Ada's Dance
Before
Ada looked at Derrick. He was tall and very thin, the kind of thin where nurses get concerned about pushing the needle all the way through his arm, with arms and legs a bit too long for his body. The green shirt he wore made her think he looked like a praying mantis. He stood a few steps away from the door and wasn’t moving. He was looking at the bleachers that had been rolled into the wall to his left, away from the DJ.
Ada rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe how stupid he was being. Sure, she knew that Derrick was sometimes afraid of large groups of people, but he was the one who asked her to the dance. Shouldn’t he be out there dancing with her? Shouldn’t he have his arm around her waist, grinding his hips into hers-- well, with his height it would be her stomach, but shouldn’t he be grinding her? Shouldn’t Chip be watching Derrick grind her and be getting jealous? Shouldn’t Chip be wanting to push Derrick out of the way by now and draw her into him and softly place his lips on hers? What was Derrick doing over there by the door?
With a quick glance back at Chip, Ada grudgingly lifted one foot and slammed it down in the direction of the door then lifted the other. Each step was faster than the last. She would have called what she was doing running, but since it wasn’t ladylike to be running in a dress, she would have called what she was doing running, instead, she chose to believe that she was just a bit hurried. Her left foot came down on the inside of her dress causing her to stumble. She stopped, grumbled, stomped her feet, lifted her dress, and started to hurry toward Derrick again.
He was still just standing there. Hadn’t he seen her stumble and nearly fall? Would he have moved if she had fallen? Chip would have, probably, if he wasn’t so far away and bumping butts with that evil temptress. That Debbie, stealing away her man, made her so mad. Her face flushed and she moved even faster, muttering about all the horrible things that happen to girls like Debbie and grinning.
“What are you doing over here?” she asked as she hit Derrick in the shoulder. “We should be out there dancing.”
“Uh . . . yeah . . . w-we should be,” he said, shivering and trying to not look at Ada. “It’s j-just that I th-thought, you know, since we had our p-picture taken already and e-everything, m-maybe we could j-just . . . leave?”
“What?” Ada couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could he want to leave? She lifted and separated her boobs, she slathered her face in make-up, and she even put glitter in her hair, all to go to the dance with him. She hated glitter. Why would he want to leave?
“I mean,” he looked down at her, “I just thought that . . . Well, I know how much you hate d-dancing and I thought that you m-might not want to, you know, go out there and m-make a fool of yourself in f-front of everyone.”
“What!” Ada’s whole body flushed. How dare he say something like this to her? About her? Wasn’t he her friend?
“C-come on,” he said, his hand shaking as he put it on her shoulder. “Neither of us really wants to be here. We don’t like to d-dance, at least in front of people. Let’s just get out of here. We could go get dessert at that cheesecake p-place. It’s open until, like, ten this evening. You can get chocolate and caramel on yours and a scoop of ice-cream. Come on, can we just get out of h-here?”
Ada shook Derrick’s hand off of her, took a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eye, “You, Derrick Perkins, are the one who asked me to this dance. I never even said that I wanted to go, but when you asked, I said yes. Look at me.” She twirled. “I dressed up to come to this dance with you.” She took his shaking hands in hers. “I wanted to come with you. You’re my friend and you deserve to have some fun once in a while. You’re here with me. Just pretend it’s only you and me here. No one else. Just the two of us. We have the whole gym to ourselves. The music is only for us. We’ll go out there and dance. We might be fools, but we’ll have fun. Besides, you’ve heard me fart, what could be more embarrassing than that?”
He laughed, looked at his hands in hers, and said, “Yeah, and I’ve smelled them, too. Rotten meat and broccoli. Yummy.”
“Shhhh. Just because you know about my old-man farts doesn’t mean that I want the whole school to know.” She smiled up at him. He’d stopped stuttering, that meant he was feeling more comfortable, that was a good sign. “Can we go dance now?”
“Okay, we can dance.”
“Great,” she said and started to drag him toward the DJ. “Let’s go dance in that group. They won’t even notice us.”
“Great,” echoed Derrick, plodding after her.
Chip was in Ada’s sight again. Chip was all that she could see. Sure, she knew that Debbie was rubbing against him, but that wasn’t important. What was important was getting close enough so she could make out that tiny freckle--or was it a birthmark, he’d always had it--to the left of the cleft in his bold, masculine chin. She loved that freckle. That imperfection on his perfect face made him more appealing to her, as if he were only human, instead of some sort of Mozart opera made human. How could one of the greatest pieces of music made human dance with some hip-hop ho?
A hole opened up next to Chip. Ada yanked harder at Derrick’s arm, they had to get there. She had to be near him. Chip had to see her with Derrick and see how happy they were together and see how much she didn’t want him. He just had to. She yanked again and Derrick started to hurry.
“Ladies don’t run, you know,” he said.
Ada ignored him. What did he know about it? He wasn’t a lady and he didn’t have a plan that had to be stuck to. She did and she’d do anything to have it work.
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