Jack didn’t look at me, but he didn’t have to. “I thought maybe it’d be different today.”
Everyone laughed. Amber leaned into me and whispered, “What a loser.”
“Did your boyfriend paint your nails?” Adam asked.
I remembered sitting up in Jack’s darkened room, brushing his fingernails with black polish, how he’d kissed my neck and told me I was perfect. Now here we were, under the harsh lights of our high school, and I didn’t feel like the same girl. I was as far from perfect as you could get—didn’t he see that? I waited for Jack’s eyes to flicker in my direction, but he stared straight ahead as if we didn’t know each other at all.
…
That night, while Jack’s mom and dad were at work and my parents thought I was having ice cream on the beach with Sarah, I knocked on his door.
“Hey,” I said, smiling. If I acted normal, maybe he would, too.
His expression was unreadable, but he moved to the side and let me in. “Hey.”
I threw my arms around his neck and waited. His arms stayed at his sides. I pulled back. “You’re mad at me.”
His jaw flinched a couple of times. “Listen, I understood at first. I really did. You didn’t know if it’d turn into anything, and I didn’t either. But it has now, hasn’t it? Isn’t it something?”
“Yes,” I said desperately.
“Then I don’t get what the problem is. School’s almost over. Who cares what those people think? What difference will they make in your life in five years?”
He was right. He was so right, logically. Who were these people? The least and most important people in my life at the same time. And it wasn’t five years from now. It was right now, today. What they thought of me mattered.
“I don’t want anyone to know about this—us. I want to keep you someplace separate. Just for me.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. That doesn’t work for me anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t.” His voice rose, the first time I’d ever heard him sound really pissed off. “Because—” He stopped himself, shaking his head again.
“This isn’t fair. We agreed. You’re the one changing the rules of the game, so why is that my fault?”
He took me by surprise by not matching my elevated tone, by calming himself and reaching for my hand. He pulled me close to him, so I could hear him breathing. “Tell me something. Why are you so afraid to be seen with me?”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me now, as if he could see right through me. I blinked, focusing on the side of his ear. “I—I’m not afraid. You know them. How they are. They expect certain things of me. I know you think that’s stupid. You’re who you are and that’s it. But I’m not that way. I can’t be.”
That was as close as I’d ever come to making sense of all the conflicting feelings at war inside of me since the first day I understood that high school was not something to enjoy but something to survive. If anyone would understand me, it’d be him.
When I was finally able to look at him again, his eyes had steeled themselves. He sounded perfectly composed when he said, “Okay, Natalie.”
“What does that mean? Are we okay?”
He released me. Without his arms around me, I was cold, already lonely. “Good to keep sneaking around, sure. But I’ve got stuff to do tonight, so I’ll see you later.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I knew I would not be able to say another word without crying. He was walking away anyway, and I didn’t belong in his kitchen without him. So I left.
…
Lori had settled on a decent prom theme: black-and-white movies. The tables inside the Lighthouse Beach Club were draped in silky white cloth with a black ribbon running across it. White flames danced in black candleholders, white roses stood in black vases. Walls were decorated with pictures from black-and-white movies, and each table had a picture, too. On the far end of the ballroom, French doors opened up to a balcony with a full view of the ocean. I knew Lori had been working hard, but I never thought the room would look this good.
Eddie, though, wasn’t as pleased. “Oh, this sucks. It’s a black-and-white picture?”
The cameraman nodded as if it took great effort to move his head slowly up and down. Eddie turned to me. “Damn. You’re not going to get the full effect of this thing in black and white.”
He wore a blue ruffled tuxedo, unironically, even though I told him I’d be wearing emerald green. “Believe me, it will be seared into my memory forever.”
We posed for our picture, Eddie with a hand around my waist, our heads close together. After the light flashed, I had to blink several times to see straight.
My head hadn’t felt right for days, not since my argument with Jack at his house, which was the last time I’d seen him. I’d been texting him ever since, with no response. He’d been MIA at school, too. He was mad, obviously, but how mad? Irreparably? It seemed impossible, yet the possibility of it was all I could think about.
Funny that I couldn’t get him to talk to me, yet once Eddie and I entered the ballroom, Jack’s voice was the first thing I heard. He was singing songs from popular movies. They’d apparently had to expand the black-and-white repertoire, because I recognized the lyrics from the song from The Breakfast Club. The Kerouacs suits were in keeping with the color scheme: black coat and pants, white shirt, long black tie.
I followed Eddie over to the bar area for drinks (soda with lime slices). While we waited, he motioned toward the stage. “Band sounds pretty good.” He handed me a sweaty glass.
“Yeah.” I sipped the soda, hoping it would help settle my stomach. Before we’d left for the ballroom, we’d all congregated at our houses for pictures. My parents kept telling me how pretty I looked, how happy they were for me that I got to spend this night with all of my wonderful friends. I was just playing a role, the smiley high school cheerleader who had everything. None of them knew how empty I felt inside.
We crossed the dance floor to the tables, which were named with movie titles. Our table was Rebel Without a Cause. From inside a silver frame, James Dean smiled in a leather jacket. Lori started talking immediately. “Okay, before you say anything, Rebel Without a Cause was originally going to be in black and white, then they ended up switching to color. So it counts.”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
Lori shot a look at Adam, who groaned. “I wasn’t attacking you, personally. I was just pointing out a well-known cinematic fact that Rebel Without a Cause was in color, not black and white.”
“Well, I think it counts,” I said.
“Whatever.” Adam threw up his hands.
Amber sighed. “They’re singing songs from the eighties, so this whole discussion is irrelevant.”
“I really love this song,” Sarah said wistfully. After all of her protests, she ended up agreeing to go with Scotty Lansing, a center on the basketball team. He was quiet and generally one of the nicest guys in class. Still, I caught her gazing longingly at the Westside Story table, where Mike sat with Holly.
“Would you like to dance?” Scotty asked her.
“No.” She pushed out her lower lip and sighed. “Thanks, though.”
“Well?” Eddie turned to me and extended his hand.
“I’m not really into dancing.”
“Man, what is wrong with us?” Lori asked as she and Kurt got up. “Are we all getting boring in our old age?”
“All right, fine,” Sarah said. She grabbed Scotty’s hand, and when she pulled him onto the dance floor, I noticed she brought him right over to where Mike was sitting. Amber and Adam followed them, leaving Eddie and me alone at the table.
The song was “Take My Breath Away.” It was possibly one of the cheesiest songs ever written, but the way the Kerouacs played it, with the naturally gritty tone to Jack’s voice, made it sound different, almost haunting.
“Having a good time?” Eddie asked. He really did care if I was or no
t—he was that kind of guy. I should’ve let him take someone who cared about him.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“So I was talking to Adam, and he was telling me about his parents’ cabin in Rockport. It sounds like it’s going to be insane.”
All of our friends were staying the night there, fifty feet from the beach. “Yeah. It’s more like a second house. There’s two hot tubs, a huge kitchen and a living room with a massive TV.”
“And there’s like, a bunch of extra rooms.”
He said it way too casually for it to actually be a casual remark. But he couldn’t really think… After everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, I couldn’t even think about it. I felt detached as we talked, like I was off somewhere else, watching myself. “Yeah, there’s a lot. I was there last year on Fourth of July. They set off all these professional fireworks. It was really cool.”
When the song ended, my friends returned to our table, and Jack spoke into the microphone. “We’re going to be taking a small break, but we’ll be back after dinner.” He hopped off the stage, then headed right toward my table. He stopped there, looking straight at Amber. “Save a dance for me, will you?”
Adam snorted. “You wish.”
Jack just laughed and walked off. Adam watched him with his beady eyes. “That kid is really asking for it.”
Sarah curled her hair around her finger and sighed loudly. “Oh lord. I think this eighties music is getting to us.”
“Really,” Lori agreed. “Are you going to rumble after prom?”
Everyone laughed. Adam adjusted his boutonniere, annoyed.
I made the mistake of looking for Jack and finding him a few tables over with Talia, who apparently had changed her mind about prom. She looked really pretty. Her blonde and pink hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders. Her dress was short and black and—I did a double take. Was it really made out of duct tape? That’s what it looked like. She looked pretty and punk, a perfect complement to Jack. They must have come together.
Jack was laughing at something Talia said. He wasn’t looking at me. He hadn’t glanced in my direction since I’d arrived, but I was fully aware of his presence. I didn’t make a move without thinking of how I’d look if he were to see me.
Next to them at the table were Reid and Madeline. Reid looked handsome in his tux with his hair slicked back. Madeline, in a tight black dress, caught my eye and scowled at me. Then she shifted closer to Reid. He saw me then and lifted his hand in a little wave. Then I forgot where I was, and I waved back.
“What the hell?” Amber was leering at me, laughing. “Did you wave to that dork?”
Everyone was looking at me. “What? No. I had something in my eye.”
I prayed Reid hadn’t heard, but I knew he had. I saw him duck his head and shift away from us.
Prom night wore on. Eventually, the Kerouacs stopped playing and the principal took over. Jack and the band stood off to the side, hands clasped in front of them, feigning rapt interest. The principal went on and on, the requisite speech about how wonderful this senior class was, the same stuff he probably said at every senior prom since he got his job a long, long time ago. Jack nodded along solemnly. Finally, he took hold of the microphone.
“Thank you, Mr. Walters, for those words of wisdom. Now for the most exciting part of the night. See this envelope my esteemed colleague Reid Leblanc is handing me? In this envelope are the names of your prom king and queen. Thank you, Reid. Okay, here goes. Life is about to change for two of you beautiful people out there.”
He paused for dramatic effect. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber straighten. She and Adam linked arms in preparation for their royal walk.
Jack cleared his throat. “All right, SHS, your royal leaders, voted on by the people, are…Natalie Jamison and Eddie van Husen. Come on up here, kids, and collect your crowns.”
But I couldn’t move. Everyone was cheering, and Eddie was extending an arm to me. Sarah and Lori squealed and clapped while Amber’s mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I heard her say to Adam, who just shrugged.
“Get on up here, Natalie!” Jack’s voice boomed throughout the hotel.
Somehow, I made it out of my seat and grabbed Eddie’s hand. He led my shaky feet up four stairs and onto the stage. The other Kerouacs were smiling, but Jack’s expression had hardened. He handed me a sparkly crown, which I knew cost Lori fifteen dollars at Party City. “Sorry, don’t have a crown for you, Barry Gibb,” he said to Eddie.
“What did you call me?”
“He’s kidding,” I said.
“Go ahead, put it on,” Jack said.
“I’ll get it for you.” Eddie pushed my hair back behind my ears before setting the crown atop my head. Its prickly edges pinched the skin at my temples, giving me an almost instant headache.
Once it was on, I looked up at Jack. His dark eyes were empty. “Gorgeous,” he said.
Then he turned back to the crowd. “Now this lovely couple will share the next dance, which is also the last dance of the evening. Hope you enjoyed your prom and the Kerouacs. Thanks.”
Jack started to sing the song from Say Anything when John Cusak was holding up the boom box outside the girl’s window. It was all I knew about the movie. I reluctantly put my arms around Eddie’s neck. I wanted to cry, but I smiled instead. “I think this should’ve been an eighties themed event.”
“I know. She tried, though.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“I can’t believe we won.”
“Me either. I have no clue why anyone would put down my name.”
“No, that I can believe. What I can’t believe is that I didn’t cost us any votes. Didn’t they see what I’m wearing?”
“I guess you really did pull it off.”
As we turned, I lifted my face toward the stage and tried to catch Jack’s eye. He kept on singing, and my stomach turned inside out.
When the music ended, I tried to pull away from Eddie, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“So…about the cabin,” Eddie said. And then he winked at me.
Was he really—? Oh. God. “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t go to the cabin, okay? I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t have an answer. I pushed past him, trying to get the crown off my head. Strands of my hair got caught in the plastic diamonds, and when I pulled, it hurt.
I didn’t know what exactly I was going to do. I just knew that I could not leave this place tonight without talking to Jack. Making things right.
He was on stage, packing his equipment. When I was sure no one was looking, I grabbed his arm and walked briskly with him out the back door. We ended up in an alley outside the kitchen, among trashcans overflowing with waste. “Nice crown,” he said.
He wasn’t being playful. He didn’t look like himself at all, his jaw set and his arms crossed over his chest. I threw the crown into one of the trashcans. “I don’t care about the stupid crown.”
“Really?”
“No. I really don’t. But I…I don’t know how things got like this. I thought everything was good between us.”
He rubbed the side of his face. “Honestly, I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Say…say you still like me.”
Because I’m pretty sure I love you.
He shook his head. “What does it matter?”
“Jack…”
“No. I’m sorry, but you’ve been fucking with me for months, and I just think it’s better if we end it.”
“But I didn’t mean to,” I said in a small voice.
I knew how pathetic I sounded. If he would only let me explain, maybe I could… “Enjoy the rest of the night with your friends,” he said. He walked away. I stood in the alley like an idiot, staring at the garbage cans.
Inside, prom was winding down. Sarah sat alone with the picture of James Dean, her elbow on the table and her hand on her chin, absently tapping
her fork onto a half-eaten piece of strawberry shortcake. There was no more music. The stage was empty.
“I don’t feel like going to the cabin,” Sarah said.
“Yeah. Me neither.”
We decided we wanted to go back to her house and crawl into bed together and watch movies, like we used to. Amber and Lori thought we were nuts. “On prom night?” Lori kept saying, until finally Amber said, “Who cares, let them wimp out. Let’s just go.”
So they did. And Sarah and I walked the mile from the ballroom to her house. She lent me a pair of sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt. We settled into bed without talking much. She flipped through the channels, but there was nothing good on TV.
We laid there in silence, and the whole time I was thinking, What have I done?
I needed to tell someone. I needed my best friend.
It wasn’t until I turned to her that I noticed she was shaking. “Are you all right?”
The television cast shadows on her face, but I could see her cheeks lined with tears. “I just really, really miss him,” she said. She hugged me, holding on like maybe I was the answer to all of her problems.
Eventually she calmed down and rested her head on my shoulder. We stared at the television, some old war movie from the eighties, a much better fit for the evening than any of the romances Lori had chosen. We pulled the covers to our chin, and the two of us fell asleep to the sound of gunfire and bombs exploding on prom night.
The Mean Girl Apologies Page 21