Chapter 8

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1991

“I’m your dream, make you real
I’m your eyes when you must steal
I’m your pain when you can’t feel
Sad but true”

Waking up to one of the crunchiest guitar riffs of all time is not a bad way to start your day. I slapped the snooze bar and realized my palm was still pretty sore from that punt block. I was starting to wonder if the punter’s foot had connected with my hand. I had a bit of a bruise forming right in the center of my palm.

Well, no matter. I couldn’t help but grin as I sat up and stretched. We’d pretty handily slapped our rivals down in front of a boisterous crowd. I felt pretty good about how I’d played.

I got out of bed and stretched a few sore muscles, then headed for the shower to start my day.

It was a bit chilly to be wearing shorts and sandals that morning, but by agreement, Mikey jumped into the car similarly attired.

“Kinda cold for Toga Day,” he complained.

“It will be fine soon enough, besides, Toga Day is fun.”

He couldn’t disagree.

Jen, on the other hand, seemed surprised by our choice of clothing.

“Shorts and sandals?” she asked skeptically as Mikey and I got out of the car.

“Toga Day,” he shrugged, as if that should explain it.

“Can’t wear those jeans with a toga,” I admonished her.

“Oh, I have shorts I can change into, I guess,” she added.

We walked into the building together. She headed for the locker room to change. I found that the sophomore cheerleaders had set up a table full of boxes with pre-cut white sheets and red sashes.

Some people were already in their togas. The cheerleaders were, of course, already all decked out.

I got in line behind Mikey with my five bucks ready to hand over.

Mikey got outfitted with his. I stepped up with my five bucks in hand in front of a suddenly flushed Kim.

“Um, can someone taller help with him?”

Lexie looked at the Asian girl and then smiled at me.

“I’ll take that, thank you,” Lexie purred, taking the money.

“Let’s see what we have for this big boy.”

She rummaged around in the boxes as the other girls grinned at her, emerging with a sheet, sash and a green plastic crown of leaves.

“Girls, I’ll need some help with this one,” she grinned.

Several of them tittered with giggles, but Kim was avoiding me.

“Off with the shirt,” Lexie said plainly.

I leveled a harsh gaze at her for a moment, and she gave me a look that meant she expected no resistance from me.

“Come on, off with it,” she demanded, cocking an eyebrow and wiggling her fingers.

I sighed and reached for the bottom of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head. Thankfully my summer tan hadn’t faded much, and I looked pretty chiseled.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” she said while clearly appraising my physique.

Lexie, Mandy, DeeDee and Allison suddenly crowded around me. Lexie placed the sheet over my left shoulder, then the girls helped get it to cover my shorts.

They giggled, fiddled and fussed with the sash and each fold of the toga, hands all over my upper body. Lexie even got Kim back into the mix.

Other than Kim, all of them had a boyfriend, so I was totally uncomfortable with the suddenly obvious groping that they were all getting away with. I could feel their hands all over my lower back, abs and chest.

Kim breathlessly touched my fully exposed right arm with clearly hungry eyes, then Allison, of all people, giggled like a schoolgirl and brazenly tweaked my exposed nipple. I jerked away from her in surprise.

All of them blushed and laughed at her antics, but I’d had enough.

“Are you ladies finished yet?” I crossed my arms over my chest to hide a swollen nipple.

“Next!” Lexie laughed as she turned to the next person in line.

I shook my head and noticed Jen was now in line. I wondered how much of that she’d seen.

The sour look on her face indicated she’d seen plenty.

I sheepishly headed for my locker to grab my Algebra book.

“You suck!” Tree complained, shaking his head at me in his own toga.

“I didn’t enjoy that,” I shook my head.

“And that’s why you suck.” he grinned.

At the end of the hallway, I caught up with Autumn. The standard cheerleader sheets were not enough for the willowy redhead. No sir. She had arrived in a gold-trimmed cream-colored toga that hugged and accentuated her thin frame. It reached mid-thigh, leaving one to wonder what she had on underneath it. She wore strappy sandals that wrapped up the lower half of her thin calves and she wore a small gold-leaf crown. That was all sexy enough, but most striking was her very apparent lack of a bra.

If the cheerleaders were Greek goddesses, Autumn was now Aphrodite herself.

“Hot damn,” I said slowly.

“Ooooh, you like?” she grinned.

“Borderline scandalous,” I smiled.

“You think?” she asked with some concern.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” I said softly.

She flipped her hair at me, grinned and flounced off to class.

Classes hadn’t even started and I’d already had quite a morning.

In Algebra, Kim was already noticeably more relaxed. She even risked a small smile at me as I sat down. This was great progress. She didn’t give an encore performance in her seat, but she didn’t sit nearly as stiff and she was much more casual. I caught her giving me a more evaluative look as we left class, looking over my exposed pectoral and arms again.

The Homecoming Court had been announced late Monday. Mark Carter and Troy Bartz, of course, were on the court, along with three other senior football players. Five cheerleaders had found their way there as well. Of course, the cheerleaders pretty much ran these things, so it came as no surprise to anyone.

That meant Lexie and DeeDee were floating on a cloud at their lunch table with Troy and Mark. Although why they both felt the need to grope me at the toga fitting made no sense.

Jen was quiet, but still friendly. Maybe she was contemplating what she’d seen in the toga line. The toga chosen for her was quite nice as well. She struck a tall and imposing figure, and the look accentuated her legs.

Kim and Allison were tittering and looking at me while whispering back and forth. That might not have been helping with Jen, but she never brought up the toga fitting earlier.

My toga was pretty comfortable, and I felt pretty good wearing it. But I felt a little bit like a piece of meat in a tank full of hungry piranhas.

Autumn snapped a photo of a bunch of us in our togas right after lunch.

I slipped out of Journalism class to meet in Study Hall with a foreign exchange student from Spain. She was taking classes with the seniors, but she was due to graduate the year after. She wasn’t quite the exotic temptress one might expect, but she was cute as a button. She’d gone for the toga look as well, but seemed distracted as I asked her some simple questions for a new student spotlight.

Ana Maria Sandoval was bookish and very short, with thick glasses and gorgeous jet black hair. I found her to be very interesting. She had quite a way with words, even those unfamiliar to her. Her honeyed voice paired well with her accent and she was even impressed when I unleashed a bit of my unpolished Spanish on her. She even politely corrected me on a couple of words and their use as well.

She ended up asking as many questions as I did.

“What do you hope to learn while you spend the year in America?”

“I want to learn the culture. American culture is so prevalent around the world. I wanted to understand your culture at the source,” she answered.

“You would have found more culture on one of the coasts,” I shrugged.

“No, no,” she shook her head. “I’m finding this America to be very intriguing. Much more authentic. It’s like a ... how you would say ... country music video here,” she giggled.

“Real America?” I asked.

“I think so,” she nodded.

I asked more questions about the part of Spain, she was from, and what the region was famous for. She delighted in telling me all about how beautiful her part of the country was and how she missed the mountains, the ocean and the fresh seafood.

I couldn’t help but wonder if she was flirting with me when she told me she’d love to show me around her part of the world.

“I live near Valencia, and we could take a ferry to Ibiza and party and dance the night away.”

I had no idea where or what Ibiza was, but the offer left me nearly breathless.

I left the interview with a great idea of how to write her article.

As I turned in my toga at the end of the day, the cheerleaders were taunting me again, seemingly upset that I had taken it off myself and that they couldn’t ‘help out.’

We spent the first half of football practice looking at game film, which was entertaining, then we had a mostly light practice.

I dropped Mikey off and headed home. Mom had me take sandwiches out to Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Mike. They were well into soybean harvest now. I worked for an hour or so, bringing a wagon back and forth to the field and headed back in at about 9:00.

Little Josh had just gone to bed and Mom thanked me for taking the sandwiches out. I had a bowl of ice cream and headed for bed myself. It had been a long day.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1991

“So c’mon, take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up

Pour some sugar on me
Ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me
C’mon, fire me up
Pour your sugar on me
I can’t get enough

I’m hot, sticky sweet
From my head to my feet, yeah”

I had to grin at the old Def Leppard song as I turned off my alarm. I’d had more than enough of it in our junior high years, and it reminded me of junior high dances.

I still wasn’t sure what a radar phone was.

The events of the day before had left me in quite a state by Wednesday morning. I hadn’t had more than a pleasant kiss from a girl since August 28th. After the July and August I’d gone through, this drought was wearing on me heavily.

Any number of girls were seemingly available to scratch the itch other than Jen, who was still holding out on me.

I had rather pleasant dreams of cheerleader hands all over my body, an exotic Spanish temptress and a redheaded goddess.

Once again, Jen wasn’t in my dreams, and it was a bit distressing. What did that mean?

I pondered it as I considered what to wear for Wacky Wednesday. I had laid out a tie-dyed shirt that had sort of a rainbow spiral right on the front. I’d worn it for 60s Day last year, so I figured it was wacky enough for today.

I showered and put on my lightest acid-washed jeans with the tie-dyed shirt over it.

Mikey climbed into the Mustang in a white, button up shirt, a pocket protector, and glasses with white tape at the bridge of the nose.

“Uh, it’s not Nerd Day,” I chuckled.

“Wacky Wednesday, dude,” he shrugged, as if that should explain it. “It’s not 60s Day either.”

“Most colorful thing I had,” I explained.

As we pulled into the parking lot at school, Jen climbed out of her Bronco shivering in basketball shorts with long, mismatched socks, a long-sleeved rainbow shirt and her hair in a long pair of pigtails.

“Well, Mike’s wacky,” Jen grinned.

“You don’t like?” I complained.

“It’s not 60s Day,” she laughed.

“That’s what I told him,” Mikey said flatly.

“It seems to be open to interpretation,” I shrugged.

Jen shook her head and laughed as Mikey went ahead of us.

“I’m freezing, so let’s go!” she insisted.

There was a lot of color popping in the halls that morning. The cheerleaders had also chosen tie-dyed shirts, which helped my cause greatly.

Deedee’s shirt was incredibly tight, with her big boobs wobbling around in them as she walked.

I grabbed my Algebra book and headed up the hallway where I caught Autumn. I should have known she’d knock it out of the park again. Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.

Autumn was in white Converse shoes, fuzzy knee-length rainbow socks that she’d worn once for me before, denim overall shorts with the straps over a tight, fuzzy rainbow sweater that seemed to match the socks. She had her long red hair in twin pigtails and had, for the first time this school year, put her glasses back on. Deep red lipstick set the whole look on fire. She’d somehow blended cute and hot together in a very colorful way.

“Wow...”

“You like?” she asked, giving me another slow twirl.

“Holy...”

“That a yes?” she giggled.

“You look incredible,” I nodded.

“Thanks,” she gushed and headed down the hallway with a bounce in her step.

I had to wonder once again if I’d walked away from something very special.

“Good morning!” Kim Nguyen summoned up the courage to actually look at me and greet me, the first time in several days since she’d seen me watching her in that very desk seat.

“Hi, Kim,” I said warmly, with a smile.

She returned the smile for a moment, then blushed and looked forward once again.

That was a surprise, a pleasant one at that. Maybe we could move past that awkwardness.

Jen and I were back together in Spanish class, and I decided she looked muy caliente in her mismatched socks. She already had long legs, and the look was very appealing. Apparently she and Lea had conspired with Autumn on the pigtails, as all three of them had done their hair the same way.

Jen and I sat together at lunch and she seemed to warm up again. Beast and Tree hadn’t done anything to dress up for the day. Mikey joined those two in trying to get an eyeful of Autumn. I just chuckled at that. The girl had really turned things around since last year, gaining confidence and showing off her beauty. I was proud of her too. I had a little bit of a hand in it all.

Cheeseburgers and soggy fries were the order of the day. Jen was dipping a burger into a lake of ketchup on her tray.

“Gross,” I made a face.

“You don’t like ketchup?” she laughed.

“Nasty,” I said flatly.

She made a show of dipping her next bite deep in the ketchup for a basting of it.

“Mmmmmm,” she teased, taking a big bite that left ketchup on both corners of her mouth.

I grabbed her napkin and dabbed at both corners of her mouth.

“Awwwww,” Beast teased us both at the tender moment.

Jen blushed around a big bite of burger.

I just shook my head and finished my fries.

“Want me to have a look?”

“I’m almost done,” I nodded, finishing up the new student spotlight on Ana Maria.

I finished up the final sentence and slid my journal wordlessly in front of Autumn.

She picked it up and glanced over the notebook at me as she read it silently. Her eyebrows raising twice before she practically dropped it with a wide-open gasp.

“Did you mean to write it this way?”

“What do you mean?”

“A little suggestive?”

“How so?” I asked in confusion.

“Let’s start here, she grinned lasciviously, then quoted me. “We should all strive for more knowledge about the cultures around us, and there’s no better way to do it than to learn a foreign tongue. Ana Maria brings a unique opportunity to discover more about others while taking an entry-level Spanish class and a deeper dive of understanding the Spanish people.”

I threw my hands up in confusion.

“It sounds a bit, sexual,” she whispered.

I grabbed the notebook from her again and found the paragraph near the end.

“Is she hot?” Autumn asked.

“Cute, would be a better term,” I shrugged.

“This is like, dripping with innuendo,” she grinned.

“Well I didn’t mean it to,” I said defensively.

“Were you thinking about sex when you wrote it?”

“I, uh, pretty much think about it all the time now,” I said meaningfully, looking her outfit up and down.

“Ooooooh,” she said with her mouth wide open.

“Yeah, been a while,” I shrugged.

“Same for me,” she shrugged. “At least I think,” she added, eyeing me dubiously.

“Yeah, same,” I whispered meaningfully.

She seemed to take a little delight in that.

“So, do I have to change it?” I asked, trying to change the subject back to the profile at hand.

“Change your?” she tilted her head in question.

“The student profile,” I said in exasperation.

“Oh! Uh, I don’t think it’s going to set off any alarms. I just thought it was kinda, I don’t know, sexy.”

“Well, you’d know sexy the last few days,” I rolled my eyes.

Autumn covered her mouth and tried to stifle a big laugh, her eyes shining through it.

“I’m having fun,” she said defensively.

“You’re driving some of us to distraction,” I pretended to complain.

“I know,” she said cheerfully, then tweaked my nose with a giggle.

My understanding of women seemed to be worsening.

We were back into the swing of things at practice. The offense was working out some new pass plays. It was as if our opponent last week had reminded our coaches that we could employ the forward pass.

It just meant a lot of running around for the rest of us, which got to be exhausting really quickly.

After practice, I dropped Mikey off at his house and headed home. It was another long day in the fields for Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Mike. Mom had hot subs for the guys this time, and they were very pleased to get a hot meal after a long day.

I took a few turns driving the tractor out to the combine and back to the grain bins. Dad accepted his sandwich with a smile and asked how my day had gone. He was pleased to be more than half done with the soybean harvest and he thought the yields looked pretty good.

I wolfed down my own meatball sandwich with some chips and washed it down with a Pepsi.

Back in the house, Josh begged me to make him a malt before bed. I found a couple of bananas and blended them up with chocolate syrup and ice cream. He could barely finish his before Mom ushered him off to bed.

I grabbed a long hot shower and fell asleep almost the moment my head hit the pillow.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1991

“Mama put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That cold black cloud is comin’ down
Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door”

Can’t go wrong with Guns N’ Roses, I guess.

I slapped the snooze button and yawned, stretched and crawled out of the sheets. I had slept like a log and hardly moved all night. I couldn’t recall a dream or a single thought of anyone, and it was a nice way to wake up.

Thursday meant “Come as you are Day.” I couldn’t very well do that, dressed only in my skivvies. I scrounged around for a pair of cloth shorts and a muscle shirt. I brought along a pair of jeans and a nice polo for later.

Yep, it was going to be a chilly way to start the day, but it could be fun.

Mikey had apparently borrowed his dad’s pajama pants and a robe, but he had a Spider-man T-shirt under it, with fuzzy slippers to complete the look. He sure had me beat.

Once we got to school, I could see Jen had me beat too. She was cozy in long flannel pajama pants and a robe. She shook her head at me once again.

“This is what you wear to bed?”

“Uh, I can’t show up here in what I wear to bed,” I shook my head.

Jens eyebrows shot up and she giggled, covering her mouth. I shrugged and we walked together into the building. Jen was still chuckling.

Inside, it was like everyone had been called late to breakfast.

Girls were in many colors of pajamas. Some guys had robes. Some didn’t bother with the whole dressing up thing. I just liked being comfortable again.

Autumn didn’t wait for me at the end of the hallway. She came right up to my locker.

She was in a full-on onesie, complete with footies. The cute little outfit came with a flap in the back, just like the classics. She topped off the look with a sleep mask up on her head. She was even carrying a Teddy Bear.

I just smiled and shook my head.

“You are going all out this week.”

“Wait until you see me tomorrow,” she grinned. “Oh, hey, I have a question.”

“Shoot,” I replied.

“Are you going to Coronation tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Can I get a ride home from you?”

“Sure,” I shrugged.

“I do have to stay just a little late, but we can go to Lea’s little get-together right after.”

That was the first I’d heard of anything going on at Lea’s.
“I didn’t get invited,” I shrugged.

“She just mentioned it to me this morning. You’re invited,” she teased.

“OK.”

Kim greeted me in Algebra again and even started a real conversation.

“Is that what you wear to bed?” she asked shyly, clearly checking out my exposed arms.

“Uh, no. Less than this,” I admitted.

The cute Asian girl blushed in her silky, blue PJs.

“Are you going to coronation tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” I replied.

“Going to Lea’s after?”

“Yeah, just found out about it this morning,” I grinned.

“See ya there,” she smiled.

Spanish class brought more distractions. You would think bulky pajamas wouldn’t be much of a turn-on, but you would be wrong.