the dance

by Jen Bryant

In the weeks leading up to the dance, we practice kissing: soft pecks and wet smooches, open-mouthed and closed. We repurpose pillows and stuffed animals, giving old teddy bears new life. We pucker up to bathroom mirrors after showering, leaving ghostly lip prints in the steam. We French kiss the insides of our elbows because Kristi’s cousin swears it’s just like the real thing.

It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. We want it to be perfect. We want it to mean something.

(For some of us, it’s happened already: a creepy softball coach, an older brother’s friend. Some have been practicing on each other, too, furtive fumbling in the dark. We tell ourselves it doesn’t count. Our real first kisses will be special.)

On the night of the dance, we cross ourselves in the backseats of our mothers’ minivans. We pray for distracted chaperones, soft lighting, good breath. We pray that the boys we like will like us back. We pray – forgive us – that someone else will be chosen last.

In the gym, the disco ball spins, casting magic across the empty dance floor. We huddle in a cloud of Love’s Baby Soft perfume, coltish and unsteady in our platform shoes. Leaning against the cinderblock wall with practiced nonchalance, we pass around a tube of strawberry-flavored lip gloss, applying and reapplying with laser focus.

Across the room, the boys roughhouse with each other. They shove their unwashed hands into party-sized bowls of chips, wiping greasy fingers across oversized t-shirts. We eye each other nervously. Our enthusiasm wilts. Do we really want their tongues in our mouths?

The DJ puts on a slow song; the math teacher dims the lights. We call our mothers, feigning cramps. Waiting out front for them to arrive, the moon glares down, an unblinking judgmental eye.

“Did you have a good time?” our mothers ask as we fasten our seat belts. Yes, we smile, testing the weight of the lie on our tongues. The music pulses behind us as we pull away.

Photo of Jen Bryant

BIO: Jen Bryant is a senior editor at MUTHA Magazine and a creative nonfiction reader for Mud Season Review. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Cleaver Magazine, JMWW, MER Literary, Door Is A Jar, Anodyne Mag, The Woolf, In a Flash, and elsewhere. Jen is a 2025 Ucross Foundation Fellow, and her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. Originally from the South, she currently lives and writes in the Midwest.