Stone Lake: part 20

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 7 continues

The story so far: The homecoming parade lights up Main Street.

At the Homecoming dance, Molly Walters was crowned queen and the seniors' float won first prize. Royal Knudson appeared with a bruise on his forehead, but was grinning. He told Allen, who was a chaperone, that he was out for the season with a concussion — but that there were only two games left. He expected to be on the court for the first basketball game in December.

The dance was in the school gym, brightly decorated with banners, colored lights and streamers, folding chairs down both sides, a table with refreshments under one of the baskets. Several members of the school orchestra played from the stage, Jack Palmer directing them. Allen did not know how to dance. As a chaperone, he did not think he would have to. But when he saw the math teacher, Jerry Sadowski, also a chaperone, approach a young girl and lead her out onto the floor, he thought maybe he should give it a try. For there was Helen Vorgt, sitting on the sidelines with several other girls, wearing a blue dress and looking very nice, hands in her lap. While the other girls in the row looked on with interest, he walked up to her and, bending forward, asked her if she wanted to dance. She lowered her eyes, nodded diffidently, and stood up.

The orchestra was playing "I'll Be Seeing You," a piece he very much liked. Out on the floor, putting one hand on Helen's waist and taking her hand with the other, he moved easily, delighted that she accompanied him so well. Dancing, as he had been told, was just like walking.

He held her at a proper distance. "You look very nice," he said.

"Just like you do in school every day."

"I didn't think you noticed."

"Of course I did. I always do."

As they danced, he told her that he was greatly impressed with her intelligence, the breadth of her learning and the positive way she answered questions in class. "That test that I gave you last week," he said, "you answered the questions in the same way I would have. You had the highest score by far. And your papers are marvelous, as you know from my comments."

"I thought maybe you told everybody the same thing."

He felt her hand tighten in his.

"I bet you get an A in all your classes, don't you?" he said.

"Almost."

"Almost?"

"All except math," she said.

When she asked about his background, he told her that he had grown up in Minneapolis with what amounted to foster parents, that he had spent a year and a half in the Army, and that he might well go back to college in the future. He said he expected that she would do the same.

"I'll probably go to Bemidji," she said. "There's a state college there."

"And what will you major in?"

She hesitated. Then she confessed that she might major in English.

"Oh, you'd make a great English major."

"I haven't the slightest doubt."

When the dance was over, he led her back to her chair and, with a squeeze of her hand, returned to his own. At once, to his surprise, they were on him, several other girls, urging him out on the floor. They kept coming. He danced with Lois Knight, who told him she'd hoped they were going to read more women writers in his class. He danced with Iris Arneson, who (despite what she'd told him from the car window that night) did have a boyfriend, a young man bold enough to cut in. Sitting down again, Allen was approached by a rather buxom girl in his junior class whose name he was at a momentary loss to remember, not a very good student. To his surprise, she pressed her body aggressively against his while they danced, holding him very close in her grasp, her eyes fervently closed, her perfume penetrating his senses. He would have sworn that one of her hands was inside his collar. Uncomfortable and embarrassed, he wondered if anybody was watching. Was this the way a chaperone was supposed to dance?

At the first opportunity, he escaped to the refreshment table for a cookie and a glass of punch. Jerry Sadowski, wearing a sport shirt under his jacket, was there as well.

"These girls really are bold," Allen said to him.

"Well, they have to get it out of their systems once in a while," Jerry said.

"Oh, I think they stay as far away as possible."

Molly Walters, the queen and fashion editor, asked him to dance. She told him that she and Bill Erickson hoped to attend the University of Minnesota together. He had not known that they were a couple. JoAnne Winner, too, very enthusiastically danced with him. She said she loved his class and couldn't wait for it to start every day. As soon as he sat down, a bright-eyed girl he didn't know, probably a sophomore, came over. She was wearing a pink sweater and a pink-and-white checked skirt. While they danced, she told him she was Royal Knudson's girlfriend, whispering in his ear that Royal had a bad headache because of his concussion, but didn't want anyone to know.

"I hope he's all right," Allen said.

She giggled. "He's got a little bottle in his pocket. He says it helps." She told him that Royal would be ready for basketball season. "It's a non-contact sport," she added, pushing her little breasts against his chest as if to emphasize the point.

When the orchestra announced the final dance of the evening, Allen approached Helen Vorgt again, still sitting in the same place. How many boys had asked her to dance, if any, he didn't know.

He laughed. "I'm also very clumsy."

"Oh, no."

He didn't feel clumsy with her. He felt light, athletic, air-borne. He found it remarkable that his feet moved to the music so well, that she felt so light in his arms, and that her hand fit so perfectly in his. As the orchestra played "The Very Thought of You," his cheek, on whose initiative he didn't know, somehow found hers and remained there for the rest of the dance. He closed his eyes. Breathless, savoring the moment, neither of them spoke. "I wanted to save the last dance for you," he whispered in her ear when they finished.

She told him that she liked his class.

He said he was glad she was in it.