So I'm A Double Threat

by Julie Prestsater

  We find our spot in the middle of the quad. A small hill, with a shady tree, in the middle of a grassy area. I open my granola bar and begin searching for Alex. I practically break my neck scanning every inch of the quad for a glimpse of his hotness. Much to my disappointment, I cannot find him anywhere. He must have a secret place or have first lunch. Oh, that would suck. Although, I’m sure I can find some other candidates to feed my boy crazy appetite. High school is like a buffet of cute guys.

  Lunch doesn’t last long before the bell rings and the masses start migrating to fifth period. All of us have P.E. next, then English. It’s kind of cool we have so many classes together. The only classes we don’t share are first and second, they’re flip-flopped though—Steph and I in one and Amy and Keesha in the other. It’s to be expected, since we’re all on the honors track. I think the four of us have basically had the same classes together since sixth grade. That’s the way it works. All the smart kids are always grouped together. They wouldn’t dare put us with the regular kids. Our parents would probably flip thinking we’d start doing all sorts of bad things from fraternizing with the riff raff. Little do they know, it’s really the other way around. Shhh, don’t tell anyone though.

  “So what’d you think of Ms. Gelson?” Keesha asks as we leave our sixth period class.

  Amy speaks up first. “She seems alright, but seriously, do we have to start off the year with Shakespeare?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Isn’t there an author who lived like in the last ten, even hundred years, who is worth reading?” I roll my eyes. “I mean, it’s like the whole world evolves except for in literature class. I think our parents, and grandparents, maybe even Jesus Himself read freakin’ Shakespeare their freshmen year in high school.” My voice gets higher and my face hotter as I complain. I hate Shakespeare.

  Steph is waiting, on edge, to get a word in. “What the hell is the point in reading Romeo and Juliet in the first place? It’s not like we all don’t know the sad stupid story. What psycho girl would kill herself over a dumb guy anyways? Chicas.” We all look at Steph and she begins, “Friends are forever.”

  “Boys, whatever!” we all shout, putting our hands together to form a “W”. We stop, look at each other again, and then laugh our asses off. Hey, it’s silly. I know, but it’s much better than what the guys say, Bros Before Hos. This has been one of our favorite shout-outs since we were in middle school. That sounds funny, doesn’t it? Since we were in middle school.

  It’s only our first day of high school and already junior high seems like so long ago.

  Chapter Four

  Waiting two weeks for the first home football game seems like an eternity, but now the time is here. I get to see Alex in his football uniform. You know, the one with the tight pants that show off his muscular legs, firm bootie and…other thrilling shapes.

  I can’t wait.

  Time is dragging as I begin to get ready. School has been out for about an hour and I’m going nuts with boredom killing time till I get to jet out of the house for the game. My parents wanted me to be home immediately after school—without any of my friends in tow—since I’m going to be out for most of the night. My friends’ parents followed suit and they all had to spend “quality time” at home too.

  What’s the deal with that? I hate when parents think too much. We all know this ridiculous irrational mentality. Since you are going out tomorrow, you need to stay home with your family tonight. As if they’re going to spend time with me contemplating the meaning of life, or reminiscing about the good old days. Yeah right. They just want to know I’m here, in this house, with them, dreading the slow, lonely passing hours till I get to escape.

  Okay, so it’s not too bad—I’ve been known to exaggerate—but it would be so much better if my girls were here with me, or if I was with them. It pretty much sucks trying to figure out what I’m going to wear all by myself. Well, not really by myself—I think I’ve called Steph like five times, and Keesha has called me a couple times too and they have each talked to Amy.

  What a process.

  We do have part of our wardrobe already selected for us. Jen turned our lame ASB shirts into some pretty hot tops by cutting slits down the sides and tying the pieces in knots to hold the shirt together. It shouldn’t be too difficult to complete the ensemble. But hey, it takes a lot out of you to figure out the right jeans and shoes to wear. I think I’ve tried on five pairs of jeans already. I know it sounds dumb, but seriously, they all fit a little different. And, how about these accessories? Earrings, no earrings. Belt, or no belt. That’s a task in itself. Not to mention my hair. What am I going to do with my hair? Do I wear it up, like an athletic style, since I’m going to a game? Or do I leave it down, flat-ironed, sleek, smooth, sexy?

  Sexy? That’s a laugh. Like a 14 year-old can, or even should be sexy. But, I sure as hell am going to try. Just without a thong, that’s for sure.

  Six o’clock. Finally. I sprint out the door and head to school—I’ve been watching the minutes pass in slow motion on the kitchen clock for the last twelve minutes. I’m like Michael Phelps off the starting blocks at the sound of the gun, getting to school in world record time.

  My legs don’t even hurt, or I’m too excited to notice. Miraculously, I’m the last one here. How did this happen? I guess it’s my lucky day. I don’t have to wait like I usually do. Hopefully, I’ll be as lucky for the rest of the night.

  Before we enter the stadium, we find a secluded spot under a giant oak tree in the quad.

  “So, did you bring it?” Keesha asks, eyes wide-open and anxious.

  “What do you think?” Amy snaps, revealing four mini-bar sized bottles of Malibu Rum from her backpack. You can’t lug around a full bottle too easily. We’ve tried before. And we can’t drink beer. Anyone can smell it a mile away. The scent of Malibu can easily be played off as any sweet-scented body spray.

  My mouth starts to water when I see the little palm trees on the side of the bottle. Ever since we got our first taste at Amy’s eighth grade graduation party, we’ve been having a great time trying different drinks throughout the summer. Amy’s parents have a well-stocked bar and never notice when something is missing. So far, the coconut-flavored rum is our favorite, and drink of choice.

  “Do you really think we should do this?” Steph scans the quad, looking for someone to catch us. “It’s only the first football game, and we actually have jobs to do tonight. Don’t you think Mr. Mitchell will notice?”

  “Geez, Steph, you’re such a buzz kill.” I tease her, rolling my eyes. “So what if it’s the first football game? That’s exactly why I wanna take a shot…you know, take the edge off, kill the nerves, loosen up.” I wiggle around and take Steph’s arms to shake her. “It’s not like we’re going to be falling all over the place with this wimpy excuse for a drink anyway.” I look down at my miniature bottle.

  I crack the top open and down the few ounces of the thick, sweet, coconut concoction till it’s all gone. I can feel a tiny bit of warmth go through my body from my throat, down to my stomach, and then to my toes. Just a little though. I’m not a lightweight or anything.

  “Damn, Meg, you could have waited for us.” Amy clicks her tongue at me. Then she quickly pops open her own bottle and chugs it down within seconds. She licks her lips, then speaks again. “We could have toasted to the football team, or to you and Alex, and your hot, wild, sex on the fifty yard line.” She motions a fake toast at me. “You might get lucky tonight, Meg. You look hot. You should straighten your hair more often.”

  Was that a compliment? From Amy?

  Keesha is already closing her drink. She threw it back without me even noticing. But Steph is still holding her prize with disgust, like it’s filled with Anthrax or something.

  “Let’s not let yours go to waste,” I tell Steph as I snatch the bottle from her hand. I take a sip, then pass it to Amy and Keesha so they can finish it off.

  “Someone has to watch out for your drunk asses,” Step
h groans with an attitude. She’s the mommy of the group, always watching out for us. The rest of us can’t say no to a good time. But Steph, she doesn’t like the feeling of not being completely in control. She just chills and takes it all in. Keesha, Amy, and I are a different story.

  We toss the tiny bottles in a paper bag, wad it up, and ditch them in a trash can. This is too easy. If they only knew. Our parents, our teachers, everyone. Everyone who thinks we’re so different, so special.

  We walk out of the darkness, noticing the stadium is already filled with people—students, parents, little kids, school staff, security. We head over to the handball courts where we’re supposed to meet our class.

  The football team is already on the field doing stretches. I can’t tell one guy from another with their helmets on. They all look the same…and shit. I don’t even know what number Alex is. What a freakin’ loser I am. Seriously, that little piece of information would be useful. Ugh.

  We join our classmates to get down to business. So the event—for ASB, anyways—goes like this: each class has to create a balloon arch in their class color. We also need to hang up posters representing our class all over the home side of the stadium. At halftime, Mr. Mitchell is going to lead a spirit yell, or class yell. It’s supposed to be a competition between the classes. We’ve already been told freshmen don’t have a chance. Why not? I think to myself, we can yell just as loud as everyone else.

  We begin to blow up balloons full of helium. All the freshmen are looking to each other for help, but there’s one big problem—none of us know how to make an arch full of balloons. It’s not like we’ve taken Balloon Arch 101 before getting into this class. Shoot. Come to think of it. It should be a prerequisite. None us know what the heck we’re doing.

  “No, I think you do it like this,” one guy says, as he snags a tied balloon from another guy’s hand.

  “No, you loser, you do it like this,” Amy yells, showing them how to tie the balloons together. I honestly don’t know how to make it work, so I’m not going to try and fake it, which is what I think Amy is doing.

  The twine is getting tangled and we seem to be doing a better job of tying each other up than creating anything that resembles an arch. And it has nothing to do with our pre-game beverages either. Although, Steph makes us promise to never drink before another ASB activity again.

  “Hey, so whatcha guys working on. You look like you need help,” this guy in a red shirt asks. He’s definitely a senior.

  We all stop to listen to the upperclassman who’s trying to talk to us. “We can’t quite figure out how to get this arch put together,” Steph admits.

  “No prob, I can help. We had this problem too the first time we tried,” Rusty says, with a smile. I remember him from the party. Who can forget a name like Rusty?

  He instructs us to blow up the balloons and tie them together in a bunch of different ways. Blow the balloon, tie it off. Wrap the twine here on this balloon, then there on that balloon. Then do it all again. Before I realize it, we have about ten sets of balloons on this arch. It’s working.

  Wait a minute. One cluster comes loose from the twine and sets off into the dark sky. Wait, another one escapes.

  “What the heck is happening?” I shout. “We’re losing the balloons.”

  Rusty, the name should have been a clue, begins to laugh as one by one, the clusters of balloons fly away.

  “Get the hell out of here, you jerk,” Keesh yells.

  Steph watches Rusty as he walks away laughing. “This sucks. Our class is going to hate us.”

  “Who cares. Let’s just decorate a little, so we don’t look so stupid,” I suggest.

  That is how we end up with a float full of ugly posters and bunches of balloons, while the other ones could belong in the damn Thanksgiving Day Parade. Needless to say, we do not win the class yell. Once the freshmen in the bleachers got a peek at us, they were probably too embarrassed to yell or cheer.

  Ugh…LOSERS.

  Chapter Five

  While the football game is a bust, not only for us but for the team who suffers a disastrous loss, the after party is going to be freakin’ awesome. Yup, I did say “after party”. Unlike many freshmen, we’re actually invited. Our cool factor must have shot up in high school because as we strut our way from the stadium to the after party, we hear a honk and then a Volkswagen Golf pulls over.

  Can it be?

  “What’s up?” Alex asks, with his green eyes so hypnotic, my knees are about to buckle.

  Crap, all he said were two words and I think I’m going to melt.

  “Hey, Alex,” Amy calls back, noticing I’m in a trance.

  “What’s up, Alex?” Steph says.

  She knows I’m in lust with him. It was weird to admit, at first, since he’s going out with her sister. But she doesn’t seem to care much. Lydia and Steph aren’t close and she says Lydia likes a new guy every day, even though she is with Alex right now.

  “You wanna ride to the party?” the other guy asks. He is not as cute as my man, but he’s alright: spiky dark hair, nice smile, and a golden tan that brings out his piercing blue eyes. This guy was not at the end of the summer party. I would’ve remembered those baby blues.

  “Yeah, that’d be cool,” I say in a strained voice trying to hide my excitement, and my nervousness, “but there’s two of you and four of us. You think we’ll fit?”

  Have you ever seen a Volkswagen Golf? Alex’s car is like the size of a Hot Wheel. I’m surprised two big football players can even squeeze into that thing, much less four more girls, two of which are on the big-boned side.

  But we fit, all six of us.

  Just a short drive and we arrive at the party. The guys go along ahead of us. They are nice enough to give us a ride but apparently, they sure as hell don’t want to be seen with freshmen. It’s okay though, at least Alex cared enough to give us a ride, right? Maybe he spotted us walking and thought, There’s my girl. She shouldn’t be walking the streets at night by herself. I don’t want her to get hurt or anything. I’ll give her a ride…on my lap. Okay, okay. So maybe I’m getting a little carried away, again.

  But hey, he did give us a ride.

  So who cares if we don’t go in the party together.

  The street is filled with cars, teenagers walking to and from the party, and the lights from the D.J. can be seen coming from the backyard as we get closer. The music isn’t too loud. I can still make out the loud roar of kids and the sound of some of them actually puking their guts out in the bushes.

  Goal for the evening: don’t throw up.

  “This doesn’t look like such a good idea, after all,” Steph cautions. She probably sees the girl dry heaving in the bushes. I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  Or she witnesses, like I do, the half naked couple in the blue Honda Civic as we walk by. Damn, I wish I had those abs. I’d walk around naked everywhere if I had a body like hers. I doubt that chick gets supersized French fries with every meal. I’m not about to give up that habit, even if my mom wants me to. Staying clothed is definitely worth every bite.

  “Steph, don’t even trip,” Keesh snaps at her.

  “Yeah, it will be fun,” I say. “If it gets too crazy, we’ll go. But let’s, at least, check it out.”

  “Seriously, if you’re still buggin’ in about an hour, we’ll bounce, okay?” Keesha lightens up a bit because she can tell Steph is worried.

  Amy stands there acting pissy with her hands on her hips. She sighs as she tucks a piece of her long wavy hair behind her ear. I swear, if she rolls her eyes one more time, they’re going to pop out of her beautifully made up head. And if they don’t, I might have to do it for her. I hate her freakin’ attitude sometimes. I mean, sure, we all have our moods, but Amy’s affect all of us. It’s like if she’s not happy, no one is happy. When she gets all pissy like this, I try to stay calm, but one of these days…I’m gonna lose it.

  I look at each of my friends and turn to head towards the party. “Geez, let�
��s go already, I wanna see Alex.”

  They follow and finally, we’re all moving. Sometimes I think it would be better if we left Steph at home, since she worries so much. If she didn’t trip over everything, then Amy wouldn’t get so witchy. The tension makes everyone, especially me, feel uncomfortable. Every time we want to do something the least bit exciting, Steph hesitates and Amy gets pissy. I guess it’s good she’s cautious, but sometimes it just bugs.

  The closer we get, the more intense the music is. Of course, Keesha and I have already started to feel the rhythm as we walk into the backyard. The latest hip-hop tunes are coming from the speakers, and multi-colored lights are circling the place. Strobe lights make people look like robots as they dance and move from here to there.

  I can’t wait to get on the dance floor. However, we come to a stop at the first empty place. A cement bench that sits stylishly in front of a flower bed. Corey’s parents must’ve had their backyard professionally landscaped. Amy throws down her purse and takes a seat. Steph does the same. They look scared. As if we’ve never been to a party before.

  “Let’s dance.” I nod my head toward the dance floor.

  Keesh is standing right next to me. “Let’s hit it, girl.” She gives a little shake of her bootie.

  “You guys coming?” I ask.

  “Nah, I’m just gonna chill for now.” Steph waves me off and gets busy looking at her fingernails.

  Amy shakes her head and looks at us like we’re stupid for even asking.

  Keesh and I walk over to where people have crowded to dance. I don’t care if I’m dancing with another girl, I’m not the only one doing this. Many of the guys seem to be more interested in tapping the kegs of beer. Keesha and I find our groove, the movements come naturally. I love the feeling of the music pulsing through my body. The music gets faster, my hands move through the air, my hips thrust, heat floods my body from head to toe. I hit every beat with every inch of my being. If only everything could make me feel as good as dancing.