Clair McFarland: There's No Way My Kid Is Old Enough For A Homecoming Dance

I don’t feel old enough to be sending a kid off to the homecoming dance, yet here we are.

I summoned memories of my first homecoming dance. They were on a shelf of grey matter under some true-crime stories, scenes from giving birth four times, the taste of day-old Ramen and other things more comfortable than high school.   

I recalled the pressure of getting a date; feeling like I couldn’t go without one. Like I’d be a swollen Cheeto floating in the yacht dock if I dared show up at the dance alone.  

They don’t do it that way anymore, apparently. Firstborn had no shame about going stag with a group of friends.

Though he’s not allowed to date yet (unless, my dear, you’d like to invite a girl to have dinner or go out shooting guns with the whole family), I told him we’d make an exception so he could take a girl out to dinner and the dance.

“No, thanks,” said he, with all the confidence of a yacht full of Cheetos.

I also pondered the word “semiformal.”

On the one hand, we’re fortunate: Firstborn always has a suit handy because he’s a band kid.

On the other hand, we were at a complete loss: Two hours before the dance, Firstborn’s suit shirt was nowhere. My haphazard interrogations revealed that a little brother had used it as a lab coat for an ethically-dubious project in an unregistered laboratory downstairs, and it hadn’t been seen since.

I panicked.

“Mom, it’s fine. I’ll wear my Hawaiian shirt,” said Firstborn.

He wears that silk Hawaiian-print shirt as often as my washing machine will allow. It accentuates his shoulders, it makes his green eyes pop.

“That’s not semi-formal,” I groaned.

He gave a rules-were-made-to-be-broken shrug that I filed away for my own future use.

I took that boy down to the Western and ranch store, which has the nicest boys’ clothing you’ll find in a town this size. Bless their hearts for being open; bless their hearts for existing.

And that’s when he saw it. It was a white, tailored, pearl-snapped dress shirt with the slightest unhemmed cowboy rebellion at the bottom.

It had no price tag.

“It’s probably $60,” I muttered. But I knew I had no choice. A “semiformal” dance had me in its cultural clutches. A teen boy’s memory poised atop a precipice of delight or disappointment.

He carried that thing straight to the cashier, grinning.

It was only $25. I exhaled like a hot-air balloon.

“Oh,” said Firstborn, once in his suit, “a bunch of us are going to a pre-dance dinner.”

I frowned. I hadn’t coordinated with the hostess of this dinner. I didn’t even know her. My let’s-schedule-a-playdate days were long behind me, and Firstborn was letting me know it.

He gave me the hostess’ address - just a stone’s throw from my childhood home. We rolled down the dirt road and saw one dilapidated trailer house with no window panes. Its door hung askew; its walls puckered; a boundless darkness gaped within. I couldn’t see a house number so I turned on Google maps, and it claimed I was at my destination!

“Uh, no. I’ll take you out to dinner, Bud,” I said. “No one gets left behind at a meth lab.”

“No, no, Mom,” he sighed. “It’s up the hill.”

Firstborn was right. Google was wrong. Up the hill stood a nice home and a petite blonde mama standing outside, ready to shake my hand. She promised to get him to the dance safely. Firstborn’s ever-charming friends were also there.

But he was overdressed. I pulled him aside.

“Do you want me to take your jacket?” I asked.

“Nah, Mom. I’ll be fine.” And he actually winked at me. He knew something I didn’t: that the girls at the party would spend an hour doing their hair and makeup, then change from their sweatpants into their gowns while the boys challenged each other to wrestling matches on the trampoline.

And Firstborn’s suit would match their attire perfectly.

I left the party. Firstborn went off to make a memory.

I stifled the urge to text him. Stifled the need to lurk outside the dance later that evening.

But I let myself imagine what he was doing. Maybe he was bopping to a retro pop song with his friends. Maybe he was teaching a girl how to country-swing.

He was part of an adventure in which I had no business except as tailor and chauffeur. He was stockpiling awkward, charming, desperate or mighty memories to which I had no right.

It felt like my right arm had detached, self-animated and gone off on its own hero’s journey.

But in some ways, it also felt right.

Be free, you rogue autonomous portion of me!

I picked him up at 11 and drove him to an afterparty at our neighbor’s house. He did share part of the night’s memory with me, after all:

He’d “grooved” to the pop and rap songs, and danced with (redacted) for a couple slow songs. He’d also bought (redacted) a drink.

I think I was even more thrilled than he was that the night had gone so well.

A truth flooded my brain and made me smile: Firstborn’s homecoming dance meant a lot more to me than my own.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.