BARRY’S TEA BAG

Two weeks after Astrid met Barry, we stood at the mouth to the Fenwick football field, in white oxford shirts and skinny pink ties.

“Like Adam Ant and his band,” Juli joked. “A riot, right?” We listened to the marching band play oompah music.

“Gets them in the mood.” Astrid lit the tip of a Kool from the butt of another smoke.

From the gate, all we could see were the backs of people in hoodie sweatshirts sitting in the bleachers. And then, every once in a while, a handful of guys in red jerseys and white helmets running left, then right, like zigzag arrows across the night.

“Boring,” Juli yawned. “So homosocial. All that punting. And the pileups. You know what that’s all about.”

We never went to football games. It was a matter of pride. But Astrid wanted to see Barry. So we waited outside the football field instead, buying cotton candy from the concession stand, sitting on the hood of a yellow Mazda and listening to the game in the dark.

“Here they come.” Astrid’s eyes lit up like a fire. The Fenwick Falcons trotted past us single file for the showers— Phillip, Todd, Tyler, Barry—all of them jogging through the maze of cars, the hoods hunched over like beetles’ wings. The lights went black on the football field and we sat grinning in the shadows.

“Hey girls.” Barry’s tight curls peeked out from the plastic cage of his red-and-white striped helmet. “Wait up. We’ll be right back.”

Football players only knew the same places: Kopp’s Custard, the Taco Bell drive-through. We sat in the backs of their cars and let them drive us to the East Side, to a place they knew where a sandy bluff jutted out over the lip of Lake Michigan like a landing strip, hidden from the road by a line of scrappy pines. They made bonfires from windthrown branches, and by the time we got there the fire was already soaring, all that wood thrown together like a pile of limbs. An oversized boom box perched in the sand played an unpleasant mix of White-snake, Van Halen, and Air Supply. I sat with Astrid and Juli on a cross-tie a bit higher than the fire. We drank wine coolers and watched the Fenwick boys eat their takeout.

“Gimme one of them burgers. I’m dying over here.”

“Hey scarf-face, slow down. Save some for the ladies.”

“Who? What ladies?” a snout-faced linebacker laughed. When Barry tackled him, swept his shoulders into the dirt, the both of them grunting, the jokester squealed, “I’m kidding!”

The football players made me nervous, reminded me of Brett Smith from Thomas Aquinas, his big, handsome face. Those boys were so large, they couldn’t help but crush everything around them.

“I think tonight . . . Barry and I will . . . you know,” Astrid whispered to us, blushing in front of the bonfire.

We sipped our wine coolers and walked around the patch of grass. The football players gulped their PBRs in one swallow and crushed the cans on their foreheads like some kind of fake-looking magic store cans.

“Like a mating ritual,” Juli snickered. “It’s not so bad if you think of it that way.”

We circled the bonfire and felt the heat on our faces.

“Hey Red,” one of the forwards said. “I’d like to dip my tea bag in a little girl like you.” He was a big bruiser of a boy and when he came up behind me to put his face in my neck, his breath smelled like cheese. He tried to grab my elbow, to pull me close, but I jumped, spilling my pink drink all over his letterman jacket.

“Jesus, girl, the leather.” He swatted me away.

“Just be cool,” Astrid hissed.

“I hate football players,” I whispered back.

“Don’t embarrass me, okay?” Astrid asked, her wide, navy-colored eyes all serious.

The Fenwick Falcons rushed one another’s chests like bucking goats, they drank their PBRs and roared in the moonlight. A wide receiver passed out mushrooms. We put them in our mouths and chewed, their bitterness dark as dirt. I laughed with my head back and my teeth felt white as stars.

Astrid took my hand, then Juli’s. We danced in front of the fire, moving our hands at our sides, raising our arms above our heads. Astrid’s fingers looped around my wrist like a bracelet, like a leash leading me into a circle with her and Juli. Juli’s black hair fell in sheets between my hands. We were laughing, dancing. Astrid moved her hips, then we moved ours. We danced close to the flames, felt the heat of the fire at our backs. Astrid, Juli, and me danced together, danced for each other. We lived for each other, breathed for each other, protected each other from where we were headed, which none of us knew.

“Look at you,” Astrid said, smiling. “Look at us.” We closed our eyes, dancing, letting the football players into our circle, then shouldering them out again. Clouds coiled around the stars in the blue-black sky. The moon burned white. We were happy. What else could we want?

And then I was high, like a string being tugged by the moon. My feet didn’t seem to touch the ground.

The boys stood behind us in a row, just smiling, laughing. They reached out a hand to try to touch us, but we just laughed, danced. How could they hurt us? How could they touch us, I mean, really? When it was always just Astrid, Juli, and me?

Barry edged up behind Astrid, swept her honey-colored curls off one shoulder and bit her neck. “Hey Bright Eyes,” he said. “I want to tell you something. Here. Over here.”

Astrid fingered the black Anarchy pin on her pink tie and smiled. She whispered, “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure you will.” Juli smiled.

Barry put his paw on the small of her back and steered Astrid towards the shadows of the birches. The dark woods swallowed them whole.

Juli and I danced.

“Look at you,” Juli said.

“No, look at you,” I answered.

Afterwards, I held Juli’s hair while she vomited on the beach.

“Don’t tell Astrid, okay?” she asked. She sat on the sand and picked at the thin, threadlike scratches ribboned up and down her wrists.

“How’d you do that?” I asked.

“Know what my dad says?” Juli asked. “He says identity is the crisis of adolescence.” Then she rolled over and put her face against the cool wet sand. The water rolled up and broke in waves, a thousand silver fillings, against the shore.

The next afternoon, we smoked behind the Virgin. “What happened with Barry?” Juli asked.

Astrid ducked her head and said, “It’s personal, okay?” She zipped her Virgin medallion on its silver chain and smiled at me, daring. “Besides, you wouldn’t know the first thing about what I’m talking about, would you Jellybean? Or would you?”