“So, what? You brought us out here to soften us up? Make us feel all patriotic or somethin'?” Jesse said. “'Cause that ain't enough, Brosey. Hell, what are you thinkin', man? You could get a leg blown off or something. Then how you gonna wrestle? Then it's over! You got it made! You got Penn freakin' State. What? You want the Hawkeyes? They'd take you, ya know. A big guy that moves like a little guy–a 197 pounder that shoots like he's still 152? What you bench pressin' now, Brose? There isn't anyone who can hang with you, man! You gotta go to school!”
Jesse didn't stop talking as they left the makeshift memorial and pulled back out onto the highway heading for home. Jesse had been a state champ too, just like Ambrose. But Ambrose hadn't just done it once. Four-time state champ, undefeated the last three years, the first Pennsylvania wrestler to win a state championship as a freshman in the upper weights. He'd been 160 pounds as a freshman. His only loss had come early in the year at the hands of the reigning state champ, who was a senior. Ambrose pinned him at state. That win had put him in the record books.
Jesse threw his hands up and swore, letting loose a string of obscenities that made even Beans, Mr. foul-mouth himself, feel a little uncomfortable. Jesse would kill to be in Ambrose's position.
“You got it made, man!” he said again, shaking his head. Beans handed Jesse the flask and patted his back, trying to soothe his incredulous friend.
They rode in silence once more. Grant was at the wheel out of habit. He never drank and had designated himself the driver and caretaker ever since they all started driving, even though Paulie and Ambrose hadn't partaken in the comfort that Beans had to offer that night.
“I'm in,” Grant said quietly.
“What?” Jesse screeched, spilling what was left in the flask down the front of his shirt.
“I'm in,” Grant repeated. “They'll help me pay for school, right? That's what the recruiter said. I gotta do something. I sure as hell don't want to farm for the rest of my life. At the rate I'm saving money, I'll finish college when I'm forty-five.”
“You just swore, Grant,” Paulie whispered. He'd never heard Grant swear. Ever. None of them had.
“It's about damn time,” Beans howled, laughing. “Next we just gotta get him laid! He can't go to war without knowing the pleasure of a woman's body.” Beans said this in his best Don Juan, Latin lover voice. Grant just sighed and shook his head.
“What about you, Beans?” Ambrose asked with a smirk.
“Me? Oh, I know all about the pleasure of a woman's body,” Beans continued on in accented English, his eyebrows waggling.
“The army, Beans. The army. What about it?”
“Sure. Hell, yeah. Whatever.” Beans acquiesced with a shrug. “I got nothin' better to do
Jesse groaned loudly and put his head in his hands.
“Paulie?” Ambrose asked, ignoring Jesse's distress. “You in?”
Paulie looked a little stricken, his loyalty to his friends warring with his self-preservation. “Brose . . . I'm a lover. Not a fighter,” he said seriously. “The only reason I wrestled was to be with you guys, and you know how much I hated it. I can't imagine combat.”
“Paulie?” Beans interjected.
“Yeah, Beans?”
“You may not be a fighter, but you aren't a lover either. You need to get laid, too. Guys in uniform get laid. A lot.”
“So do rock stars, and I am a lot better with a guitar than I am with a gun,” Paulie countered. “Plus, you know my mom would never let me.” Paul's dad had been killed in a mining accident when he was nine years old and his younger sister was a baby. His mom had moved back home to Hannah Lake with her two little kids to be closer to her parents and ended up staying.
“You may have hated wrestling, Paulie. But you were good at it. You'll be a good soldier, too.”
Paulie chewed his lip but didn't answer and the car fell silent, each boy lost in his own thoughts.
“Marley wants to get married,” Jesse said after a long lull. “I love her, but . . . everything is moving so damn fast. I just want to wrestle. Surely some school out West wants a black kid that likes white people, right?”
“She wants to get married?” Beans was stunned. “We're only eighteen! You better come with us, Jess. You gotta grow up some before you let Marley put a collar on you. Plus, you know the saying. Brose Before 'Ho's,” he quipped, playing on Ambrose's name.
Jesse sighed in surrender. “Ah, hell. America needs me. How can I say no?”
Groans and laughter ensued. Jesse had always had a pretty inflated ego.
“Hey, doesn't the army have a wrestling team?” Jesse sounded almost cheerful at the thought.
“Paulie?” Ambrose asked again. Paulie was the lone hold-out, and out of everyone, Paulie would be the hardest for him to leave behind. He hoped he wouldn't have to.
“I don't know, man. I guess I gotta grow up sometime. I bet my dad would be proud of me if I did. My great grandpa served in WWII. I just don't know.” He sighed. “Joining the army seems like a good way to get myself killed.”
There wasn't a fancy hotel or a posh location anywhere near Hannah Lake to have the Prom, so Hannah Lake High School made do decorating their gymnasium with hundreds of balloons, twinkle lights, hay bales, fake trees, gazebos, or whatever the prom theme dictated.
This year's theme was “I Hope You Dance,” an inspirational song which offered no inspiration with regard to decorating ideas. So the twinkle lights and balloons and gazebos made yet another appearance at yet another Hannah Lake High School Prom, and as Fern sat next to Bailey, staring out onto the gymnasium floor filled with swirling couples, she wondered if the only thing that had changed in fifty years was the style of the dresses.
Fern fiddled with the neckline of her own dress, smoothing her hand over the creamy folds, swishing her legs back and forth, watching the way the skirt draped to the floor, thrilling at the hint of gold sparkle when the fabric caught the light. She and her mother had found the dress on a clearance rack at a Dillards in Pittsburg. It had been marked down over and over again, most likely because it was a dress made for a tiny girl in a color that was not fashionable among tiny girls. But taupe looked good on red heads, and the dress looked wonderful on Fern.