Teen Angst? Naaah ... (20 page)

“That's gonna look really nice! Go try it on,” Judith told me. I went to the changing room. There was a huge line.

“What's the deal?” I asked a guy in line. He was with his girlfriend as well. You can always spot the guys shopping with girlfriends: they have hangdog,
embarrassed faces, and when they see each other, they give little smiles. You know, to help their brothers through their time of trial.

“I don't know,” the guy said. “Someone's been in the room for like twenty minutes.”

“Damn.” I returned to Judith. “The changing room's occupied. I'm just gonna try this on right here.” I began taking off my shirt to put on the new one.

“No!”

“What?”

“No! Don't do that!”

“What?”

“You can't just
try on a shirt in the middle of a store
. It's embarrassing. It's against the rules.”

“It'll take a
second
. It doesn't make a difference.”

“If you put that shirt on in here, I'm leaving.”

Oh, boy. I put the shirt on. Judith stormed off. I followed her to the elevator, and we walked out of the store muttering at each other.

“You know what,” I said as we stepped into the February night. “This is ridiculous. Why don't you just find somebody else to go to your prom, okay?”

Silence. We were silent for most of the walk to the subway, and most of the subway ride home, except for under-the-breath insults.

“There's plenty of girls who wouldn't care if I tried on a shirt in the middle of a store.”

“Well, why don't you just go try and
find
them.”

“Yeah, maybe I
will
, huh.”

When the subway pulled into my stop, I decided things were over; Judith and I were clearly incompatible. I said bye, got up, and hustled out the train doors, leaving her by herself. I walked home thinking how nice the relationship had been, but how it was probably good that it was over.

As I entered the apartment, the phone rang.

“What the
hell
is wrong with you? You leave me like that on the
subway?
It's late at night and I'm wearing a skirt, and you leave me on the
subway?
Even if you don't like me anymore, you don't care about my
safety?
To
leave me on the subway?
”

“I'm sorry. I thought you
wanted
me to leave. I thought you said ‘go.' ”

“I didn't say
‘go'!
My god, I don't even know where I
am
now, I'm walking toward your house; why don't you come out and meet me and give me money to take a car service home, if that's all you want to do. And then I'll leave you alone. You realize all this is happening
on my birthday!
”

“Okay, fine!” I went downstairs to give her money for a ride home, but that's not what ended up
happening. What ended up happening was we started talking. She told me she had had such a nice time in the three weeks we were going out and that it was nicer than with any other guy before.

“You know what I was planning on saying to you today?” she choked as we sat on some stoop. “You know what I was practicing in my mirror this morning? ‘I love you, Ned Vizzini. I love you, Ned …' ” She started to cry.

I held her in my arms and told her I loved her, and we went to dinner. I did love her. Maybe I loved her because she loved me, which isn't the best reason, but I did love her, and in the ensuing months we spent almost every day together, and when it wasn't horrible, it was really, really good.

But that's all beside the point. The point was that, no matter
what
happened, we were going to Judith's prom. June 9. It was a contract, and it was binding, irrespective of love, incarceration, or grievous bodily harm.

• • •

Being a cheap and petty person, I was shocked at how expensive the modern prom is. There's a floor charge of a few hundred dollars—that's the price of two tickets, which are needed to get you and your date in the door. Then, unless you're some kind of
bohemian, you need a limousine to arrive in style. You split the cost of the limo (i.e., rent a huge stretch limo for a bunch of couples), but no matter what, it's going to cost you—plus you have to tip the driver. Then the guy needs to rent a tuxedo, which is a nice round figure—one hundred dollars.
^*
The girl needs a dress, which I won't even get started on: they seem to cost thousands of dollars.

Those are your basic prom expenses, but then there's the
after-prom
—an invention to keep drunk prom-goers from driving into telephone poles and impregnating each other. The idea is, once the prom ends, you go to
another
party, where you dance some
more;
then you go home around 8:00
A.M
. The after-prom can be on a boat, a beach, or a rooftop, but it's going to cost you no matter where it is.

Three weeks before the prom, Judith started nagging me about my tux and corsage. Those were my only responsibilities, so you would think I had them under control, but no. On June 5, finally, with the same attitude I had starting an English paper at the last minute, I looked up “Tuxedos” in the Yellow Pages and found “Royal Crown.” I called them and spoke to Marilyn, who sounded disturbingly like a grown-up Judith. I told Marilyn I
needed a tuxedo for Thursday June 9, and she said it would be ready, but I was very lucky, because they only had one brand left, and a day later it would have been sold out.

Phew. No problem. Thursday June 9 rolled around; I went to school as usual, but when classes ended at 3:40, the marathon began. I ran out of American History and got home by 4:30. I packed a small bag of things I would need—deodorant and clothes for the after-prom—and left my house at 4:45. At 5:00, I dropped by a florist.

“Hey, I need a wrist corsage, with a white rose,”
^*
I told the florist as I blundered in, making the little bell over the door go nuts.

The florist was a little European lady. “When do you need it by?” she asked calmly.

“Um, I kind of need it
now
, actually.”

“Oh, well, we can't do now.”

I panicked. “Well, I'm going to get my tux now. What about when I come back with my tux in about an hour?”

“Hmmmm.”
Was this woman torturing me intentionally? “
Hmmmm
, yes, it can be done in an hour.”

I paid her on the spot and got the hell out of there. At 5:35, I arrived at Royal Crown. Marilyn greeted me
at the door, a woman with
such
blond hair and
such
red lips that I was temporarily blinded.

“Hi, I'm Ned. I've come to pick up a tuxedo.”

“Oh,
suuure
, Ned, right this way.” She sat me down, got me my tux, and told me to try it on in the changing room. I took some deep breaths in there, unpacked the thing, and put it all on. A tux is like a Lego set, difficult at first, but the pieces fit together logically. I only had a problem with my cummerbund.

The cummerbund is this fat belt that goes around your waist and anchors your whole tuxedo getup. Unfortunately, my waist was a dainty thirty inches, so my cummerbund was way too loose. It just flapped around. Marilyn had to call some big guy named Johnny who worked in the back of Royal Crown. With several comments (“Damn, you're thin. You're really thin. You look so young. Are you really going to your
senior
prom? I've never seen anybody with less meat on their bones,” etc.), he tightened my cummerbund to fit me. Satisfied, I walked toward the front door.

“Wait!” Marilyn screeched. “You're
leaving in the tux?!
”

“Isn't that what you're supposed to do?”

She smiled. “Have fun.”

It was 6:30. I got some looks walking down the
street in a full tuxedo, but eventually, I made my way to the flower place and picked up the corsage.

“You have to keep it cold,” the European lady told me. I saw why: there were frosty beads of water on the white flowers, perfect, as if they'd been placed there by an eyedropper.

“I'll do my best,” I told her, blowing on it as I left the store. At 6:40, I got on the subway to Judith's.

I got a lot more looks riding the subway in a full tuxedo, but I put on my headphones so no one bothered me. I was listening to a song about leaving a bad relationship. I looped it over and over, vowing each time that once the prom was done, I would cool things off with Judith. From the beginning, I had promised her the prom, but we really weren't right for each other, and now I was delivering on my promise, and when I was finished delivering, I'd return to life as a fun-loving single guy.

I forgot all that when I saw her. She came to the door in a shimmering silver-blue dress, with her hair cut short and stylish, displaying her neck and shoulders. She had a small bag and high-heeled shoes, and a boutonniere for me. But above all, she was so
happy
. I'd never seen her so happy; her smile had weight to it. She hadn't even gone to school. She'd been home preparing all day.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“Gorgeous, gorgeous,” I said, pulling her close. I would have kissed her, but I didn't because I knew it would ruin her makeup. We left her house and got in the limo.

I'd never been in a limo before, but it was much like I expected: TV, some drinks, a sunroof (that wouldn't open), a nice stereo system. The limo seated twelve people: Judith; her friends Alexis, Lisa, Katy, Michaela, and Girl Number Six; me, Charlie, Harris, and Guys Four through Six. Of the new people, only three were interesting: Charlie, Harris, and Michaela.

Charlie was Lisa's date, and it was clear from the start—even before he'd had any alcohol—that he was unhinged.

“Yo, I'm gonna effin'
^*
go to the prom and get effed the eff up!” was what he said upon entering the limo. He slapped my hand. “What's your name?”

“Ned.”

“Ned, man, that's a effin', that's a effin' name, yo.” He sat down with Lisa. I didn't see them touch the whole night; maybe she just brought him along for comic relief. Charlie had a long, thin head and eyes that looked in different directions at the same time.

Michaela and Harris also provided entertainment. Michaela was one of those unfortunate girls
who didn't get a backup date. She found herself stuck without anybody during the week of the prom, so she settled for Harris, a guy who clearly didn't want to be in the limo. From the beginning of the trip, Michaela and Harris fought; an hour into the prom, they were sitting as far away from each other as possible, glaring.

The limo drove slowly through Brooklyn, picking people up. Guys Four through Six, like Charlie, were interested in getting “effed the eff up.” I would've liked to get a little effed, too, but Judith had a vise grip on all that.

“You're not going to get drunk, right, Ned?”

“No, no, I'm not.” I didn't mind, really. I figured I'd need all my wits about me to navigate the prom successfully and emerge at its end with some kind of sex.

I was still a virgin. That was something I worried about every day; something I had worried about since I was thirteen or fourteen; something that particularly worried me because the average American male loses his virginity at sixteen. I was two years behind. I had lied about that so many times, to so many different people, that I could never keep my stories straight. Ike thought I'd had sex when I was sixteen; Hector and James believed I'd done it a month earlier
with Judith—even Judith herself was under the impression that I'd slept with someone about a year before, probably the only time in history a guy has lied to a girl about sex
in that direction
.

I was totally dense with Judith and sex. Three weeks into the relationship, I asked her if I should show up with condoms the next time we saw each other. She cried for hours. “You think I'm that much of a
slut?
Is
that
why you're so nice to me?” I held her for a long time to calm her down. “You're not a slut; I'm just an idiot,” I said over and over.

Now, four months later, at her prom, Judith was beginning to suspect my virginity, because after the initial condom fiasco, I never talked about sex. I did an about-face; I felt so bad about being high-pressure that I became no-pressure, never discussing it, never bringing it up. It scared the hell out of me. I didn't know what was going to happen at the prom, but if we had some reciprocal contact by the end of the night, I'd be happy.

See, Judith had estranged me from my sexual nemesis: television. All the time I was with her, I was so busy running around New York, picking her up from work, buying her gifts, and calling her, that I never watched TV. And when you don't watch TV—when you divorce yourself from the oversexed
teenagers the programmers throw at you—you feel a lot better about your own sex life, or lack of one.
^*

• • •

We arrived at Judith's prom around 8:30; it was in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Brooklyn. It looked just like a prom from the movies: the guys were in tuxes standing outside the Marriott, smoking; the girls traveled in little groups to and from the bathroom, giggling. Photographers were set up in the lobby, and teachers milled about in suits and dresses hitting on each other.

Judith led me in, introducing me to people she knew from school, whose names I quickly forgot. I found a sort of cocktail room, where I pigged out on chicken fingers being served on little trays before Judith showed me to the main room, with tables and a dance floor.

My inability to dance had by now become a serious phobia; in fact, the first time Judith had taken me dancing, I threw up. Everything was going fine. I was out on the floor with her, and she was smiling, looking splendid under the black light … then I saw myself in the mirrored ceiling and got sick. I excused
myself, ran to the bathroom, and retched in a toilet repeatedly.
^*
I just looked so stupid in that mirror: I was the prototypical white guy without rhythm. I could tap rhythms in my head and play rhythms on my bass guitar, but when it came to moving rhythmically, I was a complete bust.