Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [87]
I was finally able to spit out a two-syllable word: “Lin-da.”
“Where’s your yearbook? I want to sign it.”
I fumbled around my locker for it and gave it to her. She wrote next to her senior photo: “Your friend is your needs answered. See page 200. Love, Linda.”
She then turned to page 200 in the yearbook and wrote a full-page letter to me about how much I meant to her and how she would always be there for me. She signed it again with “love.”
I stood there reading it, not having a clue what to say or do. I finally looked at her, the cheerleader, and she was all gooey-eyed and full of smiles. I wanted to ask her if she was high or had me confused with someone from shop class.
“Thank you. That’s very nice. People don’t usually write that sort of thing in my yearbook. Are you sure you don’t want to scratch any of this out?”
“Hahahaha! Silly! That’s why I love you. Well, here’s my number”—she was writing on a page she had torn out of her notebook—“give me a call this summer. Let’s go hang out and do something.”
“OK. I will. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet! And don’t forget to call!”
Still not believing this was real, I checked to see if I was still alive: Uncombed hair? Check. Nose with the sinus condition? Check. Roll of fat? Check. Zits on forehead? Check. Yup, I was all there. Still me.
And that’s what the cheerleader just asked out?
Linda Milks was a year older than me. She decided to take speech class in her senior year and join the forensics team, an unusual move for a cheerleader. She wasn’t intensely interested in the topics covered, but she was interested in what I would say in class—especially if I did my Nixon impersonation. That would crack her up, and she would often turn around and flash me a smile that said… said what? I had no idea! She was a senior and a cheerleader and she was smiling at me. That was enough.
When she would ask me for help on an assignment I willingly gave it to her. But I would do that also for the farm kid in the hand-me-downs or the hoodlum who kept telling me he wanted to see if his fist could maybe help rearrange my face so I’d have “a better chance with the ladies.” But Linda said she was taking forensics to gain some “self-confidence,” and so I helped her with various ways and methods to give an effective speech. A couple times she stopped by my house to talk, but it wasn’t until I read her letter in my yearbook that I realized she was coming by for something more. She really wanted to be friends. I was clueless. I just thought I was getting the opportunity to practice talking to a senior girl, which was a major accomplishment in and of itself. I will admit I did like it when she wore her cheerleader uniform on game days. Made speech class come alive.
After school was out for the summer, I went a full month before I dared to dial her number, and only then after practice-dialing it a dozen times. I finally dialed it for real, and she answered. A deep breath, and then my proposal: we go to a matinee showing of a new film called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and we then go on a picnic to Richfield Park after the movie.
All innocent, safe, daylight activities. She loved the idea and said to pick her up Saturday at noon.
The most important part of this was that my parents were to have no clue I was going out on a date. If they were to find out, there would be an inquisition I imagined I would not survive.
Who is she?
What? She’s older than you?
She’s not Catholic?
She’s a cheerleader?
Are you sure she doesn’t have you confused with another Mike?
We don’t know her.
She lives where?
Who are her parents?
How come we’ve never heard of her?
What kind of grades did she get?
She’s not going to college?
Wait, give me your yearbook. This is her? Oh, no siree, you’re not going anywhere with her!
Something like that, but with more questions.
So the trick was to get the car for the afternoon without any suspicions being raised. I told them I was picking up a couple guys and we were going to go play twenty-seven holes at the Flint Park golf course. This was a lot of golf,