Dance of a Lifetime

by Frank Downey

  "I'm never faint of heart, and how bad can your mother be?"

  "I can't do her justice, since I have to live with her. Ask Warren. Trust me."

  "OK, I will. Hey, buster, you're neglecting the grapes!"

  He fed her another, but said, "Hey, I think I've been pretty diligent with the grapes, O Mistress. So what does I get out of this?"

  "A pretty girl in your lap? The leftover grapes? Phasers set on stun? The rewards are limitless."

  "Ah."

  They heard talking from the grass area, where the rest of the crew was. It became obvious that Matt and Ally were making the rounds, putting on a happy face and pretending that everything was just ducky. As far as Crash knew, she still didn't know he was here. He was kind of at a loss what to do if she came this way. He was very comfortable sitting with Jess this way, but this was very new. Ally would be insanely jealous to see this, which he found very satisfying, but he was not going to use Jessie for that. Then again, they weren't sitting like this to make Ally jealous or anything. They just were.

  Jessie picked up on what Crash was thinking about. "You think they're coming this way?"

  "Dunno."

  "She know you're here tonight?"

  "I don't think so."

  "If what Tina said is true, she's going to get jealous seeing us here like this."

  "I don't much care."

  "You don't?"

  "Well, I'll admit to a small bit of satisfaction, considering it took her less than a week to rub my nose in it. But, really, I don't care. If you want to get up, Jess, that's fine with me-I certainly do not want to use you to make her jealous."

  "I sat here, and I'm comfortable."

  "So am I."

  "Then, to hell with her."

  "My sentiments exactly. Now shut up and eat your grapes."

  Jessica ate a few more, but Crash spoke again. "So, I know we've known each other not at all, but you want to give this a try?"

  "What do you mean."

  "You want to go out with me?"

  Jessie thought for a minute. "Damn, I finally get asked out by a guy I think I really like, and he turns out to be a damn Preppie."

  "Yeah, but a preppie that's handy with the grapes."

  Jessie laughed, then sat silent for a minute. "Yeah, Jason, I think I'd like to go out with you." She thought for a minute. "Now what do we do?"

  Crash slipped back into Worf mode, and intoned, "I will recite Klingon love poetry, while you hurl heavy objects."

  "Rrrrooowwwwrrrrr!!!" Jessie purred.

  "Should we go tell 'em?"

  "Who?"

  "I was thinking of Warren and Sophia in particular."

  "I'll take care of it." She sat up in the lounge chair. "HEY EVERYBODY, SHUT UP AND LISTEN UP FOR A MINUTE!" She bellowed. Then she waited for the murmuring to die down. "HE ASKED ME OUT. I SAID YES. YOU MAY ALL CHEER NOW." And then she settled back into Crash's lap, laughing, as the gang across the yard laughed and cheered at the same time. Then she heard Sophie's sing-song, "Jessie's got a Preppie, Jessie's got a Preppie!"

  "Oh Shit," laughed Jessie. "Now I've gone and done it."

  Crash laughed, "Well, Ally knows now."

  "Oh, shit, Jason, I forgot."

  "Who cares? You didn't use any names so, unless someone else told them, she still doesn't know it's me."

  "She's about to find out. Here she comes."

  "So, who's over here that I have to congratulate?" Ally walked over, and then she stopped with a start. "Jason?"

  "Hi, Ally. This is Jessie."

  "Nice to meet you. Nice to see you, Jay. Congratulations," and she beat a hasty retreat.

  Sophia had grabbed a private corner with Jess, while Crash hung out with Warren and some of the other guys. Matt and Ally had disappeared shortly after Ally had seen Crash.

  "So, Jessie," asked Sophia, "What has gotten in to you?"

  "Whaddaya mean?" Jess asked innocently.

  "We've been friends for a long time. You never let guys get close. Heck, the boyfriend you did have, he followed you around for six months before you deigned to give him the time of day. Now you're going out with a guy you met yesterday?"

  "I'm fairly amazed myself. Crash says that he was amazed he asked me so quickly."

  "Yeah, that's what Warren said-he said that Crash is usually as cautious around girls as you are around guys."

  "I don't know how to explain it, Soph. It just felt right, is all. I was with him two hours yesterday, and I realized, I really like this guy. Shit, I have been myself for two days, and he still asked me out."

  Sophia looked flabbergasted. "You turned it down, considerably, around Aaron."

  "I know. And after that whole thing collapsed, and all my painstaking reinvention of my self for the sake of my boyfriend blew up in my face, I vowed to never do that for the sake of a guy again. And I haven't. I was Full Metal Jessica yesterday on the beach."

  "And how did Crash react?"

  "He laughed a lot. And threw out a bunch of his own."

  "Wow."

  "Between the two of us, I think we insulted every person on the beach, including you and Warren-but you guys are used to that."

  Sophia just smiled. Jessica went on, "And then we had a serious talk about broken relationships and feeling like fifth wheels, and then we went back to insulting and joking again. It was so... comfortable."

  "Jessie's in love with a preppie!"

  Jessie hit her on the arm. "You just shut up. Listen, we're not in love. It's too soon for that. I don't need to be goo-goo gaa-gaa starry eyed to go out with someone, and neither does Jason. Let's just say we're in very serious like with each other, and are willing to give it a shot and see what develops."

  "Cool. I'm still amazed it happened this fast, but it's very cool."

  "Well, I can't speak for Jason, but I know, for myself, that I started with a level of trust that I usually have to build up to."

  "How so?"

  "Because he's Warren's best friend. I figure Warren knows what he's like, right? And I know Warren well enough to know that, if he thought his best friend was going to hurt me, he wouldn't let him get within a mile of me, much less introduce us at a beach. I know yesterday wasn't a setup, but, confess, Sophie-you guys are thrilled, aren't you?"

  "Yeah," Sophia admitted. "And you're right about Warren-he adores you, you know."

  "I know. I think pretty highly of him, too. Now, I'd never go out with him, mind you. But I always thought if I found a guy who had Warren's basic decency, intelligence, and attitude on how to treat girls-plus a personality that was a little closer to mine-then I figured I'd really have something."

  "You just described Crash, you know."

  "Now how did I know you were going to say that? Now I just gotta find out if he's as good a kisser as you say Warren is."

  "Sorry, I wouldn't know personally, my lips are taken." Sophia quipped, to Jessie's giggles. "You haven't kissed him, yet, to seal the deal?"

  "No, he was too busy feeding me grapes! What's mere kissing when you're lying in a guy's arms being fed grapes? A girl must have her priorities, right?"

  "You found a man to feed you grapes."

  "Yeah. That's what we were doing over here. He asked me out while he was feeding me grapes. And it was his idea-all I had to do was say 'Grapes! I love grapes!' and the next thing I know I'm in his arms having them dangled in front of me."

  "Now I know why you agreed to go out with him so fast. You actually found a guy to pass The Grape Test."

  "The grape test, and the Full Metal Jessica test. How could I say no?"

  They ended up in the lounge chair again, finishing off the grapes. There was a small knot of people at the picnic table-Warren, Sophia, Tina, Kate, Mo, and Len. Jessie and Crash liked the arrangement-they were off in a corner a bit, but still were able to contribute to the conversation.

  "Hey, Soph," Jessie asked, "Warren ever feed you grapes?"

  "I'm not all that partial to grapes. Warren feeds me ice cream."


  "Really?" Jessie smiled.

  "Yeah. I sit on his lap and he feeds me ice cream."

  "Then there was the night she fed me whipped cream without using any utensils, but we won't get into that," Warren quipped, while Sophie blushed.

  "You guys are disgusting," said Tina. Tina was a bit younger, only 13. Kate, her best friend, was the curious one. "What do you mean, without utensils?" Kate asked.

  They all cracked up laughing. "I'm not sure I want to be the one to corrupt you, Kate," Warren quipped.

  Tina whispered something in Kate's ear, which made Kate say, "ohhhh" and blush, to everyone's amusement.

  "You'd better lay off feeding her the ice cream, anyway, War," Jessie joked. "You'll never lift her."

  "Ah, shaddap," Sophie said.

  "Grapes are healthier," Jessie maintained, biting another one off the outstretched bunch.

  "So, have you missed the grapes yet and bitten his hand?" an amused Warren asked.

  "I never bite and tell."

  "Oh baby oh baby oh baby," Crash put in.

  "You just start reading that Klingon love poetry, honey, I've got the heavy objects all ready to hurl."

  "Oh baby oh baby oh baby."

  The table drifted off to other conversation, and Jessie and Crash drifted into a quiet conversation of their own. Jessie was sitting on his lap, lying sideways against his chest, their arms around each other.

  And then, suddenly, Crash leaned down and kissed her.

  Which Jessie thoroughly enjoyed.

  They broke the kiss, and smiled at each other, and then kissed again. It turned into a bit of making out.

  Which Sophie couldn't let pass up, when she noticed it. She let them enjoy it for a bit, and then shouted something that Jessica shouted at her and Warren all the time: "Hey, get a room!!!"

  Jessie threw a grape at her, and went back to kissing Crash.

  Chapter 25 - Dealing With Sophia's Past

  Three weeks into the school year, Sophia couldn't believe how well things were going. She had all new teachers, except one, and they didn't know Sophia Daniels, Troublemaker, so she got a fresh start-and she was taking advantage of it. She was studying, trying to do well, because dating Warren for 6 months had made her realize something-she wanted a future. Now that it looked like she could have one, she wanted one. She had read up on meteorology, and found that she had to do well in math and certain types of science. That made her concentrate on math, and she found out that she really liked it. She was doing well in Chemistry, too. And Warren had truly re-awakened her love of reading, so English was coming along fine.

  The big problem was history. It was never her favorite subject to begin with-that had been her one C on her fourth quarter report card last year-and that was also the class where she had the same teacher as last year, Mr. Doherty. She imagined in her mind Mr. Doherty looking at his class lists, seeing the name Sophia Daniels, and banging his head against his desk crying "Not again! Not again!" Since her class last year had been chock-full of her buddies, that was where she had caused the most trouble. But this was a new year, and she was trying to make amends.

  It wasn't working. She raised her hand, and Mr. Doherty would just smirk at her. Someone caused trouble, and she got lumped in with the blame. He made sarcastic comments all the time. Sophia understood why, she really did-he must have spent all last year seeing her face in front of him and wanting to kill her. But she was trying to change. And he wasn't getting it.

  She'd discussed it with Warren, who advised her to talk to the man. Good advice, and she was considering it, but it was difficult.

  She hoped today Mr. Doherty might notice, because they had had a quiz the day before, and she felt she had done well on it. If she had, maybe then he might notice that, this year, she was trying.

  Mr. Doherty waited until close to the end of the class to pass out the quizzes. He went from desk to desk, making a comment on each. Then he came to her. "And, now we have Miss Daniels. I corrected this paper twelve times, because I kept looking for my enormous math error, but it wasn't there. Miss Daniels, you got a 93 on this quiz. Congratulations."

  Sophia was thrilled. She was so proud of herself. That didn't last long.

  "So, Miss Daniels, which of your neighbors were you copying from? Both of them? Or did you smuggle crib sheets into the quiz? C'mon, Sophia, confess." He stopped then, walking away with a smirk on his face, but the damage was done.

  Sophia sat there as he passed out the rest of the quizzes, staring down at her desk, saying to herself, "I will not cry. I will not cry." She cried far too often lately, she thought. She used to be able to shrug this stuff off. She felt everything much more than she used to. It was sometimes annoying-this was one of those times.

  The bell rang, and the class flew out-it was the last period of the day-but Sophia didn't trust herself to stand, yet. She sat there, trying to control herself, hoping her continued presence in the classroom would somehow manage to go unnoticed. It didn't.

  "Is there a problem, Miss Daniels?" Mr. Doherty asked.

  Maybe Warren was right. Maybe this would never be solved until she said something. She was still looking down at her desk, but she controlled herself, and said, "Mr. Doherty, I would like to ask you a favor. I would like you to try to forget that you had me in your class last year."

  "But, Miss Daniels, how could I ever do that?" he said with the smirk in his voice that Sophia had come to expect. "I mean, your presence in my classroom last year was so unforgettable."

  "Forget it, anyway. Please."

  He heard something in that plea he did not expect. "Miss Daniels, are you crying?"

  She nodded no, but squeezed her eyes tighter.

  "Why on earth are you crying?"

  Sophia just pointed at the quiz, still on her desk.

  "Oh, I get it," said Mr. Doherty. "All upset that I called you out on your cheating, eh?"

  Then, Sophia did something that she didn't often do. She got mad.

  "I did not CHEAT! I studied for this! I worked for this! I sit in this class every day, I do your assignments, I pay attention, I try to contribute, I do everything I can think of to try to show you that I am not the lost little girl that was in your class last year, and you refuse to notice! Then we have a quiz. I knew I did well on it. I figured, now you'll notice. And you give it back to me, with that grade, and I get to feel proud of myself for a whole THREE SECONDS before you accuse me of cheating!" Sophia crushed the quiz into a little ball, threw it in the general direction of the wastebasket, and started storming out of the room.

  "Sophia, wait." She stopped. Mr. Doherty retrieved the quiz from the floor, smoothed it out, and looked at it. "You did this? All on your own?"

  Her back still to him, she nodded.

  "Oh, shit. Jesus Christ," he said. Sophia turned back towards him, surprised. "Sophia, I am sorry."

  "Thank you for saying that."

  "I told myself when I first started teaching, that I'd never give up on a student completely, that kids can change. I've gotten jaded because I've seen so few of them change."

  Sophia grinned slightly. "Well, you've got one."

  "It seems so. I really am sorry, Sophia. And, considering where you were last year, you have every right to feel extremely proud of this." He handed over the crumpled quiz. Sophia laughed and tried to smooth it out more. "What happened?"

  "Let's just say that a lot of very, very bad things that were happening to me stopped. And a lot of very, very good things started."

  "They must have been very bad."

  "Yeah, they were." Sophia said. And, since she had told herself she was going to try to speak out about what happened to her, she told him. "I spent two years being a victim of boyfriend abuse. It was particularly bad from last October until March."

  "Oh, Sophia, now I really am sorry. I should have been able to tell,"

  "How?"

  "I'll tell you that in a minute. Let's just say I'm around abused teenagers a lot, especially t
hose that are being abused by a friend or boyfriend. Anyhow, what I wanted to ask was, how did you get out of it?"

  "I met someone who said the right things at the right time, and ended up taking a few punches for me from the asshole."

  "Boyfriend?"

  "Now he is. Back then he was just a good friend. He kept telling me things, and somehow they got through. And, when I knew I needed to get out of this, and was having trouble finding the courage, he showed me his, which made it easier to find mine."

  "And he helped you build your self confidence back up."

  "Bingo."

  "Which made you want to fix parts of your life you had neglected, including do well in school."

  "Well, that, plus the fact that I somehow happened to fall in love with a studyaholic genius preppy nerd who's ranked third in his class-at St. Michael's, no less. A girl has got to keep up, you know."

  Mr. Doherty laughed at that. "Now that is something I never would have put even a penny on."

  "You are not the only one."

  "So, let me ask you, Sophia-how are you dealing with the ramifications of your abuse? Are you in any therapy?"

  "I was, over the summer. There were still some things I needed to work out, and I needed to find out if I was too dependent for my self-confidence on Warren-that's my boyfriend. I also went with my mother a few times, because we needed help in repairing our relationship."

  "How'd the therapy work for you?"

  "It was helpful, although a lot of what the guy told me I had figured out on my own. "

  "You and your mother?"

  "Better than ever."

  "What did he say about Warren?"

  "He said I probably am a little over-dependent on him, but Warren came with me a couple of times, and the therapist also said that it was the healthiest relationship he had ever seen between two high school sophomores."

  "That's fantastic." Mr. Doherty smiled. "Now, I come to why I asked you all this, and why I am kicking myself for not spotting this last year."

  "Don't kick yourself, Mr. D. I was extremely good at erecting walls. You didn't notice, because you didn't give a shit about me last year, and that's because I made damn good and sure that you didn't give a shit. You weren't the only one I did that to. How Warren got through my walls is something I will never completely understand."