Footprints in the Butter by Denise Dietz Read Free Book Online

steadfast. After she and her crew finished decorating, the gym pulsated with red, white and blue banners.
    “Dracula would have loved our senior prom, Ceese. Red crepe streamers billowed from basketball hoops, suggesting the flow of blood. Tissue roses, sprayed with cheap cologne, smelled like funeral wreaths. Most girls had hickeys rather than tooth marks on their necks, but the rented tuxedos could have belonged to vampires.”
    I sipped my orange juice. “It was the merry month of June. U.S. troop strength in Vietnam would be increased by 18,000, bringing total troop strength to 285,000. The whole country was bloodthirsty.”
    “How can you remember the exact numbers?”
    “I wrote them into one of my lesser-known songs. It was called ‘New Math.’”
    “New math,” Cee-Cee repeated. “Wow.”
    “In any case, we quenched our thirst that night with a mixture of nonalcoholic beverages. Alice’s recipe—lime Jell-O ice cubes, unsweetened lemonade and ginger ale—made the punch look like urine. It tasted like piss, too, until Wylie spiked it with vodka. We couldn’t afford Wayne Newton, so Alice bagged a local DJ who had this thing for Clint Eastwood. Have you ever tried dancing to the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ?”
    “Not that I can recall.”
    “Alice hired a local photographer and we lined up to have our pictures taken. Ben and me, the couple most likely to succeed; Stewie and Patty, the couple most likely to conceive; Wylie and Alice, the couple least likely to achieve consummation. Alice had virgin written all over her.”
    The waitress gave me a strange look as she refilled our coffee mugs.
    “Please go on, Ingrid,” Cee-Cee said.
    “Following our photo session, we danced to the theme from Rawhide . Then, outside in the parking lot, Wylie challenged Dwight to a drinking contest. After chugalugging eight Coors, Dwight gave up, so we all piled into his convertible. Ben and me. Stewie and Patty. Wylie and Alice. Dwight and a popular cheerleader, I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember the car crash either, because Ben was ingesting the lace on my strapless bra, while, at the same time, he ingested nipple. When we crashed, I was semiconscious, filled with passionate ecstasy.
    “Nobody was hurt very badly,” I continued, picturing the accordion-crumpled car and the scabbed tree trunk. “Except Dwight. He woke up in the hospital, paralyzed from his waist down. Which killed his football scholarship and his dreams. Dwight always wanted to play for the Denver Broncos.”
    “You poor, poor lamb. Proms should be filled with good memories.”
    Looking down at the gold CU buffalo on my black sweatshirt, I bit my lower lip. “Everything happens for a reason, Ceese. The car crash made me reevaluate my goals. I figured my life should have some meaning. Maybe I thought that by writing songs and protesting, I could keep others from getting hurt.”
    “You’re a mighty strange armadillo, my friend.”
    “What? Oh. Hey, we’re talking the late sixties. Hippies didn’t wear chain mail. We didn’t even send chain letters.” I nodded toward my coffee mug. “Please excuse me, rest room. Coffee stimulates my bladder. Like nicotine. I finally stopped smoking when I learned that nicotine was used as an insecticide.”
    Standing, I hitched up my jeans and walked toward a door that displayed the silhouette of a full-skirted woman. Who, I thought with a tight grin, had been painted with my mother in mind.
    Shortly thereafter, I rubbed my hands beneath the hand dryer, and despite my vow not to accumulate any more face wrinkles, I felt my forehead knit. Because recent events had brought back memories I’d tried so hard to suppress. With the reunion in mind, I had joined a diet club and lost twelve pounds. Revamped, I could wear my old high school clothes, but I couldn’t fit into my old high school skin. Cee-Cee was right about that. The armadillo’s armor came much later.
    Returning to the