Reckless Nostalgia

‘36...9...maybe?’ I thought spinning the dial on my locker aimlessly. Now that winter break was over and school was back in session, I had completely forgotten my locker combination. I lightly banged my head against the cold metal door in frustration. Maybe I should go to the office and beg for forgiveness. Or offer my kidney as penitence for being so stupid.

I was just about to give up when I heard an unmistakable voice scream my name down the hall.

“REESE!!! Hey!! It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever!” squealed Dani, as she made her way through the crowded hallway. She dodged and ducked her way through, making it look effortless. She stopped in front of me and extended her arms out, gesturing for a hug. She towered over me in her black patent stilettos.
I was startled. I never considered me and Dani touchy-feely friends. In fact, I don’t know if I would even consider her a friend to begin with. I leaned awkwardly into her, and she patted my shoulder lightly. She smelled of cigarette smoke and musky perfume.

“So, how was your winter break?” She asked, dropping the excited valley girl voice for her own smokers drawl.
My stomach clenched. Since I said my teary goodbyes to my camp friends on Friday, hugging and laughing everyone while studiously ignoring Stephen and Anna’s last minute mack-fest, I had done my best to put the whole miserable week behind me. I spent my remaining weekend purposely buried in my books.

“Great” I mumbled, turning away from her and re-trying my locker combination.

9, 36...26? Yes, that was it! I silently thanked the gods for making something go right as I happily yanked open the door and unpacked my backpack.
“Oh my goodness. Mine was wild” Dani rasped, giving me a knowing eye. I looked away, hoping she wouldn’t go into too much detail.

“There must have been like, what, ten parties? I got drunk off my ass pretty much every night.” I nodded, pretending to be interested, while re-arranging my books on my locker shelf.
“Oh and the boys… mmm” she sighed breathily, running her hands through her dyed-black hair. She suddenly crouched down beside me, well as best she could in her denim minidress and black-and-white tights. “There was this one foreign exchange student who just couldn’t keep his hands off of me. What about you? You get laid too?” she asked with a smug grin.

I paused, startled. I looked straight into her devious kohl-lined brown eyes and I knew she already knew the answer to that question. She was just trying to stick it to me. Bitch.
“Uh, no…I didn’t” I said, standing up.

“Aw, that’s just too bad.” she rose slowly, pulling down her dress. A group of sophomore boys walking past us stopped and stared, practically drooling.
She raised her eyebrow at me, “Are you ever gonna get laid?”

I bit my tongue. “Yes, Dani, I will get laid. But only when I want to, and not when you tell me to” I snapped, slamming my locker shut and stalking away. I walked a few feet and looked back to see if she was following. She was standing where I left her, with her hip cocked and a satisfied smile on her face.

I stormed into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. Whenever I got angry or even remotely annoyed, my cheeks would always get really hot.
I wiped my face with a towel, and checked to see if the redness was gone. My cheeks were still slightly pink, but that was as good as it was going to get. I re-buttoned my green flannel shirt and quickly finger-combed my hair before rushing to class.

I managed to make it all the way to lunch without seeing Stephen. This wasn’t really surprising due to my lack of classes with him. In fact since our fall production, a pretty terrible re-write of High School Musical, I hadn’t seen him much around school.
Lunch was the one place all bets were off. Sure enough as soon as I pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the warm cafeteria, I saw him standing in line for hot lunch with a couple of his buddies.

I walked to my usual table at the right-hand corner of the room. It was empty, everyone else was probably in line also, so I fought with the saran wrap on my sandwich. My dad usually is the one to make my lunch, so it’s always a surprise. Sometimes it was lukewarm leftovers, or a fast food burger. Today it looked pretty normal; chips, a sandwich and a cookie. But it looked like he used an entire box of cling wrap to conceal them. I had finally broken a corner of my sandwich free when the rest of my table showed up. They strutted up with their trays full of salad, giggling over some unknown joke.

I sat with these girls everyday. Elizabeth, Michaela, and Nora had been friends since freshman year when we all tried out for Little Shop of Horrors and were put in the same try-out group. After auditions we stood outside the stage door groaning about how badly we thought we’d messed up. I had pretty much grown out of the actor-phase, much preferring to be behind the scenes, working props or sound while the other girls competed for the lead roles in the plays.

“So, Angie has the same dress as me. Just saying. The little red one with the bow on the back? Yeah, she has it.” Nora said, loudly plunking down her tray. Elizabeth and Michaela followed suit, carefully tucking their stylish skirts under their butts and crossing their colorful, tight-clad legs. I too had a strange obsession with tights and skirts, and subtly pulled up my cornflower blue ones.

“Well, it looks better on you anyway” Elizabeth said shrugging. Michaela nodded in agreement.
A couple seconds passed and they all turned to me, as I was in the process of taking a humongous bite from my finally free sandwich, waiting for my opinion.

I chewed quickly, feeling their eyes on my mouth, watching me chew.
“Uh, yeah. You-you uh look way better in it” I said sincerely. Because even though I hadn’t seen this Angie person wearing Nora’s dress, I knew she looked better in it, because she’s Nora, and she looks good in everything. With her tall, willowy figure and long perfectly curly, glossy red hair and blue eyes, Nora pretty much outshined us all.

The other girls fell into a discussion about all the annoying girls at play practice, as I looked slowly around the cafeteria, people-watching. A couple football players in the center of the room were having some sort of food-eating contest, a couple of stragglers were still in line buying last-minute desserts, the girls at the table next to us looked like they were having some sort of meltdown, and right in the center of it all was Stephen cheering on the football players, with his arm wrapped around a curvy girl in a Dance squad uniform.

Time seemed to stand still as she stood on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear, although there was no need to whisper in the noisy cafeteria. He threw his head back and laughed, squeezing her side, causing her to have a seizure of some sorts, as he tickled her side.

I quickly looked away, a lump forming in the back of my throat. I pushed my chair away from the table and made a run for it, not stopping until I was in the girl’s bathroom.

The other girls didn’t even know about my fling with Stephen, if they knew, chaos would surely ensue. I couldn’t tell them. Not because I was embarrassed, but because Stephen wasn’t exactly toting me around to meet all his friends. In fact, I’ll bet money that he denies even ever talking to me. No, Nora, Michaela and Elizabeth wouldn’t understand. So I called the only person I could.

“Hey, Hailey…yeah, sorry I’m calling you at lunch but…” I took a deep breath. “It’s Stephen”
“Oh my goodness. Reese, you have got to get over him!” Hailey exclaimed sucking her teeth loudly at me. “Look, I know he’s fine as hell, but he basically cheated on you, and THEN has the AUDACITY to go around acting like it never happened!”

I loved how Hailey was sometimes partially psychic, and knew instantly why I was calling and why I was upset.

“Hail, I know. But… easier said than done, I guess” I said staring at the floor.
The bell sounded loudly on both sides of the phone, but neither of us made a move to go. She stayed on the line with me well after the tardy bell, making sure I felt okay to go through with the rest of the day.

“You sure you’re gonna be ok? I don’t want my phone ringing in the middle of fourth period.” she said
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine now. Talking to you made me feel better than better” I said grinning at my reflection in the mirror.