My school had a tradition for homecoming week. Each day had a different theme. “Dress like a Redneck Day” and “Dress Like A Superhero Day” were popular ones in which many of my classmates would participate with costumes or makeup. After practice on the Thursday before homecoming week, I heard a couple of linemen say they were going all-out for “Tootsie Day” on Monday. That was a day when girls dressed like boys and boys dressed like girls. It was named for the 1982 Dustin Hoffman movie but I doubt any of my classmates could tell you that. The two defensive lineman were planning to wear miniskirts and halter tops and the locker room echoed with their excited talk. The group of boys around them laughed as the hopeful cross-dressers mimed how big their “jugs” were going to be.
Before football, the only time I had participated in spirit week was when I wore my red Stone Temple Pilots shirt on “Pathfinder Pride” day; a day we were all supposed to wear our school’s colors. My accidental participation earned me plenty of grief from my friends, especially Nicole.
I packed the last of my things into my gym bag and headed for the door. The coach’s office had a large window that looked out into the locker room and I had to pass it on the way out. Jerrad Griffith and Coach Myers looked up from a dry erase board in the design of a football field just as I was walking past the window. Coach nodded and went back to the diagram but Jerrad jogged out of the office to catch me before I could walk outside.
“Kinsey, wait up,” he snapped.
“What’s up, Jerrad?”
“My old man is letting me skip school so I can get the house set up for the party tomorrow night. You’re still going right?”
I nodded and answered, “Yeah, I’ll be there. I was going to bring a friend, if that’s okay.”
A shadow passed behind Jerrad’s shining blue eyes and he looked at the ceiling. I figured he was imagining all the nerdy losers I used to hang out with. He was worried I was going to bring some dork to the party and bring everyone down.
“It’s my neighbor, Nicole Miller.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jerrad, the shine returning to his eyes. “I think she’s in my English class.”
From stories Nicole told me I knew they shared History class and that Jerrad had the tendency to snore through movies when the lights were turned off.
“Yeah, she really wants to go,” I lied.
“Dude, I will never prevent any of my guests from bringing more hot girls,” he said with a wink and a slap to my shoulder. “See you tomorrow night!”
Jerrad jogged back into the coach’s office and I stood there for a second. He called Nicole hot and that made me angry for some reason. I shook my head, opened the door, and stepped out into the night air.
The late autumn days were pretty warm but once the sun went down, the temperature dropped. I stood under yellow light of the lamps that lit the school parking lot. Steam rose from my scalp, which was still damp from the dank heat of the locker room. I enjoyed the way the cold air felt and how it washed the stinky-shoe smell of sweaty sports equipment out of my nostrils. After a few more purifying breaths and a thousand goosebumps on my forearms, I made my way to my mom’s old station wagon.
My mom used to drive the blue and white Chevy Caprice Classic to work. When they added an express bus route to downtown, she offered to take the bus so I could drive to school. It was usually dark when I got done with practice and the walk home was almost two miles. Nicole liked to call the car “Woody” since it had a fake wood panel painted down the side. I pretended to be annoyed at the name, but only because she thought of it before me.
I unlocked the driver’s door, reached in to unlock the back door, and opened it. I tossed my bag onto the wide bench seat and shut the back door. I plopped into the driver’s seat and put the keys into the ignition. I turned the key and waited while the engine turned over a few times before it finally coughed to life. I left the door open while the engine warmed up to enjoy a little more fresh air. It was technically possible to roll down the car’s windows but they required two people to roll them back up. One person had to turn the crank with two hands while the other pushed up on the blue-hued glass to keep it from going crooked and leaving a gap below the black weather-stripping. When the car was warm, the engine idle settled to a low purr and the defroster vents began to blow lukewarm air across the windshield.
I shut the driver’s side door, shifted into drive, and began to point the gigantic hood toward the parking lot exit. Just as my tires began to move, I saw lights in my side-view mirror and a shiny, red Chevy truck roared past. I saw a vanity plate on the black bumper, stamped with the letters “JERRAD.” Three boys wearing letterman’s jackets sat in the bed. One boy stood, held on to the chrome roll bars with one hand and flipped me off with his other. I took a deep breath and took my foot off of the brake again.
The next day at school, I noticed that Jerrad was absent from Health class. I was so nervous about going to the party that I was hardly able to pay attention in any of my classes. Twice, a teacher called on me and the rest of the class laughed when I was completely unable to answer the question. I didn’t have Nicole in any of my classes and I didn’t see her at lunch so I was pleasantly surprised when she grabbed my arm in the hall after seventh period.
“Are you still intent on going to the meat-head’s party tonight?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Are you still going to come with and keep me company?”
“Against my better judgment,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Cool, I gotta pick my mom up from work today. But I’ll come get you after dinner, okay?”
“Okay,” she said but I could see something change in her expression.
“You alright?”
“I’m fine, Trev,” she said. I could tell that she was not.
“Okay, well… I’ll see you after dinner,” I said and headed for the exit.
During drive to downtown, I couldn’t keep the look on Nicole’s face out of my head. The more I thought about it, the more I was certain that something was wrong. I should have known she wouldn’t tell me anything personal in the hallway. Nicole did not trust our classmates. She didn’t even like most of them. I was the only person she really talked to and even then she held most of her feelings back. I got to my mom’s office a few minutes early and sat on the hood to soak up the last bit of sunlight. I was just starting to doze when my I heard my mother’s voice.
“Are you really sitting on the hood of my car,” she begged the rhetorical question in a way that only a mother can successfully employ.
“Sorry mom,” I said as I slid down and planted my feet on the pavement.
I handed her the keys and climbed into the passenger seat. We were leaving downtown early and missed the worst of what could be called rush hour in my town. We were nearly home when my mom cleared her throat.
“Your father is working late tonight and I don’t feel like cooking. Mind if we pick up some junk food on the way home?”
“Sounds good, mom,” I said but I was a little disappointed.
The exchange with Nicole in the hallway had put me in a sour mood and my mother’s cooking always made me feel better. We pulled up to a drive-through burger stand, got our food to go, and mom started to drive towards our house.
“I have that party at Jerrad’s house tonight.”
“I remember, honey.”
“I’ll probably be home kind of late.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart.”
My parents were proud of my success at football but they were also very happy that I had stopped hanging out with “losers and weirdos” as my dad put it. When I told them I was invited to the party at Jerrad’s house, they were more excited about it than I was.
Mom pulled the car into the driveway and parked in front of the garage door that never opened because the stall was full of Christmas decorations, lawn care equipment, and boxes of stuff that wouldn’t fit in the basement. I grabbed the food and opened my door. On my way to our front door, I heard voices coming from Nicole’s house. It sounded like someone was watching a rowdy talk show on TV, with the volume all the way up.
I walked into the house and went to the kitchen. Mom went to the front room to turn on the TV and tune it to the local news. She returned to the kitchen and poured us each a glass of milk. We devoured our cheeseburgers and shared a tub of crinkle-cut fries which I dipped in fry sauce and she dipped in tartar sauce. We both passively watched the news and didn’t speak a word. When I was finished, I gathered up the grease-stained wrappers and the empty condiment cups to deposit them in the brown paper bag. I stood up, walked to the trash can, and tossed the bag into the garbage.
“I’m gonna go now, mom,” I said.
“You’re not going to change first?”
“Mom, it’s not a formal affair. It’s just some kids getting together at Jerrad’s house.”
“It’s just,” she winced. “You’ve never been to a party before.”
“I’ve been to parties, mom.”
“You’ve gone to David’s house to play your card games all night. That is not a party. Don’t you have a nicer shirt?”
“This will be fine, mom,” I said and rolled my eyes.
“Okay, honey,” she said as she gave up. “Have a good time and please call me if you need a ride home okay?”
I walked out the front door of our house to find Nicole sitting on the porch swing. Her gray hoodie was pulled up again and I could only see the tip of her nose and a few tendrils of her brown hair.
“Hey,” I said.
“Let’s go,” said Nicole, hopping off of the swing and making her way to the passenger door.
I stood on the front step for a few seconds, watching her walk toward the car. She opened the door, plopped into the passenger seat, and dragged the heavy door shut with a little more force than necessary. I made my way to the driver’s side, opened the door, and lowered myself onto the seat. I had to move it back a few inches since my mom was the last one to drive.
I was busy getting the rear-view mirror right and buckling my seat belt when Nicole shouted, “I said, let’s go!”
Her urgency startled me and I barely managed to get the car started, put it in reverse, and back it out of the driveway. I was so nervous that when I shifted into drive and hit the gas, the tires squealed until they caught traction and overcame our backwards inertia.
Why I Stayed by Joshua Kautzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.