by Roger Hayden
I stared ahead and anticipated Betsy entering the classroom at any moment. Five minutes went by, and she still hadn’t come in. I looked around and thought maybe she had changed chairs, but she wasn’t anywhere. I had hoped she hadn’t dropped the class. I couldn’t help myself. I had to know.
I leaned over and quietly asked Sarah, “Where’s Betsy?”
Her eyes shifted toward me as her mouth dropped. “What do you care?”
“Just curious,” I said.
Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I doodled for the rest of the class with little interest in what was going on up front. I saw Nick later and we talked about seeing a movie called “Darkman” at the theater that weekend. On our way through the courtyard, a girl called my name out. I looked over and saw Betsy waving near a long cement bench.
“Hey, Landon. Over here!”
I couldn’t believe it. I looked for Nick, but he had walked off. I nervously approached and said hello as the group seated next to her checked me out.
“Missed you in class,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted and not judgmental.
Betsy laughed and said that she had showed up late. “Overslept, but it’s just art class, right?
I nodded as she introduced me to her friends. There were two girls and two boys I vaguely recognized.
“Landon, I’d like you to meet my good friends Liz, Victoria, Gordon and Cooper.”
I held up my hand and said hello as they waved back.
“Landon just got a car,” Betsy boasted.
I looked away embarrassed. “Well, it’s an old car. Paid a couple of hundred dollars for it off the lot.”
Cooper leaned forward with his short dirty-blond hair and school varsity jacket. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Was that you in that Escort?” Gordon asked.
“Yep. The one with the smoking engine? That’s me.”
The group laughed, to my surprise, as I motioned to leave. Betsy grabbed my arm and stopped me. “We should all go out sometime. What do you say?”
I looked around, oblivious to the question.
“What do you say, Landon?” she repeated. Stunned, I simply nodded.
“We should go to the mall,” Victoria said. “That’d be a lot of fun.”
Betsy patted my shoulder as I said goodbye, walking away in a confused daze. The strange encounter made little sense to me, and I tried to go on with the rest of my day as though everything was normal. Nick wasn’t in any of my classes and I had no one to talk to about the incident. Were Betsy and her friends playing a prank on me? I had to know.
The first week of school went by fast, and by Monday of the second week things only got stranger. Our first assignment in art class was to pair up with a classmate and draw them. I was the odd student out, but Betsy turned to me, ready to go.
“Okay, I’m going to sit real still. Make me look good.” She sat upright and stared forward with her palms flat on her thighs I started with her eyes. Then I shaped her head and face around it. The rest of her body followed. Everything was a bit out of proportion. I was no artist, but with her sitting there, I felt confident.
“We should get each other’s phone number,” she said out of the blue.
I froze and tried to play it cool. “Yeah, sure.” She said her number, and I quickly wrote it down.
After school, I drove home and went straight to my room. My mother asked me what was wrong from the kitchen. I told her that I wasn’t feeling well and that I needed to lie down.
“What about work?” she asked.
I ignored her and closed the door. I went to my bed and lay down on my back, staring at the ceiling. My heart pounded in my chest as I pulled from my pocket the tiny piece of paper with her number on it. Betsy Wade’s number was nothing to stall with. I decided to make the call. After a few rings, her mother answered the phone and then put me on the line with Betsy.
“Hey, Landon!” she said, excited.
Is this really happening? I remember thinking.
I asked her if she wanted to do something that weekend. I suggested a movie or someplace fun. I’d never been out on a date, and my list of suggestions were slim.
“That would be fun,” she said. “We’re looking for something to do.”
The word struck me as odd. It wasn’t just going to be us. She wanted to bring her friends.
“Yeah. Liz, Victoria, and Gordon. You know them, right?”
What she didn’t seem to realize is that we had all been going to the same high school for years. Or course I knew them but never as friends.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Great. Let’s talk about some more tomorrow. I think we’ll have a great time.”
I then suggested mini golf and got an excited response.
“I love mini golf! Ever been to TJ’s?”
She hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend, and I was nowhere close to the level of asking about her personal life. I knew that her friends were all popular and good-looking, and it only made sense if they were dating each other. I kept it light though. We talked for nearly an hour before she said she had to go for dinner. We had discussed school, music, movies, and even our plans after college. Betsy had said that she wanted to go into nursing. I heard my father enter our house and told Betsy goodbye.
“Nice talking to you, Landon,” she said before hanging up. “See you tomorrow.”
I hung up and heard my father’s footsteps down the hall. He stopped at my door and pounded against it. The door then opened, and he stuck his head inside, livid.
“You want to tell me what this crap is about you being sick?”
I brought my hand across my forehead. “I’ve had a headache all day.”
He sighed in return. “You better not move from that bed for the rest of the night. Wouldn’t want your headache to get worse.” I pretended to go to sleep as he left the room and slammed my door, mumbling to himself.
Friday arrived, and with it, sheer panic. I was so nervous about my plans with Betsy that I completely forgot similar plans with Nick. This became apparent as him and I walked to class and he asked me what time we were going to the movie.
“Oh, man. I’m so sorry,” I said. “I have plans tonight.”
Nick laughed like he thought I was joking, but then dropped his smile when he saw otherwise.
“Plan? Since when do you have plans?”
We stopped near a vending machine. “You know Betsy Wade, right?”
Skepticism flashed across his face. “What about her?”
I hesitated, almost in my own state of disbelief. “Well, we’re supposed to go out tonight.”
“On a date?” he said loud enough for people walking by to hear.
I wanted to end any such thought. “Her and some of her friends.”
“Just you and her friends, eh?” he continued. “All girls?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No. It’s not like that. There’s that guy Cooper and his friend, Gordon.”
“Cooper Erickson?” Nick said in shock. “That guy’s a major asshole.”
“No, he’s not,” I said back, oddly defensive.
The class bell rang as students dispersed. Nick said, “Have fun,” and walked off.
On my way to Humanities class, Betsy came out of nowhere, startling me.
“We still good for tonight?”
I thought the question peculiar given that we had already established the plans that morning in art class. She then glanced down like something was on her mind. I asked what was wrong, and she perked up again. “You don’t mind if we all went in your car, would you?”
I was a little taken aback but agreed to it anyway.
“Great,” she said with a touch on my shoulder. “I’ll call after school.” She ran off and waved as I stood frozen for a moment, unable to remember what class I was going to.
I drove to Betsy’s house that evening with my engine making a
funny rattling noise.
She lived in a nice house with her parents only a few miles away. I pulled into the driveway and could see her standing in the garage with the others, talking and laughing. There were two cars in the driveway, a Buick station wagon and a pick-up truck that belonged to her parents. Betsy came down the driveway to greet me while her friends followed.
She turned back to look inside my car, inspecting the space. “Yeah, we should all fit. Thanks for doing this.”
I turned to see the group approach as the sky grew darker. They were all dressed nicely for the evening, though I had little idea of our actual plans. Betsy had her hair tied back and lots of makeup on. She looked absolutely stunning in a flower-patterned knee-high dress and boots. I only had so many nice shirts and wore a white collared shirt I knew she had seen before.
The passenger door opened and Cooper stuck his head in.
“You can fit two up here and three in the back,” I explained to him.
Cooper moved the seat forward and stood aside as Victoria, Liz, and Gordon shuffled into the backseat. He pushed the seat back and Betsy slid into the middle seat next to me. Last in, Cooper shut the door as the group all said their hellos and thanked me for driving. I tried to remain calm, despite all the attention, and backed out of the driveway. Betsy smelled beyond good. Her hair was perfectly straight and down to her shoulder. Our shoulders touched as I drove off. I asked what the plan was, when Cooper suddenly cut in.
“We’re going to Matt’s house. He’s having a party.”
I turned to Betsy in disbelief. “I’m sorry. A what?”
She squeezed my leg and looked at me with sincere, apologetic eyes. “You don’t mind, do you?”
I stared forward, feeling helpless. “Not a problem.”
“You’ll have fun. I promise,” Cooper said. “Might even meet some chicks there.”
Gordon laughed in response. The comment was the first odd one of many. I wondered exactly what was going on.
“Oh, stop,” Betsy said with a playful slap onto Cooper’s shoulder.
We continued to the party in the middle of nowhere as I felt more perturbed with each distant mile onto the outskirts of town. I asked how much farther and Betsy was quick to reassure me.
“We’re close. Take a right up here,” she said, pointing to a dirt road.
The car rocked along the bumpy dirt road. We finally reached the house with its single front porch light and long driveway full of cars and forest all around us. I soon wished that I was at the movie theater with Nick. I parked at the end of the driveway and shut off the engine. The single-story house ahead had a flat roof and low-hanging power line that reached into the forest.
I saw silhouettes in the window and heard the bass thumping from inside. Cooper swung open the door and stepped out, stretching. My hands gripped the wheel as I stared ahead, nervous. I didn’t want to go inside, and Betsy seemed to have noticed.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Sorry about the change of plans.”
I turned to her, eager to appear cool with everything. “Of course. Yeah. This looks like fun.”
I smiled and opened my door as everyone else got out. We walked up the driveway. Dogs barked in the distance. Then the name came to me: Matt Edwin. He was not exactly a model student. Last I had heard, he had been expelled for selling drugs at school. I stayed close to Betsy as they opened the door and went inside the smoky living room.
There were some older kids I didn’t recognize and others I did standing around or sitting on couches under dim lights. Hip-hop music blasted from a nearby stereo. Laughter and rowdiness was everywhere. In the back, past the dining room, I saw an open sliding glass door with a keg of beer protruding from a garbage can. I didn’t really care for beer or drinking in general.
Cooper shook hands and gave out high fives as we made our way through the room. I kept my distance as the group were welcomed with raucous cheers. As Betsy introduced me around, I had a nagging feeling like I didn’t belong. Matt Edwin surprisingly recognized me. His hair was a curly, sweaty mess. He had a thin beard and wild eyes in addition to a sweaty white T-shirt.
“Holy shit! Landon Kearney? What’s new, brother?” He slapped my hand hard and told us to start drinking. He then pulled Betsy a little too close in a wild embrace.
I backed away and waited until he finally released her. I asked Matt if he was going back to school and received a stone-faced glare in response. Betsy suddenly led me away to the back yard as Matt resumed conversation with some older guys. Many years later, I had heard that he had died from a drug overdose. He was twenty-six.
Betsy poured me a drink from the keg and handed me the cup. I only wanted to talk to her, but she was always preoccupied. Every minute, she was throwing her arms around another person, greeting them. I avoided the marijuana joints being passed around and stayed relegated to the shadows in the backyard, observing the party in all its drunken haze. Waiting for Betsy, I had lost track of the others. She finally came over to check on me after I finally finished my first beer.
“Quit sulking around and talk to people!”
I nodded and smiled as she looked at my empty cup.
“Need another beer?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get one in a minute.” I wanted to ask her if we could go for a walk, but the words wouldn’t come out. A hard slap suddenly came to my back and I found Cooper standing there with Matt, grinning like fools.
“You know what time it is?” Cooper asked.
I looked at my watch and told him that it was ten past nine. They both howled with laughter until their eyes watered.
“No! It’s keg stand time,” he added.
They corralled me toward the keg as twenty or so gathered around, their faces all a blur. I looked down at the keg with Cooper and Matt standing at both sides of me.
“You ready?” Matt asked with wild excitement. I told them that I was still working on my beer, but Cooper took the cup out of my hand before I could finish. I looked for Betsy in the crowd, but couldn’t find her anywhere. Cooper must have noticed my deer in the headlights stance as he took a moment from his brash caterwauling to calmly explain what I needed to do.
“We’re gonna pick you up. You take the end of that hose, stick it in your mouth and drink.”
Cheers followed from the surrounding circle of onlookers. I felt in a daze, unable to make a decision. Before I knew it, Matt and Cooper counted off and then picked me up, hoisting me by the legs and upside down as the cheers continued. I grabbed for the hose, stuck it in my mouth, and tried my best to swallow the beer that gushed out.
A blaring countdown followed as the blood rushed to my head. Beer exploded from my mouth as I gagged. The crowd cheered and they lowered me down. My shirt and pants were covered in beer. I wiped my mouth and gasped for breath, nearly falling over from the dizziness.
“Not bad,” Cooper said. “Need to work on it though.”
Betsy approached me, shocked at my appearance. “What have you been doing?”
I pointed to the keg and belched. “A keg stand.”
She looked around and saw Cooper laughing to the side with Matt. “What’s wrong with you? He has to drive, you know?”
They both responded with clear amusement. “He’ll be fine. Won’t you, Landon?” Cooper said.
I nodded and then entered the house, headed for the front door. I left the house and sat in my car for reasons I can’t fully explain. I felt like a joke, and I didn’t want to be in the spotlight anymore. As I stared at the ongoing party inside, a blurry figure left the house and quickly approach the car. The passenger side swung open, and I saw Betsy.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Never better,” I said.
She got inside, unconvinced and closed the door. “I’m sorry. I know they can get a little rowdy, but they mean well. Everyone likes you.”
I nodded along, tight-lipped and unable to respond.
“You know, Cooper’s family has money. He’
s so freaking spoiled.” She paused, stared ahead and then turned back to me. “That’s why his dad took his car away. He’s trying to teach Cooper a lesson.”
I knew his family. The Ericksons were the largest developers in town. My father had mentioned their constant “black-balling” before. “They don’t want anyone else to expand out here,” he had said. “Insufferable pricks. The whole damn family.”
I certainly didn’t blame Cooper for the actions of his family, but we were natural adversaries however you cut it. Betsy and I sat quietly for a moment. She then asked me to come back in.
“I’m fine here, thanks,”
“Oh, come on, Landon.”
I turned and faced her with an anger I had hoped to conceal. “What do you want from me?”
She stared back, curious, as I winced upon the thought of blowing it all.
“I’m only trying to be your friend, Landon,” she said in a calm tone.
“Why?” I asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because I think you’re a nice guy and I want you to do more things and get out there. It’s our senior year!”
I took a moment to register what she had said. It almost sounded like pity, and there was nothing I resented more. Part of me wanted to call her names and hurt her for dragging me out to some house in the middle of nowhere. Another part wanted to impress her. And of course, I wanted her to like me.
October 1990
Several weeks later, an auspicious routine developed between me and the group. We’d make plans every Friday and go out together. I dutifully played my role as the chauffeur for the night and drove wherever needed. There was an exhilarating fun to it, like nothing I had experienced before.
I was a part of a clique not of outcasts and weirdoes, but people who were known and respected. I always expected that Betsy would just stop calling me one day, but it was quite the opposite. She and her friends seemed to accept me, and I was eager for a glimpse into a different world.