Fast Times at Ridgemont High (2 page)

S
tacy Hamilton lay under the covers, still fully dressed, and stared at the ceiling. Somewhere in the course of the long and uneventful summer she had come to an important decision. There was no way she was going to start senior high school still a virgin.

She listened to the noisy floorboards above her bed, following her parents throughout their entire ritual of preparing for sleep. Every night at 11:30 precisely, off went the upstairs television. Then all the lights. Then came the rattling of the bathroom pipes. Finally, Frank and Evelyn Hamilton came to rest on their upstairs mattress with two resounding thuds. They were grateful, heavy sleepers. Stacy’s brother, Brad, liked to say that nothing short of a ballistic-missile test in the living room could raise their parents after those last two thuds.

On this night, Stacy rolled out of bed and tied on a pair of tennis shoes. She took a red wool sweater for the cold night air. Soundlessly, she slid open her bedroom window and hopped out.

This was to have been Stacy Hamilton’s Summer of Wild Abandon. Just turned fifteen, she was the youngest hostess at Swenson’s Ice Cream Parlor—the prestigious Town Center Mall location. Stacy’s friend Linda Barrett, who was two years older and a senior at Ridgemont High, had found her the job. She’d come to Stacy last April and put it to her plain and simple—come to work at Swenson’s and
your life will change.

Well, it was now September. She’d been imprisoned all summer long in a hot, floor-length Peppermint Pattie hostess dress. Maybe her life
had
changed, Stacy figured, but it sure wasn’t from seating the same immature boys she’d known since grade school, and it definitely wasn’t from listening to all the parents jacked up on coffee and telling their kids to “just
stop
playing with the ice cream.” No, if anything, Stacy’s life had changed by listening to all the twelfth-grade waitresses in the back kitchen at Swenson’s.

The Swenson’s waitresses, most of whom went to Ridgemont, were not allowed to chat among themselves in the main dining room. Talking was permitted only in the kitchen area. It was a Swenson’s tradition that whenever anything interesting happened, whenever an eligible male sauntered into the place, the waitresses would discreetly disappear into the back kitchen. Once in the back kitchen, the Peppermint Pattie act went right out the window. The Swenson’s girls got down to business.

“Did you see that guy in B-9?”

“That’s Bill from Toys ’R Us. He still lives at home.”

“Really?”

“Christie went out with him and said he’s a mama’s boy.”

“Pass.
Is that Tuna Melt up yet?”

From the back kitchen talk at Swenson’s, Stacy Hamilton had learned that the world of girls could be divided up into two distinct groups—those who spent the weekend with their parents, and those who spent it with
Allen
or
Bob.
The latter group was a special sorority. They spoke of their older boyfriends in a certain way. Their accounts of dates ended at a certain point, with a smile and a click of the tongue. The message was clear enough—there was fun, and then there was
sex.

Stacy Hamilton was not yet a part of this group. She sensed that all the other waitresses knew, but accepted her anyway. Stacy was just a hostess and no threat to anyone’s tips. She listened quietly. She was Linda Barrett’s friend. The girls at Swenson’s all liked Stacy. Sometimes they would even pat her on the head.

“You are really going to be beautiful,” they told her,
“someday
. . .”

Stacy was a sweet-looking girl with long blond hair and only the last traces of adolescent baby fat. An interesting thing had happened over the summer. She had caught the flu and had lost weight and slimmed down to what her mother constantly reminded her was a “voluptuous figure.” Stacy was not quite used to it yet. She had noticed increased attention from boys, but, as Linda Barrett pointed out, boys didn’t count. The idea was to interest
men.

Stacy had been working the cash register on the August night that The Vet first walked into Swenson’s. He looked to be in his early twenties. He sat down alone at table C-9, clasped his bandless fingers in front of him, and ordered a French-dip sandwich. Stacy watched as the main-floor waitresses all vanished into the back kitchen. He was kind of cute, she decided, in a blow-dry sort of way.

He kept staring at her. It wasn’t Stacy’s imagination. Even the other girls noticed. The man finished his sandwich, by-passed any ice cream order, and walked directly over to Stacy with his check.

“So,” he said with a ready smile, “are you working hard? Or hardly working?”

Stacy smiled back—they were supposed to enjoy all customer jokes unless obscene—and punched up the amount.

“Working hard,” she said with studied indifference. She took his ten-dollar bill. “Out of ten.”

“Listen,” the man said, “my name is Ron Johnson.”

She counted back his change. “I’m Stacy.”

“You really look like someone I’d like to know. I never really do this, but . . .” He pulled a business card from his wallet and wrote his home number on the back. “Why don’t you give me a call sometime. I’d love to take you out for dinner. What do you say?”

Caught by surprise, Stacy reverted to the tone and phrasing she usually reserved for customers asking for substitutions on to-go orders. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I look forward to hearing from you.”

“Okay. Thank you, and have a nice evening.”

As soon as he walked out of Swenson’s, three waitresses beelined for Stacy.

“What’s his name? What’s his name?”

“What a total fox!”

“Does he work in the mall?”

They crowded around the business card he’d left behind. He worked at a veterinary clinic in nearby Redondo Beach. His name was Ronald M. Johnson, but from that moment on he would always be known around Swenson’s as The Vet.

On the advice of Linda Barrett, Stacy waited an appropriate three days to call The Vet. She reached him at home, where he lived with two college-buddies-turned-stereo-salesmen. They had a pleasant conversation about Swenson’s, ice cream parlors in general, and veterinary school. Ron Johnson was very smooth about working in his key question.

“So,” he said, “you look like you could still be in high school.”

“I know,” said Stacy, who was due to start high school in three-and-a-half weeks. “Everyone says that.”

“How old
are
you?”

“Nineteen. How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” said The Vet. “Think we can still be friends?”

They had been on two dinner-and-movie dates before Stacy called her friend Linda Barrett for a special consultation. They met at Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant. The issue—Stacy’s Vanishing Summer of Wild Abandon.

“I’m depressed,” said Stacy.

“About The Vet?”

“I guess,” said Stacy. “I like him. He’s a nice guy. He’s good-looking. We go out, we have a fun time, but . . .
nothing happens.”

“I don’t believe this guy,” said Linda. “You know what he reminds me of?” The words fell from her lips like spoiled clams: “A
high school
boy. Haven’t you figured men out yet, Stacy? Most guys are just . . . pussies. For years I chased after every guy I thought was cute. I thought if I was nice to them, they’d get the idea and call me up. Well, guess what? They didn’t call. I got impatient. So
I
started making the first move, and you know what else? Most guys are just too insecure and too chicken to do it themselves.”

Stacy nodded. You didn’t argue with Linda Barrett. Their two-year age difference made a world of difference. Linda was taller and quite striking, with dark, perm-styled hair and an always skillful make-up job. Linda knew men, and she knew how to carry herself. She had what she called “a sexual overview.”

“I don’t care
who
he is,” Linda continued. “Two dates is
enough.
Are you sure he’s not a fag?”

Talk suspended while a Bob’s Big Boy waitress arrived, took the girls’ order for coffee and Big Boy combinations, and then stood by the table totaling other checks. Linda and Stacy glared at her until she left.

“I don’t think he’s a fag,” said Stacy. “He said he broke up with his girlfriend a few months ago.”

“Well then, what are you waiting for? You’re
good-looking.
You’ve just got to learn to get what you want. I know it sounds hard making the first move, but think of it like this. Three years from now you’ll be eighteen and it won’t matter either way.”

The words made sense to Stacy. Two nights later she called The Vet and asked him to meet her that night for a drive. It didn’t matter where they went, she said, she just had to get out of the house. The Vet agreed.

She met him out in front of her family’s condominium complex, in the shadows next to the mailbox, where she was out of sight from the neighbors.

“Thanks for picking me up,” she said, shivering despite her sweater. “I can’t wait until I move out.”

“No problem,” said The Vet. “Where do you feel like going?”

“I don’t know. Do you know where the Point is?”

“The Point?” The Vet looked at Stacy curiously, and for a moment she was sure she had given away her age. The Point was a notorious make-out spot for Ridgemont teenagers with parents at home. “The Point sounds good to me!”

They drove up Ridgemont Drive, past all the neon-lit fast-food restaurants, up the hill toward the campus of Ridgemont Senior High School. The parking lot was empty. The Vet found a space near the back corner. From there they walked across the baseball field to the cliff behind the Ridgemont High backstop. The Point.

The Point was the best spot to overlook the whole town. The Point was dark and secluded, with only one drawback. The Ridgemont High Point was always covered with milk cartons. Hundreds of milk cartons. Milk cartons with the straws still stuck inside. Milk cartons without. Squashed milk cartons. Milk cartons still half full. More milk cartons than you had ever seen in any one place at any one time, ever. There was the usual smattering of premixed Mai-Tai cans and shattered Bacardi bottles, sure, but the emphasis was always on milk cartons.

The Point was deserted. Only Stacy and The Vet stood there, arms touching, on their third summer date, looking out at the blinking lights of the condo developments below, listening to the distant sounds of the Pacific Ocean lapping up onto the shore of Redondo Beach.

“Let’s sit down,” said The Vet. But there were only rocks out on the Point. The Vet was the type, as Stacy would later tell Linda Barrett, who could probably have a lot more fun if he didn’t wear slacks all the time.

“We can sit over there,” said Stacy. “There’s probably a seat in the baseball dugout.”

They cleared their way through a summer’s worth of trash, more milk cartons, and found a nice, concrete seat inside the visiting team dugout. Stacy and The Vet sat side by side. Above them shone a single light bulb. There was no view of the city from the dugout.

“You look nice tonight,” said The Vet.

“You do, too.”

Silence. Stacy rearranged her hands in her lap.

“It’s pretty warm out tonight.”

“It is. It’s real warm. I wonder how long it will last.”

The Vet leaned over and kissed Stacy on the cheek.
Was that the first move?
She sat quietly for a moment, her hands folded in her lap.
It had to be the first move.
She waited another moment.
When I’m eighteen it won’t matter either way.

She lunged for The Vet and kissed him squarely on the mouth. At first surprised, he held her there and kissed her even more deeply. She began to run her fingers through his blow-dry haircut.

It was The Vet who spoke first. “Are you really nineteen?”

“Yes,” said Stacy. “I am
really
nineteen.”

She kissed him again.

“I’d better take you home,” he said.

“What about those other guys you live with?”

“I mean back to
your
home.”

But they made no moves in any direction. A few minutes later, The Vet had apparently resolved his inner conflict. He began tugging lightly at Stacy’s red corduroy pants. She looked down at his hand on the snap.

This was it, Stacy thought. The Real Thing. A thousand schoolyard conversations and tips from Linda Barrett jumbled in her head. Would it hurt? Would it be messy? Would she get pregnant? Would they fall in love?

“Do you really want to do this?” Stacy heard herself ask. “I mean, it’s your final decision.”

“I think we both want to.”

Slowly, awkwardly, Stacy reached down to help him. She unsnapped her pants, and suddenly The Vet needed no more reassurance. He tilted her backward onto the concrete dugout bench. They continued kissing, feverishly, his hand slipping up into her blouse. He massaged her breasts. Then he pulled off her shoes. Then her pants. Then his own pants. Ron “The Vet” Johnson was different from the other boys she’d made out with. He had Technique.

“Is this your first time?” he whispered.

“Yesssssssss . . .”

As she held onto The Vet’s shoulders and felt a man enter her for the first time, Stacy looked up at the top of the Ridgemont dugout. She would always remember reading the graffiti above her:

Heroin in the neck

Lincoln was here—Sieg Heil

Led Zeppelin

Dan y Roberto (Disco Fags)

Stacy Hamilton, fifteen, slipped back into her room at three that morning. Already her room felt different to her. Those frilly pillowcases, those Scholastic Book Services paperbacks she’d ordered in junior high, that bubblegum chain on the dresser . . . they all seemed out of place to her now.

She was giddy, wide awake. She sat on the edge of her bed and examined herself in the mirror—no difference. Somehow it was just like Linda Barrett had explained it to her. Her first feeling would be one of relief, the second, that she would want to go out and sleep with all the cute guys in the world because it was
so much fun.
Stacy smiled and turned on her clock radio. Then she picked up the telephone extension and punched out a number.

Linda Barrett answered her phone in a sleep-laden murmur. “Did you get him?”