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I needed to get out.
The idea bloomed fast inside me. I’d feel so much better if I’d just turn around and walk off the polished wooden dance floor. Go hide in the parking lot until everyone found someone else to stare at.
Then I saw her.
She was dancing. Her head was thrown back with laughter. Her eyes sparkled. Her smile radiated light.
Everything else that had been spinning through my head floated away like air.
GRETCHEN
The last thing I wanted to do was go to the Homecoming dance.
We’d only moved down to Maryland the day before. I hadn’t even unpacked. I wouldn’t start my new school until Monday, and going to a dance where I didn’t know a single person was guaranteed to be the most awkward experience of my life, basically.
But my parents thought it was the best idea ever. They even found me a date. My dad knew someone who knew someone who had a nephew who went to the University of Maryland who wasn’t doing anything that night. A recipe for true love if ever there was one.
So I opened my suitcases and tore through my boxes until I found the green-and-silver lace dress I’d worn to my brother’s wedding last year. It was a little tight, but I could dance in it. Mom lent me a pair of heels that pinched my toes so much I wound up leaving them in the car and going into the dance barefoot. At least my toenails were still polished from when my friends and I gave each other mani-pedis at my goodbye party back in Brooklyn.
The nephew, whose name was Mark or Mike or one of those, turned out to be a pretty nice guy. He told jokes that made me laugh. He poured my punch for me, which was cute. And since neither of us knew anyone else and we didn’t have anything to talk about, after just a couple of minutes of us standing around self-consciously he asked if I wanted to dance. I said sure, because I will pretty much never turn down an opportunity to dance.
Mike/Matt/whatever wasn’t a half-bad dancer, and soon we were in the middle of the floor, shaking our booties to the Top 40 the DJ was playing. (Were all DJs in Maryland this boring, I wondered?)
No one else was dancing that early, and before long a bunch of people had gathered in a circle to watch Matt/Marc/etc. and me. So I hammed it up, because what else was I going to do? I started doing this Charleston-type thing I’d seen on TV once, where you bend at the waist and move your knees in and out. It was a blast. Mike/Matt tried to do it, too, but we could barely keep up with each other. He started laughing, then I started laughing, then he started going faster, then I started going faster, and then he grabbed me and swung me around into a dip. I was laughing so hard I nearly fell over.
I was upside-down when I saw the girl in the top hat and suspenders smiling at me.
The blood was rushing to my head. When Mark set me back on my feet, I could barely stay upright.
I smiled back anyway.
TONI
I couldn’t believe I’d never seen her before.
She must have gone to a different school. There was no way I could’ve just not noticed her.
She had long blond hair, almost to her waist, brilliant blue eyes and the warmest, widest smile I’d ever seen. Even upside down.
She was in the middle of the floor with a guy I’d never seen before, either, dancing like a maniac in a punk-looking green dress. Her feet were bare and her toenails were blue.
No one came barefoot to Homecoming. In fact, every other girl in the room—except me, of course—was wearing shoes that must’ve cost at least a hundred dollars. Maybe two hundred. Come to think of it, I had no idea how much shoes were supposed to cost.
“Who’s that?” Renee asked. I shrugged, helpless.
The song ended. The blond girl climbed back up, clinging to the guy she was with.
Her face was mesmerizing even though she was probably the only girl in the room who wasn’t wearing any makeup. Except me, again.
She was probably straight. God, though, she was beautiful.
It wasn’t just her model-perfect face, either. It was her smile. It was the light in her eyes.
Lord. I’d thought all that love-at-first-sight stuff was supposed to be a load of bull.
I could feel my face turning pink. Crap. I’m pale with red hair, so my face will turn pink pretty much anytime the wind blows, but it’s never stopped being embarrassing.
A new song came on.
“Want to dance?” Renee asked.
No one else was dancing except the blond goddess and her equally blond boyfriend. That was probably why Renee wanted to go out on the floor. She was never happier than when everyone was looking at her.
“Sure,” I said.
I couldn’t actually dance, but I figured Renee would take care of the hard parts. Plus, people at our school always gave extra leeway when they saw gay people being noticeably gay. They liked to coo about how cute we were.
Renee grabbed my hand and pulled me behind her onto the dance floor, leaving maybe ten feet of space between us and the blond couple. This close, I could get a better look at the girl’s face. She and the guy were still dancing like maniacs, with the guy’s back to us. The girl looked so happy. So light. For a second I thought I saw her look at me, but I probably imagined it.
Renee started doing this dance I’d seen some boy band do on TV once. I tried to imitate it. I felt ridiculous, but I laughed so it would seem like I meant to look ridiculous. Renee laughed, too. I took her hand and tried to spin her around, except I didn’t know how to do that, so we both stumbled, but we kept laughing. I pumped my fist in the air in one of those crazy ’70s dances, and Renee laughed again and started doing the same thing opposite me. The people watching us started to clap.
I could’ve sworn I saw the blond girl look at me again.
GRETCHEN
Crap. I was being too obvious. The girl in the top hat saw me looking.
I mean, she had to be gay. She was dancing with a girl and she was wearing a top hat. Right?
Not like it mattered, since apparently she had a girlfriend.
Of course she did. I’d always had awful luck with girls. Besides, I could tell this one was popular, what with the way everyone kept smiling at her and reaching out to high-five her. The popular ones never stayed single for long.
Everyone was gathered in a circle around her and her girlfriend, clapping while they danced. Mitch/Max and I stopped to watch them, too. The girl in the blue dress was being kind of show-offy, but the girl in the top hat looked like she was having the time of her life, dancing like John Travolta in one of those old movies where he wears those gorgeous suits.
I couldn’t help it. I wanted to dance like that, too.
I wanted to dance like that with her.
So I did.
I walked over to the two of them, tapped the girl with the top hat on the elbow and smiled at her.
She stopped dancing and blinked at me. Then she smiled, too.
Max/Miles/Mark figured out what I was doing, and he went with it. He strode right up to the girl in the blue dress, grabbed her hand and started twirling her. She laughed and followed him.
The girl in the top hat bit her lip, but she looked right at me as we started to dance. She was still smiling.
I kept my shoulders even and my smile in place so she couldn’t tell, but I was pretty sure that was the most nervous I’d ever been in my whole life.
TONI
I was pretty sure I was hallucinating.
Beautiful blond straight girls you’ve never seen before don’t just come up to you at your Homecoming dance and start disco dancing with you out of nowhere. Not in normal life.
Of all the things that had happened to me lately, this was by far the strangest. And maybe the best.
It took me a second to realize the girl was mirroring me, doing the same weird feet-shuffling and arm-waving moves I was doing. I dialed it up and added in some swaying from side to side. The blond girl grinned and did the same.
The song changed again, but we didn’t stop moving. It was the first time I’d ever had fun dancing.
The girl leaned in toward me. I have a thing about personal space, so normally that would’ve made me back away. But I didn’t want to back away from this girl. She moved her lips toward my ear so I could hear her over the music. The proximity made my face flush again.
“I’m Gretchen,” the girl said.
Gretchen. It was such a gorgeous name.
“Toni,” I said.
Gretchen shook her head. She couldn’t hear me. I had to lean in to her ear, too. I blushed to the roots of my hair.
“I’m Toni.” I tried desperately to think of something to say that would make me sound cool. “Nice shoes.”
Gretchen laughed. Her whole face opened up when she laughed. Dear lord.
My heart was racing. I did not have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with this.
Gretchen pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, looked down at me and smiled again.
Yeeeeaaahhhhh. I was going to be dead before the song was over.
GRETCHEN
Did she like me?
It seemed like maybe she liked me.
That was a flirty thing to say, wasn’t it? “Nice shoes,” all casual like that? When I wasn’t wearing shoes at all? Ha ha.
Also, she kept, like, staring at me. In a cute way, not a creepy way.
It didn’t matter, though. She already had a girlfriend. The little ninny in the poufy blue dress. A pox on the poufy ninny, I wanted to say.
Still, I felt like touching Toni. Nothing dramatic, I mean. Maybe I could just accidentally brush up against her shoulder. Or maybe a piece of her spiky red hair would fall down into her eyes and I could brush it away. Yeah, that would be perfect.
I waited, but none of her hair fell down. It was packed pretty solid with gel. Plus, most of her hair was tucked under her top hat.
Maybe the music would switch to a slow song, and I could put my hand on her waist. Or loop my arms around her neck. Yeah, that. The neck thing.
Except you weren’t supposed to do that to someone else’s girlfriend. Darn it all to heck.
Maybe Toni and I could be friends. I needed friends at my new school.
Except I didn’t want to be friends with her. Not just friends anyway.
She leaned into my ear again. I got the same thrill I’d gotten when she’d done that before. “Are you new here?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’m from New York.”
She opened her eyes wide, like she was impressed, and smiled. I smiled back.
She moved in again. “So. Would you rather run for president or go to Mars?”
I laughed. It was such a random question. “Mars.”
“How come?”
“Because then at least you get to do something no one’s ever done before. Go exploring. Learn new things. Being president just means you have to try to fix a bunch of stuff no one’s been able to figure out how to fix yet.”
I had to lean close to her for a long time to say all that. By the time I pulled back, I was blushing as hard as she was.
“What about you?” I asked.
“President,” she said. “Just because no one’s figured out how to fix it yet doesn’t mean no one ever can.”
I nodded. If anyone could fix the world’s problems, it just might be this girl with the red hair and the top hat.
I smiled at her.
The music switched to a slow song.
TONI
I put my hand on her waist.
So she was probably straight. Whatever. Screw it. She could take my hand off her waist if she wanted to.
She didn’t take my hand off her waist.
GRETCHEN
My heart was pounding so fast.
I had exchanged, like, three sentences with this girl, but somehow, I felt like I’d known her forever.
My hands were trembling, but I linked them behind her neck and stepped in closer. I was a couple of inches taller, so I looked down into her eyes and smiled again.
