The first year at America West Airlines was spent befriending a large group of people at work. I was quite a wanderer during that initial period. As a gate agent, I would typically work between four and seven flights daily, depending upon which line I was awarded. Between my flights, I socialized with coworkers. It was at this time that I befriended a colleague, Jennifer Ferguson.

Jennifer was 18 years old and fresh out of high school. She was a pretty girl, standing nearly six feet tall with long light-brown hair. She had high-set cheek bones and a well-proportioned physique. I don’t have a picture of Jennifer, but recently came across a picture of a girl that looks exactly like Jennifer did. See it here.

I became enamored with her almost immediately. However, I did everything I could to steer clear of divulging my feeling toward her, as I never got the slightest hint that the feeling was mutual. For all intensive purposes, Jennifer treated me as a friend, rather than a potential boyfriend. I was okay with that, not wanting to press the issue. The truth be told, I actually convinced myself that I wasn’t that attracted to her, because she was obviously out of my league. Besides, I rationalized; she had some mighty big character flaws.

The greatest problem with Jennifer was that she had to be the center of attention at all times. She became quickly jealous when someone else was getting the spotlight instead of her. Also, she spent exorbitant amounts of time primping and preening herself. Often, she would complain that she looked too fat, or too old, or too ugly. Obviously, she did this to seek more attention and flattery, which she got. She had no lack of suitors.

Even though I didn’t directly share my adoration of Jennifer with her, I made certain that other people knew about it, people that would talk to other people. I was hoping that it would get back to Jennifer so that I could gauge her reaction to it and act accordingly. Shortly after that, Jennifer shared with me an experience she had had at a nearby strip club. She told me that she had stripped for a man, one-on-one, in the back room of a strip club and received one hundred dollars. She said that she told me this because she felt so bad for having done it. I felt at the time she was doing it to push me away, to get me to feel like she wasn’t the angel I thought she was. However, it backfired. Hearing this actually made me want her more.

Here was this girl, willing to strip for some grimy old man (I envisioned) for a mere one hundred dollars. She no longer was the unreachable target I had previously thought she was. I formulated an action plan to woo her over. It was the most subtle plan ever. In fact, it was so subtle that I didn’t really have a goal or a desired outcome. I guess you could say it was a play-it-by-ear action plan.

I spent a lot of time with Jennifer, more time than with my other coworkers. She told me all about her charmed life, how she was raised in a well-to-do household and got to experience a lot of the finer things in life. Jennifer made it known that her nineteenth birthday was coming up. This prompted me to make a big banner for her. This was before the days of the internet and picture searching. All I had were CD’s of clipart from a CorelDraw collection. I spent a great amount of time browsing through the thousands of images to find just the right ones for Jennifer’s banner.

Jennifer had told me a lot about her life. I labored to find a cartoon image that represented each year of her life, based upon what she had told me. The words “Happy Birthday Jennifer” were made up of 21 characters. So, I put a cartoon image with each character to represent each year of Jennifer’s life, with one additional image for her birth and one for her present situation. Each cartoon image was tied to a story that she had shared with me about that time in her life. For instance, the cartoon image that went with the “e” in “Jennifer” was of a female downhill ski racer. Jennifer had told me that she was involved with downhill ski racing a year prior to coming to work at the airlines.

On the day of her birthday, I printed the banner out on a color dot matrix printer and put it up in the employee briefing room, before Jennifer arrived. I decorated the rest of the room with crepe paper and balloons. Also, I bought a large birthday cake for her. When she arrived, everyone yelled “Surprise!” and sang happy birthday to her. She was very pleased with the acknowledgement of her birthday by everyone. She liked the banner, but wasn’t overly impressed with it. I think if she had known the amount of time and effort I spent working on it, she would have been more impressed. Alternatively, it may have caused her to be alarmed at my infatuation with her.

I mention “infatuation” because there were times when I felt just that for Jennifer. Even though she had some character flaws (who doesn’t?), I saw past those and paid more attention to the positives about her. After all, she had an upbeat and dynamic personality and was often pleasant to be around.

That summer, I was talking with some people about how I wanted to go to Cabo San Lucas and wondered if they wanted to join me. Jennifer piped right in that she wanted to go. A couple of other people said they wanted to go, too. So, the trip was planned. To my delight, everyone backed out of the trip except for Jennifer. I hesitate to say it was a great delight, however, because there was still absolutely no vibe from Jennifer that she saw me as anything other than a friend. Again, I was perfectly fine with that and had absolutely no expectations of what would transpire between us in the future.

With that in mind, we headed to Cabo. Once in Cabo, we took a shuttle about 30 minutes out of town to an all-inclusive resort, called El Presidente. After checking in there, we headed for the bar. I had drunk a few times with Jennifer after work, during get-togethers with other coworkers, and knew that she liked to drink a lot, as did I. However, I didn’t know that she would become such a belligerent drunk in Cabo. Had I known that, I would have never gone with her.

Any feelings of desire for her that I had before quickly left me, as I had to deal with the drunken Jennifer, somewhat like a brother figure. That first night, there was a Tequila drinking/shouting competition in the main courtyard of the resort. Luckily, Jennifer didn’t join, as she was two sheets to the wind by that time and having difficulty sitting in her chair as we sat down for dinner. To our surprise, there was a girl, Karen, in the competition that worked as a flight attendant at our same airlines. I recognized her first and pointed her out to Jennifer, who began to whoop and holler for Karen.

The MC of the competition was giving a line of girls a shot of Tequila each and having them yell as loud as they could. Through several rounds, he weeded it down to two girls. The two girls were Karen and another girl, a local girl by the reaction of some of the natives. They were both very good with their yelling and the MC couldn’t decide who was better. So, he had them go through a couple of more rounds, each time taking a shot of Tequila between yells. At the time, it was funny to see just how many shots of Tequila Karen, about a size 2 in clothing, was gulping down. However, I’m certain it wasn’t funny to her later on. She must have had about 20 shots before the MC decided it was a tie. The prize? He gave them each a fifth of Jose Cuervo Gold Tequila. Months later, Karen told me that she still hadn’t opened the bottle.

After the competition, Jennifer got up and wandered off. I thought she was going to the bathroom. Shortly after, an employee of the resort came up to me and said, “Senor, you have to come get your sister.” I said, “She’s not my sister. But, is something wrong?” “Come with me,” He responded. I went with him to a nearby gazebo. Arriving there, I saw Jennifer standing in the middle of some locals, trying to kiss and hug them. “Senor,” Said the man, “We are all employees and we can’t be with the guests like this. We will be fired! Please, take her away.” “Jennifer!” I yelled, “Come on, these guys can’t fraternize with guests.” “Bullshit!” She barked back at me, “You’re just jealous that I’m having fun and you’re not!” She then fell down onto one of them, onto his lap, and started kissing and fondling him. The man resisted, pushing her off of him and standing up. “Well,” I said, “You’re partially right about that, but the point is that you can’t play with these boys. They’ll get fired.” “Oh!” She yelled at me, “You’re such a party-pooper!” She then walked off angrily to the hotel room.

I walked down by myself to the beach, absorbing what had just taken place. I was through with Jennifer. If she could treat me, her friend, with such disregard as she had, then she wasn’t the girl I wanted to be with, not even for a second. From that point on, I acted as if she meant nothing to me, as she didn’t.

That night, we both went to the local nightclub, as there was only one nearby. As we came up to it, I could see a huge group of boys waiting outside to get in, only boys. Jennifer walked through the group adamantly, as they whistled and hissed at her. I struggled through to follow her. There were some big burly security guys at the entrance that moved aside and let her through. Then, they turned back around as I tried to enter and stopped me. “I’m with her!” I pleaded. They looked at each other a bit confused and then stepped aside to allow me to pass. I darted right through and into the nightclub.

Once inside, I could see why all of the boys were outside waiting to get in. The place was jam packed with nothing but girls. I was the only boy among hundreds of hot looking Latino babes. Immediately, I began dancing. Being the only guy in there, I was the center of attention and all of the girls began dancing around me. I felt like I was in heaven. Still, I wondered what Jennifer was up to, given her drunken state of mind before.

I knew that it was ladies night, where nightclubs allow only girls inside for a few hours, to get them drinking for free and get them all excited about the men who would come in later. Somehow, I was allowed inside during that precious period. The girls were at my beckon call for at least another hour, and I knew that. So, I was really hoping to stay. However, I felt that Jennifer would find this scene entirely unpleasing. I was right in my feeling as I spotted Jennifer out of the corner of my eye heading for the exit.

I briefly contemplated staying, but thought about what Jennifer’s parents would say to me if something bad happened to her in Cabo. For that reason, I broke away from a very good situation to pursue Jennifer. Lucky that I did, for her, as she was outside hitting on some guys and they were motioning her toward their car. I ran up to them and said, “Hey guys, this is my girlfriend! Back off!” They apologized and walked away. “I’m not your girlfriend!” Jennifer yelled at me after they were gone, “And just wanted to party with me.” “Jennifer,” I said, “You’re in no condition to be heading off with some locals to God knows where. You have no idea what they would do with you. And what if something happened to you? What would your parents say to me?” “You’re not my boyfriend!” She yelled again, “And I can take care of myself.”

Then, Jennifer walked out to the main street and began hailing a taxi. “Where are you going?” I asked. “To a better club,” She responded, “That one sucked!” I quickly contemplated just letting her go and returning to the club that I had so dearly loved, but thought it best to stay with her. I was still quite concerned about what would be thought of me back home if something bad happened to her. “I wish you were a guy!” I told Jennifer, “Then I wouldn’t worry so much.” “Yeah!?” She yelled back, “I wish you were a girl, ‘cause you sure act like one!”

A taxi stopped and Jennifer stumbled into it. I got in beside her. The nearest nightclub was in town, a half an hour drive from where we were. On the way there, Jennifer could hardly sit up straight. About ten minutes into the ride, she mumbled, “Pull over,” and I had the driver pull over. She opened the door and threw up. Then, she shut the door and said, “Let’s go,” We continued on. Ten minutes later, we were pulling over for her to throw up again. Finally, we reached the nightclub, Cabo Wabo. There were plenty of both boys and girls inside.

We both entered and went our separate ways. I began dancing with some girls, keeping Jennifer in my view in the distance. As long as I could see her, I felt at ease. As time passed, I began drinking quite heavily myself. Then, I lost track of where Jennifer was. I danced to about two more songs at this time before it dawned on me that it wasn’t good for me not to know where she was. So, I walked about the crowded nightclub in search of her. She was nowhere to be found. So, I walked outside.

I walked up and down the block, which was also strewn with people, in search of Jennifer. Just as I turned to head back inside of the club, I spotted her across the street. Again, she was with a group of boys who were coaxing her to get in their car. I ran across the busy street and grabbed her by the hand. The boys tried to stop me, but I kept on heading back to the club. Jennifer was also resistant. I didn’t care. I wanted her to be safe from harm. Luckily, the boys gave up pursuing me. I believe that had there not been a lot of people around, they might have forced her away from me and probably beat me up in the process. By this time, Jennifer was really drunk and could hardly stand.

I stopped a taxi and literally poured Jennifer into the back of it. I sat down beside her and directed the driver to our resort. On the way back, Jennifer passed out. Once we got there, I had to carry her back to our hotel room. As I opened the door to the room, she came to. “Put me down!” She yelled, “I’m not your girlfriend!” By this time, I was totally fed up with Jennifer and her antics. She had caused me to waste an entire trip to Cabo. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I retorted, “I’m sick of you.” That remark hit her like a knockout punch. As I set her down, she swaggered to her bed and sat down sulking.

I didn’t care. I was tired of her. She could play games all she wanted. I was through joining in. I went and sat down on my bed. I don’t know what she was trying to do, but she got up and said, “I’m taking a shower.” There was a floor-to-ceiling mirror across from the bathroom door that gave me a direct view into the bathroom from my bed, when the bathroom door was open. Jennifer left the door slightly open as she entered the bathroom. I don’t know if this was a conscious thing on her part or not. Either way, I was in no mood for any more of her. Still, the view of her disrobing inside of the bathroom was pleasant, albeit a view of her backside only.

I poured some bottled water into a glass and drank it with some Ibuprofen, my way of avoiding a hangover the next day. Then, I went to bed. When Jennifer was done with her shower, she came out of the bathroom dressed in a nightshirt. I could see that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath it, as her nipples poked out. Though she was a beautiful sight, I was still angry at her. She turned out the lights and got into her bed.

There must have been someone sick in the room above us, as the toilet kept flushing. Suddenly, after it had just flushed, Jennifer asked, “What’s that?” “What’s what?” I asked back. “There’s something dripping on my head every time that toilet flushes. “You’re crazy!” I said, “Go back to sleep.” Then, I got a mischievous idea. The next time the toilet flushed above us, I got some water from my bedside glass and threw it over onto Jennifer. “Hey!” She yelled, “It happened again.” “What?” I said, stopping myself from laughing. “There’s shit water dripping on my head!” She said. “Oh, you’re crazy!” I said again, “Go back to sleep.” I waited until the toilet flushed again and then threw a whole handful of water on Jennifer.

Jennifer turned her bedside light on and looked up. Then, she got up to her knees and stared at the ceiling. I noticed how her nightshirt pulled up a little on her legs, just above the knees. “Look!” She said, “There’s a crack in the ceiling. That must be how the shitwater is coming through.” I looked up and, sure enough, there was a crack. But, having just seen a bit more skin on Jennifer from the front than I had seen before, I pretended to not see it. “Where?” I asked.

Jennifer raised her arm up and pointed toward the crack in the ceiling. Her nightshirt hiked up a little more to her mid-thigh area. “See it?” She asked, looking at me. I looked up and kept pretending to not see it, knowing that she would persist. She stood up on the bed and raised both her arms up in the air as high as she could to almost touch the crack. As she did that, her nightshirt went above her waistline. “There!” She said, “Do you see it now?” She looked down to see me staring at her bare crotch. “Yeah!” I answered, “I see it now!” Quickly, she jumped down into her bed, covering herself up again. “Oh!” She cried, “You saw my beaver!” It was then that I broke out laughing. “Shut up!” She yelled, “Go to sleep!” I chuckled a little more and then was quiet for a few minutes before saying, “Nice racing stripe!” “Humph!” Jennifer retorted.

For some reason, Jennifer was nicer to me the next day. I think she realized how she had acted the night before and was sorry for it. I don’t know. All I knew is that any friendship that I had with her before was gone. She didn’t have the character traits it would take to bring it back. Frankly, I don’t think she cared to. She was into doing things her way at that time in her life, typical of girls at that age. I don’t hold it against her. I’m certain that she has learned from her mistakes and grown into a fine adult woman. Time with her was both stressful and enjoyable. I wish her well wherever she might be.