“Right back at you,” I returned her smile two-fold. “Deena asked us to go dress shopping with her this weekend.”
Rudy grimaced. “Was she exploding?”
“She was exploding,” I whispered, unloading books onto the bottom of my locker.
“Can we just go together? Just you and me? I’ll give her an excuse.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” I grinned.
“Good. I’m glad we’re always on the same wavelength.”
Me too, I thought. Me too.
“O! G! D-E-N! Og-den! Og-den!”
When Rudy and I arrived at the bonfire Thursday night, we heard the cheerleaders chanting in the distance even before we could make out the fiery orange glow against the navy sky. It was twilight, and there was a chill in the air. We wore jackets and jeans and navy, knit beanies pulled on over our heads. As we got closer, our feet crunching the few leaves that had fallen too early, I could make out faces of the people in the crowd. The warmth pulled us in.
“Hey.” Thomas Hart, from the track team, grabbed Rudy by the elbow as we were walking past.“Rudy. Jill.”
“Hey! How long have you been here? I feel like we’re late.” Rudy smiled crookedly.
“Nah, it’s just getting started, I think. Blake and I got here ten minutes ago.”
“Oh, okay. Are you sitting somewhere? We brought a blanket, if you want to sit with us,” Rudy gestured toward the overstuffed bag I was hauling over my shoulder.
“There should be plenty of room. This thing weighs a million pounds,” I added.
“Here,” he lifted the bag off my arm. “Let me carry it. Lead the way, ladies.”
We found an open space, and after Rudy determined the grass was free of potentially butt-poking debris, Thomas spread out our flannel blanket.
“You know, I feel pretty lucky sitting here with the homecoming queens,” Thomas joked. Silhouetted by the blaze behind him, his face was the color of melting chocolate.
“You probably aren’t even voting for either of us,” I said.
“Yeah.” Rudy elbowed him. “Who are you voting for?”
“I can’t divulge that kind of information in this company.”
He would vote for Rudy. He would definitely vote for Rudy.
“Come on. I’ll tickle it out of you.” Rudy wiggled her fingers to compound the threat.
“Go ahead and try,” Thomas grinned.
On the opposite side of the fire, I saw Deena standing on the edge of a group of seniors.
“I’m going to go say hey to Deena,” I announced as I stood.
“Jillian!” Courtney Stauder, one of our classmates, saw me first as I approached the group. “You came!”
She leapt forward to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. As she pressed up against me, I nearly smirked. The biggest piece of gossip upon our return to school that fall had been the enhancement of Courtney Stauder’s boobs, which were clearly two cups sizes bigger than normal. Speculation ran in every direction, but the senior consensus was that Courtney’s stepfather had agreed to get her a boob job for her eighteenth birthday, which had fallen sometime that summer.
“Hey,” I smiled. “This is pretty cool. I’ve never actually come to the bonfire before.”
“Too cool for school, huh?” Michael Denalby said from across the circle.
“No.” I made a face and I heard my own voice take on a sarcastic, flirty girl tone. “Not cool enough, I guess.”
“Where’s Rudy at?” Deena was looking around, a point and shoot camera swinging from a strap on her wrist.
“She’s sitting over there.”
Deena glanced behind us. “With Thomas Hart? What’s up with that?”
“Nothing.” I looked too. “They’re just friends.”
“Oh. Weird.” She swung the camera in a circle and I leaned back, afraid she’d accidentally whack me.
“What’s weird about it?”
“I don’t know, just weird. I didn’t know they were friends.”
I watched Rudy from across the lawn. She leaned back on the grass, her legs stretched out in front of her, and laughed with her mouth wide open. Beside her, Thomas was clearly telling a very funny joke.
“They know each other from track.”
“That’s cool. I was just wondering.” Deena smiled and touched my wrist. “Anyway, find me later, okay? And Rudy, too. I want to get a picture of all the candidates tonight.”
“Okay.”
Deena scurried off, Courtney and another girl following in her wake, leaving me on the empty end of a small circle of senior guys.
I coughed into my hand.
“So, Jillian, the queen voting’s tomorrow. What’re you going to do to win my vote?” Michael Denalby shoved his hands into his pockets and wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively.
“I think I can do without your vote.” I blushed, in spite of myself. The other guys laughed.
“That’s not how Deena answered my proposition.” They laughed even harder, seventeen and eighteen year old boys that they were.
“Well I’d hate to put myself through something so traumatizing and then not win after all,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” Max Briggs, the captain of the lacrosse team, interjected. “You think Deena will win?”
They snickered. I shrugged and turned toward where the cheerleaders had begun to chant again. This time the principal and the Varsity football coach stood beside them, both men dressed in sport coats along with their dark, pressed jeans.
“Can I get everyone’s attention please,” Dr. Foakley yelled, and gradually the noise died down to a low hush. “Thank you all for coming out tonight, Ogden students, parents, alumni and friends. We’re going to get the formal part of the evening started with some spirit from the Varsity cheerleading team and a short word from head football coach, Coach Adams. Afterward, there will be some light refreshments available, courtesy of the Ogden Parent’s Association. Again, thanks for supporting our wonderful school tonight, and we hope to see you all again at the 50th annual homecoming game tomorrow night!”
A cheer went up amongst the crowd, and the cheerleaders sprang into action, lifting each other into stunts as Principal Foakley stepped aside. From high in the air they started chanting again, and this time the crowd joined in, fists pumping in the air as the fire crackled.
The week of homecoming was always a special week at Ogden. The teachers didn’t assign real homework or tests, the sports teams were more about camaraderie and less about hazing and, the administrators weren’t quite so stiff and proper. On the day we dressed as celebrities, the principal came to school wearing a boy band t-shirt and carrying an inflatable microphone. It was cheesy, of course, but we ate it all up. It was just the energy in the air that week; we went nuts for it, for anything out of the ordinary, really.
After the cheerleaders had cheered and the coach had given his quick, impassioned speech, I made my way back to where Rudy and Thomas still sat, stretched out amongst a handful of other crowded blankets and lawn chairs.
“O! G! D-E-N!” Rudy mouthed the words and waved her arms through the cheerleading motions, probably the only thing we still remembered from our short season as Ogden cheerleaders.
“They were so close to the fire, I was afraid one of them was going to fall in,” I added.
“God, that’d be some way to kick off the bonfire.”
The three of us sat talking and after awhile, we were joined by Thomas’s friend Blake, Deena and Courtney and a couple of guys from the cross-country team, too. Soon, our blanket was overflowing, all of our butts smashed together, each vying for a tiny square of fabric. The sky got darker and you could see all the little pinpricks of stars. When Rudy and I stood to go get hot chocolate, Deena jumped up as well, abandoning her spot on the blanket.
“Wait, let’s get a picture really quick before someone leaves!” She ran off, returning with Teegan and LeAnn, the remaining two candidates, following behind her.
We arranged
ourselves in a line, arms wrapped around one another, grins on our faces, the bonfire a glowing halo behind our heads, and Thomas took the photo.
The morning before a high school assembly is never organized. Rudy and I were sitting in our homeroom class, my stomach flipping nervously as I watched the hands of the clock tick forward. It was ten minutes until the assembly was scheduled to begin and the teacher had yet to dismiss our class. Finally, Rudy and I approached his desk and asked to leave early.
“We have to get seated and stuff. For our speeches,” Rudy explained with a wave of her hand.
Two seconds later we were clacking down the tiled hall in our heels, hurrying to the gymnasium. My skirt fluttered around my thighs, and I hoped to hell I wasn’t exposing anything as we ran down the stairs.
The gym was already half full, teachers leading their freshman and sophomore classes into empty rows of bleachers while the upperclassmen, allowed to sit unaccompanied, meandered around finding their friends. On the floor of the basketball court, Courtney, Deena and Teegan were already seated in their folding chairs, hands clasped daintily in their laps. All five escorts were sitting in a matching line of seats on the opposite side of an Ogden-crested podium, studying printed copies of their speeches. They all looked nervous, tapping their feet or tugging at their ties.
For my escort, I had chosen Luke Bruggeman, my male counterpart in the hurdles for the past three years. He was smart and cute and well liked, though he was quiet. Rudy had selected Justin Patridge, the senior editor of the yearbook. I waved to Luke as I crossed my legs, and he gave me a crooked smile before returning his gaze to the crisp papers in his lap. I felt a pang for the guys; all we girls had to do was sit there and look pretty.
In the crowd, I found my parents easily, seated beside Rudy’s mom and dad. It was the first school event my parents had attended since I’d quit cheerleading my freshman year, unless you counted the Parent Association meetings and fundraisers my mom went to semi-regularly. She grinned and finger-waved to me; next to her, my dad was reading the newspaper, looking bored. I waved back quickly and took a deep breath.
The day was a whirlwind the entire way through. You know how it gets, those situations where, normally, you would be nervous but you aren’t because there’s literally no time for nerves? That’s how the Friday of our senior homecoming game unfolded. The boys gave their five minute speeches, and we all laughed and blushed while they showed blown up posters of our baby pictures and blustered on about our accomplishments. Luke talked about my track championship win and my leadership qualities and my friendliness to everyone (was I that friendly? In these situations you could never really be sure how much was sincere and how much was just a strategy to fill up time). He told the story about me mistakenly drinking from the cup of beer at Rudy’s parents’ party the first summer after I moved to St. Louis, and everyone chuckled. I glanced inquisitively at Rudy (how else could he have learned that anecdote?), but all she did was smile and clap politely as Luke finished.
Between the assembly and the parade we ended up with a slim twenty-minute window, during which Rudy and I and the other three candidates rushed to change our clothes in the sports lobby bathroom. Rudy and I tugged new blouses over our heads, crammed together in the handicapped stall.
“Wait, you missed a button.” Rudy caught me as I was leaving the bathroom. She fastened it, and we applied our lip gloss as we ran across the parking lot bare footed, carrying high heels swinging from our fingertips.
Each girl had a car – shiny convertibles lent by the parents’ of Ogden Academy to senior boys who would drive each candidate and her escort. Luke was already seated in the passenger side of a black car, sunglasses on his face. He waved me over and I climbed in back, perching carefully on the top of the backseat. The art classes had painted poster boards for the sides of each car. Mine read, “Ms. Jillian Matthews, Queen Candidate” in fancy black script.
During the twenty minute parade I smiled until my cheeks hurt. I wasn’t sure when to wave, and every time I raised my arm to do it I felt stupid and awkward. It was a windy afternoon, and my hair kept blowing into my face and getting stuck in layers of lip-gloss. Mrs. Golden called to me from the sidewalk as we crept past, and I grinned for her as she snapped a photo.
Of course, the biggest event wasn’t until later that night. In a display of courteous, friendly “no-hard-feelings-we’re-still-friends-no-matter-who-wins” companionship, we all got ready for the game at Deena’s house. The mothers made us veggie trays and plates of cheese and crackers, and Deena’s mom walked around refilling our glasses of water while we curled our hair and applied makeup. I was careful not to drink much of anything, in part because of how uncomfortable I was being waited on by Mrs. Orr and partially because I didn’t want to have to pee when we were out in the middle of the football field.
“Jill, take a picture with me,” Rudy said as I replaced the lid on a tube of mascara.
She pressed her face against mine, extended the camera in her arm and took a selfie of the two of us.
“Here, let me take one of you both.” Deena’s mom jumped up to take the camera, and Rudy and I posed for another photo.
“Oh, mom, take one of the three of us for me, please,” Deena sprang up from behind her mother, her fresh curls bouncing against her chest.
Again, we posed. Then with all five of us, over and over with all of our cameras. Then, once our escorts began to arrive in their suits and ties and shiny dress shoes, with the ten of us.
The sun was setting, and my arms were covered in goose bumps by the time the cameras finally disappeared.
“Just wait one more second,” Deena’s mom stalled, and a moment later we saw why. The parents had hired a limousine to drive us to the game. We all piled in, waving grandly to our parents as we disappeared into the shiny black car. We were supposed to be at the game by the end of the first quarter, but with all of us together that hardly mattered. They couldn’t start the show without us.
“You’re shivering. Are you cold?” Luke wrapped his arm around me and squished me up against his side.
I nodded.
“Do you want my jacket?”
“No, that’s okay.” I shook my head. There was no way he’d be able to get his jacket off without knocking someone in the face. We were packed like sardines.
“Rudy, I love your dress,” Teegan said, raising her voice above all of the noise. “It seriously fits you perfectly.”
“Thank you,” Rudy smiled. “You look really pretty, too. Everyone looks so good tonight.”
“I’m just ready to get drunk once this is over,” Elam, LeAnn’s escort said. We all laughed.
“Everybody’s going to Harrison’s after, right?” Deena glanced around the limo, her index finger raised as if to scold us if we contradicted her. The consensus was a resounding yes. “Good,” she said. “This is going to be the best party so far this year.”
“No shit, Deena. It’s only October.” Her escort, Sam, knocked her in the back of the head playfully.
“Don’t mess up my hair!” She patted her up-do protectively then grinned and punched Sam in the gut to save face.
In the football stadium parking lot we climbed out of the limo; Luke took my hand as I stepped out gracefully in my sparkling heels.
The stadium lights beamed overhead as we paraded toward the field in two single-file lines, the boys standing at each of our sides. It was a miracle how they transformed from raunchy teenagers to perfect gentlemen with just the addition of some structured clothing. When we stepped onto the track, I teetered in my heels on the uneven surface, and Luke reached out to grab my waist. The side of his finger swiped my boob; with my dress, it was impossible to wear a bra, and he connected, unobstructed, with flesh through thin sequined fabric.
“Sorry.” Luke blushed.
“No, it’s okay. Thanks for catching me.” I blushed, too.
It was odd to be on the track in a formal dress instead of tennis shoes and shorts, everyone’s e
yes on us as we waited at the end of the field for halftime. We were losing by twelve points already, and you could tell the Ogden crowd was irritated and restless.
At the sound of the halftime whistle, the players started to exit the field while, simultaneously, the JV and freshmen football teams began carrying the stage out onto the grass. Heidi Payne, the senior homecoming liaison, ushered the ten of us into a line of golf carts that had suddenly appeared on the track, driven by male Ogden teachers who were also wearing button up shirts and ties.
“Golden, you’re first,” Heidi read off the clipboard cradled in her arm. “Then Matthews, Orr, Tyler, Westings. Once around before the coronation, then one more time after for the winner only.”
I climbed into the back seat of the cart, and Luke followed behind me. The cushion was cold and stiff. On the back of the driver’s seat was a tiny metal placard that read, “Property of St. Louis Country Club”.
“I think I’m on your dress.” Luke scooted away from me, and I tugged the material out from under him.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Heidi said sternly. “Don’t forget to smile for the yearbook photos. And good luck, all of you.”
We were off at a turtle’s pace, crawling along the edge of the track. My teeth were chattering almost audibly, but I grinned and waved and giggled nervously when Luke said anything funny. Everything was giddy-funny. I waved some more and on the backside of the track, where there were no bleachers, our driver picked up speed and the wind ruffled my hair and dress.
When we had come full circle, back to the fifty-yard line, we unloaded out onto the AstroTurf beside the opposing team’s benches. The other team’s players sat there gawking, sweaty and smirking, with their helmets in their laps and plastic water bottles in their hands. One of them hooted and another let out a low whistle and laughed.
Miraculously, the stage was up. The assembly team had disappeared. The cheerleaders (minus LeAnn, their senior captain) and the band stretched out side by side in two long lines across the field, creating a tunnel from us to the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you tonight this year’s Ogden Academy homecoming queen candidates. These outstanding young women were nominated by the Varsity football team and one winner was selected by a vote of the Ogden student body.” The announcer’s voice cut through the still night air and my heart pounded. “Without further ado, let me introduce tonight’s candidates.”
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