Chapter Three: The Graduation Ceremony

It felt like being tied to the railroad tracks watching a train coming in the distance. Sure, I wasn’t screwed now, but regardless of what I did – at least according to Chris – Scotty Allen would find out it was actually a boy he was checking out, and not a girl.

What certainly didn’t help either is the fact that Chris’s cousin, Juan, had now twice mentioned Scotty’s fascination with that ‘girl’ he saw. How was I supposed to get out of this one? I must’ve been an absolute mess the next hour or so hanging out with him.

Enough is enough. I had to tell him. I paused our game and put down the controller.

“Dude! I was winning!” he yelled, quickly changing his tone when he saw my face. “Okay, seriously, what’s up?”

“I have something to confess…” I said solemnly.

“Oh no… don’t tell me you have a crush on Annie. I can’t handle friend drama right now, I just can’t.”

“What? No! Nothing like that!” I shouted back. Chris was always bad at reading the room. “Look, the girl that Scotty Allen saw… It was me.”

He stared at me blankly for a second. Then another second. And as rudely as I would have predicted, Chris started laughing in my face.

“Oh my God no WAY!” Chris was in stitches, rolling on the bed. “The hair! Holy crap it makes perfect sense! Dude, you got the eye of the most popular freshman at East!” Chris couldn’t contain himself. He could barely breathe.

But I was starting to get mad. “This is serious, man! There’s a popular boy who, if he finds out that it was a boy he was making googly eyes at, he’s gonna flip out and end high school for me before I know it! Do you not understand the stakes here??”

Chris was only starting to come down from his immense laugh attack. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just so f-u-n-n-y…”

I let him cool down for the next 5 minutes. But each time he said he was done laughing, he’d restart.

Finally, Chris was ready to talk about this like a normal person. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. So because of your hair, he thought you were a girl. Is that basically it?”

“I think so. There’s not really a reason for Scotty to think that otherwise.”

“Well…” Chris began.

He clearly wanted to say something. “Well…what?” I prodded.

“You’re, uh – and I don’t mean this in a bad way – not exactly the most manly guy in general, right? I mean you gotta admit that.”

As much as I didn’t love admitting he was right, he was right. “I know. I’m small, short, I always hear I have ‘delicate features’, and of course…the hair.”

Chris nodded. While I was an anxious mess, he had a refreshingly calm, curious demeanor. He didn’t have a quick solution. Nobody did. But I strangely trusted his instincts.

“Give me until graduation,” he said. “We’ll think of something.”

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Lots of people like to hate on middle schools and elementary schools for having graduation ceremonies. “It’s not a real graduation!” they’ll say. But there’s something to be said for closing a loop on a significant period of your life – even if it’s just the early tween years.

Much like the Toned concert (and so many other school events), the graduation was held in our gymnasium. Parents and students alike filled the gym, impressed by the decor and grandeur of the space. Students were seated in folding chairs, and parents and other family were seated in the bleachers behind. My perpetually out-of-town parents even showed up!

Our Principal, Mr. Winters, gave an opening speech and then handed it off to Ms. Reznik, a Spanish teacher and favorite of the students for another ‘go forth!’ type of speech. Lastly, the student council president gave her words of ‘wisdom’, and we soon moved into the presentation of diplomas. The reading of each kid’s name was usually followed by a little ‘woo!’ from the bleachers, likely coming from the proud parents. My parents, however, stayed silent. I didn’t mind it though – it’s not their vibe to be rowdy.

All in all, the ceremony was a quick 75 minutes and we were on our way. Friends and family gathered outside the school for pictures in our little red caps and gowns. Chris, Annie, and I took a picture together as our respective parents looked on at us, all proud and tearful.

I was even approached by some classmate acquaintances, looking to chat about the summer.

“Any plans for the summer, Jamie?” this boy named Thomas asked.

“Honestly, a lot of summer reading. And I’m working on a book of fantasy illustrations.” I explained.

“Oh, that’s super dope,” he said. “Anything in particular you wanna do with it?”

“I’m still not sure. Maybe I’ll turn the characters into a graphic novel some day? Maybe I just let ‘em collect dust. Either works for me!”

We shared a laugh and Thomas shared some stories about all the sports camps he planned to do. On that front I definitely couldn’t relate.

“Well anyway man, if you ever want to hang out over summer, let me know,” he said amiably. “I’m around, and never the worst thing to get some hangs in before heading to East.”

Thomas and I exchanged numbers. I liked that he showed the initiative. Thomas was always in the more ‘popular’ clique of kids, but now that a lot of his friends were going to a different high school, he was clearly looking to expand his group. Whatever the case, it was a nice gesture.

But just as Thomas was walking away, Annie came sprinting up to me. She looked furious. “JAMIE YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!”

I threw my hands up in surrender. “What, what! I didn’t do anything!”

Annie peered left and right to make sure nobody was listening. “Chris just told me that you were the ‘girl’ Scotty Allen was looking at?? Are you kidding me!?”

I rolled my eyes and looked over Annie’s shoulder. Chris was glancing over, shrugging bashfully. “Chris told you, didn’t he…”

“Yes, he told me! I can’t believe you’d try to hide that from me. Ugh! I’m heartbroken.”

“Woah woah woah, I’d appreciate a little sympathy,” I said, checking Annie’s self-centeredness. “You do understand how much of a bind I’m in, right?”

She scoffed. “Yeah, life must be sooo hard for you, having a popular boy interested in you.”

“Yes! It is.” I had to call over Chris.

We reexplained the whole thing to Annie and calmed her down. Though she thought it was the end of the world that an older boy – that she does not know, mind you – wasn’t actually into her, Annie quickly understood the stress this case of mistaken identity was causing me.

“Well, if you hens are done clucking, I think I found a solution to Jamie’s problem,” Chris announced. “Come over tonight and we’ll walk through it, okay?”

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Chris, Annie, and I all had our respective family celebrations. My parents and I went to Outback Steakhouse for a quiet meal (very much their decision), while Annie’s and Chris’s families had big backyard celebrations. By the time Annie and I got to the Correa household that night, his family party was still raging.

“Grab some punch, water, or whatever, and let’s go to my room,” Chris instructed us, the moment we got there.

We did as told and met Chris in the room. But when we got inside, there was another familiar face.

“Guys, this is my cousin, Juan,” Chris said. “You probably recognize him from Toned.”

I, of course, played it cool. But Annie immediately went into geek-out mode.

“Oh my god, I love love LOVE you guys!” she squealed, barreling into Juan and giving him a big hug.

“Heh, heh, thanks, Annie,” he muttered.

Her eyes went wide. “And you know my name?”

Chris groaned. “Alright, enough of this. I brought Juan in here because we have an idea on how to solve this. And Jamie, you have nothing to fear. He knows everything.”
Are you kidding me?! How could Chris go behind my back and spoil all of this to his cousin – much less his cousin who is friends with Scotty??

“I am so pissed at you right now…” I said through clenched teeth.

But Juan cooled the temperature. “Hey, listen. I’m an ally in this. I know that Scotty’s into you because he thinks you’re a girl. And none of this is your fault, okay?”

I stared at Juan. “Go on…”

“Chris can be an annoying little bastard sometimes, so I was hesitant to help him. But we’ve come up with a… transactional proposition.”

The seriousness of calling it a ‘transactional proposition’ scared me a bit, but maybe that’s just how juniors in high school talk.

Chris jumped in. “Look, we all want to start off on a good foot in high school, right? And Juan is, shall we say, a ‘popular’ guy. So I proposed that he gets us invited to things with the popular kids.”

Annie had a big smile on her face. “Seriously, Juan? You’d do that for us?”

“But I need something in return. I’m not about to just let my annoying cousin into all my parties without something in exchange.”

I had a bad feeling this ‘exchange’ involved me somehow. “What exchange…”

Juan stood up and paced the room. “Toned had a really good year, but the mood of our guys has been… lacking to say the least. And most of that is coming from Scotty.”

Chris was refusing to make eye contact with me throughout Juan’s speech.

“So when Scotty caught the eye of a cute girl that he was actually interested in, we were thrilled! We dreamed that she’d be going to Hinsdale East so he could meet her and be happy. And ever since he saw this girl, his mood has been way up. And therefore, so have his vocals. He sounds incredible! And that’s all with the prospect of meeting her…”

Juan was stumbling a bit. Even a guy of his confidence sometimes had trouble spitting out uncomfortable sentences, so Chris just jumped in. “Jamie, we need you to be that girl.”

I was flabbergasted. “What?! You guys are insane!”

Despite this clearly abhorrent request, nobody was really sharing in my shock.

“We do have a plan for this, you know. And I think it’s fair.” Juan said. “All you have to do is come to a few parties and events, pretending to be a girl. I’ll introduce you to Scotty where you guys will chat, have fun, and do whatever freshmen and sophomores do to become friends.”

I fervently shook my head. “But I’m going to high school with him next year. And I’m attending as me. Jamie. A BOY.”

Chris leaped up with his finger in the air. “But aha! Here’s the kicker. The girl version of you won’t be attending. Because this ‘girl’ is your ‘cousin’ that’s moving away. We’re thinking from Texas.”

This story was getting wilder and wilder. “Texas?” I wailed. “Are you guys insane? Seriously. We need to get a psychiatrist in here.”

“Or honestly, any lie will do.” Juan brushed off my fear with surprising ease. “Look, the whole point is this: we get Scotty’s confidence up, you get your connections at cool parties for high school. And at the end of all of that, everyone forgets all about the cousin, you’ll cut your hair–”

“I cut my hair?” I said, cutting off Juan.

“Yeah… I mean, we need a way to differentiate you for the new school year. Cut your hair in a few weeks when your cousin ‘leaves’. Then ‘boy Jamie’ can start attending the parties, and nobody will ever think you were anyone else. You’ll still have, like, most of the summer to grow your friendships and get all set for high school.”

I paused. Despite the absurd nature of this whole arrangement, I did envision a world where this all worked out.

“Well, what if I refuse?”

Juan looked over at Chris. “Then Toned will suck, and you guys will go back to being lame.”

Annie grabbed my shoulders. “This is a win-win for everybody. I desperately need Toned in my life.”

I thought about it some more. Silently.

“Three events,” Chris said, then appealing to Juan, who agreed. “Just three events. That’s all you need to do. Go to three events as a girl. Talk to Scotty, get him out of his funk, and then your ‘cousin’ can leave town forever. Toned gets its guy back, we get a whole new bunch of friends for high school, and you get to enter high school as a fresh-faced freshman with a cool new men’s haircut. I’ll even help you pick it out!”

In a life full of sighing, I don’t think I ever sighed this intensely. But trust me, it was warranted.

“...Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll be your girl.”

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I've re-edited and picked this story back up after all these years. Look out for a new chapter every week or so :)

-Jennifer