Lydia sniffed. “How does she dare show herself in church wearing that dress?”
“So Dothan’s going to drive over here in his Ford to pick up his date and her roommate?”
“What’s the matter with that?”
“Won’t he think it squirrelly that you’re living at a guy’s house?”
“I told him the truth—Mom and I had a fight so I’m staying with you and Lydia.”
“And he didn’t think that was squirrelly?”
“I didn’t ask him if he thought that was squirrelly. I don’t care what he thinks it is.”
“Well, it’s not traditional.”
“You think I should wear this yellow sweater Lydia loaned me or the blue shirt with a white dickie?”
“The blue shirt makes your eyes look nice, but I have serious doubts about the dickie.”
Double-dating is stupid to begin with. It’s hard enough to relax with one person without having to keep track of the insecurities and innuendos of a whole other couple. With me and a girl, there’s one relationship to be paranoid over. That’s plenty. With four people, I count six connections—me and Chuckette, Dothan and Maurey, Maurey and Chuckette, Dothan and me, me and Maurey, and Dothan and Chuckette. Which would be complicated enough even if Dothan’s date and I weren’t about to have a baby.
We drove into Jackson to a Leap Year Day sock hop at the Mormon Church rec hall. The Mormons had February 29 mixed up with Sadie Hawkins Day from the Li’l Abner comic strip. I think that’s because Sadie Hawkins Day is when women can force men to marry them, and Mormons have the same superstition about leap year. Whatever the reason, almost all the kids except us were dressed in Dogpatch clothes. I wasn’t into that straw-in- the-hair stuff. Dogpatch was too close to North Carolina.
Down South, Fundamentalists like the Baptists and Church of Christ don’t believe in mixed dancing, but Mormons must be different. Or maybe Wyoming is different. Anyhow, the decadence of doing the twist eight feet from your partner in a fluorescent tube-lit room with more chaperones than dancers thrilled Chuckette to the bone.
She said, “Daddy’d die if he saw this.”
“So would my mom.”
They stacked Pat Boone and Chubby Checker 45s on a Sylvania record player and we danced under a basketball net. Refreshments were lemonade and cookie squares made out of Rice Crispies and melted marshmallows.
“They’ll stick to my retainer,” Chuckette said.
“I’ll eat yours.”
This room with walls the same color as Lydia’s face was like dancing in a brightly lit Ping-Pong ball. The chaperones made us change partners regularly so no one would feel left out. During a Sam Cooke song about this guy who was an idiot in school—“Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology”—I found myself dancing face to face with Maurey. Sam Cooke thought if he made all A’s some girl would get hot for his bod and what a wonderful world it would be.
“Having fun, Sam?” Maurey asked.
I was listening as Sam Cooke connected grade-point average to sex appeal. My fantasy life was peanuts next to this guy. “What?”
“Are you having fun?”
“After an hour, the twist is boring.”
“Sharon can do the shimmy. Dance with her.”
Sharon could do the dirty bird, mashed potatoes, and the itch, only the chaperones stepped in when she did the itch.
“That’s disgusting,” Maurey said as Sharon dug into herself like a flea-bit dog.
Dothan did a leer. “I’d like to itch her.”
Chuckette popped her retainer. “After high school, I’m joining the Peace Corps.”
The chaperones kicked a guy out for being from Idaho.
At the end, two Sunday-school teachers held on to opposite ends of a dowel rod and us boys were formed into a limbo line. Girls couldn’t do it because they were wearing dresses. We shuffled around to the music, pretending we were Negroes going under a stick. I bombed early on purpose so people would think I was too tall to see how low I could go.
Chuckette gave me this look that said I’d let us down as a couple. I played Hank, which I’d been doing a lot lately.
Dothan made the final three, but this one skinny little cowboy in boots could really get down there. He didn’t even take off his hat. When they gave him the prize—
Except for a fight in the parking lot between the guy from Idaho and a chaperone, the dance was over by ten.
“I should of jumped in the fight,” Dothan said.
Maurey shoved over right next to him in the front seat. “Whose side would you have been on?”
“Doesn’t matter, I should have jumped in.”
“Why fight when you don’t care which side’s right?” I asked.
Dothan threw a gap-toothed look of disgust over his shoulder. “Only an outsider would have to ask that.”
“You’re from Alabama.”
“After high school, I’m gonna join the Peace Corps,” Chuckette said again. She had me backed against the passenger’s-side back door. When she talked her retainer made clack sounds in my ear.
Maurey turned on the radio. “I thought you were planning to get married and have three sons after high school?”
“I might do both. Daddy says we can’t get married till I’m eighteen.”
“I should have kicked that guy’s ass,” Dothan said.
Maurey turned up “Deadman’s Curve” by Jan and Dean. “Which guy?”
A plane flew over GroVont and I pretended I was the pilot, looking down. He’d probably miss the whole town, see nothing but moonlight off the snow and mountains. Every building on Alpine was pitch-black. The Forest Service lights were all off, and the Tastee Freeze. A glow came from Kimball’s, caused by the refrigeration units, but the White Deck to Chuckette’s could have passed for a ghost town.
The kitchen light showed from our cabin, but it was after 10:30, so I figured Lydia was on the couch in the living room. Hank’s truck sat parked in the yard. Otis stood next to it, sniffing a tire.
“Kind of pretty when everyone’s asleep, isn’t it,” Maurey said.
“That dog knocks over our trash one more time, I’m gonna shoot it,” Dothan said.
As we pulled up in front of the Morrises’ house, the porch light came on. “That’ll be Daddy,” Chuckette said. “He says we can’t waste electricity so he stays up until I get home. Mom stays up from worry for fear I’ll be in a wreck. She says if I stay out late, she won’t get enough sleep and she’ll be sick the next day and it’ll be my fault.”
“Sounds pitiful,” I said.
