“What?” purrs Christy. “I don’t get a ray of sunshine?”
“I’ll tell you what you get,” Rachel says flatly. “You get us to the front of that check-in line.” She smacks Christy on the rear. Christy whoops her assent, tugging at the knotted belt of her polyester pantsuit and herding us all to the check-in station at the other end of the front hallway.
Deputy Jennings stands on one side of the table, chatting with Principal Hargrove. Ms. Speck and Mr. Johnston are ticking people off a master list. There are a couple of sophomores ahead of us and as we reach the table, Coach Sanders barrels through the gym doors with a red bullhorn.
“Ready?” He tosses this over his shoulder at Principal Hargrove and Mr. Jennings, who nod and follow him to the front doors of the school. “Let’s do this.”
Coach Sanders throws his shoulder into the door, and instantly the lights and questions erupt into the front hallway. He raises the bullhorn to his mouth and shouts through a squeal from the speaker:
“All non-school personnel are considered trespassers and are hereby compelled to maintain a distance of at least fifty feet by order of the county sheriff. I repeat: All journalists must immediately retreat to a minimum of fifty feet from the front door of this property or you will be arrested for trespassing.”
“Can they do that?” Lindsey stands at my elbow watching as Coach shouts down Sloane Keating’s protests.
“Whether they can or not, they just did.” Christy is smiling. “Good riddance.”
One by one the lights on the cameras begin to bob across the parking lot. Eventually, even Sloane Keating hoofs it toward the Channel 13 van. I realize now how far away fifty feet actually is.
Coach Sanders struts back through the hallway, a satisfied smile on his face. When he sees Ben his face lights up. “You kids look terrific,” he says with a wink. “For god’s sake, everybody stay off the Twitter tonight.”
“Uh . . . It’s just ‘Twitter,’ Coach.” Ben grins and shakes his head.
“And you stay off the evening news,” Rachel tells him.
Coach throws his head back and belly laughs at the ceiling. “It’s a deal.”
Mr. Johnston checks Ben’s ID and his name off a list. “Excellent, Mister Cody. Have fun at the Fling.”
Ms. Speck makes a big fuss over my dress, insisting that I turn around so she can see the streamer down the back. “Vintage perfection,” she says, squeezing my hand as she hands back my ID.
As we wait for the rest of the group to make their way through the line, Principal Hargrove comes back in shaking his head. “Can you believe the nerve of those people? Asking our kids about rape kits on their way to a dance?”
Lindsey and Ben both hear this, and Coach sees them turn to look. He shushes Principal Hargrove and smiles our way as Christy and Rachel get through the line and join us.
“Ignore all that crap, kids.” Coach smiles grimly. “The cops are just doing their jobs. A little overzealous maybe, but we’ll get this all ironed out.”
Principal Hargrove swings open the door to the gym, and music pours out.
“I want you to go in there and dance your butts off,” Coach says. “Just forget all about this for a little while and have a good time.”
“We’ll try,” Rachel says.
And for a good hour or so, we succeed.
The sophomores are in charge of Spring Fling, and they hired a DJ from Iowa City. The music is infectious and drives away the weirdness I felt all day at school. Apparently, the thing missing in the air today was the rhythm of three hundred kids in hilarious party clothes and remixes that just won’t stop.
As one song bleeds into the next, Phoebe tells us that this DJ plays all the big University of Iowa parties and flies all over the country to spin at clubs in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. She’s in mid-sentence when the Tracies (who decided to show up after Phoebe’s cafeteria call-to-arms) shriek in unison because they recognize the beat. Both of them are wearing old tutus and ballet slippers courtesy of Connie Bonine’s “dance rack” and they run for the center of the crush. Rachel throws an invisible lasso over Christy, who pretends to be dragged onto the floor with us, one lurching step at a time, and the music whips us together, pounding a clear path through my chest:
You can’t have my heart, and you won’t use my mind, but . . .
Do what you want with my body . . .
Do what you want with my body . . .
Ben is a great dancer. He knows how to move and, more importantly, what to do with his hands. He doesn’t look like he’s miserable or counting or trying too hard. He’s the best dancer here next to Wyatt, who is getting down with his Grease! costars. He’s sandwiched between Sandy and Rizzo. Both of them are all over him and each other. As I try to point them out to Ben, the music changes again, the swell of a female voice filling the air.