Smallest Gifts

When a friend invited me to a dance/slumber party at her church in the 6th grade I was understandably hesitant; the rejection and humiliation I had experienced at my own school dances was still fresh.  But attending this event had the advantage of anonymity.  I had no dorky past tailing me, at least as far as anyone there knew.  I could be anyone I wanted to be.  I could be....cool.  Or so I told myself as I browsed Fashion Bug with my mom and a friend for the perfect outfit.  The shirt I settled on was a black and white button-up with sheer white sleeves.  The pants were denim with black lace running up the sides in a racy stripe from shoe to hip.  I'm sure there was some sort of chunky plastic jewelry to really bring the outfit together. 

When I descended into the musty church basement with my backpack containing my toothbrush, sparkly lip gloss, and my most flattering pajamas I was relieved that other than the friend who brought me, there were no familiar faces.  My friend's sister and sister's friend were also in attendance.  They were probably 15 years old and seemed weary of the church dance/sleepover scene.  Their angst and snark could only be rivaled by my own, three years from then.  I assumed that the older kids were probably cooler than us based on age alone, so I tried to echo their derision of the whole situation.  After the pastor welcomed us and introduced the DJ the lights were dimmed and music flooded the room.  I didn't want to appear over-eager so I consciously ignored the dance floor and all people in the room aside from my friend with whom I whispered and giggled.  So I was taken completely off guard when I got a tap on my shoulder.  A skinny boy with gel in his hair rushed the question: "Will you dance with my friend over there.  His name is Jesse."  He gestured to the other side of the dance floor at a boy sitting sheepishly on a metal folding chair.  I tried to get a handle on my total surprise.  I went with, "Ummm?"  The 12 year old wingman must have taken my flabbergasted speechlessness as my being too cool to dance with his friend.  "Just one dance?" he urged. "Okay" I said, standing up on wobbly legs and walking blinkingly into the too-bright illumination of the wandering spotlight on the dance floor.  I saw the boy hop up from his chair and walk to meet me midway.  We both faltered a bit at that point.  With neither of us uttering a word we began to stiffly sway with our hands on one another's shoulders.   He never thought to place them on my hips and I found myself grateful for the oversight.  We were about as far away from one another as two people could possibly get and still technically be dancing together.  If there was any eye contact at all during that dance it was of the darting variety.  We gazed past each other at the people seated at tables encircling the dance floor.  As we swayed and turned in a choppy counterclockwise motion I caught the eye of my friend a few times and she looked happy for me.  I was exhilarated, but also panicked.  I wanted the song to end so I could flee to my table and regroup and formulate a game plan.  Little did I know that the song, November Rain, clocked in around nine minutes long.  My first slow dance turned out to be a marathon.  As the epic rock ballad blared on I grew increasingly anxious.  The guitar solo was particularly excruciating.  By song's end the tops of my shoulders were wet with sweat from his hands and my dazed smile had begun to make my face ache.  We parted with nervous smiles and went back to our friends.

"How was it?" my friend asked.  "Great!" I lied.  Now that it was over I felt rapt at having finally had this experience and promptly went to work altering the details in my brain to make it into something magical.  But I had little time to amend anything because the boy's friend was back, this time asking if I'd dance with him.  Again, I was unprepared for the request, and again my pause seemed to suggest that I thought I was far too cool to dance with the wingman, as evidenced by his somewhat shrill and urgent, "Please?"  There was no way I was going to make this nice boy feel rejected so I rose to dance with him.  I don't remember the song, but I remember wondering which boy was cuter.  I honestly couldn't parse it out.  I settled on the first boy I had danced with based largely on the fact that he had a better haircut and an earring.  The remainder of the dance followed this pattern: a break of a song or two to whisper to our respective friend and then one of the boys would ask me to dance.  I never said no even though I was close to having a heart attack and throwing up from the unrelenting awkwardness.  As the dance wore on I noticed that my friend's sister's disposition had soured further, if that were even possible.  And her ire seemed to be laser-fixed on me.  I was really confused for close to an hour before I realized that she had mistaken me for a cool girl who boys liked.  She had no idea that I was generally in the position she found herself in that night: ignored and rejected.  I wanted to clarify things, but there didn't seem to be anything I could say that didn't sound unintentionally mean.  "No, really, I'm a total nobody too!  I'm just somehow tricking everyone tonight!"  Plus I wanted to savor this newfound identity.  I was alluring.  I was cool.  I was.....pretty?  I wasn't going to weigh in on that last one just yet. 

After the dance portion of the evening was over we had an hour or so to hang out with the lights on and have some snacks before they turned on the movie before bed.  I remember being floored that this church had selected "Wayne's World".  During the break before the movie it was revealed that the boy, Jesse, still didn't know my name.  The lie came out of my mouth unexpectedly.  "Lisa," I said.  My friend was surprised, but went with it.  It sort of felt right to make up a name.  I certainly didn't feel like myself that night.  I decided to be whoever I wanted to be that night.  I decided to be confident and mysterious and coquettish.  My friend and I had many pow wows in the bathroom to reapply lip gloss and to decide what other things I should make up about myself to tell the boys.  I decided to tell them that I had a boyfriend, but it wasn't going well.  The boys spent a lot of time trying to convince me to break up with my ficticious boyfriend to date Jesse.  At this point the wingman had returned to his proper role.  When it was time to climb into our sleeping bags on the hardest basement floor in the history of the world I was relieved that the adults had separated the boys from the girls.  I had no idea how I could maintain my coolness and sleep at the same time; this whole charade took far more commitment to being inauthentic than I had realized going in.  I have no idea how I fell asleep that night, but I did, and when morning greeted me it was almost immediately time to pack up and get picked up by our parents.  I had a quick, unsatisfying goodbye with Jesse.  There was no time to exchange phone numbers and I wouldn't have wanted to anyway, as every element of my autobiography was a total fabrication.  I suddenly felt immense regret that I hadn't given him the chance to know me as Tracy, with all of the real Tracy details.  He might have really like me.  And now I'd never know.  Still, I knew I'd keep this memory in my heart like a small fire, stoking it whenever I needed to feel okay about myself.