Stringing like a Puppet

In seventh grade, I had a best friend, Jeannie, who was originally Canadian. She came from a large family of six children. Even though she was a causacian, her parents were old-fashioned, believe it or not. We were both 13 and she ALWAYS wore skirts, never pants. She said her parents wouldn't allow it, and not even date until she turned 16.

Students made fun of her, but I remained friends with her. She had a habit of speaking SO FAST that I had to muster all of my strength to concentrate in lipreading her!

Anyhow, Jeannie said she was in my state south only for few years as her dad had a business contract and when it expired, the whole family would go back to Canada.

There was another girl in our group, Jenny, who was Taiwanese. We three often hung out together in cafeterias and we were in some of the same classes. While Jeannie lived a bit too far, Jenny lived close to my house enough for me to ride a bike to her place.

When we reached ninth grade, Jeannie moved back to Canada. Jenny wrote in my yearbook at the end of eighth grade year that when Jeannie moved, she would move up to be my best friend.

But by this time, Jenny became popular when she got elected to be a cheerleader. With her slim toned body and growing looks, she started to make different friends. Still, she would, from time to time, ask me to visit her house after school or some weekends or come over my place.

She started dating a Taiwanese guy who was about 3-4 years older than she. However, due to family feuds on both side of families, she was eventually forbidden to see him. Hence, Jenny resorted to sneaking around with him.

Upon reaching tenth grade, Jenny and I went to different high schools, due to the fact that our base high school did not have a hearing-impaired program. But still, if not often as we used to, we visited each other at our respective homes. (In the 80's, ninth grade was still part of "junior high", as it was then called instead of middle school.)

One weeknight, on a spur of a moment, with my parents' permission, I asked my mother to call Jenny to invite her to spend the night at my house on this coming Friday night. Jenny accepted the invitation.

But, on Thursday night, Jenny called my mother and told her that as a last minute something had just come up and could not make it, however she still wanted to stop by on Friday evening, briefly, just to chat with me and catch up with news. Though a bit disappointed, I agreed.

On Friday, around 7 pm, there was a knock on the door. Jenny came in smiling and we immedately went to my bedroom and chatted. It took about an hour and then Jenny said she had to go as she had important plans.

I was asleep a bit late on Saturday morning when my dad woke me up, saying that Jenny was on the phone, saying she wanted to stop by again for few minutes. Groggily, I wondered why she wanted to come again, but told my dad to tell her to go ahead and stop by.

Again, as soon as Jenny arrived, we went to my bedroom to chat. After a bit of conversation, Jenny hesitated a bit and slowly said she had something to confess.

Curious, I leaned forward to see what she had to say. She admitted the real reason she canceled the slumber invitation in the last minute.

I was stunned.....

And felt used.

She had said she lied to her parents about spending the night with me. After her mother dropped her off at my home, her boyfriend picked her up to go to a motel. That was why she wanted to stop by again on Saturday to make her parents think she did actually stay with me when her mother came to pick her up.

That was the end of our friendship.