Fave Hangout as a Teen ... aka How I Got Arrested (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we're talking about our favorite hangout spot as a teen ... which is a roundabout way of discussing how we write about setting in our novels.

In truth, I spent most of my high school years hanging out on a basketball or tennis court, but I don't think that counts as a hangout. In second place might possibly be the McDonald's on Hastings Way, where we went after football or basketball games.

But, really, my fave hangout was Villa Piazza, which is now long gone.

The scene of my first and only arrest.

(But I will note, as a lawyer, that my record was expunged. So, legally, I can honestly say that I've never been arrested. Tricky thing, law.)

I usually THINK of Villa Piazza in the context of senior year of high school, when Supie and I and sometimes Lisa, Nancee, and Lynn hung out there, and even more when Supie was dating Scott, and I was dating Brian. We were there ALL THE TIME.

No idea how my mom allowed that, frankly, because two years earlier I was there with my softball team after a game. Our coach/manager was the bartender at Villa Piazza, and we always went there after games.

Until The Fateful Night.

I was 16, and the rest of the team was 18 or older. Actually, two or three of them were within a few weeks or months of turning 18 (which was then the legal drinking age, at least in Wisconsin), which I found out only when a few of us got arrested for underage drinking. Someone had called the police because they saw at least one person drinking beer who couldn't possibly be 18.

That would be me.

At 16, I looked 12. Really not kidding. I was out with my team, and trying to look cool, but in truth I hated the taste of beer and much preferred lemonade. But I had a beer (to look cool, which is hard to do when you look 12) (but I will note that I looked extremely cool when playing shortstop) (but I digress). But after the beer, I had a much tastier lemonade. Then I left.

Outside, I ran into a couple more teammates, who talked me into going back inside, and I am easily led into temptation. So I did. We sat back down at our softball table, and someone poured me a beer. I'd had had a few sips when two cops walked up to our big table ... and sat down on either side of me: the girl who looked 12.

And the rest is history. Or would be if it hadn't been expunged. And the resulting criminal trial against the bartender was the scene of my hilarious courtroom appearance, where even my mom (who was pissed as hell at me) burst into laughter when I made the prosecutor look utterly stupid. And THAT was the day I knew for a fact that I wanted to be a lawyer. I mean, if I could stop getting arrested.

(Not that I've ever been arrested. It was EXPUNGED, you know.)

But I still remember every inch of the Villa Piazza: the bar area, the table where my softball team hung out, the table in the back where Supie and I hung out two years later, and the jukebox that formed a lot of my early loves in the world of rock and roll.

And that's how you write setting. Memories!

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.