All my friends have cooler cars than me.

So my mom's telling me all about the car she had when she was a teenager. It was orange and black, and apparently looked like a very scary pumpkin. Someone spray painted the word 'High' on the side in blue spray paint once. It was the seventies, she tells me. Things were different then. 

But I don't care. Three colors? On one car? And I drive a boring grey Hyundai? 

Seriously, all my friends have cooler cars than me. Taylor's is a blue sports car. Katherine has the red Mini. Sarah has the blue Prius. Rekha has the green Escape. Sarah (the other Sarah, not to be confused with Cornell Sarah or the other Cornell Sarah--come to think of it, this 'Sarah' thing is becoming a problem. I think one of them is a Sara) has a red sedan. What do they have in common? Color. Bright, shiny color. Cool, retro/stylish/expensive colorful cars. And I drive a grey Hyundai.

This. This should be my car.

Come to think of it, most of the boys I know drive cars that are older than I am. I guess their parents don't trust them with expensive cars--but you'd think they'd buy cars that didn't have sawdust in the airbag compartments. 

 

A ton of my favorite memories occurred in these cars, so I'm willing to let it slide. I completely forgot what Sarah, Rekha, Katherine, and I were doing in the hours before the winter sports banquet last year, but I know what we weren't doing: buying the flowers for coaches and parent volunteers. 

Somehow, we all pilled into Sarah's little Prius and drove to Panera, which in case you didn't know, is like a magnet for teenage girls. We got smoothies and artisan sandwiches. All save Katherine, who got the mac and cheese. Katherine loves cheese sauce. I've seen her lick empty bowls to get up the last few drops of alfredo sauce while she was sitting in a public restaurant. I've also seen the look of devastation on her face when she spilled her pasta on my pants (my face was also kind of devastated, because there was cheese sauce in my crotch). Her eyes lit with the fervor of redemption when the server brought her a new bowl free of charge and she proceeded to lick it clean.

So, anyway, there we were at Panera, chatting, gossiping, and having a good time. Since Taylor had refused to come (as usual, she had homework), I was forced to assume the roll of responsible friend. This is not my best role.

"Guys," I would say every now and them. "The banquet's starting soon. Shouldn't we head back?"

"We've got plenty of time," Rekha would say. And of course, we had a pile of about fifty paper plate awards to complete for every single person on the team. So we had plenty of time. Until, of course, we didn't.

"Ahhhh!" Rekha said once we sent Sarah away to make her paper plate. "Guys, we have fifteen minutes until it starts!"

"Okay, okay," Katherine said. "Focus on Sarah's plate. What should we do for her?"

We all put our heads together to try to think of an award we could give Sarah. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. 

"Guys," Sarah said. "Are you done yet? We have to get going." 

Now, this was the exact same thing I'd been telling them all evening long, although I guessed apparently Sarah's vote tipped the scales. "We'll do it in the car," Katherine said, and we all sprinted into the parking lot and squeezed back into the little Prius. Lazy country music floated from the radio as Sarah pressed the 'On' button.

Seriously. An 'On' button. Like a freaking iPod. 

"Go go go!" Rekha shouts as the Prius hightails it out of the parking lot, zips across the busy highway, and floors it up a sidestreet leading back to the school. 

"We still have to get flowers!" Sarah says.

My phone buzzed: a text from Rekha, asking what award we should give Sarah. I text her back saying I don't know.

We come to the left turn onto Braddock Road. Cars are zooming in both directions. It's a turn around a blind corner, one that's tricky in daylight. This night, it was a near-death experience. 

"Come on come on come on!" Sarah shouts at the cars, drumming her fingers on the wheel. "We're going to be late!" The engine revs (or bubbles, since this is a Prius), and a car whips over a hill, cutting us off. Sarah slams on the breaks. Rekha gasps. Sarah hisses. She's making the face. You know the one.

This one.

My phone buzzes. A text from Katherine: "Most Impatient?"

"Good idea," I text her, and start writing that on a paper plate as Sarah stomps down on the gas, throwing us around the corner so fast the marker leaves a line on the plate. 

"Oh my god, oh my god," Rekha says as I try to turn the mark into a design or something. 

Thankfully, the Giant isn't too far up the road. "Park close, park close!" Katherine says, leaning over into the driver's seat. 

"I can't find a space!" Sarah says.

"Just park!" I say.

"Here? There?"

"Anywhere!" 

No sooner has the Prius' bubble come to a stop than we all throw ourselves out of the car. I left my door hanging open and had to sprint back to close it, but I think I did pretty well aside from that. We all run into the store. Thankfully, the flowers are in the front.

Sarah's face goes white. "How many parent volunteers are there?"

Somehow, we decide the number is two, plus three for the coaches. We grab the flowers and run to the nearest register, where we feed bills from the envelope of money the boys gave us into the self-service check out. Then we sprint back to the Prius and race back down the road to TJ, where I tuck Sarah's paper plate under my shirt as we run for the cafeteria door, bunches of flowers in hand.

It's locked.

The entire team is waiting inside and a few bangs on the door convinces Dylan and/or Chris (some short blond guy) to let us in. Mike stands just behind them. "You are so late," he says. Taylor gives us a dirty look as we come and sit down next to her. Clearly, I have failed in my duties as the responsible friend. 

"What kept you?" she says.

"Flowers," I say, stuffing Sarah's paper plate into the pile with the rest. Taylor makes a sniffing noise, implying that if she'd been in charge, the flowers would have been here hours ago. 

"Sign these cars," she says. "They're for the three parent volunteers." 

I shoot a glance at the bundles of flowers. Three for the coaches, two for the . . . 

Sarah's face has gone completely white again. "Three?"

How to honor your track career . . .

Who remembers this day?

That thing in the middle we're all holding on to is a baton and the costumes are for the 4x400 relay ran just moments before. It wasn't a record-breaking occasion, but jaws dropped all the same as we stepped out onto the track, braving the wrath of our coach and the freezing cold weather to celebrate four wonderful years of running as friends.

Taylor, of course, sat in the booth and told us how silly we were.

I guess the problem started a month before senior night, when we showed up at another team's senior night. In one race, a dude dressed as a chicken chased a dude dressed like an egg. Funny, right? The moment we heard, we all sat down to make plans for our own senior night--and so did our coach. Growling to himself about how some people 'don't take track seriously', he glared down at us one day at announcements and said that we'd race in costumes over his dead body.

Or so we heard from the underclassmen, since we'd stopped going to announcements in September. 

The always devious Katherine pointed out that since none of us had actually heard him tell us not to race in costume, we could always just do it and say we didn't know. And the wonderful Rekha pointed out that even if coach got in our faces and told us no, we should just do it anyway. And I was on board because, firstly, I love running in costume, and, secondly, with Katherine and Rekha, it would be the fastest relay team I'd ever been on.

One problem? It's a 4x400 relay. And we had four senior distance runners on the team. And one of them was Taylor. 

"So I've got a fun idea," I said, sitting down with her at lunch.

"No," says she.

"Remember the meet with Madison?" Katherine says. "The chicken and the egg race? We were thinking we should do the same thing on our senior night."

"Was this the same thing coach told us all not to do?" she asks, staring at me and Katherine with a look that I've seen her use while cooking--she can boil water with a glance. 

"I mean," Katherine says, "yeah. But we're thinking--"

"No." She bites ferociously into a leaf of spinach. "Besides, I have to keep score."

Taylor likes keeping score. She likes organizing the little pieces of paper.

That afternoon, Katherine and I related our failure to Rekha. "Damn it," she says. "Maybe we can get one of the sprinter girls to do it?" And at that point, the beautiful blond known both as Wonder Woman and Sarah (another one of my four friends named Sarah) pops out of the soccer lockers and swoops in to save the day.

"You need a fourth for a relay? I think my name's still on the roster." And we all kind of mutually agreed that it probably couldn't make Coach any angrier. 

So as senior night finally rolls around, we've got cars stuffed full of costume pieces and roll up to the bleachers just as Coach completes his final slew of announcements. As we sneak our costumes up into the press box, we run into a bunch of underclassmen who tell us Coach warned them again about wearing costumes. No sooner have we stuffed the costumes into the press box, under the bench where Taylor sits, disapproving of our choices with her eyes. 

Coach sees us as we walk out. "Hey, guys!" he says, somewhat surprised. "I didn't see you at announcements!"

We exchange nervous looks. He continues. "Sarah! Good to see you again!"

"Good to see you, Coach," she mutters without meeting his eyes. 

"Hey, I just wanted to remind you guys about the uniform rules. Remember--" and then he launches into a long speech, reminding us of the tyrannical rules governing high school sports that have absolutely no purpose and are not followed in college or professional track. No earrings. No necklaces. No rings. No piercings. No rolling down shorts. The kind of rules Taylor has no trouble following. He finishes by saying, "--and no costumes. Understand? This is a serious sport."

As he walks away, Sarah makes this face:

She makes a little noise when she does this, too, like 'nnnnnnngh'

We return to the press box. Rekha stomps her foot and declares, "okay, I don't care what he says, we're still doing it." 

Sarah looks at us. "I don't care. I'm not on the team."

"We have to do this!" I said.

Katherine bites her lip. "Yeah."

Taylor rolls her eyes. "Whatever. I'm not involved."

Two hours pass. Score sheets fly. Taylor takes note after note, scribbling down times and places. Occasionally, she asks me to help, but then I screw something up and she lets me go. Finally, the 4x400 approaches. 

Rekha pulls on her Freshman Lock-in shirt that's been turned inside-out and painted with the Batman symbol. She passes the Wonder Woman tee-shirt and blue spandex shorts to Sarah. I don my jungle princess costume. Katherine dresses up like Princess Jasmine. Taylor rolls her eyes. 

After a brief argument about who's going to walk out first, we descend from the press box and into the infield where Coach is waiting. I'm walking in front of everyone. Coach sees us and walks over, a frown on his face. 

"Didn't I tell you guys not to do this? You're dishonoring the whole sport!"

We freeze. Coach takes another threatening step forward. I find my voice. "Coach, if we wanted to dishonor the sport, we would have quit four years ago. We're doing this to honor the sport we love."

And this was the result right here.