It's Our Prom (So Deal With It)

by Julie Anne Peters

  No one answers.

  “Go ahead,” Rosen says to her.

  “You can’t actually go or be over the rainbow. I prefer Under the Rainbow. Then we can have rainbow-colored arches for couples to walk under. And they’ll look pretty in the prom pictures.”

  I’m shocked speechless. Which is rare for me. “Cool,” I say.

  Shauna grins, looking pleased with herself. She should be; I think compromising isn’t easy for her.

  After the meeting’s adjourned, Luke catches my arm and whispers in my ear in this singsong voice, “I got a valentine.”

  “Oh, yeah? From who?”

  “A secret admirer,” he says. “It was signed with a heart.”

  My bubble isn’t completely burst, because of course Radhika would show her love to both Luke and me. Still, I can’t imagine she gave Luke a romantic poem like mine. I’m dying to ask, then decide I’d rather keep what’s left of my bubble intact.

  The meeting’s over and I don’t get one single second alone with Radhika. I feel like I’m going to explode. At home, Shauna’s already written in Google docs that she talked to her mom and thinks they can pull together a cupcake sale by next Tuesday. She says we need to make an announcement and put up posters tomorrow. I write that I can help with posters, since I don’t have to work tonight.

  Radhika calls and asks if she can come over and help with posters for the cupcake sale.

  Yes! It’ll be the perfect opportunity to ask her.

  Since I’m in Google docs, I write in all the suggested activities for our alt prom. I add, “Unless anyone has a problem, Shauna can go ahead and post them in Prom Central.”

  When Radhika arrives, she’s thought ahead. She has poster paper and markers. As we get set up in the living room, I feel all jittery. I need to work up to the Big Moment. I ask if she’s told her parents about Yale yet and she says no. “I might just run away from home. If you can join the circus, I assume you can join the Peace Corps.”

  I laugh. She’s so cute. “You wouldn’t do that.” I know her better.

  “What would you do?” she asks.

  I clear off the coffee table and reply, “I’d tell my dad the truth.”

  “He wouldn’t be angry or disappointed in you?”

  I don’t want to let on that Dad and I had already discussed it. “I don’t think so. I think he’d tell me I was passing up an opportunity that might never come my way again.”

  “Is that how you feel?” Radhika’s eyes drill into my soul.

  I can’t hold her gaze. “I think it’s your decision.”

  We start our posters, and I’m sweating bullets because the only words on my tongue are, Will you go to prom with me?

  Radhika says, “You want to watch a movie or something? Maybe listen to music?”

  Music. Romantic music.

  I sprint to my room and grab a handful of CDs. Dad’s got Tosca, of all things, in the CD player. Did he buy this at the opera house? I put on Mercy Her, which I think is romantic, and return to my poster.

  Radhika’s cupcakes resemble actual cupcakes. The first one I draw looks like a boob on steroids. As I watch her work, her lettering perfectly even and perpendicular, my stomach twists. I’m going to ask her. Right. Now.

  “I was wondering…” I start.

  Radhika’s cell rings and she turns away to snag her purse off the sofa. Sighing, she flips it open and says, “Yes, Mother.” She makes a face at me. “Oh. I forgot. Okay. I’m on my way.” She stands and shoulders her purse. “My aunt’s birthday is tonight and we’re all going out to dinner.” Crossing the room toward the coatrack, she adds, “I can’t imagine how I could’ve forgotten about that.” She crosses her eyes and I force a short laugh.

  At the door, as I’m waving good-bye, I let out a long breath. Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure.

  LUKE

  Mr. Rosen wrote in Google docs that since the cupcake sale is Tuesday, we should help with that instead of meeting on Monday. Connor wrote that so far no one has signed up for Battle of the Bands. The idea might be a total bust. I don’t think it is, but time is running out, and fast.

  On the off chance we have to find a local band, I dig out Owen’s Westword from a pile of trash to be taken out. Westword is this yuppie subversive paper that lists all the bands playing around town. The first one I see is named Bad Sex. Sounds perfect to me.

  They’re playing a couple of weekends at a club called Herman’s Hideaway. I call the club and a guy answers.

  “Who’s this?” I ask.

  “Who’s this?” he says.

  Great. A comedian. “I’m looking for a band to come play at our prom. I was wondering if Bad Sex was available.”

  “Bad sex is always available, dude.”

  I can feel the smirk on his face.

  I repeat, “I’m looking for—”

  “I heard you. Listen, Bad Sex is bad, but they’re not that bad.”

  “We’d pay them.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I know those guys, and they’re off the prom and wedding circuits.” He hangs up on me.

  I mutter a curse. I flip through the entertainment pages and see there are dozens of bands. I call three different clubs and have to leave messages because they’re not open. In the classifieds, I see an ad for a band called Sanity’s Edge. I call and this guy answers, “Yo.”

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m trying to get hold of Sanity’s Edge.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  Another smart-ass.

  “Why?” the guy asks.

  “For a possible gig,” I tell him.

  “What is it?”

  I swallow hard. “A prom.”

  The guy laughs. He hollers to someone in the background, “You want to play a prom?”

  I don’t hear their response. The guy comes back on. “How much?”

  This buzz of excitement burns in my belly. “Um, two hundred?”

  He disconnects.

  “Three hundred?” I say to dead air.

  Owen comes in with a bulging bag from Carl’s Jr. and the aroma makes me salivate. He sits at the table, opens the bag, and pulls out a thick, juicy burger. He chomps into it while removing the bag of fries. “We got any catsup?” he asks me.

  I get up, breathing in the burger’s delectable aroma. I go to the fridge for the bottle of Heinz. Who knows how old the bottle is? The catsup is still red, and not fuzzy. I stand across from Owen, drooling like a werewolf.

  “Well,” he says, “sit. Dig in.” He shoves the bag at me.

  He bought me a Carl’s Jr.? OMG. The first bite is heaven. So are the second and third and fourth. We finish our burgers at exactly the same time, wiping our mouths with napkins. Mom would be proud to know Owen’s remembered his manners.

  Owen spots the Westword and sees that it’s open to the ads. “Whatcha doin’? Checking out personals?”

  “I’m looking for a band for our prom.”

  Owen makes a sound in the back of his throat, like, Good luck.

  “Yeah. You’d think I was asking them to play for a six-year-old’s birthday party.” I dip a fry in catsup. “We may have to settle for a DJ.” Which would only be acceptable if all the bands were major suckage. I like that expression. I’m adding it to my use-as-often-as-possible dictionary.

  “I know a few bands at the clubs,” Owen says. “You want me to ask if they’d play a prom?”

  “And get laughed at in your face?”

  “You’re paying them, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “How much?”

  “That’s the problem. We don’t have a lot of money,” I tell him.

  “If you can offer five Cs, it’s a legit gig. If they don’t want it, screw ’em.”

  Even if I was lowballing, I wish I’d approached it with that attitude. Maybe it’s part of my having come out as queer, but I take every rejection personally. Owen’s phone rings and he gets up. “What’s the prom date?” he asks over his shoulder.

  “April six
teenth.”

  He answers his phone, “A-1 Car Service.” He jots down whatever the caller is saying on the back of the Carl’s Jr. bag. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have a taxi for you in ten minutes.”

  He rips off the address and looks at me. “You want to take this?”

  My eyes bulge. “Really?” I jump up and snatch the address.

  “Keep the fare, too,” he says.

  All of his drivers have to split fares with Owen 70/30. Now I’m suspicious. What am I going to have to do to earn it? Clip his toenails?

  “Why?” I ask.

  He smacks the back of my head. “Because you’re my bro. And that’s the way bros roll.”

  In whose landslide? I wonder.

  I hear the noise from the gym before I get there. Inside, hordes of people are gathered around tables and tables of cupcakes. I see Azure and sidle up to her. “There must be a million cupcakes. We’re going to make a fortune.”

  Azure says, “We might if they weren’t priced so high.” She points at a poster.

  I read it. “Five dollars each? Are they filled with liquid gold?”

  Shauna appears out of the crowd. “My mom thinks we’ve priced them too high, but I told her it was a fund-raiser.”

  Azure mumbles under her breath, “We’re not raising money for Kids with Cancer. It’s just a prom.”

  Shauna looks worried. “If we don’t sell anything…” She gazes at the door, where people are leaving. “I’d hate for the PTSA to have gone to all this trouble for nothing.”

  Azure says, “We have to lower the price. What about two for five dollars?”

  “That still sounds high,” I say.

  “But it’s a fund-raiser,” Azure and Shauna say together. They look at each other, as if voicing the same idea freaks them out.

  Shauna goes, “Let me ask my mom.” She takes off.

  Connor appears, chomping on a half-eaten cupcake. “Delish,” he says. “Have you seen Radhika? I made her this.” He shows us a cupcake with a swirl of icing and red candy hearts on top. “You can decorate your own at the last table.” He indicates the table with his chin.

  Just then Radhika comes through the gym door with a tray of cupcakes that I assume her mother made. “There she is,” Connor says. “Catch you later.”

  Grr, I think. He could’ve made me a cupcake. “He’s kind of dense, isn’t he? She told him she wasn’t interested.”

  Azure says, “Oh, let him buy her a cupcake. What do you care?”

  If she only knew. Maybe this is the time to tell her….

  Shauna returns. “Mom said we should try two for five.” She hurries over to slash the price sign on the door.

  I see more cupcakes getting sold after that. When the crowd thins, I make my way around the tables. I eat as I go, mostly anything and everything chocolate. I buy a plain chocolate cupcake to decorate for Radhika. I build a mountain of rainbow icing with glitter and sprinkles and stick a pirouette cookie in the middle. Radhika’s out in the crowded hall, talking to Azure.

  As I whip out my cupcake from behind my back and hand it to Radhika, she laughs. Not because it’s amazing and incredible, but because she has a paper plate full of cupcakes. “I’ll be in a sugar coma for a week,” she says.

  I whisper in Azure’s ear, “Who else gave her a cupcake? Besides Connor?”

  “I don’t know,” Azure replies. “By the time I got to her, she already had three.”

  Crap, I think. I have to work up the nerve to ask her to prom. Not here, though, where she’s surrounded by people.

  Tomorrow, I vow. Hopefully, I’m not too late.

  AZURE

  Radhika doesn’t ride to school with us the next morning. “A migraine,” Luke explains.

  “She must’ve eaten those chocolate cupcakes.” She’s especially sensitive to chocolate. “Did you give her a chocolate cupcake?”

  Luke blanches. He knows full well….

  When I walk into the art studio later, she’s there! “Sorry I missed lunch,” she says to me. “I ate at home, then came in for the rest of the day.”

  I clench her hand under the table. “Are you feeling better?”

  Radhika nods and smiles.

  Shauna interrupts. “We only made two hundred and eighty dollars on the cupcake sale. And there were, like, three hundred cupcakes left over. I feel really bad that the PTSA went to so much trouble for us.”

  “We can sell them all week,” I suggest.

  “That’s a good idea,” Luke says. “But we should discount them daily as they become petrified rocks.”

  I make a face at him.

  Shauna goes, “I can’t ask my mom to make any more cupcakes. She baked most of those herself.”

  “My mom baked some,” Radhika says.

  Yeah, I think. Don’t take all the credit.

  Shauna adds, “Even if we sell cupcakes all week, we’re not going to make that much money.”

  Connor says, “This is a lousy time to bring this up, but only one band signed up for Battle of the Bands, and I’ve heard them.”

  Luke goes, “Major suckage?”

  “Worse. Plus, it’s not much of a battle with one band. Which means we should start looking for a band.”

  Luke says, “I talked to my brother, and he might be able to find us a local band. He drives to lots of the clubs, so he knows the managers and band members. But…” Luke exhales a dramatic breath. “He says the minimum we should offer is five hundred.”

  “What?” Shauna explodes.

  “What are they, like, grunge bands?” Connor asks. “Or screamo bizarro?”

  “Probably,” Luke says. “Who knows what my brother’s taste is. It’ll be an alt band, for sure.”

  “We’ll need another fund-raiser or two,” I say.

  “What do you suggest?” Shauna asks.

  How about what I suggested before and you blew me off? “A silent auction. Everyone has stuff that they don’t want or need. You know what they say: One person’s junk is another person’s treasure.”

  I’m expecting them all to diss it. Except Radhika. I turn to her, but it’s Shauna who says, “I’ll be happy to work on it with you.”

  I want to keel over dead.

  “Awesome,” I say. “We should give people a week or so to bring their stuff in, then we can go through it and organize it. Do you think we should hold the auction at night or during the day?”

  “We might get parents to come if we hold it at night,” Shauna says.

  “That’s what I was thinking.” I can’t believe Shauna and I are on the same wavelength.

  I ask Mr. Rosen, “Can Luke make an announcement about it in the morning?”

  He goes, “Yes. But please, Luke, keep it short and tasteful.”

  Luke slaps his chest. “I’m crushed. My taste is impeccable.”

  I say, “Also, we need a room where we can lock up the things people donate. We don’t want anyone’s junk getting stolen.”

  Shauna lets out a short laugh. Genuine. I guess that did sound kind of funny.

  “I’ll ask Miss Wells if we can use the costume closet in the theater department,” Luke says. “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

  Mr. Rosen gets out the school activities calendar and we set a date for the auction. There’s so much going on, we can’t do it until the second week in March, right before spring break.

  “That’s cutting it close,” Shauna says.

  “We should think positively,” I say. “Why don’t you go ahead and check out bands?” I say to Luke.

  “Can I go with you?” Connor asks.

  Luke looks like he just peed his pants. “Why not?” he says coolly.

  Mr. Rosen goes, “The ticket committee wants to start printing and selling tickets. All the committees would like to get an idea about how many people to plan for, so can we put up a short survey to ask?”

  “I can do that tonight,” I say. “Add it in your announcement, Luke.”

  Mr. Rosen adds, “Make sure the survey say
s they’re not locked in if they respond yes. And that they’ll still be able to buy tickets at the door if they say no.”

  Again, Radhika and I don’t get any time alone. When Luke drops me off, a wave of relief washes over me. Why? There’s something holding me back from asking Radhika, besides the fear of rejection. I know this sounds weird, even to me, because it’s everything I want, but what if she says yes? Our relationship will definitely change, and if it goes the way of all my past relationships, I’ll lose Radhika forever.

  LUKE

  Owen and the bouncer do this high-five handshake, like they’re old army pals. The guy says something to Owen behind his back and Owen replies, “Yeah, they’re underage, but they’re not drinking. We’re only here to listen to Hex Angelis.”

  The bouncer scans us up and down. “Man, I dunno, Owen. This one especially looks like a kid.” He means me.

  I see Owen slip the guy a folded bill. The bouncer bends down to tie his shoe, accidentally on purpose opening the door for us with his rear end.

  If Owen’s going to have to bribe every bouncer to let us into clubs, this is going to cost him a fortune. He must be reading my mind, because he says to me, “This is coming out of your allowance.”

  Actually, he yells that because it’s so loud in here the walls are shaking. I see stairs leading up, but Owen heads for the dark open room where the band is playing. Make that strumming guitars with the bass turned up so loud the reverb is doing demolition on my eardrums.

  People aren’t dancing; they’re just lining the walls like black padding. Everyone’s dressed in black. I feel out of place in my powder blue pullover. Connor, of course, looks totally hot in a black leather jacket. Maybe I should take advantage of his vulnerability over being rejected by Ra-dhika and ask him to prom.

  Silly boy, I chide myself. You only just lust after Connor, remember? Radhika is your true love.

  We stand behind a tall round table for a while, and then Connor yells at me, “Are they singing about devil worship?”

  I shrug. I can’t understand one word of the lyrics.

  A waiter appears and Owen waves him off. A bunch of people greet Owen, and he chats up everyone, making them laugh. He’s a pretty popular guy. A different dude in his own element.