by Claire Cook
“I kid you not,” I said, “if you tap me on the shoulder while I’m dancing with Finn Miller, I will never, ever speak to you again.”
CHAPTER 32
I grabbed my door handle.
“Wait. I just want to sit here for a second.”
“Are you crazy? We’ve only got seventeen minutes left.”
“Eighteen.” B.J. sighed. “It’s just that this has always been my favorite part. You know, right before you get somewhere, when it’s all potential and the night can be anything. Derrick Donohue could be standing right by the front door hoping to catch a glimpse of me.”
“And ‘Nights in White Satin’ could be playing and Finn Miller’s eyes could light up the moment he sees me. Okay, time’s up—let’s go.”
“How does my hair look?”
“Great,” I said. I jumped out and gave my hair a quick fluff. I slid one side of my off-the-shoulder peasant blouse back down to where it was supposed to be. My white jeans had been whiter a few hours ago, but hopefully it would be dark enough inside that nobody would notice. We’d put our strappy sandals on in Veronica’s driveway. I had to admit mine were a lot less comfortable than my flip-flops had been.
A middle-aged man wearing only a pair of striped boxer shorts ran out the front door of the marine center and streaked around the building. A crowd of middle-aged people holding drinks followed him. He climbed the steel cable railing, wobbled, then pounded his chest and let out a Tarzan yell before he flopped forward into the water.
It was enough to get B.J. out of the Mustang. “Who do you think that was?”
The spectators, most of them dressed, peered over the railing and cheered.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He just looked like somebody’s father to me. Come on. I can’t wait any longer. And I really need to find a bathroom.”
“Fine. But before we go in I should probably give you a heads-up—”
A thunderous roar came from the deck, followed by a big splash.
“B.J., I mean it. Hurry. We’re down to fourteen minutes.”
The first thing I saw was my trio of box spring ladies. They were perched side by side in a softly lit niche set into the wall on one side of the huge beach stone fireplace. Their metal hoop skirts sparkled like jewels. The petunias in the hat of the first box spring lady were still perky, and her parasol was tilted like she was shading them from the sun. The second box spring lady held her parasol out in front of her like a weapon, as though she were protecting her friends. The boat propeller hat tied under the chin of the third lady gave her just the right nautical touch, as if I’d somehow known all along that she’d end up on display by the side of the sea.
A long rectangular table blocked our entrance. Two women with freshly frosted hair and no-nonsense looks on their faces sat behind it like bouncers. There was a sign on one side of the table that said A–L, and on the other, one that said M–Z. There were exactly two name tags left on the beachy blue tablecloth.
“It’s about time, Barb,” one of the women said to B.J. “You know you were supposed to be here at six thirty sharp to get ready for the committee receiving line.”
B.J. pretended to stick her index finger down her throat and kept walking.
The other woman stood up to block her. “Wait,” she said, “you forgot your name tag. We made special ones for the committee members.” She pointed to her own tag, which said ALICE ADAMS WARRICK! in royal blue Sharpie next to a black-and-white copy of her yearbook picture. “See, we get little gold stars next to our names . . .”
B.J. rolled her eyes. “Adorable. But I don’t need a name tag. Everyone will know who I am. And if not, oh, well, their loss.”
ALICE ADAMS WARRICK! crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t let you in without one, Barb. You were at the meeting when we voted on it.”
“Fine,” B.J. said. She grabbed her name tag, peeled off the back, and stuck it onto her forehead upside down.
The first woman shrugged. She took a sip of her drink and then handed me my name tag. “Hi, Melanie,” she said. She pointed to her own name tag, where her senior picture showed a person from an entirely different lifetime. “Bev Braxton. I know, you never would have recognized me. Sorry to hear about you and Kurt.” She lowered her voice. “You were always too good for him.”
B.J. grabbed me by the arm and yanked. She peeled her name tag off her forehead as we worked our way through the crowd.
Off to our right, a guy in a suit was leaning over a table dipping a shrimp into some cocktail sauce. B.J. tiptoed over and pressed her name tag to his butt.
He turned around and smiled boozily at her.
“Oops,” she said. “Thought you were someone else.” She reached past him for a shrimp.
“Classy,” I said. We worked our way through the crowded room. B.J. stopped to talk to someone and I kept going, on a mission to find the restroom. As much as I couldn’t wait to get here, now I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t belong, that I was impersonating someone who had gone to high school with all these strangers.
B.J. caught up to me. “Should I Stay or Should I Go” blasted out at a deafening volume, heavy on the bass, from two enormous speakers that seemed to have weathered as many decades as the people in the room.
“What?” B.J. yelled. “Are you kidding me? This isn’t one of our high school songs. I was practically a homeowner when this song came out.”
“So?” I yelled. “It’s a good song.”
“Some idiot on the committee had the crazy idea that if they played the music that came after us, it would make us feel younger, but I know we voted it down. Wait till I get my hands on that music subcommittee.”
B.J. stomped off into the crowd. I found the door to the restroom and pushed it open.
I took my place behind five or six women already in line. Two other women looked up from the sinks. “Melanieeeee,” one of them screamed.
“Hiii,” I said as I tried frantically to remember her name. I knew it began with a J, but was it Janie or Jeannie. Janet? I squinted at her nametag, trying to decipher it. Wouldn’t you think they could have at least made the font a little bigger?
“Kitteeee,” she said. She shook her hands dry as she lurched over to give me a hug.
“Ouch,” I said.
“Are you okaaaay?” she said. Her breath was strong and retro. Kahlúa Sombrero? White Russian?
“Fine,” I said. “Nice to see you again.” A stall opened and someone else I didn’t recognize emerged. The line inched forward.
Kitty Kahlúa Breath stepped behind me. “Ohmigod,” she screamed. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. Did Kurt do that to you?”
The line disbanded and re-formed behind my back. I thought about making a run for it, but my Tab-filled bladder wouldn’t let me.
A gasp filled the air.
“Relax,” I said. “It’s just purple marker.” I heard another gasp. “Really. Skin Skribe surgical marker.”
“You were always too good for Kurt,” somebody behind me said.
I peed as quickly as I could and managed to escape the restroom. B.J. was nowhere in sight, so I decided my game plan would be to cover every square inch of the room to make it easy for Finn to find me. Casually, so it wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard to be found.
The Beastie Boys were singing “Fight for Your Right to Party.” The après-swim crowd was just coming in, carrying their clothes and dripping water everywhere. The guy in his boxer shorts gave another Tarzan yell. He ran over and pretended to belly-flop on one of the tables.
“Pig pile,” somebody bellowed.
CHAPTER 33
Blue and white crepe-paper streamers zigzagged overhead. Bouquets of Best Class Evah helium balloons rose from flowerpots on each table. A few balloons had managed to break free and slip past the crepe paper to roll around on the wooden ceiling.
My stomach growled again. I grabbed a handful of Goldfish from a fish-shaped dish on a table and ate them fast, before anyone could te
ll me not to.
Mobiles made from actual vinyl record albums dangled from the ceiling around the DJ station on one side of the room. On the other side, big rectangles of fluorescent yellow and green poster board, already starting to curl at the edges from the seaside humidity, decorated the wall behind the bar with retro drink recipes written in huge, Boomer-friendly letters.
TEQUILA SUNRISE
2 oz. tequila
4 oz. orange juice
3/4 oz. grenadine syrup
Pour tequila and orange juice over ice in tall glass and stir. Tilt glass and pour grenadine down side. It will go straight to the bottom and rise up through the drink like a sunrise. Garnish with maraschino cherry and orange slice.
LONG SLOW COMFORTABLE SCREW UP AGAINST THE WALL
1 oz. sloe gin
1 oz. vodka
1 oz. Southern Comfort
1 oz. Galliano
orange juice
Mix all ingredients in tall glass filled with ice. Find a wall.
SEX ON THE BEACH
1 1/2 oz. vodka
1 1/2 oz. peach schnapps
2 oz. cranberry juice
2 oz. orange juice
Mix all ingredients in tall glass filled with ice. Find a beach.
I walked the outskirts of the room counterclockwise, hoping I’d recognize Finn if I saw him. Maybe casually waiting for him to find me wasn’t the way to go after all. Would it be totally embarrassing to have him paged?
Madonna’s voice joined the party with a rousing rendition of “Vogue.” The dance floor filled with people who were old enough to know better. The boxer short brigade had decided to air-dry and piled their clothes on an empty chair. They surged onto the dance floor en masse, and the dry people gave them their space. One of the swimmers was wearing only her very nice animal print bra and underpants set with strands of blue and white crepe paper knotted around her waist like a beach wrap. She looked amazingly good for our age. I wondered whether she’d had a pre-reunion tune-up.
I watched as the sea of dancers framed their aging faces and threw their hands behind their balding heads, remembering that short window of time when the whole world was striking poses and vogue-ing it all day long. It was definitely post-high-school, probably post-college, too, and that realization made me feel not younger, the way the music subcommittee intended, but practically ancient. Like so much of life, “Vogue” had passed me right by. Was I married already? Had Trevor and Troy been born yet? What was I doing when I could have been vogue-ing away?
A group of women were dancing together in a circle near the edge of the dance floor, flipping their expensive hair and flashing their freshly painted nails as they vogued. One of them caught my eye and motioned for me to join them. I smiled and backed away.
I turned and started walking in the other direction, narrowing my circles to make sure I’d casually covered every square inch where Finn could be waiting. I had a horrible feeling I’d eventually end up in the exact center of the room, twirling in a circle like the cheese who stands alone in “The Farmer in the Dell.”
Even with all the windows open and big ceiling fans circling frantically, I was starting to sweat. I worked my way up to the bar. First I’d have some water. Then I’d get a drink before it was too late. Would Sex on the Beach be too obvious? Finn would find me sitting at the bar and ask me what I was drinking. I’d look at him and smile and tell him to ask the bartender.
Years from now, he’d still be telling the story. So there I was, looking for the love of my life everywhere, and I finally find her up at the bar. And what do you think she’s drinking? So what could we do—we headed for the beach and stayed there till the sun came up.
Of course, we wouldn’t really have had actual sex on the beach. You had to be young and foolish to put up with all that sand, not to mention the fact that you’d be lucky to get a blanket, let alone a sexy top sheet to drape strategically over the body parts that had started to show some wear and tear. But we’d have sat on the beach and talked about old times, and planned some new ones, and kissed the night away.
Halfway to the bar, I spotted a woman I was pretty sure had been in Finn’s and my Algebra class. She still wore her hair long and parted in the middle. I wove my way over to her.
I squinted at her name tag. “You look great, Carrie,” I said.
“Connie.” She squinted at mine. “You, too, Melody,” she said.
“Hey, you haven’t seen Finn Miller, have you? There’s a quadratic equation I need to ask him about.”
“Let’s Dance” blasted out, burying her answer.
“What?” I yelled.
“Gone,” she yelled.
I made a final loop of the room, mortified to realize I was fighting back tears like a lovesick teenager. I heard B.J. yell my name from across the room somewhere, but I ignored her.
Finn Miller was gone. GONE. We’d passed each other like ships in the night, and now he was probably back in his hotel room, wondering how I could have done this to him. How I could have broken his heart twice in one lifetime.
The bar area was packed, no surprise, but there was a vacant chair down toward one end. I worked my way over, saying excuse me again and again. Finally, I wiggled my way up to the empty space.
David Bowie finished singing and the room burst into applause.
The bartender put a cocktail napkin in front of me. “Last call,” she said.
I looked at the clock on the wall behind her. In three minutes, I’d turn into a pumpkin to match the one on my back. I’d return to my hotel room and sit out on the pathetic little balcony and pout until the sun came up.
“I’ll have a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall,” I said. “Or a Sex on the Beach. Whichever is better. You decide.”
The bartender grinned. “I’ve had pretty good luck with both of them.”
“Surprise me.”
She walked away. I tapped the guy sitting next to the empty chair on the shoulder. “Is this seat taken?” I yelled.
Kurt turned around and looked me right in the eyes.
CHAPTER 34
Kurt and I went out in high school for about five minutes. We had a study hall together senior year, both cut off from the friends we usually traveled in a pack with by the randomness of scheduling. The holiday break had come and gone, and snow covered everything like a big white cocoon. College essays were in, and there was nothing to do but wait, and try not to let our grades slip too much in the final stretch before freedom.
“We have to make every single second count,” B.J. would say at least twice a day. She alternated this with “I am counting the seconds till we leave this hellhole behind.” Three can be a dangerous number for friendships, but for B.J., Veronica, and me, it worked. We were the kind of girls who only had boyfriends once in a while, and rarely at the same time. So the other two held the fort while one of us, usually B.J., was off dating.
My turn had come and gone junior year, and my lack of dating since then felt like a drought that might never end. “Don’t sweat it, Mel,” B.J. said, after three seniors in a row I had crushes on went off to date cute, perky sophomores. “It’s just that guys our age are actually three years younger in maturity. Developmentally, they have nothing to offer us. College is where it will all be happening.”
And then, after all that math, Finn Miller finally asked me out. He carried my books to my classes. He called me every night. He took me out on actual dates, to the movies, even to a concert.
“It’s just,” I said to B.J. and Veronica, “he kind of gets on my nerves.”
“I think he’s cute,” Veronica said as she flipped through the latest issue of Rolling Stone.
“So give him to Veronica,” B.J. said.
“I meant Art Garfunkel,” Veronica said.
B.J. held her place in her magazine with an index finger and slid over to get a look. “Get real,” she said. “His hair is way too frizzy.”
When I got up to sharpen a pencil in study hall one day
, I could feel Kurt watching me walk across the room. I held in my stomach and was glad I’d worn my good dungarees that day, the ones with bell-bottoms so wide they almost looked like a skirt. I even had on my favorite turtleneck bodysuit that snapped at the crotch. I had to sit just right for it to be comfortable, but it was worth every pinch for the long sleek line it gave me.
I took a roundabout way back to my seat, and when I passed Kurt’s chair I could feel the force field between us. I’d chosen this route so I could happen to look at him and smile, but I chickened out at the last minute.
We ignored each other for another week or two.
“I don’t like him,” B.J. said. “He thinks he’s way too cool for school. And he has a girlfriend.”
“Uh-uh,” Veronica said. “They broke up. She’s in my French class.”
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“You’re much prettier,” Veronica said, because she knew this was what I was really asking. “I think she dumped him. For one of her older brother’s friends.”
That weekend I called Finn and told him I needed to spend some time with my friends. The three of us tracked Kurt down at a party. It wasn’t that hard. The town was small, and only a limited number of parental units went away and left their high school seniors in charge of the house on any given weekend. Like maybe one. If we were lucky.
By this point in our senior year, you could feel the hard edges of the high school cliques softening, an early warning flash of the nostalgia to come. The freaks and the jocks and the band geeks could all coexist at the same party, as long as the music was loud.
We worked our way through the grass-filled haze, stopping to join a circle of kids passing a joint around long enough to take a toke to show how cool we were. Someone handed me a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine, and I wiped the top of it with my hand before I took a sip.