by Askew, Kim
“Indecision is a decision,” Duff said, with loads more wisdom than I would have expected from a jock. I couldn’t help but venture deeper into this conversation.
“What’s that you mentioned about Duncan?”
“Oh, nothing, really. He texted me a couple of days before he died saying she made a pathetic play for him. Totally unrelated to his death, of course, but still. It just proves what a skank she is.”
Little did he know. Before I could reply, Kristy swooped in like a glittery lunatic to decree that Duff must join her on the dance floor. Just when I realized I was alone again, Kaya, Tess, and Cat descended upon me, laughing uproariously at something, as usual. Cat was wearing a drapey, off-the-shoulder minidress that matched the platinum streak in her hair. She looked punk-edgy without crossing the line into slutty. Tess wore an adorable teal fringed flapper dress with a white feather fascinator in her hair, hot pink fishnet stockings, and T-strap silver pumps. Kaya had an emerald green Grecian-style gown with braided fabric straps; a gorgeous white lily corsage was her only accessory.
“Girl, you look fierce! And oh my god — look Tess, she’s not wearing her All-Stars for once,” Kaya said, pointing at my shoes.
“I thought about it, but I figured I’d save ’em for a dressier occasion.”
“Whatever. Come on, we saved you a place at our table.”
The hours flew by as we danced up a sweaty, celebratory storm. My makeup had no doubt slid off my face, but I didn’t care. In a few more weeks, my high school career would be behind me, and as I looked around this swirling room full of eighteen-year-olds attempting to look like sophisticated adults, I realized that all of these people would soon be real adults, mere footnotes on my life, never to be seen again. Even though I barely interacted with a quarter of the people in my graduating class, it felt bittersweet, as if I had some kinship of shared mutual experiences with every single person in the room.
A slow song interrupted a string of great music, prompting a changing of the guard on the dance floor. Singletons headed back to their tables, while starry-eyed couples walked to the center of the floor. As I weaved past a few tables, I encountered Lenny and Megan walking hand-in-hand toward me. Megan must have wisely talked him out of a coral-colored cummerbund to match her dress, but she hadn’t managed to avoid the tacky LED-lit corsage that shone like a beacon on her wrist. Her face beamed even brighter.
“You guys look great,” I said, giving them both hugs.
“See!” Lenny turned to Megan, with a startling intimacy in their body language. “I told you Skye was cool with it.” Megan gave me a hesitant grin.
“I felt so awful about leaving you high and dry. I know how much you were looking forward to being Lenny’s date.”
“Don’t give it a second thought,” I said, rolling my eyes, inwardly, but still genuinely happy that this odd couple had found romance. “Who knew all your bickering had flirtatious undertones? I was more than happy to bow out, so no worries. Although I will say your date is looking good in that monkey suit.”
Lenny grinned from ear to ear, just as Jillian bopped her way in our direction holding four plastic cups of sloshing red punch in her hands.
“A toast!” she said, pawning a drink off on each of us. “To the journalists of East Anchorage High! Wherever life takes us, may we continue to make headlines.”
“Good ones, that is,” Megan said.
“Cheers!” we said in unison. I desperately had to pee, so I excused myself and headed for the hallway in the direction of the lobby restroom. When I got there, I found Jenna waving her hands manically.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing, babe,” she said with a smile. “Just air drying. A tree died for those paper towels, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. Uh huh.” I nodded. “Great dress!”
“Sustainable!” she said in a sing songy voice, twirling to show off a gown that looked at once both haute couture and Amish. “They’re announcing King and Queen soon,” she continued. “Do you think Beth’s recent campaign to kiss the ass of every senior in school actually bought her any votes?”
“You never know. I’ve learned not to question the absolute power of cheerleaders. But I think she forgot to kiss mine, at least. Sorry, Jenna, my bladder is bursting.”
“All right, go to it, girl. And here’s for the one you didn’t get from Beth!” She blew me a parting air kiss.
When I exited the ladies’ room, I noticed Craig sitting alone in one of the brocade high-backed armchairs in the lobby. He’d ditched his tuxedo jacket and had undone his bowtie, which hung limply from his collar.
“Lose your way?” I casually remarked.
“That about sums it up.” I stopped walking and returned to face him.
“Hey, they’re coming to get you soon.” He looked confused. Alarmed. “The grand coronation? The man who would be king? The first dance with your lovely queen and your adoring court and all that. They’re announcing it any minute now.”
“Yeah,” he said with all the exuberance of someone waiting for his oil to be changed at Jiffy Lube. “You look stunning.” He glanced at me with more purpose now. I sighed and sat down in the wingback chair next to his. Among this furniture, we looked like we should be ordering crumpets and tea from someone named Jeeves, not living it up at our high school prom.
“Everyone keeps saying that tonight,” I said. “‘You look great, I didn’t recognize you’ … blah, blah, blah.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“So what? The three-hundred-and-sixty-four other days of the year I’m totally ugly? It’s just a little makeup — it’s not like some sorcerer magically reconfigured the molecular structure of my cells or something. It’s a little insulting actually. Yesterday at school I was average, unremarkable, and today I’m a knockout? Whatever.”
“Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Block any compliment that comes your way. I get the feeling it’s easier for you, safer for you, to position yourself as the homely wallflower.” My brain couldn’t even begin to formulate a response to his statement, so I just stared at him, dumbfounded. “You’ve created this fortress around yourself,” he continued, “this castle wall with a moat and a portcullis and a thick, ironclad door that says, ‘Keep out.’” Damn, he just referenced a portcullis? Impressive. But he was wrong. Dead wrong.
“You hole yourself up in that darkroom,” he said. “Hiding in there, hiding behind your camera — ” How dare he accuse me of using avoidance tactics!
“Well, you’ve spent the last three years hiding any trace of our friendship!” I said, tears welling up in my eyes. He leaned back in his chair but said nothing. “I totally predicted it, too. I knew it would happen as soon as school started sophomore year.”
“Go on.”
“You pretended we were great friends for a few weeks, only to develop convenient memory loss when Beth came into the picture! If you had any idea what I’ve done for you — ”
“I didn’t pretend anything.” Craig shook his head. “The way I remember it, you pulled a vanishing act, leaving me to fend for myself when school started. Do you know how hard it was for me to show up on the first day of school a few thousand miles away from my home and try to blend in? I felt like I had just landed on Mars. And where was my only friend — Skye — who I’d hoped would invite me to sit with her in the cafeteria or wait for me after school or swing by my locker to say ‘hi’? Where was the one person I knew in a sea full of strangers? She was nowhere, and I mean nowhere to be found.”
No. He was flipping this all around now. This wasn’t how it happened. I thought back to my self-conscious sophomore self, avoiding eye contact with him, too shy to shout out to him when he was walking twenty paces ahead of me in the hallway … too sure he’d already have better plans if I asked him to a Friday night football game. Too intimidated by how cute he was, and too hard on myself to imagine his interest in me wouldn’t wane. Was it really possib
le that my actions had played some role in the chasm that stretched out between us? Did my assumptions that he’d pull a “Skye who?” turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy?
“Here’s a newsflash for you: in Illinois, I was a total reject,” he continued. “I’m talking junior high bottomfeeder, the butt of everyone’s jokes.”
“You?”
“I was a scrawny piece of work, back then, and it was miserable. I wanted to die.”
Craig? The official State Dork of Illinois? I didn’t believe it.
“But then you moved here.”
“Yeah, and met you, and things seemed to be looking up.” There was a ringing sound behind us, and the elevator doors slid open to let out an older woman with a rolling suitcase.
“But those first few days of school, it was happening all over again,” he said. “Ostracized by everyone, including you, for some reason. Not a soul to talk to. The Untouchable.”
“But I didn’t — ” Before I could complete my thought, he interrupted.
“Then a miracle happened: Beth. A few weeks into the school year, it’s like she adopted me or something. Next thing I know, all the sort of kids who had tortured me at my last school were slapping me on the back and laughing at my jokes, acting like I was God’s gift. So hell yeah, I went with it, and I didn’t look back. Maybe it turned out to be the wrong move, but I can’t change it now. What’s done is done.”
I wanted to argue that Beth Morgan was hardly heaven-sent, or ask why he didn’t just reach out to me when he thought I was ignoring him, but I didn’t have a chance. Brett Sanders came running down the hall motioning for us.
“MacKenzie, get your ass in here. They’re announcing Prom King!”
Brett hurried back to Ballroom C while Craig calmly extricated himself from his chair.
“Don’t you get what I’m saying?” He turned and looked down at me. “It’s all arbitrary. None of this means anything. One school’s king is another school’s target practice.” He headed down the hall and left me sitting there, shell-shocked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
BY THE TIME I’D RETURNED FROM THE BATHROOM again where I had attended to my tear-stained face, our senior class president, Selena Alvaro, was on stage with a microphone, holding an index card and looking authoritative. Everyone was gathered in a cluster around the dance floor, and I wormed my way through to where the girls were.
“Damn, I can’t see anything,” Kaya said, grumbling. “Why do I have to spend my life staring at people’s shoulder blades?” In the middle of her fidgeting, her corsage dropped to the floor. She stooped down to pick it up. “Ow, dammit!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just pricked my thumb on the pin,” she said.
“Well don’t get blood on your dress.”
“Right.” She popped her thumb in her mouth.
On a table next to Selena were a silver crown and a glittery tiara, as well as a pile of long-stemmed roses to be handed to the female members of the court. Near the dance floor, a quartet of cheerleaders huddled around Kristy, prepping her for what she hoped would be her big moment. If not for her sequined gown, and, well, the fact that she was a girl, she could have been a prizefighter about to enter the ring. I glanced around to find Beth. She was adjusting the rose in her hair, as if readying her coif for her coronation. Classmates of middling social status — a few of the usual suck-ups — hovered near her. Beth turned to make sure that Craig was ready to roll. He was behind her, and oh god, he was staring at me again. What was with him? I quickly turned back around for some small talk with Cat to avoid his penetrating gaze.
“Did you ever see that movie, Carrie?” I said. “Maybe we should blow this joint.”
“Oh, you’re bad.” She gave me a devilish grin. “But who needs a bucket of blood? Dump some water on Beth and it would do the trick. ‘I’m melting! Melting!’” she screeched à la the Wicked Witch of the West. “Oh, what a world!”
“Hey, spread the word: afterparty at the Hurlyburly,” Tess said, interrupting us.
“Oh great,” mumbled Kaya, her thumb still in her mouth. “As if these people needed any more booze tonight.”
With way more gravitas than was merited, Selena began calling up the members of the prom court. It was the typical beautiful-people brigade, although a popular indie hipster couple in moth-eaten vintage threads had broken into the ranks. Beth and Craig were finally called up to join the court, along with Kristy and Duff, who elicited a rousing cheer from the crowd. Kristy brightened at the warm reception for her boyfriend, assuming it augured well for her chances.
“And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Selena said. “It was a nailbiter, but we have a definitive winner for King and Queen. Drumroll, please.” There were no drums to be found, so we all beat the palms of our hands on our thighs or stomped our feet for dramatic effect. “This year’s Prom King and Queen of East Anchorage High … are….” Wow, this girl was milking it. “Craig MacKenzie and Beth Morgan!”
Cheers erupted from the crowd, along with a few unmistakable boos. Beth tipped her head gracefully to receive the tiara and silently mouthed “Thank you,” while gesturing to her fellow classmates like she was Eva Peron about to break into a rousing rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” Puh-leaze. Duff shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly and wrapped Kristy up in a comforting hug. Craig gave a weak smile and stumbled over to Selena to accept his crown.
“He looks trashed,” said Cat.
“Mmm … I don’t think so. I was just talking to him five minutes ago. But yeah, he does look kind of out of it.”
“SPEECH, SPEECH, SPEECH, SPEECH….” the crowd demanded. Selena shoved the microphone into Craig’s hand. At the same time, Nick tossed a balled-up piece of fabric in Craig’s direction. He caught and unfurled it, revealing Duncan’s team jersey. His face went as white as his dress shirt.
“Dude, he looks like he’s seen a ghost,” Cat said. The crowd was still yelling for a speech, and Beth gave Craig an imploring look. “Say something!” her face all but screamed at him.
“Um, hey there,” he said into the microphone. His deep voice seemed a little shaky. “What a night, huh?” A smattering of whoops and applause. “Wow, this is really an odd place to be standing right now. And why? Why am I up here? Because I score a lot of goals? Because I’m dating ‘Sexy Sadie’ over here?” he gestured to Beth, who looked confused and uncertain. Craig raised the fist holding Duncan’s jersey. “Why am I still here and he’s not?” Beth reached for the microphone in Craig’s hand, but he yanked it back and took two steps away from her.
“Quit,” he said. “You can’t do that to me anymore. You’re not going to silence me, you lying….” Craig didn’t finish the sentence, but I could hear gasps all around me. Beth looked around, a little panicked now, and the members of the prom court stood glancing at each other disconcertingly on the stage.
“What’s he doing?” Kaya asked Tess.
“He’s self-destructing.”
“Or maybe he’s finally taking control,” I said. Craig was pacing the stage now, like a man possessed.
“I’ve been too silent for too long,” he said, still hanging onto Duncan’s jersey. Oh god, no. He wasn’t going to spill his guts about Duncan’s death right here and now? This was bad. This was looking very bad. “I want to thank all of you who voted for Beth and me. And yet it feels kind of ironic that I just won this popularity contest, because ask yourselves this: What kind of friend have I really been to you?” He paused, as if considering what to say next.
“You see,” he said, “I’ve had only a couple of what I’d call ‘true friends’ at this school over the last three years, and I couldn’t manage to hang onto either of them. I need to beg forgiveness from them both. One can’t answer, unfortunately.” He stared down at Duncan’s jersey. “And I just hope it’s not too late to let the other person know how I really feel.”
At that mo
ment, I wasn’t aware of Cat or Tess or fury-faced Beth or anyone else in the room for that matter. It was just between Craig and me now. It was easy for him to lock eyes on me, because I stood taller than any of the other girls in the room. Whether anyone else realized that he was directing his comments to me was uncertain. “I sometimes think you understand me better than I understand myself. We wasted so much stupid time. Time I can never get back with you. Maybe I let my ambitions get the better of me. Maybe we both let our insecurities paralyze us. God knows I haven’t been the easiest person to be around lately…. All I can say is, you’ve got to believe it when I say it was only ever you.” Beth was in tears by now, humiliated. She stormed off the stage and headed for the lobby. Craig jumped down off the back of the stage and pushed his way through an exit door that led to the hotel kitchen.
“What was that all about!” Cat said, turning to me. “Was he talking to you!?!”
“I’ve got to go find him,” I said.
“Oh no, we’re not going to let you roam the hotel innards,” Cat said. “Not without us, I mean.” I rather wished my friends would let me handle this by myself, but I guess that was part of the tradeoff in having a posse: they actually looked out for you. The four of us headed off in the direction that Craig had gone. Since prom wasn’t a catered event, the kitchen off the ballroom was not in use. Everything was neat, orderly, and quiet. No hotel employees were anywhere in sight. But neither was Craig. An unlit stairwell led off the kitchen.
“Could he have gone down here?” Kaya wondered.
“It’s worth a try.” In her flapper-era getup, Tess looked like she was venturing into a secret speakeasy as she led us down the flight of stairs. We made our way through a maze of dim hallways, past the laundry room, the cleaning crew’s station, and then down another flight of stairs.
“I wish we had a flashlight,” said Cat. At the end of a long dark hallway, I finally saw something reflect what little ambient light was available. Craig was sitting, back to the wall, dangling the crown from his fingers between his bent knees. We must have been somewhere directly under the ballroom, because I could hear the faint sound of music again from up above.