“Well, that was pleasant,” Anna said, throwing her keys on the kitchen table. She and Justin had just dropped JC and Symone at the airport. They were flying back to Orlando and heading straight for the hospital to see if Adrienne and Nicole were going to be all right. The pair had cried the entire was there, and Anna felt helpless to do anything. They had stopped briefly at a drugstore to get Symone some crutches, and ACE bandage, and some aspirin. The flight had taken off, and Justin and Anna rode silently back to the Valley. Justin stalked off to his room the second he was in the door, but Anna didn’t take it personally. She figured that Justin just felt as helpless as she did, and it was frustrating to him.
“What was pleasant?” a voice asked her. "Did you drop Sym and JC off at the airport?"
Anna groaned. Joey. This was the last thing she needed. “Nothing of your concern. Why don’t you go into town and find a little girl that will giggle at you and drop her pants?” Even Anna was shocked at the words that had come from her mouth. Sure, she didn’t like Joey, but she had never been so blatantly rude before, in her life. Still, she held fast, because she knew that it was probably the truth. After all, all of those webpages made him out to be a smooth talking Italian player. 10,000 teenyboppers can’t be wrong, can they?
Joey bit back the insults that were brewing inside him. Instead he shot Anna a disgusted and hurt look, and stalked out of the kitchen, brushing back Terri on her way out of the room.
When Terri saw Anna standing wide-eyed at the place where Joe had just been, she sighed. “What happened this time?”
“Nothing. I just…well, I told Joey that he should go into town and pick up a girl, or one of his other little hobbies,” Anna said, casting her eyes away from Terri.
“WHAT? Why would you say something like that Anna? Where did you even get that idea?”
“Well, I…umm…I have a computer in the basement…and I have the Internet…so, when I found out who was staying with us, I…uhh…I looked up some pages on them.”
Terri tried to keep her voice even. “And, you read that Joey was a player, and assumed it was true.”
“Well…yeah, I mean, they ALL said that. It’s wrong to be like that, promiscuous and all; it’s a sin.” Anna looked up and Terri was still glaring at her.
“So, wait, let me get this straight here. You read some stuff on the ‘net that said that Joey was a player and so you determined yourself not to like him. Am I right?” Anna nodded, and she continued. “Did you ever stop to think where the girls who run those sites get their information?” There was a pause. “I’ll tell you where they get it, they get it from EACH OTHER. None of them know Joey from a hole in the wall; they all just THINK they know him from what everyone else says. It’s pathetic, but at least they have the excuse of being 14 and infatuated. You, on the other hand…”
Anna realized then the mistake that she had made. It had snowballed into hatred, and it was eating her up inside. The fact that she had believed all this hearsay made her feel sick. But, she was proud, and didn’t want to admit her wrongs. “He hasn’t showed me anything to make me believe otherwise.”
“You haven’t let me Anna,” Joey said, emerging from the room. “You have been looking for the bad in me from day one. Well, let me ask you this, Little Miss Holier-than-thou, isn’t that called judging? Which, the Bible states clearly is a sin.”
Anna gulped; he was right. She had never thought of it that way before, but he was right. She was judging him, and everyone saw it but her, including God. She just thought that she was protecting herself. From what, she wasn’t exactly sure now.
Joey sighed when she didn’t speak, and turned on his heal to trudge out the front door. She was always going to hate him for no good reason, and he would always know that there was a person out there that looked at him venomously. It was a scary thought for a guy who had tried his whole life to be kind and happy to everyone he ever met.
“Joey, you’re right.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, before turning to face her. With his large brown eyes, he urged her to say something else.
Anna sighed, defeated. “I did judge you, and I am truly sorry. Please accept my apology.” Tears had poked their way out of her eyes and trailed down her cheek. She began to walk out of the room, but his voice stopped her.
“No.”
This time, it was Anna who stopped and turned. “No? You won’t accept my apology?”
Joey shook his head. “No, I will. But you are not getting off that easy, just say you are sorry and it’s forgotten. You are going to earn my forgiveness.”
Anna’s eyes grew large. “How am I going to do that?”
“You are going to give me one week, starting today, to get you to know and like me.”
Anna stood there for a second. She wasn’t sure what to say. But Joey’s eyes pleaded with her to agree. “If that’s what it takes, then, all right.”
Joey broke into his trademark grin for the first time during the exchange and Anna smiled slightly back before continuing her trek to her room.
“Atta boy,” said Terri, walking over and patting him on the back.
