MY SECRET WEAPON
One day early that summer between ninth and tenth grades, the high school cheerleaders held a car wash to raise money for cheerleading camp. And that event served as my introduction to the students, teachers and parents of Central High School who drove their cars in to be washed. I had never worked harder, and I had never felt any more important, or prouder, than I did working alongside all those other cheerleaders with a pail and a sponge.
But the guys were what impressed me most that day. These weren't the junior high school boys I'd been used to cheering for. These were high school football players, seventeen- and eighteen-year-old hunks who drove to the car wash in their Camaros and their TransAms just to talk with and gawk at the cheerleaders. And I was a cheerleader!
I knew exactly how Cinderella must have felt when she walked into the royal ball. I could hardly believe this was happening to me. I didn't work up enough courage that day to carry on an actual conversation with any of the football players, but that didn't keep me from looking.
And as I watched those older guys with their cars and their muscles, I told myself, Becky, this is a whole new ball game.
I knew I wasn't the same ugly duckling I'd been when I'd begun junior high. I'd gotten rid of the ugly glasses, finished with braces, slimmed down and filled out, let my hair grow long, and begun wearing makeup. But I'd felt unattractive for so long that I couldn't believe my looks would win me any popularity. Still somehow, amazingly, I found myself at that car wash standing in the most glorious summer sunshine sopping wet and right in the middle of the high school in-crowd.
I made up my mind right there that I would do whatever it took to stay. I even dreamed that one of those big handsome guys would become my personal prince. With all my other fantasies coming true, I began to believe it could really happen.
As the summer progressed I discovered other advantages to being a cheerleader. With my new status came instant access to an older crowd. While most of my old junior high friends still had to ask their parents for rides, members of my new circle had their own wheels. And the horizons of my life were suddenly pushed back. Way back. From seventh grade on, I had been pushing and pulling at my parents' restraints. Fights with my mom had become more frequent and more intense as my frustration with house rules also increased.
Now, just as certainly as easy access to wheels expanded my horizons, it gave me a freedom I'd never known before. I would go places without my parents' knowledge or permission. And in the process, I encountered choices I'd never had before.
Though I had never had a drink, I noticed that a lot of high school kids drank. And I was curious to find out what the big deal was. So on the Fourth of July weekend I didn't even have to think when my friend Wendy asked, "Do you wanna get some beer for tonight?"
"Sure. Let's do it. I know where we can buy it."
I'd heard other friends talk about a small ethnic grocery on the other side of town where the clerk never asked for an ID. So that's where we went early that afternoon. We walked in feeling nervous and conspicuous. Neither of us looked a bit older than our actual ages of fifteen and sixteen.
We wandered around the store for a couple of minutes, as if looking for something we couldn't find. Then when the only other customer in the place paid for her purchases and left, I picked up a six-pack and walked nonchalantly to the checkout. As I stood there wondering if the guy behind the counter would really make the sale, Wendy walked up behind me and pointed to a pack of cigarettes in the display rack. I reached for the pack, set it on the beer, and turned to wink at Wendy as the clerk rang up the purchases.
Two minutes later we were walking out the door, our illegal booty sufficiently concealed in a brown paper grocery sack. We walked home by way of the municipal park, where we were coming that night to see the city-sponsored fireworks, and stashed our beer in the bushes between the parking lot and the lake.
Droves of people trekked toward the lake as twilight was fading to darkness. When Wendy and I reached the park, I wondered for a few moments if we'd hidden the beer well enough. But as we walked from the parking area into the vast expanse of brush, where each bush looked like every other bush in the dark, I was afraid we'd hidden it too well.
I needn't have worried. The beer proved a lot easier to find than it was to drink. Right there in the sheltered under-growth with Wendy I popped the top of my first beer. It tasted awful. Maybe I should have bought another brand. Or maybe it's better cold, I thought. Eventually I finished my can, and when Wendy opened her second can, so did I.
We finished off the six-pack before we came out from the bushes and joined the rest of the crowd to find a spot to sit on the grass for the coming show. By the time the first starburst exploded high in the sky above the lake, I was already experiencing a strange, yet pleasant buzzing sensation. And the exploding colors seemed especially vivid against the velvet sky.
When the grand finale faded into wisps of smoke and the people around us began gathering up lawn charis and blankets, I very slowly maneuvered myself to my feet.
"You okay?" Wendy asked.
"Sure," I replied. And I was. I felt great.
A lot of the crowd headed for the Dairy Queen just a couple blocks away. So we walked that way, too.
As we stood in line to get waited on, a car pulled up and a boy stuck his head out of the passenger window and called to Wendy. It was John, a guy she knew from school. With him in the car were a couple of his senior buddies.
"You two wanna ride around a while?" John asked.
Wendy looked at me. When I shrugged and nodded, the doors opened. Wendy slid into the front seat with John and I climbed in the back between two guys I knew by sight but not by name.
As the driver pulled back out onto the street, the guy on my right, who introduced himself as Doug, reached down under the seat and pulled out a six-pack. "Want a beer?" he asked.
"Sure," I replied.
We cruised slowly past the park, out to the McDonald's at the edge of town and back by the Dairy Queen again. I felt a little awkward at first, sitting between two older guys I didn't really know. But after I had finished another beer I began to relax and listen and laugh along with everyone else. I seemed to fit right in.
A little while later Wendy pulled out the pack of cigarettes we'd bought that afternoon, took one for herself, and passed the rest around the car. I would have handed the pack back to Wendy but since everyone else took one, I decided I might as well.
Doug lit mine for me. I took my first puff and thought I was going to choke to death. But by taking as few and as shallow puffs as I could without being too obvious, I finished my first cigarette.
After the fifth or sixth pass of the Dairy Queen, Wendy told John we needed to be getting home since it was getting late. "I'll drop you off at your home," the driver offered.
"No," I immediately replied, "you can let us out right here."
"Right here's just fine," Wendy echoed. We both knew her parents would ask too many questions if a carload of boys dropped us off. Especially since she had told her parents we were just walking to the fireworks, stopping for something to eat, and coming right home.
The car slowed to a standstill and Doug opened his door. But before I could climb out, he leaned over and gave me a long, hard kiss right on the mouth. I almost keeled over in surprise.
"See you around Becky," he called as the car pulled away leaving me standing weak-kneed and trembling on the sidewalk next to Wendy. I breathlessly told her what had happened as we walked to her house. I felt like I was floating on air.
I was still too excited to sleep an hour later as I lay on the bed in Wendy's room, watching the warm summer breeze billowing the blue curtains hanging at the open window. We'd talked ourselves out, telling and retelling each other all the details of our wild and wonderful night.
Wendy was quiet now, but my mind kept racing back again and again. My first drink. My first smoke. And getting kissed by a senior boy — all in one incredible night.
Suddenly the curtains and the window began to spin and I felt very sick. I moaned and rolled over on my back to relieve the pressure on my stomach. But it didn't help. The ceiling was spinning as fast as the rest of the room. So I closed my eyes for a while and tried not to think about the gymnastics my stomach was trying to perform.
Both Wendy and I woke up the next morning feeling terribly groggy but very happy. We laughed about each other's hangovers. I decided mine was a small price to pay for the excitement I'd had the night before. I knew very well none of it would have happened if I hadn't been drinking.
The very next weekend I heard about a country-club dance in a nearby town where rumor had it there would be lots of beer. I told my folks I was going out to a movie and then spending the night at Wendy's. Instead, Wendy and I headed for the dance with some older friends who had offered to give us a ride.
Sure enough, there were kegs of beer and no one asking for IDs. The beer tasted better to me than it had the week before, and I drank more of it. We all danced for a while. John and Doug showed up, and when all the girls I came with paired off with guys later in the evening I found myself with Doug again. We danced, took a walk to the parking lot, and kissed some. When I finally climbed in the car to head home with my girlfriends, Doug waved and called out, "See you around, Hot Lips."
My carload of friends erupted with hoots and laughter, and I felt for a moment like hiding under the seat in embarrassment. But there was acceptance in the laughter I heard. And that, plus a thrill of being with Doug again, made it all worthwhile.
Those experiences the first couple of weeks in July set a pattern for every weekend that summer. I had found a social life overnight. I went out every weekend, a few times on actual dates, but usually with a carload of girlfriends. Each week I thought beer tasted better, and at every opportunity I drank enough to get me feeling good and loosened up.
Of course, these new adventures required that I begin regularly lying to my parents about where I was going and who I was going with. But lying didn't bother me because I didn't see any alternative. From the time I'd started junior high, I'd felt more and more restricted by my parents' rules. They'd said "no" so many times to things other kids' parents said "yes" to that I didn't think they were at all fair with me. Their injustice canceled out any guilt I felt about lying. The only problem I saw with lying was a practical one: I needed to be creative and fresh with the stories I told each week. And I needed to make sure my stories didn't overlap or contradict each other.
Once again, I said I was spending the night at Wendy's the evening I was asked to a rock concert in downtown Chicago by a guy who was going to be a college freshman in the fall. His name was Ben, and I'd met him through a friend. I arranged for him to pick me up a couple of blocks from home. He was right on time and we headed out of town.
As soon as we turned onto the entrance ramp of the expressway leading into the city, Ben pulled out a wrinkled looking cigarette, which I knew immediately was pot, and asked, "You ever smoked any of this?"
"No," I admitted. But not wanting to seem like little miss innocent, I added, "But I'll give it a try."
By the time we'd parked for the concert, I'd helped Ben finish off three joints. I was so wasted Ben had to prop me up just so I could walk into the concert. I don't remember one song the band played all evening, but when Ben dropped me off at Wendy's house at midnight I had a whole new adventure to tell her about.
Those few short weeks before tenth grade made my three years of junior high seem like kid's stuff. Almost as fast as a storm turns a weather vane, my life had turned and blown off in an exciting new direction. I was a different person now, with new friends and new opportunities.
The morning I was to start classes at Central High School, I felt only a tinge of the fear I'd known starting junior high. Though the high school was several times larger than Grove, I felt my identity in the school was becoming established. I was, after all, a cheerleader.
And I had discovered an invaluable secret during the summer. As drinking had become a regular weekend experience, I learned how easily it loosened me up. A few beers gave me all the courage I needed to talk and joke and laugh with the most gorgeous football players. When I drank, I never had to worry about what my older friends thought of me. Drinking made me fit in. Sometimes it even made me the life of the party.
I felt sure that drinking would be my secret weapon in capturing high school popularity.