“Come on,” Abigail squeals, urging us all indoors.
Strung from the rafters, thousands of glittering orange lights decorate the barn. The air is humid with body heat. I stay near the chilly entrance.
Mason walks over, offering me a plate loaded with cider doughnuts, toffee, and pumpkin bars. “Princess?” he asks.
“Fairy,” I laugh, taking a toffee. “Obviously not a convincing one.”
“You’re a stunning fairy,” he says, and his ears go pink.
Mason is wearing a vintage sweater with Calgary 1988 embroidered above Olympic rings and a Union Jack pin on his chest.
“Olympian?” I guess.
“Eddie the Eagle.” He unhooks a pair of oversize red glasses from his sweater and places them on his face. “Gutsiest ski jumper of all time.” With his sun-streaked blond hair and tan skin glimmering in the lights, he looks more like a California surfer.
“Hey, do you want to check out the hay rafters?” a voice whispers in my ear. “It’s supposed to be haunted up there.”
I turn. “Aren’t you here with Abigail?”
“No one has a date,” Tate chuckles, snaking his arm around my neck. “Come on, Sophia,” he continues. “You’re probably the only person who hasn’t been up there.”
“Hey!” Charlotte intercedes, brushing aside Tate’s hand. “Stop running off!” she scolds me, dragging me toward the swarm of sweaty bodies.
Mason snatches Charlotte’s other hand, runs forward, and dashes into the crowd of people.
“Come on!” he yells. Carving into the solid mass like a surfboard through a wave, Mason tows us into the center of the dance floor under the dazzling orange lights.
All of a sudden, I am smashed among bodies. It is like being on the metro in Tokyo, or at a market in Delhi. Except these hot sweaty bodies are jumping and laughing and moving, in swirling unsynchronized steps.
Charlotte and Emma are ridiculously good dancers. Unfortunately, years of ballet did not equip me to dance at a Waterford High barn stomp.
Spunky country music vibrates in the air. Boys I’ve only seen sporadically in the halls push up near us. Charlotte seductively draws them close, then turns her back on them, regaining eye contact with us, her eyes wide with laughter. The only boy she dances with is Cole Richards, her on-off boyfriend for, like, ever, according to Emma.
Tate comes up behind me, places his hands on my hips, and sways with me along with the music. Imitating Charlotte, I playfully push his chest away. When this method backfires and he returns, even more tactile, I elbow him in the chest, right above his second rib. He puts a hand to his heart. “That hurt!” he laughs.
“It should!” I respond.
A bluegrass song begins. Suddenly everyone is shuffling into lines. Emma grabs my arm. “You stay behind me,” she orders.
At first, it’s impossible. Charlotte kicks right. I kick left. Emma turns sideways. I jump back. Each time I imitate their steps, I lag behind. Kick. Spin. Forward. Cross.
I’m terrible at this.
Charlotte links her hands into mine; in advance of each step, she prompts me. Reverse. Spin. Kick. Repeat. When I accidentally bump Abigail, she giggles, nudging me back in the right direction.
I feel completely out of place. While everyone dances deliberately, I pinball between bodies, two steps behind. But soon the fervor, the energy of everyone moving in synchronization—kick, slide, spin, turn, jump—encompasses me.
In the row ahead, Cole, Mason, Oliver, Liam, and a bunch of other boys expertly rotate inversely, causing a spectacle—even more so because of their ridiculous costumes.
During a double-skip-tap-spin one of my wings tangles with Emma’s. When Charlotte finally separates us, we can barely stand up straight from laughing so hard.
Somehow, by the final chorus, I catch on. The song ends in a fiddle crescendo—at the final note everyone jump-clicks their heels in the air, followed by boisterous applause.
Turns out, American line dances are really, actually, fun.
Several songs later, Charlotte hisses behind me, “Time to go!”
“Already?” I ask, looking back.
Because out of the corner of my eye—I see Aksel. He’s standing at the periphery of the barn with some other seniors. And he’s laughing.
I’m not sure why I feel so surprised to see him here wearing a cowboy hat and boots. Was he here the whole time?
“Isn’t there another song?” I ask Charlotte as she tugs my hand.
“Sure!” she laughs. “But we never stay until the end!”
Outside, the temperature has dropped. Cold sleet falls from the pewter sky. Charlotte, Emma, and I run back through the misty cornfield, trampling leaves and stalks.
“Meet at the Creamery!” Mason hollers to us as we reach Emma’s Jeep.
Turning out of the field, Emma approaches the intersection perched atop a short hill, icy in the sleet. She stops. Yet, when she starts again, the Jeep stalls.
We roll back. Charlotte gasps. Emma brakes. Quickly, she restarts the ignition. Again, it stalls. “Come on,” Emma moans, tossing her auburn hair off her face. “I hate this old Jeep.”
Battered pickup trucks and SUVs queue behind us. At our bumper, Ryan Rice blares his horn. Tate is beside him, with Abigail Montgomery on his lap, chuckling.
“Put it in first. Let out the clutch slower, and give it a little more gas,” I advise from the front seat. Emma tries, but stalls a third time. We slip back a meter before she brakes.
Tate yells out his window, “You almost hit us!”
“Hurry!” Charlotte urges frantically. Sleet slashes the windshield.
Emma goes so pale I worry she might pass out. It feels like half of Waterford High is now behind us, honking, waiting to exit the field.
“Is that car a little too much for you girls?” Tate taunts out the window.
His condescension irks me. Over my shoulder, I see him laughing.
“Switch places with me,” I say to Emma.
“What?” Emma asks, turning the key a fifth time. Her hands are shaking. Charlotte covers her face with one of her fairy wings.
“Put the parking brake on and switch with me,” I say.
Emma cranes her neck to see the cars behind us.
“Do it,” I order.
Emma pulls the emergency brake and clambers across my lap. I wriggle under her into the driver’s seat.
“You said you couldn’t drive!” Charlotte says, terrified.
Putting in the clutch, I turn on the ignition and ease the stick into first. “Did I?”
With the parking brake on, I rev the engine, release both brakes, and accelerate past the stop sign.
Ahead, a row of cars snakes around the backside of the barn, blocking our route. In the rearview mirror, I check the distance between Ryan and us—150 meters. I slam on the brake, shift into reverse, and throttle up.
“Sophia, what are you doing?” Emma squeals.
We move backward at a clip. Up to speed, I yank the emergency brake and palm the steering wheel left, popping the stick from reverse into first. We rotate 180 degrees. I throttle again, getting traction as I shift into first. The slick road gives me too much angle, so I adjust the wheel, then pull down into second gear, accelerating. As we speed past Ryan and Tate, Charlotte blows them a kiss.
“What was that?” Emma shrills from the passenger seat.