Regarding Wallflowers
Light breaks through the openings in the tall bell tower, entering my tired eyes and falling flat on my tired mind, taunting me that I should feel something. Been so long since I felt anything.
As I sit in the grass in the middle of the quad on such a magnificent day, I know I should be feeling some sensation.
Class ends, and people pour in and out of old, imposing, brick buildings, each with a different emotion on their face. Horrified at the test they just failed, relieved with being dismissed for the day, elated with having learned something new. Some of them from out of town smiling at the quaintness of catching the streetcar down St. Charles to Carrolton to get some lunch.
I’m not a jaded hometown girl, but definitely a dulled one. The boys around here drink too much, spend too much time making their hair seem perfectly unbrushed, and too much money on I-listen-to-Dave-Matthews-so-I- must-be-hip sandals. Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with any of that, and it seems every other girl here goes gaga over it. I’ve even tried it for myself, and all it’s done is leave me sitting in the hot late summer grass feeling as out of place as the church bell tower on this college campus dominated by vocal atheists.
Maybe I was just meant to exist in a century past, when the tower was in its prime and courtship was not embedded in superfluous social games played by 20-somethings having a second teenage decade with adult privileges.
But, they all seem happy…
Am I that much of a mutant that I can’t be what they are, or have they never paused long enough to stroll through the same lonely, pensive hallways as me? Can’t say I’d wish it upon any of them. Let them be happy.
Even my name—Ruby—doesn’t fit me with my brown hair that doesn’t resemble any gem I’ve ever seen.
People walk in many directions all around me—cutting across the grass to get to their next class, walking along the paved sidewalk in front of me, or wandering around looking for a nice place to sit.
A girl approaches wearing a shirt that reads “No Fur” while holding a mobile phone wrapped in a leather case. A boy passes me with the chain from his wallet jingling at his knees, wearing a shirt that says “Independent”—just like 15 other guys on the quad right now who all apparently share the same closet. A group of boys form a hacky sack circle just to the left of me.
All of them seem to shine in the sunlight and move around me in a dance I don’t know. I feel like a black hole in a sky full of identical stars.
Here comes something different. ‘80s-style sunglasses that consist of one thin blade covering her eyes—making her look like a machine; nose ring; black and white striped stockings in 91-degree, sticky, New Orleans weather with a blue Pippy-Longstockings-style ponytail on both sides of her head. Amidst the blue hair are traces of red highlights, more like streaks.
That’s my crazy friend, Ambrosia. I’d call her eccentric, but she works very hard to get people to call her crazy. In fact, she already has people calling her Ambrosia when the name on her official schedule is Amber.
“What’s up, chica?” she asks as she plops down on the grass beside me.
It’s so hard for me to talk to her with her sunglasses on—makes me feel like I’m talking to the shades and not her.
“Just hanging out. Still have about an hour before I need to be at Riverview High.”
“What are we doing tonight?” she quickly asks another question, although I’m not sure she listened to my answer to the first one.
“I wasn’t planning on anything. Maybe a movie.”
“B-o-r-ing.”
“Hey, I’m just not a party girl. Not everybody has to
Lifting up her sunglasses to reveal her yellow color contacts on bloodshot eyes, “
I can’t keep from cracking a smile.
“Come on, Ruby, you have to go out—it’s your 19th birthday for Pete’s sake. What else are you gonna do—sit in the grass alone getting all philosophical-like?”
Laughing nervously, I say, “Yeah right, I’m not that big of a loser yet.”
The truth stings a little more when it comes from your own lips. Self-realization may be healthy, but sometimes it sucks.
Ambrosia smiles wickedly, and I know she’s brewing some mayhem for tonight that’ll make me wish I was at home clinging to my lonely nerdom. Dropping her blade-sunglasses back over her eyes, she says, “Then, ‘80s Night it is.”
“Oh, Lord.”
Chapter III
Descent From Decency
“Come on, keep up!” are the words she leaves trailing over her shoulder to me as she plunges into the hive.
Weaving between shoulders and hands grasping plastic cups that drip alcohol, I follow my blue-haired friend into the center of the vortex.
She moves and bops from one side to the other with the smack of the snare drum that so defines ‘80s music. She effortlessly becomes a part of the crowd like a drop of water added to a pool. I feel like a rock clumsily plunked in, making an unwanted wake.
Thank God—she reaches the exact epicenter of the dancing, turns, and extends her hands out for me to join her, giving me some visible reason for being out here on the dance floor with the graceful and the cool.
The song ends, and I nervously hold my breath, waiting to hear what’s coming next that I’m supposed to dance to. The sound of a keyboard playing the intro to “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight” brings out a cheer from the crowd and raises hands in the air. I love the song, but I’m petrified, cold fear spreading through my body.
Ambrosia spins herself around, spattering the people around her with tiny droplets of her colorful drink. I sip my Coke, stalling having to dance for another moment. Surprisingly, no one minds that she’s sprinkled them—they all smile at her like she’s ‘80s Girl, saving them from the evil clutches of an ordinary night and dousing them with her magical ‘80s juice, sharing her supernatural cool with them.
She turns her bright, yellow eyes away from her admirers to glance at me quickly.
Swiftly grabbing my free arm at the wrist, she yanks me forcefully toward her, causing a tiny bit of my Coke to run down my other hand. She pulls my wrist back and forth, forcing my body to move with the rhythm of the song.
This is why Ambrosia is a wonderful friend. She’s forgotten to meet me places when we’ve made plans—dated guys I thought I liked, but she wouldn’t let me stay home on my birthday and now won’t let me drown of humiliation in this pool of coolness. She’s going to hold my wrist until I learn to swim—or at least tread water.
Lets go of my hand…body keeps moving…still breathing.
Two drinks plop down on the bar in front of me. I’ve switched from Coke to the hard stuff—energy drinks. The other cup is full of Ambrosia’s too-sweet-smelling, bright-colored concoction she’s been downing all night.
She keeps begging me to try her drink like it’s some all-powerful elixir that’ll wash all the dorkiness inside me right out of my bladder. That’s just not me—I’m a sober gal. Can’t let go of control of myself—barely have a decent grip as it is. Besides, if I drank like Ambrosia, I’d only be an epically bad, clumsy version of her.
A chiseled arm in a tight-fitting metal-gray t-shirt rests its elbow down on the bar next to my drinks, followed by the most arousing male scent to ever tickle my nostrils. Two female bartenders smile and wave as soon as they notice him. He waves in one fast, straight motion. One of the bartenders blows him a kiss; the other makes a
