JESSICA VS MARIANNE
One of the incidents which cemented the friendship between Katie and me happened late in my 2011-12 freshman year at FAU. Katie had my back in an incident which went down between me and my brother's girlfriend Marianne.
Even though I've always known who I was and where I was going, or maybe even because of that, my little brother Geoff has always struggled in that area. He's one of those people with an imaginery "Kick Me" signs taped to his back, and he doesn't always see when he's being taken advantage of. When I was younger, I reacted by staying away from him, but then I overcompensated and, by college age, was overly protective of him. Especially when it came to Geoff and girls. There was one girl in particular, Marianne, who rubbed me the wrong way, and who I was keeping an eye on.
My freshman year at FAU, Geoff and Marianne were seniors in high school. Not the same high school--Geoff went to the same high school in Boca that I had just graduated from, while Marianne went to our rival high school 12 miles away. Marianne always had a chip on her shoulder about the rival school thing, and always thought it was the reason I didn't like her.
No. The reason I didn't like Marianne was that once I "went away" to FAU (it was in Boca, but I kept a dorm room there for nights I needed to study late; and even on nights I came home, I was spending daytime hours and mealtimes away from home), Marisnne filled the vacuum at my house opened by my absence. At first it was probably innocent enough--two horny 18 year olds having a house to their own from 3 in the afternoon, when school ended, to 5 at night when my mom got home.
But as the school year progressed, Marianne's presence in my home got more.....intrusive. To start with, she stopped even checking with my parents--and, eventually, even with Geoff--if she could stay a few more hours, or take a spot at our dinner table. There was one night that I came home at 6 from FAU, and was starving. And there was barely anything left, because Marianne had not only stayed late for dinner, but had totally chowed down, eating more than half the food on the table. And she gave me attitude when I was obviously disappointed, making a snarky comment about not beinv late next time. Something about that night triggered my "nesting" hormones--another attractive woman, in MY space, eating MY food, using MY brother, taking advantage of MY parents. After that night, Marianne had no chance to make things right with me. I got on the phone and vented by text for hours with my Boca bud Katie.
Katie did what any good friend would do--she logged onto Facebook and Twitter and started spying on Marianne. Instagram wasn't a thing quite yet, Snapchat was still just for naked sexting, and MySpace had fizzled out, but Katie got herself friended on Facebook and buddied on Twitter with the unsuspecting Marianne, and
Marianne's friends, online and IRL, and started eavesdropping on their online communications. What she found was, predictably, pretty damn disturbing.
In her online world, Marianne presented herself as totally single. She made no mention at all of my brother Geoff, either by name or otherwise. There were pictures with Geoff in them in her Facebook files, but her captions on
the pics never made any reference to him. Marianne, you little bitch, Katie and I concluded. Quite the set up you have--using my brother for sex and food, but then acting at your high school like you're single and available.
Katie and I war-gamed different scenarios of what to do with this knowledge. Go straight to Geoff with it?--na, too.....shocking.....heartbreaking..... to him. Go to my mom?--na, not "with it" enough to get the online etiquette breeches Marianne was committing, and plus I come off as the bitch, not Marianne. Confront Marianne?--yes, but how?
After that dinner incident, and Katie's online spying on Marianne, every verbal exchange between hef and me was short and bitchy, every glance was a malicious staredown, every second in each others' presence was a tension convention. I knew, and Katie knew, my first ever physical girlfight was going to be with Marianne. It was just a matter of when, where, and how it went down. Katie assured me that she was there for me if either Marianne "tried to pull shit" to make a fight happen, or if I was the one who "decided it was go time". For some reason, I got the idea in my head that I didn't want to fight Marianne in Boca--Marianne had already taken enough liberties in our, my, house. Katie understood my wishes, and said she'd drive me to wherever I needed to go to fight Marianne.
Everything came to a head at once on a Saturday morning the first week of March. Geoff snd Marianne got into an argument over whose Prom--his school's or hers--they were going to attend, and Geoff was in the process of losing a $250 deposit. And Marianne, without asking, had "borrowed" our family's Boca municipal beach pass, just as Spring Break season was heating up (she was planning on hooking up with college guys, no doubt).
I told Katie, "Today's the day. You free?" She wasn't, but she made herself free.
Katie came over to my house, and we pulled up Marianne's Facebook. We were more serious than we had ever been with each other, like we were fucking Mafia hitmen about to assassinate someone. Katie hsd been in fights before, so I think her seriousness was in knowing this was my first fight. We could see on Marianne's Facebook that she was going to be at a Middle School parking lot at 9:30am, meeting up for a day at the beach.
With my family's parking pass, probably. Perfect.
I can sit here and tell you now that I was all business, all "with it", all confident and cocksure of myself as Katie and I got in her car and drove the 20 minutes to my confrontation with Marianne. But that would be bullshit. I was terrified. What if I lost the fight? What if the cops came? What if one of Marianne's friends had a knife? What if I peed my pants?
One thing I AM proud of, damn proud of, to this day, is that I wore a bikini to the fight. I knew Marianne would be in a bikini, and I wanted to fight to be a fair one, and jeans vs bikini didn't seem like a fair fight.
After an endless drive, getting every red light, getting stuck behind every 80 year old Cadillac driver, getting catcalled by every Harley gang, Katie and I pulled up to the school. I spotted Marianne's frosted hair in the crowd of 4 boys and 8 girls ("making" the crowd, like to arriving cops at a crime scene on TV do) immediately. Gawd, I hate that bitch. She knew why I was there.
I stepped out of the car and strutted right up to her, my right palm open and extended, and not in an offer of a handshake.
"The parking pass...bitch." My sandals came off as I strided.
"Fuck you." Marianne's kicked off her flip flops as well.
We started hairpulling and kicking immediately, going for the first round KO in case the crowd broke us up. They didn't, I think because no one recognized me and so no one knew what to make of the situation. Either that, or they were just open to viewing a girlfight between two teenagers in bikinis.
With so much of our flesh exposed and in contact, the fight between Marianne became primal and vicious in seconds. Nails slashed at faces and even eyes, and we clutched and grabbed each others' breasts. Flesh slapped flesh in a sickening, mesmerizing tone and beat, and the crowd started shouting "Upper cut her! Upper cut her!!" instructions to Marianne, which, oddly, I obeyed and she didn't.
Sering that the crowd was going to let us finish, or, perhaps, being winded from our out-of-the-gate mad dash, Marianne and I fell to the ground in a headlock bearhug. We wrestled on the ground, cutting and scraping our skin on the hard pavement. Shit, I woulda won this fight easy if I was in jeans--note to self for next time. The skin on skin feeling with a girl, a woman, who had been in bed with my brother was.....primal. For the first time in my life, I was trying to hurt someone. We were sweating profusely now, the mid-morning sun baking the pavement, and us, and I smell the scent Marianne used to leave on the leather couch in our living room after she had fucked my brother. Our knees begin kicking each other in the belly and the groin. I'm feeling jealous and possessive of my baby brother. Is Marianne feeling jealous that I live in his house? I hope she is.
"Where's the fucking beach pass, bitch?!?!? Don't make me hurt you!!!!"
My ever-practical on-task hormones pull Marianne and I back from the brink. She accepts the face-saving escape hatch I've (inadvertently) offered her from a fight which she might lose, and cries, "In my pink Vera Bradley bag, fucking psycho!! Take it and GET...THE....FUCK....OFF...OF....ME."
Katie and I suddenly realize that we're 2 versus 12, on hostile turf, and we better get while the getting is good.
I grab the pass, Katie grabs her car, and we get the hell back to Boca.
"How'd I do?", I ask in the car.
"You fucking kicked her ass, girl," says Katie.
"Thanks for having my back. I owe you."
Damn, that was intense.
To be continued.....