06/27/2024
Fiction from John Buchholz
Hello. My name is Corky McPherson, and everybody in town knows what happened at our ninth-grade picnic last June, so I might as well tell you, and I might as well start at the beginning.
Excitement spread like a forest fire when Mr. Atkins announced that the picnic would be held at Roseland, that big amusement park over on Canandaigua Lake. My imagination immediately conjured up the merry-go-round and its shiny horses with their long, flowing manes and red nostrils, prancing to the brassy music of the big Wurlitzer band organ. And I could hear the claps of the shooting-gallery rifles and the clangs of the steel bullets hitting their targets. And I could see the bumper cars in their pavilion, whirling and colliding like drunken ladybugs, golden sparks spewing from the metal ceiling over their heads.
And everywhere—on the miniature golf course, in the penny arcade, on the Whip, and on the long space rockets that circled gracefully out over the lake—I saw Lauren Sutherland, the new girl in our class. And I pictured me holding her hand.
She had soft blue eyes, delicate lashes, and pale freckles that sprinkled her cheeks. Her flaxen hair swept her shoulders, and her delicate curves and Ipana-white smile melted me.
Somehow, before somebody else got to her, I had to work up the courage to ask her to go to the picnic with me. But I was sure she’d turn me down. She was pedigreed, and her parents had just bought the big Healy place up on the hill outside of town. She was fluent in French, had a horse, talked about Broadway shows, and wrote book reports about sophisticated stuff like the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. And I don’t think she’d ever noticed me.
I’d never asked a girl for a date before, and I spent all morning agonizing about what I should say.
Hi, Lauren. My name is Corky. Your hair looks very nice. I was just wondering if you’d like to go to the picnic with me.
Or, Pardon me, Lauren. We’ve never met. I’m Corky. How’s your horse? Would you go to the picnic with me?
Or, Hi, Lauren. My name is Corky, and some of my friends thought I should ask you to go to the picnic with me. So what do you think? Nothing seemed right.
Whenever she glanced my way during class, I smiled and hoped her eyes would meet mine, but they always swept right past me and back to her books. I thought about slipping a note into her locker out in the hallway. Dear Lauren, You don’t know me, but I’m in your class. My name is Corky, and if you’d meet me at the drinking fountain outside the gym after school today, I’d like to talk with you about something. I’m quite tall and I’ll be wearing a blue shirt.
But then I decided that a note wasn’t a good idea. She might show it to her friends or my friend Jimmy.
To read this entire story, pick up Issue Five of Bluff & Vine at Longs’ Cards and Books in Penn Yan, or by visiting amazon.com.
