The Jerk Magnet

By mid-afternoon on Saturday, both Janelle and Chelsea were thoroughly sick of their charade. Taking a break in their room, Janelle had her tired feet propped up on the bed. “I’ll admit it’s been a good lesson in human nature,” she said as she typed something into her laptop. She really was taking the experiment seriously. “But I’m tired of being a jerk magnet. It’s bad enough that Chase is making a complete fool of himself over me, but now there are a few other boys besides him. It’s really making me think less of some of these guys—some of the ones I used to respect.”

“Is it possible that it’s due to their age?” Chelsea asked as she put up her feet. “My dad’s always going on about hormone-driven seventeen-year-old boys. He thinks they should all be locked up until they turn twenty-one.”

“Does he honestly think they’ll improve by then?”

“I don’t know. But maybe their emotional maturity will catch up with their testosterone by then.”

Janelle laughed. “So how about Nicholas? I think he’s falling in love with Trina.”

Chelsea shook her head. “I think he’s falling into like with Trina.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’ve seen him looking at you. It’s like he’s enchanted.”

Now Chelsea felt worried. “But if he knew who I really was . . . he might be enraged.”

“Really?”

“Nick has a problem with girls who are too pretty, as he says.”

“He’s been nice to me.”

“Because he’s trying.”

“So what do you suppose is the root of his problem with hot babes?” Janelle peered over her computer screen.

“He hasn’t gone into all the details, but I have a strong feeling he was overly involved with a hot babe.”

Janelle’s neatly plucked brow creased. “Now that you mention it, I remember that he dated Vanessa Renaldo last year. It was only briefly, but after they broke up, Nicholas seemed different.”

“What do you think happened?” Chelsea asked.

“I’m not sure. I can’t even remember who broke up with who. Do you think the breakup had to do with sex?”

Chelsea shrugged. Maybe she didn’t really want to know about that. But Janelle continued, speculating on Vanessa’s reputation and insinuating that Nicholas might’ve taken advantage of it.

“You know, Janelle . . .” Chelsea went over to the mirror, peering at herself and wondering what it would feel like to remain plain Jane, aka Trina, forever. “You’re passing judgments again.” Thanks to Trina’s dramatic departure from dinner on Friday, combined with Nicholas’s efforts, the whole idea of judging others had become a pretty hot topic among the kids at camp.

Janelle sighed. “You’re right. I can’t believe I just said that. Forget about it, okay?”

Chelsea took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I have an idea, Janelle.”

“Huh?” Janelle looked up from her laptop.

“Let’s come clean.”

“Come clean?” Janelle pushed her laptop aside. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s confess to everyone what we’ve been doing.”

“Are you kidding?” Janelle got to her feet and moved to the mirror, where she stared at her blonde bombshell image with a worried expression. “They’d probably stone us.”

“They can’t stone us. In fact, they have to forgive us.”

Janelle’s mouth twisted to one side. “That’s true. It’s a Christian camp, they’d have to forgive us. But why should we tell them the truth? Everything’s been going pretty smoothly. No one suspects a thing.”

“But it’s not fun anymore,” Chelsea reminded her. “You said so.” The truth was it had never been much fun for Chelsea.

“That’s true. I’m a little sick of Brittany, and these heels are killing me.”

“So you agree? It’s time to drop the facade?”

“Maybe. But if we do it, we have to do it right.”

“Right?”

Janelle nodded. “Yes, we need to make a point, to use what we’ve done to show these kids how shallow everyone can be.” She started clapping her hands. “I know! I know!”

“What?”

“We’ll do it like I told my mom. Like it was a skit.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll go talk to our counselors—to Raymond and Alice. We’ll confess the whole thing and ask if we can do something publicly to make a point.”

“Do you honestly think they’d agree to something that crazy?”

“They might. Come on. Let’s go find them.”

They spotted Alice sitting in the sun with some of the other youth group girls. “We can’t just walk up and announce what’s going on,” Chelsea pointed out.

Janelle whipped out her cell phone and called Alice. From a distance they watched as Alice answered. “This is Janelle, but don’t let on that you’re talking to me,” she said quickly. “I’m here at camp, and I have something urgent to talk to you about.” She gave Alice their room number and asked her to meet them there, then they hurried back to their room and waited for her to arrive.

“Oh.” Alice looked surprised when Janelle answered the door. “I thought this was—”

“It’s me, Janelle,” she whispered as she grabbed Alice and pulled her into the room and shut the door.

“Wh-what?” Alice looked slightly frightened.

“I’m Janelle.” She unpinned the blonde wig and removed it, shaking her brunette hair out. “See?”

Alice’s eyes were huge. “Huh?”

“And this is Chelsea.” Janelle pointed at Chelsea.

“No way.”

Janelle and Chelsea took turns explaining, and before long Alice was laughing so hard that she fell onto a bunk with tears running down her cheeks. Janelle and Chelsea were laughing too. The more they talked about it, the more hilarious it became.

“I can’t wait to tell Raymond about this,” Alice said finally. “I’m sure he’ll want to get in on the action. Keep your phone handy, Janelle—I mean Brittany—and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

After Alice left, Janelle decided she wanted one last round of playing Brittany. “You know, in case they decide to pull the plug on us immediately.” She chuckled. “I have to jerk that Chase boy around a little more. Just for kicks.”

“Have fun,” Chelsea called as Janelle left.

A few minutes later, she heard someone knocking on their door. Peeking out the window, she saw it was Nicholas. She checked her wig and makeup and cracked the door open. “Yes?”

“Trina?” he said. “Want to go for a walk on the beach? It’s really nice out and the tide’s low.”

Again she was torn. Of course she wanted to go for a walk with him. But not as Trina. Still, she reminded herself, Trina was really just another version of Chelsea—last year’s model, in fact. “Okay. Let me get my shoes.”

Before long they were walking on the beach. Fortunately—and unfortunately—Nicholas was not holding her hand. In fact, as it turned out, that had been a onetime thing. She figured it had simply been Nick trying to be brotherly, trying to make Trina feel comfortable and welcome.

“It’s been great getting to know you,” he told her as they walked along the water’s edge. “I hope we can stay in contact.”

Chelsea didn’t say anything. How was she supposed to respond?

“But I’ll understand if you don’t want to.” He sounded uncomfortable.

“Things aren’t always as they seem,” she told him meekly.

“What do you mean?” He gave her a sideways glance.

She stopped walking. Turning toward him, she planted her hands on her hips. “For instance, tell me what you see right now.”

He smiled. “I see a sweet girl I’d like to know better.”

“Why do you want to know me better?”

He looked slightly off balance. “Because you’re interesting. You’re a good conversationalist. You think more deeply than most girls.”

She nodded. She actually liked his response. “And nothing more than that, right?”

His eyes grew wide. “Absolutely. Oh, Trina, you didn’t think I was coming on to you, did you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not. I swear, Trina, I’m not putting a move on you. I just want to be friends.”

She sighed. “And that’s supposed to make me feel good?”

Now he looked like he’d been caught—stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Just because I’m plain and dowdy doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings, Nicholas Prague. Because I do. Whether you know it or not, ugly girls have feelings just the same as pretty ones, and—”

“I never said you were ugly, I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. I know all about boys like you. You think I’m not attractive enough for you to consider for more than just a friend. Right? If you can keep me as a friend, it keeps you in your comfort zone. But how do you think that makes me feel? And what about girls like Olivia? Did you ever stop to think that while you’re hanging with Olivia, treating her like your good buddy, she might be nurturing a secret crush on you?”

Nicholas looked stumped.

“Just because a girl is plain or ugly or skinny or fat or has frizzy hair or braces or zits does not mean she doesn’t want a guy to like her for more than just a friend. And just because you think you’re Mr. Prince Charming does not give you a free pass to wear those plain, ugly, skinny, or fat girls on your arm like a special-needs-friend trophy. Acting like you’re such a good guy, such a fine and honorable Christian, that you can lower yourself to be seen with someone like—like me!” She tapped her flattened chest. “Because I have feelings too. Just because I’m plain and ugly does not mean I don’t have hopes or dreams for love and romance. So just quit messing with me. And quit taking advantage of girls like me. We are humans too, Nicholas Prague!”

She turned from him and started to run. He called for her to stop, but she didn’t. She just kept running like there were wild dogs chasing her, and she didn’t stop until she was safely in her room. This time she was determined not to budge from there until it was time to go tomorrow. If Dad and Kate were back, she’d call them and beg to be taken home.

She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting to sleep. If only she could sleep until Sunday.





Chelsea!” Janelle said as she burst into the room. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.”

Chelsea looked up from the bed, trying to get her bearings, then remembered they were still at fall camp. “I’m right here. What’s going on?”

Janelle sat in the chair across from her and explained how Raymond had gotten together with the head counselor, Dirk Erickson, and how they wanted the girls to reveal their true identity at tonight’s meeting.

“It’s so cool, Chelsea. It turns out that Dirk’s message for tonight is all about judging others. So he’s really excited about using our experiment for his illustration. We’ll be like props.” She went on to say that he planned to introduce them at the beginning of the meeting, as if to welcome them. “Then he’ll excuse us, and we’ll come back here and get back to our normal selves in time for him to reintroduce us and explain what we did. He might even do a little interview with us.”

Chelsea sat up. “Hey, that would be kind of cool.”

“So you’re okay with it?”

Chelsea shrugged. “I’ll feel a little silly. But I doubt I could make any worse fool of myself than I already did today.”

“What did you do?”

Chelsea told Janelle about the scene on the beach. “I was so pathetic,” she said finally, “it probably sounded like I was begging Nicholas to be my boyfriend. And that’s not what I meant. I just wanted him to see how he makes us feel.”

“That’s a good point.” Janelle nodded. “Nick is always nice and sweet to me—I mean, when I’m in my own skin, but I see him treating you like . . . well . . .”

“Like I’ve got cooties.”

“Basically. I can’t help but feel offended that he’s comfortable talking to me like I’m not a threat, like I wouldn’t presume to think he might be interested in me for anything besides just a friend.”

“Exactly!” Chelsea pointed her finger in the air. “How dense is that?”

“Very.” Janelle sat down and put her feet up. “So what did we learn, Chelsea? Or did we learn anything we didn’t already know?”

Chelsea thought hard. “I’m not even sure.”

“Well, maybe we should think about it. I mean, in case Dirk asks us something like that.” Janelle got out her laptop again. “This is going to be a really good paper for psychology.”

“I’m going to take a walk,” Chelsea told her.

“Dinner is in about an hour,” Janelle said.

“I know. See you then.” Chelsea went outside, and looking around to be sure no one, especially Nicholas, was around, she headed down one of the many trails, walking until she found a bench and sat down. She’d heard so many things this weekend—including some good teaching about God. But she knew that her focus on her disguise and character had been a distraction, and it had probably hindered her from hearing or learning or absorbing these good things. That made her angry. In some ways, playing plain Trina had been as much of a distraction as when she’d been working hard to turn herself into hot babe Chelsea.

“Dear God,” she prayed, “I don’t want to be a hot babe, and I don’t want to be a plain Jane. I just want to be who you want me to be. Please show me who and what that is. I want to be a person who is more focused on you than myself. Can you teach me to do that?” She prayed awhile longer, and when she finally said, “Amen,” she felt a reassuring sense of peace, like maybe she was closer to God than she realized. She felt hopeful, and she believed that he could and would show her who she was. Most of all, she was thankful that she was God’s.

It was getting dusky as she came back into the camp. She could tell by the lighted windows in the dining room that dinner was already in progress. She slipped into the back of the already full room, finding a place at one of the quieter tables along the edge. Instead of playing the painfully shy Trina, Chelsea decided to just be herself and act normal. She said hello and introduced herself and made an attempt at conversation. This wasn’t exactly easy either since most of the kids at this table seemed to have some real insecurities and self-image issues. But she simply smiled and asked them about themselves, making eye contact and waiting for their responses, and by the time the meal was over, she felt like she’d made some genuine friends.

She saw Nicholas coming her way and was tempted to run the other direction, but decided not to. She had prayed and asked God to help her find herself, and she wasn’t going to go the opposite direction now. “Hi, Nick,” she said.

He looked surprised. “Hi, Trina.”

“Sorry about my little outburst on the beach.” She looked him directly in the eyes and held her head high. “I guess there were a few things I needed to say. But I could’ve said them a little more gently. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. I’ve actually given a lot of thought to what you said. It wasn’t easy to hear at the time, but the more I considered it, the more I realized you were right.”

“Really?” She blinked. “Well, that’s cool.”

Janelle came up to her. “Hey, darlin’, I need to talk to you,” she said in her Southern drawl.

Chelsea glanced at Nicholas and smiled. “See you later.”

“Yeah.” He nodded with a slightly confused expression. “Later.”

“We need to do some rehearsing for tonight’s gig,” Janelle said quietly as she guided Chelsea out of the dining room. “I want to win an Oscar.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll explain.”

Once they were in their room, Janelle told Chelsea the plan. “Dirk texted me, asking if we could beef up our parts a bit, reel the kids in, make it dramatic.” She chuckled. “I texted him back saying that we could.”

“How?”

“By telling the truth.”

“About what?”

Janelle explained her genius plan. “We start out in our roles as Brittany and Trina. We talk about how our reception here felt. How I got lots of attention and you got mostly ignored. Well, except for Nicholas’s pity play.”

“But we won’t mention names, okay?”

“Sure. No problem. In fact, since we’re assuming false identities, why not create pseudonyms for others as well? If we need to, we can change the names to protect the innocent.”

They started plotting their strategy, and the more they worked, the more fun it became. “It’s like a mini play,” Chelsea said as they got ready for the eight o’clock meeting.

“How do I look?” Janelle asked her. “My last night as a hot babe.”

“You sure you’re showing enough cleavage there?” Chelsea teased. “That padded push-up bra should be getting overtime for the work it’s doing.”

“You should talk. That athletic thing you’re wearing is probably getting ready to burst out at the seams.”

“Don’t remind me. The sooner I’m out of it, the happier I’ll be.”

They laughed and went out the door, chatting in character as they went to the meeting house. Before long they were being called up from the audience.

“I’d like to introduce a couple of new faces to everyone,” Dirk said. “I realize some of you may have met them already, but this is their first camp, and I’d like to hear their reactions. Come on up, Brittany Woodard and Trina Johnson.”

The girls went forward. Chelsea reminded herself this was playing a role, like when she played Maggie in drama.

Dirk started with Brittany. “I hear you’re from the South, little lady. Tell me what you think of our West Coast kids. The boys treating you all right?”

Janelle giggled nervously. “Well, your boys have been more than kind,” she said into the mike. “They’re so friendly and attentive, I can hardly believe it. I walk up to a door, and suddenly three boys are stumbling over each other just to open it for me. I start to sit down to a meal and it’s the same thing—boys trying to get me a chair, inviting me to sit right next to them.”

Dirk chuckled. “Well, I’m glad the boys are being hospitable. How about the girls?”

“Oh . . . well now, that’s a different story.”

“How’s that?”

“The girls . . .” She frowned. “Besides my good friend Trina here, not a single girl has really spoken to me.”

“Probably because we couldn’t get past the boys,” a girl shouted from the audience.

Janelle nodded. “That might be true. But even when I tried to start up a little chat with some of you girls, y’all just treated me like an outcast, like I was contagious. I’m sorry to say I honestly didn’t feel too welcomed by the girls. So naturally, I spent more time with the boys.”

“And you found that enjoyable?” Dirk asked.

“I liked it at first.” She waved a hand in the air. “But after a while, it got downright overwhelming. All this nonstop male friendliness, the invites to walk the beach . . . oh my! Then I realized some of these boys were under the wrong impression about the kind of girl I am.” She covered her mouth with her hand like she was embarrassed to say more.

“Can you explain that better?” Dirk said.

“Oh, you know how it is. Some boys see a girl like me, and they think about one thing and one thing only.”

“Really, what’s that?”

“I’m embarrassed to say it in front of y’all, but y’all probably know what I mean. You see, some boys take one look at a girl like me, and they automatically assume I have the same thing on my mind as they do. And you know what that is.”

The audience broke into giggles and laughter and some comments.

“Meaning the boys want to get romantic with you?” Dirk said in a cornball way. “Steal a kiss or maybe even something more intimate?”

With wide eyes, Janelle nodded. “You mean you used to be a boy too?” More laughter erupted from the audience. “Some boys think that just because I’m blonde, I must be dumb too. And before you know it, innocent hand holding turns into something altogether different.” She looked shocked. “And here I thought this was a nice Christian camp.”

“Well, you know Christians are human too, Brittany. And boys will be boys. Isn’t that right, girls?” Several hoots of yeses and more laughter followed.

Dirk turned to Chelsea. “And how about you, Trina? How has your time here been?”

Chelsea gave a slightly shocked expression. “Not anything like Brittany’s, that’s for sure.” She paused for the laughter.

“The boys weren’t chasing after you?” he asked.

“One young man was, uh, friendly,” she said carefully. “But I think it was out of pity.”

“Pity?” Dirk frowned.

“Because he felt sorry for me. You know, because I’m kind of a wallflower.” She sighed. “But I suppose that was better than being ignored.”

“Were you ignored?”

She nodded. “Pretty much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But I think it’s partly my own fault. I think when a person is shy and insecure, it holds people at a distance. In some ways, Brittany and I aren’t all that much different.”

“How is that?”

“We were both misjudged based on our appearance. Girls kept a distance from Brittany while boys couldn’t get close enough—all because of how she looked. At the same time, everyone, except for that one guy who felt sorry for me, avoided me because of the way I look.” She looked out at the audience of kids. To her surprise, they seemed to be listening. “Yet no one really knew us—I mean, who Brittany and I truly are on the inside—because they were judging us based on appearances only. They never seemed to get past what they were seeing.”

“Do you think that’s how Jesus dealt with people?” Dirk asked her in a serious tone. “Judging them based on appearances?”

“I don’t know a lot about Jesus—this is still new to me—but I don’t think God looks at the outside of people as much as he looks at the inside. But I could be wrong.”

Dirk put a hand on her shoulder. “No, you’re not wrong. Thanks for sharing, girls.” As they left the stage, he began to talk about how Trina was spot-on. “God does look at our hearts, doesn’t he? We all know that, and we’ve heard it time and again. We also know that God wants us to imitate him. Yet over and over, we fall into that trap—we pass judgment on people based on what we can see. As a result, we miss the parts of people that matter.”

The girls were outside now. “I wish I could hear the rest of that,” Chelsea said as they hurried back to their room.

“It’s all taped,” Janelle told her. “You can hear it later.”

They were barely into their room when they started ripping off their clothes—rather, their costumes—scrambling to help each other with makeup and wigs and hair and all the other details. Fortunately, they’d already laid out some of their regular clothes, which was a challenge considering they had packed mostly for their experiment. Partly because time and wardrobe were limited and partly because Chelsea had no desire to look like a hot babe anymore, she didn’t put a lot of effort into her hair and makeup. The result was a more natural look, but compared to plain Trina, it was a great improvement. And thanks to Janelle’s eyebrow makeover, she looked a little better than usual too.

For the most part, they were both back to their old selves, and Chelsea felt relieved. She also felt extremely nervous. She wasn’t sure if her nerves were the result of her recent Trina act, something that was too close to the truth of her past to be comfortable. Or was she worried about what would come next? It was one thing to stand in front of the crowd and perform an act, but to stand up there and be vulnerable, be herself . . . now that would be a challenge. Even so, Chelsea knew what she had to do—and with God’s help, she would do it.