Bait and Switch

BAIT AND SWITCH

Jessy was on pins and needles as she anticipated the arrival of her ex-best friend from high school, whom she hadn't seen in almost a dozen years. She still wondered whether this meeting was a good idea or not. She knew that it would be awkward to meet Anna after their abrupt parting following their unfortunate encounter on the night of the Senior Prom. For over three years, until that night, the two had been almost inseparable, BFFs.

When they met in the ninth grade, they had each transferred into Grant High School from different schools over the Christmas Break. Neither one was good at making new friends, and each girl was feeling panicked and lost in this large, impersonal high school with more than a thousand students in their freshman class. The adjustment was huge for both of them, having come from small, suburban schools.

Jessy, who had blond, medium-length hair, a fair complexion, and freckles, relied heavily on the academic challenge of her chemistry class to hide, which she shared with Anna, who had dark hair and medium complexion. Neither one was a top student in any of the classes they were taking, being so overwhelmed with just finding ways to their classes. They also shared physical education, which neither enjoyed. Their friendship began when they were assigned to the same chemistry lab group of four students. The other two in their group had been boys whom they considered immature and inconvenient.

Jessy had always enjoyed conversations with her father about every subject she could think of (minus sex, of course). He introduced her to philosophical thought and described strange phenomena in nature, and they explored the meanings of life and death from a non-religious viewpoint. He always encouraged her to express her thoughts during these discussions.

Anna had been less intellectual but had always been a loner and a tom-boy. She loved hiking with her parents and climbing trees. The two girls didn’t have much in common, but were forced together by being new kids in a high school that could seem very scary. They wound up sharing one end of a long lunch table right after their chemistry class.

After their freshman year ended, they wound up planning to share classes in their sophomore, junior, and senior years. As each of them became more confident, they found that they both liked science more than most of their other subjects and didn’t like attending dances, pep rallies, or school sports games. Their inability and disinterest in fitting in brought them closer and they found that they most enjoyed talking and sharing their thoughts and feelings with each other. Naturally, they tended to avoid boys, flirting, and dating, as it all seemed so superficial and irrelevant. Of course, this suggested to some of their classmates that they were weird, standoffish, or gay, though nobody could point to examples of any physical attraction between them.

Then, in the last three months of their junior year, Jessy discovered Steve, with whom she fell madly and irresistibly in love. This presented obvious barriers to the girls’ strong friendship. At first, Jessy avoided the subject of Steve altogether. After all, she wasn’t even sure that Steve felt the same way about her, so she just drifted through the weeks approaching the end of the school year, in a state of confused paralysis. She didn’t dare approach him and avoided being alone with him. In the final days, though, she grew frustrated because Steve wasn’t showing any interest in Jessy at all. Did he even like her? Was he just too shy? When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she decided to confront him and tell him how she felt. She could be shot down and devastated if he said he didn’t feel the same way, but she just had to know.

During a class change, she cornered him at his locker. When he hesitated, he blushed and said he liked her but wasn’t sure about a serious relationship. She was so thrilled that he didn’t reject her that she decided to ask him to go out with her! Just to go to the local BK for hamburgers, fries, and a shake. It could even be this afternoon after school. No expectations. They agreed to meet there about a half hour after school. Somehow, she had suddenly forgotten that she was going to meet Anna after school today at the library, like they always did on Wednesdays.

That afternoon, she arrived first, got her meal, and grabbed a table. As the time for their ‘date’ arrived and passed, she thought he must have stood her up, but then he showed up and waved sheepishly to her as he came through the door. When he had gotten his double burger, extra large fries, and large coke, and made his way to her table, he apologized, saying he had forgotten whether she said BK or McD’s, so he checked at McD’s first. She said, “Never Mind,” and just ate her sandwich. Afterward, she struggled to make small talk, asking if he was ready for his final exams. He said he was ready, but still needed to do more. Their time together wound up, and they thanked each other for the nice time.

When he had walked out of the restaurant, Anna walked through the door, very obviously angry!

“Oops!” Thought Jessy. “Oh God!”

“What happened to you, Jessy? I waited at the library for an hour and then went back to the school to see if you were staying after for extra help in math. When somebody at the school recognized me, they knew I must be looking for you, and they had just come back from BK.”

“Oh Anna, I’m so sorry! I just went to BK’s for a quick meal and was planning to come back to the library but got into a conversation with another student.”

“Another student? You mean, like, Steve? That other student?”

Jessy was totally beside herself with shame! She had to admit to the truth that somebody must have broken to Anna before she went to BKs to find Jessy. “All I can say is, I had to talk to him, to ask if he liked me or not because I am so in love with him! Can you ever forgive me?”

Anna responded, “Of course I forgive you! We are best friends! I just wish you had trusted me enough to talk to me before!” Of course, Anna didn’t say that there was nothing to forgive.

Relief came flooding over Jessy. “Oh Anna, thank you, thank you! You know I value our friendship more than anything! If you will just let me make it up to you, I promise I will never interrupt or miss our times together for anybody else!”

“Even for Steve? How important is he to you? How important am I to you?”

Jessy lied, saying, “He’s just a boy, and we don’t let boys get between us, ever.”

Anna said, “Well, let’s go on to the library. We can forget all about this and pick up like it never happened.”

And the two girls did carry on, for the rest of the school year as if the incident had never happened. They went back to visiting each other’s houses, eating hot and cold pizza (their favorite), and just sharing time together. But one other ‘thing’ did happen, although it wasn’t until the end of the following year. Anna and Jessy had a fairly uneventful year in terms of interruptions to their time together. Jessy religiously protected her time with Anna, even though she did meet with Steve on and off to have after-school snacks or to walk in the park near the school. And it was comfortable and satisfactory for Jessy to keep it that way until the question of where she and her friends were going after graduation. She had planned on going to School at State to study science, even though she wasn’t sure where that would go eventually. Anna had decided to go to the same school and major in nursing, so they would be taking some of the same courses together.

Then Jessy asked Steve where he was planning to go after high school and he answered truthfully, without even thinking that he wanted to enlist in the Army. Jessy was immediately very hurt and bothered that he was so untroubled about leaving her forever after the end of the school year. She broke down sobbing and yelling at him for not discussing his decision with her before then. He told her he knew that she would be upset, but was looking for a way to break the news to her. He told her that he was committed to enlisting and would not be swayed by any argument. He just wanted to enjoy their last days together before they had to part, then he invited her to the Senior Prom and she felt that had no choice. She didn’t even think about it. This was her last chance to be with him and maybe convince him to change his mind. She accepted!

The next thing to happen was that Anna decided that, as a liberated female, she would invite Jessy to go to the Senior Prom as her date. It would be a great way to thumb their noses at all the traditional dating type behavior. Of course, Jessy had to decline but couldn’t give Anna the true reason. She decided to tell Anna that she would just stay home instead, but then go with Steve as she had planned.

On the night of the prom, Jessy was waiting for Steve to pick her up and the phone rang. Caller ID told her that it was Anna. Anna asked if Jessy wanted her to come over to her house. Jessy pretended that she was tired and would just go to bed early. Anna was suspicious, but decided to accept Jessy’s excuse.

Steve picked her up early enough to arrive at the prom just in time for them to see all of the festivities and greet a few of the teachers. Everything was going well until Anna walked in alone and immediately spotted Steve and Jessy. She stormed out of the room and went out the door crying. Jessy felt horrible but didn’t go after Anna. She felt a bit angry that Anna had been suspicious of her story that she was staying home. Even though she had been caught in a lie.

The rest of the evening with Steve went OK but was less fun than Jessy had thought it would be and she asked him to take her home after the prom was over. If he had planned to get lucky that night, it was definitely not going to happen! Jessy blamed Anna for ruining her prom.

The rest of the school year, Anna was cold and stand-offish to her and they didn’t meet. When it was time for them to leave school, Jessy said to Anna, “Well, I’ll see you next year at State, Anna…”                                                                                   Anna said nothing in return. They parted company and there was no further contact between them that summer.

When Jessy attended her new school at the end of the Summer, she half expected to see Anna and maybe get back together and it would be like old times. Hanging out, eating hot and cold pizza.

Instead, there was no sign of Anna. After checking the student rosters posted outside her classroom doors for all her classes, she found no evidence that Anna was attending the school at all.

In time, Jessy got over her disappointment and got involved with her studies.

Years passed, and she had more or less forgotten about Anna. Then she saw Anna’s name in Classmates and decided to find out what had become of her friend. She wrote Anna a long letter and asked if she wanted to meet. It turned out that Anna was a nurse and was living in the same city. They made a ‘date’ for Anna to visit her at her apartment and they could talk about high school and what each of them was doing with her life.

At 7 PM, the doorbell rang, and there stood her friend from long ago—the very same person yet so different!

In the end, Anna had constructed a complex bait-and-switch revenge scheme, as Anna turned out to now be Andrew, who had had a sex-change operation during their years apart. He also wore an engagement ring on his finger. When Jessy recovered from the shock, she realized that she could either let the whole evening be ruined by Anna’s big upstage with her new persona, or she could applaud Anna/Andrew’s crowning victory. By that time, the meal she had ordered had grown cold, but not her excitement at seeing her friend, and they enjoyed it all the more because both of them had always enjoyed cold pizza!