[sinclairfan]

1981 BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS

My name is Lisa.  I'm 54 years old now, and wanted to tell my story while I still have the chance.  I had to grow up fast my senior year of high school, and thought you might want to hear about it.

I was adopted in the mid-1960s under circumstances that, to this day, I don't care to investigate.  I was the only child in a loving home in Brockton, Massachusetts.  They made shoes in Brockton until around 1973 or so, when they didn't anymore.  All the shoe factories moved, pretty much at once, to Taiwan and Hong Kong. 

When that happened, Brockton became a less nice place to grow up.  We learned a new word:  unemployment, or unemployed.  Brockton went from being famous for shoes to being famous for the World Middleweight boxing champion, Marvin Hagler.  When your most famous resident is a boxer, you know your upbringing is going to be tough.  The rest of Eastern Massachusetts rebounded with the "Route 128 Miracle" around 1977 or so, but not Brockton.  To this day, we haven't recovered from the loss of the shoe factories.

My parents tried to shield me from the steadily deteriorating conditions in Brockton by sending me to the city's Catholic schools; Trinity Academy for elementary and middle school, then to Cardinal Spellman High School.  But CSHS knew that since the competition to get admitted was fierce, they could get progressively more selective, and had an unwritten policy of identifying and shedding what they considered to be dead wood each year.  It was called "Spring Cleaning".

Strike One against me was that I was adopted, a vestige of 1950s intolerance still alive in the early 1980s.  Strike Two was that I never did find a solid academic or athletic niche.  Strike Three came in the spring of 1981, just in time for Spring Cleaning.  My parents got divorced.  This was 1981.  In a Catholic school.  Divorce still carried with it the whiff of scandal.  I was asked to leave CSHS.  Not that my newly-single mom would have been able to drive me in the morning anyways.  At least ..... that's what I told myself to ease the sting of rejection.

Now, this next part ....  well, you're just going to have to go with me on this.  I was an 18 year old blonde, with horrible academic self-esteem, no social niche, attending public school for the first time in my life.  One of the largest, toughest, hardest public schools in America, Brockton High School.  And I was walking there, and back home, thru some pretty rough neighborhoods.  The nice girls considered me hard, and the hard girls considered me to be stuck up.  I wasn't invited into either clique, and realized when the school year started I would need to keep a low profile.

Because I was painfully aware that the public school girls all knew how to fight, and I didn't.  Catholic schools knew that their selling point to parents was that they shielded their enrollees from the two harsh realities from diminished Brockton:  teen sex, and fighting.  And they were true to their word on both counts--my K thru 10 education was antiseptically free of both.  Which left me perfectly unequipped for my new environment, inside the school doors and out.

I walked to school the first day of my junior year with a senior named Craig.  He had been a star on the Brockton football team until he ruined his knee two years before.  He still suited up with the team and travelled with them, but knew he would never play again.  And which meant that instesd of going to a big fancy college like UNH or URI on a football scholarship, Craig was going to go, next September, down Route 24 to Bridgewater State.

At least, that's what his girlfriend, a Brockton High School senior named Wendy told him he would do.  She also told me she'd kick my ass after school for walking with him that morning.

To be continued.....

[catftluver]

Waiting for it, could be a massacre!! I hope...

[sinclairfan]

FIRST DAY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL

Although I had never been in an actual girlfight, declining Wendy's fight challenge was of course not an option, not by a longshot.  Running from a fight would cement my reputation in Brockton forever, and not in a good way.

But getting my ass kicked by Wendy while 15 to 20 Brockton slack-jawed yokels stood around in a circle watching was not appealing to me, either.  I needed to think of a third option, and fast.

Cardinal Spellman girls, when they fought, did do against girls from our rival school, Archbishop Williams, which was up the road in Braintree.  We'd run into them either at Spellman-Williams football or basketball games, or at the new mall in Braintree where we'd be wearing gear from our respective schools.  Since none of the fights ever seemed to happen in public, urban legends would go around that the Catholic school custom was to fight at home, be it inside or in the backyard.  Even public school kids had heard these legends.

I decided to make this urban legend work to my advantage against Wendy.  I got in her face against her locker after 4th period, and invited her to meet me in my house after school, in private, just the two of us.  A vocational senior named Harry was standing next to her, holding her books, and heard every word I said.

Wendy said yes.

I couldn't believe it.  Did she say yes because she didn't want to fight in public, either?  Or did she say yes so she could beat me up and then ransack my house?

I went in the Brockton High School girls' room--or, I should say, 1 of 17 of them (versus just 3 at Spellman)-- and I peed.  That's a lie.  I masturbated.  Uncontrollably, barely muffling my groans.  All I could think about was pulling Wendy's straight auburn hair.  Auburn.  I'd always loved that word.  Girls with hair that was brunette, but streaks of red underneath.

I'd always wanted to pull hair like that.  Straight out of the scalp.  Gitls like that from Williams who hung out at the Braintree Mall.

I never had.

Until this afternoon.

I'd do it this afternoon.  Wendy's hair.  In my nails.  On my living room floor.

Good.

11:37 now.  School gets out at 2:40.

Three hours.  And three minutes.

Can't get here soon enough.

Good.

To be continued.....

[goredsox]

I live right near Brockton!! My mother graduated in the late 70s from Brockton High.  Funny you mention the Braintree Mall...It's a great mall! I was there a month or two ago

[femfitefan]

Great to see you back with a new story.  Can't wait to see where you go with it!

[sinclairfan]

"I HEARD YOU GIRLS FIGHT TOPLESS"

My final period of the day on my schedule at BHS was science.  Since it was just the first day of school, we got our textbooks, paired up with lab partners, at then waited for the last bell to ring.  The teacher allowed quiet chat with our lab partners. 

Mine was a cute-ish cheer girl, who was in tune with the BHS grapevine, and had heard rumblings that Wendy wanted to fight me for walking to school with a senior she considered hers.  This re-affirmed the wisdom of my decision both to get the fight over with quickly and to do so privately.  I remained mum as to the timing or location of the fight, but squashed any hope the cheer girl might have to pass along ripe gossip for interested potential witnesses by assuring her that Wendy and I had mutually arranged for a private settling of our dispute.

I was surprised by the cheer girl's next question.

"Are private fights one of the things Catholic girls do?"

Now, some context:  the late 1970s and early 1980s were a time of convulsive change in the Catholic Church, especially in Boston.  We were transitioning from Communion rails to Communion lines, from the wafer on the tongue from a priest to in the hand from a lay person, from Confession in a booth to face to face, from alter boys to alter girls, etc.  For lapsed Catholics like the cheer girl, the changes only deepened the mystery of the rites and rituals of the Catholic Church, and all sorts of rumors were rife of what went on behind the doors of CSHS.  I decided to see what other rumors I could draw out of her.

"Yeah, you caught us," I blushed.  "At Spellman and at Williams, we sign a pledge form to fight only in private.  After all, you've never seen a fight with any of us in it, right?  Even at  Braintree Mall?  Hafta maintain the reputation of the school."

"Yeah, I did notice that," the cheer girl engaged with me.  I was pretty sure I had her hooked.

"What else did you hear about our fights?", I teased.

"I heard you girls fight topless," the cheer girl whispered to me.  I heard the words, but couldn't quite believe them.  It was a good thing I had masturbated earlier in the restroom, or I would have been unable to keep my composure and continue this enlightening conversation.

"Oh, of course, that's a given.  Remember, we wear uniforms at Catholic school, and getting one torn or stained would be a no-no."

"Yeah, I kinda figured," the cheer girl knowingly nodded. 

The period was rapidly drawing to a close, much to my regret.  Even though no one knew much of anything about me, it turns out my Catholic school background meant people THOUGHT this knew things about me, no matter how ungrounded or outrageous. 

What did Wendy assume she knew about me?

Was she assuming I challenged her to a private fight as part of some Catholic schoolgirl custom?

Her biggest advantage in our fight later today was that I had never been in a fight, even against a sibling.  Was she clueless about holding this advantage?

Was she expecting us to fight topless?

And is that why she agreed to my proposed setting for the fight?

Had she declined a public fight because she thought she might lose?

Had I stumbled into a way to salvage a face-saving draw with her?

What did Wendy look like topless?

What?  Where did that thought come from?

Focus, Lisa, focus.  You're about to have your first-ever girlfight in less than 30 minutes.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

"RUMPUS ROOM?"

I ran home from school and raided my mom's perfume cabinet, spraying myself in every crevice and orifice.  Under and over my clothes.  I wanted to smell my best for the fight, reality gradually setting in that she and I would be smelling each others' clothes and bodies.  I'm so inexperienced at this fighting thing, I'll be lucky if I don't thoroughly embarrass myself.

Wendy knocks on my door.  I look thru the peephole; phew, she's alone.  I don't know what I would have done if she had brought someone.  Call the cops?  Have them arrest her for not coming alone to a girlfight?

I open the door.  I look her in the eye, but she doesn't meet my stare, looking downward instead.  I'm encouraged, but a little disappointed too.  Wendy's hair is so pretty, even at 2:40 in the afternoon, but her face is a little broken out, just a tiny bit, around her chin.  Is she self-conscious about it? 

She smells so good--where is that coming from?  Her hair?  Is she wearing cologne?  Or is it just her gum?  I think it's her gum.  Is she going to take it out before the fight?  Is she seriously going to fight me while chewing gum?

She brushes by me at the foor.  Was that a test?  Was I supposed to kick her ass and block her from coming in?  Who said she could come in?

She's checking out the inside of my house.  I alresdy know it's nicer than hers, but not by much.  There's not many super-nice houses in Brockton.

"Rumpus room?", she asks, directing herself to the room by grandmother used to call by that name.  It's a spare room with a futon.  Does she want to fight there?  Not that it's a bad idea.  Less stuff to break there.

I shut the door behind us.  It comes across as more confrontational than I planned.  I don't want her to feel cornered.

On a hunch from my conversation with my cheer girl lab partner, and also because I don't trust my voice not to shake, I start taking off my top.  Wendy starts taking off hers.  So, Wendy has heard the Catholic school girl ritual topless fight urban legends, too.  Or, maybe they're actually true, at least partially.

Shit, Wendy's nipples are pointy.  Nothing like mine.  I try to not stare.  She sure isn't staring at mine.  How many girls' breasts has she seen before today.  And in what circumstances?  Fights?  Sleepovers?

We raise up our fists.  I hit the zits on her chin on a hunch that they must hurt to get hit.  She hits my chin with a right I never see coming.  Shit, is she that hard, or am I that soft?  Or both?

To be continued.....

[sinclairfan]

HAIRPULLING

There's nothing like a smack in the jaw that you never saw coming to make you reconsider tactics in a fight that just started.

I didn't particularly want my mom to see blood from my mouth on the carpet of the room that Wendy and I were fighting in.  Or even worse, that I invited someone inside the house during school.

So out of desperation, I threw my arms around Wendy's head and pulled her upper body close to mine.  I was trying to make it impossible gor Wendy to wind up and slug me--it was a move I had seen Marvin Hagler's opponents use on TV anytime he was starting to connect with them with combinations of punches. 

The referee would then step in and separate the boxers, but there was no referee in the room with Wendy and me, and we both quickly became aware of our isolation.  And of our nakedness.  Our chests were pressing close together, and our aroused state was unmistaksble and unhidable.  I was somewhat ashamed of my hardening breasts, but very much more terrified of Wendy's right fist.  So I pulled her tighter to me, and sank my nose in her hair.

I became aware of an oily sensation in Wendy's hair.  I thought of the moderate outbreak on Wendy's chin, and felt pride in my clear skin and the sheen and tint of my blonde hair.  I felt competitive with Wendy over the attentions of the boy who had walked me to school.

I called Wendy ,"Bitch", the first girl I had ever called by that word.

Wendy put her head down and slammed me into the back of the door.

To be continued....

[chuckles]

Fantastic! I cannot wait for more!

[sinclairfan]

"I'M THE BAD GIRL"

As I grasped for dear life onto Wendy's shoulders, pulling her close to me so she couldn't wind up to punch me, Wendy responded by bucking her hips into mine.  I could tell she was trying to kick and knee me, so I pulled her in even tighter to me to deprive her of every inch she needed to get momentum to hurt me. 

The result of out struggle was that we were rhythmically slamming into the closed door of the rumpus room.  The sound and the visual made me think of that raw scene in the "Godfather" movie where Sonny is banging, pun intended, the bridesmaid at his sister's wedding reception.  In order to distract Wendy, I decide to invoke the urban legend that all public school girls have "done it" by age 18, and no Catholic girls have.

> Is this how you and your boyfriend do it, bitch?, I hiss.

> He's your boyfriend, not mine, Lisa.

> Fuck you, Wendy, I barely know him.  He just walks me to school.

> Well, I don't even know him well enough to get walked to school. 

Our banging gets more rhythmic.  Wendy is letting her emotions give me a window into her psyche.  I may not have figured out a way to hurt her physically yet, but maybe I can hurt her with my words.

>  Cut the shit, Wendy.  He's YOUR boyfriend, and I'M stealing him from YOU.

> Fuck you, Lisa.  I'M THE BAD GIRL.

Why does Wendy need to be the bad girl?  And for me to be a good girl?  Does she get off bullying good girls?  Is that why she picked a fight with me on the first day of school?  By my being new, is she able to project onto me some fantasy she has in her mind about some ideal girl she wants to beat up, and then sleep with that girl's "boyfriend"?  Is this whole fight foreplay for her?  Am I just a prop?

My competitiveness kicks in.  Not only will I not let her win this fight.  I'll hurt her so bad, she can't have, or at least enjoy, sex tonight.

I pull her closer.  Our bodies are completely bearhugged together.  I move my hand into her scalp, dig my nails into her hair, and begin twisting.  Wendy releases moans of pain and frustration, and pulls at my hair, tearing entire patches out and then grabbing more.  We twist and lean near the door, starting to pull each other down into a side-by-side jackknife.  We are both now too scared to release our grip on the sleeping grizzly we have awoken.

We fall to the floor in a bearhug, rolling back and forth in the narrow confines. 

If Wendy had hopes I'd be crying by now like the other good girls she's done this to in the past, she's by now aware that she was sadly mistaken.

To be continued.....

[sinclairfan]

FLESH ON FLESH

A few years after my 1981 after school catfight with Wendy, I became familiar with the warm, soft, sweaty flesh on flesh sensation which occurs during intimate sexual encounters or prolonged girlfights.  But that particular Wednesday afternoon, those were still foreign feelings to me, my Catholic upbringing having steered me away from either experience. 

I was acutely self-conscious of my rookie status in both departments, both in absolute terms, but also in comparison with my de-flowered AND bullying opponent.  So, imagine my surprise when Wendy's face began flinching at contact, even the most indirect brushing against, my face, my armpits, my chest, even my hair.  I had noticed quickly in our fight the transition of Wendy's attractive hair from soft and silky to oily and stringy, and was willing to concede that our heavy laboring had worked a similar transformation on my blonde coiffure.  But unlike my more experience co-combatant, I accepted close contact with the deteriorating head of hair as a necessary price to be paid for the wages of war.  Wendy seemed less able to block out the signals her senses were sending to her.

As we struggled on the floor, hopeful thoughts penetrated my consciousness.  What- if?- thoughts.

As in:

What if, instead of being a fighter or brawler, Wendy was more of a bully, picking easy marks like me and bullying them into submission?

What if, Wendy had never had someone change fight tactics on-the-fly to neutralize Wendy's admittedly lightning fast right cross?

What if, Wendy had never been in a long fight like this?

What if, Wendy enjoyed beating girls up, but not actually fighting them?

What if, I do this to you, Wendy?, I hiss, as I twist her left breast with my right hand.

What if, I'm not the only rookie here? 

What if, we decide to have a kind of fight, a bitchfight, that neither of us has ever been in before? 

What if, I have the stomach for that kind of fight, and Wendy doesn't?

Who's the rookie, now, Wendy?

To be continued.....

[sinclairfan]

RETALIATION

Instead of responding to my escalation of our catfight in kind, with a similar twisting of a vulnerable, exposed body part on my upper body, Wendy did something which was as surprising as it was frightening.

She covered my nose and mouth with her cupped hand.

The seal she managed to lock onto my face and breathing passages was immediate and fully effective.  I could neither inhale to breathe, nor exhale to yell out in anger, or, as the seconds passed, in pleas for mercy.  As I became lightheaded and nauseous from lack of oxygen, the words which were on my tongue but unable to express themselves and be heard were, "I give, Wendy, I give, I give, just let me breathe."

Time slowed down, and I became hyper-aware of every item, and person, in the enclosed rumpus room.  The early 1980's style wallpaper on the walls and pastels on the ceiling and crown molding.  The made bed with folded laundry and linens on it.  The shag carpeting we were fighting on.  An antique dry sink with pre-Yankee Candle candles.  The window outside, with an early September thunderstorm brewing.

Wendy.  Her sexy upper body.  Her sweaty, oily hair, styled with just a hint of 1980s feathering.  The combination skin on her face:  beautiful, smooth cheeks, but acne spots and scars where her jowls will be in thirty years.  The psychotic, disembodied, determined look on her face to prevent my breathing.  It was totally on between us.

The smell of her breath.  Stale beer smell, which I knew from my German uncles and great uncles.  Shit, Wendy.  Really?  Beer?  Our fight started 20 minutes after school ended.  Where the fuck did you get the beer?

Does Wendy have a drinking problem?  Is that what makes her hair so flat, so oily?  Is that what gives her acne around her chin?

Does Wendy get violent when she drinks?  Does drinking make her have sex?

I feel like Wendy might accidentally kill me.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

"LISA?  WHAT HAPPENED??"

About three hours later, at 6:00 that evening, I was awakened by gentle slaps to my cheeks and my mother's concerned voice:  "Lisa?  Lisa?  Are you ok?  What happened?  Did you fall?"  I realized immediately that Wendy must have ended our catfight by choking me out, and my mother must have mistaken my scratches and bruises as originating from a fall.  I hoped Wendy's beer breath hadn't stuck to me and misleading my mother into worrying that I was a blacking-out level teenage drunk.

Embarrassment turned to fear with the realization that Wendy had been in my house with me helplessly passed out.  Had she stolen something?  Then more embarrassment:  what did we even own that was worth stealing?  I went to my mother's stash of Marlboro's--shit, fewer carton that usual.  Did that mean Wendy had grabbed a couple?  Should I tell my mom?  Or hope she wouldn't notice?  My mom knew I didn't smoke--no worries there.  But it was the sense of violation.  Dammit, had I wanted to fight Wendy in private so bad that I had enabled a home invasion?

It was this crushing sense of violated privacy that dominated the aftermath of the fight.  Brockton High School was large enough to pull off a trick that would have been difficult at either Cardinal Spellman or Archbishop Williams--you could avoid a girl you had just been in a fight with. 

Which is what Wendy and I spent the next few days and weeks doing.  Ostentatiously announcing in class and in the lunchroom that she and I were avoiding each other because of, you know, the "run-in" she and I had had after school on The First Day after summer vacation.  I immediately made new friends and found my feet at BHS as "that girl who had fought Wendy".  I was at first confused why Wendy allowed chatter which was benefitting me socially to continue--why she wasn't "clarifying" the rumors to include a postscript that she "had kicked Lisa's ass", or some such helpful detail.

And then it occurred to me.  Punching a bully in the mouth, literally or figuratively, really works--it really does win you the respect of that bully.  Had I won Wendy's respect even in losing our fight?  It appeared so.

And that probably would have been the end of it.  But for something that happened shortly before Halloween.

Hard as it might be to believe in 2018, Massachusetts public high schools in the early 1980's had outdoor smoking areas, with school-sanctioned 10-minute smoke breaks.  I didn't partake, but bad girls like Wendy did.  One chilly October morning, I looked outside and saw Wendy sharing a box Marlboro's with friends.  Now, a 1980's Brockton teenager didn't just SHARE cigarettes--unless they were stolen.

I thought of my mom, how hard she worked, how her only indulgence and vice were her smokes.  That I had allowed Wendy to steal.  A couple of cartons worth, maybe more.  I wanted them back.

That night I called the boy, Wendy's fuck buddy or whatever, who had walked me to school the first day.  I told him I wanted to lose my virginity to him that night.  It hurt, but it was worth it.  Word would get back to Wendy.

And she and I would both be hurting soon.

Good. 

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

OPENING UP

Giving up your virginity, especially in the pre-MTV early 1980s when information about sex was so sparse and taboo, was as much a psychological milestone as it was physical.  And at least for me, boy oh boy did my Catholic guilt ever kick in, or rise to the surface, once I had done the deed.

I felt the need to talk about it, or, around it, with someone.  And since I had no close friends, the person I opened up to was my stepmom.  Finally, for the first time since I was really young, and since she got divorced, we actually opened up to each other.  It was over a bottle of white wine late one Friday night.

> How's school going, Lisa?

> Mom, ...  I, umm, ... it was my choice, I wasn't pressured into it .... in fact I initiated it ... but I gave up my virginity.

> Recently?

> Tuesday night .... when I went out, remember?

> Neighborhood boy?

> It was Craig.  He walks me to school sometimes, ya know?

> I like him.  Everything ok, any questions?

> Well .... it's true you can get pregnant the first time, right?

> So I've heard .... are you trying to tell me something? 

> No, no .... not THAT ... he pulled out way before he .... came .... God that's a weird word, isn't it?

> So ... if he has that much self-control, I take it he's ..... experienced??

> It's ...  complicated ....  this girl, Wendy ....  she has this, like, too cool for school thing going with him ...  sorta like .... kinda pisses me off, actually ... like, she knows he likes her, so she gives just enough of herself to him to .... I don't know, like, almost string him along ....

> Say no more, I know the type ... this Wendy chick .... she know about him and you?

<<<<When my stepmom asked me this question, I could see her nipples hardening under her halter top, and became conscious of mine doing the same.>>>>>

> I, ummm, ...  I sure hope so.

> And, you're aware ....  I take it .... that she may want to ....  fight you?

> I am aware .... and, ummm, so we kinda ...  well, not kinda, we did, we fought once already.  The first day of school.

> Not IN school, I hope??  Don't screw up your senior year with a suspension, Lisa.

> No, no .... thank God no .... it was ...  after school.

> And you both want to fight again?  There wasn't a winner the first time?

<<<<I couldn't tell which was more surreal.  Talking to my stepmom about sex, or talking to her about fighting.>>>>>>

> She won, ... but not by beating me up . .. she choked me out.  Maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, I don't actually know.

> But you know enought not to let her do it the next time, right?

> Of course.  Any suggestions.

<<<<My stepmom holds up her hands in a claw shape and waves her nails at my face.>>>>

> These, honey.  Do girls fight with these anymore?  They shred skin, if you do it right. 

> Why not fists?

> Two girls fighting with fists is just a waste of everybody's time.  You'll break your pinky before you do any damage to her.  Nails and teeth are the way to go.

> Were ...  you ... ever in a fight like that, Mom?

> Not a planned one, like you and this Wendy bitch.  But, yes, in Boston in the early 1960s ... if 2 girls were fighting, if it was over a boy ... our claws would come out.  And we'd go for the face, Lisa.  Don't underestimate how .... effective these can be.  You know how to trim the nails just right, I hope?

> Actually, I don't.

> I'll show ya.  When's the fight?  Your next fight with her?

> We haven't ...  picked a day, yet....

> Next Saturday is Halloween.  Do kids still look for trouble on Halloween?

> I guess. 

> Well, let's pencil that in.  Grab my clippers in the drawer there.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

TELEPHONE THREAT

In 1981, it's amazing to think about the Dark Ages we were living in with telephone technology.  Corded phones.  Rotary dialling.  No voice mail.  No caller id.  So, when the phone rang (a bell sound; literally--if you opened a phone, there were actual bells inside of it), you pretty much had to answer it, with no preparation of who was on the other end.  So, the person doing the calling had an initial advantage if the call was going to be confrontational.

The Thursday night before the Friday October 23 Homecoming Dance, I got a confrontational call from Wendy.  Homecoming Dance--I wasn't planning on going.  At Cardinal Spellman, attendance at school events was pretty much mandatory unless you were on your death bed, so at Brockton High I was appreciating my freedom and indulging in the option to not attend extracirriculars.  Buy just after my mom and I finished dinner that night, the phone rang, and my mom answered.  She turned beet red, and looked at me with a look of urgency, and covered the receiver with her cupped hand (the 1981 version of putting someone "On Hold"). 

> It's.....HHHEERRRRR.

> Who, Mom?

> That bitch Wendy, who do think???

> What do I do?

> Well  ....  what do you THINK you do?? ..... you can't AVOID her.

> But ....  what do I say?  ....  should I be bitchy to her???

> No ....  well, yes, if you need to ....  but let her make the first move ....  Find out why she's calling first.  <<<hands me the receiver>>>>

My mom and I obviously didn't get many phone calls, because we had underestimated the effectiveness of a cupped hand over a 1981 phone receiver.

> Hello?

> Telling on me to your Mommy, Lisa?

> Wha...

> I heard everything you two just said, yellow-bellied coward.

> Fuck you, Wendy .... it's your nickel <<<<literally....in 1981, even local calls weren't free>>> .... why'd you call?

> Simple:  at tomorrow night's dance, DO ...  NOT ....  DANCE .... WITH .... CRAIG.

> Joke's on you, Wendy ...... I'm not going to <<<<<Interruption on the other line--another 1981 phone thing--my mom had picked up on the other phone in the house>>>>

> Lisa will be there, Wendy sweetie .... she promised Craig the first dance ....  and THE LAST ...  and will be wearing the shortest mini-skirt allowed by the school chaperone's, just in case he doesn't get the hint.  Now, hang up the phone, Lisa.

<<<<I comply, not out of fear of Wendy--I initiated this rematch, after all, but out of fear of what my mom will threaten next.>>>>>

We wait for a few minutes to see if Wendy will call back.

She doesn't.

Tomorrow night should be fun.

To be continued.....