martin Sharp, the Chairman for Preston Hall came on. “All Prestonites, please report to the amphitheatre for Hall meeting now!” Martin ordered.

  “Saved by the bell!” Fern declared, jumping up immediately. “Come, Andie. Hall meeting.”

  “I’m not coming to your Hall meeting!” Andie refused.

  “Why not?” Fern asked. “You can’t stay in here by yourself!”

  “Well, I’m going to have to,” Andie said. “Because, number one, I am not interested in anything that Martin or anybody on the Hall committee has to say, and number two, I don’t want all the people down here to see me and remember what happened with Natha
n.”

  “And here you are making the intrepid assumption that the 352 Prestonites give a crap about what happened between you and Nathan!” Fern rolled her eyes. “God, Andie! For someone who claims to have low self-esteem, you certainly are self-absorbed. News flash, pretty girl – Preston Hall and the world do not revolve around you!” She pulled on her flip-flops. “Come on, man! I’m not leaving you in here alone!”

  “Whatever, Fern!” Andie closed the Calculus books and pulled on her loafers. She followed Fern to Preston Hall’s amphitheatre.

  Andie noticed that a number of persons had begun to gather, including Shauna, who waved at them from her seat on the wall close to the stage area where the platform was set up. There were chairs for the Hall Committee, as well as the Student Services’ Manager and the Resident Advisors. Andie noticed that although most of the Hall Committee, including Jeremy Malcolm was present, Nathan’s chair was distinctly unoccupied.

  Fern and Andie made their way over to Shauna.

  “You came down just in time for the meeting!” Andie greeted her. “Did you get a lot of work done at the library?”

  “I wasn’t at the library!” Shauna said. “I missed an early class on Monday, and this was the only make up time available.”

  “But Fern said…” Andie began, feeling confused.

  “Did you collect an agenda for me?” Fern asked, cutting Andie off mid-sentence.

  “No,” Shauna said.

  “Well go get one!” Fern pushed Shauna off the wall, and took her seat.

  Andie looked at her.

  “What?”

  “You get weirder every day, Fern!” Andie commented.

  Fern said nothing. She mentally cursed herself for not thinking to brief Shauna on Samantha’s plan. She pacified herself with the thought that since Shauna did not know of the plan, she could not blab it to Andie prematurely.

  Martin Sharp took the floor, and the Hall meeting began. Andie tried to listen politely as the Students’ Services Manager for Preston, Mr Khan, gave an extended speech. Andie thought he spoke too slowly, and counted his words. That made it difficult for her to listen to him. Her eyes also kept drifting to Nathan’s chair on the platform that remained unoccupied. It was the only unoccupied chair. She could not help but wonder where he was, and why he had not asked Sanaa to fill in for him. Andie looked around, trying to spot Sanaa in the crowd. She wasn’t there either. Perhaps now that she and Nathan had broken up, Sanaa had gotten her wish to be Nathan’s girlfriend and they had gone off somewhere together… Before the thought could properly take root in Andie’s mind, she saw a familiar head weaving through the crowd. She did a double take. Was that Samantha? She looked again. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, because when she looked again, the head was gone.

  “What’s the matter?” Fern asked, noticing Andie’s confused expression.

  “I thought I saw Samantha,” Andie whispered.

  “Oh,” Fern said, not sounding very convincing. “Well you must have seen wrong. Why would Samantha be at our meeting?”

  Andie’s response was a nonchalant shrug. She turned her attention back to Resident Advisor Miller, who was expressing concern about wasting of resources.

  Not soon enough, in Andie’s opinion, all the matters on the agenda had been covered, and the hall meeting was almost over. Martin took the podium again, and indicated that it was time for all the announcements. Jhenelle Lal, the president of Preston’s culture club, went up to announce all the events that were coming up in the new semester.

  “Do people really take part in all these things?” Andie whispered to Fern.

  “I’m entering the Elocution contest!” Fern whispered back. “Make sure you come to support me!”

  Andie was about to comment when she finally spotted Nathan. He was waiting by the lectern, waiting to make an announcement. Andie felt her heart do a couple of back flips. It had been two weeks since she had last seen him, and he looked just the same, if not more handsome. She wished she could run up to him, and throw her arms around him. She wished that nasty Saturday afternoon had never happened. She wished she were, at that moment, anywhere except at Preston Hall’s meeting….

  Nathan was at the lectern. “Good evening, Prestonites,” he said, into the microphone. “I don’t have any notices this evening, but I am here to settle a score.” Nathan felt his heart beating a mile a minute. He looked into the crowd, but he did not see Andie. Samantha had promised him that she would be there. He prayed she was.

  “Ten weeks ago, I made a bet with Jeremy Malcolm, and I lost,” he continued. “And the terms were that if I lost, I had to tell the entire hall that I am a virgin. So here goes. ‘I am a virgin’.”

  “What is he doing?” Andie gasped.

  “Shh!” Fern hissed. “Listen.”

  There was total silence. Nathan could hear a pin drop. “There, I said it!” He said. “I said I am a virgin. Now, I only wish it were true. It’s not, because years ago I gave away, very cheaply, I might add, a very precious gift that I should have saved for my wife, and while most of you may not agree with me, I believe that was the biggest mistake of my life. Fortunately, I have learned my lesson, and although I cannot go back to being a virgin, I can go forward maintaining some form of sexual purity, and that is what I have committed to doing….”

  “He must have gone and lost his damn mind!” Andie exclaimed.

  “I learned a number of other things over the past ten weeks,” Nathan continued. “Apart from the fact that I learned that no good can come from making a bet with someone as asinine as Jeremy, I learned that being a virgin is a very special and commendable thing. It is not a crime, and it certainly isn’t a sin….”

  “Fern, did you know he was going to do this?” Andie looked squarely at her friend.

  Fern did not answer. She did not get the chance to. Someone tapped Andie on the shoulder.

  “Hey Andie Cap!”

  Andie turned and met her sister’s bright eyes and toothpaste grin.

  “Samantha, what…” Andie spluttered. “What are you doing…? I thought I saw you earlier… Why…” Realisation hit her like a lightning bolt. “Wait a minute. Wait one damn minute. I was set up!”

  “Yes, you were,” Fern said sheepishly. “I’m sorry!”

  “All of it was one big plan!” Andie looked from Fern to Samantha. “You didn’t have a paper to work on, did you? You purposely left me on campus! Did you set up Mommy and Daddy and Nursey so that none of them would come for me so I would have to come down here?”

  “Mommy and Nursey,” Samantha admitted. “Daddy is still clueless. And he really does have a board meeting this evening.”

  “Et tu, Brute…” Andie pounced on Fern. “You waylaid me at the library, and lied to me… This whole hair brained scheme has your name and fingerprints all over it, Fern McNally!”

  “Don’t blame Fern, Andie,” Samantha said. “It was my idea!”

  “So it was a case of the halfwit leading the dimwit!” Andie was livid.

  “No, it was a case of your sister loving you too much to see you whittle away over a boy. It’s about being sick and tired of you being sad and depressed all the time, and seeing the need to do something about it.” Samantha pushed her hair back. “Nathan loves you, Andie. He made the bet before he knew you, and decided that he could not go through with it because of how he feels about you.”

  “Samantha…”

  “I know I don’t always put forward a ‘flowers-and candy, sentimental, tears-on-my-pillow’ face over matters like this, and frankly my position on eighteen year olds having steady boyfriends has not changed,” Samantha continued. “But look at him, Andie. He is, in front of three hundred and odd people, all of whom he will have to see every day for the rest of the school year, and who will doubtlessly mock him forever, trying to tell you how sorry he is, and how much he loves you!�
�

  Andie turned her attention back to Nathan, who was still telling Preston what he had learned.

  “…I also learned that there are a million ways to mess up a wonderful relationship, but only one way to say I’m sorry…”

  He motioned to Micah, who pressed the play button on his portable CD player that had been hooked up to the Hall’s main PA system.

  Music started, and Nathan began singing with it. There were moans and groans from the other Prestonites, and Nathan knew it was because he was in no way or form musically inclined.

  It took Andie a while to figure out what he was singing. Suddenly, as he got to the first chorus, it dawned on her.

  “Oh my God!” She gasped. “Is he singing ‘Mandy’?”

  “Actually,” Fern said with a smile, “I think he’s singing ‘Andie’!”

  Sure enough, as Andie listened to the words, she realised that Nathan had changed Barry Manilow’s lyrics from ‘Oh Mandy’ to ‘Oh Andie’.

  “He sounds awful!” Andie exclaimed.

  “He’s a scholar – not a singer!” Samantha pointed out. “Besides, contrary to popular belief, being in love doesn’t automatically make one suddenly start sounding like Nat King Cole!”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think he’d sound like he was bitten by some sort of rabid creature either!” Andie added. She cringed as Nathan transposed a note at the wrong place and the wrong time. “Somewhere in the world Barry Manilow has the burning desire to jump off a building, and he does not know why!”

  “He knows he did something stupid, Andie,” Fern said. “And he’s trying to make it up to you!”

  “By doing something even more stupid?” Andie questioned. She was still not sure whether she should be annoyed or flattered.

  “You’re a very lucky girl, Andie!” Samantha said. “It’s a rare twenty-year old guy who will commit noise pollution for a girl.” She gave her sister’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Come find me when you’re ready to go home. I’ll be over by Micah.”