Chapter 5: Monday

Monday was—to put it mildly—interesting.

I drove to Beth's house to pick her up—I was serious when I'd made the comment about the first ten guys trying to steal her and I was going to do everything I could to prevent any attempts to swipe MY girl—at least I hoped she was my girl.

I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Beth's mother answered, "You must be Tommy. Beth talked about you all night! Come on in." Talked about me? That didn't sound good.

I stepped inside to see Beth's dad standing in the foyer, "So this is the young man who's brought such a change to our daughter." My first impulse was to bolt for my car and—hopefully without breaking the sound barrier—get out of there. But then I realized it was my somewhat guilty conscience that had me over-reacting.

"I can't believe the change in Bethany while we were gone. I've been trying for years to get her to dress more like you other kids, but she always insisted on looking like an old maid," her mother grumped. "What did you do to her?" Oh, not much, just got her clothes off and screwed her to within an inch of her life.

"Tommy!" Beth exclaimed as she came down the stairs to save me. She was wearing one of the T-shirts and low-riders she'd bought on Saturday and looked ready to take on the world. "Are you ready to go?"

"Um, sure. You got any books?"

"Oops, guess I need those, huh," she grinned.

After grabbing her books, she gave her folks a quick hug and dragged me out the door. "I am SO ready for today. Do you think I'll surprise anybody?"

"Beth, you're gonna have the whole school in an uproar, guaranteed. As a matter of fact, you should bring your Nikon so I can get some shots of the kids' expressions!"

"So you can take some more pictures of me, you mean, right? I don't think so!"

"Well, it was worth a shot, if you'll excuse the pun. By the way, what did you tell your folks about the two of us this weekend? I thought at first your dad was going to pull out a shotgun!"

Beth just giggled. "Were you afraid I'd told them what really happened? No, I just mentioned that I'd spent some time with you and that you'd taken me shopping on Saturday. I didn't think they needed the whole story."

I opened the car door for her, even more aware of how old my beater was. "My Princess," I said with a theatrical bow.

Beth slid into the car, "Thank you, kind sir," she replied with a grin and waited until I was behind the wheel.

"Tommy, do you really think I can pull this off? I mean, I feel great the way you look at me, but what about everybody else? Will they laugh at me like they did Tiffany?"

Tiffany was another one of the kids from the theater group. She'd shown up at school one day totally Goth—the clothes, the makeup—everything but the body piercings—and had taken a ration of shit from everybody, especially the jocks and cheerleaders and ended up going home "sick" at noon. The next day she'd been back to her normal self and tried to make it sound like it was all just an "experiment." Later she'd confided in a couple of other girls that a cousin who was heavy into the Goth lifestyle had talked her into trying it.

"Beth, don't worry. You look great, and like I said, the guys are gonna go nuts. And watch the girls. They're going to be hanging on to their boyfriends, literally, as soon as they see you. I'll bet a bunch of the kids won't even recognize you."

As we pulled into the school parking lot she looked at the kids plodding toward the prison of learning, then at me. "I hope you're right," she said as she gnawed at her bottom lip.

Our high school was campus-style, with a main building for general classrooms, one for the science labs and a third was strictly arts, theater and music.

We were just inside the main building when Ken Hue, one of my friends, walked up, "Hey, Tommy, how was your weekend?" Then he saw Beth...

Now we've all heard the expression about someone's jaw hitting the floor, right? Well, let's just say Ken was lucky his dad's a dentist.

"Whoa, who're you?"

"Ken, Ken, don't you even recognize Beth?" I chuckled.

"Beth? Beth who? Are you new at school?"

"Ken, I sit right in front of you in English Lit!" Beth grinned at me as if to say He doesn't even recognize me!

"English Lit? You mean Beth Jones? YOU'RE BETH JONES!?"

"That's me," was her bubbly reply.

"Yeahbut, Beth is, I mean you are, I mean..." he ran down, red faced.

"Kenny, it's me all right. This is the REAL me. All thanks to a swift kick from Tommy, here."

Ken's glance bounced between the two of us as he tried to figure out what was going on.

That scenario was played out several times during our walk to my homeroom where we had to separate.

"See you at lunch?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. I have a feeling we're gonna have a LOT to talk about!" Beth strolled down the hall, her statuesque height making her look even better. With head high, she gained more confidence with each step, each stunned expression, and every whistle.