The bathroom door opens, its hinge so well oiled it hardly creaks. I close the book quickly.
“Cham?” Abigail’s voice floods the bathroom. I get off the toilet and peek under the door. There are her snakeskin heels, pausing outside my stall. “Ew, get out of there, Cham!”
“Germs are my friends.”
“Chamaroooon!” Hilary sings as the door opens again. I wait for her plastic, totally see-through heels to stop in front of me. “We see your sneakers in there.”
“Hi, friends,” I say, butt cheeks regaining feeling after so long on the toilet seat. “I wasn’t hiding, I swear. I was researching.”
“Researching what?” Abigail asks, pounding on the stall door so hard it rattles.
“My poop’s horoscope.”
Abigail sniffs the air theatrically, and her heels take her toward the mirror. “It doesn’t smell like you’re pooping, and, ew, why didn’t you tell me my lips have melted into my chin?”
“You’re beautiful, Abigail,” I say, flushing the toilet, just in case it wanted a reset.
“We got bored at dinner without you,” Hilary says as I open the door. She’s leaning against the counter, and the mirror is reflecting her cool blue hair back at me. “Here, we brought rolls.”
She passes one to me and I pop it in my mouth. “You angel, you prebuttered it.”
As I chew this squishy, salty treasure, I sift through the prom kit on the counter: a basket full of bobby pins and spray-on deodorant and mouthwash and condoms. In the mirror, Abigail is licking her finger and attacking her chin with a cotton ball. I want to tell them about Nicaragua, but just because I can go doesn’t mean I should.
“Okay, all fixed,” Abigail says, applying a fresh coat of lipstick with her face a centimeter from the mirror. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not leaving until I have a sign from the universe,” I tell them. I back toward the woven basket of hand towels with my arms crossed. “I will stay in this bathroom until my teeth fall out, and then I will get the denture creator to come in here.”
“Shut up, Cham,” Abigail says, rolling her eyes in a very unsympathetic way, considering her dad isn’t dying. “You don’t have to decide your whole life right now. You’re gonna miss prom if you try to do that. Actually, you’ll probably miss your whole life if you do that. Just let go for one night and shake your tight little runner’s ass.”
They push me through the bathroom door. The lobby is loud with the sounds of prom transitioning from dinner to dancing.
“Come on, Cham,” Abigail says, linking her arm in mine as we head toward the loudening music. “It’s time to dance like we danced in my kitchen that night, even though Evelyn refused to acknowledge our brilliance. And don’t act like you’re all above high school.” Abigail starts to swing her hips. “You’re one of us, whether you like it or not.”
“You’re killing me, Abigail,” I say as she and Hilary drag me toward the photo booth.
“Quick stop here first,” Hilary says, pulling back the curtain. There are props and a bright light, and facing the black curtain is a camera that has a button on a foot pedal.
We put on the fake mustache and the huge glasses and hold up the square frame that says Gill School’s Senior Prom.
“Three… two… one,” the photo booth tells us. Then clicks. Seventeen is wanting something more and finally being able to go after it, even if you have no idea what the freak to call it. “Quick, switch it up,” Abigail says. I grab the mustache from Hilary, and she takes the frame from Abigail, and we stick our tongues out. Seventeen is dancing barefoot with the people you know way too many things about, because dress shoes hurt and heels hurt and at the end of the day high school hurts enough.
“Okay,” Abigail says, throwing the cardboard mustache on the floor. “Now for the dance.” She turns toward the doors containing all the sound and color and sequins and sweat and, holy shit, Mr. Garcia’s dance moves.
“Wait,” I call, running after Hilary and Abigail and taking them by the arm. “One more, but no props this time.” I arrange us in the small black booth, Abigail in the middle. “Just your default face, please.” We get perfectly still and I try to look straight-faced into the camera, but as soon as the timer starts, we all burst out laughing, and the camera sound effect clicks.
“Come on, Cham,” Abigail says, zipping across the oriental rug, past the fancy water station and the various bouquets, toward the wooden doors. “You can move faster than that. Look at those terrible sneakers.”
“Coming,” I call, running to squeeze between Abigail and Hilary. The fabric of our dresses overlaps—white and green and red and probably other colors our retinas don’t register.
Seventeen is just a word someone made up that doesn’t mean anything at all without us, I realize as we approach the doors and all the familiar and unknown things behind them. I hug my friends before we’re too sweaty to stomach each other, and they give me a taunting look.
Abigail puts her hands on her hips while Hilary leans against the metal door handles. “Now go find Brendan,” Abigail says.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“Oh, come on, Cham,” Hilary says. “You obviously have a crush on him.”
I widen my eyes. “Do not.”
Abigail gives me a stern look. “You lying little shit,” she teases.
I retape my left boob X, then burst out laughing. “Fine, wish me luck.”
Abigail slaps my butt and opens the door for me, the sounds and smells of prom washing over me like a high school–themed tsunami. “Godspeed.”
22
Days ’til graduation: Still 2, but minus a few hours
I HAVE WORMS IN MY STOMACH AS I WALK INTO THE BIG, BRIGHT room, just huge, fat springtime worms that have been crawling out of the cracks of the earth lately and now are crawling out of me too. I hate walking into rooms by myself, especially ones that are loud and fancy and full of the entire senior class. I wouldn’t wish that sort of emotional trauma even on Helga. After a few moments of anxiously looking at all the tables where everyone is finishing up their dinner and clanking their silverware and taking selfies with the asparagus stalks, I find Brendan at a table in the back. I walk over with my hands sweating, grateful for the first time all night to be in sneakers and not heels.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I ask hurriedly, speaking to his bow tie because it’s less intimidating than his face. Slow down. Deep breaths.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Prom Scrooge!” he says, turning in his seat and twirling a pink rose in his hand. “Sure, we can talk, but only if we promise to stay absolutely miserable.”
“Shut up.” I laugh and pull him up from the table, hitting him with his napkin.
As we cross the room toward the lobby, a few people look up as we pass. I realize I might look carefully styled by a punk-rock six-year-old, with the white dress, black-taped Xs over my boobs, and highlighter-orange sneakers. But if the only sane response to an insane world is insanity, I guess I’d rather be crazy than live life fast asleep with my eyes open.
My confidence drains in the lobby, which is a stark contrast from the loudness of the room back there. What the hell am I going to say, and why did I think this was a good idea? I stop by the table with the fancy water for a drink, feeling all my fucks rushing in.
“That’s how you know you made it,” I say a little too loudly to Brendan, taking a sip and passing him a cup too. “When your water has food in it on purpose.”
He holds his cup up to me, looking handsome in his pale blue suit. “It’s official. We did it.” I hear him swallow, and the voices inside the room change as dinner is cleared and the DJ starts the dance music. Man, it is stressful to be a standing, breathing person. I take an inhale I hope he can’t hear.
“Do you want to take a walk?” he asks me at the same time I say, “I was lying earlier.”
“Oh,” we both say, and laugh. I run a sweaty palm over my hair frizzies and look out the glass doors, where
the sky has darkened. The lanterns in the trees are even prettier now, and though the wind has blown most of the petals off the walkway, they still look beautiful piled against the building.
“Yeah,” I say, deliberately avoiding our reflection in the mirror to our left. “A walk sounds good.”
It’s the cool, damp weather that’s the worst for my hair, but I try not to think about that as we walk toward his car. The stone walkway gives way to a parking lot, and the trees with their lights get fewer and fewer the closer we get to the golf course. His dress shoes make a clicking noise against the pavement, and every few strides our fingers touch by mistake, sending my atoms haywire. We stop outside his car and I take in the lights and the sounds of the country club behind us.
“Jacket?” Brendan asks, opening the car door and offering me a blue fleece.
“Please.”
I put it on and look up at the sky. I’m starting to become very aware of my skin, and every inch of it that’s making contact with the air.
“So what were you saying,” he asks, “when I so rudely interrupted you and suggested this cold walk?”
“Um…” Shit shit shit. I glance at his bow tie, then back up at the dark, clouded sky, wishing I could locate just one star. Time to graduate, Chamomile. Time to fucking graduate. “I was lying earlier,” I squeak, then look him in the eyes and steady my voice. I poke his arm, which seems decidedly uncool and even less sexy. It becomes a weird caress and I manage, “I was hoping you were asking me to prom.”
A smile twitches on his lips and I wonder about them—how they move, what they feel like.
“I was asking you to prom,” he finally says. The wind carries the sound of his voice around the whole parking lot. I’m glad I’m the only one to hear. “I just didn’t want to come on too strong.”
My heart falls upward, which is something my heart has never done before. It’s becoming very hard to make eye contact—I can’t look away, but if I keep looking into his eyes, I don’t know that I’ll stay in one piece.
“Well, okay, that’s good, ’cause here we are at prom.” I point awkwardly toward the giant sign now hanging sideways, then consider pulling the fleece over my head. Instead I tug at its zipper. A foghorn sounds someplace far from us, an alert that the dense air is hiding something. It’s here, right here.
“Um, I like you,” Brendan finally says, fiddling with the flower pinned to his shirt. “At first I thought you were kind of an asshole, and maybe I still do, but… you’re really beautiful, Cham. Even when no one’s looking.”
The way he says it, I know he doesn’t mean You’re so hot. I used to love it when Gene said that, but this stirs something different in me, like there’s a whole universe inside me.
“I, um… I like you too,” I say, stepping a tiny bit closer to him.
He lets out a breath that he might have been holding all night. “Well, that’s a relief.”
I smile dumbly. He smells like some combination of deodorant and shampoo that I’ve never smelled before. It’s exciting, the prospect of learning his smells. He leans toward me. Every star is behind him. I know it, even though I can’t see it.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask, finally looking up into his eyes. They’re so many shades of brown. I’m self-conscious, petrified.
“I suppose so,” he jokes, then leans against his car and pulls me toward him.
At the last second, I pause. Our faces are so close together that there are just a few atoms between us and how we are now and what we could be. I giggle in my head because my heart is racing and he can probably hear it and my breathing seems loud too. I stop thinking about it, just close my eyes and go in the direction of him. Immediately our teeth clank together. Both of us jerk back.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” I giggle, relieved that it’s dark in this parking lot. We try again, and this time our noses kinda hit each other in a weird way.
“Third time’s a charm,” he says, and it is. We get it. The softest parts of our faces connect, creating this slow, deep, twisting kiss that really shouldn’t be called a kiss, since it feels like so much more than that. He runs his hands through my hair, drawing me closer. I put my arms around his neck as I fall for him. It has to do with gravity. Our gravities.
“I meant to tell you,” he says, abruptly pulling away and smiling at me shyly.
I quickly adjust my X-tits as he opens his car door and then hands me a folder. One hand is still touching mine while the other holds out a manila envelope. “I put together some of the stuff we talked about.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking the envelope from him.
“Pieces of your essay.”
He lets go and I undo the tab, then peek inside. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, I sent Evelyn all the stuff you said that day in your room. It wasn’t a coherent essay or anything, just a lot of notes, but I wanted Evelyn to know that you worked really hard on it.”
“Wow,” I say. I consider taking the pages out, but then I reclose the envelope. I haven’t had anything to add to the box under my bed in a while. Now I do. And someday I have a feeling this will be worth remembering.
“This is really nice, Brendan.” I hold the envelope to my chest and look up at his face. His eyes are sweet and familiar behind his dark lashes. “Thank you.”
He takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Just in case you ever want to write a college essay sometime, you’ll have some notes to work from.”
“Yeah,” I joke, “’cause I’m totally dying to do that right now.” I hold the envelope for a second longer, feeling its weight before I hand it back to him and he puts it on the hood of the car. I cross my arms, feeling the dampness starting to sink into my bones, and the weight of this moment in time, all the things that are ending. I take a deep breath.
“I was getting so tired having two separate worlds. But when you came to my house a few months ago, that started to change. You were the thing in between.” I pull his fleece tighter around me. I’m starting to shiver. “I’m glad you are.”
He fixes the jacket and brings me closer to him. “That’s goot,” he says, then cocks his head at himself, laughing nervously.
I laugh too. “What?”
He closes his eyes and hangs his head. “I was starting to say ‘good,’ but then I said ‘great’ and—”
I kiss him then pull back grinning. I don’t want separate worlds. I want one big, humongous universe that can fit all of me in it. I want you in it. I fall back to his chest, so close that if either of us moves the tiniest bit, our lips will brush and ignite everything again. And one of us is bound to move. We have to. He brushes a curl off my face. “So what now?”
“Let’s stay out here a bit longer,” I say, looking behind me toward the big room with all its windows. Multicolored lights are flashing, and people have started dancing, and the thick beat of the music reaches us even in the parking lot. “I know we’re missing prom but I think a girl’s gotta make her own world in this world.”
Brendan smiles and takes my face in his hands. My cheeks are flushed and I feel a warmth all around me. Not like I peed myself; like the population of my universe just increased by one. “Well, then if it’s okay with you,” he says, leaning toward my lips, “I’d like to be in yours.”
We fall back against the car. “I’ll have to submit your request,” I say, softly running my finger over his lips.
He laughs and he doesn’t get it, but that’s okay. I do. I stand on my tiptoes. Soon we will go back to the dance. The night will end and we will graduate and there will be choices to make. But right now our breath is forming its own sweet atmosphere. Our eyelashes are touching. He’s tall enough that kissing him is like kissing the sky. And the next thing I know, I am.
Epilogue
Dear College Admissions Person,
This essay has been a bitch to write. Can I say that? If not, this whole system is bullshit. Oops. There I go again. I’m sorry, I just want to express myself
, the real me, and that includes a few colorful swear words and also probably a few words that aren’t words. Is that okay? I’m gonna forge ahead without your permission.
As I was saying, this essay has taken me a while to write, like a year, or I guess my whole life, if you think that every moment is a culmination of all the moments that came before it and each one is indispensible. I do. It’s taken me so long because I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I just knew I wanted to mean it.
All the people I know applied to college because it’s the next right thing to do. They wrote essays and collected their extracurriculars and responded to a prompt using excellent vocabulary words and badass grammar. That didn’t work for me, mostly because I didn’t do extracurriculars and I always screw up the rules of grammar. Also, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to college. I wish it had to do with my principles, like I don’t want to be a drone who does the next right thing! But actually it just had to do with my dad being sick. And not being able to leave him behind while he’s fading away, but still feeling left behind by everyone who was moving on. Does that make sense? I was feeling stuck like a bee in amber. All I had were questions. And that’s still true. Now I want to devote my life to the questions. I have to.
While I was sitting on the toilet at a particular momentous dance, feeling real sorry for myself, I read something a dead friend of mine wrote in a book. Tl;dr: Answers are overrated. Live the questions. I don’t know if that’s true, but I guess you could say it’s another question I have.
Here’s the thing, College Admissions Person: Even if you do not accept me to your institution of higher learning, even if I change my mind last minute and decide not to send this application in, I will still find a way to ask questions and keep asking more questions.
Last summer my dad and I read this book together about motorcycles. It was boring as hell, but it got me thinking: Anything can be college, you know? Taking classes at State and chugging beers or driving a motorcycle across the country. Even going for a run can be college, and it is for me a lot of the time. I lose touch with my feet and my legs, and there’s more sky and more horizon. Everything is closer but also more infinite. It’s like wading through stars beyond the ones we usually see, stars that are part of unsolved universes, secret places I want to know. As long as I keep asking questions, I have a feeling that one day I’m going to get close enough to know the nature of these alien familiars—the unknown things that I suspect have really been with me all along. I hope you’ll accept me so I can explore mine. (Mostly I hope I can accept me, but that’s a topic for another essay.)
Dear Universe Page 23