1989
"Don't forget to drop by Bobby Ray's BBQ before the Commodore's game Friday night to get some pulled pork for dinner. All the funds received at Bobby Ray's will be going toward student activities board. Also we'll be selling homecoming tickets all week in the caf to students and faculty... If anyone's interested in helping to set up the gym, we'll have a sign-up sheet in the caf also..."
Brian had a pencil in his mouth. He was studying his notepad, moving the pencil around. Emma studied him, watched how the curls on his forehead moved with the slight breeze coming in through the open home room windows. She gnawed her lower lip and stared at him.
"...voting will take place next Monday..."
Brian dropped his pencil and it rolled under his desk and to the left. Emma reached for it and held it up to him. He took it, winked and mouthed thank you as he turned back forward. Emma thought her heart might stop. Their finger tips had brushed for the slightest of seconds on the tip of that pencil. She was sure some DNA-like substance was still on her hands.
Molly was talking a mile a minute, her hands moving animatedly. Her boyfriend, Jake, was sitting beside her as she waved her hands about. Jake grinned stupidly at her. Emma wasn't really listening to a word Molly was saying, she was watching Brian and his buddies buying tickets to the homecoming dance. She spooned a mouthful of yogurt and nodded, pretending she was paying attention to her best friend.
"Em?" Molly asked, raising an eyebrow. She glanced back at Brian and smirked before turning to Emma again. "Oh Em."
"Hm?" Emma looked up at Molly, "I'm sorry. What?"
"Brian Littrell?" Molly asked, laughing, "Seriously?"
"I wonder who he's taking to the dance?" Emma murmured.
"I heard he was gonna ask Tracy," Jake answered. He pushed some napkins to Molly as she started fishing around her tray for what she'd done with hers.
"Tracy?" Molly demanded, "Tracy Gilberts?" She snorted, "More like Trampy," she added. She looked at Emma. "Brian would never get with you, ok? So stop being all foo-foo faced over him." She grabbed the napkins Jake had pushed to her.
Emma shrugged, "You never know. And Tracy seems okay."
"Em, she's slept with like every jock in the school," Molly laughed. "Brian's probably like the Holy Grail she's yet to conquer." Jake laughed. But then again, Jake was whooped. Jake laughed at most things Molly said.
Emma couldn't help but wonder though what made people like Brian so different from people like her.
"That weird girl's been scoping you for hours man." Brian's friend Chris said, nodding across the cafeteria. Brian followed Chris' nod and his eyes landed on Emma. She looked away the moment he glanced her direction, refocusing on her animated friend whose name Brian didn't know.
"That's Emma Harris. She's in my homeroom," Brian answered off handedly. He took a sip from the tiny carton of milk he'd grabbed at the lunch line.
"She's got the hots for you," Chris teased.
Brian smiled. "Most do," he replied in his best snobby voice.
Chris threw a balled up napkin at Brian's face, which he quickly blocked, deflecting it into Chris' mystery meat gravy. "Gross," Chris complained, pushing away the tray. "Asshole."
Brian laughed.
"Speaking of ass," said Dean, one of their friends, by way of changing the topic. Dean edged closer. "You get any from Tracy yet, Littrell?"
Brian almost choked on the milk he'd been drinking. He lowered the tiny carton. He could feel his face turning red. "Like I'd tell you, Dean," he joked. He punched Dean in the biceps.
Dean grinned. "Dude you gotta get a ride on that pony, I'm telling you. Best. Sex. Ever." He winked.
"Like Littrell's got anything to compare it to," laughed Mark, another friend of Brian's.
"He's got more then you got to compare," snapped Chris.
Dean laughed, "What? You two make a cute couple but foolin' around with you in your momma's basement doesn't count." The guys all laughed as Chris rolled his eyes and Brian's eyes wandered back to Emma's again. She'd been looking once more and, again, adverted her eyes away from his when he looked her way. "You're at least taking her to Homecoming, right?" Dean demanded.
"I'm going to ask her," Brian said, nodding. "And who knows where it might go from there," he added suggestively.
"So have you and Tracy... you know... done it?" Chris asked Brian as they drove around Lexington in Chris' truck that afternoon.
Brian stared out the window at the storefronts. Truth was, he hadn't done it with anyone yet. It'd been Brian's plan to wait until he got married - something his parents had reminded him was the safest way - God's way, in fact. That sounded so... corny, though. Especially in a culture that pushed sex into every aspect. He ran a hand across his knees. Especially for a guy. Sure purity rings and all that were kinda sexy on a girl, but on a guy? Bri swallowed. He hadn't even dared to mention this dream to Chris, his best friend. "Nawh," he muttered, "We haven't."
"You gonna take Mark's advice?" Chris demanded, "On homecoming night?"
Brian shrugged.
"You gotta do it soon," Chris said in a knowing voice, like he wasn't a world-class dork and the girls didn't laugh at the mere idea of doing anything - even dating - poor Chris. "Tracy's not the kinda girl that hangs around all day. She's after one thing and one thing only."
Brian shrugged again. "She's a girl, of course she's after more than that. Our relationship is more than sex."
"No relationship with Tracy is about more than sex," laughed Chris.
Brian scowled.
"She's gonna ditch you if you don't sex her up, Brian," said Chris.
Brian looked at his fingers and picked absently at his thumbnail. "She's different with me, okay, Chris? It's different."
"Don't you want to get laid?" Chris demanded, "Tracy's like the perfect opportunity for you."
Brian shrugged, and, reaching for the dial on the radio, changed the subject.
"Guess who just asked me to go to Homecoming?" Molly accosted Emma in the school hallway the next day.
Emma was shoving books into her locker. "Who?"
"Jake."
Emma looked at Molly. "I would hope he would considering he's your boyfriend," she commented. "I thought you meant somebody else."
"Well it's exciting anyway, he like formally asked me and bought the tickets and stuff," Molly argued, obviously put off that Emma hadn't squealed excitedly with her. "Anybody ask you yet?" she demanded.
Emma shrugged. "Not yet."
"Well there, see? At least I got asked by someone."
Emma slammed the locker door shut and walked away, carrying her notebook for homeroom. She set herself down in the desk she always sat in, and watched as the other students filtered into the room. Brian came in side-by-side with Chris, joking and laughing under their breath. Chris sat in the chair next to Emma and Brian in his usual spot ahead of that. Brian turned to continue the conversation with Chris while their teacher was busy writing on the board before the bell rang.
"I'm serious dude, I'm not dating her because she's easy, if you know what I'm saying," Brian was commenting.
"You got to knock her though," Chris replied, "It's that simple."
Emma felt her cheeks grow red at the conversation they were having. She stared down at her notebook.
"Any girl that's after sex and doesn't get it would drop you like an old hat," Chris was saying. He glanced to his left and saw Emma. "Yo, Harris," he said to attract her attention. When she looked up, he asked, "If you wanted to have sex with Brian and he didn't put out would you dump him?"
Emma looked at Brian, her mouth run dry as the Sahara, and Brian smiled gently and apologetically at her. "I don't want to have sex with Brian," she stammered, taken off guard, "I - I want to have sex when I get married." She turned away. Chris started laughing, but she could feel Brian's eyes boring holes through her and Chris' noise became far off and faded.
Emma was standing against the wall in the school gymnasium at the dance, alone, her arms wrapped around herself as a slight chill slipped down her bare back. The dress Molly had helped her pick out at JC Pennys was a little bit more revealing than her momma would've had her in but she'd hoped that she'd be wearing it while holding Brian's arm - even though the odds of that were so slim, she'd picked the gown thinking of him. It was pale yellow with a low cut back and tiny rhinestones that glittered across the bodice. But nobody had really noticed her, standing off to the side. Her hair was up in a pile on top of her head, something that Molly had concocted that had taken way too much hair spray to accomplish.
Now she'd been abandoned, left holding a plastic cup of lemonade, watching Molly and Jake dance together on the floor. They'd come and talked to her - Jake had actually been the one to bring the lemonade over, and had even offered to dance with her, but she'd declined. Her eyes wandered from the two love birds as they got mushy and close, despite the tempo of the song, and she found herself watching Brian and Tracy across the gym.
Tracy was wearing a teal dress that barely covered her butt, her hair teased up to a poofy cloud that glowed with the lights in the room. Brian was a good dancer, something that didn't surprise Emma at all since Brian had always been nimble, even when they were kids. She smiled at the thought of Brian way back then... not that a lot had really changed, other than their closeness.
See, as much as Brian either didn't recognize it or didn't acknowledge it, they'd once been friends in Sunday School, when they were kids. Emma had shared her crayons with Brian and he'd called her his best friend and they'd been buddies for a long time after that until Brian got old enough to sing choir and then they didn't ever have time together because Brian got sick, then he was a math geek, then he was on the baseball team and now he was popular and Emma was still just that kid that shared crayons that time when they studied Moses in the reed baskets when they were 4.
But she'd never stopped liking him.
She watched until Brian finally took Tracy's hands and the two of them floated off the dance floor and out the door of the gym into the night. Emma felt like her heart might break as they left. She put the lemonade down on a table and went to tell Molly that she, too, was leaving to go home. Being at homecoming without a date was bad enough...but watching the guy you were crushing on walk out the door with the school tramp...well, that was way, way worse.
Emma emerged into the parking lot and pulled on a cardigan sweater around her shoulders. She started walking home, heading across the school parking lot to the baseball field, which she usually walked across as a short cut. She was just stepping into the sparse of trees that separated the field from the school's lot when Tracy emerged, pulling the shoulder of her dress back on. She scowled as she walked by.
Emma paused, and stared after her fora brief moment, then glanced at the trees. Her heart started pounding so fast she was certain that he'd be able to hear it as she started forward again. Mentally, she gave herself a pep talk, reminding herself to speak coherently.
Brian was sitting on one of the benches, staring out at the field, his tie undone and hanging in two long tails from his neck. He was staring at his shoes. Emma moved slowly, hesitantly, towards him. She stepped on a twig and he jumped and turned and his eyes landed on her and they stared at one another across the distance between them...
