Page 9 of Footlights and Forever

Had I minded the big, scared jock’s body pressed against mine for the majority of the movie, or when he got too scared and pressed his face into the outside of my bicep? Hell no.

We’d talked about our friends, and I’d tried to listen and not scoff as he tried in vain to sell me on the upsides of being friends with Garrett and the rest of the football goons. I would just have to say that I was blind and would remain blind to their virtues and mourn later that I never got to know their mythical goodness.

We’d talked about what we thought college life might be like. I’d already applied for a place in the dorms, but Austin had not decided on his living situation yet, as his place was conditional dependent on his final grade. He had become such a fixture at my house that Dad had taken to setting him a place at the dinner table every other evening. Not like my dad would ever think to cook, but by god he could set a table. My dad would talk to him about football and whatever team was making the sport pagesrecently. It was almost a relief for my dad to talk to someone like Austin about football. The only time he had ever tried to have a serious conversation about football to me, I had ended up talking to him about English Soccer and how the football players would make excellent ballerinas due to their fancy foot work. He had shaken his head and moved on.

I stood in the lunch line of the school cafeteria clutching my charge card in my hand, the edges of the plastic card digging into my skin as I perused the trays of mediocre food laid out in the warm bain-maries in front of me. I winced at the largely untouched tray of ‘Chef’s special meatloaf’, which was school district code for unspeakable bland mystery meat, rancid breadcrumbs and the cheapest ketchup known to man. Quite rightly, the majority of students knew to ignore it and chose the god-awful burgers or mac and cheese instead. The only problem was that now it looked like by the time I got to the front of the queue; the only option left would be the unspeakable bland meat stuff.

I quietened my stomach for a moment and tried to decide whether I could survive the day on the half pack of mints in my bag and the questionable apple with ink stains all over it that currently lived at the back of my locker in the main hallway. My stomach growled at me like a yawning leopard, giving me an unequivocal answer. I resigned myself to the food of the damned and continued in the line.

“Oh I don’t think so!” an outraged voice whispered in my ear. I turned quickly to see Hailey looking at the meatloaf as if it was personally responsible for all the evils in the world. “You can’t eat that!” A sharp cough from Doris the lunch lady stilled Hailey’s passion as an apologetic smile formed on her face.

“I love you Doris, but that meatloaf should be used as a way to extract information rather than waterboarding.” Haileyshrugged with a cute smile. “I think they would get the answers quicker.”

The edges of Doris’s mouth quirked up on one side as she shook her head slightly and moved on to serving the next person in line.

“Oh look what we have here.” I shut my eyes tightly as Garrett’s voice suddenly sounded from directly behind me, “The Nerd and the Nerdette.”

“Wow, Garrett,” Hailey drawled, “you’re so original, I mean, you must have writers for this shit.”

I turned in time to watch a cruel sneer twist Garrett’s handsome face. “I don’t know why you hang out with this loser Hailey,” he said, his head nodding towards me. “I mean, you’re not bad to look at and you could do so much better in this school if you didn’t lower yourself to hanging around with this.” Garrett pointed down over my head as if he was pointing out moldy produce to a shop clerk.

“The choice between spending time with him and you, Garrett, was always going to be an easy one.” Hailey picked fluff from the front of her red sweater, examining it for a moment before discarding it from her fingers. “I mean, not only is there nothing interesting going on up here,” she leaned over and tapped the side of his head, “but also any residual attractiveness you might have had left over has all been sucked up with the memory of you pissing your pants on that trip to Six Flags.”

“I didn’t…” Garrett stammered.

“I vividly recall you weeping in the exit line for The Wild One, holding your jacket over your crotch, While Mrs. Jarvis told you that it happens to everyone.” Hailey wrinkled her nose. “Yeah you will always be the kid that pissed his pants on a roller coaster to me buddy. So I think I will just go back to talking to my friend if you don’t mind.”

“Hailey, you are a menace,” I whispered, a wide smile on my face.

“That might be the case,” she pulled on my arm, “but I also have a PB&J sandwich in my bag with your name on it.”

I prayed to whatever lunch time gods sent my blessing disguised as a seventeen-year-old pretty girl with a sandwich, and ducked out of the lunch line. Hailey led me across the room to a bunch of unused tables. We took one nearest the window, the view looking over the south quad and the football field in the distance.

“Thank you for that.” I nodded my head towards the lunch line. My eyes found Garrett, who narrowed his eyes as our gazes clashed.

“I hate that dude.” She shrugged. “It was very much my pleasure.”

“Thanks anyways.”

Hailey gave me a brief nod and smiled. “So prom is in a few weeks. Are we doing what we planned and staying home, watching horror movies and pretending that the idea of prom is social garbage and the people who got to it just sheeple, or are we going to be honest that we really want to go and just go stag together?” She drummed her fingers on the table in front of her.

“Hailey,” I stared at her pointedly, “I’m a complete Mary so I feel comfortable telling you that you are absolutely beautiful girl with a giant set of tits that any guy in this school would love to stick their dick in between. So tell me again why you would be going stag when you could get any guy you wanted?”

“That’s not true,” she laughed.

“You know it is true, but I don’t want you not to accept a date because you know that I won’t get asked or have no one to ask.”

She looked down nervously. “I’m not doing that.”

“Then you won’t mind saying yes to Todd Landry, because I know he asked you and I know that you think he is completely bang-able.” I said matter-of-factly.

“I mean…” Her drumming became more intense until I placed my hand over hers.

“Please don’t,” I pleaded sincerely. “I want you to go, and I want you to have a great memory of prom and I want to steal a dance with you, so can you tell him yes please?”

“I’ll think about it,” she grumbled. Hailey reached into her bag, passing me over a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and a bottle of blue Gatorade. We spent the next few minutes just chatting about anything and everything, including Austin’s last study session at my house and the happy discovery that when he fell asleep, he did this cute snore like a puppy and woke himself up, a line of drool on my pillow as he protested that he wasn’t asleep but merely resting his eyes. We got so lost in ourselves that we failed to notice Garrett and his goons take residence on the table behind me.

“So what do we think the Nerd and Nerdette talk about at lunch time then?” Garrett asked to his minions to which a chorus of chuckles and brief shrugs were his only response. “I imagine it’s something profound likeAre we going to die virgins? or Shall we just bite the bullet and fuck each other because no one else is desperate enough to fuck us?”

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