Golden

by Andrea Dickherber

  “Yeah. Go.” I handed her my keys and shoved my hands into my jacket pockets.

  My toes were freezing now, exposed in my flip-flops, and my feet probably stunk.

  “Caleb,” I called when he was within a few feet of me, talking to the sweaty goalie. He turned and looked.

  I waved and he headed my direction.

  “Hey,” he smiled. “Jillian. What’s up?”

  “Not much. Just came to watch you guys after cross country practice.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot I was talking to the team’s star.”

  “Ha. Hardly,” I scoffed. “Congrats on your win though. You played really good.”

  “Thanks. Did you come to watch me specifically?” He teased, grinning at me.

  “Actually, I came with Rudy. She was taking pictures for the yearbook.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He pulled the bottom of his jersey up to wipe sweat off of his face, giving me an unobstructed view of his toned stomach. “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah.” With some difficulty, I averted my eyes. “She had to leave right after the game though.”

  “Oh.” He let his shirt fall back down and I looked at him again. “Can I give you a ride home?”

  “Oh, no, my car’s here.” Just spit it out, I thought.

  “Where’d you park? I can walk with you.”

  “No, that’s okay. Actually, I was wondering if you had a date to Sadie yet?”

  “Nope.” He smiled. “Not yet.”

  “Cool. Well, I mean, not like that’s good that no one asked you yet. Anyway,” I stumbled over the words, “do you want to go with Rudy?”

  He paused. “With Rudy?”

  “Yes. She asked me if I’d ask you. Since she had to leave.”

  He rubbed the hair on the back of his head.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Yes? That’s great,” I smiled. “I’ll tell her.”

  “Okay. I guess I’ll give her a call then?”

  “Yeah, that’d be awesome. I guess I’m going to get going then.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for coming. We don’t exactly draw a big crowd.” He gave me a sheepish smile.

  “No problem.” I punched his shoulder lightly with my fist. “Congrats, again, on the win.”

  “Yeah, thanks. See you later, Jillian.”

  “See you,” I said, then I turned and walked away quickly, hurrying to the car as the bearer of good news.

  High school sort of revolves around dances, doesn’t it? At least Ogden did. It always gets to me now when I see stores pushing their neon, bejeweled prom dresses earlier and earlier each spring. Dances always gave you the easiest excuse to approach the guy or girl you had a crush on. It was a little unfair, really, that the girls only got Sadie Hawkins for the asking (although that rule was never strictly obeyed; plenty of girls asked the boys to Fall Ball or the prom during the years we were there; it just wasn’t preferable. Of course you wanted the guy of your current dreams to sweep you off your feet with an elaborate, “Go-to-prom-with-me” gesture). We showed up to dances drunk, holding our tongues and shielding our breaths when we handed our tickets to the teacher guarding the door. We either danced with wild abandon or made a quick sweep around the room between our grand entrances and exits, depending on our dates.

  While it was happening, every little detail meant everything. Each of my moments was also saturated with self-doubt. Was my date giving me his full attention, or did his gaze sometimes shift toward Rudy? Should I move my arms less and my legs more when I was dancing?

  I’d never before been judged by so many people, or judged people so harshly myself. With each year since high school, I’ve grown less and less shallow and materialistic.

  Maybe I was the only one who marked their high school life with school dances. Maybe Caleb measured it with soccer seasons. Maybe Celine measured it by new friends or new schools. Maybe there were guys who marked their time in high school by the girl they were sleeping with, as in, “Yeah, man, the year we lost the state championship basketball game was the year I took Rudy Golden’s virginity.”

  Who could say? I can’t.

  All I know is that now, all of it seems far away. So very far away.

  Nothing came of the Rudy and Caleb thing. Actually, no, “nothing” isn’t quite accurate. He turned out to be a pretty good friend. After the dance, we all went back to Caleb’s – Rudy, Caleb, my date and I – and watched Children of the Corn in his basement in our pearl-snap shirts and stiff, new cowboy boots. Mid-movie, the boys had paused the TV and retreated upstairs to make some midnight-snack popcorn. When they snuck back downstairs and popped up from behind the couch they scared the living shit out of us. I let out a scream that I couldn’t believe had issued from within my body. Rudy fell off the couch, flailing in the tangle of blankets. My screeching woke Mr. Rowling, who rushed downstairs in his bathrobe to check on us. I blushed as red as a sunburn, and the guys could hardly contain their peels of laughter. There was no pressure, real or imagined, that night. It was a ton of fun.

  After that, Rudy had continued to pursue Caleb for a few weeks. We became regulars at Ogden’s soccer games, even when Rudy wasn’t assigned to take yearbook photos. He kept her at just enough distance though that she realized pretty quickly he wasn’t interested. We kept going to the soccer games – we even made hand-painted navy sweatshirts with Caleb’s number on them to wear on senior night – and we cheered him on, even when it got so cold we had to don earmuffs and scarves and layer sweatshirts beneath our blankets. In return, Caleb cheered for me at all my cross-country meets. At the state championships, he and Rudy joined a handful of my teammates in painting my name across their stomachs. Even though I ended up placing in the bottom half of the pack, I had grinned the whole way through the final stretch when I saw them standing in a line amidst the crowd at the finish line, screaming my name.

  10

  Junior Winter

  “You in line?” A guy I didn’t know – he must’ve been from another school – nudged me with his elbow. He pushed a little too hard, and I tipped to the side before righting myself, like one of those bobble toys.

  “Yeah.” I sipped from my plastic cup. He nodded and stood behind us, not bothering to disguise the fact that he was staring at Rudy’s butt.

  We were waiting for the beer bong at a crowded Thanksgiving party at Deena’s house, which under normal conditions would be considered quite large, but for the number of people milling around that particular night, was way too small. Someone bumped into me walking past, and beer sloshed over the lip of my cup and onto the carpet. Oops.

  I tapped my fingers against my thigh to the beat of the blaring music as the line crept forward. Someone should’ve brought another bong, I thought.

  “I’m so freaking cold.” Rudy shivered beside me. Courteously, the beer bong had been stationed outside on Deena’s back deck, so as not to completely ruin the house’s tan carpet. The sliding glass door was wide open, and cold air permeated the room where we stood.

  “We’re almost next.”

  Outside on the porch a guy from my math class finished his beer and let the hose drop, releasing foam and a trickle of beer. He thumped his chest and let out a long belch. I rolled my eyes.

  When it was my turn, the guy holding the funnel end of the beer bong looked me up and down.

  “Have you done one of these before?”

  “Yes,” I said, rolling up my sleeves and tossing my hair behind my shoulders. I touched my wrist. I didn’t have a hair tie. “Rudy, can you hold my hair back?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She brushed wisps of hair back from my face with her fingertips and stood behind me, grasping my hair in her hand.

  “Hurry up!” Someone shouted from inside the house. I looked back to see that the line behind us had doubled in size.

  “You sure you can handle this? You’re a pretty small girl.”

  “I bet I can do it faster than you.”

  He laughed exaggeratedly. “Let’s see that, sweetheart.” />
  I smiled. In Cancun, Rudy and I had made the surprising discovery that I had an aptitude for bonging beers. I also discovered this talent got me a lot of attention – I wasn’t sure if this was good attention or bad attention, but I liked it. I liked proving the cocky beer guys wrong. I liked shrugging off what people expected of me. I am a petite girl, but I can suck down this beer faster than you, you pudgy asshole.

  I put both of my thumbs – one thumb alone was too small – over the opening of the dirty plastic tube and the beer guy handed him a can, which he promptly popped open and poured into the green funnel.

  “You ready?” He asked as the tube filled. He tossed the empty can aside.

  I nodded and in one fluid motion – it almost looked choreographed – he raised the funnel above his head and I shoved the tube into my mouth.

  I was finished in three seconds flat. I knew because the beer guy had taken the liberty of timing me, yelling the seconds out as they ticked by on his watch.

  I dropped the tube and behind me, a cheer erupted.

  “Damn.” The funnel guy shook my hand as I stood up. I felt a swelling of pride in my chest. “You next?”

  Rudy shook her head. “Not unless you want me to spew all over your shoes.”

  We went to the living room to return to a game of flip cup, but it wasn’t long before someone else came to challenge me to a beer bong. Or perhaps they’d just heard I could finish in three seconds and they didn’t believe it; they wanted proof. I proved myself three more times in an hour and a half. The fourth time, I fell over mid-bong, the remainder of my beer pouring out of the hose onto my jeans. Somebody caught me by my armpits and carried me off the porch into the grass, amid shouts and murmurs and mumbles. The mumbles, I think, were my own.

  I fell to my knees and projectile vomited the contents of my stomach into the grass of Deena’s backyard. It was mostly liquid. A chunk of my hair fell onto my face, and I swiped at it. A hand brushed it away, behind my shaking shoulders.

  “Rudy?”

  I spewed again, a smelly beer fountain beside the flowerbeds. I nearly fit the décor.

  “She’s inside. Do you need me to get her?”

  I tried to nod my head, ‘yes’, but it must’ve come out differently, as the person behind me didn’t stand to leave. He placed a hand on my back.

  I threw up until my stomach was so empty it was nearly flat. I tried to stand, but immediately I pitched forward toward the bitter smelling pile.

  “Whoa,” someone steadied me from behind. Again.

  “Uhh,” I moaned.

  “Jill, what happened?”

  “Rudy?” She appeared in front of my face, translucent as an angel. The pitch of her voice alarmed me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think that last one got her.”

  Rudy pushed my hair back behind my ears. Remarkably, it was the first time either of us had drunk so much we got sick.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “I think we should go home. Caleb, can you drive us?”

  “Yeah, sure. If you want to stay with her, I’ll go bring my car closer.”

  I heard his footsteps retreating.

  “Caleb?”

  “He’s taking us home. Here, go like this.” She wiped the back of her hand across her own mouth. I did the same, and felt wet flecks of vomit clinging to the back of my hand.

  “That’s disgusting.” I wiped my knuckles against the ground.

  Rudy knelt behind me in the grass and gathered my hair in her hands. She raked it through her fingers as she wove it into a thick braid and the tips of her short fingernails scratched softly against my scalp, lulling me into a trance. My eyelids drooped.

  “There,” she said. I felt the braid drop against my spine. “Now it won’t get in your way.”

  In a flash Caleb was back, his car keys jangling in his hand.

  “Ready?”

  Together they hoisted me up off of the ground, positioning my arms over each of their shoulders. In her heels, Rudy was almost as tall as Caleb. I hung only a little bit lop-sided.

  It wasn’t working though. I couldn’t hold myself up. We stumbled forward a few feet, and then we stopped. I felt my feet being swept off the ground. Then we were moving again, me floating above the ground on strong, warm arms.

  “Thanks,” I muttered into Caleb’s chest.

  “No problem,” he said into the top of my head. I could feel his breath between the strands of my hair. I felt his lips land, softly and gently and just for a moment, right on the spot where my hair was parted.

  Caleb smelled good. Like cologne, I thought, my face pressed into the buttons of his shirt. And then I fell asleep.

  Even during the peak of our rebellion, Rudy was still the perfect daughter. She had the idea that we should start learning to cook family dinner on Sunday nights, much to Mrs. Golden’s delight. She bought her parents thoughtful birthday gifts, while mine were lucky if I remembered to pick up a card at the grocery store. In November, I sat with Mr. and Mrs. Golden in the audience while Rudy was inducted into Ogden’s chapter of the National Honor Society. She beamed graciously as she walked across the candlelit stage. She radiated light, and they took it in like lepers who’d been living in a cave. I envied the proud gleam in her parents’ eyes.

  Her relationship with her parents made things all the more difficult when, just two weeks before Christmas, Mr. Golden suffered a massive heart attack. He lived, thank God, but he spent days recuperating in the hospital. He had to have surgery to clear the blockage in his heart.

  The night it happened, Rudy called me sobbing so hysterically I couldn’t understand anything she said. Terrified, I had jumped out of my bed and run through the dark in my pajamas and rain boots. The Goldens’ front door was unlocked, and I tramped dirty snow through the house on my way up to Rudy’s bedroom. When I pushed the door open, she was sitting on top of the covers in her bed, her head buried in her hands.

  “It’s dad,” she sobbed. “What if he doesn’t make it?”

  I took off my boots and climbed into bed with her.

  “It happened so fast. Jill, you should’ve seen the look on his face. He looked so scared. He…he just fell over.”

  I swallowed hard. What could you say to that?

  “It must be stress. Mom said the stress is too much for him.”

  “He’s going to be okay. It’ll all be fine.”

  “But how do you know that?”

  “I just know,” I said.

  She lay her head in my lap, and I stroked her hair while she cried some more.

  Inside, I was shaken. The image of Mr. Golden – the ultimate father figure – in a hospital bed plagued my mind. It felt perverse; a role reversal, with my rock of a best friend crumbling to pieces. I tried to put up a strong front.

  “Thank you for coming over. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she told me.

  For years, I’d been thinking those exact words about her. But, oh, how inadequate I felt when she said she needed me back.

  After that, Rudy stopped smoking completely. She stopped going out for a while, too, hovering around her house even when her parents weren’t around. I think the heart attack scared some reality into her.

  Of course, it doesn’t take long for seventeen year olds to regain a sense of invincibility. We were back to our old antics soon enough.

  The grandest New Year’s Eve of my life was celebrated at none other than Caleb Rowling’s house. Since then, I’ve experienced many New Year’s celebrations that were happier, but none that have equaled junior year in terms of pure extravagance.

  Rudy and I wore glittering cocktail dresses over dark tights and black high heels, and sported red lipstick. We wore our hair in big, glamorous curls. We got Kent, who had been guilted into coming home for the holidays after Mr. Golden’s heart attack, to buy us a bottle of Goldschlager to bring to the party. We’d never had it before, but we thought the gold flecks would be classy and cool. M
y mother let me borrow a pair of her diamond earrings to wear with my silver dress.

  We arrived at Caleb’s an hour early to help assemble martinis, and he greeted us at the door, a glass of scotch in his hand.

  “Happy New Year’s, ladies,” he smiled.

  “Don’t you look dapper,” I smiled back.

  He looked incredibly hot in his tuxedo, with his blonde hair swept back from his face.

  “You both look beautiful yourselves.”

  He led us through the foyer, which was fully decorated in crystals and sequins and glittering garlands, and into the kitchen, where his sister Haley, a sophomore, was unpacking martini glasses from Styrofoam filled cardboard boxes. There must have been a hundred real glasses set out on the kitchen table.

  “I like your dresses,” she smiled, flattening an empty box and setting it aside.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Yours is beautiful, too,” Rudy added. “How can we help?”

  Rudy and I assigned ourselves the task of mixing the martinis. Who cared if the guests wouldn’t arrive for another forty-five minutes? What could you do? We slowly filled each of the glasses.

  Caleb’s parents had gone to Aruba for the holiday, leaving their children with a multi-thousand dollar limit on their credit cards and instructions to make sure the house was clean when they returned home. No questions asked, just make sure it was clean. Exactly how they had left it.

  Obviously Haley had been in charge of most of the party planning. The table in the dining room was covered in silver platters with caviar and crab legs and little cucumber sandwiches. All over the house, little white lights twinkled where they had been hung tactfully from the ceiling, and on the tables sat elaborate silver and crystal centerpieces. There were bags of silver foiled confetti, waiting to be tossed at midnight. I couldn’t fathom the mess all those flecks of foil would leave behind in the morning.

  Before the first guests arrived, the four of us toasted with shots of Goldschlager.