Creative Writing from
Fairleigh Dickinson University

Cheap Flip-flops

Kathy Lynch

Shae and I wanted to ride one of the phat rides like the Cyclops or the Sidewinder, but all of those lines were too long. The day was fading into screaming babies, whining kids, and sweaty parents whose swimwear was inadequate at masking their middle-aged girth. It was as gross as when Kyle Boyce spit out the window of the school bus just that morning. A wad of green phlegm flew into the window behind him, and the blob had slapped their teacher in the eye before oozing down to her nose and mouth.
      In a rush of irritability, I had an urge to somehow make my field trip more memorable than fat people and spit. Only an hour was left before we were to report to the bus, and our options were frustratingly limited. As Shae and I applied our hot pink lip-gloss and adjusted our matching ponytails, we nodded in agreement that our level of coolness surpassed any ride that did not require a certain height.
     The process of elimination directed us to the Skyview. I was secretly hoping that this “aerial round-trip tramway overlooking the park” would allow me to see where my ex-boyfriend was so that we could casually run into him after the ride was over. I had been failing all day to bump into Jeff.
     I glanced at the ride attendant and immediately avoided eye contact. He was cute. I felt my face flush as my ability to make quick glances became paralyzed. I was in a steady staring trance that fixated on his feet and reinforced my initial attraction. He was sporting cool sandals that enhanced his dark smooth tan. They were the expensive Birkenstock kind that my own mother was too cheap to buy.
     The Birkenstocks triggered the memory of a bitter argument that I had lost with my mother at the mall only days before. She insisted that ninety dollars was too much to spend on any pair of shoes, especially for someone with growing feet. I felt my face contort into a snarl with the recollection of that embarrassing defeat. It ended with my mother snatching up some cheap plaid flip-flops and giving me the look.
     How great would it have been if I had shoes that matched the ride attendant's? I smiled while I imagined myself saying “nice sandals” and pointing my own feet in his direction. He would see we had matching sandals and start a conversation about my awesome taste in shoes. I became more absorbed in his appearance as we waited to board the tram.
     He pushed the fitted sleeves of his shirt up to reveal a dark tan that stopped just above his elbows. The words STAFF stood boldly out on his bright white tee shirt that had navy rings around the sleeves and collar. When I was just a kid in the fifth grade the year before, those were shirts only for losers and dorks. He made them look cool. When I got home, I would pull my old camp shirts out of the closet and wear them again.
     How impressive that such a good-looking person worked. He must have been at least old enough to drive. I imagined him back at home with my family sitting around the table eating Kraft macaroni and cheese with two packets of cheese and lots of salt. I could taste the cool instant iced tea that my mother would serve as this blue-eyed beauty talked about his day at high school. He would ask me how middle school was and I would tell him all about stupid Jeff, my ex-boyfriend, and how immature he was.
     “Get on the ride or step out of the way girls.”
     I looked around to roll my eyes in the direction of the cranky voice that could spoil such a wonderful moment. I was stunned to see the short words matching the mouth movements of my newly found sweetheart.
     “I said get out of the way or board the ride. There is a long line behind you girls.”
     “Girls!” Who did he think he was? A teacher? My physical reaction to embarrassment advanced, and I conquered my bottom lip. It didn't stick out, but I lost the battle to control my stomping feet. They thudded immaturely as I boarded the ride.
      I still tried to catch one of his piercing eyes while self-consciously pealing my wet plastered tee shirt from my thick “developing” body. I was still waiting for the growth spurt everyone swore would come when I began to chunk up. A pleasant mixture of chlorinated water from the Canyon River Rapids and sweat had glued my bright purple shirt to my budding chest. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Whatever. Birkenstocks would have made my life so much easier. I successfully stopped myself from looking at him by concentrating on my cheap shoes.
     The ride jerked to a start, and we immediately began gabbing about smelly Susan the nose-picker, flat-faced Fred, and all of our other imperfect classmates. Top on my list of space-wasters was Jeff Gray, who I liked to call Duckboy. He was my reason for slowly drifting over the entire park. I wanted to hate him that week because he had dumped me first. He knew I wanted to break up with him, and if my note would have traveled faster around the room, I could have. I tried and failed to put the scene of that morning out of my head.
     A frantic insignificant girl in my class had run up to me, “Kristy, you have to break up with Jeff”
     “Why?”
     “Break up with him now unless you want to get dumped first”
     The word “dumped” made my stomach fall down to my new cheap flip-flops. Some girl in my class quickly slapped down a piece of paper in front of me while another jammed a neon pink pen in my hand, “Hurry, he has not written the letter yet. I heard Ryan say on the bus that he is writing it in homeroom. You can beat him.”
     I madly began to scribble down a note. The thought that the entire class would see my note as it was passed to Jeff began to chip away. I didn't feel sorry for him because they would see that he was being dumped, I just did not want them to think that I had sloppy handwriting. I crumpled that sheet up and another girl slapped down another piece of paper. There was a crowd of girls around my desk, and I panicked when I saw the crowd of boys around Jeff's. The teams began cheering, and my rush of adrenaline prevented my handwriting from becoming more legible. The cheering turned to rioting as pencils and wads of paper flew. No one in the class dared not to join their appropriate side and then Mrs. Stein entered the room. Before I could blink, I was alone at my desk, but still feverishly writing.
     I was safe in continuing to write, although note writing was forbidden. The rest of the class was writing journals, so I blended in. I hurriedly drew purple hearts all over the note. Maybe if I wrote nice note, Jeff would go back out with me the following week. I needed to pass the note quickly. Jeff was still writing his. That meant I was in the lead. I turned around to see Ryan sitting behind me. He would hold my note until Jeff's note reached me because they were friends. My only safe bet was to hand it off to a girl. The only girl really near me was Sara, and she would not pass a note for herself. Her mom was a teacher, and she was the teacher's kid type. I immediately reached out and handed it to Susan the nose-picker and prayed that she would not wipe her boogers on the note before it made it to the next girl. Susan was slow in the relay. Maybe she had a little green one that kept the paper glued to her finger.
     By the time the note was unstuck to Susan, Jeff's note was on its way. I closed my eyes and gripped the sides of my desk. I squinted a few times to see what was going on around me. Each time the lead had changed. In the end, the boys were faster at relaying Jeff's message around the room, so I was the loser. “Sorry, it's the end of the road. Love, Jeff.” Jerk. Everything in middle school is a competition.
     As my eyes frantically scanned the park for Duckboy, I began to observe the crowds and lines. We sailed close to the Sidewinder, and I could see all of the oinkers sweating together, fenced in by the metal poles that guided the lines. Real pigs have more fun waiting for the butcher. I saw a large woman pressed against a herd of people. I couldn't tell if her dampness was from a water ride or water pinching through the pores of her own over-heated body. I wondered how she smelled. I tried to smell myself. I was excited at the possibility of smelling powdery freshness. My mother had allowed me to wear deodorant for the first time on that day.
     I could see people stuffed in line passed the sign that I knew read “two-hour wait from here.” Who would be dumb enough to wait in that line? However, its flashy red structure elegantly swirling and plummeting did look inviting. I began to weigh the consequences of missing the bus. Our ride jolted us on, and I could see the Pirate ride approaching. It was sailing smoothly while the riders flung their hands in the air and cheered. Could they be having that much fun? We were jolted along passed the baby ride and through the food court. The blending aroma of sizzling hot dogs with the scent of buttery popcorn made my mouth begin to fill with saliva. I was suddenly so hungry that it felt as though my stomach had started biting me from inside.
      “Oh my God Kristy, look its Duckboy. He is by himself!” I snapped out of my trance and my eyes came closer together in an almost glare. By himself was an understatement. I tried not to pity him being all alone in the big park. Of course, Jeff deserved to enjoy our sixth grade class trip, even the teachers did. As we glided closer, it became evident that we would float right over him.
      I tried not to feel fuzzy towards Jeff. Little tingles of electricity began pumping from my little bumps and flowed down threw my piggy pink legs. Rats! I still liked him. I felt my face become a deeper shade of red. Between my sunburn and a sudden blushing rush of adolescent hormones, my cheeks must have resembled Hawaiian punch stained lips. With dangling legs swinging in anticipation, we were zoomed in for a close-up.
     I imagined myself shouting, “I love you!” I wondered what he would say in return. Would he reciprocate my display of affection or go waddling away to tell his stupid friends so that they could laugh at me together?
      He was looking at his outwardly turned feet that caused his waddle, or maybe he was counting the boards on the bridge as he walked across. I could nearly make out the puckering upwardly curled lip that caused his mouth to resemble the bill of a duck. In seconds, I would see his googly brown eyes and unibrow. “What are you going to do?” The menacing grin that dominated Shae's face could only come from a pre-teenager about to feed off the damaged ego of another.
     Panic rushed my thoughts into a blur. What if I just yelled “Hi”? I would sound like a loser. Should I shout I love you? Hell no! That was even more of a risk. I had to decide fast. I wanted to ignore him. Shae knew that I had spotted him. Without thinking, I made eye contact with his sad pathetic duck-like face and shouted for the park to hear, “Hey Duckboy, what's wong. Did all of your wittle friends waddle away and weave you awone?”
     The cleverness of my word choice was stomped out by accompanying crudeness of my actions, as Jeff stood frozen. Operating in a blur of confusion and adolescent hormones, for the first time in my life I was able to hock up everything from the back of my throat without choking and having to swallow it. I leaned down without determination, as his eyes grew wide. I knew I wanted to stop, and at that point I could have. Then I gagged at the thought of swallowing so much phlegm, and it was too late. I watched like an innocent spectator as the chewy, yellow, chunky blob of my immaturity floated down with all the grace of a grocery bag blowing in the wind. It plopped less than attractively with a splatter on his broad forehead. The thickest part of the wad continued down the middle of his shaggy thick unibrow leaving what resembled a trail of stretchy water. The bulk of the mass rested on his not-quite-fuzzy-yet upwardly curled lip.
     Silence gushed into my head as the tears began to slither out of Jeff's goggled eyes. The entire park disappeared around duckboy and his figure became somehow magnified. I was ill with regret watching his webbed fingers contract into two stubby fists. I tried to concentrate on my cheap flip flops, but instead I remembered watching movies in my basement with Jeff, my first kiss as the little league ball park, holding hands in the hallway, and how nice it was not to sit on the bleachers and watch all of the couples slow dance at the school dances. There was no chance he would ever be my dancing partner again, and I would have to sit with the losers and drink imitation Coke until the slow songs were over.
     He started to shrink like a funny cartoon character as we pulled away. I quickly turned around so I would not have to see him wipe the tears away with his short wing-like arms. I realized that I had stopped swinging my legs, and I checked my watch with a sinking feeling. My stomach began biting again, but I was not hungry. I didn't care about my cheap flip-flops anymore either.