Turn To You

Turn To You: Chapter One

Betsy

It was 1985 and the Go Go's had just broken up. It was a bad time for pop groups and a worse time for me. With less than a month left until prom, Callie had just broken my heart and having to accompany my best friend, Glenn to the Cook High School junior prom was not my idea of a good time. Not now - not with no idea for a new song, no dress to wear and my band, The Windows getting ready to play a bar mitzvah in the city.

The last Thursday of the last week in May started out the same as it often does for me: I was falling asleep during Mrs. Kimball's homeroom, my spiked bracelet making a nicely outlined indentation on my face as my head slid down my arm to meet my desk. The next thing I knew, something soft smacked me in the back of the head and I jolted. On the floor next to my desk was the culprit: a balled up piece of paper. I looked around and everyone else had their heads down - either equally bored and drowsy or deeply interested in whatever was in their textbooks. Or, of course, the loser too chicken-shit to let me know they'd thrown the wadded paper. I had a few suspects, but no one was really worth getting upset with here. Not over just a crumpled ball of paper. Not until I had the bright idea to un-crumple it. 

There, in giant Magic Marker lettering, was only one word: DYKE.

It was in pure fury that I slid the chair back, legs squeaking noisily as I stood up. Mrs. Kimball turned around and her eyebrows shot up.

"Miss Reynolds! What do you mean by interrupting my class? Sit down!"

"I'm - " I began, but I wasn't sure what to say. All my thoughts clattered together. I looked over to where Glenn was sitting, staring at me in awe and shaking his head as if to say "what are you doing?" or, more likely, "have you finally lost it completely?" If you'd asked me right then, I would've had to say "no doubt about it." A resounding yes.

"Mrs. Kimball," I began again. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. "Could I please be excused? For the restroom, I mean."

Mrs. Kimball - poor Mrs. Kimball. Prone to visible agitation and always in her cardigans so that people called her Mr. Rogers behind her back. Her curly salt and pepper hair was scooped into a banana comb and some of her mascara smeared across her cheek. She really was a mess and here I was, making her life a little more difficult and surely not for the first time.

"Fine," she said finally, waving a hand in exasperation. "Go. Don't forget the hall pass."

I picked up my bag and scurried to the door, crumbling the awful note and stuffing it into my pocket on the way out.

And me, I was prone to panic attacks. More and more since Callie had stood me up for a day at the museum and later, handed me her note explaining why she didn't think she could be with me anymore. I'd always had them, but never like I did after she dumped me. It had been seven days now and it felt like seven years. I'd been hiding in my bedroom, playing Foreigner records and crying a lot. I felt like such a loser.

Glenn came darting out of the class several steps behind me, calling my name.

"Betsy! Betz!" he was saying and when he approached and caught sight of my face, he grabbed my hand.

"What in the world happened in there?" he said. Fully engulfed by my panic attack now, I just shoved the now-wrinkled sheet under his nose. He grabbed it, looked at it, blinked and raised his eyebrows.

"Well," he said, "they're perceptive at least."

"They're assholes!" I gasped.

"That, too," he said. I winced and stomped my feet a little. Yes, real mature, right?