“It was a sympathy dance,” Sarah told us while Kurt was away. “I played the pathetic card. Figured that was his best shot.”
But Ashley looked like she was having a good time, not like she was on a mission of mercy.
The principal, Mr. Whitmer, announced the prom king, queen, and court. None of our clique collected enough, if any, votes, which was no surprise. Sarah excused herself several times throughout the evening to use the restroom, but we knew she was meeting John near the john for little visits. Brent seemed to think something was off, but had no real clue.
Eric stood. “Excuse us,” he said, reaching for Kate’s chair. By default, he’d become one of the fold ever since they had officially started dating. “C’mon,” he said, leading Kate to the dance floor, then getting lost in the crowd. When Eric thought no one was looking, he copped a feel. She looked slightly embarrassed, but didn’t stop him, almost invited more by the way she pressed herself against his body. It was unusual seeing Kate act that way, but after the Chemistry incident, she’d changed.
Reese and I didn’t dance, much; he was unable to get into a headbanger rhythm like those raising the dead on the dance floor, and I was happy just hanging out. But we danced to prom theme song “Almost Paradise.” Appropriate. No sweaty palm worriment. No anxious heartbeat. Dancing with Reese was comfortable, like embracing an old friend.
* * *
Organized post-prom festivities commenced at the community center following the main dance, a kosher opportunity to spend the whole night together with more dancing, games, snacks, and general chatter. Parents felt post-prom was a way to keep business from motels, convenience stores, and policemen.
“Did you see that? Sarah is dancing over there in the corner with John, and Brent is sitting at the table by himself!” I said to Reese, amused.
“Heh, heh, leave it to Sarah,” he said.
Three more dances and we were danced out. By this time, most of the girls had, in one way or another, acquired their dates’ bow ties. “I want this,” I said, reaching for Reese’s tie. He gladly gave it up, helped me put it on.
“Look good?” I asked, but didn’t need to ask. I saw the answer in his eyes.
Kate and Eric left hours earlier. Kurt left just in time to milk his 4-H project. Sarah returned to Brent only to tell him she had her own ride home, effectively giving him the brush off.
“See you at breakfast,” Sarah said to us on her way out with John. We planned sunrise breakfast at Sarah’s house to round out the long night. Reese dropped me off at my house to change clothes first. As I was about to close the car door, I remembered the tie. “Oh, here,” I said, starting to remove the bow tie from my neck.
“Keep it. You can keep it,” Reese urged.
“Are you sure? Don’t you have to return it with the tux?”
“Keep it. I want you to have it.”
“Thanks,” I said, marveling at how nice he was. I closed the door, turned and waved as Reese backed out of the drive. Wow, he said he wanted me to keep the tie . . . .
Whiskers inspected me at the front door, sniffing, everyone else, asleep. I cleaned up, changed into sweats, and caressed the tie. He let me keep the tie, I said to myself, still in happy disbelief. I placed my ‘Almost Paradise’ commemorative wine glass with Reese’s tie on my shelf, took a step back, and thought about what a great time prom, with Reese, had been.
I sat on my front porch watching the sun rise until Reese pulled up. He was wearing sweats too.
“One night in a penguin suit is enough,” he said.
“Tell me about it. My feet are killing me,” I said, relishing my tennis shoes. Penguin suit . . . I chuckled.
Sarah yawned as she made everyone scrambled eggs and bacon.
“What’d you do to Brent? He sure looks different this morning,” Kurt said, examining John who remained quiet.
Sarah shrugged, setting the food in front of us and said, “Lost him.”
While I ate I thought about what terrific friends they all were. And, with sadness, how this fantastic year was nearing an end. Subdued from being up all night, we quietly cleared our plates.
“Thanks for breakfast,” Reese and I said in unison, leaving Sarah’s house. “See ya later.”
“Alligator,” Sarah called after us, nearly peeing herself with laughter.
“Might have been a champagne breakfast for her,” I said to Reese. He and I looked at each other, unsure about our friend.
Reese dropped me off again, this time to go home and sleep half the day. I paused on my way out of the car. “Thanks for asking me to prom. I had a really good time.”
“So did I.” Reese hesitated then said, “I’ll give you a call this afternoon. We can ride bikes or something.”
“Okay,” I said, closing the door.
CHAPTER 6
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
That Sunday afternoon marked the beginning of the beginning. Instead of calling, Reese came right on over on his bike. Jo cornered him at the front door, giving him a good tease about keeping me out all night. Reese and I rode our ten-speeds down tree-lined Burbank Street, meandered along to McKinley and finally around to the high school where we stopped to sit on sun-soaked bleachers.
“The Rotary district manager called me on Friday, told me I’ve been accepted to go to Australia next year,” I said, having saved the news until after prom. Reese knew of my exchange student plans, but my host country had been undetermined, until now.
“That’s great! It’s just what you wanted!” Reese said, happy for me. I was thrilled, finally able to go where I had longed to for years.
“When do you leave?”
“July. The end of July.”
“Australia is a long way away. Half a world away.” Reese got quiet.
“I know.” A hint of sadness punctuated my good news. Reese got up, held out his hand. I took it. He’s touching me and we aren’t even at a dance or anything. My stomach lurched, excited. We rode to Sarah and Kurt’s to deliver the news: I was bound for Down Under.
* * *
I walked to school every day for the last month of the school year, passing by Reese’s house on the way with the hope that we would meet up and finish the walk together. Most days we did. Some days I screeched my made-up shrill birdcall to get his attention.
“What was that?” he would say. “I thought a damn bird was going to dive bomb me or something.” He was the only person who thought my bird screech talent funny. Everyone else thought it was just plain weird. It wasn’t until the last week of school that I figured out he must have been standing by in his side yard waiting for me rather than our daily rendezvous being just happenstance.
* * *
Cam -
Brent? Who’s Brent? John is my focus now. My dad really likes him for some reason.
Sarah
* * *
Sarah,
Maybe you’ve got it right this time.
I’ve got to ask you something. What do you think of Reese and me . . . lately?
Wondering, Camryn
* * *
Dear Wondering Camryn:
Woo Woo! I think he is silly. He’s never serious, but you are changing that because he wants to impress you. You are like brother and sister.
Kate thinks you have too much in common and get along so well it makes her sick. Kurt says you are like two peas in a pod and are perfect for each other. A very cute couple.
There you go—bye, bye. Sarah
* * *
Sarah-
What does Woo Woo mean? Why would Reese want to impress me?
Camryn
* * *
Camryn,
Woo Woo is what you say when someone of the opposite sex likes someone and you want to tease them. He wants to impress you because he likes you—duh!
Sarah
* * *
He likes me? As in likes me? Brot
her and sister? Two peas in a pod? Perfect for each other? It was all very deep, almost too good to be true.
* * *
Our last day of school let out early. Reese and Kurt played basketball in the driveway at Reese’s house. His mother sat outside, taking a break. I joined her and watched while soaking in the sun, happy, but with an open-ended, uncertain feeling. High school was over for me—only the graduation ceremony left, then work away the summer at McDonald’s until I departed the Northern Hemisphere.
“I’m having a few people over tonight after graduation. Would you and Reese like to come?” I asked Reese’s mom. “Mr. Dahlgren too, if he wants.”
“We’d love to,” she said.
I was glad Reese’s mom was coming, but didn’t know why it made me happy. We chatted briefly about my exchange student program, my future college plans, if I was nervous about going away, etc. She wanted all the details and I was more than willing to share. Nothing like winning over the boyfriend’s mother. Boyfriend? Reese wasn’t my boyfriend. We weren’t even going out. He was a friend who happened to be a boy and we got along great. And we went to prom together. And I liked him. A lot. But we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. A boy had to ask you to go steady for that. We were just friends. Good friends.
Basketball in hand, Reese pointed my direction, daring me to a challenge.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mrs. Dahlgren, then ran to the driveway, joining the basketball frolic. Kurt departed soon after, leaving us to scrimmage by ourselves. If you could even call it a scrimmage when I was involved. It was more like my pathetic attempt to steal the ball from Reese, drawing fouls, and he sometimes letting me take possession. Basketball was a contact sport when I played with Reese and we both liked it that way, but never said it aloud.
“I have to go,” I said, suddenly frantic with a quick glimpse of my watch, “finish my speech.”
“You nervous?” Reese asked, surprised a little salutatorian address would disassemble me.
I bit my lower lip, nodded. “Don’t laugh,” I mock warned, heading home.
“We’ll cheer you on.” Reese raised two victorious fists in the air.
“Go, Camryn,” my fan club, all three members, hollered from the choir when Mr. Whitmer called me to the podium. The previously silent and respectful crowd laughed, then went silent again, all eyes on me. I managed to not trip and fall while taking center stage, and successfully delivered my prepared words of welcome and appreciation. Mother, even some friends from the old neighborhood (including free-spirit Nadine) attended the ceremony and joined us for refreshments afterwards.
“Cake, Evelyn?” Jo graciously asked my Father’s ex. I pretended having my mother in my father’s house wasn’t uncomfortable to the extreme. During a quiet moment of face stuffing, discrete ogling, and stifled giggles with my friends, I let a bird call loose. Reese laughed in shocked amazement. I sniggered back, our inside joke.
“What was that, some kind of mating call?” Nadine blurted out.
Unintentionally embarrassing myself, a bright scarlet blush heated my face to match the red hat I had stolen off Jo’s head.
“What the fuck was that?” Nadine ribbed again, maximizing the opportunity. Reese busted a gut, equally embarrassed. His mother and everyone else in attendance sized us up.
Instead of answering her, I maintained just enough composure not to spew cake out my nose. Tears of hilarity seeped from my eyes, choking off my speech. Nadine was pointing to us with her thumbs over her shoulders, looking at my friends, rolling her eyes, shrugging her shoulders and mouthing WTF? to my mother.
“What did she say?” Mother, clearly confused, asked no one in particular.
Contagious laughter spread, an involuntary reflex feeding upon itself, everyone laughing because everyone was laughing at something. Even Mother was laughing, but didn’t know she was laughing at herself, which was all the more hilarious, albeit lamentable.
“No accidents, people,” Nadine said, trying to restore order, but not really. “Don’t hurt yourselves.” She laughed, wiping the tears from my lobster-red face with her napkin. “Breathe already,” she said to me. “Need some mouth-to-mouth over here, Reese. The woman can’t breathe,” she announced. “Shit, if she wasn’t so red, she’d be blue!”
* * *
Milk Day rolled around again, this time more exciting than last. More exciting than mere bed races and selling fundraiser hot dogs for YF.
“Large fry,” Reese said, making sure he got my register at McDonald’s. “Too bad you have to work.”
“Tell me about it.” I plopped Reese’s change in his hand, pushed his tray of large fries across the counter.
“My cousin Jeff’s coming for Milk Day weekend. We’re camping in the back yard.” A mischievous twinkle formed in my eye. I made mental notes to myself, plotting a middle-of-the-night disturbance, sure Kate would play along.
When Reese left, I thought of everyone at the carnival having fun without me, screwed up a few orders. I checked the clock every five minutes until closing time, each time thinking ten must have gone by. I practically pushed the last customer of the night out the door, grabbed two leftover Quarter Pounders and bolted. “Outta here,” I said to anyone listening, halfway to my car.
Kate and I parked around the corner from Reese’s back yard. Sneak attack. I scratched the side of the tent with my fingers. Kate jumped around front. “Boo!”
No response. Crickets and a car driving two blocks over, the only sound.
“Where are they?” I said, wind let from my sails.
A voice punched from the dark. “What are you girls doing here?”
I jumped out of my skin. Kate screamed.
“I knew you’d come over,” Reese said, laughing at us and our foiled plan.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Because I know you.”
“Well you didn’t know I’d bring this.” I handed him the Quarter Pounders.
“Hey, thanks,” Reese said, surprised. He turned to Jeff, beaming. “She brought us Quarter Pounders.”
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Kate quipped. Who said I was after anyone’s heart?
“I already have his heart,” I said, teasing, giving him a playful shove. Reese picked me up and gently body slammed me into the ground, he on top. I wanted him to stay there. I wished I was sharing the tent instead of his cousin. As I grabbed the back of his jeans to give him a well-deserved wedgie, the Levi’s tag accidentally tore off.
“Oops, sorry,” I laughed, sticking the tag into my back pocket, keeping it. Forever.
“Fine, rip my pants off,” Reese teased.
“Never hurt to try,” I teased back, surprising myself. Reese looked pleased and scared all at the same time. Reese got up, helped me to my feet. I brushed the newly mown grass clippings from my jeans and shook them from my hair.
“When do you get off tomorrow?” Reese asked, knowing I had to work all weekend.
“Seven.”
“Come by here when you’re done and we’ll catch the carnival.”
“Can’t wait,” I said, stars in my eyes. Time with Reese made me happy inside, but there wasn’t much time left. Reese had plans. A week of University of North Carolina basketball camp, starting Monday. After camp, he would spend two weeks on the Outer Banks with his family at the beach, as they did every year. Three weeks without my playmate. I missed him whenever I thought of it and he hadn’t even left yet.
* * *
Saturday night at the carnival was the perfect reward for impatiently surviving a hectic McDonald’s rush, wishing the whole while I was somewhere else. Kate, Jeff, and Reese met me on the carnival grounds. I hurried over, still in uniform.
“Look what I won,” Reese said as I walked up. He was holding a rolled up poster in one hand and a small stuffed lion in the other. “You can have it.” He handed me the animal. I cuddled it, stroking its fur.
“What’s the poster,” I asked.
“Noth
ing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Kate said. “Show her, Reese.”
Jeff had a shit-eating grin on his face.
“It was Jeff’s idea,” Reese said, unrolling the scroll. We stopped in front of the very booth he had won it at, darts. Jeff handed the attendant a couple bucks for a few more throws. The poster prize selection consisted of fast cars, scantily clad women, ripped, bare-chested men, and some other black velvet Mickey Mouse. Reese held the top half of a fluffy blonde wearing a form-fitting, partially unzipped wet suit.
“Bull’s-eye,” Jeff declared after his last throw, then named his prize. When Jeff selected the brunette in an itsy-bitsy string bikini, I felt less bad.
“You have got to ride the Spinning Upchucker.” Reese handed Jeff the blonde poster and marched me by the shoulders to the waiting line, effectively removing us from our uncomfortable situation.
“Count me out,” said Kate. “I’m not riding that thing.”
“Wimp,” Reese and I agreed in unison. “Jinx—” Together again. We punched each other’s arms, laughing. “—you owe me a Coke.”
Jeff stayed behind, keeping Kate company while we horsed around before the ride.
“You knew that one too,” Reese said.
“My sister Karla jinxed me all the time growing up. I thought I’d have a permanent bruise on my arm.” I rubbed my bicep.
“So did Ryan,” Reese said. “Maybe we should introduce them. They’d made a good couple.”
“She’s taken. Married.”
“Already?” Reese asked, surprised.
I looked around to make sure Kate and Jeff weren’t listening. “She had to,” I said, wondering how much I should say. “I’ve been an aunt since I was twelve. Well, twelve for Karla’s kid. I’ve really been an aunt since I was nine. Mark had a kid when I was nine.”
“Your brother,” Reese said, making sure he was following.
“Yeah. Everyone else is older. I was kind of an aw, shit, there at the end, but my mother claims I was a surprise.”
Reese listened, unsurprised. Quiet.
“Okay, we’re next. You ready?” Reese said, pushing me forward.
“Of course I am. I’m ready for anything.” I climbed in first, thinking Reese would get squashed the most on the outside of the spinning, tilting, and undulating ride. Wrong. The ride threw me Reese’s direction. I rammed into him harder, exaggerating the G-force. Then Upchucker tilted and heaved the other direction causing Reese to slide into me. He retaliated, pinning me against the safety railing when I felt a strong, jolting zap in my upper left arm. My funny bone had not only been twinged, but obliterated.
Love, Carry My Bags Page 5