Dancing with Molly (7 page)

I thought I might throw up as I followed Jess and Kelly down the stairs. Luckily, I'd practiced walking around in the heels Mom bought me. (Turns out small steps is the key to stilettos.) I could hear Mom already art-directing the first photographs, and I wondered if Reid and Carson were regretting what they'd gotten themselves into. As I stepped into the living room, behind Jess and Kelly, Dad turned around with the camera and just stopped and stared at me. So did Carson. In fact, the look on his face was exactly the look that had been on Jess's and Kelly's faces a few minutes earlier. He caught my eye and smiled, and I felt my cheeks flush. Dammit. I didn't want to freaking BLUSH all night long. This was going to be torture.

Mom was busy posing Reid and Ashley in front of the fireplace for the next shot, and I glanced around looking for Carson's date. I figured she must be in the bathroom off the kitchen checking her makeup or something. That's when Mom
turned around, saw me, and squealed, OH GOOD, YOU'RE ALL HERE. She stopped, looked me up and down, and said, Well, darling. You look . . . so . . . grown up. Which, I suppose is as good a compliment as I could expect from my mother, considering the situation. I glanced nervously at Carson, who wasn't so much taller than I was now that I was wearing these ridiculous stilt shoes. He just smiled and said, Wow.

Jess laughed and said, Welcome to BAND GEEK BE GONE. And of course, everybody cracked up. I laughed right along with them because this whole thing was so ridiculous. Reid piped up and asked me where my date was, which was awkward because he KNEW I was just tagging along with Jess and Kelly, but because he's a total douchebag, he wanted to make me say this. I don't know what came over me, but I arched an eyebrow and looked right back at him like I owned his stupid ass and said, I am just here to chaperone these two, and pointed at Jess and Kelly.

Then I turned to Carson and said, Okay. Where is she? I had just totally put my four-inch stiletto firmly into my mouth. There was this awkward silence, and Carson actually looked down at his toes and then back up and said, Turns out I'm going stag. I felt like a complete idiot, but then the whole story came tumbling out—from Ashley, of course, who looked like she'd
just floated in from a magical pink fairy kingdom in the sky.

Turns out, Carson's date (Rachel) was not present because last weekend he dropped her off at home drunk. This wasn't unusual. He, Reid, and a gang of their friends have regular parties at Derrick's place, and there's plenty of booze and weed, but this time, Rachel's parents were waiting up for her. She'd gotten a little bit carried away with a game of beer pong at Derrick's, and her mom and dad decided she was grounded for a month. Also, that she was in no way ever going out with Carson again. She can't even sit with him in church now. Carson almost didn't come tonight because he was so embarrassed about it, but he'd already chipped in to help Reid pay for the limo. Before I knew what was happening, Mom was saying, It looks like we have TWO third wheels tonight, which means that you can be third wheels TOGETHER.

It all happened so fast, I felt physically dizzy. There was that whole knee-weakening thing with Carson to begin with, which was complicated by the balance issues of wearing heels this high. I decided the best thing I could do was sit, so I lowered myself onto the arm of the couch. As I did, my short dress started riding up a bit, so I quickly crossed my legs, and it was like I had fired a gun across the living room. Carson took a step back, and I felt his eyes following the seam in my hose up up up to the hem of
my dress, and then his ice-blue eyes finally found mine, and I realized that tonight was about the tables being turned: I was in charge here.

I smiled at Mom and said that was a nice thought, but I really couldn't just ditch my friends like that. Immediately, Jess and Kelly were like, Oh, it's okay. You should go with Carson! Of course, Carson hadn't said anything to Mom's suggestion, but I just waved them off, tossing a hand breezily and leaning back so I was sort of draped across the arm of the couch.

Mercifully, my dad stepped in and said, Well, we should finish up with the pictures so you all can get going. Mom insisted on arranging Reid and Ashley into three more poses, then Kelly and Jess were up for the firing squad. While they were doing ridiculous poses like Charlie's Angels, Carson walked over and sat down on the couch next to where I was perched on the arm. He said, Hi. And I said, Hi yourself. Then he said, Look, I know this is sorta weird, but . . . do you want to be my impromptu date? And I smiled my best sly smile at him and said, You mean imPROMtu? This totally cracked him up and I couldn't help laughing too. I said, Sure. But you gotta let Kelly and Jess come in the limo too. He said that wouldn't be a problem. I said he was only saying that because he didn't know Jess and Kelly very well. He thought that was hilarious too. I also said that he had
to make sure we were all invited to the after party at Derrick's. He nodded, then stood up and offered me his arm. I slid my arm through his and he escorted me over to the fireplace.

My mother almost died a thousand deaths right there. She had to compose herself. Literally, more tiny tears. It was maybe the most embarrassing moment of my life. But I didn't care. Maybe I was Carson's second choice, but I was going to prom with him. Carson told Reid that Jess and Kelly were coming too. Didn't ask him. TOLD him. And the look on Reid's face was one that said he was definitely not pleased with this idea. Ashley looked completely horrified, but it was clear that Reid wasn't going to tell Carson no, especially with me looking the way I did. So that settled it, and after only another 750,000 more pictures, we finally walked out the front door and piled into the limo. As we pulled away, Mom and Dad stood on the steps snapping pictures and waving like we were leaving on a cruise to the Bahamas.

Of course, the minute the limo pulled away from the house, Jess was on Reid about the after party. Gotta hand it to that girl: She goes after what she wants like a bulldozer. Reid was hemming and hawing and talking about how it wasn't his house, and he wasn't sure how Derrick was handling the invite list and all this bullshit. While he was squirming and red-faced, and Ashley was trying to shoot me looks that said, PLEASE
SHUT UP YOUR FRIEND, I saw Kelly reach over and push the button that raised the window between the driver and the rest of us. I didn't really think anything about it until I saw her flipping open her clutch, and then it was like one of those super-slow-motion sequences from a movie where the main character is having a bad dream. I realized as she reached into her purse what she was going after, and I tried to reach across the seat to grab her arm and stop her, but she was too quick. She flipped the ziplock baggie full of molly into the air and caught it again with a gentle grab.

That got everybody's attention, and Reid's mouth hung open in midsentence. Ashley gasped and looked like Kelly was holding a severed head instead of a bag of drugs, and I realized that what had been shaping up to be the perfect spontaneous night had all just gone horribly wrong. Was Kelly INSANE? The only option for me was to just pretend to be horrified, too—for Ashley's sake—but I couldn't say anything or else Kelly might just blurt out that I'd known about it all along.

It felt like an eternity, all of us sitting there staring at the baggie of white powder in Kelly's hand. And then, slowly, a big, sly grin spread across Reid's face and he asked, Is that what I think it is?

Jess said, Yep, it's a big bag of the purest molly you're ever
likely to see. She then went on to tell him that if he played his cards right he might just get to do some of it tonight, and that there was even enough to share with Derrick if he should be so inclined to let us into his after party. I was watching Ashley's face during this whole exchange, and she went on an incredible journey of emotions while she watched Reid's reaction. At first she was horrified by the drugs, and then shocked at his reaction, and then confused, and then hurt. And when Reid agreed to make sure all of us got into the after party, he put his hand on Ashley's knee, pulled her leg against his, and said, Damn, babe, this night just gets better and better!

Ashley made a split-second decision that I saw because I was watching and she snuggled closer to him and gave a little laugh that was so ridiculously cute it made me a little sick to my stomach. There were a lot of angles being worked all at once in the back of that limo, and suddenly I felt completely out of place. The power of this crazy-hot sophisticated-woman drag I was wearing suddenly seemed to be clawing at my throat, and I felt terrified. I was so scared that Carson was going to figure out how not cool I really was; that at some point tonight, he was going to come to from the haze my sexy pantyhose had put him into and see me for who I really was: an average-looking band geek with mousy, frizzy hair the color of dishwater.

Just as I thought I might need to jump out of the car at the next stoplight, take off my heels, and run back to the house, the most amazing thing happened. It seemed like Carson read my mind. He slipped an arm around my shoulders and whispered into my ear, I had a hunch you were full of surprises.

I almost blacked out with pleasure when he said that. Maybe it was his breath on my ear, but I don't think so. I'd been so nervous about this whole night—afraid that I was a fraud. But what if Carson saw me more clearly than I saw myself? What if I really am as powerful as I felt in the living room? What if I am as cool as he thinks I am—even without Robin's hair, and the heels, and the hose, and the little black dress, and the lipstick? The way Carson saw me made me feel like I was worth being seen—that I was no longer an invisible girl in a hoodie with a clarinet case.

When we pulled up to the school, Jess and Kelly piled out of the car, and Reid helped Ashley untangle herself from her very complicated billowing pink skirt. Carson and I just waited, and I took a deep breath as he climbed out and then reached back to offer me his hand. As I stepped out onto the bright purple carpet that our Jr./Sr. Planning Committee had decided to lay out on the sidewalk that led to the gym, I smiled up at Carson and he smiled back. In the warmth of that smile, I wasn't invisible anymore. I was somebody worth seeing.

That feeling came and went all night long. The other thing that came and went was Ashley's level of craziness about the whole situation. When we got into the dance, she immediately dragged me into the bathroom and hissed at me, literally hissed, What are you DOING? I just blinked at her. Honestly, it was hard to concentrate on what she meant or anything she said because her hair was SO HUGE. I just shook my head and told her I didn't know what she was talking about. She was whispering so that nobody else in the bathroom could hear us and when she said DRUGS??? it came out as more of a silent scream. I just threw up my hands and pretended that I had no idea that Kelly was coming to prom with a bag of molly in her purse.

Luckily, Ash bought this lie—for a little while at least. It gave us enough time to get back into the limo after the dance. I guess I should write down all the stuff about the dance, but my hand hurts from writing already, and honestly, the dance wasn't great. I mean, there were a bunch of teachers and parent chaperones roaming around. The music was loud and the DJ was just okay, but when he took a break there was a live cover band that some of the musical theater kids put together. They played a really great cover of “Raspberry Beret,” and the dance floor got crowded in a hurry.

The really fun part was seeing people who didn't recognize
me and asked Carson who his date was. Carson got a huge kick out of this too and kept doing stuff like egging them on right in front of me. He'd be like, I know, she's totally hot, right? And then he'd introduce me like I was a girl from a different school, only when they heard my name there was always this moment of stunned recognition that was actually sort of delicious. Kelly and Jess were running around and dancing like crazy people. Reid and Ashley slow-danced to every single song—even if it wasn't a slow song. Carson is an incredible dancer, and he was wearing suspenders under his tux jacket. He had this hot little move where he'd swivel his hips and then flap open the front of his jacket, and you could see a flash of his suspenders, then he'd spin around and grab me again. It was sort of like magic. He even spun me out and dipped me during one song, sort of like a big ballroom move, and a couple of girls stopped and clapped for us.

When we all piled back into the limo to go to Derrick's party, we were all starving, so Reid tipped the driver to take us through McDonald's drive-through—yes, in the limo—and we gorged ourselves on cheeseburgers and french fries. Well, except for Ashley. Jess and Kelly kept cracking Reid up and I was glad for that because I felt like he and Jess had finally put the ugliness from last week behind them.

By the time we got to Derrick's party, his house was
already packed. Derrick had hired a couple of the sophomore linebackers to stand guard at the front door. They were under strict orders not to let anybody out to wreak havoc in the front yard, and keep things from spilling into the driveway so that the neighbors wouldn't call the cops. His parents were out of town, so he didn't want any trouble.

When we walked in the front door, it was wall-to-wall people. There was a bong in the dining room and a keg in the kitchen. You could hear the music out at the pool but it wasn't too loud. Even though it was crowded, nobody had gotten wasted yet, so it was still a pretty chill scene for the time being. Reid made a beeline for the keg and came back with beer for him, Carson, and Ashley. Carson grinned at Jess as Reid held out a beer to him and said he'd rather roll than drink. Reid got a sly look on his face, and pulled us all over to the corner and said, Okay. Let's do it.

At this point, Hurricane Ashley struck. She set down her beer, crossed her arms, and said, Absolutely not. Reid saw that she was pretty pissed and said, Whoa, babe. What's wrong? Ashley just went for it. She told Reid that her idea of a good time was not watching him roll with her sister's friends. She said that the last thing she wanted to do on her first prom night was hang out with her sister while everybody else did drugs.