My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours

by Kristina Springer

  I push open the screen door with a big smile. “Sea!” I exclaim. “Yay, I’m so glad you’re here. We’re going to have so much fun tonight!”

  Sea gives her mom a final wave over her shoulder and comes into the house.

  “Hi, Sienna,” Mom says. She must have just walked into the room. “How are you, honey? You look wonderful. Did you have a nice vacation?”

  Oh good lord, I think. Please, oh please, don’t get her started on her vacation.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Barnes. And I did have a wonderful vacation. We stayed in this amazing house that had eighteen bedrooms. Eighteen! I had three to myself alone . . .”

  Too late.

  About twenty minutes later and three very loud and obnoxious yawns from me in an attempt to signal Mom to return to her bedroom and her reading, Mom finally excuses herself.

  “Have fun, girls. I’ll be in my room if you need me. Stay in the house and don’t prank-call people or chat with any weirdos online, okay? Do you need help with the oven?”

  I roll my eyes. Is she serious? This from the woman who makes me bake the Christmas cookies for the neighbors each year. “We’re fine, Mom.”

  She nods and leaves. I turn to Sea and ask, “So what should we do first? Movie? Snacks? Makeovers?”

  “I’m so in the mood for a movie,” Sea replies. “I tried to watch that one with Antonio the other night, but he wanted to talk through the whole thing.”

  Blech. Antonio. I need to try harder. “Hey, how about I throw that pizza in too? Then we can eat while we watch the movie. Remember that time last year when you were laughing so hard during a movie that a little piece of pepperoni flew out of your nose?” I giggle.

  Sienna gasps and grabs her nose. “Oh my god! You’re right. That stung too,” she says, and starts laughing with me. “I couldn’t eat pepperoni for like two weeks after that.”

  “Yeah, well, I had the visual burned into my brain. I still can’t eat pepperoni pizza. We’ve got plain cheese tonight.”

  “Cheese sounds great to me. Let’s make it.”

  Soon the pizza is ready, so we bring it into the living room and plop onto the floor to watch Mean Girls. We’ve seen it so many times that we take turns reciting the lines along with the actors.

  When there are only two slices left and the credits are rolling, Sienna turns to me. “What do you want to do now?”

  I think. “Um, how about facials?”

  “Oh, I love facials! I had this awesome sugar scrub facial on vacation . . .”

  No. No, no, no, we are not talking any more about her vacation! I cut her off. “A sugar scrub sounds easy. Let’s go to the kitchen and see what we’ve got.”

  Sienna follows me into the kitchen, but she looks reluctant. “I’m not sure normal sugar works. They used special stuff from a fancy bottle.”

  “Ah, sure it will,” I assert. “Ours will be even better. It’ll be all natural. Let’s try it. Jump up on the counter and lie down; I’ll give you a facial first.” I lay two folded kitchen dish towels on the counter for Sea’s head, and she gets in place.

  “Are you sure this is okay? I feel weird up here. What if your mom comes in?”

  “She won’t mind,” I assure her. I walk over to the pantry and swing open the door. “Okay, let’s see, let’s see.” I scan the shelves but don’t see any sugar. We must be out. Hmm. I scan them again. “We’ve got brown sugar. Think that’ll work?”

  Sienna shrugs. “I dunno. I guess so.”

  I grab the bag of brown sugar and pour a bunch into a bowl. “I need a liquid now, to make it mushy for application purposes.” I open the fridge door and immediately spot the carton of orange juice. Perfect. It has 100 percent vitamin C too. That’s got to be good for your skin. I pour a small amount of the juice into the bowl and mix. Soon I have a thick brown paste. “Okay, close your eyes. I’m going to put this on your T-zone.”

  Sienna complies and I scoop a handful of the sugar onto her face. It drips down the sides and a little bit goes into her right ear.

  “Ah!” she screams. “It’s cold!” Another dribble makes its way down into the corner of her mouth. “But surprisingly tasty.”

  I giggle. “Added benefit to the Tori’s Super Spectacular Sugar Scrub.” I grab a towel and wipe up the sugar before it hits her hair.

  “Okay. Now I want to work on your cheeks. Eggs. We need eggs.” I head back to the refrigerator.

  Sienna’s eyes dart in my direction, but she doesn’t move her head. “Eggs? What are you going to do with eggs?” Her voice is bordering on panicky.

  “Don’t worry. They’re great for your face, I swear. They tighten your skin and shrink your pores.”

  “They do?” she asks.

  “Well, sure. Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase ‘egg on your face’? That’s where it came from,” I reply.

  “Oh. Okay,” she relents. “How do you know all of this stuff about facials?”

  “I read a lot,” I tell her. Which is true, but not in this case. In this case, I’m winging it.

  I take out two eggs and walk back to Sea. She’s watching me carefully. “How are you going to put those on me?” she inquires.

  Hmm. “Scrambled,” I announce. I take out another bowl and a whisk and set to scrambling. I add a splash of milk and salt and pepper out of habit. When the eggs are ready, I use the whisk like a paintbrush and paint egg all over Sea’s face.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Sienna says.

  “Yes, yes. Just hold still.” I finish applying the eggs and examine my handiwork. It’s getting there, but she needs something else. I’ve got it! I head back to the fridge for a third time and pull out a big bottle of ketchup.

  “Ketchup?” she exclaims.

  “Yes, ketchup. I read somewhere that tomatoes are excellent for you.”

  “I’ve heard that too, but I thought they meant to eat,” she counters.

  “What’s good for your inside is good for your outside,” I return. “Besides, the ketchup will help keep the eggs moist on your face. It’s about layering.”

  “Well, they are getting hard,” she agrees. “Okay.”

  I squirt ketchup all over her face and then use my fingers to spread it out. It looks pretty good, I have to admit. But I feel like I need something to really top it off. I swing open the fridge door and scan the contents again until my gaze settles on just the right thing. Pickles. I take out the jar of pickle chips and tell Sienna to close her eyes. I place a big pickle chip on each of her eyes. “There, you’re perfect,” I declare.

  “What are the pickles for?” Sea asks.

  “Bags under the eyes,” I say.

  “I don’t have bags under my eyes,” she replies.

  “My mom says every woman has bags under her eyes,” I counter.

  “Well, isn’t it cucumbers for bags anyway?” she asks.

  “Yes, but a pickle is just a seasoned cucumber. Relax.”

  “Fine, fine,” she mutters. “But how long do I have to leave this stuff on for?”

  “Till it dries,” I answer. We’re both silent for the next minute, listening to the clock tick. “Sea?” I finally say.

  “Yeah?”

  “You smell like Easter.”

  “What do you mean I smell like Easter?”

  “You know, in a good way. Like in a baked ham–ish sorta way.”

  “All right, we’re taking this stuff off,” she insists, trying to sit up.

  “No.” I put an arm out to stop her and let a tiny giggle escape. She really does look pretty funny. “Just a few minutes more.”

  “Can I at least take the pickles off and sit up? I’m hungry again.”

  I think about this. “Okay.” I grab her hands and help pull her up to a seated position.

  I take out a container of French onion dip and put it on the counter.

  “Are you going to put that on me too?” Sienna asks, eyeing the dip.

  “No, we’re going to eat this.” I take a bag of potato
chips out of the pantry, rip it open, and set it next to Sea.

  “Thanks.” She takes a chip and dips it. She pops it in her mouth and then touches her face with one finger and pulls it back to examine it. “I can’t believe I let you do this to me.” She giggles.

  “Yeah, too bad I don’t have a camera!” I start to giggle too.

  “I’m really broken up about that, let me tell you,” she says. “Hey, remember that time in fourth grade when we gave ourselves elaborate makeup jobs with my markers?”

  “Oh, my gosh, yes! That was hysterical. Your lids were completely pink from eyelash to eyebrow and mine were purple. And we had those big red circles on our cheeks. Your mom about had a heart attack.”

  “I know. She kept saying your mother was going to kill her. She relaxed after we told her it was washable marker though,” Sea adds.

  We continue laughing and eating potato chips. Dad was so right. Everything feels normal again. I have my old Sea back.

  I’m feeling very confessional all of a sudden, and I decide I’m going to tell Sea everything—how I completely made Sebastian up because I was hurt from being ignored the last half of the summer and feeling a little jealous and competitive over the new attention she’s been getting. And then she’ll admit that she made Antonio up as well and we’ll have a good laugh over how silly we both were. I open my mouth to speak.

  “Man, could you imagine if Antonio saw me like this?” Sea asks. “Talk about testing your love—”

  “Oh, stop it already, Sea, geez,” I blurt out, completely irked that she ruined the moment with her incessant Antonio talk.

  Sienna stops eating chips and gives me a startled look. “Stop what?”

  All of this ridiculous made-up boyfriend bragging, I want to say. But I can’t get the words out. So I stall instead. “Er, um, double-dipping your chips,” I say, and pull the chip dip away from her.

  “Sea? Sea?” I pause, listening for her breathing. “Are you asleep?” The room is dark and Sea and I are in our sleeping bags lying on the floor in my bedroom, head to head. I was talking about visiting my dad last weekend as a kind of lead-in to the Talk. I thought we could have a heart-to-heart about this fake boyfriend stuff now that we’ve had this nice familiar night and it’s dark and she can’t see my face and I can’t see hers to know if she’s mad or what. And if either of us cries, the other won’t know. But now she went and fell asleep. Well. She knows the rules of First to Sleep. Of course, we didn’t say we were playing First to Sleep tonight, but it’s been a pretty typical thing at our sleepovers so Sea should know better.

  I sit up on my knees and begin to rummage through Sienna’s backpack, looking for something to freeze. Perfect! Socks. Sea’s no stranger to going home in a frozen bra or not being able to brush her teeth in the morning because her toothpaste is a brick. And I’ve had my share of frozen T-shirts. But neither of us has done socks before. I quietly slip out of the room and head for the kitchen. I fling open the freezer door and toss Sienna’s balled up socks toward the back. I grab a lone cookie off a plate on the table on my way out and head back to my room.

  My alarm clock says it’s 11:34. Way too early for any good sleepover to shut down. I can’t believe Sea fell asleep on me like that. She must be really wiped out from all of her storytelling.

  Might as well go online. I launch my instant messenger for a quick peek to see if any of my friends are on. Dad!

  TorItUp: What are you doing online at this hour?

  jbarnes: Hey! That’s my line.

  TorItUp: Sienna’s sleeping over and she already conked out. I’m bored.

  jbarnes: Would your mother let you on this late? Don’t respond to any messages from strangers.

  TorItUp: You neither!

  jbarnes: Did you two clear things up?

  TorItUp: Not exactly.

  jbarnes: ???

  TorItUp: Well, we had fun and everything. I guess things aren’t familiar enough for her though because she’s still lying.

  jbarnes: Hmm. I vote for getting things out in the open. Tell her how you’re feeling over breakfast tomorrow. But wait until her mouth is full to talk to her about it. That way if she feels ambushed she can think about what she wants to say while she’s chewing.

  TorItUp: Interesting technique. I may use it the next time you ask me what grade I got on my math test.

  jbarnes: All right, dearest. Now sign off and straight to bed. Remember, no talking to weirdos on the Internet.

  TorItUp: But I’m talking to you . . .

  jbarnes: Love you!

  TorItUp: Love you back!

  I smile to myself and sign off IM per Dad’s request. He’s so cute when he parents via telecommuting.

  13

  Pluck my feathers and stick a plastic timer in my butt because I’m a C-H-I-C-K-E-N.

  I had the best of intentions to take Dad’s advice and talk to Sienna over breakfast this morning. Really, I did. There we were at the kitchen table, a box of Fruity Pebbles between us, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt so confrontational, and I hate confrontation. And besides, why should I be doing all the work? She should be remembering old times and feeling like things are normal with us after our sleepover and come clean, right? She’s the one who lied first.

  No, my best friend is some kind of compulsive liar. That’s all there is to it. She can’t help herself. Maybe she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Maybe she’s delusional. She obviously needs help and nobody sees it but me. The sleepover wasn’t enough to get Sienna to stop the lying. I’m not sure what is. She said she was going to IM Antonio as soon as she got home today.

  It’s Saturday afternoon, and Sienna’s mom picked her up from my house over an hour ago. Something needs to happen soon, and I’m not aware of any twelve-step programs for girls with fake boyfriends. Sea and I have been best friends since kindergarten, so if anyone is going to get her to kick the lying habit, it’s going to have to be me. Like that time with the maple tree—I’m going up to get her.

  I make sure Mom is busy and not going to bother me for a while. I shut my bedroom door and launch a Web browser. My home page, Google, pops up, and I type in the search phrase “why best friends lie.” There are about fifty million hits. Apparently I’m not the first person to have a best friend with a lying problem.

  I click on link after link after link. It’s amazing the things people lie about. A lot of it seems to be people making themselves sound better than they are. Like this on the Dear Tara advice site:

  Dear Tara,

  My friends and I don’t know what to do. We have this other “friend” who we think is a complete liar. She says that the Jonas Brothers are her cousins yet she can’t get us tickets to any of their concerts. She says she has this great big ginormous house with a huge pool, monster TV, and a Wii with every game ever released in the American market yet she can’t have people over to visit. Now she says she’s going to be in the next Kate Hudson movie and it will be filming this summer on a beautiful beach on the French Riviera and her parents are flying her there after school lets out. What do you want to bet it will be rated R so we can’t see it? We tell her that we know she’s lying but she insists that she’s telling the truth. It’s so annoying! What should we do?

  Signed,

  Annoyed in Denver, CO

  And Tara’s response:

  Dear Annoyed,

  Wow, I can see how frustrating this is for you guys. It sounds like your “friend” really wants you to like her. You must be a great group of kids to hang around. Maybe you should cut this “friend” a bit of a break. It sounds like she’s feeling inferior around you guys and she’s making things up to get you to like her. Would you like her if she wasn’t really a cousin of the Jonas Brothers? And she didn’t have the pool or the Wii? No movie to shoot in the summer? If the answer is yes, then let her know that you like her for who she is. If she feels like who she is is okay, then she’ll stop trying to be somebody else.

  —Tara

 
Huh. Interesting. I can see Tara’s point in this situation, but I’m not sure that it applies to Sea and me. She sure doesn’t feel inferior to me; we’ve been best friends for way too long for something like that to pop up now. And she’s not making lots of stuff up. She’s just making up one specific person. Her “boyfriend.” But I won’t completely rule it out. I’m going to take all advice into consideration.

  I read for the next two hours, taking notes and trying to absorb absolutely everything I can about liars. It’s scary how many people have this problem. There are families that break up over lies and people who can’t keep jobs because no one can trust them. It seems like once liars get comfortable lying they do it forever. Well, I can’t let that happen to Sea. I need to save her now before she embraces this lying life too tightly and there’s no turning back.

  I compile my research into a plan of attack, and I’m hopeful that it’s going to work. Operation Save Sea From Herself (OSSFH) starts Monday.

  14

  OSSFH, a list:

  Let her know that who she is is okay.

  Make her feel safe.

  Try to relate to her situation.

  Help her to avoid situations in which she tends to lie.

  Encourage her when she tells the truth.

  I walk into school Monday morning with my list on a folded sheet of notebook paper, tucked down in the back pocket of my jeans. I’m feeling really good about the work I’ve done and ready to tackle this problem head-on. Sienna is at her locker, talking to Lauren and Anica and gathering her stuff for first period. The first item on my Save Sea list keeps flashing in my head. Who you are is okay. Who you are is okay.