“Me.”
Jesse saw her, in the middle of the third row, a dark-haired girl, just developing a cheer-leader’s body if all went well.
“What’s your name?” Jesse said.
She stood up.
“Bobbie Sorrentino,” she said.
“Okay, Bobbie,” Jesse said. “Is that your mother with you?”
“Yeah,” Bobbie said, and nodded at her mother. “Her.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Tell me about it.”
“I gotta stand?”
“Nope, stand, sit, up to you.”
“I’m gonna stand,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“They got this stupid Wednesday-afternoon dance,” Bobbie said. “You know, keep the kids off the street. Teach them manners.”
She snorted at the thought. Several of the girls giggled.
“But if you don’t go and everybody else goes, you feel like a dweeb, so we all go.”
Jesse smiled.
“And the boys went,” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Bobbie said, “sure.”
Jesse nodded.
“I remember,” he said.
Bobbie stared at him a moment, as if it had never occurred to her that Jesse had ever been in junior high.
“You go here?” Bobbie said.
“No, Arizona,” Jesse said. “But school is pretty much school.”
Bobbie nodded.
“So, before the dance,” Bobbie said, “Old Lady Ingersoll lines us up and marches us into the girls’ locker room and starts checking us out.”
“What did she do,” Jesse said.
“She picked up my skirt,” Bobbie said, “and looked at my panties.”
There was a small, uneasy stir in the crowd of kids and parents.
“She tell you why she did that?” Jesse said.
“She said”?Bobbie lowered her voice in mimicry?“ ‘Proper attire includes what shows and what doesn’t.’ ”
“Did she say what would have been improper?” Jesse said.
“She said anyone wearing a thong should leave now, because they’d be sent home if she saw one,” Bobbie said.
“Anyone leave?” Jesse said.
“Couple girls,” Bobbie said.
“Thongs?” Jesse said. “Or silent protest?”
His face was perfectly serious. Bobbie grinned at him.
“Or nothing,” she said.
Most of the girls giggled.
“That’d probably be even more improper,” Jesse said.
Some of the mothers joined in the giggle.
“Anyone object to the, ah, panty patrol?” he said.
“I did,” Bobbie said, “and a couple other girls, Carla for one, and Joanie.”
“And Mrs. Ingersoll said?”
“She said it was all between us girls, and she was trying to save us from being embarrassed, if somebody saw.”
Jesse took in a deep breath and let it out.
He said, “How old are you, Bobbie?”
“I’ll be fourteen in October.”
“Thank you,” Jesse said. “Anyone have anything to add? Carla, Joanie?”
