Chapter 32

"Oh, God!"

Robbie grinned. "You say the sweetest things."

"Oh, God!"

Robbie spun, and I watched as the hem of her dress lifted and twirled. The dress was pale blue and came to the tops of her knees. The front started on her right shoulder and plunged diagonally to under her left arm with just a hint of her left breast.

"Oh, God!"

"You know, Tony, I think the thing I like most about you is your way with words."

"Oh, God!" I'd waited for her after the game outside the trainer's room. The visiting team used the girl's locker room, so Robbie changed in the training room because it had a shower.

"If you can't come up with anything more than that, I'm going to the dance."

"Tami who?"

Robbie smiled. "Even if I know you don't mean that, it's the sweetest thing a guy's ever said to me."

"Will you marry me?" I asked, dropping to one knee.

"I think you've already asked Tami.

"We can all move to Utah."

"Can I ask you something?" I said as we climbed the stairs to the main hall. The dance was in gym two at the other end of the school.

"You can ask me anything," Robbie said quickly. "Of course I reserve the right to throw a major temper tantrum.

"Uh..." What was that old saying? Discretion is the batter part of survival.

"Tony, ask."

"Uh, you've been kind of, uh, cool, towards me the last couple of weeks. Since that thing with Kate in the cafeteria."

"If you thought I was just a little cool, I wasn't doing something right."

"I was just trying to help. I mean, that's what friends do, right? Help each other."

Robbie stopped, so I stopped too. We happened to be right in front of our lockers. "Tony, we need to get you a big white horse, cause you're always riding to someone's rescue."

"I..." What the hell do you say to something like that?

"I was annoyed. Hell, I was mad that you thought I needed rescuing."

"Oh!"

"It was that kind of day. First Leslie's lame play beats us out. Then Kate decides to jump me, probably because I was talking to all the cute football players and she felt left out. Then you decide I'm a damsel in distress and coming riding to my rescue. You're probably lucky that you still have all your teeth."

"Losing the play competition bothered you that much?" I knew she could care less about what Kate thought.

"We were good. I can't believe we lost."

"We were good, but we put it together in a month. Leslie's been acting since... she was probably doing Romeo and Juliet when she was still an egg in her mother's tummy."

"Eggs aren't in the tummy."

"Don't get clinical on me. You know what I mean."

"I do. And Leslie was good. And her play wasn't lame. I just get so competitive. I just can't believe we lost."

"If I tell you something, will you promise never to mention it again. To take it to your grave?"

Robbie looked at me, then slowly nodded.

"We lost by two votes."

"Two votes! We should get a recount. What about the kids who were absent that Monday?"

"Robbie!"

"We should... get over it and think about next year."

I nodded. "We should go to the dance, and you can dance with Mike and I'll dance with Tami. Then Mike can dance with Tami and you and I will do whatever it is you do to the light fantastic. Then Mike and I can have the slow dances..."

"You keep your grubby hands off Mike. He's mine."

I bowed and we walked down the hall to the dance.

"You okay?" I asked Robbie as everyone applauded.

"I just thought... I... I'm okay."

Jenny Velesquez, the student body president, had just announced the sophomore homecoming princesses. Tami was one of the four, Robbie wasn't.

"I guess Katie Green is right. People don't think of me as a girl."

Mike Rose, Robbie's date, stood on the other side of her, his arm around her shoulder, watching the four sophomores join the freshmen and get crowned, but she spoke quietly with me.

"Try to remember that a lot of the kids in this school don't have an opinion until Kate or somebody else gives it to them," I said.

"I guess," she muttered, biting her lip. "I'm glad Mikee made it." Mikee was standing in the middle of the freshmen looking like she was going to bust.

"Me, too. And you've got something better than homecoming court. You're a member of the first team in school history to have a perfect season."