“No, it’s Samantha Halvino. H-A-L-V-I-N-O” I said, putting an emphasis on the last letter, pretending to be
annoyed as the sweet lady sitting behind the fold out table tenderly perused
through the list of names that were right in front of her. My heart was
pounding, they were asking my friend for her student ID and I didn't know what I would say if they asked. I kept looking away and folding
my arms - all an act, mostly because I saw the patrolman standing at the front door making sure that there wasn’t any mischief happening that night. Little did he know
that mischief was right under his nose. And I was terrified.
“Ah, there
you are, Samantha.” She smiled up at me and I half smiled back, holding out the
$10.00 I owed her.
“It says
here you are pre-paid?” She looked at me quizzically. Uh oh…
“Oh,
really? Mom must have sent it in.” I glanced at my friend who was having
problems herself, as her name hadn’t been found yet. I felt my face start to
turn red as I began to realize what I was going to be doing if I took the ticket. The lady narrowed her eyes. “Hey, uh…
my friends are coming soon how much later are you letting people in?” I asked,
trying to be cool but feeling like they were going to catch on any moment; honestly they couldn't be THAT stupid. I held
my breath and shot a small glance at the officer standing by the door, HE WAS
STARING RIGHT AT ME. What did they do, have some kind of signal? Did she press a button under the table?
“We are
closing down in about 45 minutes, sweetheart, tell them to hurry on up.” she looked down and checked Samantha's name off. I smiled
at her and huddled next to my friend who was finally getting things figured out after showing her student ID. They found her name and I let out
a silent sigh as she went through the rest of her formalities.
“Ready,
Samantha?” she smiled up at me as more kids flooded in and pushed us towards
the entrance. We pushed through to get stand in line for the coat check, I reached into my pocket to grab a couple bucks, my hands were starting to shake a little.
“Samantha??”
a woman’s voice called from behind, I felt a hand grab my shoulder.
Driving through Kansas is always a bit of a commitment, though
pretty it can be very tedious - traveling between endless fields of corn,
barley, hay and oats. This time of year isn’t so bad, the rainy season just
ended and so everything was still green, the hills weren’t as dusty as usual
and the trees were still full. I grew up on these roads, dad had to travel for
work and we homeschooled so we could travel with him. We would count the hawks
that perched on the fences that lined the roads, play the alphabet game with
road signs and license plates and count the mile markers to our destination. Understandably we never did our homework, or would do it for ten minutes at a time
because there was just too much to do while riding in the car, too much to complain about.
It’s a sin
to play anything but country as you travel west in Kansas and honestly nothing
else fits as you leave the big cities, seeing the horses and fields and barns. It is a simple state, not a lot happening compared
to even the countryside in California, but there is a lot of life lived behind the scenes.
Fruit stand signs dot the exits and almost every stop has a trucker’s lodge and
nasty, old fast food. It’s actually a very calming drive because you have time to
think, you cannot do anything but focus on what is running through
your mind and that was a bit of a relief. The farther you get into the state the more dusty and as some people would call it "hick" you get, though it isn't so much that as it is just a simpler way of living. You make do with what you have and you store up what you don't know you will need in the future, everyone says "hello" and you talk to them as if you have known them for years.
I finally made it to my destination and had barely enough time to change at my friend's house before jumping back into the car with my friend in tow. Downtown
Lawrence, as you could expect, seems to not have changed in 30 years. Everything has an old town feel on the outside of the buildings, with false fronts and modern western-style decor. It is a college town so the
people that walk around are typically of the younger variety so it has this upbeat, country, hipster, vintage flavor when you drive through Main Street which would be strange except that it's just how Kansas works.
“This
reminds me of home.” I smiled at Anna as she sat nervously on the seat next to
me. She was the last friend of mine that was graduating from high school, she
was all set for college in the fall at Kansas State and I couldn’t be more
proud of her. We grew up together in small town about four hours east of here, surrounded by farm
country and people who had been around for at least four generations. Everyone’s
family lived just across town where you could get to them in five minutes (even
during “rush hour”). She looked up at me and slightly smiled before staring
back down at her lap. “Remember the old farm right outside of our neighborhood?
The one with the red and white striped silo that everyone saw when they came
into town?” I said trying to get her mind off of things.
“Yea.” She
laughed a little, “And Whittaker Park right down the street.”
“Where we
climbed up on that huge cement gate structure thing?”
“And the
teeter-totters that no one should have played on?”
We were
laughing as we pulled into the school parking lot.
“Keep
driving through here, you can park next to the field, no one will park back
here.” She said as we broke away from the massive line of cars.
“Find me
after, here’s my phone.” She handed it to me and got out of the car by the
entrance.
“Good luck!” I yelled as she smiled and closed
the door. I parked and prepared myself for another LONG graduation.
“Common, Kelli! You have to come with
me.” Anna said, as we were finishing up cleaning her graduation party at one of the local restaurants. My face full of another red velvet cupcake, I almost choked as I laughed. After having just finished
my last full year of college, it seemed silly that she wanted me to come to her Grad Night. “It’s
going to be fun and I don’t want you sitting alone at my house.”
“How am I
going to get in?”
“Here, do
you have the ceremony booklet thing?” Anna’s friend asked me. I shuffled in my
bag for a moment before producing the crumbled blue and black program from earlier today. “Here lets look.” She held the booklet open for both Anna and her to see.
“Well… I
don’t think she would go… maybe her?”
“No she
said she would be there for sure.”
“What about
Michelle? She said she didn’t know if she was coming or not.” Anna suggested.
“No, no.
You don’t want to run that risk.”
“Hannah?”
“She’s
going for sure. Hmmm.” She looked up at me and then it was like a light bulb popped on
in her head. “Her.” She pointed at a name and Anna smiled up at me.
“Hello,
Samantha.” She stuck out her hand to shake mine.
“Samantha??”
I felt the firm grasp on my arm and looked back hesitantly. I’m done for.
“Yes?” I
hesitantly replied as one of the teacher helpers that had been helping to
distribute the tickets looked down at me. She smiled and held out a couple little
pieces of paper.
“You forgot
these.” She handed them to me and told me how to enter the raffle. I sighed and
looked at Anna who almost couldn’t control her laughter. I thanked the lady and
took the tickets.
“You should
totally enter the raffle!” Anna prodded. I looked at her and felt a huge
sinking feeling in my stomach.
“What if
she comes??” I hissed at her, “I just took her ticket that she PRE-PAID!
They’re going to come down and kick me out!”
“You’re
going to be fine, if she didn’t show up by now then she isn’t coming.” I still
didn’t feel better. We threw our names into the raffle for the random prized
and also for the $500.00. “If you get that, it’s mine.” Anna laughed but I knew
he too well to know she was not kidding. We handed the people at the door our tickets and stepped inside. It was a massive room with a huge staircase that let down to a room full of games. There was a bull-riding pit, blow up booths that dropped money, a poker room, a dance floor… a high school kids dream. I don’t think I ever felt so happy to have grown up, looking around and just being able to feel the cliques shift throughout the entire room like mini herds of sheep. I guess that is one thing about traveling – no matter where you are or what you are doing there is always going to be the same type of human behavior, just a different flavor of what is expressed.
We walked around a bit and I met a few of Anna's friends, we joked around and told them about how I got in. It's different being back in Kansas, everyone was more polite and seemed more interested in asking questions about you, it was actually kind of nice to be back in this environment where people don't get out much and someone who is new in town is the biggest thing to talk about.
"Samantha Halvino!" I heard the name over the speakers. WHAT! I grabbed Anna's arm and stared at the DJ desk. They were calling the raffle. Anna burst out laughing,
"You HAVE to go up there!"
No comments:
Post a Comment