Authors: Ava Michaels
“Whoa
there…”
Shit.
It was Tunde… This ball just seemed like some kind of nightmare parade of guys
I’d recently been fantasizing about with one notable exception.
“Oh
my god, I’m so sorry, Professor Tunde!” I stammered.
He
grinned and took a glance at his blazer.
“
It’s
fine, Olivia. How are you though? You look a little bit
frazzled,” he said in that silky timbre he seemed to have perfected.
“I’m
good… I’m okay. I mean, yeah, I’m okay,” I said.
What
an idiot I must have looked like. Veronica, well on her way to getting trashed,
jumped in.
“I
don’t know who you are, baby, but you can frazzle me any time you like.
Mmm
hmm.”
Tunde
smiled in a puzzled way.
“All
right, girls… I just hope you have a great time tonight. I just came by to see
what all the fuss was about. And don't worry,” he said smiling at us. “I'm one
of the cool professors that certainly doesn't care when students drink. I lived
in Europe…”
He
looked right at me.
“This
whole ritual seems rather… Primitive, doesn’t it, Olivia?”
I
turned every shade of red you can imagine and started pulling on Veronica’s
arm. Gross. Imagining your good looking professor hitting on you is one thing,
but having him show up to a college party and hit on you is another thing.
“It’s
nice to see you, Professor Tunde!” I said
,
grinning
and trying to disappear back into the crowd.
Veronica
couldn’t believe that Tunde was my Cultural Anthropology professor, and she
kept grilling me about him as we made our way towards the entrance and asking
me why I hadn’t “hit that shit” long ago.
“I
would never sleep with my professor. That is tacky. Anyway, what did you want
me to see, V?” I asked. “I think the auction’s about to start…”
“I
want you,” she began, pacing her words as we approached the gate, “to have as
much of a good time tonight..."
We
got closer. I could see the condom kiosk, some pledges, and some of the
bouncers on loan from Alpha Delta.
“-
as this motherfucker’s having.”
Nice,
Veronica. Nice, Alex.
Very classy.
Alex
was against the wire fence that lined the field making a meal out of one of
Mario’s Alpha Delta friends’ neck. The jock, who was, at least ostensibly,
supposed to be a “bouncer” or “doorman” at least had clearly drank enough of
the cheap champagne floating around to kill a horse. He was barely even able to
hold himself up, and though I had little respect for meatheads like that, let
alone homophobes, I felt a little bad. Alex was completely mauling him like
some kind of
queeny
vampire.
“Um,
if that’s your idea of fun, then I think I might just head back to the
apartment, V,” I said to Veronica with a disgusted expression.
“Oh
come on,” she said. “Alex, are you having a good time?”
He
turned around and gave us a big grin.
“Yeah, girl!
Me and… Sorry,
what was your name again,
hon
?” he whispered in the
slumping jock’s ear.
He
just mumbled something incoherent and grabbed onto Alex’s ass hard. The poor
guy probably thought it was a sorority girl crawling all over him.
I
rolled my eyes and turned around.
“Come
on, Veronica. You dragged me to this thing, I’m going to go through with the
date or whatever, but you know as well as I do I have no interest in ‘hooking
up’ tonight. And I definitely have no interest in watching Alex take advantage
of some Animal Houser.”
Veronica
wasn’t even listening to me. Her attention had suddenly been directed towards
another one of the Alpha Deltas who was giving her the eye in an embarrassingly
obvious fashion.
Carlos
and His Bulge had already started playing one of their signature numbers, but
they had apparently decided to slow it down to more of a “dance-punk-waltz”
pace for this particular event, and everyone but the meatheads patrolling the
premises seemed to be digging it. The music was so familiar to me and it gave
me a few more butterflies than I needed as I nodded along and tried to
extricate myself from the scene playing out between Veronica and Alex and their
respective meatheads.
………
It
was almost
time
for the final votes to be tallied and
for all of the “belles” to be awarded, like prize-winning hogs, to our “dates.”
Goodie.
I
made like hell for the stage, pushing through kids left and right, and on the
way, I heard Veronica cat-calling me from amidst a gaggle of bro-dudes.
“Yeah, girl.
Go show all
those motherfuckers what they
missin
’!” she shouted.
I
had no idea where Alex was at the moment, and, although I had wanted him to be
there when I finally sold off any remaining shreds of my dignity, I also didn’t
want anything to do with his frat boy-baiting exploits. I kept my head high,
plastered a plastic smile on my face, pushed out my chest and took my place in
line by the stage.
From
the stage I could see the whole party arranged rather gallantly if seen from a
distance. When you focused on any particular person, you could tell the
dishevelment that a few hours of drinking had put on their attire: ties were
undone, lipstick on the collars of shirts, and apparently dresses with ripped
straps already. Did I miss a fight?
The
amazingly awkward announcer began his spiel to the crowd.
“And
here we are boils and ghouls on a night much like the first night I lost my
virginity,” he started, as groups of people erupted into laughter. “It was
Halloween and there I was, dressed as Ash, the heroic Pokémon collector and my
uncle was dressed as Pikachu...”
He
was drowned out by people shouting about “
cosplay
incest” while he tried to maintain that nothing had been done with his uncle
and the story wasn’t finished. Thankfully Jess approached the stage and took
the microphone from him, smiling.
“Thank
you, Pete, for
MCing
this event with your wonderful,
but terrifying stories,” she said and everyone gave a round of applause. “Here
we are at the beginning of our auction, ladies and gentlemen.”
There
was another round of applause and hooting.
“Everyone
should be aware of the rules by now, but if you were tardy to the event
tonight, we will be finishing our silent auction for the hand of each of these
lovely ladies for one date,” she said and applauded with the microphone in one
hand. “We are not saying you will get to use your bat with these girls’ gloves…
Each bidder wrote down their idea of the perfect date for each of these fine
ladies. The crowd will then judge each submission on its merits and clink your
tiny forks that we are passing out now against your champagne glasses. The
winners will be decided by the general consensus of this ball and attend the
creative gent on his splendid outing.”
Shit
was getting serious!
The
fourteen girls on my right maintained a composure that I couldn’t quite
accomplish. I really hope that I did not end up with a pizza and beers at the
Phi Delta house or worse, an evening at the Snake Pit.
Jess
began reading off the submissions for the first girl: A dinner and a movie, a
stay in date with the gentleman claiming to be an impressive cook, and a drug
run to the Niagara Falls where she could get ‘wicked high’ with him.
Fortunately,
the second submission won.
I
breathed a sigh of relief. This crowd wasn’t as malicious as I worried it was.
If
I ended up winning a date like the last one, then I was going to lay low for a
couple weeks, or donate the money myself.
There
were several more bizarre dates out there that got my nerves up: Domino’s pizza
and
brewskis
on the roof of the athletic center,
watching the movie ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ and drinking Mad Dog 20/20, and the
ultimate date which I really hoped to be a joke was to be some guy’s partner in
a ‘fake’ snuff film and afterwards he would maybe buy her ice cream depending
on how the ‘shoot’ went the whole time. Jess wondered over the microphone why
both the words ‘fake’ and ‘shoot’ were in quotes.
Please
God, if you exist, don’t let that man win mine.
When
my turn came I felt all the eyes rest upon me. It was a heavy feeling, standing
in front of that crowd. It was as if you instantly became aware of every aspect
and twitch of your body and checked them and rechecked them at the same time.
Were my eyes opened too wide? I slightly closed them, opened them again,
shifted my posture and crossed and uncrossed my arms.
Then
I looked over to Alex and Veronica. He had his arm around her shoulders and
they were both pumping their fists and shouting for me. God, they were making
bigger asses of themselves than I was making up here. That made me feel better
and I relaxed and beamed over to Jess.
Then I finally looked onto the crowd.
“For
god’s sake, no snuff,” I said to them deadpanning and got a laugh.
Jess
stuck her hand in my donation box and pulled out the first one.
“Tony
Vicinelli
...” she began. I couldn’t see him, but I
knew he was a freshman from Long Island who drove a Porsche. I don’t think I
remembered liking him, though.
“...
wants
to take you to his grandmother’s restaurant in
Long Island, and then out to the beach where you two can be all alone.”
Some
terrible lot of Phi Delta boys started whooping and tossing champagne on each
other with Tony I assume being in the middle. The Phi Delta guys could only act
mature for so long. I assume my instantly white face and widened eyes conveyed
to the crowd that I was in no way interested in what was going on with that
date. A few people
clinked
their glasses, but it was
from laughter.
“You’re
a wise and just crowd. Beautiful too,” I said earning another laugh. I was
quite a comedian. Maybe I was made for the stage.
Jess
took another dig into my donation box.
“Carlos
Medrano...” she said.
I
looked over to Carlos in the crowd and saw him grinning and looking directly at
me. He winked and I couldn’t help but blush.
“...
wants
to take you record shopping in the afternoon,
then out to dinner at Vegan Delight, and afterwards play you songs in the
park.”
The
crowd ‘
aww’ed
and a chorus of cheers went up.
Veronica and Alex whooped. My heart lifted up. That was real nice of him. I
wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted just yet, but I sure as hell wouldn’t
mind it; especially over Tony’s proposal.
Jess
smiled and said that Carlos was in the lead. The Phi Delta boys weren’t even
listening at this point and were picking bottles of champagne from the catering
tables. She then stuck her hand back into my box and pulled out a slip.
“Oh
yeah!” she said, then read, “Veronica and Alex are going to take you out on a
date, beauty,” Jess shouted. “They want to take you to...” she read further on
the card, “a cardboard box with a bottle of whiskey down by the river?
Classy guys.”
Alex
and Veronica whooped, holding each other and laughing. Surprisingly they
received a bunch of glass clinks for the tacky date choice. Well that’s an
interesting development, and I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my
face.
Nonetheless,
Carlos remained the leader as Jess delved her hand into my box once more and
retrieved the last slip of paper. Her face looked puzzled as she read it and
she looked around the crowd.
“Ryder?”
she asked.
I
lost my breath for a second. What did she just say? Did she just say Ryder?
Big Stick?
I acted calm and cool with a ridiculous smile
plastered on my face as my eyes searched for any indication I had heard her
right. She repeated the name and I had heard it loud and clear this time:
Ryder. I didn’t feel anything at first. Then I felt like I was saved and back
to when everything was great between us. Then I got a little pissed, but
remembered the words that he left on my voicemail and his goofy attempt at
nautical humor. I looked over the crowd and saw him.
I
saw Big Stick standing, wearing a three-button black suit with a slender tie.
That mess of hair slicked back.
Jess
read what was left on the card after a long pause. “...
Uhh
,
Ryder… Awesome... err, Dawson… In parentheses it says Big Stick…” Everyone
chuckled. “He wants to take you on his boat and sail to Prince Edward Island
next week."
Right
then and there all I really wanted was to grab a bottle of champagne, grab Big
Stick in my arms, and hold him. I just wanted to be with him, in this moment
with no words, just us. Then he smiled at me and mouthed the words “I’m sorry”.