Dance Senior Quotes

Picture this, Olive. Early two thousands. Preppy, ridiculously expensive all-male DC school. Two gay students in grade twelve. Well, two of us that were out, anyway. Richie Muller and I date for the entirety of senior year - and then he dumps me three days before prom for some guy he’d been having a thing with for months.” “He was a prick,” Adam muttered. “I have three choices. Not go to the dance and mope at home. Go alone and mope at school. Or, have my best friend - who was planning on staying home and moping over gamma-aminobutyric acids - come as my date. Guess which?” Olive gasped. “How did you convince him?” “That’s the thing, I didn’t. When I told him about what Richie did, he offered!

Speaking of tongues, they are the main reason I'm a nervous wreck. Ryan is a senior and well, sadly, I'm not all that experienced with boys. I mean, I'm a freshman and have been to dances with boys my age and even have gone out with boys, but I've never really kissed them. Not like I hope to kiss Ryan anyway. Bobby Robinson did shove his tongue into my mouth one time, when we were kissing under the bleachers at a football game, but it didn't feel so good. I'm pretty sure he didn't have it exactly right. So I talked to my friends, Katie and Lisa, about how to properly make out. But, well, here is just a bit of their unhelpful advice. Just let him take the lead, do what ever he does. Um, couldn't that get me into a lot of trouble? Just sort of kiss his tongue, but try not to drool. Don't open your mouth too wide. And then, just open your mouth wide. See? Stupid, conflicting information. And this from girls who supposedly know how to do this! I feel like I'm an undercover CIA agent trying to wrestle vital information out of a ruthless double agent, and the fate of the free world depends upon it. All the while, the President is yelling at me in a panic, saying, Somebody! Anybody! Just get me the truth!

Megan had accustomed herself to receiving the third degree about her dates. His name is Dillon Carver.He's the same age as me, and also a senior. He has no family history of insanity or premature baldness. He doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs, but he does have a vicious Dr Pepper habit. I'll let you know how big his penis is after the dance.

Anna’s parents were staunch Wee Frees, and she wasn’t even allowed to wear face powder, never mind attend a dance. Music itself was not allowed, except on Sundays, and then it had to be for the sake of worship only, and sung unadorned. The senior McKenzies were so strict they confined their cockerel under a bushel basket on the Sabbath so he wouldn’t get up to anything untoward with the hens.

In fact, she [Pamela Flitton] seemed to prefer 'older men' on the whole, possibly because of their potentiality for deeper suffering. Young men might superficially transcend their seniors in this respect, but they probably showed less endurance in sustaining that state, while, once pinioned, the middle-aged could be made to writhe almost indefinitely.

Normal is a universe that is predictable and trustworthy.

For it is only in other people's gaze that we see ourselves, isn't it?

...it is not always that we want friends to be so reasonable and rational about things. Sometimes we want people we like to agree with us, to say yes, you have been hard done by, regardless.

Guess I’ll never find out what happened between me and Rick Springfield at my senior prom on the moon. Which sucks, because we were just grinding on a zero gravity dance floor, and he was telling me that I was way cuter than Jessie’s girl.

I won't meet his glare. "I guess I didn't care." Telling him I meant to murder his sister probably wouldn't go over very well. It would definitely cancel out the Hallmark vote. "Unacceptable. Don't ever risk your life like that again, do you understand?" I snort, sending little air bubbles dancing upward. "Hey, you know what else I don't care about? You giving me orders. I acted stupid, but-" "Actually, this is a good time to point out that I'm a Royal," he says, pointing to the small tattoo of a fork on his stomach, just above the border where his abs turn into fish. "And since you're obviously Syrena, you do have to obey me." "I'm what?" I say, trying to figure out how an eating utensil could possibly validate his claim of seniority. "Syrena. That's what we-including you-are called." "Syrena? Not mermaids?" Galen clears his throat. "Uh, mermaid?" "Really? You're gonna go there now? Fine, merman-wait, I wouldn't be a merman." Really though, what do I know about fish gender? Except that Galen is definitely male, no matter what species he is. "Just for the record, we hate that word. And by we, I mean you also." I roll my eyes. "Fine. But I'm not Syrena. Did I mention I don't have a big fin-" "You're not trying hard enough." "Trying hard enough? To grow a fin?

Zach wanting to see me next Wednesday is almost like Zach asking me on a date, if I were a regular girl wanting a regular relationship. But I’m not a regular girl. I don’t want to hold hands in the hall at school and slow dance at prom and see a movie with Zach. I don’t want to be the girl he dates senior year and loses interest in when he goes off to college. I want to be just fast enough for Zach to have to run to catch up, because if I stay ahead, I won’t ever have to see his retreating back.

What I discovered was that senior executives often presided. They organized work, then waited to review it when it was done. You were a worker early in your career, but once you climbed to the top, your role was to preside over a process. Well, my kind of executives dig into the details, work the problems day to day, and lead by example, not title. They take personal ownership of and responsibility for the end result. They see themselves as drivers rather than as a box high on the organization chart.

Dennis White has asked me to write a letter recommending him to the Emanuel Lutheran Seminary (Master of Divinity Program), and I am happy to grant his modest request. Four years ago Mr. White enrolled as a dewy-eyed freshman in one of my introductory literature courses (Cross-cultural Readings in English, or some such dumping ground of a title); he returned several years later for another dose of instruction, this time in the Junior/Senior Creative Writing Workshop—a particularly memorable collection of students given their shared enthusiasm for all things monstrous and demonic, nearly every story turned in for discussion involving vampires, werewolves, victims tumbling into sepulchers, and other excuses for bloodletting. I leave it to professionals in your line of work to pass judgment on this maudlin reveling in violence. A cry for help of some sort? A lack of faith — given the daily onslaught of news about melting ice caps, hunger, joblessness, war — in the validity or existence of a future? Now in my middle fifties, an irrelevant codger, I find it discomfiting to see this generation dancing to the music of apocalypse and carrying their psychic burdens in front of them like infants in arms.

NO GRAPH IN THE world can do full justice to these unexpected moments. They’re sweet little bursts of grace, and they leave sense-memories on the skin (the smell of the child’s shampoo, the smoothness of his arms). That’s why we’re here, leading this life, isn’t it? To know this kind of enchantment? The question is why such moments, at least with small children, often feel so hard-won, so shatterable, and so fleeting, as if located between parentheses. After just a few minutes of this dreamy slow-dance with Abe, William does a face-plant and starts howling. Jessie sambas over and handles it with humor. This is the drill. I’d like to propose a possible explanation for why these moments of grace are so rare: the early years of family life don’t offer up many activities that lend themselves to what psychologists call “flow.” Simply put, flow is a state of being in which we are so engrossed in the task at hand—so fortified by our own sense of agency, of mastery—that we lose all sense of our surroundings, as though time has stopped.

I was not able to sleep that night. To be honest, I didn’t even try. I stood in front of my living room window, staring out at the bright lights of New York City. I don’t know how long I stood there; in fact, I didn’t see the millions of multicolored lights or the never-ending streams of headlights and taillights on the busy streets below. Instead, I saw, in my mind’s eye, the crowded high school classrooms and halls where my friends and I had shared triumphs and tragedies, where the ghosts of our past still reside. Images flickered in my mind. I saw the faces of teachers and fellow students I hadn’t seen in years. I heard snatches of songs I had rehearsed in third period chorus. I saw the library where I had spent long hours studying after school. Most of all, I saw Marty. Marty as a shy sophomore, auditioning for Mrs. Quincy, the school choir director. Marty singing her first solo at the 1981 Christmas concert. Marty at the 1982 Homecoming Dance, looking radiant after being selected as Junior Princess. Marty sitting alone in the chorus practice room on the last day of our senior year. I stared long and hard at those sepia-colored memories. And as my mind carried me back to the place I had sworn I’d never return to, I remembered.

Maybe a young Jacques Cousteau...?" Sadie was still working on the boy in the suit. "But that would just be silly. I mean, a suit...? On.No." Apparently our scrutiny hadn't gone unnoticed. Teddy-Jacques-Whoever was bearing down on us,smiling broadly under the mustache that,I noticed, was coming loose at one corner. "Good evening,ladies!" He was a senior, I thought. We didn't have any classes together; he was AP everything,but I thought I remembered seeing him during Performance Night in the spring, part of a co-ed a capella group. They'd done a Black Eyed Peas song-pretty well,too. He was cute, too, in a pale,lanky way. "Walter Elias Disney," he said with a bow. "At your disposal." "Walt Disney?" Sadie was obviously too intrigued to be shy. "Um...?" He grinned and waved his arm at the spectacle behind him with a flourish. "The myriad talents of Johnny Depp aside,it is debatable whether any of this would have come about without me. It seemed only appropriate that I should make an appearance." I nodded. "I'll buy that." He bowed again,but his eyes stayed on Sadie. "Would you care to dance?" "Oh.I....Oh." Several emotions flooded her face in an instant: terror, pleasure, uncertainty, and why-the-hell-not. She darted a glance at me. I gave a quick, emphatic nod. I would be fine. She absolutely should dance. "Sure," she said. And off they went.

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent. To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative. It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys. Take as an example something that happened on our journey from Auschwitz to the camp affiliated with Dachau. We had all been afraid that our transport was heading for the Mauthausen camp. We became more and more tense as we approached a certain bridge over the Danube which the train would have to cross to reach Mauthausen, according to the statement of experienced traveling companions. Those who have never seen anything similar cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when they saw that our transport was not crossing the bridge and was instead heading “only” for Dachau. And again, what happened on our arrival in that camp, after a journey lasting two days and three nights? There had not been enough room for everybody to crouch on the floor of the carriage at the same time. The majority of us had to stand all the way, while a few took turns at squatting on the scanty straw which was soaked with human urine. When we arrived the first important news that we heard from older prisoners was that this comparatively small camp (its population was 2,500) had no “oven,” no crematorium, no gas! That meant that a person who had become a “Moslem” could not be taken straight to the gas chamber, but would have to wait until a so-called “sick convoy” had been arranged to return to Auschwitz. This joyful surprise put us all in a good mood. The wish of the senior warden of our hut in Auschwitz had come true: we had come, as quickly as possible, to a camp which did not have a “chimney”—unlike Auschwitz. We laughed and cracked jokes in spite of, and during, all we had to go through in the next few hours.

It’s my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn’t planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he’s nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits. Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I’d agreed to go. I guess he’d figured it’d be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don’t want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me. Always. I finally spot him in the crowd--it’s not too hard, since he’s a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground. Oh my God, this can’t be happening. I’ve fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I’m supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming. Heck, it’s a full-blown garden at this point. “Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!” comes the principal’s voice. “Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She’s escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. I’m afraid there’s no escort, so we’ll just--” “Ryder Marsden,” I call out as I make my way across the stage. “I’m escorted by Ryder Marsden.” The collective gasp that follows my announcement is like something out of the movies. I swear, it’s just like that scene in Gone with the Wind where Rhett offers one hundred and fifty dollars in gold to dance with Scarlett, and she walks through the scandalized bystanders to take her place beside Rhett for the Virginia reel. Only it’s the reverse. I’m standing here doing the scandalizing, and Ryder’s doing the walking. “Apparently, Jemma’s escort is Ryder Marsden,” the principal ad-libs into the microphone, looking a little frazzled. “Ryder is…um…the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, and, um…in the National Honor Society and…” She trails off helplessly. “A Peer Mentor,” he adds helpfully as he steps up beside me and takes my hand. The smile he flashes in my direction as Mrs. Crawford places the tiara on my head is dazzling--way more so than the tiara itself. My knees go a little weak, and I clutch him tightly as I wobble on my four-inch heels. But here’s the thing: If the crowd is whispering about me, I don’t hear it. I’m aware only of Ryder beside me, my hand resting in the crook of his arm as he leads me to our spot on the stage beside the junior maid and her escort, where we wait for Morgan to be crowned queen. Oh, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. I have no idea what we’re going to tell our parents. Right now I don’t even care. Just like Scarlett O’Hara, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight and worry about the rest later. After all, tomorrow is another…Well, you know how the saying goes.

Not present at Supreme Headquarters when the news of the Israeli air strikes arrived, Nasser also welcomed the opening of hostilities and believed the tide would soon turn. Nevertheless, by 10:00—the height of the second wave—when the air force claimed to have downed 161 Israeli bombers, Nasser became suspicious. He tried contacting ‘Amer, but received no reply; Sidqi Mahmud was also unreachable. One of the few men who would have told him the truth, Anwar Sadat, had secluded himself at home. Entering headquarters at 11:00, Sadat heard from Soviet ambassador Pojidaev and from other senior officers of the full extent of Egypt’s disaster. “I just went home and stayed in for days,” he wrote, unable to watch the “crowds…chanting, dancing, and applauding the faked-up victory reports which our mass media put out hourly.

home only to pine over an ex-girlfriend, so he stopped. He apologized, saying a few more things that Catherine once again just nodded her head to, smiling, and before she knew it, she had plans to go see a movie with Dickie the following Friday. It was a date, the first of many. It went like this for two months: Friday night dates. Rides home from school while other girls looked on in jealousy. Long nights parked up at The Point, the low rumble of his car idling away while they made out with the heat blowing on her legs. Him sliding his hands up her skirt. Under her shirt. Her moaning. Her face flushing red. Her toes curling. The Rolling Stones on the radio. Why did he taste so good? Never sex, though. Even when he begged for it, she would refuse. She knew what their relationship really was. It was great and fun and wild and exciting, but she knew it wouldn’t last; he was off to college soon, and she remembered how he felt about being tethered to something familiar. That conversation never left her mind for the duration of their relationship, always reminding her to be ready to lose him. At the time, she was still a virgin, and as much as she loved Dickie she did not wish to give herself fully to someone who would more than likely forget about her within months, if not weeks, of leaving. Catherine was young, but never stupid or naive. She knew how the world worked… even Dickie’s world. What she felt and experienced with him may have been real by her definition, but she understood that that did not make the relationship everlasting or meant-to-be. Their time together had been great and fun and had changed her in ways she would never be able to put into words. She would forever cherish their moments together. Or at least, that’s what she’d thought at the time, before these cherished memories soured. Everything changed the night of the dance. The night he changed. The night she changed, too. It was Dickie’s senior prom. He invited her to go and she happily accepted. She even bought a new dress with the money she’d saved working shifts down at Woolworth’s. The dance was fine and good. They had a blast. They’d even kissed in the middle of the gymnasium during the last slow dance. It had been so romantic. But afterward was a different sort of time. Dickie and some of his friends rented a few rooms at the Heartsridge Motel for a place to hang out after the dance. But it was more than just a place to hang out. It was a place to party, a place to drink alcohol purchased illegally, a place for some of the looser girls to sleep with their dates. She had been to parties with Dickie before, parties with drinking and drugs and where there were rooms dedicated to fooling around. She wasn’t a square. But this was different. This place made her skin crawl. There was a raw energy in the air. She remembered feeling it on her skin. And the fact that it was a motel made the whole scene seem depraved. It just felt off, and she wanted to beg him to go somewhere else. But instead she held her tongue and went along with Dickie. He was leaving soon, after all. Why not appease him? He seemed excited about going. A few of them—all friends of Dickie’s—ended up together in one room, drinking Schnapps, smoking cigarettes, having

I lost all airs of being a senior management executive – running around pouring coffee, taking orders, hefting gigantic platters laden with food and at times, working the cashier’s desk. My airs were not all that I lost. I also shed tons of weight and never felt fitter. Lighter on my feet and less thick in the head, the months I spent waitressing earned me the most valuable degree ever – in life management. It was just a high school degree, but it was still better than the unlettered so-and-so I was till then in the University of Life.

Many potential dates thought I was too old or wanted to walk in the woods, on the beach and go dancing which eliminated me on a walker from consideration. The book describes how to overcome dating obstacles, real and imagined, and learn how to look for love, especially as a senior.

The senior among them would have been no older than Bran when she went north.

But for every student who fought back there were several more who lived in loneliness or fear. Said one student from the era, “I can remember my first day at RVA, scared, intimidated…being put into the ‘hatchery’ with twenty-four other girls in bunk beds, never accepted but trying to get attention. It was all a bad scene and never got better. No one tried to help me”. Yet it was not the emotional stress or lack of sufficient adult mentors that inspired the greatest vitriol from parents. What triggered the most urgent letters was the appearance of worldy rebellion…ven in the darkest hour, when perhaps one-fourth of the senior class was experimenting with drugs, the vast majority of the school’s students were not using drugs or having sex, let alone dancing or indulging in any of the cosmetic misdemeanors that were so offensive to some within the missionary community. p159

Have you guys decided what you’re dressing up as for the Halloween dance?” my friend Scarlett, a senior with auburn hair and high cheekbones, asked Elyse and me when we joined her and her best friend Hunter at the table in the great hall for lunch.

I went to Planned Parenthood the week I turned sixteen because I was terrified almost every day of my life. I went to Planned Parenthood because I was poor and prey, and girls had told me where the building was because they, too, were afraid of the same thing: We were certain we’d be raped at some point, and we didn’t want to have babies because of that. We didn’t want to have to marry our rapists. But I was a girlfriend by then. My boyfriend was a large man. No one who knew us would bother me. I was also endlessly distracted by story and curiosity, and would talk to anyone, at the movie theater, at basketball games, at parties. Our senior year, at a New Year’s Eve party in 1977, in a house near the foothills, more than a hundred of us drinking and dancing inside and outside, I saw a young man maybe twenty-five stagger across the lawn, his shirt unbuttoned, his long black hair in Bee Gee waves around his

It is better to be single than in a bad relationship.

Winter realized this was probably the last summer she would spend with Emmy at the senior community. It was the end of an era marked by scraped knees, grass stains, slurped noodles, awkward phases followed by even more awkward phases, dancing under the sprinklers, bottling lighting bugs, giggling past bedtimes, and other endless summer memories.

That unwavering devotion has always intrigued me. People commit to an artist’s music in a way they won’t to a relationship or a career. It’s a constant in their lives, no matter what else changes. My earliest memories are of my parents dancing in the kitchen to Etta James. My mom listened to those same songs my senior year of high school, over a decade after they got divorced.

Fpr ome aftermppm a week leading up to the formal, the entire senior school body would pile into our massive gymnasium and learn dances that we would NEVER DANCE AGAIN, except at our own children's formals, perhaps. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves into the task as if we were living in a Jane Austen novel and this was the only way we would ever fit into society. (from How to Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Teenage Confusion)

I asked Jessie what she loved most about parenting. I thought her answer would be her dance parties. And she mentioned them. “But on a bigger scale,” she said, “I love watching my kids learn how to figure things out on their own. It’s how an explorer must feel.

OCTOBER I’m so excited for the school year to finally begin that even the unfinished classrooms and dearth of supplies can’t dampen my spirits. My senior year! Even though we’re not in San Francisco anymore, there will still be clubs, sports (I hear Joe Tanaka is a star basketball player, and I can’t wait to cheer him on, although we don’t have a gymnasium yet), and, best of all, dances! There’s already a “Halloween Spook-tacular” planned for this Saturday in Dining Hall 1, provided the administration can engage a band for the evening, and although Joe hasn’t asked me for a dance yet, I’m saving room

When we first went to Provence, I assumed I would be observing a different culture. With attachment in mind, it became obvious to me that it is much more than a different culture — I was witnessing a culture at work and a culture that worked. Children greeted adults and adults greeted children. Socializing involved whole families, not adults with adults and children with children. There was only one village activity at a time, so families were not pulled in several directions. Sunday afternoon was for family walks in the countryside. Even at the village fountain, the local hangout, teens mixed with seniors. Festivals and celebrations, of which there were many, were all family affairs. The music and dancing brought the generations together instead of separating them. Culture took precedence over materialism. One could not even buy a baguette without first engaging in the appropriate greeting rituals. Village stores were closed for three hours at midday while schools emptied and families reconvened. Lunch was eaten in a congenial manner as multigenerational groupings sat around tables, sharing conversation and a meal. The attachment customs around the village primary school were equally impressive. Children were personally escorted to school and picked up by their parents or grandparents. The school was gated and the grounds could be entered only by a single entrance. At the gate were the teachers, waiting for their students to be handed over to them. Again, culture dictated that connection be established with appropriate greetings between the adult escorts and the teachers as well as the teachers and the students. Sometimes when the class had been collected but the school bell had not yet rung, the teacher would lead the class through the playground, like a mother goose followed by her goslings. While to North American eyes this may appear to be a preschool ritual, even absurd, in Provence it was selfevidently part of the natural order of things. When children were released from school, it was always one class at a time, the teacher in the lead. The teacher would wait with the students at the gate until all had been collected by their adult escort. Their teachers were their teachers whether on the grounds or in the village market or at the village festival. There weren't many cracks to fall through. Provençal culture was keeping attachment voids to a minimum.

Wait. Your mom is Victoria Lane!?” Lucky asked. Holy shit! That’s where he knew her from. That’s why her lips looked so familiar. That’s why he’d felt like he’d looked into her eyes before. He had. “Yep.” “You were in a perfume or clothing ad with her when you were a teenager!” Lucky had ripped out every ad he’d found in magazines his senior year. He’d never particularly thought that Victoria was that hot, but when he’d seen her daughter beside her, Lucky had been one smitten kitten. In fact, Deanna had been his first and only crush. He just hadn’t known it was her. Deanna didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Yeah, I was.” “I knew you looked familiar. God, I was obsessed with you. I stole every ad I could find and I would fold it in half and pin it up on my wall so only you were showing.” Her head spun around, and she looked…mad. “No, you didn’t.” Oh well. He wasn’t about to try to dig himself out of this one. His only move was to dig in deeper. “Yes. I did. I thought you were so damn hot—” Her hand rose defensively. “Lucky, stop. I know that’s not true—” “You don’t know shit,” he snapped back, still feeling the adrenaline from earlier. His tone made him cringe, so he softened his voice. “Sorry, but you don’t.” “Whatever.” She crossed her arms in front of her. Lucky saw it for what it was: a protective stance. But he’d be damned if she was going to feel she had to protect herself from him. He would never hurt her. “Look, I’m sorry if it pisses you off that I had hundreds of pictures of you all over my wall and I used to jack it to you morning and night—” “What!?” she screeched. Glancing over, he saw the horror in her beautiful expressive eyes, but her lips were curled a little at the edges and not set in a grim expression. So he hadn’t pissed her off that bad by his oh-so-shocking admission. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t think there was a red-blooded teenage boy who wasn’t jerking it to those pictures.” He’d said it to lighten the mood, but he was getting the same feeling he’d gotten when he’d seen Casey heading towards Deanna on the dance floor. One word filled his mind. Mine. Deanna let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, maybe, but it wasn’t me they were looking at.” Lucky took his eyes off the road just long enough to see in the set of her jaw and her protective body language that she wasn’t joking. She really believed that she wasn’t hot. Or beautiful. And her mom was. Then it hit him. She’d grown up the daughter of a supermodel and a professional baseball player. Maybe living in the shadows all of those years had caused her not to see herself for who she really was. It was time to shed some light on that subject. Instead of arguing with her, Lucky decided to enlighten her. “My favorite was the one with you wearing a white tank top and jeans. Just a tiny sliver of your stomach was showing, and I used to imagine running my finger along that area and how soft your skin would feel. I loved how that one piece of your hair fell over your shoulder. Your eyes were looking right in the camera, and your lips were so full and… I won’t even tell you what I pictured you doing with them.” Deanna sounded breathless as she said, “Oh.” “Do you believe me now?” he asked as he kept his eyes on the winding, dark highway illuminated only by his headlights. “Yes,” she said quietly. Then he felt her turn towards him, and her voice sounded lighter and hell of a lot sassier as she asked, “You know I was only thirteen when I shot that, right?” “You were what!?” Lucky’s voice rose in shock, and it took everything in his power not to swerve the truck into the other lane. Now, he was the one who didn’t believe her. “No way. There is no way you were thirteen!” “Yep. I really was. Whatever you were picturing me doi—” “Stop!” If Lucky could’ve, he would have covered his ears and said, “Na-na-na-na-na! I’m not listening to you.

Your Behavioral Responses to Anxiety The ways in which people react to social situations are often a result of physical and mental responses. Feeling anxious is a clue from your body that you are in danger and need to take action. However, because the danger is exaggerated, your actions often do not fit the situation and do not help you. Two typical behaviors are freezing and avoidance. When people freeze in a situation, they cannot react. Movement, speech, and memory are all affected. You may have experienced freezing when a teacher called on you in class. When attention like that was placed upon you, you probably felt the physical responses of blushing, shortness of breath, and rapid heart rate, among others. You probably had negative thoughts running through your head, such as “I’m such an idiot. I look stupid.” As a result of the strong physical and mental reactions, you froze and were unable to remember the answer; perhaps you could not speak at all. Because feelings of anxiety are unpleasant, some people try to avoid stressful situations altogether. If you are nervous around crowds of people, you may avoid going to parties or dances. If you are afraid of speaking in public, you probably avoid classes or situations in which you would be asked to speak or make a presentation. There are also other, subtler forms of avoidance. If you are nervous in crowds, you may not avoid parties entirely, but you might leave early or latch onto one person the entire time. Or, you may distract yourself by daydreaming or flipping through CDs instead of talking with people. Because of her social anxiety, Ruby hadn’t participated in any extracurricular activities during high school. At the beginning of her senior year, her guidance counselor told her she would have a better chance of getting into her top-choice college if she would join activities, so she joined the Spanish club. The group was led by the Spanish teacher and met once a week before school. When Ruby joined, they were beginning to plan the annual fiesta, and there were many decisions to make. At first, the other students tried to include her and would ask her opinion about decorations or games, but Ruby was so anxious that she couldn’t respond. Soon, they stopped asking and left her alone. Ruby thought she was being a part of the group simply by showing up, but she never volunteered for any of the planning committees and never offered suggestions. When it was time to fill out college applications, Ruby asked the Spanish teacher to write her a recommendation. The teacher said she couldn’t because she didn’t know Ruby well enough. Patterns of avoidance may be so deeply ingrained in your lifestyle that you are not even aware that you are exhibiting them. Think carefully about your reactions to various situations. When you receive an invitation, do you instantly think of reasons why you can’t accept? When you are with a group of people, do you use escape mechanisms, such as reading a magazine, hiding in the restroom, or daydreaming? Avoidance may help lessen your anxiety in the moment, but in the long run, it usually makes things worse. Life is very unsatisfying when you avoid so many situations, and such behavior hurts self-esteem and self-confidence.

I never really felt Jo was right for Alex. She only wanted to go out with him because he was student body president.” You are so full of it, I thought. Images of red and white Christmas candy canes danced through my brain. I seized them and snapped their little striped necks. I flipped through my notebook, pretending to look for previously recorded information. “I understand he asked her to the prom.” “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Khandi said with a sniff. “But I’ll tell you this.” She leaned forward as if about to impart a great secret. “If Alex did ask her, it was because he felt sorry for her. But it totally backfired on him. I think that’s why Jo’s ghost is still here. She just can’t bear to let Alex go. Even she knows she’s a nobody without him.” Nobly, I resisted the impulse to stuff my notebook down her throat. “That’s an…interesting insight,” I said. “Oh, well,” Khandi said, sitting back and preening ever so slightly. “All the women in my family are like that.” “They know things and they have insights. Fascinating combination.

Without warning, he leaned down until our faces were close. Omigod, he’s going to kiss me, I thought. “Make me,” he said. “You want me to back off, fine. Prove to me you’re not Jo O’Connor and I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll flap my arms and fly to the moon.” “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “The other side of the room will be just fine.” He gave a breathy laugh, the air of it moving across my face, and eased back. “So, do we have a deal or not?” “What’s so important about the prom?” I asked. “Don’t be stupid, Calloway,” Mark said. “The ghost is practically expected. If she doesn’t show, I’ll know it’s because you’re not who you say you are. That Claire Calloway and the ghost of Jo O’Connor are one and the same. They can’t be in the same place at the same time.” “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, though my heart was beating so hard I thought for sure it was going to burst right through my clothes. “Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, should you?” “I don’t have anything to worry about,” I said. “Fine.” “Fine. I’ll clear things with Rob. In the meantime, stay away from me, London. Or I might develop a sudden illness which will prevent me from attending the prom at all.” “Chicken,” he said. “You’d so like to think so.” This time when I attempted to move past him, he let me go. I’d only gone a few steps before he called after me. “Hey, Calloway.” Reluctantly I turned back. “What?” “Save me a dance, will you?” I smiled sweetly. “Only if you wear one of those cute little plaid cummerbunds.

Hey, Calloway.” Reluctantly I turned back. “What?” “Save me a dance, will you?” I smiled sweetly. “Only if you wear one of those cute little plaid cummerbunds.

You’re awfully quiet,” Mark observed. “I was just wondering,” I said. “Wondering if he’ll ever tell her.” Mark cocked his head to one side, his eyes on Elaine and Alex. “I doubt it,” he said after a moment. “Crawford strikes me as the true-blue type. Now that Jo O’Connor’s dead…” He let his voice trail off. “Pretty much what I was thinking,” I said. “Of course,” Mark said promptly, “if he knew that Jo was still alive…” “You never give up, do you?” I asked. He gave me his devil’s grin. “Nope. So whaddaya think, Calloway? Do I get that dance?” “Let’s see the cummerbund.” His expression blandly agreeable, Mark stood up. I laughed before I could help myself. Mark’s cummerbund was black with hot pink polka dots. “I believe I specified plaid,” I said. “Give me a break here, will you Calloway? I got the ugliest one I could find.” “You definitely did do that,” I said. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “One dance,” I said. “We’re supposed to be working, you know.” “One dance,” he agreed as the first dance ended and the crowd applauded. He held out a hand. I took it and let him ease me out onto the dance floor. The band settled into its first slow number and Mark London pulled me slowly but surely into his arms.

So whaddaya think, Calloway? Do I get that dance?” “Let’s see the cummerbund.” His expression blandly agreeable, Mark stood up. I laughed before I could help myself. Mark’s cummerbund was black with hot pink polka dots. “I believe I specified plaid,” I said. “Give me a break here, will you Calloway? I got the ugliest one I could find.” “You definitely did do that,” I said. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “One dance,” I said. “We’re supposed to be working, you know.” “One dance,” he agreed as the first dance ended and the crowd applauded. He held out a hand. I took it and let him ease me out onto the dance floor. The band settled into its first slow number and Mark London pulled me slowly but surely into his arms.

We didn’t believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip. Like the time we all thought First John, our head usher, was messing around on his wife because Betty, the pastor’s secretary, caught him cozying up at brunch with another woman. A young, fashionable woman at that, one who switched her hips when she walked even though she had no business switching anything in front of a man married forty years. You could forgive a man for stepping out on his wife once, but to romance that young woman over buttered croissants at a sidewalk café? Now, that was a whole other thing. But before we could correct First John, he showed up at Upper Room Chapel that Sunday with his wife and the young, hip-switching woman—a great-niece visiting from Fort Worth—and that was that. When we first heard, we thought it might be that type of secret, although, we have to admit, it had felt different. Tasted different too. All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we’d taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season. But we didn’t. We shared this sour secret, a secret that began the spring Nadia Turner got knocked up by the pastor’s son and went to the abortion clinic downtown to take care of it. She was seventeen then. She lived with her father, a Marine, and without her mother, who had killed herself six months earlier. Since then, the girl had earned a wild reputation—she was young and scared and trying to hide her scared in her prettiness. And she was pretty, beautiful even, with amber skin, silky long hair, and eyes swirled brown and gray and gold. Like most girls, she’d already learned that pretty exposes you and pretty hides you and like most girls, she hadn’t yet learned how to navigate the difference. So we heard all about her sojourns across the border to dance clubs in Tijuana, the water bottle she carried around Oceanside High filled with vodka, the Saturdays she spent on base playing pool with Marines, nights that ended with her heels pressed against some man’s foggy window. Just tales, maybe, except for one we now know is true: she spent her senior year of high school rolling around in bed with Luke Sheppard and come springtime, his baby was growing inside her. — LUKE SHEPPARD WAITED TABLES at Fat Charlie’s Seafood Shack, a restaurant off the pier known for its fresh food, live music, and family-friendly atmosphere. At least that’s what the ad in the San Diego Union-Tribune said, if you were fool enough to believe it. If you’d been around Oceanside long enough, you’d know that the promised fresh food was day-old fish and chips stewing under heat lamps, and the live music, when delivered, usually consisted of ragtag teenagers in ripped jeans with safety pins poking through their lips.

... but when Martha left, I stayed. I thought that because I was drunk, maybe everything would be different, that as the night waned, Cross would eventually come to me. But instead, when the DJ played "Stairway to Heaven" as the last song of the night, Cross slow-danced with Horton Kinnelly and then the song ended and they stood side by side, still close together, Cross rubbing his hand over Norton's back. It all felt both casual and random--in the last four minutes they seemed to have become a couple. And though they had not interacted for the entire night, I understood suddenly that just as I'd been eyeing Cross over the last several hours, he'd been eyeing Horton, or maybe it had been for much longer than that. He too had been saving something for the end, but the difference between Cross and me was that he made choices, he exerted control, his agenda succeeded. Mine didnt. I waited for him, and he didn't look at me. And that was what the rest of senior week was like, though it surprised me less each time, at each party, and by the end of the week, Cross and Horton weren't even waiting until it was late and they were drunk--you'd see them entwined in the hammock at John Brindley's house in the afternoon, or in the kitchen at Emily Phillip's house, Cross sitting on a bar stool and Horton perched on his lap.

The Senior Ball was upon us and I didn’t have a date. Having spent my high school years attending this school didn’t help. Perhaps I should have invited Thelma. Now, that would have been something! Looking back I wonder what would have happened if I had? Everyone at the school knew Thelma, and Ridell High, being a snobbish school in a snobbish town, would certainly have ostracized the two of us. Besides, Thelma was just a little too old for me and I was just too chicken to bring the town’s hottest girl to the schools biggest function.

In Western society, he argues, the sick are sidelined, and stripped of their humanity. “Once you get admitted to a hospital,” he says, “you become a leukemia. You become a hypercholesterolemia. You become a diagnosis.” Whereas in Lourdes, he reckons, the sick are treated not as diseases but as people, equal to the most senior doctor. “It is normal in Lourdes to sing together, to pray together, to chat, to dance, to have beer.