The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, page 23
I hadn’t. Mickie stood her ground, I’d give her that.
“Then why are you?”
“Because I think it could be a lot of fun, that’s why. Because it means I get to spend the night with my two best friends. It means I get to spend time with you.”
I felt about two feet tall. “I’ll pay for everything,” I said. “If you need a dress . . .”
“You’re not paying for my dress, Hill.” She’d resumed eating her yogurt.
“I just don’t want . . . I know this is . . .”
“Do you want to shut up now?”
“I’m sorry about the way I asked you.”
“You should be.”
“I know. You’re doing me a favor—”
She groaned. “Stop saying that. It’s not a favor, Hill. Why can’t you get that through your thick head?”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Hello! Have you ever known me to say anything I didn’t want to say?”
Again, I hadn’t. “No. Usually you say things I don’t want you to say.” She smiled and put the spoon in her mouth, being playful, and at that moment—I’ve heard people say things like being struck dumb—but it was as if I had never really seen Mickie before, seen how truly beautiful she was. Her head was tilted, and her hair, caressing her neck, had streaks of gold that glistened and made her eyes stand out, a vivid blue.
“What?” she asked wiping at her chin with the napkin. “Do I have yogurt dripping down my face?”
“No,” I said.
“You okay?”
I nodded and briefly contemplated telling her what I had been thinking, but I knew Mickie would not take me seriously. She’d blow it off and say something sarcastic like I should get my eyes checked again.
“Okay,” I said. “Saturday night then.”
I walked to the driver’s side, opened the door, and slid in. Mickie had walked to the passenger door. I put the key in the ignition, but Mickie remained standing outside the car. I checked the door lock to make sure the knob was up. It was. I looked up at her. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m waiting for you to open my door for me like a gentleman. It will be good practice for Saturday night.”
10
The following Saturday, I stood in the marble foyer of Mickie’s house in a burgundy tux with a ruffled shirt and burgundy bow tie. A photograph, much to my chagrin, remains in my mother’s scrapbook for 1975.
“Did you take a job as a waiter?” one of Mickie’s brothers asked. My luck they were home from college.
“A job as a waiter,” Joanna laughed, holding on to the banister and swinging back and forth.
“Is that velvet, Hill? I think we have drapes made of the same material,” Mickie’s other brother said.
“We have drapes made of the same material,” Joanna repeated, laughing.
Thankfully Mickie’s father had moved out of the house by this point.
Joanna stopped swinging and yelled, “Hey, Mickie! Sam’s here, and he has flowers!” She started up the stairs. “I’ll get Mickie, Sam. My mom is putting tape on her boobs.”
I had no idea what that meant and flushed a color to match my tuxedo.
Mickie’s brothers and I sat in the den with the television blaring. After the initial ribbing, we made small talk about the Giants and the Forty-Niners. I felt like the room was a thousand degrees. Finally, I heard the click of high heels on marble, stood, and almost dropped the corsage. I’d seen pictures of my friends at their proms. The girls wore long dresses that made bridesmaid dresses look good. Not Mickie. She wore a burgundy dress that seemed to defy gravity, held up by nothing more than two thin shoulder straps. It sank low enough to reveal a hint of cleavage, hugged her hips, and ended just above her knees. Her legs were free of nylons, her calves toned above white high heels. I couldn’t tell you the fabric of the dress, but it looked like silk. I really didn’t care. As eye-catching as I found the dress, Mickie’s face stole my attention. She looked like something created by a great artist, with her hair curled and diamond earrings protruding from her lobes.
“Close your mouth,” she said. “You’ll catch a fly.”
“Oh, Michaela,” her mother said.
“You’ll catch a fly.” Joanna rolled on the ground in hysterics. “You’ll catch a fly.”
“This is for you,” I said, holding out the corsage.
“Aren’t you going to pin it on?” Mickie asked.
I studied the thin straps.
“Here, Sam, I’ll do it,” Mickie’s mother said, coming to my rescue and giving Mickie a reproachful look.
The corsage in place, Mrs. Kennedy instructed us to stand this way and that as she took pictures and promised to make an extra set, which my mother would date, label, and slide into the photo album right next to the photograph of me in my tuxedo.
Mickie rested her hand on my arm to keep her balance on her high heels as we walked down the front steps to the Falcon. I opened the passenger door and waited until she’d gathered a matching shawl and slid across the seat. When I got in the driver’s side, Mickie sat in her customary spot.
“Everything okay?” she asked. “You were kind of quiet in there.”
This time I did not hesitate to say it. “You look beautiful.” I did not feel the least bit self-conscious saying it. I was stating a fact, like looking at a waterfall and calling it breathtaking. “Really. Really beautiful.”
Mickie blushed, beaming. Then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
My mother’s suggestion that I invite Mickie turned out to be a stroke of genius. We met Ernie and his date, Alicia, at a local restaurant, and dinner was not the awkward first date so many of my friends experienced on prom nights. The conversation flowed, and the four of us laughed as much that night as any other. I didn’t think the night could get any better. Then it did. When Mickie and I walked into the hotel ballroom holding hands, a lot of heads turned, and while other couples stood or sat at tables looking bored, Mickie dragged me straight to the dance floor. She sparkled beneath the strobe lights and spinning silver ball. Her years of dance and gymnastics classes had given her the ability to move in a manner that was part burlesque, part Ginger Rogers. I did my best to keep up, but I was grateful for the slow songs, which allowed me to catch my breath and to feel Mickie close against me. This time we didn’t need to leave six inches for the Holy Spirit, as we did in grammar school. She rested her head on my chest, and I felt her breath on my neck and smelled the scent of her perfume. It sent shivers up my spine.
Late in the evening, when the band took a break, Mickie and Alicia went to the bathroom, and Ernie and I ventured to the bar to get soft drinks.
“Mickie’s a good sport, huh?” Ernie said.
“The best,” I said.
“You two look like you’ve been together forever.”
“I’ve known her forever.”
“So have I,” Ernie said, “but we don’t interact like that.”
I looked at Ernie and suddenly wondered if this had been a mistake. Mickie and I were as close as Ernie and me, though in a different way. There were things I would discuss only with each of them. If I screwed up, I’d lose Mickie. “Do you think it could be a mistake?” I asked.
Before Ernie could respond, I saw Alicia hurrying toward us with a look of alarm. “I think you better get out there,” she said.
I ran from the ballroom. Mickie stood before Michael Lark, the linebacker I had beaten in the drinking contest the night I’d ended up passed out in my mother’s fern. One of the spaghetti straps of Mickie’s dress dangled loose, and she had a finger pointed in Lark’s face, the other hand balled in a fist. A group of my classmates surrounded Lark, some trying to pull him away.
“Don’t you ever touch me,” Mickie was saying.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I was just playing around,” Lark slurred. I could tell Mickie had slapped him. His right cheek was cherry red.
“Did you touch her?” I asked.
Another classmate stepped forward, looking anxious. “He’s drunk, man; we’re getting him out of here before he gets busted.”
Lark smiled at me. “Like, who hasn’t touched her,” he said, and in that moment I no longer saw Lark. I saw David Bateman. “We all know it isn’t the first time. Come on, Hell, you’ve gotten some of that, right?”
“Knock it off, Lark,” I said.
“Hey, man, you and I are drinking buddies.”
“Not tonight.”
“Come on, Hell. Everyone knows that girl has had more dicks between her legs than in a football huddle.”
I lunged at Lark, but Ernie quickly stepped in to hold me back, which was a good thing, because Lark would have likely killed me. I turned and focused on Mickie, hearing Ernie behind me saying things to Lark like, “uncool.” Mickie’s mascara had run, and her eyes were red from crying. That’s all it took. I turned for Lark. “It’s cool,” Ernie said, putting a hand on my chest. “He’s drunk. They’re getting him out.”
“It’s not cool.” I said it loud enough that everyone came to a standstill. I slapped Ernie’s hand away and walked past him. “Lark.”
Lark turned, looking at me through glassy eyes and giving me the drunkard’s grin. Even though he was stooped over, I still looked up at him, and he outweighed me by a good forty pounds. But I also knew he had a full ride to play football at Brown and that I was forty times smarter than him. “You need to apologize,” I said.
He stumbled. “We’re cool, man. I didn’t mean nothing.”
“Not to me. To Mickie.”
Lark’s brow furrowed.
“Sam,” Ernie started again.
I cut him off, keeping my focus on Lark. “Stay out of it, Ernie.”
Lark looked to Ernie then to me, his eyes registering confusion. “I apologized already.”
“Not to her you didn’t.”
He leaned forward, close enough that I could smell the acidic odor of alcohol on his breath. It reminded me of Sister Beatrice, and I had the same revulsion. I’d never been in a fight except for my jaunt around the schoolyard on David Bateman’s back. “Last chance,” I said.
“Or what?”
“Or we’re going to go at it right here.”
Lark smiled. “I’ll fucking kill you, Hell.” He said it without animosity, with a chuckle in his voice.
“You’ll have to kill me,” I replied in the same even tone. “Because once we get started, I’m not stopping. Then we’ll both get expelled and throw away our futures, and next year the senior class can come by the McDonald’s where you and I will be flipping burgers together instead of you playing football at Brown. Explain that to your mother and father.”
For a moment Lark’s face looked like he was attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation and failing miserably. Then he grinned, and I felt everyone in the room breathe a collective sigh of relief. “You’re a red-eyed crazy motherfucker, Hell, but I like you.” He stepped past me to where Mickie stood with Alicia and Ernie. “Hey, Mickie.” She considered him with scorn. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, or said those things. If Hell likes you, you must be okay.”
Mickie wiped her cheeks but did not respond. Lark looked at me and nodded. Then he left.
11
I retrieved Mickie’s shawl and escorted her through the hotel lobby to the parking lot. She kept her head down, her shawl draped over her shoulders. I opened the passenger car door and helped her in, gathering her shawl for her so it wouldn’t get caught in the door. As I walked to the driver’s side, I took a moment to catch my breath. We were misfits, Mickie, me, and Ernie. For all his exploits, Ernie remained the black kid. For all my achievements in the classroom and on the newspaper staff, I was still the devil boy—or at least the kid with the red eyes—and Mickie was the girl with the reputation. We were something for other people to talk about and make fun of. I thought of all the times Mickie had stood up for me, all the times she’d been there for me. She had been having so much fun that night, happier than I might have ever seen her. I wasn’t about to let Lark ruin her evening. When I slid in, Mickie remained pressed against the passenger door.
“We have a problem,” I said. Mickie raised her head to look at me, her makeup still smeared. “I can’t drive with you sitting way over there.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re sorry because Lark is a drunken moron?”
“I’m sorry you had to go with me, if I embarrassed you.”
“I had to go with you? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you going with me.”
“Maybe that would have been better.”
I had never seen or heard Mickie defeated like this, never truly realized the depth of her pain. Her home life had not improved with her parents’ divorce. Her mother drank most nights and either passed out or became belligerent, belittling Mickie. Her father had moved on, found himself a hot young girlfriend, and expressed little interest in being a father. It was a loveless home, and I wondered if that was why Mickie was promiscuous, if it wasn’t about the sex at all, but about feeling loved, if only for a little while.
“Did you see the heads turn when we walked in?” I asked.
“I know why the heads turned.”
“Really, was it because I look so great in this frilly shirt and burgundy tux? I look like a frigging red-eyed waiter in a Las Vegas Denny’s.”
Mickie grinned.
“They turned because you look beautiful, Mickie, because you are beautiful. And Lark just did what every guy in that room wanted to do. I felt like I was escorting a movie star, and I’ll tell you something else—”
But I didn’t, because I didn’t get the chance. Mickie had leaped across the seat and pressed her lips against mine. Unlike Donna Ashby’s kiss, no tongue probed my mouth, just the warmth of Mickie’s lips. She pulled back and curled beside me. “I love you, Sam Hill,” she said.
And this time I got the chance to reply. “I love you, too, Michaela Kennedy,” I said, and she did not even protest that I’d used her real name.
12
As our senior year wound down, Ernie was mulling scholarship offers from all over the United States. I was debating between a few colleges, trying to determine what my parents could afford. I had received a $2,000 journalism scholarship for a feature article I’d written about Ernie, and the organization that gave me the award held a luncheon to honor me. My mother and I drove to Monterey and sat at a table with the president of the association, a man named Howard Rice. My father couldn’t attend because of work. Rice was a 1944 Stanford University graduate and prominent booster, and he seemed intrigued by what I had accomplished, probably because I’d done so despite my “condition.” At the luncheon, Rice was seated beside my mother and said, “I hope your son is considering Stanford.”
Stanford was $14,000 per year in tuition and room and board, more than I felt fair to ask of my parents even with my scholarship money and what I’d saved working at the store.
“He’s considering several different choices,” my mother said diplomatically.
“Sam,” Mr. Rice said, turning to me, “I want you to apply. I’ll have an application sent to you tomorrow, and I want you to put me down as a reference. I will write you a letter of recommendation.”
Mr. Rice was a man of his word. A week after the luncheon, an admissions packet arrived in the mail. I wasn’t going to fill it out, but my mother insisted, saying, “We don’t know God’s will, Samuel. Have faith. Besides, it would be rude to Mr. Rice not to fill it out. He went to the trouble to send it, after all.”
More to appease my mother, and because Mr. Rice had gone to the effort, I filled out the application. I prepared my essay the night before the application deadline, writing about my life with ocular albinism. I mailed off the packet the following morning and promptly dismissed it.
About that same time, I wrote an article on Ernie Cantwell’s college recruiting experience for the final issue of the school paper. The Times liked the article so much they ran it on the front page of the sports section. I was thrilled. As I sat reading my article in the journalism trailer, my editor from the Times called.
“You’re famous, Hill. The Associated Press picked up your article and ran it on their wire service. Your name is atop the article in hundreds of newspapers in dozens of cities.”
The following day, as Ernie toweled off after track practice and I waited in the locker room to drive him home, Coach Moran—who had become the athletic director, in addition to the varsity basketball coach—burst into the locker room looking like he might have a heart attack. “Cantwell! My office.”
“Okay, Coach, let me get dressed—”
“Now!”
“Coach, let me put on my—”
“Stanford is on the phone, Cantwell. Coach Christiansen wants to talk to you about playing football at Stanford University next fall. Or do you want me to tell him you’re too busy toweling off your ass?” As Ernie sprinted past him, tucking a towel around his waist, Coach Moran spied me. “You come, too, Hell.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you started this—he read that article you wrote, and he might have questions I can’t answer.”
Coach Christiansen only had one question, and it wasn’t for me. He asked Ernie how he’d like to play football at Stanford University. Ernie committed on the phone. When he hung up, Coach Moran was wide-eyed and aghast. “You committed? What about all those other schools waiting for an answer? What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Tell them I’m going to Stanford, Coach. It’s close to home. My mother and father can watch me play, and my father wants me to major in business and computer science.”
13
The Cantwells threw an impromptu barbecue that night in their backyard. I attended in a dual capacity—as Ernie’s friend and as a journalist. The Times wanted the scoop on Ernie’s commitment to Stanford, a local-boy-stays-local kind of story. I interviewed Ernie’s mother and father and his maternal grandparents. I also interviewed his coaches at Saint Joe’s. I spent much of the party calling in my story to an editor at the sports desk. By the time I had finished, everyone had eaten, but Mrs. Cantwell had saved me a plate with two hamburgers and potato salad.
