The Real Prom Queens of Westfield High (23 page)

The paramedics lift a hysterical Victoria onto a stretcher as the room begins to empty out. I imagine Rick is probably at the hospital watching our prom burn down on television.
We
didn't even get to dance together.

The other Prom Queens clear out with the rest of our classmates while I'm absorbed watching the chaos unfurl. I shove my dripping hair back off my face and sit on the edge of the stage, my feet dangling. The sprinklers continue spraying the empty room as men in reflective jumpsuits shoot white foam over the dying flames.

I pull my crown off my head and throw it down on the floor.
What
were
they
thinking, anyway?
Turning high school popularity into a game show? I look down at my scuffed tiara sparkling on a pile of rubble and decide I should probably keep it as a souvenir. Or sell it on eBid.
Hell, there's probably blood on it, which will get an even better price.
Leaping down, I reach for the tiara at the same moment it's grasped by a guy's hand.

That is, a guy's hand that happens to be attached to a pale blue sleeve. My heart dips.
Rick
.

We each keep our hands on the tiara as we stand up to face one another, and I look him over. The right leg of his tux is stained a deep purple down to his knee, and the pant leg is split all the way up to his hip, revealing a bandage around his thigh. He turns to scan the charred remains of the ballroom. “So this is what they get for trying to turn you into the Prom Queen, huh?”

I laugh. “That'll teach 'em.”

Taking the tiara from my hand, he looks at it carefully. “This thing has caused quite a bit of trouble, hasn't it?”

“I'll just throw it away,” I say. “I'm so sorry…”

Rick holds a finger to my lips. He looks me in the eye in that way of his that makes me feel like I'm really being seen. He says, “You thought you had to change everything about yourself in order to earn this thing.”

I bow my head and look down at the drenched wreck of my shredded dress. I feel a gentle pressing as Rick places the tiara on my head. His eyes are smiling when I look up at him. “Don't you know? Shannon, you've always deserved to wear a crown.”

With that, I reach up and wrap my fingers into the back of his hair. He mirrors my moves and, if you know anything at all about body language, mirroring is a sign that a person is totally into you.

We slowly draw close. He's finally out of my rearview mirror and right in front of me. My mind reels with the knowledge that he's about to kiss me. The whole scene of debris and dying flames fades as Rick and I become the only two people at the prom. I close my eyes. Sense his lips moving toward mine until…“
Ow!
” I wail in pain as his nose bumps my broken one.

“Wow, am I sorry.” He looks so upset I can't help but laugh.

“I guess we'll call that even,” I tell him and we stand, just looking at each other. His gaze grows intense, and he takes my face in his hands. Gently
turning
my head so our noses won't bump, he kisses my lips, softly at first then with growing firmness. It's the most awesome, wonderful, fulfilling kiss of all time. And more than that. It's entirely
real
.

We sway a bit as we continue kissing, and I imagine we're dancing at a beautiful ball, instead of standing alone in the wasteland that is our prom. Happily, I place my head on his chest, close my eyes, and sigh.

Bleep
bleep!

My eyes shoot open, and I see a cameraman, circling around, filming our intimate moment. I raise my head as he pulls the camera away from his eye and holds it out to examine its side. “Damn, battery,” he grumbles.

“Hey, buddy,” I say. “Would you mind pissing off?”

Rick pulls back to look at me. “Now, that's not language very becoming of a Prom Queen, is it?”

“Yeah.” I grin. “It's a good thing I'm not the fucking Prom Queen.”

We laugh and he bends down to kiss me, and everything goes all happy ending.

The Wrap-Up: Back to Reality

Except that I was wrong.

About being the fucking Prom Queen.

After the show's final closing scene of me and Rick embracing in the rubble, I was a lock for the crown.

And since Mom negotiated my contract to death, I couldn't even be disqualified for leading the rebellion coup that wrecked the prom.

I actually won the
One! Million! Dollars!

At first I considered splitting it with the other girls, especially since the whole point of charging in and ripping down the Nőrealique television was to reject the competition. But, come on, we're only talking about a lousy million bucks. Split six ways, it wouldn't be all that much. Besides, that's the sort of thing someone might do if they were overly concerned with making everybody like them. I'm
so
over that.

Anyway, the girls are all doing just fine.

Six months after graduation, Kelly is still making money modeling, plus she's studying pre-law in college. Raul met her on the roof of the clock tower at midnight on her birthday, and they've been going strong ever since. Kelly's not thrilled about him having a juvie record and figures if she's destined to become a groupie to outlaws like her mom, she may as well get her law degree and get paid for it. My mother has been sort of mentoring her, and we've stayed close.

Amy and George are as happy together as ever, and Amy has relaxed on the extreme dieting, although she and George still love working out together. Amy looks amazing and recently became a regular singing backup on
All
the
Rave!
It seems clear our wallflower has a bright future in performing.

The original Prom Queens have mostly recovered from the road trip to madness that was our senior year. Deena decided to go to college to become a social worker, specializing in eating disorders. She's even managed to stretch her fifteen minutes of fame, appearing on talk shows, encouraging tearful guests to love their natural curves. Her first piece of advice? Go on a media fast to get away from the impossible skinny ideal. She says, “Those unrealistic photoshopped images are poison.” Then she shows examples of airbrushing and labels them with pink Ms. Yuk stickers that she designed as warnings. I have to admit she's pretty badass.

And I discovered a little something interesting about Grace. It was right after the prom burned down to the ground. The cameras were done with us, but we still had to be checked over by paramedics for any injuries.

She and I were sitting there in the parking lot in our ruined gowns, waiting for them to finish with the other girls. Grace turned to me and said, “So you quilt, huh?”

Whatever
. I waved where Rick was waiting for me, and he gave me his shy, loopy grin. “Yes, you were paying attention. I quilt,” I told Grace distractedly. “What's it to you?”

“Yeah, well, that's pretty cool.”

I looked at her skeptically. And that's when she leaned in and confessed, “I've been crocheting for years.” Her wide grin showed she'd chipped a tooth at some point during our prom.

“So you mean that brown wool beret you wore last fall…?” I asked.

“Guilty!” She raised her hand and rolled her eyes. “Totally made by hand. By the way, I'm sorry for that whole Elf Ucker thing.”

“Yeah,” I said with a short laugh. “I guess I kind of let that one get to me.”

It's not like the two of us started our own Stitch-n-Bitch after that or anything, but she and Luke are going to St. James State together, and I'm genuinely happy for them.

And Kristan? Well, that's a pretty remarkable story.

Our show was crazy popular with our extreme bitch-fight finale getting about a gazillion hits on BubeTube. We were such a sensation, an investigative journalist decided to do a behind the scenes story about
The
Prom
Queen
Wannabes
and ended up uncovering some pretty wild stuff.

It turns out, the show's producers were responsible for Kristan's father getting fired. Nőrealique switched their ad accounts for the new clothing line to his agency and got him canned to create drama for the show. After the story broke, Kristan's dad sued the studio, the ad agency, and Nőrealique and settled out of court for enough money that her mom took him back.

Kristan found a job at a place where she gets drooled over and worshipped every single day. She's an assistant groomer at the Snuggly Doggie Boarding Kennel, and I hear she's the crowd favorite.

Mickey and Victoria got fired since Nőrealique's stock dumped into the crapper after our uprising on
live!
television. You can find huge bins of their lipgloss and mascara for twenty-five cents a tube at clearance warehouses like Sob Lots. Girls actually started wearing baseball caps and T-shirts that have lips with a buster sign slashed through them as a symbol of anti-beauty-ad anarchy. In fact, I helped Marnie start the nonprofit website that sells them.

My mom's boyfriend, Charlie, quit acting and now he's working on a book about reality television. He came clean to Mom, and after she broke every dish in our kitchen, she forgave him. It's too bad the cameras were all ripped out by then, because the whole scene would've made for really good television. But the Depolas are officially done satisfying the voyeuristic urges of America. That is, at least until Josie finds a reality show that will have her.

Forgiving Charlie was the most stellar leap of faith Mom has ever taken. She says if I could swan dive off a stage into Rick's skinny arms on national television, she can certainly give Charlie a chance. I don't point out that my swan dive lacked a graceful landing, but I do think she and Charlie will be just fine.

And me? Well, now that my hair's back to its natural brown color, people have stopped assaulting me with, “Hey, you're that girl! From that show…?” My favorite was when people used to recognize me and start flailing about, pretending to fall down.

After my completely unreal year of living on a reality show, it has been
really
nice to spend time just hanging out with my best friend. Thankfully, Marnie decided to stay local, majoring in women's studies at the community college instead of paying big money for a “designer diploma” as she puts it. I'm taking business classes there as well, and things are finally back to me and Marnie, sewing buddies, best friends, just the two of us.

Well, except for when it's the four of us, since we do a lot of hanging out with James and Rick too. We are no longer friends of least resistance; we're totally inter-dating friends by choice. I'm working on a fairly amazing and massive wall-quilt to commemorate our circle that I'm simply calling
Real
. Both of our prom dresses are incorporated into the design.

Rick and I finally got around to that very small gathering, just the two of us, and I can tell you, he's an amazing boyfriend. We miss each other a lot while he's away at school, which is tough at times, but we're making it work. To be honest, after getting through our senior year, this long distance thing is cake.

I'm pursuing a career in the textile arts and have been silk-screening my own fabrics and piecing them into wall hangings that I sell online. Who knew the embarrassing habit of quilting could lead to such a cool gig? Rick has been super-supportive and marvels over the creative designs I come up with. He tells me, “Don't ever stop daydreaming.” Which isn't something that you will ever find written on a poster hanging in a guidance office. But it should be.

Sometimes when he's visiting home, the two of us will hang out together on the couch watching a movie or sitcom or anything that's
not
a reality show. Rick will start this goofy game where we see who can hang the most stuff from their ears. I refuse to use socks, but one time I watched a whole movie with a ruler, a pair of scissors, and a pack of PostThis Notes tucked behind one ear. Rick thinks it's adorable that I always win the game.

I figure the two of us have earned the right to embrace our unique Per-style-ality™ which happens to fall someplace between “eccentric” and “full-on geek.” And when Rick leans in toward me with that perfect tilt of his head that means he's about to kiss me? Well, let's just say it feels great to know that nobody's watching.

*click*

Acknowledgments

Tiaras and sashes go to the fabulous Ammi-Joan Paquette, Aubrey Poole, and the entire cast and crew at EMLA and Sourcebooks Fire. Without your wisdom and support, this book could never have made it to the runway. Miss Congeniality award goes to Derry Wilkens for your boundless enthusiasm, and royal scepters shaped like giant pens go to my favorite writing folks: Alison, Amanda, Shana, Steph, and Michelle. Thank you for all the valuable manuscript makeover tips. Plus, a special gold crown for Mr. Mortimer, the best English teacher anyone could wish for.

To the Real Clergy-Wives of Intercessor: Cathy, Katie, Melanie, Maria, Dorene, Jamie, Joan, Bari, Maggie, and Vicki. Thanks y'all for never pulling my weave. To happy-Sue, my quirky quilter girl, and to the amazing, beautiful, and multitalented Courtney CADET. Special mention goes to Christine, Nancy and Chrisi, Sue, Lisa, Laura, Rhonda, The Other Laurie, Shawna, and all the Freaks and Geeks who helped make HS such an adventure.

To Mom, Dad, and Gerry. I'm beyond blessed to have such incredibly deep (and wonderfully twisted) roots of support, and to Jenna for encouraging me to try my wings. To Zach, Christina, Jackson, and Alessia, thank you for keeping me grounded in love, and to Katie, Alan, and the girls for always keeping things real.

And especially and always to Brett, Aidan, and Trinity. I mostly write books just so I can publicly say how awesome you guys are. Thank you for making it all worthwhile and for keeping the laugh track rolling.