“So don’t let the turkeys get you down,” Jessie says to me as she clears the coffee cups. They’ve left rings all over the table, like crazy Olympic logos.
6
I study chemistry with a vengeance now. Mr. Borglund is his normal self: he doesn’t give me any more or any less attention than he used to. I try glaring at him every so often, but it doesn’t seem to register with him. Shouldn’t he feel at least a little bad? Or did he tell the joke perhaps thinking I’d enjoy the special attention?
But even worse, Brad Whitlock has been chosen as a homecoming candidate, which confirms his popularity.
“I didn’t vote for that dickhead,” Jessie says. We’re sitting on the school lawn, shivering a little in the autumn breeze and watching the colorful tempera-painted signs of people’s names being hoisted up, one by one, onto the school’s facade.
“I didn’t, either,” I say. How is it possible that someone like Brad, who takes pleasure in humiliating someone else, can be so popular?
“Look,” I say, poking Jessie in the side with my elbow. The name marsha randall is going up.
“Figures.” Jessie snorts. “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
Sometimes I think things like homecoming are meant to tell the popular kids what they already know and make the rest of us feel like we’ve been left behind.
“Who’d you vote for?” I ask.
“Rocky Jukich, among others, naturally,” she says. “Of course, I don’t expect him to get elected.”
The pep clubbers continue to attach the signs to the school’s facade; I hope no one falls off those rickety ladders.
Then a sign catches my eye: tom sandel. Tomper’s name, in fire-engine red, is there for all to see. I voted for him even though he hasn’t talked to me in a while.
“Tomper has been called up to greatness—it’s nice having someone nice for a change,” Jessie says. “I voted for him.”
“Me too,” I say, but I know I have no other claim on him except I know that our lips touched that silvery night in September. I lie down in the grass and look up at the sky.
“I think that cloud looks like Nancy Reagan,” Jessie says, pointing to a fluffy cumulus cloud whose dark gray etching makes it look as if it has a prissy expression.
“I think you are a nut,” I answer, and sit up. They’ve just put up the last sign: mike anderson. “Sorry, Jess,” I say. “No Rocky.”
“Figures,” she says, gathering her stuff for the next class. “Sometimes I don’t know if this majority-voting stuff is such a great idea.”
I think of all the people who voted for Brad Whitlock—maybe even some of the people who heard him call me a chink on the bus.
“You’re right, Jess, it sure makes life shit for those of us stuck in the minority,” I say, surprised that I used a swear word.
At gymnastics practice, all the girls crowd around Marsha Randall, the new homecoming celebrity. “Congratulations, Marsha,” I say on the way to my gym locker.
“Thanks, Ellen,” she says, flashing me a Pepsodent smile. I pause for a moment and really try to like her, even if she is going to kill any chance I might have with Tomper. She is so beautiful with her hair spilling all over her shoulders.
I walk over to my locker.
“Hi, Beth,” I say, covetously watching her hang up her flashy emerald-green letter jacket.
“Set for the meet tomorrow?” Beth takes off her blouse, revealing a breadboard chest and scrawny arms. How she has all that power to pull and catch herself on the bars I’ll never know.
“I guess so,” I say, opening my locker. The dank odor of someone else’s sweat socks, rust, and sickeningly sweet talcum powder assaults my nose.
“They really need to put in more lockers,” Beth says, shoving her enormous pile of books into hers. “I hate sharing with the basketball players.”
Barbara, our coach, threads her way among all the adolescent bodies over to us.
“Uh, hi,” I say, feeling stupid in my bra and panties. Instead of looking at her face, I look at her thickening waist.
“Ellen, you’re going junior varsity floor and beam tomorrow,” she says, tapping the roster with her pencil. I steal a look at her face. Her auburn hair is in one of those short pageboys that look permanently curled under.
“O-kay,” I say as cheerfully as I can. I can’t understand why I am being put on JV as a senior. At the end of last year, I was competing in varsity meets.
“Ugh,” I say when Barbara is gone.
“That’s unfair,” Beth says. “You’re doing really well.”
“I guess I need to learn some harder moves.” I sigh.
“It’s only the first meet anyway,” Beth says encouragingly. “You’ll get your letter this year for sure.”
“I can only hope,” I say.
Tomper is at the meet, as he promised me that day in chemistry—way back on the first day of school. He is up there in the bleachers with Mike Anderson and Brad Whitlock. Compared with Mike’s and Brad’s short, neat haircuts, Tomper’s bushy hair looks long and wild. But all of them are wearing their letter jackets with the big A on the front, and Tomper doesn’t look like a burnout at all.
I really wish I were going on varsity today of all days.
“Hey, Ellen.” Jessie appears on the gym floor with me. She is waving a cardboard sign around, but pretending that she doesn’t know I can see it. It says go ln.
“Good luck,” she says. “Also, I think someone you like has skipped football practice to be here—and someone you don’t like, too.”
“I know,” I say casually, although my pulse is jumping around like a crazy fish. If I screw up, I will look bad not only in front of Tomper, but Brad Whitlock, too—and I don’t want that to happen.
Our competition, the Aurora-Hoyt Lakes team, is so small that they have only three people on JV. Their team color is crimson, the same as Harvard’s. This would have been a good meet for Mom and Father to see, but they never come to my meets. Michelle never did any sports—in fact, she loathed gym class—and she got into Harvard, so Mom and Father probably can’t see how sports fit into the great Harvard Equation. A dummy variable, at best.
We settle ourselves in the sidelines to watch the Aurora team start the JV beam event. Marsha Randall and some of the other varsity girls are stretching and doing handstands as if there isn’t a meet going on.
The first Aurora girl hops onto the beam like a creeping toad. Her short legs and long toes grip the beam for dear life.