The Queen of Kentucky

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Want a drink?” she asks us mischievously.

  “You know it,” Wolf says right away. I can’t help but raise my eyebrows at the eagerness in his voice. “You know, I wanted to wait until I’d talked to your parents, in case they could smell it on my breath or something.”

  “Smooth operator!” Jimmy says, giving him props. Wolf half grins, beaming back at the upperclassman. I cock my head to one side, having one of those lightbulb-going-on-over-my-head moments. Is Wolf trying to fit in? Like he has to try!

  Kimi opens a compartment and passes him a beer. Just the sight of it gives me the heebie-jeebies, a major full-body tremor. She looks at me with a question in her eyes, but I shake my head.

  “Two words,” I say, holding up one finger and then two. “Cow. Poop.”

  Everyone laughs heartily and I realize that, as disgusting as last Saturday night’s nightmare in the pasture might have been, I now have my “out” for drinking.

  “We’ll let it slide for now,” Wolf says, putting his arm around my shoulders. I shiver. “But once we’re back in town and the whole gang’s here, you gotta at least do one toast. I mean, at least to this guy right here!”

  He gets rowdy and Jimmy responds. They do some type of guttural man sound and pound fists across the car.

  “Yeah, and I got a bottle of champagne, which tastes way better,” Sarah says, taking a swig of beer. “We can toast Jimmy’s big game!”

  “Yeah! You scored, like, a million points,” Kimi gushes. Sarah shoots her a quick back-off glance and Kimi smiles at her like a total brat. I giggle.

  As the stone fences rush together outside my window, I turn my attention to the sky, dazzling with a bajillion stars, and sigh. Everything is perfect. As we climb the hill before the Fosters’ house, I start feeling weird about making a stop here to pick up Paul instead of Luke. I don’t even know if Luke will come to the dance at this point, and I’m fighting with myself about whether I should go inside with Kimi.

  But it’s a moot point, I realize, as Paul is waiting at the end of his driveway in a simple gray suit. The limo doesn’t pull in, but slows to a stop in the middle of the road. Paul climbs in, Kimi gravitates toward him, and we’re rolling again in less than twenty seconds. Guess Mrs. Foster isn’t as sentimental as Momma, ’cause she didn’t get to snap a single shot. And part of me hoped Luke would be hitching a ride, but I guess that option’s out now.

  “Is Luke coming to the dance?” I ask Paul over the music.

  He’s pretty focused on opening the bottle of beer Kimi just passed him, but after a big gulp he sighs, smiles, and shakes his head. “Don’t know.”

  I want to ask more, but Paul’s lips are suddenly tangled up in Kimi’s, their bodies sending out Do Not Disturb signals.

  “Get a room!” Wolf yells at the top of his lungs, and everyone laughs. Paul takes another swig and turns right back to the tongue tango, which seems to inspire Sarah and Jimmy. The hip-hop turns, right at that moment, to an R&B throwback, Usher’s “Nice & Slow,” and Wolf’s knee starts bouncing as he looks out his window. I’m looking out mine as well, awkwardness emanating from both of us.

  I want a first kiss. I want it tonight. And I want it from Wolf.

  But I don’t want it in front of my friends, ’cause I don’t have the practice and I don’t want to embarrass myself. I am über-aware of my hand, perched on my knee next to Wolf’s and tingling like crazy. I see his pinky finger flinch toward mine and almost gasp out loud. Is the “smooth operator” about to make a move?

  “Jimmy!” Wolf yells suddenly, kicking him hard in the calf. He laughs and covers his head as Jimmy breaks angrily away from Sarah and lunges forward.

  “Ow! What the hell, Wolfenbaker?” he yells.

  “Dude, did you really make the Lincoln County quarterback cry today?”

  If Wolf’s plan is to break up the kissing and get everybody back to normal, it works. Jimmy forgets all about making out as he talks about his real first love, reliving every moment of today’s game for the entire fifteen-minute drive to Mackenzie’s house. We laugh, make jokes, and get play-by-plays of the game. And although he might as well be speaking Chinese for all I know about football, I’m glad to be having fun again. I even get a good one in, making fun of Wolf when his voice cracks once, which prompts him to squeeze my knee until I melt into my seat from the warm tingles that run all the way up my thigh.

  At the Watts’ McMansion, we pull up to see Mackenzie and Laura posing on the front steps with Mark and his date. I still haven’t caught my breath from flirting with Wolf and wonder if the whole night can sustain this electricity. I feel like I’m on fire. Wolf leans way over my legs to get a good look out the window at Mark’s date, unaware that his touch to the bare skin above my knee sends a shock wave through my system. I don’t move a muscle—I can’t breathe—but the seconds drag by endlessly while he’s draped across my body.

  “Ah, she’s not even that cute,” he finally says to no one in particular before peeling his forehead from my window and settling into his seat again. I finally take a breath. He was really interested in Mark’s date, I think to myself, but then I push the thought out of my mind quickly. He chose me.

  “Hey, y’all!” Mackenzie suddenly yells, throwing open the limousine door. I nearly fall out, not realizing how much of my weight was leaning on my elbow. She climbs over me without care and sits sideways next to Sarah. Laura, her clone, follows suit and comes inches from stepping on my foot before plopping herself down.

  “Did you like that?” Mackenzie giggles. “My new accent? Y’all?” As tired as the I’m-the-new-girl-from-Minnesoooota act is getting, this actually gets a few chuckles from the group. Wolf reaches for a beer and passes it toward her. “No thanks,” she says perkily. He shrugs and passes it to Paul, who’s always ready for another beer.

  I gape. “No thanks,” and that’s it? Meanwhile, I have to say “cow poop”?

  Wolf suddenly puts one arm around me and reaches over again to lower the back window. “Later, Watts!” he says, leaning forward and gripping my shoulders. Mark barely waves as he opens the door for his date, totally focused on her, a really gorgeous sophomore who’s on Girls’ Varsity. I smile weakly, glad to know I was right about Mark not pining over me but hoping Wolf won’t realize it, too, and trade me back for Mackenzie.

  “Oh, that’s my jam!” Kimi cries as Justin Timberlake croons from the speakers. “Turn that up!”

  Sarah willingly obliges and the limo begins to resemble a party wagon again. Mackenzie looks drop-dead gorgeous as usual in the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a real-life Miss America pageant dress. Laura looks nice, too, but her simple black dress is nothing compared to the heavenly white masterpiece Mackenzie has on. It’s floor length, satin, and bejeweled. Plus, her hair is perfect. She definitely brought someone in from out of town to get that done, ’cause Aunt Edna’s Beauty Shop never could’ve pulled that off. She flashes me a brilliant smile and I wilt into my seat, effectively intimidated.

  Wolf’s eyes are glued to that white dress.

  Mackenzie starts snapping pictures of the group, classic photographer that she is, singing along to the pop music and dancing as well as I’ve ever seen anyone dance sitting down. Jimmy and Sarah have their hands up and are rocking back and forth to the music, and Kimi astounds us all by doing sitting body rolls against Paul’s chest.

  I’m so proud of myself for listening to Top 40 jams all week in preparation for the dance that I join in, fighting for the attention of my date. I bump shoulders with Wolf and pull faces, knowing that attitude is everything. Basically, I am working it.

  “We decided to go stag!” Mackenzie yells over the music, aiming another one of her obnoxious comments my way. “When you go stag, you can have your way with all the boys, right, Laura?”

  They crack up and fall into each other on the leather seats. I feel my smile falter but try to shake them off. I’m on my way to the homecoming dance with David Wolfenbaker, haters be damned.

>   It’s all exactly how I imagined it. The football booster moms transformed the cafeteria into an enchanting ballroom, conjuring a celestial theme complete with glittery spray-painted cardboard moons and suns, and more silver and blue balloons than I’ve ever seen in one place in my entire life. I’m in a beautiful dress and in the arms of David Wolfenbaker as we rock back and forth to Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love.” The girls on the sidelines, including upperclassmen, are watching me with a mixture of awe and jealousy. His breath is close, his lips right at the side of my face, and every time he speaks it feels like butterfly kisses on my cheek. Yes, it’s all exactly how I imagined it, except one hundred million times better.

  “You having fun?” he asks me.

  I pull back and look up into his face. Oh my gosh, it’s so close. I try to speak. Can’t. Nod.

  “Good,” he says and squeezes my sides.

  The song comes to an end and our bodies separate as an undanceable rock number starts blaring over the speakers. I take a breath. He looks down at me and smiles. “Take a break?” he asks.

  I’ll do anything you want me to do, I think, but instead resort to Old Faithful, the smile and nod. He smiles back and does something that stops my heart completely: He grabs my hand.

  David Wolfenbaker is holding my hand.

  He leads me off the dance floor and over to the table our group claimed when we first got here. I follow, but I can’t stop looking down at our hands. That’s mine. And that’s his. And there they are, pressed together, his long, skinny fingers intertwined between each of mine. My whole arm is tingling and my face is on fire as we weave through the crowd.

  It takes us only half a minute or so to work our way over to the table, but it feels like an eternity in heaven. When we reach our group he gives my hand a squeeze and lets go, reaching across a sour-faced Mackenzie for his bottle of water. I briefly catch her eye, but we both look away quickly. I don’t know whether she saw him finally make his move, and I don’t want anything to ruin the euphoria of it all.

  It seems weird that the prettiest girl in our whole freshman class has been sitting over here by herself most of the night. I look around for her shadow, Laura, and when I finally spot her springy curls, I’m a little surprised to see her grinding on the dance floor with that guy Trevor from my old school. I mean, he was in her top five and everything, but last weekend at my house she acted like Luke was the be-all and end-all.

  “You wanna dance?” I hear Wolf ask. I swing my head back toward him with a big smile on my face. Of course I want to dance—want to be close to him, breathe in his scent, sway my hips with his, keep my mouth positioned alertly in first-kiss mode.

  But then I realize that Mackenzie is scootching back in her chair and standing up… that Mackenzie is flashing her dazzling smile and nodding up at Wolf… that Mackenzie is the girl he’s talking to. “You don’t mind, right, Ericka?” he asks me, grinning.

  Like, one second ago, I put my heart in this boy’s hands, and now he’s holding that same hand out for a girl who’s eight million times prettier than I am, richer than I am, and cooler than I am. A girl he almost asked to the dance. A girl who has stated, on the record, that she likes him… like that.

  And he wants to know if I mind?

  Sure that my eyes have already given me away, I pull my shoulders back anyway and look up defiantly at the two most perfect-looking human beings I’ve ever met. “I don’t even like this song,” I say with a shrug, summoning up all the nonchalance I can muster.

  He flashes a big smile and gives me a nod before pulling her along. She flashes me a similar smile and I want to scratch her eyes out. Or yell, “He’s still my date!” or “He still chose me!” But instead I cross my arms and watch her float off after him, her soft white dress a vision under the lights. Pouting, I flop down grumpily into a seat at our table and crane my neck to keep an eye on them. At least it’s a Michael Jackson song. Hard to get too romantic or bump-and-grindy to “Billie Jean.”

  “I’m having the best time!” Laura gushes from out of nowhere, plopping down beside me at the table and completely startling me. Her face is so close to mine and so exuberant that she effectively diverts my attention from my Wolf-Mackenzie stakeout. She has a silly smile splashed across her face and her eyes are dancing as she grabs my hands. “This is the greatest night of my life.”

  I roll my eyes. I felt the same way about five minutes ago.

  She fishes for a tissue in her purse and launches into an enthusiastic monologue about Trevor and how she’s liked him all year and how Mackenzie dared her to ask him to dance and how now they’re practically already in love. I listen in awe, shocked that she’s even speaking to me. Then again, she could have been sent as a diversionary tactic for Mackenzie. I narrow my eyes at her as she raves about Trevor’s adorable dimples while still keeping tabs on the dance of betrayal going on behind us.

  “Isn’t he the cutest?” Laura squeals, clutching my forearm. She pulls me up and we walk toward the window next to our table.

  “Totally,” I say, playing along as best I can.

  She cranks the window open and I feel a gust of cool air blow through. Wow. I hadn’t realized how hot it is in here. I touch the sides of my hair and discover that it’s soaking wet. Gross. I stand up on tiptoe and see that every one of Mackenzie’s hairs is in place, which only makes me want to rip them all out. I realize how tightly my fists are clenched at my sides, how tense my jaw is.

  As Michael Jackson finally brings things to a close (yeah, we get it—she’s not your lover), I impatiently tap my foot double-time and Laura dabs at the sweat on her face with a tissue in one hand while fanning herself like crazy with the other. I grab my new lip gloss from my purse and prepare for Wolf’s return. So he’s done the nice-guy thing, dancing with somebody who was obviously not having a good time, and now he’ll come back to me, sheepish, hoping I’m not upset. I’ll pretend I’m hurt, he’ll hug me tight, we’ll forget his moment of temporary insanity, and he’ll dance only with me the rest of the night. I sigh, feeling better.

  But when other couples break up to regroup and Ne-Yo’s crooning voice comes over the speakers, Wolf closes the space between them and brings Mackenzie’s hands up behind his neck. Then he wraps his own arms around her waist and they start to sway back and forth, their eyes locked.

  I watch this happen in shock and awe. It’s like they’re the only couple on the dance floor, moving in slow motion. I don’t want to look, but I can’t pull my eyes away. Their bodies move as if they were made for each other. He says something in her ear and she laughs, throws her head back, and turns around. He puts his hands on her stomach and pulls her up against him. And as if I’m watching a horror movie made especially for me, he starts to grind against her, his hips thrusting forward against her butt. She pulls away quickly, spins back around, and laughs up at him, then glances over at me, a guilty look on her face. I look away, feeling sick.

  Laura prattles on, but I can’t hear anything but my own thoughts telling me what a loser I am—telling me how stupid I must be to think that Wolf would really like me over Mackenzie.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Hello?”

  “Momma,” I say into the telephone. My voice starts shaking as soon as I hear hers. That always happens. It wasn’t easy plastering a smile on my face, asking to borrow Laura’s cell phone, or making my way through the crowd and out of the cafeteria while keeping my tears in check. But the minute I hear my momma’s voice—

  “You having a good time, sweetie?”

  I fall apart. Tears stream down my face, silent and quick. I wipe at my eyes, glad for the first time all night that I’m not wearing much makeup.

  “Um, will you come and get me?” I squeak out.

  “What’s wrong, Ricki Jo?”

  I take a deep breath, try to get it together. Even though I’m hiding in the girls’ locker room, I can hear the music and the chatter from the dance echoing faintly down the corridor. The oth
er end of the phone line is quiet.

  “It’s just—” I start, the words spilling out, one on top of the other. I can’t keep myself together as I cry into the phone. “I just really thought he liked me! I mean, he asked me to the dance, and it’s like everything was perfect and he—” I hiccup and feel stupid, but I can’t stop. “And now Mackenzie!” I wail, not really making sense. “My supposed best friend is all over him, and she’s—There’s no way I can—”

  Momma knows me. She’s patient. She lets me vent and cry. She lets me sob like a baby, and she probably doesn’t understand half of what I’m actually saying. I am sitting on the locker room bench, my elbows on my knees, my head hanging low in the prettiest dress I’ve ever worn, on the night that was supposed to be some kind of dream come true. And I’m crying… over a boy… over the boy.

  “Ugh,” I mumble, shaking my head.

  I’m so mad at myself. I feel like a fool. Flirting. Puh-lease. I always let him off the hook, every time he acts like a jerk: the paper football, the cheerleading tryout, leaving me passed out in the barn, asking me to homecoming as his pity date. I look so hard for the good in that boy, which is stupid because all the bad is right out there in the open.

  I can hear the other kids in the gym corridor outside, taking a break from the dance, getting snacks and taking pictures. They’re laughing and screaming and having a great time. And then there’s me, crying on the phone to my mom. Pathetic.

  “So you want me to come get you?” Momma asks softly. “Or do you want to maybe stay at the dance a little longer and see if you can work things out?”

  I roll my eyes. “Momma, how am I supposed to work things out? You should’ve seen how he was. No. I just wanna come home.”

  “Ricki Jo?”

  My head snaps up at the sound of a voice that’s not my momma’s and I nearly pee my pants. I totally thought I was alone in here, but Candace must’ve been in one of the bathroom stalls the whole time. She’s standing across from me, her face the mirror image of what mine must look like—splotchy-pink and wet—and I wonder why she’s upset. Then I feel the blood rush to my ears when I realize she must’ve heard me crying like a baby over Wolf.