The Prom Page 8

  “You know what I mean,” Emma says. All of a sudden, she’s moving, filling my car with flying hands and animation. I haven’t seen her this excited since she found out the new Sabrina was going to be freaky-scary instead of goofy-silly.

  “He’s just out there,” she goes on. “His mom pushed him out, too. And he said that people like us, we get to choose our families. We get to choose the people around us, and I never thought about that before. If family is love, then the people we love are family.”

  I’m not sure why, but unease snakes through me, low through my belly. I feel like I’m holding on to a balloon too tight, afraid that it’ll slip from my grasp. I interrupt this train of thought and say, “I don’t want to change the subject or anything, but I do . . . I mean, so you know, I do still want us to do it—go to prom together.”

  She stops short. “I thought that was already settled.”

  “It is, it was!” I say. “I just didn’t know, with everything that’s happened . . . if, I don’t know, maybe you’d changed your mind.”

  With that, Emma leans back and looks at me. Really looks at me. “You realize I’m the only thing that hasn’t changed in all of this, right? I didn’t ask for your mother to turn this into a referendum on my personhood. And I didn’t ask for Broadway to picket the school. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “No, of course you didn’t!” I hold up my hands. “Please, I don’t want to fight.”

  “I don’t either.” Emma looks so disappointed, but then she catches my hands. “And you know what? I don’t want to start a riot. I don’t want to blaze a trail or be a symbol—and I don’t care what other people think. I just want to dance with you.”

  When the tears spring up, they catch me by surprise. That’s all I want, too, I want to say. To dance together, and let the world melt away, and to just feel right about it. To feel no fear. I love Emma so much it hurts, and I hate that the way I’ve been loving her hurts her, too. Finally, I say, “I just want to hold you.”

  “And I don’t want to let you go,” she says. Tears glimmer in her eyes, too. “Two people swaying, that’s it. Nobody knows how to dance anymore anyway. So it’ll be you and me, shuffling awkwardly to music nobody was ever supposed to dance to. I don’t know why that scares them so much, but I don’t care, Alyssa. All I care about is you.”

  I turn away to sniff. I’m a gross crier, and when I kiss her after this, I don’t want to slime her. “I promise you. When we get there, it’s going to be just you and me and a song.”

  Emma falls into my arms again, and I hold her so tight. I rub my cheek against her hair and squeeze until I feel her exhale a breath. It’s not right that something this good, this perfect, can cause so much trouble. No—that other people let something this good, this perfect, bother them.

  A soft rain opens up, and the hush of drops spilling over the roof of my car does that thing that Emma wants—it makes the world melt away. Right now, here in the dark, in the mist, beneath the fall of rain, there is no world, just this. Just now.

  Just us.

  13. Razzle, Also Some Dazzle, Plus, Pound Cake

  EMMA

  I hear Barry and Dee Dee on the porch before they knock on the door.

  More specifically, I hear Dee Dee doing something that sounds suspiciously like a few steps of tap dancing. Then, when she knocks on the door, it’s bright and strident. I leap up from the bright yellow lounger in the living room to answer.

  “I was expecting them to be fashionably late,” Nan says, pulling out a bread knife to slice the cake she made. The whole house smells like sugar and vanilla, and even though I’m nervous, I open the door with a smile.

  “Nous sommes arrivés,” Dee Dee announces, stepping through the door like a showgirl. She catches me up in her manicured hands, pressing her cheek to mine and mwahing right next to my ear. When she lets go, I practically spin across the floor. She’s been in my house for less than ten seconds and I’m already out of breath.

  A clothing rack comes through the door next, Barry pushing it from behind. His perfect skin is slightly pink, and when he gets in, he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and daubs it across his face. When he finishes, he literally closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then comes back to the present.

  “Emma!” he says, lighting up. He doesn’t spin me across the room, thankfully. He just grabs my hands and squeezes them. “How are you, darling?”

  Overwhelmed. Excited. Slightly nauseated? I say none of those things, because none of them answer the question. I’m all of them, and more. I feel like a weathervane, spinning toward ecstasy, then back toward despair. So I offer a smile instead and lead him inside. “I’m good, thank you, how are you?”

  “Recuperating,” Dee Dee answers for him. She turns, as if looking for somewhere to perch. We have a couch, a love seat, a rocking chair, and the yellow lounger, but Dee Dee seems out of sorts. Finally, she manages to arrange herself against the fireplace. Placing a hand dramatically over her heart she says, “No one appreciated our performance at the rally. They threw things!”

  “Did they really?” Nan asks, hiding a smile.

  “They did! Do you know how many people would pay good money to see us in New York?”

  “It was probably the up-and-down weather,” Nan says. “People get a little loopy when spring is almost here. Would you like some refreshments?” She ferries thick yellow slices of pound cake onto paper plates. I can’t wait to see what Dee Dee does with disposable dishes.

  Dee Dee peeks at the cake and quickly shifts her attention away. “I couldn’t possibly,” she says. Then, just as quickly, she reverses herself. “But it would be so terribly rude to decline. Just a tiny slice for me?”

  “I want to get these out of the garment bags for Emma,” Barry says. “Which way to the boudoir?”

  “Uh, if you mean my bedroom, it’s this way,” I say, gesturing toward the hallway.

  Barry puts my hand on the rack and walks off toward my room. I guess he’s about done driving this thing around. Amused, I pull it along behind me. It’s incredibly heavy, and I can hear things scratching and shaking behind the thick vinyl bags. My guess is rhinestones. At least, I hope that’s all it is.

  “Oh, I recognize this,” Barry says as he sashays into my room. “This is where you record your videos!”

  I still can’t believe he bothered to watch them. With a shy smile, I sit down on my bed and say dryly, “Yep, this is where the magic happens.”

  “Well, believe you me,” he says, turning to the rack, “it’s about to get one thousand percent more magical in here, starting now!”

  “You know,” I say quickly, “maybe we could mix it up a little. I was thinking a vintage tux, some high-tops . . .”

  Appalled, Barry turns to me. “Could we? Yes. Should we? Dear god, no. Sweetheart, I’m begging here. Let me dress you for the prom.”

  “Okay,” I say. I mean, he’s from New York. He definitely knows more about fashion than I do. Folding my hands, pressing my knees together, I nod at him encouragingly and wait.

  Barry unzips the first garment bag, then throws it back like he’s revealing a new piece of art. I recoil, because for a second, it looks like whatever’s in there is going to shoot out and stab me with a million little icicles.

  When fight or flight fades to slightly anxious in my own skin, I see that it’s a red spangly dress covered with rows upon rows of dangling crystals. The dress shimmies when he pulls it free; it sounds like a hundred whispers all at once when it moves.

  “Wow,” I say, stunned.

  Barry leans in. “Good wow or bad wow?”

  “Just wow.”

  I hate to say no, because it’s obviously gorgeous. And I don’t want him to think I’m not trying here, but there’s no way I’m going to prom in a red hot jazz baby dress like that. It’s forty-two inches of va-voom violation of the dress code, an
d the only accessory I can think to wear with it would be a machine gun. All things considered, that might come off as a tiny bit aggro.

  Finally, I come up with something I can say that isn’t wildly ungrateful. “It’s a little flashy for me.”

  “Fair enough,” he says, and whoosh! He flings off another garment bag to reveal a white gown with black ribbon at the ankles, and the waist, and the neck. And ruffles, whoa, so many ruffles at the neck.

  It definitely covers all of the body parts I’m required to cover—and then some. The sleeves puff out at the shoulders and taper to tight wristlets. Barry waggles his brows at me. “There’s a matching hat, three feet wide, white ostrich plumes for days.”

  I laugh. “That’s just daring all the roosters around here to attack.”

  At that, Barry chuckles. In the other room, I hear Dee Dee belting a few lines and Nan singing something back in her crow-like rattle. She’s the worst singer I know, but she loves doing it more than anyone I know, too. My grandmother is out there bonding with this Broadway invasionette over pound cake and . . . what sounds like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”??

  All the tension that’s in me, that surrounds me, melts away. It’s okay if I don’t love this dress; there’s another one right behind it. It’s okay if I’m an ordinary girl from an ordinary place. Barry makes me feel like there’s more to me than this bedroom, this town, this moment. It’s easy to get caught up in his enthusiasm, and you know what? I’m gonna let myself.

  It’s the first time in weeks that I’ve genuinely laughed. And breathed. And worried about nothing except what frilly Lovecraftian confection might be in the next bag. My house is so much bigger now. Fuller and brighter, somehow. It’s just . . . alive. I can’t remember the last time my life felt . . . full.

  Barry reveals the next dress with a slow flourish. It’s pink and fitted, not really me at all. But this one, at least, looks like a dress I could wear to a high school prom. Or to a midday business meeting with a select group of venture capitalists and tech gurus. Easing the hanger free, Barry says, “This one, you have to try on. It’s something special.”

  “Okay,” I say. Why not?

  “I’ll wait for you in the living room. But don’t make me wait too long or you’ll meet my drag alter ego, Carol Channing Tatum.”

  “Is that supposed to make me not want that?” I ask with a laugh.

  He points imperiously. “Go. Now.”

  With that, I duck down the hall to our bathroom. Stripping out of my flannels and tee, I pull the dress over my head. It’s strangely heavy, and I feel packed into it. I never wear clothes this tight.

  Looking into the mirror, I try to smooth and flatten . . . and then I try to scoop up my boobs so they sit front and center in this thing. The wide straps cover a lot of my shoulders, but not everything. It’s so much skin. It’s so revealing.

  I have never wanted to be a lacy girl. There’s nothing wrong with it—Alyssa is all soft frills and fitted everything, everyday heels and skirts that range from ankle to knee. Her makeup is always soft, mascara framing her big brown eyes, lipstick teasing out the perfect bow of her lips. I love a lacy girl.

  But I’m not one. I feel like my joints are ten times too big to walk around in a dress like this. As I slip out of the bathroom and down the hallway, I’m Godzilla in Gucci, tromping through Tokyo Fashion Week.

  In the living room, Barry laughs with Nan and Dee Dee. They’re waiting to see the dress on me. To be part of my big makeover scene. That’s how this works, right? I get a fairy godfather, a glittering gown, glass slippers, a ticket to the ball . . .

  I tentatively make my way into the room, and all eyes turn to me. Nervously, I ask, “What do you think?”

  “We’re getting there,” Dee Dee says, unhooking herself from the hearth and handing off her cake to Barry. “Good shoulders, terrible posture. Posture is half the battle, Emma. It rights so many wrongs, makes C cups of so many barely Bs . . .” Clasping my shoulders, Dee Dee looks me in the face and says, “Zazz.”

  Uh . . . what?

  “That’s what’s missing,” she says, whirling around me. She pulls my shoulders back and presses a hand in the middle of my spine. “Breathe in, from the diaphragm.”

  I take a breath, and I don’t say anything. Dee Dee moves in a flash, adjusting my posture, even tipping my chin up with a quick flash of fingers. When she stops in front of me, she stares into my eyes for a long moment and says, “We need to see it in your eyes.”

  “You want me to smize?”

  Crisply, Dee Dee steps into a pose. She’s Wonder Woman without the bracelets, suddenly taller, her shoulders appear broader, taking up angular space in a way that simultaneously reminds me of Picasso and praying mantises. “Zazz is style plus confidence. Now let’s see it.”

  “It’s just so . . . pink,” I say finally.

  That’s when Barry leaps to his feet. “Sweetheart, I told you this was special.” He tugs a ribbon on the side of the dress. “Spin!”

  And like a crazy, out-of-control top, I do. I feel the ribbon unfurl; I spin and spin and suddenly, the pink dress turns blue. I don’t even know how it happens. The skirt turns fuller and longer, kissing my knees. The top is softer, the shoulder straps turned to cap sleeves. I’m Katniss freaking Everdeen, and I’m gonna be the last girl standing at prom!

  “Look at you,” Nan says, admiring.

  I am never going to be a lacy girl, and I’m never going to love wearing a dress. But this one? This one I can handle. This one is special. It’s magic, and these people are, too.

  They’re magic in Indiana, and maybe—just maybe—a little bit of me is magic, too.

  14. It’s Raining on Prom Night

  ALYSSA

  I am in so much trouble. The countdown to prom is in minutes, and I haven’t told my mother yet.

  The back of my head still burns from way too long under the space bubble hair dryer at Joan’s Curl Up ’n’ Dye. I’ve never had this much Aqua Net or glitter in my hair before. When I reach up to touch it, two things happen: first, it crunches a little beneath my fingers, and second, my mother smacks my hand away.

  “I’ve been peeping at those makeup gals online. They all do this,” Joan tells her as she paints my face with another round of foundation. “It’s called wake and baking.”

  Choking on my gum, I say nothing. There’s not enough money in the world to get me to explain to my mother what that really means. If she doesn’t know, she’d demand to know how I do. Existing in 2019 would be the answer, but not one she would appreciate hearing.

  What I don’t appreciate is how I haven’t had a moment alone with Mom all day. It’s like every single time there’s been a breath in her nonstop pre-prom prep list, she’s flung herself as far from me as possible. I open my mouth to say one serious thing, and her phone blows up on cue.

  Oh, there’s a balloon emergency. No, the DJ absolutely cannot deviate from the playlist. What do you mean we don’t have a punch monitor?

  I glance at my phone, so far away from me on Joan’s station. Less than an hour until prom starts and I’ve said word zero to my mother about my date. My very real date who was, last time she managed to text, being semi-felt-up by Dee Dee Allen after the introduction of something Emma would only call “Nightmare Panties by Feather Boa Constrictor.”

  Meanwhile, my mother hovers over my shoulder, alternately watching her hairdresser pageantify me and barking voice-to-text orders at Shelby’s mother through the phone. She stares into the mirror with fiery intensity. It’s like she’s measuring my face, over and over. Calculating the angle of my updo and quantifying the looseness of the tendrils that fall against my shoulders.

  “Mom,” I say, “I was hoping we’d get to talk a little before things got crazy.”

  Joan lunges in with immaculately spray-tanned hands and orders, “Look up!” before attacking me with more mascara.<
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  “Honey, you don’t have to say anything,” Mom says, catching my hand before it strays toward my hair again. “Just enjoy this. You won’t get another special day like this until your wedding day.”

  “Amen,” Joan says, switching to the other eye.

  Mom lowers her voice, like she’s being naughty. “And you’ll have to share that with your mother-in-law.”

  From the way Joan laughs, my mother is the funniest woman she’s ever met. Maybe she used to be, but I’m pretty sure Joan’s laughter is a nod. A tribute to the woman most likely to tip well when all of this is through. “Lord, you’re not lying. By the time I got to the altar, I was just about ready to tell Nathan it’s me or her!”

  “Looks like he chose the right one.”

  “Well, I still have to put up with her and her god-awful ambrosia salad at Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Race Day . . .”

  Just like that, they’re chatting about appropriate food for your Indy 500 party and how men’s mothers ruin everything. I’m not even here. I’m just the disembodied doll head being decorated within an inch of its life.

  A knot tightens in my stomach. I hold very, very still as Joan coaxes a smoky eye out of a mostly pastel palette, and I try not to frown when my mother chooses the shade of my lipstick.

  “It’s important,” I tell my mother, when Joan turns away to open a tackle box full of cosmetics. That’s not a joke. She has the same bright yellow plastic organizer that half the guys in town have rattling around in the beds of their pickup trucks.

  Mom holds up a finger. “Hold on; Shelby’s mother doesn’t know if anybody bought the sherbert.”

  Because nothing says classy evening of elegance like a massive punch bowl full of ginger ale with melted rainbow foam in it. But to be fair, it is served at wedding receptions, baby showers, and anniversary parties all over town. The way people fuss over the punch, you’d think it was a recipe handed down across the generations and not copied off a Schweppes label sometime in the last century.