I have to admit, I still don't understand Homecoming. To me, it's just another football game (don't get me wrong, I love football, I just don't see what makes this one so freaking special). I mean, it's not as if high school kids need an excuse to party; they kind of do that anyway. So I don't understand it. Do high school kids really need a third semiformal occasion per year (after Prom and Graduation)? I didn't understand it the first time around, or the second, and still don't.
Of course, just because I didn't understand it didn't mean I couldn't make the most out of it just the same.
I picked Martha up around four and drove to the game. Kickoff wasn't until five, but that gave us time to hang out and tailgate a bit. This in and of itself was more interesting than I had anticipated, because I got to talk to a lot of people that either didn't know or didn't care that I had existed my first time through the glorious halls of Nazareth Area Senior High.
They noticed me now. Word had spread of my little fracas with Nardano, and the reaction towards me was generally favorable. Turns out I wasn't the only person he annoyed. Rick Preston was slowly gaining status in the high school hierarchy. (That, and most people finally called me Rick.)
I couldn't help but notice, however, that while Martha and I were having a good time talking to other people at the game, we said little to each other. It struck me as odd, but I was having too much fun to worry about it.
The game was okay. We won 2117. I would have enjoyed it more if not for the fact that there were several guys on the team that I still disliked, so I was kinda rooting against them. I'm not petty or anything, but I would have been okay with one of my former tormentors breaking an ankle or something.
Okay, maybe I am petty. Sue me.
After the game was the traditional Homecoming Dance. Let me say this up front. I am no Fred Astaire. Heck, I'm no MC Hammer. I'm not even Pee Wee Herman. I used to break dance when I lived in Houston (I'm from "da hood", remember) but in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, my dancing repertoire consisted almost entirely of what Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally..." referred to as "the white man's overbite." Dancing is not, and has never been, my "thing". When Martha and I stepped into the school gym, my first impulse was to gravitate over to the wall and stay there.
"Rick? What's the matter?" my lovely date asked.
I stuttered. I stammered. I said several things that may or may not have been in a known, human language.
I was petrified.
Sweet girl that she was, Martha took my hand and led me out onto the dance floor. She began to move with the music, beckoning me to do the same.
I thought, why not? I consider myself to have a pretty good sense of rhythm I used to be a musician, after all (trombone, baritone horn, guitar and a darn mean kazoo, thank you very much). There was no reason why I couldn't just let my body move to the music. This was few years before Madonna's "Vogue", but I'd already heard it and knew what the Material Girl was talking about. Just dance, dammit.
And I did.
And it was, well, very cool. I had a great time. So great, in fact, that I didn't notice Martha checking out other guys any more than she noticed me checking out other girls. Still, as the evening wore on, it became obvious that something wasn't right.
The dance ended at eleven, and we all got the school's version of "you don't have to go home but you can't stay here." Martha and I walked out to the car.
"Rick?" she said.
"Uh huh."
"We need to talk."
I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. Nothing good ever follows those words. You never hear, "We need to talk. You just won a million dollars." It just doesn't happen. Still, I played stupid.
"About what?"
She leaned against Mary's fender, and looked great in the moonlight. "I don't think we should see each other anymore."
"Is one of us going to turn invisible?" I asked.
She smiled, but I could see this wasn't easy for her, and I wasn't making it any easier. "You know what I mean, Rick. I like you, but I don't see this becoming a serious relationship. Something's missing."
I won't lie to you. That hurt. A lot. It's weird. I was feeling the same disconnection she was feeling, but it didn't make getting dumped any easier.
"I see," I said, not seeing at all. I choked down all the snide, sarcastic comments I had about her relationship crystal ball and held out my hand.
"Friends?"
"Friends," she said, and shook my hand. We talked as I drove her home, about the game, people at the dance, that sort of thing. It was nice, but there was a difference to it. The presumed intimacy that had been there just the day before was gone. We were just friends. Again. We shook hands again as I dropped her off, not walking her to the door this time.
I cried all the way home.
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