A Dance With Levina

DEREK

I suppose I have to talk about Derek now. I've been putting this off, obviously. I realize it makes my story confusing to leave him out, but every time I try and put it into words I end up shredding the page with jagged black marks telling HIM TO GO TO –

Okay. I'll be calm. Promise. It goes like this.

Derek used to be my best friend. I had my first sleepover at his house. We played T-ball together, sat next to each other on the bus. Though, come to think of it, even back then Derek never let me sit by the window. I should have known.

Our friendship didn't outlive the fourth grade. During one recess, Derek and I were on the same team in a game of soccer. I got lucky and scored a goal. A sixth grader on the other team, Bill Bridges, didn't like that very much. So he pushed me. And slapped me. I started to cry.

Derek was at my side. I was ashamed to be crying, but at least I had a friend with me. I wouldn't have to face, by myself, the wrath of an angry sixth grader who was already growing a mustache. But, as I said, I should have known.

Derek took one long look at Bill and one much shorter look at me. And then he said to Bill and all the other kids around: "You should see him when he watches Titanic. He cries even harder." I was so shocked at Derek's revelation – too true, I'm afraid, I'm a sucker for romance, even as a fourth grader – that I stopped crying. Bill laughed, walked away, and Derek followed him. Derek had traded the role of best friend for sycophant and never looked back. That was the last I ever spoke to him.

Until this year. It was right around the time I started taking lessons for Dancing With The Local Stars. I had been waxing the freshman hallway after school to fulfill my community service requirement (every senior at Jacob Creek has to do 15 hours before graduation. And if you're bad, they make you do more.) The mildew smell in the freshman hall battled the acrid smell from the waxer's harsh chemicals over which one would make me nauseous the fastest. They were both winning. I was drearily pushing the waxer when I almost ran over a sneaker. Derek's sneaker.

"Hey Jude, what's been happening?" he said.

Remember I said I was called "Jude" by my six friends? Derek obviously wasn't one of them. He was smiling that same gap-toothed grin he had when he was a boy, as if nothing bad had ever come between us.

What's been happening? Oh, I don't know, somewhere between crying in the middle of recess in elementary school, and waxing the freshman halls as a senior, I've sunk into pubescent purgatory, while you have slimed your way into a position of respectable second-tier popularity.

What I actually said was, "Not much."

"Cool, cool," he continued, "so you know about the celebrity dance, right?"

Hadn't I been to three of the practices already? I nodded.

"It's definitely going to be grade A kick-ass," he said. "You're going, right?" Derek wasn't actually looking at me. His gaze seem directed just past my shoulder. For my part, I found it hard not to stare at the gap between his teeth. Hadn't Derek worn braces in middle school, just to correct that gap?

"Yeah," I said.

"Cool, cool. Who's not going, right? I mean, we got people coming in from Seattle, like, the news anchor from KING 5, she's a stone cold fox, who wouldn't pass up the chance to stare at those gazongas, right?"

Gazongas? The last time I heard that word was from Derek in the third grade. He had gotten older and bigger in the intervening years, but other than that, he didn't seem very different. Like that gap in his teeth. He probably never bothered to wear his retainer after the braces came off. Derek was always careless.

"...not that I wanted to do it," he was saying, "but that's what you get for being voted Senior Class Treasurer, right? Gotta fund our senior trip somehow, right? Anyway, bro, I could really use your help."

"Help with what?"

"The dance, man, the dance! I know you're, like, a friggin' Zuckerburg with computers and numbers and stuff, and we need some of that mojo to help us earn a buttload of friggin cash."

There were several things wrong with Derek's request. First off, I was not a "friggin' Zuckerburg" when it came to computers and mathematics. I may have created the odd web page here and there, but I was no coding whiz. Second, why on earth would Derek be asking for my help out of the blue?

To be honest, I was a little afraid to say no to Derek right then. He was a lot bigger than me, and who knows if he had a bunch of goons around the corner? As we say at Jacob Creek High School, "In the freshman hall, no one can hear you scream." Especially after school hours, when the only other adult in the building was likely to be Ernie Staffordson, our 75-year-old janitor. Ernie was cheerful but practically deaf.

"Uh, thanks, Derek, but actually, with all of the college and scholarship applications –"

"Dude, you're not pussin' out on me, are you?"

"No, it's just that –"

"Cause I don't want to look like a total 'tard in front of the rest of the committee. I was saying just today that my old buddy Jude could take care of our web page, so the class president put your name down for it. I don't want to look like a total idiot."

Old buddy? He volunteers my name for some job and suddenly I'm "old buddy?" That angry thought came later, though, because the only thing I could think of at the time were the words class president. The very president I had voted for. Vividly, I remembered her election speech: She was standing up at the podium in a white lace dress, gently exhorting the student body to reach for more, as the golden light bathed her golden hair. Our class president, Levina Deuchant.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked.