Even though it was still just 24 hours since our catfight, my hatred for Andrea was still off the charts. "Letting off steam" hadn't happened, at least not for me. I was burning with a desire to avenge the face scratches and back scratches she had given me during our after-school fight.
In 1975, two women fighting was still pretty scandalous, and any crowd of bystanders would do their best to break two female combatants separated. But there was one exception. If the two women were known to have a long-standing grudge, the members of the crowd who were in the know of the backstory would re-assure the crowd: "Stand back. Let them 'blow off steam'. This has been a long time coming between the two of 'em."
Then the two women would go into mutual hairpull, roll to the ground ....THEN the crowd of peacemakers would step in and separate them, both women having saved face. And ready to move on from their grudge to some different drama.
But Andrea and I were different.
Because of our shortness, we were THE ONLY 2 plausible candidates to be David's boyfriend.
It was Monique OR Andrea. Period.
Only one of us could be the winner.
Only one of us could have him.
And I needed it to be me.
I remembered that I could see Andrea's house from my Mom's bedroom. Mom would be coming home from work soon.
I ran up to Mom's bedroom.
I looked over to Andrea's house. Not much going on over there. But also not sure what I expected to see.
I looked into my Mom's laundry hamper. Not sure why--women's intuition, maybe?
I saw her bra and underwear from yesterday, her mysterious short-day at work.
Her bra and underwear had long red hairs in them--my mom is brunette.
Some of the hair was in clumps....like it had been, I don't know, torn out. Like, making love. Or, in a fight.
Would my Mom fight? If she did, she had never told me.
If anything, she was obtuse about the tension flaring between Andrea and me. Hadn't she just encouraged me to be friends with Andrea.
But, then again....that was partially my fault.
I didn't exactly tell her I had been fucking David.
Maybe I needed to talk more with my mom.
Like Mary Ellen did with HER mom.
To be continued.....