“Can you come over, Kelly? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Egad. No. Not a talk with an ex. How awkward and ultimately useless. I just arrive at the Jersey shore for some much needed peace and relaxation after a very stressful winter in the Big City and my ex-boyfriend from last summer wants to talk with me. I mean, what’s there to say, Frank? We’re done. You were as emotionally available as a cinderblock and about as warm as a witches…whatever. Fine. I’ll come over.

“Well, remember around Christmas, before we broke up, you wondered why I was acting so distant…”

Well, you were always distant, I thought. But I guess its all relative. Like Mars is far from Earth, but Pluto is even farther. So yes, Frank. Proceed.

“I hate to tell you this, but…I can’t take the lie any longer. I hooked up with Diana.”

Diana? Diana?! My closest friend here? The one who just moved into my house with me for the summer? With her five-year old daughter? Oh, Jesus. Well, hello Drama! How are you? Nice to meet you. My name is Kelly and welcome to my psychic landscape!

“It just kind of happened. She asked me for coffee several times and then…she initiated it. We were together for about 5 weeks, that’s all. And it was awful. Just awful. We fought constantly. I realize now how better you and I get along - how we laugh and we have things in common…”

Like my friend Diana apparently. I’m out of here.

“I just don’t want her using you. She said a lot of…very wrong things about you. That she never really considered you a friend and it would be easy for us to continue on together with you around, because you’re too naïve to find out.”

Okay, well me and my naivete are leaving your little den of iniquity before I naively bitchslap you. Good-bye.

It quickly becomes a 2 burger night. And 2 beers. Okay, 3 beers. And here she comes. Hello, Diana.

“Hey there, hun. Can I grab a beer? Whatcha doin’?”

Oh, just trying to process how you could be such a conniving, tawdry…stop it. I tell her what he said.

“What?! He said what???!!! He’s lying. That never happened. Never. He hit on me! And I told him no way…Jesus. I can’t believe you believe him over me.”

So you never hooked up? Never had sex? Never even kissed?

“No. God, no. I don’t even find him attractive. I told you before I thought he was a weasel. He even looks like a weasel. He looks like the Chicken Perdue guy and a weasel.”

The Chicken Perdue comparison brings a slight smile to my pursed lips but I refused to let it break thru. How could two adults - two adults I THOUGHT I had fairly good rapport with, have two totally divergent takes? I mean, what kind of soap opera silliness am I dealing with? Of course, I want to believe her. I have long since gotten over him and she is living with me NOW. As if on cue, Emily, her five-year old daughter runs in and hugs my leg. She just caught a firefly in the backyard and, and, set it free and she’s so happy to be staying here this summer and, and oh, thanks, Kelly. Shoot me. Let’s go pay him a little visit, shall we? Off we go to his house…

Ahem. I brought you two together because…well, this could be the most socially dramatic experience I have this summer and I want to milk it for all its worth. No, seriously folks. I brought you two together because one - or both of you to some degree - is lying. And I don’t think it will take all of 5 minutes to figure out who. Or whom. Liars.

Awkward silence.

“How dare you tell her something like this, Frank. I never hooked up with you. Do you know I could bring you up on charges for this? This is libel. This is libelous and you could be held legally responsible.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her its actually slander. Why interrupt her flow?

“Diana, you’ve got to be joking. I mean, what about the afternoon we went to see King Kong together? Or the night we went to your friend’s restaurant for dinner? Or New Year’s eve? What about New Year’s eve?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Flashback: me, alone in a dank sportsbar in Brooklyn on New Year’s eve, wondering why its so difficult for my boyfriend to visit me just one time in aforementioned Big City. The pollution bothers his asthma, he said. And his car, well, the starter’s been acting…sorry. Maybe next year.

So you mean to tell me you two never had sex?

“Yes.”

“No. Never.”

Then it happens. Diana makes a fatal flaw. I want to stop her and say, “No! Woman! Think about it. YOU’RE the one I want to believe! Let’s leave and I’ll believe you’re little story and we’ll have a jolly ol’ summer, drinking margaritas and barbequing and slapping mosquitos in the backyard!”

But she doesn’t hear my psychic plea. She goes to a particular cabinet over his stove and reaches for a glass. Very matter of factly. As if she had done it a hundred times. This cabinet obviously has felt the caress of her dirty little hands before. She pours some water and drinks from it with vigor, like the blood-sucking mosquito she is. That he is. That they are.

That night, I drink a couple of margaritas…okay, six. And bbq some more comfort dogs. And sit alone in my backyard, swatting mindlessly at the desperate mosquitoes. Leave me alone, will you? I just want some peace. But mosquitoes are mosquitoes. And I can’t change that. I could move inside, I suppose. Or put on some bug spray. Or let them suck away at me with a Zen-like quietude residing deep within. One lands on my thigh. I kill it. Another perfectly viable option. Goodbye mosquito. Tawdry little mosquito. Mosquitoes.

Beth Mann is a writer/producer currently residing amidst the beaucolic landscape of Brooklyn. She has worked for many years in experimental theater as well as producing the darkly comedic and unique show “Thrush TV.”