🎵Music and Crop Tops
💔 Zack
I was so excited to seem cool. Mission not accomplished.
Our desks were arranged into groups of four to make a table, the lopsided wooden tops knocking into each other in the center every time a desk would wobble. Zack was directly in front of me. Quinn was to my left, displaying the new Beanie Baby she had just acquired—a flamingo, I think, the little heart-shaped tag dangling from its hot-pink wing. I don’t remember who sat next to Zack, diagonally from me. Sorry, Diagonal Person.
“Zack, that sweatshirt looks wonderful on you.”
Our sixth-grade teacher, Mr. D, fed the compliment from his desk in the corner behind me out into the room with his decadently buoyant, rich voice.
“It really brings out the color of your eyes.”
The class snapped their own eyes to the eleven-year-old boy in front of me, who looked flattered yet slightly mortified. Looking up, I could not agree with Mr. D more. Zack’s sweatshirt, blanketing him from the slice and chill of the New Jersey air, was a light, powdery blue, and it made his eyes pop like a wolf’s glowing against a forest night. Zack’s eyes were an icy azure; a shield to the outer world, hiding his thoughts.
I had attended Apollo Elementary School since the year prior, but this was the first and only year Zack was in my class. I thought he was cute from that first autumn day. His eyes stunned me, freezing me in place even without that powder blue sweatshirt enhancing their glow. He had a nest of curly brown hair and smooth, alabaster skin. He was one of the cool guys, and I thought I had won the lottery of class seat assignments when I was to sit at his table for the year.
Somehow, Quinn was even nerdier than I was. She was nerdy in a cool way, though. She knew she was a nerd right down to the glasses that sat upon her oval-shaped face, but she didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about it. She was a confident nerd before being a nerd was cool. I could tell even then that Zack respected her for this, for being smart and for being confident. Her waist-length brown hair that laid smoothly atop her white sweatshirt was tied half-up with a scrunchie.
I sat there with my big, black frizzy hair and bangs, probably also nuzzled in a sweatshirt, but it was likely too big for my little preteen body. There was nothing really wrong with my body, but I thought that hiding it in an oversized top would cover everything up, not realizing that it only made me look less put together and larger than I actually was. It wasn’t hard for me to see that I was much chubbier than the other girls my age. This was unfortunately the era of the crop top, a trend that I never thought I could follow because of my figure. I actually tried one once when I was on vacation in Hawaii, because at least I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I loved the print, a neon orange, navy and white stripe.
I was not comfortable. I spent all evening at dinner and touring afterwards with my arms crossed over my midriff. Again, there was nothing wrong with my body, but I thought there was. I thought that everyone I passed was judging me.
“Why is that girl trying to be trendy? She doesn’t have the body to pull that off,” they were thinking. Because everyone is paying attention to the eleven-year-old and her wardrobe instead of the beauty of the island that surrounded them.
I used to refer to my 5th and 6th grade years as my Ugly Phase. How cruel we can be to ourselves, even at a young age. Puberty had released a mound of hormones that painted my face with acne and morphed my hair from a sleek shine when I blow-dried it to a dry, frizzy puff. I also had begun to gain weight. I moved back to the states in the 2nd grade and was re-introduced to SAD (Standard American Diet) foods1.
By my preteen years, my poor choice in sustenance and less than healthy school-provided meals had begun to add a cushy layer to my already big-boned body. As if I hadn’t already noticed it myself, boys began to point this fact out to me.
The word “fat” can be weaponized so that it slices like a scalpel. Sometimes you think you can’t even feel it, but then you look down and realize your self-confidence is bleeding out of you in a slow, steady scarlet stream.
What business was it of theirs how big my body was?
Did I ask them?
Did their opinion matter?
Yes.
These were my peers, and along with the blast of hormones that was wreaking its havoc on my complexion and hair, it was also making me hyper-aware of the opposite sex, and I really appreciated the beauty of boys.
Like Zack. Not only was he pretty on the outside, he was so cool and popular. How do you even get popular in elementary school? You only stay with one class, so how do you become one of the kids that the whole school thinks is awesome? Whatever; Zack did it.
Later that day, we were transitioning from one lesson to another, and Zack was teasing Quinn about not knowing what the current popular music hits were while we packed up notebooks and put them in our desks. I don’t know what music Quinn listened to, but it wasn’t the same radio stations the rest of us were.
“Who sings ‘Pony2’?” Zack quizzed her, his tenor carrying over the noise of the class.
I don’t know why she was still amusing him, she certainly wasn’t enjoying the musical interrogation. Even I didn’t know the answer to that one, though I did know the song. I had been playing along with the conversation, just as surprised as Zack that Quinn wasn’t into the same music we and the rest of our class were. I was happy and excited that I had something in common with him, and I was eager to show it. Maybe he would think I was cool. Maybe he would look at me and think I was pretty after all, with my great taste in music, despite my own nerdy glasses that had frames unnecessarily too large for my face, and my oversized wardrobe that made me look shapeless and sloppy.
“I don’t know,” Quinn replied, pulling her books out of her desk and placing them on top. “That’s really the name of a song?”
Zack just laughed, setting his own materials for the next subject on his own desk.
“What about ‘No Diggity’?” he continued.
“NO DOUBT!” I enthusiastically announced from my end of the desk-made table, half bent over in front of the opening of my own desk.
I had been waiting for that moment, the moment when Zack would ask a question about a song I knew the answer to, and he had asked about one of my favorite songs that year. I knew the answer.
If you were alive and paying attention in 1996, you know that the band No Doubt3 did not sing a song titled, “No Diggity.” This song was performed by an R&B group called Blackstreet4. Two completely different musical groups from two completely different genres—how could I have possibly mixed them up?
I was so excited to prove my worth, that when the song title escaped Zack’s precious pink lips, my brain immediately auto-filled not the band name, but the next lyric in the song.
“No diggity, no doubt.”
I caught myself quickly.
“NO!” I tried to correct. “Wait!”
It was too late, the blunder had been made, and it was funny. Zack’s mouth half-mooned into laughter, his snow-pierced eyes scrunched with glee.
I’m happy that I at least had the dignity to laugh along. Even though it wasn’t how I pictured it, I was able to share that moment with him, the two of us giggling at the mistake I had made, me trying to catch my breath and convince him that I did know the correct answer, his cheeks pink as peonies as he stated he did not believe me. Quinn had long lost her interest in the conversation, prepping her notebook and pen without paying us any mind.
And that was the last time I ever tried to impress a boy with my musical trivia knowledge.
Thank you for reading this excerpt of The Crush Chronicles. If you know someone who would enjoy or relate to this topic, please consider sharing it with them.
📝 Journal Prompts for Music and Crop Tops
🎼 Playlist for Music and Crop Tops
Meet the Next Crush in the Chronicles:
Meet the Previous Crush in the Chronicles:
“Pony” by Ginuwine, and yes we were 11 and had no idea what this song was about. Well, at least I didn’t.
Blackstreet, the artist behind “No Diggity.” Yes, I also did not know what this song was about, but I did sing along every single time I heard it that year. Actually, I still sing along every time I hear it.