by Janice Repka
“Look at that couple,” said Miss Snipal. “They’re dancing too close.”
“Oh, come on,” said Mrs. Underwood. “I’ll bet you were bumping it with the best of them at that age.”
“Never,” swore Miss Snipal.
“How about you, Aphrodite?” asked Mrs. Underwood. “You like to cut a rug? Surely there were dances at Harvard.”
I checked the level of the punch bowl. “I suppose. I never had time for much other than my studies. Equations were my friends.” Apart from Bernie the Squirrel and Alice, the cleaning lady, nobody ever came to visit me while I lived at Dr. Goode’s house, and really, Bernie was in it for the Tootsie Rolls and Alice was there for the dirty sheets. Not that I wasn’t invited to parties. There were lots of parties, big academic affairs where school officials in gray suits showed me off like I was the first loaf of sliced bread.
“Pooh pah! Look at those students,” said Mrs. Underwood. Summer, Jordeen, and two older boys were thumping to the beat and laughing under the disco ball. “Can equations cut loose and live it up like that?” She sighed. “You’ve missed out on so much.”
While Mrs. Underwood checked on the couples on the bleachers, I thought about what she’d said. All the time I was skipping grades so I could go to college early, it never occurred to me that I might have been missing out on something important in the process. Now I knew what I had given up: dress shopping, mugging for cameras, joking with girlfriends, and dancing with boys. It was a world I had never explored. But why shouldn’t I? I decided to pretend I was a regular thirteen-year-old girl for the night and the students on the dance floor were my friends. I smiled until my lips began to ache.
The DJ put on a rock song that was so loud the refreshment table vibrated to the beat. I knew from a class I’d taken at Harvard that music played at such decibels could cause ear damage, and I wished I had anticipated the problem so I could have brought along some fitted earplugs. I looked under the table to see if there was anything I could use as a quick substitute. To my luck, there, right behind the chocolate syrup, was a large bag of miniature marshmallows. I used one of my manicured nails to poke a small hole in the bag and stuffed a mini-marshmallow in each ear.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Professor Wigglesmith?” It was Adam.
“Would you like punch?” I asked, trying to be loud enough to be heard above the music. “It’s got a bubbly kick.”
“Yes, please,” he said. I filled his cup and one for myself to propose a toast.
“To eighth-grade dances,” I said, tapping our plastic cups. I gulped down the entire sugary concoction, slammed the cup against the table, and wiped the remains off my lips with the back of my hand.
Adam put a finger under his shirt collar and pulled. “Professor Wigglesmith?” he said. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if . . .”
“What?” I asked, deciding the marshmallows had been a bad idea, but not knowing how to discreetly remove them.
“If you would like to dance?” he shouted.
On the dance floor, laughing silhouettes hipped, hopped, shook, and boogied. How would it feel to be one of them? I had already poured a dozen cups of punch and arranged them in front of the bowl in case I got busy. Surely I wouldn’t be missed for just a few minutes. “Yes,” I shouted back. “I would love to dance.”
The loud music cut off abruptly, and the DJ chirped, “All right you adolescent lovebirds, this slow one is coming at you from the hot new group, Once Bitten. It’s ‘Don’t Walk Away.’ ”
I met Adam at the edge of the dance floor. He put a hand on the small of my back, and I reached up and perched both of my hands on his shoulders. He was so much taller than me that, with my arms stretched up, it must have looked like I was hanging on to the side of a mountain.
When the music started, we began to sway back and forth. I wasn’t really sure how to dance, having only seen people do it on television, and I kept waiting for him to suddenly dip me or toss me up in the air. In reality, dancing for the first time is profoundly less dramatic. Basically, we wobbled like penguins as I stared at his shirt buttons and he gazed somewhere a foot over my head. Still, the rhythm of the music was quite mesmerizing. Once I closed my eyes, with the music muted by the marshmallows to a soft hum, it was enjoyable.
Albert Einstein once said that if you put your hand on a hot stove for a minute it will seem like an hour, but if you sit with a pretty girl for an hour it will seem like a minute. Never had his theory of relativity been more real to me. The music ended, but we continued to sway. When we pulled apart, I discovered we were the only couple on the floor. The rest of the students were mostly at the refreshment table, except for Timothy. He was standing next to me with a cup, saying something.
“What?” I asked as the DJ cranked up another loud song.
“I brought you punch,” Timothy repeated loudly.
“Thank you,” I mouthed, taking the cup. The odd smell hit me first. Then I noticed the strange deep reddish brown color and thick, chunky consistency to the liquid.
“What is this?” I yelled, holding it as far from my nose as possible.
“It’s punch,” Timothy shouted. “The bowl was empty, so I made more from the nottles yonder the stable.” At least that’s what it sounded like he said.
“Nottles yonder the stable?” I asked.
“I said, ‘I made it from the bottles under the table.’ ”
My brain clicked to a mental image of the refreshment supplies: the Hawaiian Punch, orange juice, and ginger ale, but also the Hershey’s chocolate syrup for the sundaes and Tabasco sauce and salsa for the nacho dip. “All of the bottles?” I shouted frantically.
“Sure,” yelled Timothy. “Why not?”
That’s when I saw the DJ, one hand suspended over the turntable, the other hand accepting a glass of punch from a student. I watched helplessly as he tilted the drink to his mouth and took in a gulp’s worth. The DJ’s cheeks inflated like overblown tires as he tried to keep the nasty concoction from being swallowed. The record-playing needle scratched across the turntable and the music died. While everyone stared, the DJ’s eyes bulged and he raced around for a place to spit. He made it to a trash can, and the nasty punch shot from him like a gastrointestinal geyser.
“That’s the most disgusting thing ever!” he cried.
Unfortunately, not all the others holding half-empty cups were able to locate places to safely dispose of their hideous brew. Even more unfortunately, nothing is more likely to make someone who hasn’t had something obnoxious to drink throw up than the sight of others retching. Soon the dance floor was covered with random puddles of putrid punch.
Mr. Ripple rushed past me with a bucket and mop. “You!” he said. “What was in that punch?” He flopped the mop into a puddle and began pushing.
How could I respond? That I wasn’t sure because I was too busy wobbling like a penguin with one of my students to notice the bowl had gone empty?
“You should know better than to leave your post,” Mr. Ripple yelled. “I saw you dancing out there when you were supposed to be taking care of the refreshment table. Now look at the mess your irresponsible behavior caused.”
Without the music blaring, his voice carried through the whole gym. Heat rushed to my face. He was right. This was my fault. I had no business being on the dance floor. I was not like the other thirteen-year-olds. I was never going to have a normal life, and I should have known better than to try to pretend. For once I had acted impulsively, putting my emotions over my sense of responsibility, and look what had happened.
The DJ came back and joked around with some students about having set off the punch-spewing rally. He looked around for a record to match the mood and, with a smile, placed one on the turntable. “Here’s a song for all you kids out there with your tummies in a twist. It’s by Shane Harper, but when you hear ‘dance with me,’ I want you to sing out ‘puke with me.’ ”
The students started laughing and dancing again. A couple of the
m whom Mr. Ripple had conscripted into janitorial duty even started to dance with the mops. Whenever the song hit its refrain, the students all yelled out “puke with me” like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Mr. Ripple turned and glared at me. I didn’t need to take the mini-marshmallows out of my ears to hear his message. Miss Snipal replaced me at the punch bowl. My services were no longer needed, and it was time for me to go. I drifted away from the dance floor and snuck toward the exit door. One push on the metal door and I was outside, alone in the darkness.
The sky was vast and starless. I dashed to the front of the building, making it to where the limo was parked. I wanted to go home, but if I took the limo it would leave the other girls stranded. I had a sudden urge to throw my shoes off and run. I would flip them high into the air, like Mindy does with her baton, and run home so fast that I wouldn’t hear them land. Home was where everything was orderly and predictable, from the 316 ceramic wall tiles in the bathroom to the 1,458 bristles in my toothbrush. Maybe the comfort I got from predictability was the reason why, as Mindy had pointed out, I always did what was expected of me.
I had never deliberately disobeyed a rule in my life—until tonight. The time I glued the chairs to the students’ rear ends to try to get them to listen, the incident when I took them to the pool hall to learn about angles but didn’t get written permission slips beforehand, those were just innocent mistakes. Leaving the punch bowl unattended so I could go dancing was something I had done intentionally. It was all so confusing. Sometimes I felt like a teacher pretending to be a student and other times I felt like a student pretending to be a teacher.
Headlights appeared out of the darkness. The windows to a sedan were open, and I could hear loud party music blaring as it sped by. The car swerved, and the driver had to regain control and proceed at a slower pace.
Control, I thought. I have to stay in control. I found my cell phone where I’d left it in the limousine and called my mother. Fortunately, she was used to dropping everything for emergencies without demanding details.
“I’ll be right there,” Mother said.
The drive home took forever. The night had turned chilly, and I removed Mindy’s shoes and held my feet near the car’s floor heater.
“Mother,” I said, “I want to ask you a question. But I don’t want you to answer it as a parent, just as a person.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Do you ever feel like you’re just pretending to be yourself, and if you really had to be yourself you wouldn’t know who to be?”
“What a strange question,” she replied.
I tried to gather my thoughts better. “If I hadn’t skipped all those grades and gone to Harvard, if I had stayed in regular school instead—what do you think I would be like?”
“Are you having regrets?”
I went to push the bangs out of my eyes, but they weren’t there. “I don’t know, I said.
“Is this about the phone call from Harvard?” Mother asked.
“What?”
“On the answering machine. It was Dr. Goode. He said that the board of trustees read about your teaching success in an article in The New York Times. Now that you’ve collected enough field data, Harvard wants you back.”
By morning, there were four messages on the machine.
“Why does everyone look so serious?” Father asked as he came into the kitchen for breakfast. He grabbed a cereal bowl and poured in milk.
“Aphrodite is having second thoughts about taking the position at Harvard,” said Mother.
“I didn’t say that, exactly.” I scraped my oatmeal into the trash can and placed the bowl in the dishwasher. “I’m just not sure I’m ready to go back. I mean, how do I know I’ve really proven my theory until my students win the Great Math Showdown? Besides, how would they feel if I suddenly left them?”
“Maybe you should talk to Mindy,” Mother suggested. “The two of you have been spending a lot of time together. She could let you know how the other students would feel.”
It was a great idea, right up there with the high-waisted plumber’s pants Mother made for herself to avoid plumber’s butt. A heart-to-heart chat with Mindy would be just the thing to help me decide if I should take the position at Harvard right away or stay at Carnegie Middle School. So many things had happened at the dance; I was grateful to have a friend I could discuss them with. I dialed Mindy’s home number six times, but getting no answer, decided to walk to the beauty shop.
Tiffany’s House of Beauty & Nails smelled like polish remover and hair dye. I knew the chemicals could kill brain cells, but I liked the smell because it reminded me of getting ready for the dance.
“So the beauty queen graces us with a visit,” said Tiffany with a wink, admiring the hairdo she’d created for me. I had slept sitting up all night so as not to ruin it.
“Hello, Mrs. Loft. Is Mindy around?”
“She’s been up in her room sulking since she got back last night. Says she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“Would it be all right if I went up to say hello?”
“Be my guest,” she said. “Remind her she’s got an appointment to do a set of nails in an hour—whether she’s in the mood or not.”
By the time I got to the top of the steps leading to the Lofts’ apartment, I was positive that a nice chat with Mindy would make everything better. Foolish me.
16
Mindy Shows Her True Color
Okay, okay,” I hollered when I heard the knock on the door. Then I made the mistake of glancing in the mirror on my way to answer it. I was wearing the same dirty bathrobe and pajamas I had slept in, if you want to call all that lousy tossing and turning I did the night before sleep. The ringlets were still in my hair, but they were totally limp and frizzy. Yesterday’s makeup was smudged like war paint across my face.
I cracked open the door, trying to see who it was, without letting them see me. It was the totally last person in the universe that I wanted to be there—Dytee. “What do you want?”
She stumbled backwards a little. “Mindy?”
“No,” I said. “I’m the creature from the green lagoon.”
“I think you mean the creature from the black lagoon.”
“It’s my lagoon. I can make it any color I want.”
She smiled, confusing my irritation for humor. “May I come in?”
“What for? Is there something you want to steal in here?” Before she could answer, I turned and headed off to the bathroom to wash the makeup off my face. I poured warm water into my hands and scrubbed until it all ran down the drain. Meanwhile, Dytee had let herself in and appeared beside me.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
I patted my face dry so hard with the towel that it scratched. “Wrong?” I yelled. “How can you even ask after what you did to me?”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit flummoxed,” she said, shrinking back. “What specifically did I do?”
“Don’t play sweet and stupid,” I said, throwing my dirty towel at her image in the mirror. “You totally know what you did—you boyfriend stealer—so drop the innocent routine. I like Adam, and I have dibs on him. You don’t go dancing with someone when someone else has dibs. You’re an eggs Benedict!”
“I think you mean Benedict Arnold.”
“Don’t try to tell me what I mean. The entire eighth grade saw you, and everybody knows I like him. Do you realize how embarrassed I was? Not only did he not ask me to dance, he asked you—of all people!”
“This is a misunderstanding,” Dytee said. “Adam and I don’t like each other that way.”
I pushed her toward the front door. “If you expect me to believe that, you are treeing up the wrong bark. You’ve had a crush on him since day one. If you ask me it’s disgusting, because you’re supposed to be a teacher, and you shouldn’t be hitting on your students.”
“I don’t think I would even know how to hit on a student,” she said, “even if I wanted to.”
“So you don’t think Adam is good enough for you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“See,” I said. “You do like him.”
“He’s nice person,” she said. “Look, maybe I should come back at another time.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Just run out on me, like you did at the dance. First you ignored me the whole time you were there. Then you stole my dibfriend. Then you ruined the dance with your stupid vomit punch and snuck off without even saying good-bye.”
“When did I ignore you?” she asked.
“What? Are you really going to pretend you didn’t hear me call your name a half-dozen times when you walked by me without an acknowledgment?”
She sighed, looked me directly in the eyes, and said, “I had marshmallows in my ears.”
It was the most stupid, unbelievable thing I had ever heard. “Here’s a lesson for you called Friendship one-o-one,” I told her. “First, friends don’t lie to each other. Second, they don’t steal the boyfriends of other friends who have dibs. Third, they don’t ignore each other at dances. And fourth, they don’t do stupid stuff that louses up the dance for everyone else in the school. It was completely ruined! Everybody got so out of control that they had to shut down the dance early and send us all home.” I folded my arms dramatically. “Now, leave.”
She slunk out, and then turned as if to say something. I quickly slammed the door. The bang was so satisfying I decided to do it again. I flung the door back open. She was still frozen in place. “I wish you’d never come to Carnegie Middle School!” I yelled, and for good measure I added, “Why don’t you go back to Harvard where you belong?”
I slammed the door even harder, and listened for Dytee’s footsteps. After a minute of silence, I flung the door back open, but she was gone.
I let Dytee stew that night, but I never can stay mad long-term, because I always feel better after I tell someone off. By morning I had already decided to forgive her. I didn’t really want to lose her friendship. Spending time with Dytee was different than with other girls. She was always willing to listen, didn’t shy away from serious subjects, and helped me without expecting anything in return. Of course, she shouldn’t have danced with Adam. A good friend would have realized I had a crush on him and encouraged him to dance with me instead. And, as much as it did sound like the weird kind of thing she might actually do, a good friend wouldn’t stuff marshmallows in her ears when she knew her good friend was at the same dance and might want to talk to her.