The Homecoming Crown Fifty Years Late

Gene

That night I could not sleep. I got up at two and made toast and sat at the kitchen table in my robe. Gene came out around two-thirty in his sock feet.

“You went to see her,” he said. It was not a question. He had seen it on my face at supper.

“She said her dad was drunk that night.”

“Probably was,” Gene said. “Probably was most nights.” He sat down across from me and took half my toast. “Doesn’t change the count.”

“No.”

“You thinking about not doing it?”

“I’m thinking about whether it’s mean.”

“Mean would be doing it so Connie looks bad,” he said. “You told her ahead. You gave her the door. That isn’t mean. That’s just late.”

“Fifty years late.”

“Late’s better than never, Marly. I’ve been told that by every implement dealer in three counties.”

I laughed, which I had not expected to do. He squeezed my hand across the table, and his palm was rough as a corncob, and we went back to bed.

The Program

I printed the program that Sunday in the church office, after the late service. One sheet of cream card stock, folded in half. Class of 1976, Fiftieth Reunion. The schedule for the weekend on the inside.

Friday: Social at the Legion, five o’clock. Homecoming game, seven o’clock. And underneath it, in the same plain typeface as everything else:

Halftime crowning of the 2026 Homecoming Queen, presented by Darlene Pruitt, Class of 1976.

I stared at that line on the screen for ten minutes before I hit print. Then I printed a hundred and twenty of them and folded every one by hand at the fellowship hall table.

Out of the five hundred dollars, I spent sixty-four on a rhinestone tiara at a little bridal shop in Wade City, and forty-two on a dozen red roses from the florist in town. The rest went to the Legion for the social, the hall rental and the ham sandwiches.