CLASS REUNION

Mikey Luckett at the 30th reunion. Is he snoozing?



Once upon a time I was a high-school student. Now, you may find this hard to believe since I am the glib, world-traveling, clever, and witty woman that I am today, but I was not the most popular girl in my high-school. I was not even friends with the most popular girl in my high-school. I don't even know who the most popular girl in our high-school was.

I was not exactly the biggest loser either, target of bullies or anything like that, but let's just say, I was in the band.

Which is why, my junior year, I had not really had many (did I say many? make that any) dates yet. When the fall Sadie Hawkins dance (girls ask boys) began to approach, I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns and change my sad fate. I would be brave and ask a boy to the dance myself.

I chose as my target, Mikey Luckett. Mikey was a good-looking guy I had known since first grade and since he was in the band and a friend of my brother's as well as a friend of mine I figured I had a decent shot at it.

I waited for the perfect opportunity which presented itself to me a week or two before the dance. We were all in the gym for a 24-hour volleyball marathon raising funds for--you guessed it--band camp. At about 3 in the morning, a group of us sat in a remote corner of the gym, our backs to the folded up bleachers chatting. Slowly, the group began to break up and eventually it was just Mikey and me. Perfect. We continued to talk, our backs to the bleachers, not making eye contact. I popped the question, "So, Mikey, would you like to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?" I asked tentatively. My question was met by silence. I waited a full minute and still nothing. Finally, I turned to see if he had heard me. He sat with his eyes closed, snoring softly. At first I thought he was actually asleep but slowly it dawned on me (I was not popular but I wasn't stupid)--even a narcoleptic doesn't fall asleep that fast--he was pretending to be asleep so he didn't have to answer me.

Now the funny thing is Mikey went on to be my brother's roommate in college and they keep in touch which means I run into Mikey every five or ten years which means I get to remind him of that story every five or ten years. He has the decency to look embarassed (though he never denies the story) and I think he may be regretful; not regretful that he never went out with me regretful that he had the misfortune to entangle his life with mine enough to have to run into me every few years.

We both attended the 30th class reunion last weekend and I looked forward to giving him shit about all of this yet again. I saw him as soon as I got near the bar. There weren't many people there yet and I was ready for a drink. No one offered to fetch me one so I decided to give Mikey the chance to make it up to me after all these years for feigning sleep. "Hey Mikey, would you like to get me a drink?" I asked, not so tentatively. Without looking up from the yearbook he was looking at he said in a perfect Beaver Cleaver Girls are Icky voice, "Now why would I want to do that?"

It is said that the definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing and expecting a different outcome. I am a lot of things but I am not insane, which is why, in ten years, when I ask Mikey Luckett to dance with me at the 40th class reunion and he pretends he is paralyzed from the waist down I will be embarrassed yet again but at least I won't be surprised.