There are laser lights, black lights, and strobe lights. The gym is foggy and loud. The DJ blasts everyone’s new favorite song, “No Scrubs,” and the crowd sings along with their hands cupped around their mouths, Wanna get with me with no money? Oh no!
I recognize only some of the kids on the dance floor. The kids from my classes, the Honors kids, sit on the bleachers, chewing at hangnails. Clarissa and I scan this group, looking for Derek Jacobs.
Do you think he kept his highlights in? she asks, and we grab each other by the elbows, snort-laughing.
Derek sits in front of us in German class, and lately Clarissa and I have been untwisting our Milky Pens, running the pastel-colored ink through his black, curly mullet. Derek is a genius, and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and so we hate him. At twelve years old, he will be the youngest certified engineer employed by Microsoft. At fourteen, he will be the first person implanted with a microchip on national television. He will be honored by Oprah and Bill Gates. At eighteen, he’ll die in a motorcycle accident.
Are you ready for a new hit? the DJ asks. He instructs us to make a circle in the center of the room; he wants to see us move it move it. He plays Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up,” a song Clarissa recently downloaded and played for me.
Do you see Quince?
Not yet, says Clarissa. I’m sure he’ll find you.
The A-girls form a circle. It’s more shocking than I’d imagined, seeing everyone in their weekend clothes, no button-ups or sweater vests or pleats. The bass thumps wild, and Clarissa and I watch the girls take turns crawling on the floor, then moving flat on their stomachs. They slam their fists on the glossy gym wood as they hump up and down with their groins. They make faces like they’re in pain, or maybe it’s just that they’re feeling really good. I squeeze my thighs together.
That’s called the Cry Baby, says Clarissa. My sister told me about that move.
The boys take turns approaching the designated Cry Baby from behind. They move on top of the girls in a push-up position. They roll their bodies and hump the girls, and the girls keep banging the floor with their fists, kicking their legs like they’re about to start swimming. Everybody is fake crying, fake rubbing their eyes in exaggerated twists. Quince Pearson is one of these boys. I watch him hump the crying Skylar Fingerhut, the crying Claudia Greenberg, the crying Beth Diaz, the crying Harley Pelletier. After some time, one of the adult chaperones pulls Quince off of Addison Katz, shakes her finger. No, no, no, that’s enough.
Do you think he’s as nervous to see me as I am to see him? I ask Clarissa.
Of course, she says. And wait till he sees your outfit!
I’ve never danced before, I say. Nothing like that.
We’ll practice, she says. Don’t worry.
Now that the crying is over, a new circle has formed. One boy has taken off his tie, and he wraps it around another girl’s neck. When he does this, the two of them sway into the center of the circle. The girl bends over, plants her hands on her knees. She gyrates her butt up and down as quickly as possible, flinging her crimped hair around in a circle. It’s almost like the hula, I think, if hula were to be danced while bent over, to angry music in English, by horny white people. The girl snakes her tongue out of her mouth and taps the front of her braces with it. She flicks it in and out while she grinds. The boy holds on to her hips and pulls her butt into his body. At one point, he lifts his hand above her bent-over back. He moves this hand up and down, up and down, like he’s petting a dog or flattening dough. When everyone has applauded and screamed, Nasty! Hot! Get it, Danny! it’s the girl’s turn to take the tie and choose the next boy. She wraps it around Quince Pearson’s neck. I watch them dance like that. The pizza dough move, the ass bouncing, her left leg hooked around his back when they face each other, still humping.
Clarissa pulls me into the gym locker room. It’s so bright in here after the black lights that I have to blink it off in the mirror. My blue mascara and blue eye shadow are gooping, stinging. Open your eyes, Chink, says one of the girls coming out of a stall. Oh, that’s right, you can’t!
I am used to these comments—I don’t even remember when I began hearing them—but I have a white father and an uncle who makes shoes for white, beautiful celebrities, and I’ve known my Hanukkah prayers since I was a baby, and mostly, I don’t understand why other people can see something I can’t. This difference about me.
All hail power to the Earth, power to the Water, Goddess of the Stars and the Flames, Ni-How-Bru-Ha-Ha-Alikazam-O-Kamikaze.
Jesus Christ with the Wicca, says Clarissa. You are so embarrassing.
Clarissa knows the drill. I wear a pentacle necklace and make up spells when people give me the most shit. The sterling pentacle screws on to a small cobalt bottle. I tell people the bottle is full of blood, but it’s usually cranberry juice or some kind of essential oil my mom gives me for my nosebleeds. Once, I cast a spell on Ms. Dickhead, and she fell down a flight of stairs the very next day. I felt bad about that, cut off a lock of my hair and buried it as some sort of penance, but ever since this incident people tend to walk away when I start the chanting.
Seriously, says Clarissa, you need to practice before you go back out there. Show me what you got. You watched them, right? Show me.
Clarissa instructs me to bend my knees as much as I can. She uses her hands to help arch my back. She positions my legs so that they’re farther and farther apart. I try my best to do what I saw. I place one palm on each knee; I bounce up and down; I rock my head back and forth until my hair with its rhinestone clips goes flying. I find what feels like a steady humping motion.
You look like you’re having a total fucking seizure, says Clarissa. But I guess it’s not that bad.
I keep going. I rock my body back and forth. Like this?
Oh my fucking God. A voice. It’s Addison Katz. A few of the girls follow her inside the locker room. What the freak are you doing?
I stand up. Dancing, I say, like you. I’m here with Quince Pearson. We’re dates.
Oh really? says Addison. Her blonde hair is pinned into a knot on the back of her head. Spikes of it stick out so that it looks like a child’s drawing of a sun. Two thin, golden strands hang gelled beside her cheeks, and it’s all unmoving, bound by glitter hairspray. She’s wearing a bandana as a shirt. Well in that case, she says, you need to sex it up a little.
Addison and the girls tell me to try the Praying Cry Baby. They tell me this is done in a kneeling position, fists pumping in a tantrum. They tell me to rub my eyes with hard wrist-twists, toss my hair even harder. They tell me to cry like the hottest baby that ever cried.
Quince will bust his zipper, Addison says. All the girls nod. Clarissa looks to them—nods, too. We leave the bathroom in one big group, ready.
Back in the gym, the glow sticks have come out. Everyone is sucking on them, and their teeth glow dirty blues, pinks, and yellows behind their braces. All of us girls walk through the crowd, holding hands, until we make it back to the center circle. Some of the boys have laced larger glow sticks between their fingers. They move their hands around their bodies and above their heads so that the glow sticks leave figure-eight-shaped trails.
Club Boca up in herr’! the DJ spits into the mic. Are you ready to shake it?
He begins playing another song I’ve heard before. It’s called the “Thong Song.” Quince Pearson jumps into the center of the circle, raving, his face glowing lime green inside the hoops of light.