Chapter 5 #3
“I don’t know.” I tried to be evasive and honest at the same time. “He was—I guess he was kind of hostile. Then, later, he apologized. He asked me to be friends.”
“He asked you to be friends?”
“Yes. It was very surreal.”
“I can imagine.” She nodded slowly for a full ten seconds, still watching me through narrowed eyes. Then, Shrink Sandra was gone and she said, “Okay then. It’s High School Musical time.”
“What?”
“Well, we’re not going to stay in here all night. I came here to dance and watch you make awkward conversation with your old classmates. I’m going to dance.” She grabbed my hand and led me out of the shower.
The abrupt switch in topics gave me Sandra-personality-conversation whiplash. “But…but I can’t—I can’t….” With every thump, my heart rose higher in my throat. “I can’t go out there.”
“Yes, you can.” She grinned over her shoulder. “And we’re going to sit with The Face.”
I didn’t notice much about my surroundings as we wound through the tables to the one nearest the dance floor.
I was too busy chiding myself for being an idiot.
This was something I used to do a lot when I was younger, and really an idiot.
All my blustery intentions of stunning everyone felt ridiculous and insipid, because they were.
Because I was.
I was ridiculous and insipid.
I decided that all plans for vapid high school maneuvers were to be abandoned ASAP. I felt both better and lost. With no plan, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Hoping that this part of my personality—perhaps like most people—was regulated only to situations involving high school, I made a silent pledge to redouble my efforts to be brave, honest, and self-effacing.
This would be difficult.
Every person clustered around Nico’s table was aiming stares with toxic intent in our general direction. Well, almost everyone. Well, all the women.
Regardless, Sandra approached with the confidence of one who is certain to be welcomed. She sauntered right up, placed my nametag at an empty seat, and hooked her bag on the back of a chair.
Nico was standing at a different table nearby, leaning close to a tall blonde.
I recognized her as one of his on-again, off-again high school girlfriends, Shelly Martin.
She was mostly in profile. He whispered something in her ear that made her laugh.
It wasn’t a forced laugh. It was genuine and contagious.
People in their sphere were attempting to lean closer to be part of the conversation, pressing themselves into his space.
I was reminded that he was irresistible to just about everyone.
“Okay then—start introducing me to people.” Sandra grinned, her eyes dancing around the crowd.
I grimaced at the thought. Feeling strangely better now that my sins had been confessed and my foolhardy plan abandoned, I surveyed the room.
My gaze landed on a boy from my sophomore trigonometry class who I’d despised: Brace Wilson.
He was on the swim team, and he barely kept up the grades required to be a top athlete.
He always tried to look over my shoulder during tests and frequently asked to copy my homework.
Swallowing my pride, I marched over to where he stood with a woman I assumed was his date. I decided that now was a good time to practice redoubling my efforts to be brave, honest, and self-effacing.
“Hi, Brace—” I paused a beat, giving him time to identify me, and then I stuck out my hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
Brown studied my face with teetering recognition. “Oh, hi…uh….”
“I’m Elizabeth—but you probably remember me as Skinny Finney.” I smiled.
His eyes grew several sizes. “Oh, yeah. I remember you—we were in math together.” To my complete astonishment, he hugged me.
“You were so nice.” Brace released me, but he kept a hand on my shoulder as he turned to the woman at his arm and said, “She used to let me copy her homework. Finney is the reason I didn’t fail that class. ”
The woman’s eyes were warm and friendly. “He is still terrible at math. I’m Belinda.”
I shook hands with Belinda, introduced Sandra, and then found myself engaged in an easy conversation with Brace and Belinda.
They were married. Brace joined the army after high school, then left after four tours in Iraq. He now drove semi-trucks. Belinda was a nurse. She was pregnant with their first child.
Soon, our foursome was joined by more members of the swim team.
Sandra was flirting with a local farmer while I was reacquainting myself with people I used to hate but now couldn’t remember why.
I was talking to Daniel—the class valedictorian, now a software engineer in Palo Alto with three kids and one more on the way—when I felt a warm hand close around my upper arm.
I turned toward the owner and found Nico standing next to me, studying me.
A hush fell over our small group, and Nico’s attention drifted from me to the rest of the faces. All eyes were on him. Everyone was smiling expectantly, eagerly. No one said anything.
It was eerie—like, now that Nico was there, he was expected to provide witty conversation and entertainment.
Dance, monkey, dance.
“Hi, everybody.”
“Hi, Nico.” In unison.
“Is everyone having a good time?”
“Yes.” In unison.
I frowned at Sandra, looking for someone with whom to share unspoken communication, but found her to be under the same spell as the rest of the group. My frown deepened.
“I was hoping someone could tell me how I got here.”
Crowd: Grin, grin, grin.
“I mean, one minute I’m in New York eating a hot dog and holding a brunette,” then, as though speaking only to himself, “or was that holding a hot dog and eating a brunette….”
Nico: Comedic pause.
Crowd: Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
Nico: Head shake.
“And the next minute,” he slid his arms around my waist, and pulled me back to his chest, “I’m in Iowa holding a blonde, but I’m still hungry.”
His hands moved with familiarity, resting on my stomach. If he’d been anyone else, I would have stepped out of the embrace, but for some reason, he seemed to have all of us under some kind of hex or enchantment or voodoo mojo.
My brain told me it was the celebrity cloud. My heart told me it was just Nico being Nico.
“What I really want to know is…” He leaned close to my ear and glanced over my shoulder; I could tell he was looking down the front of my dress. “…what happened to the hot dog?”
Crowd: Laugh, laugh, laugh.
It wasn’t what he said so much as how he said it. He possessed showmanship, swagger, confidence, and just the right shade of weirdly laudable chauvinism.
I was just a prop. I felt my face flame, and I tried to step out of his arms.
“Whoa—you’re not going anywhere until you return my hot dog.”
“That’s what she said,” Sandra supplied, indicating her chin toward me, and the whole group roared with laughter.
I felt the reverberations of Nico’s laugh at my back and knew his intent before he turned me to face him.
He didn’t look at me as he tucked me under his arm and led me away from the group.
They all seemed satisfied with his little performance; happy to have basked in his witty banter, even for a short time.
I clenched my jaw and willed my feet to stop.
Brain: Stop, feet.
Feet: I like cookies.
My feet kept moving.
I was equal parts mortified, annoyed, and confused. Nico’s hold on me was not entirely related to the strong arm over my shoulders. I still felt guilty about my behavior as a sixteen-year-old, and due to years and mountains of remorse, I felt indebted to him. I felt I owed him.
I hated it.
So I allowed myself to be led past his table to the dance floor just as the first notes of True by Spandau Ballet drifted out of the speakers. I struggled against an eye roll.
I was slow dancing in my high school gym with the most popular guy in school, and suddenly I felt like the protagonist in a 1980s John Hughes movie.