The Aqua Net Diaries (7 page)

Richmond was home to two popular beauty schools where many of my classmates would apply after graduation: Amber's Beauty School (“Serving this area since 1936”) and P.J.'s College of Cosmetology (“Your future begins with us”). There was a Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio on the Promenade (which ran the length of several downtown blocks), and clothing stores like the Fashion Bug, the Secret Ingredient, Maurice's, and Peggy's Youthful Fashions for the Fuller Figure.

Even with this, people still wore feathered hair, parted down the middle. The mullet was popular. So was Jheri Curl. There were rattails and perms. Fluorescent colors. Leg warmers. Belted sweaters. Ripped sweatshirts. Izods in all colors with the collars turned up. Penny loafers. “Frankie Say Relax” shirts. I had even seen more than one pair of bell-bottoms, even though the 1970s were long over.

I told my parents I would rather be caught dead than shop on the Promenade or at the Richmond Square Mall. It was bad enough I had to live in Richmond, but did I have to dress like everyone else, too? I wanted to fit in, but not completely, not in this way. I needed to express my individuality, and I was very into clothes. My father, who also had a passion
for clothing, understood. He never shopped in town. When it was time to buy my school wardrobe, he made sure we went to Cincinnati or Chicago or Indianapolis or New York or, at the very least, Dayton.

We came back to school in January 1984 after winter break. It had been an especially wonderful Christmas and I was wearing my new favorite outfit—a yellow Esprit long-sleeved shirt with gray and white stripes that almost reached my knees. Over it, I wore a little black vest I'd found at a vintage store, and under it I wore a new Esprit skirt with tights and boots. The whole thing was quite groovy and cool and I felt like fashion icon Lisa Bonet or a glamorous person right off the streets of New York. I loved Esprit. I could have moved into the Esprit department at the Dayton Mall and been happy forever. It was true I was being imprisoned in this town—temporarily—but I was not of it, and I knew it and so would everyone else.

My hair, no longer feathered like Jaclyn Smith's, was large and curly (even curlier than its natural curl), thanks to the two hours I'd spent that morning blowing it dry and rolling it with hot rollers, then teasing it and spraying it with Aqua Net. I was wearing shiny blue-gray eye shadow and three different shades of lipstick (no one shade ever gave me the color I wanted), and over that a coating of Bonne Bell lip gloss. All I needed was a soundtrack—something sexy by Blondie or Sheila E—and I was like something out of a movie.

I was walking down the main long hallway with Joey and Hether Rielly, fighting and shoving our way through the sea of people, and we were talking over one another and laughing. I was also keeping an eye out for any boys I liked so that
I could say hi to them or (hopefully) smile at them and have them say hi to me first. This was a very deliberate activity that I tried to make look easy and natural, like I wasn't giving it any thought at all. I knew the class schedules and, therefore, hallway schedules of all the guys I had crushes on, so I knew when to watch out for them. Right now I was looking for my favorite, Dean Waldemar, who was with no exaggeration a golden god, and who should just be coming up from the swimming pool at any minute, his hair still wet.

So I was walking and talking and laughing and saying hi, all the while looking out for Dean, when suddenly—at the other end of that long hallway, coming down the steps from the cafeteria area—I caught sight of something that looked strangely familiar. It was a yellow something with gray and white stripes.

When I stopped talking, Joey and Hether looked at me. “What's wrong?” Hether said.

“I just saw something …”

The yellow was gone. It had disappeared into the crowd. I was trying to find it again. Joey and Hether looked with me, but since they didn't know what I was looking for, they gave up.

“What are we looking at?” Joey said.

“Nothing,” I said. “I'm just seeing things.”

We went on, heading for the central stairs. When we got there, my shirt was coming toward me—my new favorite Christmas Esprit shirt that I was wearing right that very moment. Yellow with gray and white stripes. It was walking right at me on Patty Boomershine, who was big and tough and who smoked cigarettes and hung around in the parking lot after school sometimes and shouted mean things at people just because she was bored. Underneath the shirt she was
wearing ratty old jeans and sneakers. With Magic Marker, she had written “Fuck” on the knee of one leg and “off!” on the other.

Joey said, “Holy shit.” Joey kept a clothing journal to help him keep track of what he wore. This was so he didn't repeat an outfit in three weeks' time.

When we could, Hether and I would break into Joey's room and steal his journal and change things here or there so that he would get confused and accidentally wear something twice in a row or repeat an outfit before he was supposed to. We would always tell him afterward, of course, just so we could see his reaction.

Hether said now, “Jenna Lou Anne, that bitch is wearing your shirt.”

I said, “Turn me around. Turn me around.” Because suddenly I couldn't move and there were five thousand people coming—including Dean Waldemar, who I could just see heading toward me (gold hair dripping wet) surrounded by ten of his closest friends—and I didn't want to see them or Patty or anyone.

Patty said, “Jennifer McJunkin, oh my God.”

I said, “Hi, Patty.”

She said, “Look at this. You and me're twins.”

I said, “Yeah!” I stood there grinning stupidly, wanting to slink away to the bathroom or maybe just die instantly on the spot. Guys and girls were walking by staring at us and laughing. “Nice shirts!” they said. “Hey, is it Spirit Week?” someone yelled. “Is today Twin Day?” I saw Dean Waldemar straining to see what everyone was looking at. I was already thinking about what to do, trying to remember if I had anything to change in to. Could I get away with only wearing my vest or maybe my ugly gym uniform?

Joey said, “We'd better go. We'll be late!” And started dragging me off. My legs weren't working anymore so I kind of bumped along behind him.

The rest of the day, I darted from class to class, keeping one eye out for Patty, the other for anyone who might have seen us together. This was the worst thing to happen to me
since the time just before Christmas when Mike Shockney made me laugh so hard in Psychology that something flew out of my nose and landed on his book. (I pretended, of course, that nothing happened. Just picked up my pencil and started furiously taking notes, hoping to God he wouldn't notice. He was very good-looking for a hood.)

I went home that day and took off my shirt. Instead of throwing it onto the floor or my beanbag chair with my other clothes, I hung it neatly on a hanger and pushed it into the very back of my closet. I didn't wear it again until I graduated high school and was safely out of Richmond. As far as I was concerned, that shirt belonged to Patty Boomershine. She wore it once a week for the next two and a half years.

On the way to Dayton from Richmond on the I-70

Jennifer has had a great week at school. She is a great authority on all the Kindergarten rules, such as Keep Your Head in the School Bus and I Shouldn't Have to Scream to Get Your Attention!

—My mother in a letter to the family, September 11, 1973

Technically, RHS was a closed campus, which meant we had to stay at school no matter what, even if we were dying, and never leave it until the final bell rang at 3:15. No one paid attention to this, of course, except the dutiful kids and the ones who were trying for the perfect attendance award. At lunch, it was easy enough to slip out through the art museum and walk down to Rax, on the corner of National Road West and Red Devil Boulevard, or to
hop into your car and drive to Burger King or Wendy's or McDonald's.

Hether Rielly and Joey Kraemer and I had the same lunch hour second semester sophomore year, which meant that we almost never ate at school and were always sneaking out. Hether usually drove because we loved her red Cougar. She drove faster than anyone in the world, even my own father who almost always got a ticket every time we left the house. Hether just slammed her foot on the gas pedal and didn't let up till we got to wherever we were going.

One particularly restless and dull day in April, in AP History class first period, Joey wrote me a note. He said, I
am bored out of my mind. I'm close to dying. I mean it. Let's do something different for lunch today.

I wrote back and said:
Where do you want to go?

He said:
Anywhere but here.

Rax?

No.

Burger King?

No.

Wendy's?

Yes. In Dayton!

You are crazy. And doesn't Todd Irwin look good today?
Todd was lean and tall and had brown hair that used to be straight but now was curly. He was going out with Leigh Torbeck, who was a cheerleader. They were one of
those
couples who you knew would be together forever and would never ever break up no matter how much you wanted them to, which meant I would never have a chance with Todd myself. But I still thought he was cute.

Joey wrote:
Hether can drive. We'll be back in time for 5th period. I just have to get out of this town.

We met Hether after fourth hour in the Orchestra Hall and the three of us walked down the ramp and past the choir room, the art rooms, the orchestra and band room, and out the back door. Hether's car was parked illegally in the side parking lot where she always parked it.

We got in—Joey in the backseat, me in the front, Hether behind the wheel—and peeled out, music blasting, something loud and rebellious. It was a white-hot sunny day, warm for April. We rolled the windows down, and for once I thought to hell with my hair.

Hether slammed her foot down on the gas and aimed the Cougar toward Dayton. We flew past the Courthouse, past the Promenade, past Glen Miller Park, past the Arboretum, past Target, past the Richmond Square Mall, past Fred First Ford, past the Spirit of 76 Motel, and then out onto I-70 and east under the giant light blue Ohio arch.

“Let's see how fast we can go, big girl!” Joey shouted over the music.

We had just under an hour to get there and back before fifth period. It was forty miles to Dayton from Richmond one-way. Hether accelerated and we screamed. She said, “Hold on!!!” The speedometer climbed past 70 to 80, 85, 90, 95, and finally hovered just over 100. Joey and I started dancing wildly.

There was a Wendy's near the airport exit, and that was the one we were aiming for. We knew we wouldn't have time to go inside and eat, so we would just zip on through the drive-through. In about twenty-five minutes, we saw the sign.

“There!” I hollered.

Hether careened across three lanes (there wasn't much traffic) and raced off the exit. We pulled up to the drive-through
where there wasn't any line. We ordered three Frosties, three cheeseburgers, and three orders of fries. And then we pulled around to the window and waited. We sat there looking at one another. We looked like we'd been caught in a tornado, our hair sticking up and out in every direction. Hether's face was red like it always was when she laughed too hard or got too excited. Joey was grinning wickedly. I realized I was out of breath from dancing and screaming. I stretched my legs up and put them on the dash. Suddenly I didn't care if we went back or if Mr. Wysong marked us absent. I wanted to keep driving just as fast as we could.

Hether handed us the Frosties and the cheeseburgers and the fries and we divvied everything up. Then she hit the gas and peeled out of the parking lot, pointed toward home. “Hold on!!!” she shouted. We were like a bright red rocket taking off across a backdrop of cornfields and silos and barns and farmhouses. We passed tractors and semitrailers and a car or two, but never a cop. Where were they all?