by Greg Trine
I didn’t mind being anonymous.
“Call me Mr. Studly,” Vern said as he sat down beside me in the quad.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Mr. Studly. Go ahead, say it.”
“And why would I do this?”
“Because Vern Zuckman was just asked to the backwards dance.” He looked at me with his I’m-not-kidding-you look and nodded. “Yep, Carmen Medina asked me.”
I just looked at him, not yet ready to believe. After all, this was Vern Zuckman I was talking to.
“Remember I told you that most of the Highmont Herald’s staff were girls?”
“Yeah.”
“The plan worked. Carmen is one of the photographers. We’ve been covering gymnastics and wrestling. She takes the pictures—I write the words.”
“And she just came out and asked you?”
Vern nodded. “I wasn’t even doing anything, just working. Carmen is at least a seven. Don’t you think?”
“I’d say so.” Carmen wasn’t bad at all. This was serious. Vern had a date and I didn’t. I’d better start throwing out some serious charming vibes.
Tuck showed up a few minutes later, and Vern shared his big news.
“Way to go.” He pulled his Skoal can from his back pocket and offered us a mint. “Take two, Vern. You deserve it.”
Two days later, Tuck was asked to the dance. I was still dateless. And my charming vibes didn’t seem to be working. I’d have to be more direct.
I walked into math class and sat down across from Carol Ann with an exaggerated sigh. When she ignored it, I did it again. She fumbled in her purse and handed me some kind of inhaler. “Here,” she said. “I have asthma too.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just worried, is all.” I didn’t know what my worried face looked like, but I tried to conjure one.
“What about?”
“I haven’t been asked to the backwards dance yet.” I paused for effect, letting it sink in, then, “Who are you going with?”
She laughed. “Nice try, Elroy.”
Crap! So much for being direct. Mrs. Dumar passed out a worksheet, but I couldn’t concentrate. Under every triangle I drew a half-circle, turning each into someone wearing a dunce cap. I kept my head down and continued to doodle, avoiding eye contact with Carol Ann. I didn’t want to be laughed at again. I added bodies to the faces and put one of the dunces on a skateboard with—
A folded-up piece of paper landed on my desk. I opened it and stared at the words written on it.
Would you like to go to the backwards dance with me, Elroy?
Carol Ann
I glanced across the aisle, and Carol Ann was looking right at me. Just when you think your charming vibes have gone into hibernation, something like this happens. I wrote a big “YES!” beneath the skateboarding dunce and held it up.
“Elroy, is that something you’d like to share with the class?” Mrs. Dumar growled.
“Uh . . . no,” I said. I flipped the paper over and began working the problems on the back side. I couldn’t help smiling. I was going to the backwards dance after all. Carol Ann was at least as cute as Carmen Medina.
After class, Carol Ann and I walked out together. “So how does this work?” I asked her. “Do you pick me up? Do you pay for dinner?”
“It’s like a normal date, Elroy. The boy does everything. The girl just pops the question to set it in motion.”
“You mean I drive? I pay for dinner?”
“Pretty much.” She smiled. “I love being a girl.”
I met up with Vern and Tuck. “I’m in,” I told them.
“You’re in?” Vern said. “You don’t look it.”
“You’re in what?” Tuck asked.
I held out my hand. “Two mints, please.”
Tuck and Vern exchanged a look.
“I’m going to the backwards dance!”
Vern slapped me a high-five.
Tuck reached for the Skoal can. “So who’s the unlucky girl?”
“Carol Ann Tassner.”
Tuck and Vern exchanged another look. “Not bad, Elroy,” Vern said. “You two going by bike?”
“Good question.” Transportation was a problem. I didn’t have a car. Getting to the dance wouldn’t be easy.
“You’re going to double-date with Vern?” Mom was pretty happy that I’d been asked to the dance, but not as impressed with Vern’s mode of transportation.
“Yes, we’re taking the Death Trap.”
“But it’s so loud. You know, dating is all about conversation. You won’t be able to hear a thing.”
“Conversation is highly overrated,” I told her. “We’ll think of something else to do.”
Mom gave me a raised eyebrow. When I didn’t respond, she raised the other one.
“I’m kidding.” I wasn’t, but she didn’t have to know that. Something else sounded pretty good to me.
That night, before bed, I did a serious pimple-check. I found one on my chin, but it wasn’t enormous. Not one of those pinch-it-and-it-hits-the-mirror types. This one petered out halfway there. The rest of my face was immaculate—except for a few mat burns. But I was hoping they would make me look rugged, in a battle-wound kind of way.
I went to bed feeling good. I had a date with a pretty girl, who’d asked me. Maybe I had put the idea in her head. Maybe I had to foot the bill. But she did the asking. She wanted me.
Kind of.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
On the night of the dance, we went to a place called Mickey Moose for dinner, where I spent my time making intelligent conversation and touching knees with Carol Ann. She didn’t flinch. I took this as a good sign.
When she and Carmen got up to use the bathroom, Vern said, “So what’s the NP, Elroy?”
“NP?”
“Nooky Plan.”
“Not sure.” I thought for a moment. “Be charming, dance our butts off, and see if they want to go park after the dance?”
Vern nodded. “Sounds about right. Here they come. Smile, Elroy.”
I have to admit, smiling came easy. And I positioned my knee just so.
After dinner we drove to the dance, arriving fashionably late, as Vern put it. We didn’t want to be the first ones there, or the last. The gym was packed when we got there. Most of the lights were off, and a mirrored ball was suspended from the ceiling. I turned to Carol Ann. “Would you like some punch?”
“Sure.”
Vern and I made our way through the crowd to the punch bowl, where Mr. Phelps was keeping an eye out for potential punch-spikers. I held up a couple of fingers. “Two, please.”
Someone squeezed my biceps. I turned to face Sampson Teague. “Impressive,” he said. “You must lift weights or something.” He held out his hand. “How’s it going, Elroy?”
“Great,” I said. “You clean up nice.”
“Don’t I, though.” He walked off waving his hand behind him, a girl on his arm. She was not Marisa.
Who dumped who? I scanned the crowd for Marisa as Vern and I grabbed our drinks and headed back to Carol Ann and Carmen. No sign of her.
Vern said, “So you’re pals with Mr. Second Base Club now?”
“We just work out together.”
We joined our dates and wandered through the crowd. I gulped down my drink and tossed the empty cup in a trash can. “Would you like to dance, Carol Ann?”
“I would.”
She took my arm, and we headed to the middle of the crowded dance floor and began moving to the music. Tuck was already there, belt buckle gleaming under the mirrored ball, dancing way too close for a fast song. I had to admire his confidence. I remembered some of his moves from the night at the Library and tried to imitate them—keeping eye contact with Carol Ann, smiling. She smiled back. The song ended and another one began. We stayed on the floor.
Vern joined us a few minutes later. Turned out that Carmen belonged to a church that didn’t believe in dancing. This was her chance. She kept Vern on the floor all night l
ong.
Carol Ann and I took time out to wander, mingle with some of her friends, get more punch. But not Vern. Once Carmen got him out on the floor, he never left it. Every time I saw him, he had less on—coat and tie gone, sleeves rolled up. He was sweating pretty heavily by the time the dance was over. “The things I do for nooky,” he whispered to me as we headed out.
“You wish,” I said.
He held up two crossed fingers. “I do.”
The question was, did they? Was the evening over, or had it just begun? We walked out to the Trap and got in. Vern said, “You ladies want to go for a drive?”
No answer—the longest pause in history.
Vern looked over his shoulder at me. Carmen and Carol Ann exchanged a glance.
“I’d better get home,” Carol Ann said finally. “My dad can get weird sometimes.”
Carmen nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
Crap! No, this was worse than crap. “Shit!” I said under my breath. At least I thought it was under my breath.
Carol Ann nudged me. “What was that?”
Vern started the car, and we headed out of the parking lot. I let my knee wander over to Carol Ann’s side. There was still a chance that this date could end in a kiss. My knee would have to make it happen.
Vern drove to Carol Ann’s house and parked on the street, a tree blocking the view of the front door. Good ol’ Vern. He was smart enough to know that what came next was private.
We got out of the car, and I walked her to the door. I expected her dad to pop out any minute and give me the evil eye. When he didn’t I said, “I had a great time, Carol Ann. Thanks for asking me.”
“I did too.” She laughed. “Thanks for getting me to ask you.”
“I know. I kind of cheated.”
“I might have asked you anyway. You just made it easier.”
“Hey, whatever works.”
“Exactly. I didn’t have to work as hard.”
Now what? Was this when I made my move? After all, our knees were somewhat familiar with one another.
“So . . . I . . . uh . . .” I stepped forward, head tilting to one side, lips parting slightly, and—
Carol Ann stiff-armed me. Arms extended, one on my shoulder, the other on my neck. I tried to say something but all that came out was “Aaaack!”
She let go. “This is not that kind of date, Elroy.”
Tell that to our knees! While I was adjusting my Adam’s apple, she opened the door and went inside. “Good night.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“So what’s eating you, Elroy?”
It was pretty slow the following afternoon at Ernesto’s. Juana Maria and I were sitting in a booth, eating tacos and folding napkins.
“Hello? Earth to Elroy.” She waved a hand in my face.
Needless to say, I hadn’t slept the night before. I kept playing the scene over in my head—me leaning in for the kiss, Carol Ann stiff-arming my neck. Aaaack! How humiliating. Now I had two girls I needed to avoid, and both of them were in my math class.
Juana Maria snapped her fingers and I looked up.
“You look like you haven’t slept in nine days.”
“Had a date last night,” I admitted. “Didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”
Juana Maria put down the taco she was about to bite into, pushed her plate to one side, and plopped her head on her hands, elbows on the table. “Okay, you have my attention. Tell me everything.”
“I just did. I had a date. It didn’t end well. End of story.”
“Details, Elroy. I’m a girl. We like details.”
I thought about whether or not I should say anything. Mom couldn’t get me to spill the beans, but there was something about Juana Maria. Her eyes didn’t bore through me like my mother’s. Maybe it was because she was my age. I don’t know, but I felt that I could talk to her, that I wanted to talk to her. I began to tell her the story—the whole story. Not just about Carol Ann shutting me down, but about my brief tutoring gig with Marisa, sitting on her porch, and now working out with the guy who stole her from me.
“Hold on.” Juana Maria reached across the table and squeezed my biceps. “You lift weights? I thought something was going on. I thought it was because of wrestling.”
“Well, that too.”
“And how’s that going, the wrestling?”
“Not sure. I get beat up a lot. I’m sticking with it because my parents come to matches. They’re separated, but if I keep wrestling it forces them to spend time together. Kind of weird, huh? Joining a sport for all the wrong reasons.”
“Doing something for someone else is never the wrong reason,” she said.
“Well, initially I just joined to impress girls.”
“You think girls like tweaked ears?”
“You mean they don’t?”
Juana Maria laughed. “Good. You’re fraternizing. Feeling better?”
I nodded. “Yes, I am.” Talking to her helped. I did feel better. Mom couldn’t get it out of me, but somehow Juana Maria did.
“Seriously, Elroy, don’t you think it’s exhausting?”
“What is?”
“Spending all your time and energy being someone other than yourself.” She let that sink in. Then she got up from the table. “Break time’s over. We’ve got customers.” She left me sitting there.
I cleared the table and wiped it down before joining her.
“Go ahead and say it, Elroy.”
“Say what?”
“I’m smarter than I look.”
“Actually, you look kind of smart.”
All afternoon I kept thinking about what she’d said about my spending all my time and energy being something other than myself. So far it hadn’t gotten me anywhere.
On Monday, Sampson didn’t show up for sixth-period weight training. I’d been pretty unresponsive for the first week or two, but he was never anything but friendly toward me. Eventually, I let my guard down. We’d been getting along, working out hard, challenging each other to push it a little. But spilling my guts to Juana Maria kind of brought back the pain of being dumped, so I was okay with not having a partner.
Coach Phelps had me work out with the dumbbells, a couple of guys named Rich and Charlie, who spent the entire class recapping Saturday Night Live skits as we worked our way through the weight circuit. I was glad for the comic relief. It kept my mind from replaying Carol Ann’s stiff-arm.
And I got a pretty decent workout.
Coach Grogan had called off practice. Someone said that he was having too much fun in Las Vegas, and he didn’t want to come home just yet. I took a shower, dried off, and wrapped a towel around my waist. On the way back to my locker, I noticed that the locker with the list of names from the Second Base Club stood wide open. No one was around. I had to take a look. Sampson Teague was still in the lead with twenty points. Jerry, the tight end from the football team, was in second with sixteen. I read down the list. A few guys with fifteen, one with twelve, and a four-way tie at ten.
I kissed a girl for nine seconds on her porch, and now I wasn’t even getting that far. What did they know that I didn’t?
“Ping-Pong tournament scores,” came a voice over my shoulder.
I turned around. It was the guy I’d seen announcing the list back when Sampson was just barely into double digits.
“In case you’re wondering,” he said. He had a towel around his waist and one over his shoulder. His arms were about as big as my thighs. “You always read stuff in other people’s lockers?”
“Kind of a hobby,” I said.
He almost laughed.
By this time a few other Second Base Club members were standing around us. One of them was Jerry. How was this guy in second place? He was about six foot five and had hair sprouting everywhere below the neck.
The owner of the locker pointed to the score sheet. “I was just telling our friend here about the Ping-Pong scores.”
“The what?” Jerry said, not taking his eyes off me.
> “Ping-Pong. You know, the secret Ping-Pong tournament.” I think I saw him wink.
Finally, Jerry caught on. “Yes. The Ping-Pong tournament.” He gestured to the list. “And I bet you thought Sampson just played football.”
“A secret Ping-Pong tournament?” I said. “Why is it secret?”
“Because it is,” Jerry said. “And there’s no room for more players, in case you’re wondering.”
“Just asking,” I said. “Because if I didn’t know better I’d say this had something to do with girls.”
Jerry shot a look to a few of his friends.
“Elroy knows all,” I said, backing up a bit.
Jerry slammed his fist against one of the lockers. “Maybe you need to mind your own business. I said the tournament is closed.”
“The Ping-Pong tournament?”
“That’s right. The Ping-Pong tournament.”
I backed up some more and raised an open hand, feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Hey, no problem.” I tromped down the aisle to my locker and sat down, heart beating like crazy. No sense getting beat up over . . . Ping-Pong. I put on my clothes quickly and went out to the parking lot. Vern was waiting for me.
“Ping-Pong?” Vern said when I told him the story.
“Yeah, can you believe it?”
“And now they know that you know. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut.”
“Maybe,” I said. I had to admit, Jerry kind of scared me. He looked at me with dead eyes, like he’d kick my ass for no reason at all, for the sheer joy of seeing another human being bleed. Plus, he was huge. I guess it was the front-door episode with Carol Ann, the rejection, the humiliation. I was curious about the Second Base Club. These were the guys getting somewhere with the opposite sex. I could see how girls might go for Sampson, but Jerry was just this big guy covered with hair.
My only consolation was that Vern wasn’t doing any better. His date with Carmen ended in a handshake.
“Maybe we could start our own Second Base Club,” Vern said as he turned onto Casitas Pass. “You, me, and Tuck.”
