dancers. Unfortunately, years of ballet did not equip me to dance at a Waterford High barn stomp.
Spunky country music vibrates in the air. Boys I’ve only seen sporadically in the halls push up near us. Charlotte seductively draws them close, then turns her back on them, regaining eye contact with us, her eyes wide with laughter. The only boy she dances with is Cole Richards, her on-off boyfriend for, like, ever, according to Emma.
Tate comes up behind me, places his hands on my hips, and sways with me along with the music. Imitating Charlotte, I playfully push his chest away. When this method backfires and he returns, even more tactile, I elbow him in the chest, right above his second rib. He puts a hand to his heart. “That hurt!” he laughs.
“It should!” I respond.
A bluegrass song begins. Suddenly everyone is shuffling into lines. Emma grabs my arm. “You stay behind me,” she orders.
At first, it’s impossible. Charlotte kicks right. I kick left. Emma turns sideways. I jump back. Each time I imitate their steps, I lag behind. Kick. Spin. Forward. Cross.
I’m terrible at this.
Charlotte links her hands into mine; in advance of each step, she prompts me. Reverse. Spin. Kick. Repeat. When I accidentally bump Abigail, she giggles, nudging me back in the right direction.
I feel completely out of place. While everyone dances deliberately, I pinball between bodies, two steps behind. But soon the fervor, the energy of everyone moving in synchronization—kick, slide, spin, turn, jump—encompasses me.
In the row ahead, Cole, Mason, Oliver, Liam, and a bunch of other boys expertly rotate inversely, causing a spectacle—even more so because of their ridiculous costumes.
During a double-skip-tap-spin one of my wings tangles with Emma’s. When Charlotte finally separates us, we can barely stand up straight from laughing so hard.
Somehow, by the final chorus, I catch on. The song ends in a fiddle crescendo—at the final note everyone jump-clicks their heels in the air, followed by boisterous applause.
Turns out, American line dances are really, actually, fun.
Several songs later, Charlotte hisses behind me, “Time to go!”
“Already?” I ask, looking back.
Because out of the corner of my eye—I see Aksel. He’s standing at the periphery of the barn with some other seniors. And he’s laughing.
I’m not sure why I feel so surprised to see him here wearing a cowboy hat and boots. Was he here the whole time?
“Isn’t there another song?” I ask Charlotte as she tugs my hand.
“Sure!” she laughs. “But we never stay until the end!”
Outside, the temperature has dropped. Cold sleet falls from the pewter sky. Charlotte, Emma, and I run back through the misty cornfield, trampling leaves and stalks.
“Meet at the Creamery!” Mason hollers to us as we reach Emma’s Jeep.
Turning out of the field, Emma approaches the intersection perched atop a short hill, icy in the sleet. She stops. Yet, when she starts again, the Jeep stalls.
We roll back. Charlotte gasps. Emma brakes. Quickly, she restarts the ignition. Again, it stalls. “Come on,” Emma moans, tossing her auburn hair off her face. “I hate this old Jeep.”
Battered pickup trucks and SUVs queue behind us. At our bumper, Ryan Rice blares his horn. Tate is beside him, with Abigail Montgomery on his lap, chuckling.
“Put it in first. Let out the clutch slower, and give it a little more gas,” I advise from the front seat. Emma tries, but stalls a third time. We slip back a meter before she brakes.
Tate yells out his window, “You almost hit us!”
“Hurry!” Charlotte urges frantically. Sleet slashes the windshield.
Emma goes so pale I worry she might pass out. It feels like half of Waterford High is now behind us, honking, waiting to exit the field.
“Is that car a little too much for you girls?” Tate taunts out the window.
His condescension irks me. Over my shoulder, I see him laughing.
“Switch places with me,” I say to Emma.
“What?” Emma asks, turning the key a fifth time. Her hands are shaking. Charlotte covers her face with one of her fairy wings.
“Put the parking brake on and switch with me,” I say.
Emma cranes her neck to see the cars behind us.
“Do it,” I order.
Emma pulls the emergency brake and clambers across my lap. I wriggle under her into the driver’s seat.
“You said you couldn’t drive!” Charlotte says, terrified.
Putting in the clutch, I turn on the ignition and ease the stick into first. “Did I?”
With the parking brake on, I rev the engine, release both brakes, and accelerate past the stop sign.