They Call Me Cha-Cha
by Auryn Rei Evroren
Chapter One
My name is Charlene Victoria DiGregorio. You've probably heard of me as "Cha-Cha DiGregorio, the best dancer at St. Bernadette's", right? Well this is my story, and it's definitely not what you've heard. So sit down and pay attention, because I don't like to repeat myself.
I moved to Chicago when I was thirteen years old. My parents were both from Brooklyn, but they were having problems and decided to move. I guess they thought it would help them like each other more. Considering that dad took off the year I started high school, I don't really think it worked. Anyway, they took me away from all of my friends in the city, and I got to spend the rest of my life in Chicago. It wasn't all bad, but for the first year or so, I hated it. I hated my parents, too.
"Why don't you go outside and play, Charly?" my mama would say. "It's such a pretty day out."
"I don't want to," I told her day after day, but she never stopped trying to get me to go outside. Sooner or later, I found out that was because she didn't want me to smell my dad's cigarettes from his study.
I ended up sitting on the front porch almost every day, just staring out at the neighborhood. It was a cookie-cutter subdivision, where all the houses looked the same. White houses with blue shutters and neatly mowed lawns. It was a prison, living there in suburban America, when I was so used to living in the thick of New York City. Day after day after day, I just sat on my porch. Sometimes kids would come by and ask if I wanted to go out for a coke at the diner on the corner, but on the rare occasions that I felt like making friends, mama didn't want to let me go without her. So I stayed home all summer long until school started.
During the summertime, Mama and Daddy argued about where I would go to school. Mama said public school was just fine for anybody, but Daddy said he didn't like the sound of the local high school, Rydell High. He said if I was going to school, it would be at St. Bernadette's Academy, the all-girls Catholic school. It meant Daddy would have to drive me across town to school every day, but he said he'd do it if it meant there wouldn't be boys looking up my dress every day. They argued and argued, but eventually Daddy won. They enrolled me at St. Bernadette's.
"Now you pay attention and make sure you get good grades in your classes, you hear?" Daddy said in the car as he dropped me off in front of the school. "I don't wanna get no bad calls from a bunch of nuns because you been acting up."
"Because that's never happened before," I muttered under my breath.
"Charlene Victoria!"
"Yes, Daddy. Straight A's."
"That's my girl."
He drove away, and I pretended not to see the cigarette he lit as he turned the corner. I stared up at the school doors, willing myself to climb the steps and enter the semi-crowded halls filled with girls in pleated skirts and cardigans like the one draped around my shoulders.
The smell of cigarette smoke drifted across my nose. Had Daddy come back for something? Did he change his mind, and say I could go to Rydell, like every other kid in town?
When I turned to look, all I saw was a group of leather-wearing teenage boys standing on the sidewalk, smirking at me. Two of the five were smoking, one was sizing up a nearby car, and the other two were staring straight at me.
"Whaddaya say, Zuko?" said one of them, the taller and broader-shouldered one. He had light brown hair that was all a mess.
"I say…Catholic schoolgirls ain't in season, Kenick," replied the second. He was smaller, and his black hair was slicked back. The way he stood, arms crossed, made him seem larger and more interesting than the first speaker.
"Aw, c'mon," the first boy said. "Who needs another day one at Ry-hell?"
The second boy- Zuko? -smacked him in the back of the head. "We do, you idiot. We told the girls we'd be there, and if we ain't…"
"…I'm gonna hear it."
"Well Rizzo ain't gonna be too happy, that's all I'm sayin'."
I raised my eyebrows, curious to know if they realized that I could hear them quite clearly. Zuko raised his brow right back at me- they knew, all right.
"You want somethin'?" I asked, bringing out my Brooklyn attitude. Zuko opened his mouth to respond, but he got cut off.
"Yeah, Zuko, you want somethin'? Cuz you're way outta your territory."
The speaker looked plenty like the one in front of me- clad all in black leather, with dark hair that was slicked back with grease. However, his skin was more tanned, and he had a more muscular build. His facial features declared him probably Italian or Puerto Rican, I couldn't quite tell, but he wasn't pure-bred from the US of A. He'd appeared next to me like a shadow, completely unheard, and with three other guys behind him. I had to have jumped a mile, but no one mentioned anything.
The guy called Zuko spat in the dirt. "Not wantin' anythin' from you, Moretti," he said, then whistled to his guys. "Let's head out, boys, good old Rydell's waitin'!" Laughing and singing a lewd parody of the Rydell fight song, they headed off down the street.
I rounded on the boy who'd interrupted. "I don't need any help, thanks so much," I fired off. "I was doin' just fine on my own." He laughed and held up his hands. "Alright, sister, I surrender," he said with a grin. "S'what I get for tryin' to be neighborly. Hows about I try a more conventional approach?" He held out a hand. "Tony Moretti, head of the Flaming Dukes, at your service."
I considered, then shook his hand. "Charly DiGregorio." The bell rang inside, and he let go of my hand rather quickly. "You better go- don't wanna be late to class," he said, smirking. I held up my hand in an 'up yours' gesture, producing several laughs, and ran inside.
Of course I was late.