21 Proms (19 page)

As I sit under the stylist's deft fingers, letting her poke hairpins into the giant updo she convinced me I
had to have
, I thumb through our local paper. In the entertainment section, a listing catches my eye. Open mic night at the Red Beret, Weatherbrook's idea of a French café, starting at seven. I sigh — an actual full-fledged, romance-novel sigh — and look up at the mirror. I feel ridiculous. Who has their hair swept up into a cascading beehive when they don't have a date?

 

That night, my mom helps me get into my beautiful pink dress without mussing my hair. She tells me to look down and gently applies my eyeliner and watches as I brush on some mascara. Her eyes blink back tears, and she smiles at me. She takes some pictures — two rolls, actually — then drives me over to Melody's house. As her car pulls up to the curb, I lean over, kiss her on the cheek, and get out. I begin walking up the path to Mel's front door but stop halfway and wait for my mom's car to pull away. Then I pick up the hem of my dress and hightail it back the way we came.

Running in pointy-toed high heels is not easy, but adrenaline is pumping and pushing me on. I've never done anything like this before.

When I get back home, my mother safely picking up dinner on the way home, I race around to the side of the house and pull out the guitar case I'd hidden beneath our blue spruce tree. I open it to make sure the overflowing folder stuffed with scraps of paper is still there. It was hard leaving this stuff outside in the open.

I replace the folder, sling the guitar case over my shoulder, and start walking.

White limousines seem to fill the streets tonight. Boys in tuxedos are standing up through the sun roofs, the wind blowing their hair, drowning their shouts. Girls giggle and scream from inside the cars. All the flowers in all the gardens are in bloom, and the air smells like one giant, universal corsage. In my pink dress, I feel like a petal of one of its roses.

This feels right.

Finally, I make my way into the dimly lit café. The Red Beret is only half full. I fall into a chair at an empty table, beads of sweat lining up on my forehead, on top of my lip. My heart starts to race. This is it. It's time.

When the first call for singers goes out, I find myself marching up the aisle to the spotlit stage. As I hang the guitar strap over my shoulder and begin to sing my first song, I hear my voice come out shaky. I look up and feel my eyes lock with —
can it be?
— Jason Kemp's. He smiles at me and nods, as though he's willing me to go on.

He sees me. Hears me.

What good is lipstick when

I'm not talking to you?

And I won't curl my hair for you,

Because I've got the Pink

Prom Dress Blues
.
.
.

Only I don't feel so blue any longer.

Prom for Fat Girls

by Rachel Cohn

High school proms are all alike; every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way.

 

The prom queen, Cherie, hadn't eaten for three days; damn if she wasn't going to show off a Scarlett O'Hara waist on her big night. She looked fabulous, it was true — except for the snarl that appeared on her lips every time she smiled for a camera and a flashbulb light transmitted hunger pangs to her stomach. Cherie couldn't wait to ditch Anthony, college boy (Delta Tau Delta) and February's
CosmoGirl!
Hot Zone Hunk pick, whose father made him take the bitch queen to prom because her dad was his dad's boss. After prom, Anthony would have to find another girl if he was on the hunt for sexual favors — Cherie planned a jaunt straight to In-N-Out for a double order of double cheeseburgers, thank you. Alex, the salutatorian, would be thanking his cousin Judy for agreeing to be his last-minute date; no girl would accept his invitation after that giant cold sore sprung on his lower lip. The respective presidents of the Spanish and Latin clubs, Nathaniel and Daryn, planned to celebrate the end of senior year and the culmination of prom by consummating their love. They'd sprung for a room at the Sheraton, executive level, naturally. Then Daryn discovered Nathan in a tryst with Darren (debate club captain) behind the giant
so long, farewell
photo banner.
Qui tacet consentit.
Damn right that silence implies consent, therefore Daryn had no choice but to tell Darren's date, Chad, the prom king, and now Chad wasn't speaking to Darren, either. So much for Chad and Darren's royal plans in the next room over at the Sheraton later that night.

 

The L-Name Club, of course, had boycotted prom. They'd also tried to boycott the school administration when it had demanded they change their club's name from the Fat Girl Club to the L-Name Club, but Lindsay, Lydia, and Liesel had wanted approval for their club's charter too much to get hung up over a silly name. Lindsay, Lydia, and Liesel weren't sellouts — there were college applications to consider, and forming your own club and writing a charter counted for something. Also, technically, Leander was not a girl, and though he'd wanted membership in their club, he hadn't been wedded to the original name choice. He was a fat
boy
, and while sociologically speaking, all members of the club recognized that a fat male was not generally considered an object of prom date nondesirability among the high school population, a fat gay boy totally was. So Leander was totally in.

 

Louella, strangely, was also in — that is, into prom. A fat girl who had infiltrated enemy camp, Louella (her real name forgotten sometime around homecoming dance junior year, when her amazing knack for harmful dissemination of gossip had won her admission outside of fat girl ranks and inside cheerleader territory) had dared to ask Aloysius “Scoop” Kwiatkowski, editor of the school newspaper, to be her prom date, and he'd dared to say yes. He might have said no if he'd known Louella would spend most of the prom relaying the night's events via cell phone back to the absent L-Name Club members hanging out in Liesel's basement.

 

Nobody knew what the deal was with Louella leaving prom so suddenly after Scoop's hands strayed too far down her back during “How Do I Live.” (LeAnn Rimes version — who'd bother feeling up to the Trisha Yearwood version?
Please.
) What was
that
tantrum about? Wasn't it supposed to be a fat girl's secret dream — to get some play on her extended boo-tay? Whatever had happened between Louella and Scoop that had resulted in Louella suddenly smacking Scoop's cheek (face)
right under the disco ball
and then storming out of the ballroom, the promgoers left standing on the dance floor knew nonetheless that universal truth: There is no party better than a fat girl party.

 

Fuck the Sheraton. Follow Louella.

 

And so the L-Name Club, who had been riding out prom with a dazzling selection of party morsels that included bowls of M&M's and popcorn (mixed — so way better than Chex Party Mix), trays of Hostess and Little Debbie snack cakes (not mixed — the L-Name Club members were plump, not gross!), and Absolut absolutely! to chase down their Cokes, found their night's film festival (pre-1990 John Cusack; notable exception:
High Fidelity
) come to an abruptly premature end. They'd only just finished
One Crazy Summer
(one crazy mistake) and started
Tapeheads
(frickin' classic) when Chad, the prom king himself, burst into the basement and postured himself in front of the TV screen.

 

What. the. fuck.

 

“Dude, don't be messing with Cusack,” Lydia said.

 

“You can't believe what Darren did …” Chad gasped.

 

“Yeah, with Nathaniel,” Leander said. Beautiful thin boys. So caught up in their beauty, they couldn't see what was right in front of them. “We heard all about it. Louella hotline. Like you didn't see that one coming?”

 

No one had noticed Cherie coming into the basement. Light as a feather, that girl. Happy now, too — satiated on cheeseburgers. “Oooh, M&M's mix,” she said, plopping herself onto the leather couch next to Lindsay.

 

Lindsay saw a musical emergency in the making. Fuck Cusack. This situation required the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Lindsay pressed two remotes: TV off, stereo on.
Owwww, I got soul
…

 

“AND I'M SUPER BAD,” the assembled group shouted out.

 

Tables were quickly re-situated, morsel bowls replenished, a keg produced (thanks, Anthony, college boy). Word spread fast. The L-Name Club gave great party, everyone knew that. Parties thrown by fat people involved great food in ample supply and nil expectation of hooking up. Do it if you want to but, hey, no pressure, and could you please pass the cheese dip? The crackers:
fabulous
. The music: even better — hot, loud, pulsing with sweetness and want just like the candy, and even a special dispensation granted to Fatboy Slim from Liesel. Good times, pure and simple. Just be cool. Be yourself.

 

Daryn discovered that
CosmoGirl!
boy Anthony went to 'SC, too. And she totally planned to go Tri Delta! Nathaniel who?

 

Chad, on his third beer (lightweight), finally nestled himself into the expanse that was Leander's comforting embrace. Ironing room. “Have you always been this hot, or is it just something about this magical night that's finally gotten me noticing?” Chad asked him.

 

Alex the salutatorian and his cousin Judy decided that second best was firstly good. Second cousins once removed with matching cold sores could totally make out. Nothin' wrong with that, unless they were too drunk or sugar-high, in which case they could just as easily write out lists of cousin movies: um,
Kissin' Cousins
(You love Elvis movies, too?!?!? No way!) and … were there any others?

 

Cherie and Lydia pored through Liesel's twelve-year-old sister's
Seventeen
magazine, prom edition, defacing the models' faces and groins with a Sharpie pen. Oughta teach that little twerp not to swipe Lydia's Anaïs Nin book and write annoying comments in the margins. (“Huh? Is this possible?”)

 

Nathaniel and Darren never made it to the fat girl party. Tryst consummation, executive suite at the Sheraton. Nobody missed 'em. Two-timing dweebs is what Cusack might have called 'em.

 

“Why did you leave?” Scoop asked Louella when he'd finally cornered her at the basement fireplace. Louella was tough, and she really really didn't want to cry in such close proximity to Liesel's dad's oil-painting portrait of Kenny Rogers' “The Gambler” hanging directly behind the pool table. Instead, she reached for a Gobstopper from the bowl on the mantelpiece. “It's not nice to tease people like me,” she said before popping a 'stopper. Mmmm, lime-flavored.

 

“What do you mean, ‘people like me'?” Scoop asked. He reached for the bowl of Swedish Fish sitting on the fish tank table. He liked the green ones almost as much as he liked Louella.

 

“Big!” Louella burst out. Damn, it would take ten minutes to suck that sucker through to the center. She spit the 'stopper into a napkin. Don't cry, don't cry, it's the sour flavor.

 

She cried anyway, and Scoop had no choice but to reach out to her.

 

“But I like you,” he said. “And size means nothing to me.” He leaned in to kiss her, yet she recoiled.

 

“Well, it means a lot to me, bucko!” Louella said. But the crying instinct had transformed to laughter. The instinct was shared with Scoop, who laughed his way right into her arms.

 

Fat girl after-prom parties are all alike; any couple could be happy in its own way.

Chicken

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Sometimes Elsie wondered how Ben had happened to her at all. When they were crawling across the rooftops of Annapolis, or when people were pointing at Ben's chicken, she felt like a person with amnesia.
How did I get here? Who is he? Who am I?

If you stood facing the sun on redbricked Main Street, Annapolis, Elsie and Ben were silhouettes flitting back and forth between the shop windows, pushing each other off the sidewalk or leaning against the windows or eating Cadbury Flakes from the British Imports store or trying to buy cigars. Occasionally Ben brought his chicken on a leash, and it would be the three of them silhouetted, Chicken picking spare gum wrappers off the sidewalk. They were juniors.

In the store window reflections Elsie could see a portrait of herself, framed by panes, and it was not what she'd hoped for. Her face had hints of other places she had never been, sandalwood, jasmine, roses, cloves. Elsie looked little parts Japan, Morocco, India — smoke-obscured, spicy. Her eyes swept out round like a owl's, floating on high cheeks. Her hair was the color of a November leaf. One time a group of German tourists had approached her at Ego Alley and asked her directions in
Deutsch
. The Mexican cook at Fuddrucker's addressed her in Spanish all the time. It was like she was from everywhere. Elsie liked it, and didn't. She had always wanted to look as pure and bright and American as Ivory soap. Or was Ivory soap Irish?

By her side, Ben waved too big at people he knew, and they replied with the smallest slips of the hand, to compensate. A lot of times, it made Elsie want to be someone who was somewhere else. His lips were too wet, his hair was too curly, his elbows jutted out, tiny white specks formed at the corners of his mouth. Ben was always scraggle-haired, his body shaped in a wiggle — as if he couldn't quite straighten out all his long lines. He was made slightly crooked.

And then there was Chicken.

When Ben had introduced them, he'd promised Elsie that chickens had personalities. And, by God, it turned out to be true. Chicken could be inseparable from Ben's heels one minute and clucking off mysteriously the next. Without fail, she ran to the door to greet Elsie. If Noelle or one of Elsie's other friends came with her, Chicken grew shy and hid under the bed. Sometimes Chicken got moody and stared out the window with her beady little eyes, like she was thinking of something far away. Other times she looked you in the face, like she was trying to tell you about herself telepathically.

Ben used her to ask Elsie to prom, in a note tied around her neck with a red ribbon.

It had snowed earlier that day, and outside the yard was like the top of a fondant cake. Elsie stood in the foyer, cold air blowing on her calves through the cat door, which was supposed to be too small for Chicken. But sometimes it wasn't.

Her sweaty palms unfolded the note, knowing its contents and wishing she could back out the door:
Don't mind me, I was never here.
She knew by the way Ben stood there waiting, watching TV instead of watching her, all intent eyeballs and awkward waiting crook of the neck. He was afraid of too much, Elsie thought. He was afraid of girls — and also global warming, snakes, and swimming.

She took a long time to read the note, stalling. But since he had asked her, she said yes. “I'll be your prom buddy,” she told him, letting him know what they were and what they weren't.

 

In Ben's house there were cabinets open everywhere, as if his family was too tired to close them. There was smoke hanging in the air from his mom's cigarettes and an empty dining room they had never decided to buy furniture for. Virginia Creeper, the cat, crept out from under the TV stand and took a swat at Chicken, who ducked between Elsie's feet. Elsie thought about leaving. And then they heard the
tickticktick
of the cat door, and Chicken was gone.

They spotted her puff of tail disappearing around the front of the house, going hell's bells like she was on a prison break. It wasn't the first time. Ben wrung his hands and breathed wispily as they ran across General's Highway, following her tracks now that they couldn't see her, looking wearily for splats of red. Eisenhower Golf Course rolled like vanilla taffy across the way, untouched except for two tiny triangular feet tracks.

By the time they saw her, she was a white flash hurtling away across the snow. Elsie watched, chewing her nails as Ben ducked and zigzagged after her. Finally he sprang, all power, but with soft arms designed for a Fabergé egg. He cupped Chicken between his elbows and stood to follow Elsie home.

Elsie watched her boots disappear into the snow and reappear again; the world was quiet and smelled white. When she turned, Ben had stopped, was sliding his feet through the snow. She pretended not to see what he was writing:
Elsie.

 

In her bed that night, Elsie watched the lights of the occasional car cross the ceiling, heard them heading up the back alleys behind Main Street. With restless beating wrists and thin rib cage rising and falling, she thought that Ben was a thief, stealing a night in April with a note in March. She thought about Newley, who was true north and not all jangled up. Beside Ben in her head, Newley looked like a lion. Ben's eyes darted to the sides when he talked to you. He was cool like fluorescent lights at night. He burned with broad strokes. With Ben, Elsie always felt good. What she felt for Newley was too big to feel good. But she had thought at prom, if they were sliced neatly into a pair, she might feel something more.

Lying in the shadows, she saw shooting stars, red planets, nebulas in the dark ceiling. At Saint Judith's she kept her planets and stars and nebulas hidden under her plaid skirt. A cool draft brought up the musty smell of the basement. The house — historic, brick, connected to every other old house on the row — had been part of the Underground Railroad. Growing up, Elsie could feel the ghosts of people who had hidden there. She liked to imagine herself back there, offering shelter. Everyone
knew
they would have been that brave. But only a few people had been. So she wondered who was believing the truth.

 

On their way to school each morning, Elsie and Ben kept the windows rolled down. If it was cold, they turned the heat full blast. They whistled at construction workers and listened to Ben's mix CDs. His CDs were full of songs that didn't catch you at first, then crept into your head and curled up like a cat and stayed. Elsie's mixes caught you strong on the first few listens and then sagged like wet cardboard.

At her locker at Saint Judith's, Elsie dumped her stuff on Ben, making him a coatrack, a hat tree, a scarf hanger, a purse holder. It was a joke between them. She pretended not to notice him as she searched for her books. Their laughter echoed off the murmury marbled hallway, punctuated with slamming metal before third period AP English.

She felt a squeeze on her hip. “Else,” someone said. She turned to look at Newley. When he said
Else
it sounded like part of
elsewhere
. He made her think the word
lover
. He was completely perpendicular with straight shoulders and straight brown hair, wide-open brown eyes, and skin soft as a nectarine. Atoms rearranged themselves to make room for him. He stretched life around him as a matter of fact. If he waved too big, the world would double in size to fit it — Elsie was sure of it. She had the urge to hitch a ride with him.

By this time everyone had dates. Newley and Noelle as pals. Elsie and Ben. Other couples for the limo.

Elsie and Newley walked to AP English with Ben flopping behind them like the tail of a tadpole.

They had to read the essays they'd done out loud. The topic was
something you've accomplished.
Elsie had written hers about how she accomplished procrastinating on her essay. She stuck a pencil in and out of her short russet ponytail, flopping her feet sideways as she read, and everyone laughed because she'd written it in a witty way.

Newley had written his about jumping into the ocean off a high cliff in Jamaica.

Ben read about the day he rescued Chicken.

He had stolen her from a Purdue truck parked at the BP. He said there were hundreds of chickens and he couldn't save them all but if he saved one it would be something. Elsie and Newley and Noelle looked hard at one another to communicate laughter, and not because it wasn't sad, but the earnestness was funny. Because
chickens
were funny. There was no getting around it. Ben read through the essay in a monotone. He didn't know how to dress his darkness up in dark humor, and it made Elsie embarrassed for him. Afterward, he soft-shoed back to his desk.

On the way out of class, Elsie walked with Newley, and thought of the night next week and what it could be. Ben was in the picture like a rip in a piece of silk.

 

Prom night was the first hot May night of spring. It made this wildness in the air. Elsie imagined the whole city turning pagan and dancing in their bedrooms.

They ate at Colonial House up General's Highway. Elsie hunched her thin shoulders in her strapless silver dress as they waited for their table, smoothing herself out, covered in a cool, thin, silver web that made her body feel divine. She knew what it was like to glow because she could feel sparkles shooting off her and drawing eyes to her from all over the restaurant.

Her shrimp came with the heads on, and looked to be climbing out of the bowl. Ben yelped but Newley popped the heads off and hid them. He had the chicken cordon bleu. During dessert Newley rubbed a pinky against Elsie's wrist where her hand held the cushion of her seat. With Newley touching her, even just lightly, Elsie felt
like
Newley — fearless, symmetrical, clean.

During dessert Newley made a still-life parade of the shrimp heads around a leg of the table.

“They're doing the cha-cha,” one person at their table said.

“Somebody's going to have to clean that up,” Ben muttered, but the others laughed.

 

The limo oozed through traffic like an oil slick. The girls made jokes and fiddled with the radio, singing along. Ben had gone shy in the corner seat and peered out the window. They had all voted for beers at Eisenhower Golf Course afterward. At the golf course Elsie and Newley could find themselves in a stand of dark trees, or slip away to talk. Elsie could feel Newley's stare like a second layer over her thin dress. She looked
sorries
at Ben. She fidgeted with the yellow carnation corsage he'd given her, glancing at Noelle's simple white rose.

 

On the dance floor she and Newley began gently, their bodies slowly pulled together in stages like two things melting — hands, chests, hips, stomachs. Elsie was sure it was love because it felt like there was something physical and soul-like shooting out of her fingertips where they touched his. No chandeliers or soaring ceilings above them, just a low boxy room with a Teflon surface for moving on. Ben sat at the round white table playing nickel basketball with himself. They were gone by twelve. In the limo again, they were wound up, wild, sticking their heads out of the sunroof. They collapsed, sweaty, into the leather seats, and Elsie let Newley pull off her strappy sandals and rub the soles of her feet. She leaned her forehead against the glass and watched the pagan moon following them to Bowie. Maybe following her. She was that full of bigness.

At Ben's, where their cars were parked, they tumbled in a gaggle across the street to the golf course, running after each other, tackling each other, howling, laughing, high with the spring heat and in the very center of the world.

Ben walked behind them like the zookeeper.

They found a hill and lay on top. Her ankles over Noelle's, Elsie wished the moon wasn't so bright, that she could sneak her fingers into Newley's on her other side. Her lips were dry but sweat misted her and the grass beneath her back.

In the distance they could hear others — guys, loud.

The voices wove closer and farther away, laughing and drunk. Then they were so close that everyone sat up to have a look. There were three of them, maybe a couple years older. Chasing after something under the bright moon, running like jungle kids.

As the picture came together, the night started to tumble inside Elsie.

The three were in pursuit. They were chasing what looked like a small, round white ghost stumbling across the grass ahead of them at top speed, butterball size.

One of them cocked his arm back, flung his arm forward, and something rocketed through the air. The white butterball, synchronized, bounced up into the air like it had stepped on a trampoline and landed in the grass, going still.

Elsie froze. There was the bigness of the guys. And then there was the naked act of saving. Ben was already on his feet, his arms and legs flying messy and ugly as he ran after them. An ugly scream came from his throat. The strangers turned and stopped, instantly sheepish and still.

Ben didn't chase them but slid onto the ground around where Chicken had disappeared. Elsie unfroze and stood, walking fast and softly toward Ben. She knelt beside him. Chicken lay on the ground, black eyes blinking at them. It crossed her mind that for all Chicken knew, they were the ones who'd thrown the rocks.

The strangers milled at the edge of the trees, watching. They moved with forced carelessness, hands in pockets, but Elsie could tell they were scared of Ben, of what he was willing to show them. Then they walked away slowly — in flight, even if they pretended not to be.

Elsie looked back for Newley and the others. They were making their way down the hill, suddenly awkward, not wild in their own skins. The boys had their hands in their pockets. Everyone looked away from Ben, because he was crying.

 

No one but Elsie came to the emergency vet. It was hours before they came out. They stood in the parking lot in the dark, listening to the cars rush by on Route 50, kicking feet at the curb. Ben had his shoulders hunched up and his head down, the bundle of Chicken in his arms.