The Cell Phone

            by Eva Jepsen

 

I felt a buzz at my hip as I walked down McKinley Street. I looked down at my bright red pager: it was Serena. She was probably wondering why I was taking so long. I had to take two buses to get to her house from mine.

 Finally, I thought to myself as I reached her doorstep. I knocked. I was surprised to see Dan beside Serena as she let me in. The look of utter disappointment on my face quickly shifted to anger.

Seeing this, Serena quickly said, “Oh I tried calling you. See, Dan just got off grounding and really wanted to come over. I mean if you want him to leave I can tell him to go.” She did this purposely in front of Dan to make me feel bad.

“Well, I thought we were going to get our nails done.” I said, sucking my teeth.

“Well, I don’t really have any money and I was thinking maybe we could all just watch a movie.” She smiled at me then looked over to Dan.

You, Dan, and me. I just took two buses from El Cerrito to hang out with you, not to be your third wheel, I thought to myself. “Well I guess that’s okay.” I walked up stairs before she invited me. I sat on the bed and waited for them to follow. I thought about the summers we used to spend together in Los Angeles, back when boys were not a part of our thoughts. We would spend endless hours giggling in our forts made of Lion King sheets playing make-believe games with stuffed animals and beanie babies. My daydream was interrupted by an irritating squeal.

“Da-aaaaan, stop it,” Serena’s voice was followed by laughter that faded out into the hallway. My overwhelming anger made it hard to sit still. I had to leave.

            I looked at my pager and searched through my phone book to find Natalie’s number. As I dialed on Serena’s transparent purple cordless, I heard the door swing open."Who are you talking to?” Serena asked.

“Oh, I’m just calling Natalie,” I said with a smirk. I knew Serena got jealous when I hung out with Natalie. She didn’t like it that we had so much fun together. Natalie and I had met a few months earlier and immediately fell in love with each other’s sense of humor. We had slowly been hanging out more and more since Serena and Dan started dating.

Weeks went by and Serena and I went from being inseparable best friends since we were five, to acquaintances. We had stopped going to lunch together, I barely saw her on the weekends anymore, and her number faded from my finger’s memory.

One afternoon when I got home from school, my mom came into my room.

“Hey honey, Diane has invited us to stay with her at the Russian River this weekend. You should bring a friend. It will be fun.”

            “Mom it’s a three day weekend. I don’t want to be up there.” I whined.

            “It’s a good thing she’s only invited us for the day on Saturday,” she said sarcastically.

            Who to bring? I thought to myself. Simultaneously, my phone rang.

            “Hello?”

            “Hey,” a crackly familiar voice whimpered.

            “Serena? Are you okay?”

            “No. I don’t know.” Her voice trailed off. I could tell she had been crying. “It’s Dan, we got in a fight. I think we’re breaking up.” Again, her voice was overpowered by the chokes in her broken speech.

“Oh, I'm so sorry. I bet it’s just a fight. Everything will be fine. Well, I have some good news that might make you feel a little better.” I paused for a second to make sure I had her attention. “My mom’s best friend Diane has a cabin at the Russian River and were going up this weekend. She said I could invite a friend. I was thinking about how we haven’t hung out in a while, so I wanted to invite you. It will be so fun. Can you go?”

            “Well. Dan and I were supposed to go out to dinner because it’s our anniversary on Saturday.” She blew her nose and cleared her throat. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen now. So yeah, that sounds fun. I’ll ask my parents.”

             “Okay great. It will probably be good for you guys too. You spend so much time together. A break could be nice. But I gotta go and tell my mom, so I’ll talk to you later. Feel better.” I hung up the phone and slouched into my couch. I didn’t even get to consider inviting the other girls, like Natalie or my other friend, Ann. But this would be a good opportunity for Serena and I to have fun together for the first time in a while.

            Friday afternoon Serena arrived at my house with a huge duffle bag that looked like it was holding a weeks worth of outfits. She was also carrying a backpack with a bulging zipper. In her hand, she was clutching a small silver flip phone. After all our stuff was loaded into the car, my parents put on their foreign music and we were on our way.

            “Eva, look at my new phone. My mom got it for me.” Serena held the expensive device up to my pager, which looked like a prehistoric contraption that would be featured in a museum. “Ha-ha my cell phone is smaller than your pager.”

            “Shut up.” I said jokingly. But I quickly took my pager back and shamefully put it out of sight in my bag.

            We finished the ride looking at the features on her phone, gossiping about people at school, and just talking about life. It was like old times.

            “Here we are,” my mom said cheerfully.

            I looked out the window. Everything was green. Redwoods surrounded the road. On our left was the river. It was a wide greenish blue strip of water that followed us on our side until we got to Diane’s house.

            “Regina. Hello my dear.” The round short woman hugged my mom causing her face to become embedded in black curly hair that rested on Diane’s shoulder. “Eva you look so grown up. And who is your friend?”

            “This is my best friend, Serena.” They smiled and said hello. After they shook hands Serena and I went into Diane’s room to get ready to go down to the water. Serena loaded her cell phone, wallet, pictures, makeup and some other things into her bag. I put my sunscreen and tanning oil in as well.

            “Why are you bringing all that stuff?”  I laughed.

            “Well you should always look your best, plus I don’t know these people,” Serena joked. We both laughed and headed to the river.

            We walked down the dirt path, and through the trees to the entrance of the river. Once we got out of the cool shade of the redwoods, a wave of heat hit me. My toes caressed the hot sand on the bank of the river. I clutched the towel that rested over my shoulders.

            “How are we going to do this?” Serena questioned me looking confused. “There’s nowhere to cross. No bridge.”

            “We can just walk across. There’s a filled in underwater walkway so you can wade across. We do it every year.”

            “What about our stuff?” Serena looked irritated. I knew she wasn’t used to maneuvering the outdoors.

            “Okay, you carry the towels and I’ll lead and carry the backpack.”

            “Alright, but be careful all my stuff is in there.” Her voice wavered as she handed me her heavy backpack. Maybe you wouldn’t be worried if all your shit wasn't with you. I thought to myself. I lifted the bag above my head and plunged into the water. It was colder than usual. As I walked further in I heard yelps and screeches behind me. Serena was complaining about the temperature.

            “It’s so cold. Are you sure this is the right way? This doesn’t look right. It’s getting so deep. Eva, is there any other way?” I started to tune out her squeaky voice. I had done this many times before. The water was waist deep, deeper than usual. All of a sudden my face hit the cold water. There was a drop off on the pathway under water. My head went under and the cold river strangled me. Different tones of dark green water blurred my vision. I kicked my legs with my arms still clutching the bag above my head. As I panicked for my life I got a glimpse of Serena’s shocked face while she stood still in the river ten feet from me. Choking and coughing under water I fought the current trying to get back to the higher ground. It was hopeless. I let go of the bag and my body resurfaced. I grabbed onto the branch of a tree that had fallen into the river. I hung my frail shaking body over the wood while half of me dangled in the current.

            “My stuff! Eva the backpack!” Serena’s frightened eyes stared at the drenched bag that was resting in an enclosed section of water walled in by branches.

 Nothing mattered to me at this point. I felt heavy and was still coughing. After a minute I grabbed the bag, slung it over the tree then quickly put my head back down.

“Are you okay?” A deep unfamiliar voice said. I turned around and saw a young man in a speedboat. I didn’t even hear him pull up.

“Yes. Yes, I am okay,” I said in an unnatural robotic tone. He lifted me into his boat and grabbed the backpack.

“I saw you from down the river. You know, this river is calm but it can be dangerous. There was a lot of rain this year. It’s deeper and rougher than usual.”  His voice was soothing. It made me feel safe, even though it trailed off in my head. Serena had walked back to the shore.

“Thank you,” I said as I got out.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah. My house is just up the road.” The man looked over at Serena then headed off toward the area he came from.

I sat in the cold wet sand. The water rippled at the edge of the river just barely brushing my big toe. It looked so peaceful and harmless. My entire body felt foreign; it was weightless and weak. Serena sighed while she laid out her flimsy pictures and a check for a hundred dollars from her dad.

“So, are you alright?” Her unsympathetic tone jangled my nerves.

“Uh, yeah,” I forced out.

“My cell phone!” Her careful placing of the damaged belongings changed into a violent search. She quickly recovered her cell phone. The screen was black and water dripped from the cracks. “Oh my god,” almost in tears, Serena shook it out and pressed the ‘on’ button. It attempted to turn on then shapes and symbols crowded the screen and it went black again. “Eva, it’s broken. My new phone is broken. Oh my God.”

“What?” I paused, I had so much to say but all that came out was, “Your cell phone?”

“I’m sorry but it’s not just my cell phone. I had a check from my dad, my make up, pictures of me and Dan, and my sister—”

“Exactly my point,” I interrupted her, “your precious valuables.”

She was silent but repeatedly pushed the button.

“And stop trying to turn it on. Just wait until it dries out.” I abruptly got up and gathered my stuff.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the house.”

“Wait.” Serena scrambled to get her stuff together as I walked up the hill to the road.

I replayed the incident over and over in my head. Serena caught up to me but we didn’t speak to each other. The house was finally in sight, my eyes tunneled my vision to it was the only thing I could see.

“Hey girls, back so soon?” My mom’s oblivious smile reminded me that she had no idea what had happened. I gave her the look. The look that described everything I was feeling that words could not.“What’s wrong?” Her facial features adjusted to her tone of voice; compassionate.

Her words circulated through my head. What’s wrong? What was wrong? Was I upset because I almost died or was it because of Serena's reaction? Just thinking about it gave me a weird feeling. The back of my throat was heavy, my stomach turned, and my head filled up with air. I felt like I was about to cry, but I couldn’t. I told my mom in little detail what happened.

“Serena you are going to want to dry out your phone before you turn it on otherwise you’ll fry the electronics,” my step dad, the electrical contractor, said.

All I wanted to do was stand up and say, told you so, told you so. Serena shamefully took the battery out of her phone and placed it on the table to dry.

We didn’t speak on the car ride home. I put my dry headphones on and closed my eyes. I thought about how I wanted to be home. When I opened my eyes, Serena was getting out of the car. Had I slept the whole way? She walked up her driveway with a huge trash bag of wet stuff inside. She turned into her head a little, just enough to look over her shoulder, to see if I was watching her. We made eye contact. I quickly looked away. Bye.