I gestured for her to stand. “You gotta dance. Dance with Ellen.”
I started to dance. I am not a good dancer. To say two left feet is not only a cliché; it grossly overstates my ability, because it would imply that at least one of my feet was competent. That was not the case. But I was a football player, so I’d seen my share of sideline dances. I’d also seen my football brethren excited about pizza, excited about chicken wings, excited about getting the required 2.0 average to stay on the team. With that in mind, I started pumping my fists like Jaden Sanders had when his prealgebra teacher forgot to give a Friday quiz, thrusting my hips like Andy Rodriguez on forty-nine-cent hamburger day, and jumping up and down like my brother when I got in trouble for something he did.
“What are you doing?” Amanda yelled.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I fanned myself. Like a rapper.
“Having a seizure?”
“I’m dancing.” I imitated Ellen, who was doing some kind of hip-hop move. “Come on!”
“Stop it. I don’t feel like dancing.”
I did the running man in front of her.
“Oh my God, you look so stupid! You’re not even doing it right.” But she was laughing.
“Then show me! Show me the light of your masterful choreography!” I started doing the Dougie.
“Oh, God. Okay. If it will get you to stop.”
She started dancing, locking and popping along with Ellen. When Ellen finished, we both collapsed on the sofa, laughing.
“I wish Ellen could be my mom,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the dream,” I said. “At least you have Tim.”
“I guess.”
“You have to go to that dance. You need to show off your moves.”
“Don’t you mean our moves?” she asked.
“If you seriously want me to dance, I will.”
“I just want to stay home.”
“Everyone’s going,” I said.
“Not me.”
“How about this? If I make the football team, you’ll go.”
“You’ll definitely make it.”
“I’m glad you’re so confident. Just go.”
In the end, it was my mother who talked Amanda into going to the dance. The following Friday, Dad was working late, Matt was doing whatever Matt did on Friday nights, so Amanda and I went to my house for “taco night.” When Amanda got there, my mother said, “I have something to show you.”
We went into the living room, and Mom gave Amanda three hangers with dresses on them. “I heard it was an eighties theme. I used to wear these to sorority dances in college. I never throw anything away. Maybe one of these will work?”
Amanda held the hangers apart. One of the dresses was black, made out of a kind of net material with a sparkly top. Another was pink with a big, poofy skirt like a bubble. The third was bright-aqua satin and strapless.
“This one matches your eyes.” Mom pointed to the aqua.
“They’re really short,” Amanda said.
“Yes, and you’re taller than I was. But short is in style now. Why don’t you try?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going.”
I was nodding, like, yes, you are, and I said, “Just try them. You don’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings, do you?”
“It’s true,” Mom said. “I’d be really hurt.”
“She’d cry,” I said.
Finally, Amanda ducked into my bedroom, just to shut us up.
Then she didn’t come out for a really long time.
“Come on,” I said. “I want to see them.”
“Just your mom. I need help.”
“Okay.” My mom went in too. Then they were gone forever.
“Should I, like, find something else to do?” I asked through the door.
“That would be a good idea,” Mom said.
It was probably a good sign that they were taking this long. I went to watch a rerun of The Big Bang Theory. It was the one where Leonard was pretending to understand football. At the end of it, Amanda finally came out.
She wasn’t wearing one of the dresses. She was wearing her hoodie, though I thought I noticed some makeup that hadn’t been there before. If I was the type who noticed stuff like that.
“I was thinking I’d go if you made the team.” She swiped at her cheek to get off the makeup.
“So I guess I’ll have to make the team.”
“Guess you will.”
8
When I’m forty and have forgotten a lot of things, I’ll still remember the eighth grade dance, and who I went with.
I made the team. NBD. And Amanda went to the dance. Also NBD. It wasn’t like a date or anything. We were going as friends. But, for a few minutes, when I first saw her, I forgot that.
She chose the aqua dress, the one Mom had said would match her eyes. It probably did, but that wasn’t what I noticed.
I noticed what Kamal noticed, what Darien noticed.
And I noticed she was beautiful.
She was. Beautiful.
We were meeting friends there, but Tim drove Amanda and me to the dance, and Mom was going to pick us up. Tim brought Amanda inside so Mom could take pictures. I was wearing a white jacket of my dad’s with a bright-aqua T-shirt, which Mom said was the style in the 1980s. So we matched.
“This is stupid, Mom,” I said. “It’s not prom.”