The Ballad of Billy Latreuil

"Group of elementary school kids running at school, back view" by Monkey Business

When I was eleven, I wore sweatpants to school and raced Billy Latreuil from first period math class to second period French. In our first year of middle school, most of my sixth grade classmates had already figured out that running through the hallways wasn’t cool. But trying to be cool wasn’t what I cared about. Beating Billy was.

Sometimes he cut through the courtyard, which was fair game but risky since the courtyard entrance turned into a real bottleneck depending on how nice the weather looked outside. When Billy took the shortcut, I had no choice but to try and make up ground by snaking through the crowded sixth grade hallway. That, too, proved a gamble. My classmates and I carried all of our stuff to every class as if we hadn’t been given the combinations to our lockers. In winter, our puffy coats drooped half-on, half-off, and our oversized L.L. Bean backpacks slung lopsided over one shoulder left even less room to squeeze through. We lugged our violin, saxophone, and flute cases around like an orchestra-in-training. Bulky nylon lunch totes capped off the disheveled look. Carabiners attached to the zipper extenders of backpacks had recently dethroned slap bracelets as the en vogue fashion trend of my grade, so the added hazard of getting clocked by a classmate’s half dozen clinking metal rings while I ran by added a certain amount of peril to the route. Still, racing Billy was the best part of my day.

For the aforementioned reasons, when I could reach the courtyard first, I took the shortcut. While I ran, I imagined myself arriving to class triumphant, but Billy was skinny and fast. More often than not, convinced I’d won, I reached French class breathless only to find him sitting at his desk, pencil in hand, notebook out, a celebratory petit smirk on his face while he waited for me to show up.

Billy’s math skills surpassed mine, but I had him beat in French, which probably hurt a little considering his family came from France. Even though this was our first year taking a foreign language, French inhabited my body like the marrow of my bones. My accent was so authentic, it sounded as if I had come out of the womb wearing a beret and eating croissants. I pronounced Billy’s last name better than he ever could. Admittedly, I gave myself plenty of practice, saying his name over and over in my bedroom, letting the syllables form by pressing my tongue against my front teeth and blowing from the back of my throat. “La-tre-uil. La-tre-uil.” I loved saying his name. I said it over and over, as if it were a way of trying to claim a piece of him.

As long as I’m making confessions, I’ll admit my sixth grade likeness to a French person might be a tad overstated. While the French have a reputation for exceptional taste and exquisite style, my favorite outfit at the time was a dinosaur-themed sweatshirt and sweatpant set, purchased for fourth grade picture day but still in use two years later. Primary yellow stegosaurus-style plates stretched down both my shirt sleeves and along the seams of each bright blue pant leg. Worn in regular rotation with my other sweatsuit ensembles, my clothes did not scream, “Je suis Française.”

This news may not come as a shock, but I wasn’t one of the cool kids. Sporting dinosaur-themed sweats while racing through the halls and speaking the limited French I knew outside of French class didn’t boost my social standing.

Billy shouldn’t have been cool either. Every day he wore khaki pants, a polo shirt, and big clunky sneakers whose laces inexplicably came untied all day long. Scrawny and prepubescent, he had the face of a strawberry blond baby. Freckles constellated across his nose from cheek to cheek, like twinkles in a desert sky. His head appeared half the size of mine.

Nevertheless, to me and all my friends, Billy shone like a bright, beaming sun our little planets orbited around. Billy didn’t seem to have a clue, which made him even more irresistible. All of us liked him. We didn’t just like him. We liked him.

***

That spring, the gym class unit my friends and I had been waiting for finally arrived: dance. The first period gym students burst into their second period classes breathless with the news. By the time my gym period rolled around after lunch, I stepped into the gymnasium fully convinced I was about to become a ballroom dancer.

The nice thing about the dance unit, besides swaying off-beat with a boy to music I’d never heard before, was not having to change into my gym clothes. Our tracksuit-clad teachers must’ve figured we’d look more appealing in our regular school apparel, though it’s debatable whether my dad’s old Flower City 5K t-shirt and baggy purple Umbros would’ve outshone my usual attire. They definitely would’ve exposed more leg hair.

Our gym teachers also must have had the absurd idea that we’d sweat less than we did playing floor hockey, but just the thought of dancing with a boy set off a full-body sweatfest. As I stood in the gym, I wished I’d remembered to apply some Crystal Clean Caribbean Fresh deodorant in the girl’s locker room, but it was too late. I prayed I didn’t smell and that my sweatshirt was constructed of durable, moisture-wicking material.

The girls lined up while the boys clumped together about twenty feet away from us. Normally, the space was divided by a giant moveable wall, partitioning the room into a boys’ and a girls’ side. But with the wall accordioned back, we got our first glimpse of which boys were in our class. I spotted Billy and his friend laughing at two other boys who were taking turns jumping up on the padded gym walls, competing to see who could leap the highest. After a couple minutes, our gym teachers, Mr. B. and Coach V., gathered the boys into a line facing us. 

Mr. B. said, “Today we start our unit on American dance. Over the next few classes, you’ll learn the box step, how to turn, and the Foxtrot. Then we’ll do line dancing with the Electric Slide and finish up with square dancing. The whole unit has eight classes.”

As an adult looking back on that overview, I imagine many of my classmates did not experience the same thrill I did after hearing this announcement. Not everyone was as besotted with the idea of dancing face-to-face with someone of another gender as I was. But at the time, the fog of my boy-crazy haze acted like a smokescreen, blinding me to anything negative.

Coach V. cleared her throat to speak next. Her thin gray hair puffed up on her head like a helmet she never took off. “To begin today’s class, in just a moment, each young man will approach a young lady and ask her to be his partner.”

She let the announcement hang in the air, giving us time to let this information sink in. My insides buzzed. Who would ask me to dance? 

Coach V.’s sharp tone snapped me back as she laid out the ground rules, starting with the boys. “There will be no running. Every boy will walk calmly to a girl. Gentlemen, if someone else asks the girl you were going to ask to dance, pick someone else. No fighting over partners.” Coach V. turned to us next. “Ladies, when a boy asks you to dance, you’ll respond politely: ‘Yes.’ Then you’ll take hands, find an open spot, face each other, and wait for our instruction. Any questions?”

Silence across both lines. I dared a glance at the boys, and that’s when everything changed. That’s when I saw the one boy I knew I couldn’t possibly dance with. 

Sam Spillane.

Sam was in a few of my classes and was giving me the eyeballs. I looked away fast. The thought of spending the next forty-five minutes dancing with Sam horrified me. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the thing that happened on Valentine’s Day two months earlier made the idea of dancing with Sam feel like an absolute disaster.

Up until mid-February, I’d barely noticed Sam. But on February 14, 1993, I learned Sam had definitely noticed me. While I was busy daydreaming about Billy Latreuil, Sam had apparently been daydreaming about me—French-class-loving, sweatpant-wearing, hallway-sprinting me.

There I was that Valentine’s day, happily enjoying my chicken patty and mashed potatoes lunch, sitting with my usual friends at our regular table on the dorky girls’ side of the cafeteria. The dorky boys had their own side, and in between sat everyone else. 

Toward the end of the lunch period, something weird started happening over on the dorky boys’ side. A cluster of boys had crowded around one table, which was odd because that group usually cleared out halfway through lunch, so they could run around outside and pelt dodge balls at each other. But this table had boys huddled around it like they were plotting a coup. Maybe if I had been paying attention, I might’ve anticipated what was about to happen, but I only had eyes for Billy. I had no idea what was heading my way.

As lunch was about to end, I got up to throw out my trash, and that’s when the boys made their move, leaving their table and crossing the wide middle of the cafeteria. Sam shuffled in the center, propelled forward by a swarm of his friends. I tossed my garbage into the bin, and when I turned around, the rogue pack had closed in. I was surrounded. Before I could react, they shoved Sam toward me, just as the bell rang. He held out a folded piece of pink construction paper.

“This is for you,” Sam said.

If only I could’ve found a way not to take the card, even if that would’ve been cruel. After all, Sam wasn’t trying to embarrass me. But I didn’t know what else to do. Red-faced, paper in hand, I scurried back to my table, grabbed my backpack, and ran into the girls’ locker room across the hall.

My classmates formed a tight circle around me. I still don’t know how word spread so fast, but I should’ve. In sixth grade, news moves at warp speed. Dorky, cool, and everyone in between crowded in to get a look at Sam’s handywork. Suddenly, I was the most popular girl in class. I should’ve soaked up the moment, but I didn’t want to be cool. I was mortified. What if everyone thought I liked Sam back? Or worse: what if they thought we were destined for each other and started calling us a couple?

“Let’s see!”

“Ooohhh, Sam likes Randi!”

“Look what he made!”

I couldn’t blame them for being impressed. If I’d been an art teacher, I would’ve had no choice but to give Sam an A. Pink construction paper, fuschia cut-out hearts, and a generous splash of glitter, still tacky from not-yet-dry Elmer’s glue, gave it a certain je ne sais quoi. Magenta five-petal flowers drawn with squiggly green stems danced around the hearts, framed by swirly lines along the paper’s edge. Inside, behind a ruby red heart-shaped door dripping with more glitter, was the question: “Will you go out with me?” More pink and red heart stickers with the words, “Be My Valentine” added to the fanfare, just in case I’d forgotten what day it was.

I hated the card and how embarrassing the whole scene must’ve looked to anyone watching. I wanted nothing to do with it, and I didn’t care how that made Sam feel. I crumpled the card and shoved it into my locker before slamming the door shut. After class ended, I stuffed it in my backpack and brought it home for one last look before throwing it out for good.

For the next two months, I did my best to follow my friends’ advice and pretend the whole thing never happened. I ignored Sam, hoping he’d take the hint and leave me alone. That approach seemed to be working until ballroom dance day arrived. Evidently Sam hadn’t forgotten about me. Based on the way he was jockeying closer, his hope that we would wind up together looked very much alive.

Sam had one foot forward, both knees bent, and his head down. He looked ready to ignore the “walk calmly” rule to ask me to dance the second the teacher said “Go.” I was cornered with nowhere to run. I closed my eyes, bracing for whatever came next. As I heard the word “Go,” I hoped with every ounce of my being that the floor would rip open and swallow me whole.

Then a miracle happened.

The floor didn’t open up, but when I opened my eyes, Sam wasn’t standing in front of me. Instead, it was Billy, who’d gotten to me faster than he ever sprinted to French class.

“Randi, will you dance with me?”

Billy was the first boy in that whole class to ask a girl to dance. I was the first girl to accept. He could’ve asked anyone, but his swiftness told me he hadn’t wanted to miss his chance.

Even now, decades later, I remember how that thought lit me up inside, how special Billy darting, choosing me, made me feel. Like we weren’t just two classmates who had made a game of running to French class, but in the thick chaos of our last preteen year, we were two friends who liked each other. While Sam had crushed on me from afar, Billy actually knew me and liked me enough to race someone else to ask me to dance. 

Maybe he just wanted a partner he felt comfortable with, or maybe he liked me the way I liked him. In the middle of that confusing, hormone-driven time, teetering on the edge of childhood and on the cusp of everything our teenage years would bring, I almost didn’t care. The effort he gave meant I mattered to him.

“Oui. I mean, yes,” I said. 

Billy smiled, not his petit smirk from second period French but a big, open smile. He held out his hand, and I placed my sweaty hand in his sticky palm. We walked past our classmates to a spot in the middle of the room and waited. For a moment, neither of us spoke. 

I can’t remember which one of us broke the silence. It wasn’t more than a minute before we were surrounded by other pairings, and our teachers began teaching. Even still, all these years later, I picture us standing there and can’t help imagining what we might’ve said to each other.

Maybe it was Billy who spoke first. “After this, race you to science?” 

And in my heart of hearts, I know I would’ve smiled. “Sure,” I probably said, and then the music started.

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Randi Stern (she/her) is a 2024-2025 graduate of GrubStreet's Essay Incubator program in Boston, MA. She lives in Boston with her husband and obsesses over tennis in her spare time. Her work has appeared in Little Old Lady Comedy.