Then there are the non-surfing Charm counterparts—the unfortunately named Head Monsters, girls who don’t surf but still love indulging boys in sexual shenanigans, often found at parties on their knees in closets and bathrooms, and on the rare scholastic occasion, buried in the stacks at the library.
Lastly, and ironically, there are the Losers—a title so generic it stings. That would be a majority of the San Ramos kids, including yours truly, along with my best friends, Jennifer Barkly, Heather Knowles, and Amy Brineman—who happens to be going around with our good friend Peter Gibbs, a senior, no less. Amy and Peter have done the deed, so she gives us regular updates on what it feels like, not to mention an entire list of do’s and don’ts. If anything, Amy has taught me two things. One, always use a rubber. And, two, never use your teeth. Okay, so I’m not entirely sure what she means by that last part, but it sounds both brutal and orthopedic in nature.
Jennifer fans herself, trying to dilute the odor. “It doesn’t smell if you don’t mind vinegar. Gag me with a freaking spoon.” She retches for effect. Jennifer doesn’t invoke her inner Valley Girl for nothing. We don’t usually indulge in that ridiculousness, with the exception of infusing the word like voraciously into just about every spoken sentence. My mother says that it’s a gross abuse of a perfectly innocent word, but it’s like so natural. Plus, it’s like impossible to stop. “Can you like please have your mother show you where the shower is located in your house?”
“Very not funny. Showers like aren’t the problem.” I pluck a bottle of Love’s Baby Soft from my purse and effectively gas us out of the car with the scent of a well-powdered baby’s bottom.
Jennifer rarely drives with the top down, which is ridiculous. If my parents gifted me with a gently used Suzuki Samurai (by way of her stoner brother) I wouldn’t even know it had a top.
“Would you like put that away?” She chokes as we step onto the spongy, damp lawn. “My sister wears that crap, and she’s like in junior high. Everyone knows that’s for babies.”
“I happen to like this crap. And the general populace thinks babies smell good for a reason.”
“General populace?” Jen hikes a brow. Jennifer is pretty, model-like even, with her long dark hair and glowing green eyes. I’d die happy if my eyes lit up like that twenty-four seven. “If like you want to be popular, I suggest you stop using words like populace. Nobody likes a walking dictionary. Besides, you should wear Babe, like me.” Jen pulls out the tiny bottle with its name embossed in big letters right onto the glass. She waves it in front of me, and the perfume swims in her hand like liquid gold.
“Everyone knows sluts wear Babe.” I’m only partially teasing.
“Touché.”
I gloss over the expansive field. Glen Heights boasts twelve different competitive sports, and, God knows, they have the landmass to accommodate at least a dozen more. Down at the distal end of the field, the football team is hard at practice. At the opposing end, the Dean Henry Junior High Band rehearses, and I squint hard looking for my little brother, Ben. He’ll be in seventh grade this year and has taken up an instrument just in time to “steal my mother’s sanity” as she puts it. The junior high band has practiced here all summer, which, of course, both of my parents approve of. Dean Henry isn’t in the best area of San Ramos, and, this way, not only is Ben on the Hill, but I’m on campus with him.
“Look! There’s Benny!” Jen points to the chubby kid on the end with his lips stuck to a trombone.
“That would be him.” I give a wild wave, but the entire band pivots in one well-orchestrated move, and he misses the sight of me spazzing out like a loon. Any other seventh grader would be embarrassed to have an arm waving, smelly-shoed big sister in the vicinity, but Ben is actually proud to have me as a sibling. He’s weird like that.
Straight ahead, Fatima blows her whistle, and the Beaver Brigade all hop to attention.
“Wish me luck!” I pull Jen in for a quick hug.
“Luck.” She plucks one of her crunchy curls, and it vibrates like a stiff coil. God, I wish my hair would do that. For whatever reason, the spaghetti that grows out of my head refuses to take a perm, so I have to suffer with a curling iron and go through about a dozen cans of Aqua Net and tease it for a week just to get my bangs to defy gravity like that. I keep a long magenta canister of the aerosol in my purse just to tease and freeze when I get the chance. During the school year, the girls’ bathroom is lost in an Aqua Net fog between periods with girls fighting tooth and nail over inches of space in that all-too-short rectangular mirror.
Jen nods to her Samurai. “I’m headed across the street to Thrifty’s for some ice cream. You want something? Double chocolate malted crunch?”
Jennifer knows I live for double chocolate malted crunch, but I’ve laid off the delectable dessert for the last few weeks because I accidently-on-purpose ordered my cheer uniform one size too small (read wishful thinking) and I’m too embarrassed, and quite frankly, too broke to ask for another. Technically, it fits. It’s just, well, extremely fitting and promotes the idea that breathing is optional.
“I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself. See you in a couple hours.” Jen takes off for the parking lot, and suddenly I feel like it’s the first day of kindergarten, despite the fact we’ve repeated this very scenario five times a week for the last six weeks straight. Each time Jen leaves, I want nothing more than to run after her and wrap my arms around her knees. I have to keep reminding myself that I wanted this. I fought hard, worked hard, and ate way too much Special K to give up now.
Jennifer has been nice enough to drive me to practice on these hotter-than-hell- end-of-summer days, even though she didn’t make the team. She tried out right along with me. We spent hours on end immersing ourselves in the tryout routine. My tape recorder was literally smoking from the constant rewinding, but amazingly, we can still listen to “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” as if a melodic trauma hadn’t ensued. Pat Benatar is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve memorized all of the lyrics on her Get Nervous album. I love the cover with Pat in a straight jacket. That will probably be me before I graduate from this hellhole.
I jog in the general direction of Fatima and the crew just as the football team takes a break. They travel upfield in a small, sweaty herd of exceptionally hot-looking guys as they head for the gym. There’s no need to ask where’s the beef at Glen Heights High. It’s as clear as a wall of skin-covered granite that it’s right here on our field. There are no hotter guys on campus than our football players.
Three of the boys walk right toward me without wavering, and for a second I find myself doing a spastic version of the Grapevine with Joel Miller as we try to get out of each other’s way. He breaks out in an easy grin, and those bottled blue eyes of his—deep, bottom of the ocean blue—look right into mine, and my entire body erupts in carnal flames.
Joel Miller—more formally known as Joel Fucking Miller amongst the female population at Glen, or his preferred mixed company friendly moniker, Joel Effing Miller—is a god among men, a deity on this and any other football field and rightly so. Ever since last spring when Jennifer, Heather, and I saw Sixteen Candles, we’ve each been searching for our very own Jake Ryan. Glen Heights has two such candidates: Joel Effing Miller and his best friend, Frankie Delacruz. You’re either team “fourteen” or team “twenty-seven,” their respective jersey numbers. I’m totally committed to the one currently blocking my path in life, number freakishly-handsome-fourteen—my personal pick of the Glen Heights demigods.
He squints into me, and his dimples dip in deep, making my insides boil with heat. “I don’t know if I should say excuse me or ask you to dance?”
We share a quick laugh, and I finally manage to zig as he zags, and we’re out of each other’s lives, most likely for good.
“Oh my shit!” I hiss to myself, panting from the extraterrestrial exchange. Did that just really happen? I glance back, and his jersey number slaps me in the face. Crap! Jennifer and Heather are goin
g to d-i-e!
Joel Effing Miller just spoke to me. I mean, he practically asked me to dance! I love how ridiculously delicious it is. Sadly, I’ll be replaying that one moment over and over again for the rest of my natural days while I’m sure he’s already forgotten about the brief, yet beautiful exchange—but who the heck cares? Joel Effing Miller! As in voted best-looking-three-years-in-a-row Joel Miller! Star quarterback for the Glen Heights Pirates, Joel Fucking Miller! Not that I care for the honorary expletive the girls at Glen have gifted him, but he’s so freaking rad he sort of demands it.
Realistically, Joel Miller doesn’t know I exist. I’ve been invisible to him and the rest of the football demigods for so long I’m shocked they didn’t try to walk right through me. In fact, that very scenario might just explain that whole zigzag shuffle we just carried out. Nevertheless, I’m breathless, floating on air. In fact, I wish practice were over so I could recount the whole thing moment-by-moment to Jen.
I stumble into the cheer lineup next to the Beaver Brigade, right next to Kelly Masterson—Joel Miller’s blonde, big-boobed, nose job in tenth grade girlfriend. There’s no love lost between Kelly and me, mostly because much like her boyfriend, she has no idea I even exist—well, she did once upon a time, but I don’t really like to think about those dark, demented days.
A cloud of Jungle Gardenia permeates the air around us as the Smelly Kelly Effect kicks in. She’s notoriously known for her floral bouquet bomb. The good thing is, you can smell her coming a mile away, so she’s been pretty easy for me to avoid up until now.
Kelly is the girl who has everything, Joel Effing Miller included. It’s almost entertaining to witness her never-ending supply of fanny packs—in an assortment of colors and fabrics to match both her mood and her outfit, as well as observing her rather substantial Swatch watch collection. At a certain point, you have to admire the way she offers the rest of us plebes the runway worthy spectacle. But God forbid anyone wear anything in the sacred color of purple. The Beaver Brigade has sort of claimed the entire berry-colored hue all for themselves. If you wear anything within that color spectrum, from leggings right down to a scrunchie, you’ll forever be labeled a poser. Not that the Beaver Brigade will say it to your face, of course, but they’ll make sure the word stings just as efficiently as a slap. The Bloods have red, the Crips have blue, and, well, Glen Heights own home turf terrors have purple. The Beaver Brigade has open warfare with just about everybody—in the female population, that is. If you ask me, they’re the only posers around here.
Fatima and Trina struggle to teach us two new cheers under the oppressive heat until a solid two hours eek by, and we fall into a heap of disheveled scrunchies.
“Like who the hell pissed off the sun?” Michelle kicks me without realizing it as she jerks her foot back and forth. She has what my mother calls “restless leg syndrome.”
My mother is the receptionist at Dr. Markson’s office, a popular general practitioner, and that makes her dangerously knowledgeable when it comes to ubiquitous medical trivia. It’s my burden in life to listen to her spew an unofficial diagnoses each time the need arises. Turns out, McDonald’s is a hotbed for every malady known to mankind. Our frequency at the clown-infested eatery can be squarely blamed on the fact I have an addiction to their yummy golden fries. Truthfully, I’m not sure why there is any other food group. Nevertheless, I digress. Even when Michelle has no real purpose to move a muscle, she’s thumping and bumping with the best of them. I sat behind her during Honors English last year, and it was like being on a roller coaster for two straight semesters. Each day she hit another number on the Richter scale with her bucking bronco routine. Suffice it to say, I’ll steer clear of Michelle if she’s in any of my classes this year.
“Like let’s hit the Galleria.” Kelly fluffs her bangs, and they effortlessly rise to the sky. The Galleria is Glen Heights’ version of the San Ramos shopping mall, but with more smoke and mirrors—technically, it’s glass and mirrors, but I like the verbiage better in the first descriptor. A majority of the kids on the Hill are known to be fake, so I think smoke and mirrors is fitting in this case. “I like haven’t even been to Esprit yet—and like, I only have a week of this bullshit left.”
I own exactly two sweaters from Esprit de Corps, both Christmas gifts from my grandmother—two different years. Mom and I walked through their store last spring, and she openly balked at the price tags, letting everyone in a five-mile radius know that she could fill a wardrobe from both JC Penney and Sears for the amount it would cost for one outfit. I was literally sunburnt from the searing embarrassment. There were three girls from Glen there that afternoon, and they laughed like loons as my mother opined about the outrageous price tags. Not that I’ve taken my mother up on the Penney-Sears wardrobe-enhancing offer. I saved my Christmas and birthday money and bought myself a nice haul from Contempo Casuals to kick-start the school year in a bitchin’ direction—Jen’s words. She loves the word bitchin’ almost as much as she loves Simon Le Bon.
Jennifer drove us to the mall last week, and we carried out one serious attack of commerce, or about as serious as two hundred and fifty dollars would allow. Jen is more of a Units, United Colors of Benetton kind of a girl as opposed to my Contempo, Foxmoor, the Limited, Express brand of apparel addiction. But it works out well, because we both wear the same size, so that means we essentially double our wardrobes.
Heather, our less financially endowed at the holidays and birthday friend, strictly hits thrift shops for her back-to-school fashion needs. Last week, her mom surprised her with a mall crawl and let her burn a hundred bucks wherever she wished in that ever expanding retail nirvana. Heather’s mom is raising five kids all on her own on a waitress’ salary, which evidently amounts to nothing more than tips.
Heather got a serious hair up her butt a few days ago and decided that the three of us should all buy a pair of cream-colored pants. First of all, I’m not a fan of the word cream as used in any descriptor whatsoever. Mr. Sardona-be-damned. And second, cream pants. Anyway, we went everywhere and anywhere to find them and finally scored a pair at Kmart. Neither Jen nor I are certain of these questionable corduroys that we shelled out twenty-two ninety-nine for. Jen thinks it’s going to be hard to find a day to wear them since one of us is always on our period. I say bring on Aunt Flow. Not that I have anything against Kmart. It happens to be my mother’s favorite haunt, right up there with Pic ‘N’ Save, but as much as I hate to admit it, I loathe to shop anywhere my mother deems socially acceptable. I’m a retail rebel that way.
“Malinowski!” Fatima shouts, the beads of sweat running down her thick chocolate skin. (Mr. Sardona would seriously frown at the word chocolate. He would say it was too simple, overused, and suggest something like ebony, cocoa, coffee bean, maple glazed with bourbon—but I happen to find it beautifully fitting.) Fatima and I have been good friends since junior high, but I insisted that she treat me like everyone else as soon as I made the team. Unfortunately, that includes being called exclusively by my last name—and mine just so happens to land on the less exciting side of the surname scale.
Not only are the girls from Glen abnormally beautiful and exceedingly wealthy, but their last names are just as well polished as the rest of them.
“You’re the only one on the team without a pair of Nikes!” Fatima roars it out as if I were on the other side of the planet. “Make sure you get the royal blue trim. I checked yesterday, and Footlocker only has a few pairs left. Do not—and I repeat do not—purchase navy! It must be royal blue!”
“Royal blue. Got it. I’m on my way right after practice.” It’s true. Jennifer and I are meeting up with Heather as soon as she gets off work. Earlier this summer, Heather got a job at Orange Julius to help save up for a car. Her uncle is going to try to help her get a used Karmann Ghia—or Gonorrhea Ghia as Heather already lovingly refers to it. It’s going to cost like a thousand bucks, but Heather already has two hundred dollars socked away, which might as well be a million.
<
br /> Most everyone at Glen Heights is pretty much gifted a new set of wheels when they turn sixteen. The girls each receive the requisite Volkswagen Cabriolet Rabbit—in white, of course, because really? Does that car come in any other color? Honestly, I don’t know how they tell them apart. They all have the same crystal jewels dangling from the rearview mirror—the same box of shoulder pads sitting in the back. The entire left side of the student parking lot looks like a Volkswagen dealership.
The boys, however, all pretty much drive Toyota trucks—brand new, of course, in black or charcoal gray. A few stray rebellious Broncos fill in the blanks. But the San Ramos kids, we drive the beat-up shit-mobiles, the old VW Bugs, the ragtops, the heavily remodeled VW Vans—the cool ones with the micro windows are my favorite. Some of the girls drive Ford Escorts and Gremlins, nothing too fancy or coveted.
Jennifer pretty much lucked out with the Samurai. It was her brother’s, but he was expelled from Glen Heights last year for selling pot on campus and now attends a reform school in a dicey area near the docks. He surrendered his license to his parents in an effort to not get sent out of state to some juvie-based boarding school that they were threatening him with. He told Jen he’d rather give up his wheels than his weed and budding coke addiction. Now that’s some serious devotion to destroying his respiratory system. At least this way his bloody nose and reefer-filled lungs still have a white line of hope.
Kelly jumps to her feet along with the other Beavers as they make their way to the parking lot, and I follow behind from a respectable distance. Kelly and I went to the same elementary school when we were kids. She and Francine Vernon made it a point to say mean and downright cruel things to me on the bus each and every morning, and, like an obedient idiot, I just took it.