Out of fifteen hundred students, about sixty show up for the Spring Fling. We have the floor to ourselves and we dance together in the middle and shout requests at the DJ, who actually complies. Because there are so few students, nobody stops us when we start to dance on the tables. It doesn’t matter how we dance because there is hardly anyone to see us, and our dance moves and requests become more and more ridiculous. We make a conga line. We do the Macarena when the Electric Slide is blasting out of the speakers. We exhaust ourselves dancing, drink some punch, and then go dance again. At the first slow song, Jamie asks our principal, Mrs. Black, to dance, and she does amid cheers from all across the room.
We congratulate ourselves and agree: the Spring Fling is cool because nobody goes.
It’s a long time before the DJ plays another slow song. By then my heart is pounding, and I’m so out of breath I practically collapse into Jamie. He looks so handsome that I get butterflies in my stomach looking at him. I wrap my arms around his neck and we sway to the music.
“I love you,” I say, and I’m not saying it to remind myself that I do; at this moment I can feel it.
“Love you too,” he says.
“Did you hear about Brooke and Noah?” I ask. Jamie rolls his eyes and sighs.
“Yeah, he was bragging about it all afternoon,” he says.
“Really?” I ask. “What did he say?” He shrugs.
“He just said that they were gonna do it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What else did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything else. He just said they were gonna do it tonight.”
“Well, that’s not bragging”
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?”
“What are you talking about?” Jamie says. “I just told you that he was bragging about it all afternoon.”
“I just don’t understand how he was bragging all afternoon if all he said was that they were going to do it. That’s like, one sentence.”
“Never mind,” Jamie says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t, okay?”
“But why—”
“Autumn, I don’t want to talk about them having sex, okay?”
“Fine,” I say. We finish the song in silence. Afterward, I ask Angie to go to the bathroom with me. We talk about our hair and how much fun we are having, and a little bit about Brooke of course.
“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” she says. “I mean that Brooke won’t be a virgin tomorrow. It doesn’t seem real.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. We go back outside. I look at Jamie from a distance and try to bring back the good feeling I had before, but I can’t. I wonder if when Brooke kisses Noah, if she sometimes imagines that he’s someone else. I wonder if when she touches herself, he is the only one she ever thinks about.
I tell myself relationships are hard work. No one is perfect. There’s no such thing as happily ever after.
***
On Monday, on The Steps to Nowhere, Brooke says that afterward you don’t feel any different, except you love him so much more than before.
“But you’re not like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not a virgin anymore.’”
“Really?” I say. I think that that would be the only thought I could think afterward. I think that I would look at myself in the mirror and say it over and over again.
“Yeah,” she says, “It’s just like—” She doesn’t finish her sentence; she just looks down at the boys standing by the water. They are seeing who can throw rocks the farthest. I watch Jamie win. I imagine it just feeling right with him.
“Did it hurt?” Angie says.
“Oh yeah,” Brooke says.
12
“So what do you know about Sylvie?” my mother says. I take a large spoonful of ice cream into my mouth and regard her. We are sitting on the outside patio of The Train Stop Creamery, the town’s only ice cream parlor. It is the first hot day of May.
“Finny’s girlfriend?” I say. My mother nods. “I dunno,” I say. “Why?”
“No reason,” she says.
“You just started wondering about her all of a sudden?”
“Well,” she says.
“What?” I say.
“Angelina and I were just talking about her the other day, and I wondered what you thought.”
“She’s okay,” I say. “I don’t really know her.” We eat quietly for a while before I ask. “Does Aunt Angelina not like her?”
“Oh, she likes her, but I think she’s never gotten over the disappointment that you and Finny didn’t end up together.” She nudges me under the table with her foot.
“Mom!” I say. I glare at her. “I have a boyfriend.”
“I know, I know,” she says. “We just always thought that’s what was going to happen.”
“Well, it didn’t,” I say. “We don’t even hang out with the same people.”
“I know,” she says again. She sighs. I roll my eyes and eat my ice cream.
Whenever I wonder what it would be like if Finny and I were together, I never imagine that there is anyone else with us. I don’t like to think I would have had to become a cheerleader to be Finny’s friend again. In my imagination, Finny isn’t in my group, and I’m not in his; it’s just the two of us, like it used to be. At school, we eat lunch together and he walks me to my classes. We do our homework together. He takes me to art films in the city. At night, we lie on our backs in the grass and talk. We burn CDs for each other. We pass notes. We hold hands at the bus stop. I imagine adoring him without question. I am certain that I would if I were in love with him.
“Is Aunt Angelina out somewhere with Finny, asking what he thinks of Jamie?” I ask. My mother smiles.
“Yes, sweetie. It’s a conspiracy,” she says.
“Well, if you two were talking about Sylvie, why not Jamie?”
“I like Jamie,” she says. She spoons her last bit of ice cream out. “I can tell he’s a good kid. His parents seem like good people.”
“But you guys aren’t sure if Sylvie is a good kid?” I say. I’m pleased with the direction the conversation is going, but I don’t want to show it.