We pulled up to the deBoers' house half an hour before eight. We were supposed to be there at seven, but my mom had this thing about being "fashionably late."
Dad parked on the street, and we all got out of the car, and headed up the block to the deBoer's well maintained front yard. Mom carried a crudites platter she'd spent all afternoon arranging, and Dad lugged a case of Schlitz.
It was cool this late September Saturday evening. The nip in the air that fortold of winter was countered by the struggling forces of Summer. Soon it would be snowy and horrible, but for now, it was balmy and wonderful.
My pink party dress swished as I walked, and I liked the sound of my heels clicking on the pavement. Pink with puffy shoulders, ruffles at the hem, white socks and my pink heels. Mom had suggested I wear the pink party dress Aunt Pearl gave me for my birthday in August, and I jumped at the opportunity. It's too fancy to wear to school, and just fancy enough to wear to church. Maybe it's a bit "girly" for a 18 year old to wear, but that's probably one of the reasons I liked it. There was a large part of me that wasn't ready to be a woman yet, that still relished "girly" things, that still preferred Barbies to boys. It was easier to indulge that side of myself when I was around my parents' friends, mostly because they expected a littler girl, instead of the young woman I was grudgingly becoming.
Mr. deBoer's brand new cherry red '76 Mustang was conspicuously parked in the driveway, a testament to his promotion--the reason for this evening's get together. Just so you know, the only reason I knew it was a '76 Mustang was that he told simply everyone about it. The whole neighborhood knew it was a '76 Mustang. It wouldn't have been surprising to see Mr. deBoer had taken an ad out in the paper informing the whole town that he'd just bought a brand new cherry red '76 Mustang.
We walked in the house without knocking, and we were greeted with a gaggle of adults, all of whom cheered when my dad entered with the beer. I shook hands with a bunch of people, but being painfully shy around people I don't know, I sort of melted into the background. Mr. and Mrs. deBoer said hi to me and Mrs. deBoer said I looked adorable in my frilly pink dress. I pretended to be coy and polite, but I was really basking in the attention. All the people from Dad's work were there, names I knew only from him talking about them at the dinner table. They made a fuss over me, and said my dress looked cute and asked how school was going. I was never good at small talk, though, and these conversations usually ended as quickly as they began.
Mrs. deBoer handed me a Coke and asked me what I was going to do next year. I told her I was headed to CalTech, where I was going to study Astrophysics. She nodded politely (it was obvious she had no idea what Astrophysics even meant, let alone why a girl would be interested in it) and told me that Jackie was downstairs if I wanted to say hi.
Oh, boy. Jackie. I had no desire to hang out with Jackie here or anywhere. But if she was here, I might as well say hello. Be polite and all.
Mrs. deBoer ushered me toward the basement door and opened it up for me. "If you need anything," she said, "just holler."
I came down the carpeted steps, rounded the corner, and found Jackie in the basement, ignoring the TV in the corner which was showing a rerun of "Happy Days." She was hunched over the deBoers' octagonal bumper pool table. Her bell bottoms hugged her ass (which I had always sort of envied), and flared widely at her knees, completely covering whatever shoes she was wearing. She had on an orange blouse under a sweater vest. She cocked her arm and took a shot at the balls on the table, and they clicked loudly, caroming off the felt sides of the table.
"Hey," I said.
She turned around. Her long, dark, perfectly feathered hair swung as she turned, and bounced back into place as soon as she was done. She must have taken hours in front of the blow dryer to get it to stay like that. She suppressed a smile as she looked at me. "What's with the dress?" she asked.
I was suddenly mortified to be wearing my dress, but I think I covered it well. "My mom made me wear it," I said, rolling my eyes. It stung, her dismissal of my favorite thing.
Jackie and I weren't much more than acquaintances. She runs with a different crowd. She's a cheerleader and on all the school dance committees, and I'm kind of a science geek. She spends her time hanging out with her gaggle of friends and I study physics so that I can someday be the first American woman astronaut (the first woman astronaut had been Valentina Tereshkova, and I was endlessly jealous of her, even though she was Russian). I see her in the hallways at school and she has Typing class with me. Polite, but distant.
She looked like she was biting back a criticism of my dress, examining me with her eyes. "It's..." she started, "nice."
Which meant "It's ugly and stupid and you're stupid for wearing it to a party. Check out my hip duds. I'm hip and cool and you're ugly and stupid." All of a sudden I wanted to be back upstairs with real adults, people who wouldn't look down at me for not being popular.
"Wanna play some pool?" Jackie asked. Maybe she sensed that she'd put me off, and was trying to make amends. Maybe she was looking for ways to tear me down again. Either way, she handed me a pool stick and started setting up the red and white balls.
I grabbed the stick and we started playing, mostly silently, every now and then we'd congratulate the other one on a nice shot. Fonzie and Richie and the Cunninghams went about their wacky lives on the black and white in the corner.
My dad came down at one point, holding an open beer. He watched the game for a little while and made small talk with Jackie (How's school, what do you want to do after you graduate, any boys in your life, etc.), and then cruised on back upstairs.
I was winning the game, four of my balls were pocketed to two of hers, and I bent over to take a shot at my final ball. It would be a tricky shot since one of hers was blocking the pocket and there was a bumper in my way. I concentrated on the shot, thinking about mathematics and physics, angles of carom and velocity. I pulled back my arm and got ready to shoot.
And then I noticed that Jackie was standing really close to me. She was leaned against the table, chalking her cue. I could smell her perfume, and even though I didn't know what brand it was, it didn't make the smell any less pretty.
Distracted, I shot at my ball. The ball bounced off hers AND the bumper I was trying to miss and caromed off into a completely different area of the table.
"Whoops," she said.
"Yeah, whoops," I answered.
She leaned in for her turn while I chalked up my own cue. She bumped me with her hip, and I noticed that she was shooting at the wrong ball. There was an easy shot right next to the pocket, but she was aiming for one that would go all the way back where it started from. I thought about commenting on it, but then wondered if she wasn't playing some kind of strategy.
She shot, and the ball, as expected, missed the pocket entirely and rolled harmlessly into a corner. "Whoops," she said again, shrugging her shoulders. Her dark feathered hair bounced up and down once as she shrugged. I noticed how close she was standing. Close enough to make me feel uncomfortable. She was about six inches shorter than me, and she was looking up at me with her brown eyes, which I noticed all of a sudden were very large.
I didn't say anything, but I really wanted to break this uncomfortable proximity. I turned to the game, and got ready to put her away. I moved all the way around the table for a shot on my last ball, and just as I bent over to shoot, Jackie was right next to me again, too close for comfort. Again, I stayed silent, and concentrated on my ball. I could feel her watching me, and it was ruining my concentration. I stood up and demanded, "What?"
"Nothing," she said, innocently. She moved in and put her arms around me, pulling me into a close embrace.
Not knowing exactly what to do, I let her hug me. She put her head on my chest and we stood there for a few moments. "Jackie," I said finally, "what is going on?"
She pulled away from me, but didn't break the embrace. "Have you ever had a lesbian experience?"
"No!" I said, pulling away from her. Lesbian! It was practically a naughty word! It was like saying shit or fuck!
Sensing my discomfort, she pulled away a little bit, leaning on the back of the overstuffed brown couch next to the bumper pool table that pointed toward the television, where the Cunningham family still went about their lives. It was quiet and awkward in the room, so I, not knowing what else to do, turned back to the pool table.
I was getting ready to shoot again--maybe finish this game and lie about having to go upstairs or something--when she sighed pathetically. "It's just that Marie Farmer and Joanie Richards say they have had one."
"That so?" I asked, feigning interest, mind still buzzing that Jackie had said the word 'lesbian' out loud.
"And Kasey Billings and Lori DiArman have too." These were all her friends. Girls she hung out with, they were on the cheerleading team and the pep squad and the booster club. They were the popular girls, way more concerned with makeup and boys than science and physics, therefore, completely the opposite of weird little me.
"So what?" I asked.
"So I wanna have one too," she answered. "I don't want to be left out."
