by S. L. Naeole
He shook his head, a bemused smile stretching on his face. “And what happens when I have to leave because of my call? Grace will be abandoned by her date—just what every girl wants to experience at her senior prom.
“She’ll have a much better time with Shawn, and that’s all I want.”
I knew that I wasn’t the only one who looked at Robert with an appreciative gaze; I hadn’t planned on changing my mind about going to prom with Shawn, regardless of what Robert’s answer would be. But hearing his reasons, knowing that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to go with me, but rather that he didn’t want my experience to be anything but pleasant, it made me feel rather guilty.
Robert’s face grew pinched as he listened to the thoughts in my head, and I saw that he did not approve of my feelings.
Of course I don’t approve. Why do you feel guilty, Grace?
My eyes flitted to Stacy and Graham, who were now extolling on the virtues of Robert not going to prom with me, and I allowed my gaze to travel to the white canvas garment that lay beside me. I feel guilty because now all I’ll be thinking about when I’m with Shawn is how much I’d rather be with you.
His chuckle went unnoticed by the others and I blushed, the uncomfortable warmth in my cheeks annoying and frustratingly obvious.
“Okay, so we’ve got to get the slip and your shoes and then you’ll be done. I just need to pick up a new nail polish, and then it’s all about you, Graham,” Stacy said, ticking off an invisible list on her fingers.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa. I told you, I’ve got a tux,” Graham argued. “It’s a nice one, too, with matching tie, vest, and cummerbund.”
Stacy looked at me, her face screaming “I told you so”, and I burst into a fit of laughter. She returned her gaze to Graham’s blank face, a thin line forming where her mouth should have been. “You are not wearing a cummerbund.”
“But it’s a packaged deal. All I have to know is what color your dress is and then they’ll try and match it. They even have paisley if you want to try something funky,” Graham replied before taking a bite of his burger.
Stacy’s head turned towards mine once more, her eyes saying all sorts of things I knew her mouth wouldn’t, and I began to choke on my laughter, the expression of utter mortification on her face too much to bear.
“He said paisley,” she gasped.
“It could have been worse,” Robert said as he took a fast sip of his water. “He could have said it was neon paisley.”
“Oh, God,” Stacy whined into her hands before throwing an accusatory glance at me. “This is your fault. If he shows up wearing a paisley, neon tux, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your life. I’ll haunt your children, and your grandchildren. I'll even haunt your dogs and your goldfish. I can’t believe I was talked into this.”
Robert reached out a comforting hand to Stacy, his laughter not as boisterous as mine but full of amusement all the same. “I’ll make sure he looks his best, Stacy,” he said to her reassuringly. “You just worry about making yourself look beautiful.”
Stacy’s face softened at his words. “You don’t have a brother hidden somewhere, do you? Or perhaps a friend who isn’t psychotic? Just in case?”
“No, I don’t have a brother, and I’m afraid that there are very few of my kind as open to the idea of dating a human as I and my sister are,” he answered her, his voice laced with sadness.
“Well, should you, you know, ever find one who happens to share your views before prom, could you let me know? I might need a back-up.”
Graham’s head lifted at that and he frowned. “Hey! I’m right here!”
Stacy, Robert, and I laughed at Graham’s outraged face and soon, he joined us in our amusement as we finished our lunch and prepared to head to the next store on Stacy’s list.
It turned out that it was at Indian Mound Shopping Center, and it gave us the opportunity to view the damage to the theater and the two adjacent stores.
It was a disturbing scene, to say the least, to see the doors that had once led you into the theater’s lobby were now missing. The doorway's frame was charred black, the smell of burnt wood and plastic still permeating the air despite the air-conditioner’s filters and the multitude of flowers that were piled in front of the blackened entrance in a makeshift memorial.
“Does anyone know how many people were hurt in the fire?” I asked to no one in particular.
Stacy nodded, a somber expression replacing the amused one that she had carried over from lunch. “Twenty people were hurt, four died, including the new manager of the theater.”
I looked at Robert and, though I knew that the blaze wouldn’t have caused him any harm, the idea that it could have been him in that fire still brought a tightening to my chest that was both uncomfortable as well as pained when I acknowledged that he had been here.
“I want to get some flowers,” I said, my voice hushed by the overwhelming sense of sorrow that filled this corner of the shopping center.
Robert nodded and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, leading me away gently. “Let’s go and do that right now.”
“I’m coming with you,” Stacy called out, running to catch up.
Graham, however, didn’t follow.
My feet stilled as I turned to look at his motionless figure, his shoulders slumped forward with something I couldn’t place.
“Graham? Are you coming?”
“If I had still been working here, I might have been able to save them.” His voice was rough, catching with each word on the pain that had formed inside of him.
“Graham, you don’t know that,” I told him, returning to his side. I looked at his face and saw the look of guilt and despair in his eyes that I knew had no place there.
“I’m not going to die, Grace. At first that sounded so awesome, but you were right. I forgot about everyone else, forgot that other people are still going to die. If I’d been here, I could have stopped them from dying. I could have saved them because I wouldn’t have been afraid of dying—I wouldn’t have worried about trying to save myself. Does that make sense?”
“Graham, you’ve had your mortality lengthened, but that doesn’t mean you’re invincible. Nothing is invincible, not even faith.” Robert spoke up then, his voice lowered to prevent others from hearing. “Had you gone into that fire, you would have saved a few people, sure, but what if they were meant to die? You’d be interfering, and turned or not your life is still subject to the whims of those who made you. Did you never stop to think just how far your immortality went?”
When Graham shook his head, Robert pulled him off to the side, his face stern, his posture rigid. “You saw what happened the other day when the knife punctured your skin. You still possess the same fragilities as you did while mortal, Graham.
“You can still be burned, you can still be cut—you’re not impervious to injury, no matter how you feel or what you think; you'll heal when you otherwise wouldn't have before you turned. Your skin will return to its previous state, you won't bleed, you won't scar. It is because of this that you cannot play the hero and risk revealing to others what you are. Humanity loves the idea of superheroes, but they're not ready to truly accept their existence or how they came to be."
Graham seemed to understand the message that Robert was trying to get through to him, though the guilt was still visible in his eyes. He nodded, the motion jerky—I would have sworn it was a defiant gesture if I didn’t know better.
“Let’s get the rest of Stacy’s list done,” he said with a weak smile.
“Are you gonna be okay, Graham?” Stacy asked, her plans obviously taking second place to concern for him.
“I’ll be fine. It’s just going to take some getting used to, you know?”
Graham’s answer was half-hearted, but it was all we were going to get out of him—we all knew that—so instead of pressing the issue, we turned around and headed towards the opposite end of the mall, the idea of laying flowers down among all the rest now forgotten.
While Stacy and I walked ahead of them, Graham and Robert continued to discuss what had happened at the scene of the fire. Though I couldn’t see them, and though it was impossible to listen in on their conversation without turning around, I was still able to hear what they were saying.
“I know that you went into this with very little thought as to the consequences, Graham, but don’t think that you made a mistake. You were given permission to turn because you have it in you to protect what’s not just my secret anymore, but yours now as well.
“You’ve proven that you love my sister, and I already know that you love Grace. There’s not much else you can do to prove to me that allowing you to turn was the right decision.”
Stacy looked at me and smiled, just as relieved as I was that Robert was accepting of Graham, both as Lark’s boyfriend and my best friend, but more so as someone newly turned.
“You two look quite pleased,” Robert remarked as he sidled between us, his hand fitting into mine.
“Among other things,” Stacy chuckled.
When we approached the department store that Stacy had intended on purchasing the rest of the items on her list at, Robert took Graham in one direction while Stacy dragged me in another.
“I put something on hold for you the other day,” she said as we approached a saleslady. “It’s what you’re going to wear beneath the overdress. I know you probably can’t picture what exactly the entire ensemble is supposed to look like but I guarantee that when you put this together with the dress, you’ll be a believer in me.”
I shrugged, totally ambivalent. A dress was a dress. It didn’t matter what it was called, or what someone else thought about it.
“Hi, I have something on hold under the name Stacy Kim,” she said to the woman who looked up and down at the two of us, a shiver of revulsion running through her as she took in my holey jeans and worn t-shirt. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” Stacy said with a knowing smile.
Unsure, the woman walked towards a far wall and opened a hidden door, revealing a closet filled with a rack of clothes, hold tags pinned to the garment bags that covered them. She sifted through several of them before finding a tag bearing Stacy’s name.
“The dressing room is right around that corner,” she said to us as she handed the garment to Stacy.
“Thank you,” Stacy said to her and pulled me with her towards a side room full of glass covered doors. She walked towards the one furthest away from the entrance and pushed me into a dressing area that was roughly the size of a public restroom.
“Put this on first,” she instructed, handing me the garment that she had the saleswoman retrieved, “and then put this on over it.” She handed me the garment bag holding the overdress.
Once the small door closed after her, I turned to face my reflection times three, the wall of mirrors surrounding me quite overwhelming.
“Stop freaking out at the mirrors and put on the first dress,” Stacy called out from behind the door.
I bit my tongue to keep from throwing out a retort as I undressed and then pried a silver slip dress from its padded hanger, the light from overhead bouncing off of the shimmering fabric. I gathered the material up and pulled the garment over my head, allowing it to fall around me, the silky material fluid and free flowing, the ends draping a bit on the ground. Its thin, spaghetti-like straps just barely grazed my shoulders and the fabric was so light, it felt like I wasn’t wearing anything at all.
The dress clung to me as though my skin was wet, hugging me in a way that gave off the impression that my figure was far more lush than it was, the curves of my body suddenly coming into focus, surprising me; the dress was like a mask that hid the real me underneath it. After taking the requisite time to appreciate everything that this first dress could do, I removed the black overdress from its bag, finally able to see and feel it after merely glancing at it from over a counter.
It was very fragile, made entirely of black mesh lace with ornate and decorative embroidery accenting everything from the bodice to the long sleeves. There were swirls and hearts woven into the lace using the same black thread, and they varied in thickness from faint and delicate to thick and stiff and almost appliqué like. The dress’ hook-and-eye back made me wonder how I was going to be able to close it when I put it on as I stepped into it, lifting it to my chest and pulling my arms through the sleeves.
“Are you done?”
“Yeah,” I responded, and opened the door to allow Stacy inside the confining room.
The minute she saw me, even with the back of the dress wide open, she clapped her hands and brought them to her face, pleased by what she saw.
“I love it when I’m right. Turn around, let me close you up.”
With a few quick tugs, she managed to bring the back together, the lace now hugging my body against the silver dress beneath it, the contrast of the shimmering fabric peeking through the black lace quite startling.
The necklines of the two dresses met up exactly, meshing into one perfect garment. The bottom of the overdress fanned out behind me, the effect far more dramatic than I had expected out of something that was nothing more than a whole lot of black string.
Stacy needed nothing else to confirm that she had, indeed, chosen the perfect combination of garments when the saleswoman came in to check on us and her jaw dropped in shock at the image that I made, standing in front of a room full of mirrors, dressed in silver and black.
“I’m going to assume that you’re taking the dress,” she said to Stacy, though she stared at me, her eyes sparkling with appreciation. “Did you put these two together?”
Stacy nodded enthusiastically. “Yup.”
“You’ve got an eye for this thing. You should fill out an application—we could use someone like you,” the saleswoman remarked as she walked around me, admiring the blend of the two dresses together.
“I’d love to, but I’m afraid that I’m not going to be here much longer,” Stacy replied, a slight catch in her voice.
“Oh? Going away to college then?”
Stacy shook her head and looked at me, a rather sardonic look on her face. “Nope, just dying.”
Speechless. That’s the only word one could use to describe the saleswoman’s reaction to Stacy’s response, and she was that in spades. I wondered how often Stacy had dropped that little bomb on people in passing, and whether or not their reactions were similar.
With the saleswoman distracted, I focused on removing both dresses, handing Stacy the silver one over the door while carefully placing the black one back on its hanger and into its garment bag.
Afterwards, we stood in front of the register where the saleswoman fiddled with a safety tag, still unable to converse on any level with Stacy, too flustered to say anything meaningful or simply conversational. The total for the silver slip was a marked difference from the black one, and I nearly felt like we were cheating both of them somehow, the disparities in prices so vast it was almost laughable, but the fact that they both seemed to have been meant for each other couldn’t be ignored, even by me and my fashion ignorance.
Stacy and I headed to the men’s department to seek out the guys and found Robert sitting in a leather chair as Graham stood in front of a mirrored wall, his hands resting in the pockets of white, pin striped jacket. Beneath it he wore a black shirt with a white vest, pin striped to match, and a tie that was a deep burgundy color.
He looked like a movie star dressed the way he was, with his blonde hair and green eyes and mega-watt smile. If he hadn’t been wearing his ratted sneakers, the vision would have been flawless.
“How’d you do that?” Stacy said to Robert, breathless as she watched Graham take a few steps and pose, examining his reflection. “How’d you take him from human garbage disposal to that?”
“He’s always been…that, Stacy. He just needed his packaging changed,” Robert said with a smirk. “Does the color suit you?”
She walked up to Graham and grabbed the tie, grinning like a
loon when she discovered that it was no clip-on, his head lurching down towards hers when she tugged on it. “This is the exact same color as my dress—how did you know that?”
“Let’s just say that an angel told me,” Robert said with a sly smile.
“I’m impressed.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly to Robert as Stacy examined the lines of the tux while Graham held his hands up, posing as though he were being frisked by the police.
“I want you to enjoy your prom, Grace. In order to do that, I have to make sure your bodyguard is happy, too,” he joked.
“I know, but you’ve done a lot for someone not even going.”
“Who said I’m not going?”
I looked at him, stunned. “But I thought-”
He silenced me by placing his hand over my mouth, his smile still whimsical, though now with a hint of mischief added to it. “I may not be going as your date, but I’m still going, Grace, if only to make sure that Salsa Boy keeps his hands to himself.”
I pushed Robert’s hand away to protest. “Shawn wouldn’t dare-”
Robert chuckled and replaced his hand with his lips, effectively ending any complaint I might have had.
THE MISTAKE
“Grace, Grace get up.”
It was three days before prom. Well, two days and half a night, but the time didn’t matter. It was the urgent shaking, the lights that drilled into my eyes when darkness should have—would have—been far more welcoming that mattered.
“Mmm. What’s wrong?” I looked into grey eyes and blinked to adjust my vision. They were wrong.
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes—it’s your vision that needs adjusting. Good grief—you mortals and your shortcomings.”
I sat upright on the bed, my body jerking as I took in the long missed face. “Lark!” My arms whipped around her and I pulled her into a pathetic embrace—pathetic because, quite simply, it’s pretty impossible to pull an angel anywhere.