The Alpha For Her

He wanted to keep it down low – a secret.

“c u there.”

“k”

Her brain spun, colliding with her heart, and so it was that she missed seeing Wendy behind her, waving at Randy.

Jennifer floated through the rest of the week. She didn’t think about why he had asked her; she was just elated that he did. She knew the ways those kids worked, and somewhere she reasoned that Randy was getting back at Becky for something. She dreamed of a scene where she would be standing on the dance floor, clutching a bunch of gleaming mylar balloons in the school’s colors. He would cross the dance floor as the first number began. Becky would smile and step forward to greet him, but he would just pass her by. Then he would take Jennifer in his arms, and, beneath the swirling, glittering balloons, they’d dance together as everyone watched. She even imagined Becky’s mortified face.

And even though Randy would probably be using her, Jennifer wanted to wallow in that use – just once.

But dreams and reality are often two vastly different things. The scene was set. Jennifer was there, dressed in a lush maroon evening gown. Becky was there, decked out in gold. Jennifer had her balloons, and people would glance at her, wondering. And then there was Randy. He was dressed rakishly’; black denim pants, white Tee shirt, and a tuxedo jacket. Many eyes were on the boy as the music began and he crossed the floor. Jennifer’s eyes gleamed as he gazed at her.

And then he chuckled, looked away, strode past her and took Becky’s hand.

A lot of things happened in Jennifer’s brain at that moment. But she steeled herself. It took every ounce of effort in her soul to not burst into tears as the girls around her began chuckling softly. The kids began dancing, and Jennifer soon found herself threading her way through them with but one goal – the exit door.

In the hall, she found her jacket, and with no other thought in her mind, she marched out the door and away, not even hearing Rachel’s calls behind her. At the bus stop, she saw her reflection in the shelter’s glass, and she realized that she was still clutching the balloons. She saw her puffy eyes, welling with tears, and she felt so sorry for that chubby little black girl, that she found herself crying for her.

When the bus came, she let go the balloons, and doing that she felt a small relief.

“The strength that you can find within yourself,” she said to the crowd, “can be absolutely awesome. Faced with failure, ridicule, humiliation, and total defeat, your spirit can find ways to overcome that will astound you.”

And Jennifer’s spirit did just that. Laying on her bed at home, still in her evening gown and crying herself silly, she suddenly felt something come over her. It was as if, in the height of her mortification, she realized that it was her own fault. She should have known better. She’d been fooled once that way, and she should have learned.

And then she thought that whatever kick that Becky and the others got out of that stunt, and whether or not Randy had been in on it, it all seemed suddenly so shallow.

She slid out of bed, and into a long, hot shower. When she emerged, she felt different, almost calm. She reached under her bed and took up her file folder. She began reading again her favorite articles.

She came to see those things as something real and solid. She saw the step-by-step instructions, using concrete materials, as almost grounding: take this, do that, and this will be the result. These weren’t dreams. These were practical advice for practical results.

Jennifer knew then that if she was ever going to get anything out of life, she would have to work for it. If she wanted to have a life, if she wanted to have a home, if she wanted to get a career, if she wanted to find a boy, she would have to do something. No one was ever going to call her out of nowhere and ask her for a date.

Three thousand miles away, at an outdoor café near Cal Tech, a young grad student sat, gaping at his phone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The text message read.

“Hey, Flint!” someone called out.

Startled, he looked up to see three phones aimed at his face, their owners smiling at his perplexed look.

“You missing something?” one of them asked, while the others chuckled.

And suddenly, everything was clear.

It was well known about the math department that Flint had a thing for one of the undergrad coeds in his lab section, Marla. It was also well known how almost paralyzingly shy Flint was. He had been the brunt of several jokes in the form of racy photos slipped into his power-point demonstrations, and though he had felt the humiliation to his core, he had always managed to pass it off publicly and take things with a good nature.

But this was a step over a line.

Earlier that day, after labs, Marla had texted him to say that she wanted to meet for coffee. They went back and forth, and settled on the café. He had been so anxious all that day that he bobbled any coding he touched. He arrived at the café at the appointed time, and, almost an hour later, there was still no Marla. So he sent her a message, asking if anything was wrong. She wrote back, saying that she didn’t know what he was talking about.

And, even as the pranksters took pics of his face, Flint remembered his cohorts sniggering all day. They had punked him good. They even managed to hack and hijack Marla’s phone.

Laughing and joking, they finally left him, alone, the blood rising to his face.

‘No,’ he thought. ‘Anger is a waste of energy.’

And so, with a resolve that he didn’t know that he had, he began typing back to Marla;

“It is very, very important that you and I chat…”