It's Our Prom (So Deal With It)

by Julie Anne Peters

  I see Connor calling in everyone’s orders as I suck my Chiller dry and nibble my fries. His car door opens. When he passes in front of us, he turns to peer in through the front window. He squints, then stops and comes around to Radhika’s side. She searches for the button to open the window. I press the one on my side that operates hers and mine. “Hey, Radhika.” He leans in through her open window. “Hi, Luke. Oh, shit. I was supposed to call you, wasn’t I?”

  All I can manage is a weak shrug.

  “Sorry. I had a soccer tourney today. How ’bout I call you tonight?”

  “Um, sure. I’ll be home.” Damn. Why did I say that? I don’t want him to think I sit around alone on Saturday nights. Which I do.

  “Whassup, Radhika?” Connor says to her. “I haven’t talked to you since you stopped coming to Diversity Club.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Radhika says. “How’s Tarah?”

  Connor hesitates. “We broke up.”

  She gasps. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, she’s going out with a girl now.” His eyes glaze over.

  It’s a phenomenon, girls breaking up with their boyfriends to date girlfriends, and vice versa. Hey, works for me.

  “We won the tourney today.” Connor’s voice perks up again.

  “Awesome,” Radhika says.

  “Props.” I reach across Radhika to fist-bump Connor. Can I help it if a tingle races up my arm?

  He stands there, leaning on the window frame for a long minute, studying the dashboard of the Caddie. “How does this pimpmobile handle?” he asks me.

  “Depends on who’s behind the wheel. If you want to take her out sometime, let me know.”

  Connor smiles. “I’ll do that.”

  “Hey, guess what?” Radhika says. “Luke got invited to a three-way.”

  Blood rushes up my neck. Connor acts like he doesn’t hear, or care. “Would it be okay if I called you sometime?” he says to Radhika.

  She blinks. “Sure. I guess.”

  “Spears, go take your leak,” someone hollers from his car. “Hurry up.”

  “Shove it,” he barks over his shoulder. He snitches a cold Tot from Radhika’s order and says to me, “What’s a good time to call tonight?”

  “Any time,” I say. Shit on a stick. Why not just tell him 24/7?

  “Say hi to your folks,” he says to Radhika. He swaggers off toward the front of the Sonic.

  I watch him halfway, then see Radhika watching him all the way in. “Do you know we’ve gone to school together since first grade?” she says. “Isn’t that weird? It’s like we grew up together, and I barely know him anymore.”

  “Did you have to tell him about the three-way?”

  She turns her gaze on me. “I didn’t know it was a secret. I thought it was funny.”

  I cram my empty cup into the Sonic bag so hard the bag rips. Then I hold it out for Radhika to dump in her trash.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asks.

  I take a deep breath and force a smile. “No. Of course not.” How could I be mad at her? I’m not even sure why I’m angry. Except all the way back to Radhika’s this mocking voice swirls through my brain: Would it be okay if I called you sometime?

  Mrs. Dal comes out on the porch again as I pull up.

  “God, was she watching for me this whole time?” Ra-dhika yanks on her door handle as I get out and come around. “Thanks, Luke,” she says. “That was fun.” She gives me a quick hug, then squeezes past her mom and into the condo.

  Mrs. Dal says, “Would you like to come in, Luke? Have a cup of chai?”

  I see Radhika behind her mom, motioning no, no, no.

  “I have to get going….”

  “I made three batches of tandoori and froze them,” Mrs. Dal adds. “Radhika doesn’t like it and now there’s so much, I don’t know what I’ll do with it all. Would you take some home for you and your brother?”

  Real food? “OMG yes,” I say. “Thank you.”

  I follow her in and Radhika sprints up the stairs. As soon as her mother’s out of range, she stands at the railing and sticks her finger down her throat.

  I want to tell her, You don’t know the junk food I’m forced to live on.

  Mrs. Dal comes out with a tub of frozen tandoori and hands it to me.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I clutch it to my chest.

  On my way out, I see Radhika still standing at the railing, fake-strangling herself. Unfortunately, her mother sees her, too. The temperature in the condo suddenly drops to subzero.

  Radhika backs into her bedroom and shuts her door, leaving me alone with Mrs. Dal. She turns her ice-cold stare on me.

  Awkward.

  AZURE

  Luke calls at seven pm, just as I’m curling up to watch a rerun of Grey’s Anatomy. “Connor’s on the line,” he says. “He wants to know how to call hotels.”

  “Basically, you punch in the number and say hello.”

  Luke clicks his tongue. “Who should we call and ask for? And what do we ask? Like, if they have a ballroom? Because I’m guessing Motel 6 is off our list?”

  I say, “Conference me in and let’s all talk about it.”

  “Hang on.” There’s dead air for a second, then a beep. “Azure, you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Connor?”

  “I’m here.”

  “So how do we do this?” he says.

  I say, “We should split up the hotels in our area and call to see if they have a ballroom available for a prom on April sixteenth.” Are guys dumb, or what?

  Luke says, “I think we should go visit places. I’m available tomorrow.”

  “We don’t have any places to visit unless we know they have space available,” I go.

  Even over the phone I can feel Luke’s glare, aka desire to be with Connor, but get real. There are millions of hotels. We have to narrow it down first.

  Connor says, “A ballroom for how many people? Because I think they have bigger rooms and smaller rooms. My sister had her wedding reception at the Marriott, and it didn’t look like a room that’d be big enough for a prom.”

  Okay, that’s a valid question. Luke says, “We could call and ask Shauna. She might know.”

  “She doesn’t know,” I say immediately. “At least, she had no idea how many people went last year, so how would she know about this year? All we can do is estimate. The senior class is what? Six hundred? If everyone brings a date that’s twelve hundred people.”

  “Not if people come by themselves,” Luke says. “Which we hope they will, right? Or come with a group of friends. Which could make it even more.”

  “And seniors might ask other seniors, which could make it less,” Connor adds.

  Maybe they’re not so dumb. “You’re good with numbers, Luke. Come up with an estimate.”

  “It’ll be a wild guess,” Luke says.

  “So be wild.”

  “Woo-hoo. Eleven hundred and forty-three people.”

  “That seems like a lot,” Connor says. “Last year it didn’t look like there were more than two or three hundred.”

  “But we’re going to change that,” I go. “We’re going to make people want to come. Everyone in the senior class, I hope.”

  There’s a long silence.

  Luke finally speaks up. “Let’s say we start at a thousand. Do hotels charge by the person?”

  Who’s he asking? Because I don’t know.

  Connor says, “I don’t think so. Unless you have a meal or something.”

  “Do they have a meal at prom?” I ask.

  “A cake,” Connor says. “That’s what we had last year. And kibbles and punch.”

  “Hopefully that won’t take a big bite out of our budget. Ha,” Luke says. “Get it?”

  Neither of us laughs. “Do we even know what the budget is?” I ask.

  “No,” Luke and Connor say together.

  “Maybe Shauna knows,” Luke pipes up.

  I grit
my teeth. Shauna knows diddly squat. “We can deal with the budget later. Just find out if they have a place available, and how much it’ll cost for a thousand people.”

  Luke says, “How do we decide which hotels to call?”

  Do I have to do all the thinking? “Connor, you take A through G. You have H through O, Luke. I’ll take P through Z.”

  Connor says, “I assume we can eliminate places like the Big Bunny and the Red Garter Motel?”

  Luke giggles.

  “Bring your lists to the next meeting and we’ll go from there,” I tell them. Just in case Luke wants some special, special time with Connor on the phone, I say, “Signing off,” and disconnect.

  In addition to watching Grey’s Anatomy, I grab my laptop and log on to Facebook. On the off chance Radhika’s online, I log in to chat. Yes!

  Azure: cheater, cheater start the meter. shouldn’t u be studying the holy grail of yale?

  Radhika: i’m taking a break from writing a paper on Kant

  Azure: someone told me once never to say kant

  Radhika: lol. we need to fix Luke up with some hot guy so he’ll stop mooning over Connor

  Azure: good luck w that. he’s a goner

  Radhika: sorry u couldn’t go to the mall with me and Luke. it was like old times

  Wait a minute. Luke told me Radhika couldn’t go. Or was it that he couldn’t get hold of her? Still, once he did, he should’ve called me back.

  Radhika: how’s prom com?

  Azure: chaos. i don’t know what we’re doing. everyone’s going in different directions and some people are a pain in the ass (I won’t say who). OK, u forced it out of me. Shauna Creighton. our philosophies don’t exactly mesh

  Radhika: i trust you’ll pull it all together

  Azure: or unravel it completely. what if it’s a complete and utter failure?

  Radhika: stop it. What’s your affirmation for today?

  I tell her to hang on a sec. The one for today says: “You are a gift unto yourself.” Which is idiotic. I rip off tomorrow’s and bring it back to the living room. I should’ve read it first.

  Azure: i am a highly creative, intelligent, attractive, and energetic person

  In what altered state? I wonder.

  Radhika: see? told u so

  Luke’s IM lights up and Radhika says:

  Luke’s here. want to do a 3-way?

  Was that a double entendre? I doubt she even knows what that is. Not that she isn’t smart enough. Just… naïve. And pure.

  Azure: sure

  We sync our chats. Luke’s the only one of the three of us to have created a unique Facebook ID.

  Singlr_sensashn: azure, arent u supposed to be making phone calls?

  Azure: aren’t u? i’ll start tomorrow

  Singlr_sensashn: Connor was telling me about last year’s prom. no matter what we did this year it couldn’t be worse than last year. no live band. no pyrotechs. boring boring boring. even the food tasted like it came from sams club

  That makes me feel a little more hopeful.

  Radhika: u guys will do a fabulous job

  Azure: i wish you were on the committee with us

  Radhika: i’d never have time. plus, all my xtra curricular activities must be filtered through the rents. u know that

  Singlr_sensashn: how did u get to be in diversity club?

  I’ve wondered that myself.

  Radhika: they honor diversity. why do u think they let me hang with u 2?

  Azure:

  Singulr_sensashn: bet i could bribe your mom to let u join if i promised to keep her freezer emptied

  Radhika: can we change the subject? how’s the play coming?

  Singlr_sensashn: on a scale of 1 to 10? it’s terminal. i’d like to trash the whole thing and start over. i’m a nervous wreck

  Radhika: u r so insecure. i can’t wait to see it

  Azure: me neither

  Singlr_sensashn: i don’t know. i’ve lost perspective. sometimes i think it’s funny and other times i think it’s the work of a desperate housewife

  Radhika: lol. my mom’s coming up the stairs. see u guys monday morning

  She logs off and Luke says he should go, too. He’s still not crazy about the second act of his play, specifically the ending.

  I write:

  just hold up an APPLAUSE sign. and THE END

  Singlr_sensashn: thx.

  He logs off.

  I sit and think about our conversation for a while. Think about Radhika. It’s strange and mysterious how she and I have been friends seemingly forever, but it’s only recently that she’s turned into this irresistible object of desire. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ll be losing her soon and I never made my move.

  I’ve had three girlfriends in my life. The first was when I was fourteen. Her name was Brianne, and she lived in South Carolina. We met in the Oasis chat room, where she used to post these amazing poems and short stories. I started commenting on her work, and eventually we began to text and IM. We talked online every night until Dad got curious about who I was chatting with and gave me the whole lecture about online predators.

  Yeah, yeah.

  I told Brianne we needed to Skype to ease my dad’s mind, and, okay, maybe mine, too. That was the scariest moment of my life. What if she loathed me at first sight? Back then I was more into goth and wore lots of black makeup and dark lipstick.

  Turned out she wasn’t a forty-year-old creep, but this gorgeous blond who was funny and nice. She had the sexiest accent. We were together for eight months, then the distance became more than geographic. Like, we’d set a time to IM and she’d blow it off, or conveniently forget. I was crying so much, Dad asked me to break off the relationship. Brianne saved me the trouble by dumping me. No more online relationships, I vowed.

  I met my second girlfriend, Ami, at eco camp. She was two years older than me, seventeen, and totally radical. Her head was shaved and she had all these piercings, which expressed her attitude. I loved that about her. She was passionate about saving the planet, not only for ourselves, but for future generations.

  She was a passionate person in every way. Yeah, that was a summer camp I’ll never forget. Ami lived in Evergreen and we saw each other almost every weekend. What eventually tore us apart was jealousy.

  Ami would show up at my house unexpectedly to see if my friends were there—Radhika in particular. I kept telling Ami that Radhika and I were just friends.

  She never bought it.

  She called me at all hours to make sure I was alone. It got really annoying, and not only to me; Dad finally put his foot down. He never did like Ami all that much, and honestly, it was a relief to break it off. She was intense.

  I heard she went to Wellesley. At the beginning of this year I got an e-mail from her informing me that she had a new girlfriend and wouldn’t be able to wait for me. Like, huh? Was I supposed to be counting the minutes?

  My third girlfriend, Desirae, I met in Diversity Club. She was a freshman and I was a junior. She was really sweet and shy, just coming to grips with being a lesbian. She said if she ever told her parents they’d kill her, and I told her that her coming-out journey was hers alone to take. She could choose who and when to tell, and she should never feel pressured.

  I think that really brought her out of her shell, because she began to open up to people at school.

  Looking back now, I wonder if Desirae wasn’t my rebound girlfriend after Ami. I was lonely, and I like the feeling of being in love. Desirae and I went everywhere together—to movies and parties, and just riding our bikes or hiking. We’d find a shady spot under a tree and make out for hours.

  I loved Desi. Then one day I didn’t. We were lying on her lawn in a sleeping bag, watching for shooting stars, and I knew she wasn’t The One. I couldn’t picture us spending our lives together—not that we were married or engaged, although Desirae talked about us in future tense. I started avoiding her at school, not returning her calls. I know—cruel.

  When I broke up
with her, she took it hard. She sort of disintegrated. I told her, “It isn’t you. It’s me.”

  No matter how many times I told her, she didn’t believe me. She was so insecure anyway; of course she’d blame herself. She’d come to school with puffy eyes and I’d feel like a total jerk.

  I figured I’d be paying penance for the way I hurt Desirae.

  That’s it, isn’t it, God? My punishment for Desirae is to be in love now with someone I can never have.

  LUKE

  I’m not the last to arrive in Studio 2B, so I get my choice of seats. Azure or Connor? Azure or Connor—

  “Hey,” Connor says. I slide in next to him and convert from solid to liquid.

  Mr. Rosen opens the meeting with, “I’m afraid Mollie and Haley decided to drop out. They still want to participate, but maybe on the decorations committee, after all the planning is done.”

  Azure’s hand shoots into the air. “Can we ask someone else, then?”

  “We can’t all agree now,” Shauna says under her breath.

  Azure seethes. “Well, if we have to do as much as you say, we’re going to need more people.” She says to Mr. Rosen, “It’s Radhika Dal. I don’t know if you know her, but she’d be a real asset.”

  “Yeah, because she’d be on your side,” Shauna goes.

  I see smoke coming out of Azure’s ears.

  “I vote for Radhika,” I say.

  Connor goes, “Radhika’d be awesome. I’m for asking her.”

  Without even meaning to, I mimic to myself, Radhika’d be awesome.

  Mr. Rosen looks like he can’t decide. Azure makes up his mind for him. “She’s in the library. I’ll go get her.” She takes off.

  “Did you find a new location for the prom?” Shauna’s eyes dart between Connor and me.

  “I got a few hits,” I say. I unclasp my man bag to take out my netbook.