Spells Like Teen Spirit

by Kate M. Williams

  “But the band will be happy if the crowd is really into them,” Janis said, “and if they buy a lot of CDs.” She paused, her eyes getting bigger. “But no one buys CDs. How do we keep the students happy? I don’t know—give them lots of treats? I hear the football team likes Snausages.”

  Mallory snorted, then grabbed a napkin to dab at the orange juice that had just come out of her nose.

  Brian rolled his eyes. “We’ll have to use populariskinesis again,” I said. “And on everyone this time. If the students really love—or at least feel like they really love—the band, then that will keep the band happy. Our priorities here are keeping everyone safe and finding out if these guys really do have anything to do with Circe’s disappearance. If they do, we want to keep them, and their brains, intact long enough to get her back.” I glanced over at Cassandra, who had finally finished eating, and saw her looking back at me, that kind of set look that I saw in her eyes every time we were about to do a Return—steely determination with more than a sprinkle of come-at-me-bro. “After that,” I said, looking back at Brian, “we can figure out what to do with the band. But we’ll keep you updated and—”

  He cut me off. “You won’t have to keep me updated,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  “You will?” I asked, surprised, and he nodded.

  “I have to chaperone,” he explained, “and it is one of the worst parts of my job, as everything about the decor of a high school gymnasium made to look ‘special’ offends me on a cellular level. And, as I was informed yesterday, since I am the athletic director, it falls on me to make sure all the ball closets, and any other dark, semi-private spaces in and around the gym, remain locked and inaccessible through the evening, lest we have another homecoming repeat with…” He stopped himself and headed into the kitchen.

  “Coach, wait!” Janis called after him. “What happened at the last dance? I’d been taking a break from my gossip podcast, but I could always bring it back if you’ve got something really juicy for me.”

  “I can’t hear you over the sound of the dishwasher,” he called back, though from where I was sitting, I could see that he was just standing at the sink, turning the faucet off and on and banging some plates together. Janis popped the last bite of a chocolate croissant into her mouth, and then looked at her phone.

  “Crap!” she said. “It’s already after two. We have to hurry!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me up with her.

  “Hurry?” I said. “We’re not meeting the band until seven.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But we have to go shopping for soup, and we need plenty of time to get ready! And we promised Ji-A and Amirah that we’d take them thrifting.”

  I groaned. The thrifting was awesome, but I wasn’t sure which of the other two sounded less appealing: being a lackey soup shopper or getting ready for the school dance. Normally I loved nothing more than putting together a special-occasion outfit, but going to school on a Saturday night could ruin even that. Everyone else was getting ready to leave, and Brian walked us to the front door. Then Cassandra surprised me by speaking first. “Thanks, B.,” she said. “That was delicious, and fun.”

  “Ohhh my God,” Amirah groaned, “I am going to be dreaming about those French toast stars for weeks. Honestly, I would never tell her this, but I think they’re better than Chrissy Teigen’s French toast casserole. The last time she made it for me, it was a little dry and—” Ji-A grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her out the door as Brian nodded and accepted thanks from everyone else.

  As I turned to thank him, I spotted something in his kitchen. “Brian,” I said, “I hate to do this, but we’re going to need to borrow your blender.”

  Janis and I were not the kind of girls to break a promise, so a-thrifting we did go. Ruby and Cassandra were, of course, uninterested, so they took off to do their own thing, but Mallory decided to tag along.

  “I’m not much of a shopper,” she said, “but they have a books section, right?”

  We assured her that they did. Amirah and Ji-A were very enthusiastic, but I started to worry as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the thrift store.

  “Ooh, DAV,” Amirah said. “What’s that stand for? ‘Designer American Vintage’?”

  “Um, no,” Janis said. “ ‘Disabled American Veterans.’ ”

  “Oh,” Ji-A said, “that sounds less cute.”

  Inside, things didn’t exactly go as planned. Amirah kept asking Randy—the bleached-mullet guy who worked there—if they had any other sizes in the back, and Ji-A just kind of wandered around, bouncing from T-shirts to pantsuits to nightgowns, like she was a transfer student on the first day of school. To my surprise, though, they both ended up buying something. Amirah got a perfectly distressed plain black T-shirt, and Ji-A got a dress that she planned to wear to the dance. It was a teal stretch-jersey with one sleeve and an asymmetrical hem, and looked really cool. Contrary to our advice, she refused to try it on. “It’s, like, two dollars,” she said. “I’m just going to buy it.”

  Mallory got a vintage Joan Didion book with a very cool cover. Janis got a black secretary blouse woven through with rainbow metallic threads, and she had the find of the day, which, because Janis is the Patron Saint of Thrift-Store Generosity, she actually found for me. It was an eighties prom dress, petal-pink, with an off-the-shoulder bow top and a frilly skirt. The dress was very Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael and it fit like a three-dollar dream.

  We had decided that we’d get ready at my house, so on the way there after thrifting, we stopped at the store to buy everything Tom had listed for their rider.

  “Wow, this grocery store,” Ji-A said, looking around as she trailed after me. “There are so many chips.”

  As Janis and I filled the cart with soup, Amirah disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, carrying a vanilla sheet cake. “You’re getting a cake?” I asked.

  “I was looking for poke, but the woman behind the counter said they didn’t have it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Probably not?”

  “Anyway,” she said. “This cake costs less than a latte.”

  Ji-A was very interested in the ranch dressing, as it turned out she had somehow never had it. “So, what does ranch taste like?” she asked.

  “Um,” Janis said, struggling. “I don’t know? It just tastes like ranch?”

  “So, like grass?” Ji-A asked.

  Janis looked at me, but I just shrugged. “I guess?” she said. “Creamy grass with hints of buttermilk?”

  “Fried chicken?” Ji-A asked, and Janis gave up.

  “We’ll just let you taste it later,” she said. “There’s no way they’ll eat all of this.”

  The ranch was the last thing on the list, so we checked out and paid—chump change for Amirah—and then headed to my house. We were going to my house partly because it was a place where we wouldn’t have to hide anything or watch what we said (Janis’s little brother was a notorious eavesdropper), but mainly because everyone wanted to hang with Pig. On the way, we stopped at Cassandra’s to drop off Mallory.

  “Frequent text updates, please,” I said to her as she climbed out of the car. “Cassandra barely knows how to work her phone, so you and Ruby let us know what is happening every step of the way. I figure you’ve got at least two hours, but let us know if we need to stall them so you can have more.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” she said. “We won’t go dark.” Janis honked, and we all waved as we drove away.

  When we got to my house, Dad was sitting on the couch reading a James Patterson novel with Pig’s head in his lap. I told him Mallory was at Cassandra’s and introduced him to Ji-A and Amirah. “You girls moving in?” he asked, taking in the garment bags that they were carrying, and the rolling suitcase that Janis was currently wrestling through our very narrow door.

  “We have to get ready for the dance,” I expla
ined. “And we need options.”

  I had to admit, I had started salivating as soon as I had seen Ji-A’s and Amirah’s bags. I mean, I wasn’t shallow enough to be friends with someone just because they had a good wardrobe, but I was definitely shallow enough to take advantage of my friends’ good wardrobes. Janis bumped her suitcase down the hall to my room, and Amirah and Ji-A followed, cooing over Pig. “Can I give her some beef jerky?” Amirah asked.

  “Sure,” I said, “but where are you going to get beef jerky?”

  Amirah dug around in her the Row backpack and pulled out a ziplock bag. “Oh, I always have beef jerky,” she said. She tossed a piece into the air, and Pig caught it with a snap, and I truly had no idea what to say.

  In my room, everyone dumped their bags onto my bed.

  “Esme, I like your room!” Amirah said. “It’s so cozy.” “Cozy,” of course, meant “small.” “Everything I brought is really boring,” Amirah continued. “I’m sick of black. It’s so New York. I want something fun, like a bright color or a cute print.”

  True, almost everything she’d brought was black, but it was still the kind of clothing that I wanted to lock up behind glass so that nothing ever happened to it. A classic Versace square-neck double-breasted minidress with iconic gold buttons—black. An off-the-shoulder, sweetheart neckline Alexander McQueen fit-and-flare silhouette with a flounce hem—black with a pink lining. A velvet, long-sleeved Saint Laurent bodycon with a crystal collar and a crystal-edged heart cutout in the back. Black too. I stared at it for a few seconds and then had to remind myself to breathe.

  Amirah tossed it toward a pile on the floor, and I dove after it, picked it up, and glared at Pig, who I could tell had already been eyeing it as potential bedding. “Beef jerky and YSL do not mix,” I whispered to her, though I guess that, in Amirah’s case, they did.

  “Amirah, this is possibly one of the most badass dresses I have ever seen in my life,” I said, standing back up and holding it out to her. “Definitely the most badass dress I have ever actually touched. Are you sure you don’t want to wear it?”

  “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s too serious. It makes me look like I’m going to a premiere or something.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I just want to dress like you and Janis,” she said. “You guys always look like you’re going to do something fun, like hanging out in a parking lot or going to Panda Sub.” Had anyone else ever told me that I looked like I was about to go hang out in a Panda Sub parking lot, I would have clawed their eyes out, but now that I was getting to really know Amirah, I was starting to understand her. The more offensive something sounded, the more she meant it as a compliment.

  Ji-A had already pulled off her shoes and stripped down, and was now trying on the teal dress she’d bought at the thrift store. “What do you think?” she asked when she finally had it on. She was facing us, away from the mirror, and I tried to keep the look on my face as neutral as possible. The best way to describe how the dress looked on Ji-A was that it made her resemble a piece of blue raspberry saltwater taffy. There were bulges where there shouldn’t have been bulges, and extra fabric where there shouldn’t have been extra fabric, and then it was also weirdly short in the front.

  “Um,” Amirah said, trying to be diplomatic, “did you pack any shapewear?”

  Ji-A spun around to look in the mirror, and her face fell. “Ugh,” she said. “I look like a Slurpee someone has dropped on the ground.” She yanked it back over her head and threw it onto the pile of Amirah’s LBDs. “I should have tried it on at the store.” She bent down and rifled through the clothes she had brought, and then stood back up. “I might wear this,” she said, and I turned around to see her holding up a rain-forest-green Valentino dress with pleats from top to bottom and drapey, full-length epaulets that looked like superhero techno parrot wings.

  “That dress…,” I started, but didn’t finish because I had no words.

  “Is it too much?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Janis said. “Way too much, and if you do not wear it, then we cannot be friends anymore. Sorry, bye.”

  Ji-A laughed. “Okay, I will definitely wear it. But I don’t have the right shoes. Esme, can I look through your closet?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, shocked and flattered that she would want to borrow anything from me.

  Amirah sighed dramatically. “I hate my clothes,” she said.

  “Here,” I said, picking up the teal dress that Ji-A had just discarded. “You should try it on.”

  “You saw it on Ji-A,” she said. “It made her look like a puddle.”

  “Yeah, but it might look different on you,” I said. Amirah reached out and took it from me, and her eyes looked like she was really considering it.

  “They dry-clean everything before it goes on the racks, right?” she said.

  “Sometimes,” I said, which had to be almost true, and did not tell her about the time Janis found a tooth in a shirt pocket.

  “Esme, can I wear these?” Ji-A asked. I turned around to see her holding up my cowboy boots, the black ones with the red roses and blue sparrows stitched into the leather.

  “Sure,” I said. She sat down, pulled one onto a foot, and then gave a little yelp.

  “Yay, they fit perfectly,” she said.

  “So,” Janis said, standing by the bed, looking at Amirah’s discards, “if you wear that thrifted old rag—I mean, the teal cocktail gown!—does that mean the Versace is up for grabs?”

  “What’d you say?” Amirah asked, her head caught in the stretch teal fabric as she fumbled with the zipper before finally freeing herself and yanking in down.

  “Can I borrow this?” Janis asked again, holding up the Versace.

  “Go for it,” Amirah said, then turned to look at herself in my mirror. She zipped the zipper, adjusted the sleeve, and pulled down the hem, and holy crap, she looked amazing!

  “Wow,” she said, taking in her reflection. “This is kinda awesome.”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “Opposite of puddle,” I said.

  “Esme,” Janis said. “I think you should try the Saint Laurent.” I walked over and picked up the dress, but as much as it was a work of art, it didn’t feel like me.

  “I think I’m going to stick with my Roxy Carmichael dress,” I said, pulling the pink fluff out of the bag and yanking off the tags. Unlike Amirah, I had no illusions about the Goodwill and dry-cleaning, but the dress was too perfect not to risk a case of scabies. The look needed boots, though—specifically black boots, like Winona’s character, Dinky Bosetti, wore, which she tied up with hot-pink laces. I always had my Docs, but those were my everyday black combat boots, and I needed some dress-up black combat boots. Then I spotted a bit of sparkle amid Ji-A’s stuff. I bent down and unearthed combat boots. Black glitter combat boots by Alexander McQueen.

  “Can I borrow these?”

  “Of course,” Ji-A said. I pulled on the dress, and the boots, and they were perfect.

  “How does this look?” Janis asked. Everyone swiveled to see her. She had on the Versace minidress with shoulder-grazing gold ankh earrings, a piece of hot-pink-and-yellow wax-print fabric as a head wrap around her braids, and these flat black sandals that she’d bought in Greece and that tied up her calves all the way to her knees. She looked freaking incredible.

  “I would compliment your outfit right now,” I said, “but I can’t, because I’m dead.”

  “So dead,” Amirah said.

  “Absolutely deceased,” Ji-A added.

  “Good,” Janis said. “I just need to keep these on until we get there.” Then she pulled a giant pair of tube socks on up and over her sandals.

  “I thought your toes didn’t get cold,” I said.

  “I thought so too,” she said. “But I was wrong.”

  We d
id our hair and makeup. Or, rather, Janis did everyone’s hair and makeup, and then we were ready to go. Pig, who had been watching quietly from the corner, to her credit farting only minimally, now let out a long whine. It was like she knew she was being left.

  “We’ll be back soon, girlie,” I said, walking over and bending down to scratch her ears. She wrinkled her nose, and then sniffed my dress. She apparently liked what she smelled, because she went in again. It wasn’t exactly confidence boosting.

  “She’s so cuuute,” cooed Amirah, the one who hated dogs. “Can’t she come with us?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “We can just say she’s my date,” Amirah said.

  “Each student is only allowed one guest,” I said. “And so you’re already my date.”

  “Yeah,” Amirah said, “but the rules don’t apply to me, because I’m not a student, so Pig can be my date.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but you see, that means I’m bringing two guests.”

  “No you’re not,” she said. “You’re bringing one guest, and I’m bringing one guest.”

  “Yes, but you’re my guest,” I said, though I could tell from Amirah’s face that I was getting nowhere. I think she was used to saying “Yeah, but the rules don’t apply to me,” so I changed course. “Pig could come, but she doesn’t have anything to wear.”

  “Oh, yes she does!” Janis said, then sock-footed it across my room to dig through one of my drawers. “She can wear this!” Janis was triumphantly brandishing my tuxedo T-shirt. Pig sat obediently while Janis jammed it down over her head, and then put her front paws through the sleeves. The shirt dragged on the ground, so I secured the back with a ponytail holder. Really, they were right, and I don’t know why I ever resisted. Pig looked so sophisticated in black tie.

  The five of us made our way to the living room, where Dad had taken a break from his James Patterson novel and appeared to be shopping for socks on Amazon. “Wow!” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a high school dance, but they must have gotten a lot fancier since my day.” Then he got a glimpse of Janis’s socks.