It's Our Prom (So Deal With It)

by Julie Anne Peters

  None of us volunteers a word. I know Azure thinks that means solidarity, but I’m just scared shitless.

  Mr. Gerardi moves to the mike. He says he supports our alternative prom, but adds that he wasn’t aware of the full list of activities. Of course, he could’ve checked it out online anytime. Mr. Rosen sits in the front row with us. Like he has our backs. I’m pretty good at reading people, and even though the PTSA officers are smiling down on us, it’s more like, You poor, misguided youth.

  The students on the PTSA board don’t say anything. I’m not sure they’re real people. They might just be blow-up dolls stuck in seats to represent the S in PTSA.

  Parents from the audience are allotted time to speak for or against the prom. Azure’s dad is for us, of course, but he does say, “I’m not sure it’s legal to have the tattooing and piercing. And you guys might require a license for the car show.”

  I see Azure seethe as he takes his seat. He shrugs his shoulders, like, What?

  The next person up is Mrs. Dal. I spin my head around to see if Radhika’s in the audience. She’s sitting in the back row, next to her father. Her head is bowed. Then, shock of all shocks, I see Owen leaning against the door frame at the back of the gym. What’s he doing here?

  Radhika’s mom says, “I think the students should be able to put on whatever kind of prom they’d like. I find it admirable that they’d want to find a way to include everyone in this very important event of their high school lives.”

  I think, That’ll send Radhika over the edge. But when I look at her, she seems unaffected. Or paralyzed.

  A bunch of radical parents rail against us. Azure looks ready to implode.

  After everyone’s done, the board asks us to wait outside for its decision.

  In the hall, I see Owen streaking out the front door, yanking his taxi cap onto his head. Azure walks over to talk to Radhika, but her parents whisk her away.

  “What do you think’ll happen?” I ask Mr. Rosen.

  He says, “I have no idea. This is my first year teaching, and my first committee.”

  Just then the door opens and Shauna’s mother says, “You can come back in now.”

  That was fast. My stomach feels sort of queasy. The board asks us to sit again and we all slide into our seats. “We do compliment you on trying to include more of the students in the high school prom,” Mrs. Creighton begins. “But we also believe prom should carry on a sense of tradition here at Roosevelt. So, to compromise, you can have your alternative prom.”

  “Yay!” Azure jumps up and cheers.

  “Except…” Mrs. Creighton holds up a hand.

  Azure freezes.

  “Without the drag show, car show, tattooing and piercing, street dancing, and poetry slam.”

  I go through our list in my head. What does that leave? Karaoke. Wii games. Big woot.

  “That’s not fair,” Azure protests loudly.

  “If you have a problem with our decision, take it up with Mr. Gerardi. File a formal complaint. We’ll consider it at our next meeting, after spring break.”

  “But that’ll be too late,” Azure whines.

  Mrs. Creighton adds, “And this band, Putrid Wixen? We’ll need copies of the lyrics of any original songs.” She gavels the table and the echo reverberates around the gym.

  I feel shell-shocked. Azure storms out of the room, cursing like a cop.

  “What’d they say?” Owen asks when I get home after the PTSA debacle.

  “About what you’d think. We’re back to a traditional prom, pretty much. Oh, but we can have karaoke and Kung Fu Panda Wii.”

  “Figures,” he says under his breath.

  “How’d you even know about the meeting?” I ask him.

  “Mom and Dad get the PTSA newsletter and forward it to me.”

  “And you read it?”

  “Only in the toilet,” he goes.

  I throw my man bag on my bed and untie my shoes.

  “That guy you took around to the clubs…” Owen’s trailed me to my room. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  It takes me a moment. “Connor? Hell, no. He’s just a friend. Speaking of…”

  I yank my V-neck over my head. “Dobbs is jacking with your taxi odometers. I don’t know how, but he’s cheating you on fares.”

  Owen leaves and I traipse after him through the hall to the kitchen. He opens the fridge and retrieves a can of Coke.

  “If you don’t believe me, check the books.”

  Owen whirls. “Stay out of my books. And stay out of my business. Period.”

  “He’s cheating you. You have to fire him.”

  Owen comes at me like a rabid gorilla. “What did I say?” he roars.

  I back up fast, slipping on a pizza box and falling on my ass. I pick myself up. Whatever. Far be it from me to save his major suckage of a company.

  It’s an unusually warm day, this early day in March. All Azure can do is rant gar-blah-bage about the PTSA decision, while poor Radhika and I have to sit there and suffer. I want to say, Just deal with it.

  Ever since Radhika turned me down, I don’t have much investment in the prom. Especially since she’s not even going. I won’t get one dance with her. I suppose I’ll go with the Diversity Club, since it is my senior year.

  For lunch, I decide to buy a bag of baby carrots and a sandwich from the machine and eat outside. While I’m sprawled lengthwise on the hood of the Caddie in the school parking lot, this deep voice says behind me, “I’ve been looking for you.”

  I choke, literally. When I bend forward, Connor thumps my back until the chunk of carrot is dislodged. Could I be any less cool?

  “Smokin’ wheels,” he says. “When are you going to let me take a test drive?”

  “Say the word.” I readjust my Ray-Bans on my nose.

  “Word.” Connor cricks a lip. “Tell me again how you got this Seville—because didn’t you have a Kia at the beginning of the year?”

  Connor remembers what I drove?

  “Owen, my brother, owns a car service. At least he will until it goes under. Gypsy cabs and limos.”

  “Cool. Was that his cab he was driving when we went clubbing?”

  We didn’t really go clubbing. Not in my definition of the word. If Connor says we did, though, we did.

  “One of several.”

  Connor says, “Maybe he can provide transportation for the prom. How many limos does he have?”

  “Five stretch and six town cars. Prom season pretty much keeps his business in the black. That’s when he knows for sure the big bucks are coming in.” He’d probably make more if his drivers were honest. I wonder how many more of his “friends” are screwing him royally.

  Connor shifts his feet, looking uneasy. What does he want? He confuses me. Sometimes I think he’s coming on to me. Then I have to slap myself because he’s all manly man.

  “Scooch,” he says.

  I do and he launches himself up on the hood next to me.

  OMG. I can smell his über-athletic sweat.

  He squints because the early afternoon sun is bright and I parked facing into it. “You want my shades?” I ask him.

  “No, thanks. I’ll take a carrot, though.”

  I practically throw the bag at him.

  “I have this dilemma.” He crunches into a carrot. “I thought if anyone knows how to handle women, it’s you.”

  I snort. “Oh, yeah. That’s totally my area of expertise.”

  “At least you could tell me how to do or say something to someone without hurting her feelings.”

  I let out a puff of air. “Dude, you might want to check my track record on that.”

  He shields his eyes to gaze at me. “You’d never hurt anyone on purpose, though.”

  “And you would?”

  “No. Not deliberately. But I might accidentally. Shit. I don’t know. I hate this.” He looks away and crunches his carrot.

  “What’s your dilemma, bad boy?”

  He sighs. “There’s someone who want
s to go to prom with me, and I’d rather swim in a vat of battery acid.”

  I almost say out loud, Don’t do it! Don’t scar that pretty-boy face. Instead I go, “Here’s a thought: Don’t ask her.”

  “She already asked me. She wrote me this long gmail about how much she likes me and wants to go out with me and how she’d really, really love it if I asked her to prom.”

  I glance at him and see that his expression is pure misery. I draw from my own experience and say to him, “Tell her you asked someone else. Or someone already asked you.”

  “I did ask someone else.” He crunches a carrot, chews and swallows.

  Even though he can’t see my eyes behind my Ray-Bans, I widen them, like I’m all surprised. “Way to go.” I hold up a hand to high-five him.

  “I asked Radhika. She said no.”

  “Whoa. I’m sorry.” I lower my hand.

  Connor says, “I’ve been in love with Radhika Dal since we were in kindergarten, and she’s only ever seen me as a friend. At some point I’m going to have to get over her and move on.”

  “First grade might’ve been a good time.”

  He whaps my thigh and the tingles force out a short giggle.

  “Tell me about it,” I say. “I feel for you. Wanting someone you can’t have.”

  “Why? Do you?” He faces me and a blush rises up my neck. I snatch the bag back from him and grab a handful of carrots to shove in my mouth.

  “Wait. Is Radhika gay? Is that why…?” He smacks his head. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘idiot.’ ” And I wouldn’t say Radhika was gay, either. I don’t know where Azure got that idea.

  He keeps thunking his head and I want to clench his wrist so he doesn’t cause brain damage. Finally, he stops and heaves a sigh. “If I ask someone else now, do you think Shauna will find out?”

  I try not to cough my guts out. “Shauna? That’s who asked you?”

  Connor scrunches up his face. “She’s so full of herself and irritating. Girls like that bug the hell out of me.”

  Shauna Creighton likes Connor Spears? Wait’ll I tell Azure.

  “You could always ask me,” I blurt out. Then I die a million deaths. Where are the carrots?

  Connor grins. He puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Sorry. I’m not into dudes.”

  We both laugh. Him, because it’s funny. Me, because I’m pathetic. I’d lust after a zombie if it showed the faintest interest.

  There’s one carrot left in the bag and I hand it to Connor. He reaches in and snaps off half in his mouth, handing me the rest.

  “Girls know everything,” I tell him. “Or eventually they find out.”

  “How do they do that?”

  “The social grid.”

  He leans back on the windshield, his arms behind his head. I want to reach over and rest my hand on his leg. Pat it sympathetically. Feel his muscles. Azure’s right—I am a horndog. “Who are you going with?” he asks.

  “Radhika,” I say.

  His jaw drops.

  “Not really. She turned me down, too.”

  He blinks. “Seriously? You asked her?”

  “Stupid is as stupid does.”

  “Wow.” He keeps blinking. “I didn’t know you liked her that way.”

  “Yeah, I should’ve called Perez Hilton to make it public knowledge. Someone besides us asked her, too. Do you know who?”

  His eyebrows arch. “Girl or guy?”

  Now he has me wondering. “No clue.”

  We exhale in unison. Connor closes his eyes and I watch him in my peripheral vision. He’s such a god.

  He asks, “So, who are you going with?”

  “Probably the Diversity Club.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go with them, too. That’d solve my problem. I could tell Shauna I’m going with someone else, and it wouldn’t be a lie.”

  “You’d better not sign up online or she’ll see.”

  “Right.” Connor smiles so broad, his dazzling white teeth glint in the sun. “Thanks, Luke.” He holds out his palm and I slap it. “I knew I could count on you.”

  He hops down and saunters off, while I recite in a whisper, “How do I love thee? Let me count the waves.”

  AZURE

  Both our Wednesday and Friday meetings are canceled because Mr. Rosen is sick. Which is just as well, because I’m still fuming.

  On Friday Mr. Gerardi is waiting for me outside my third-period class. I’m not speaking to him. He says, “Miss Wells tells me the theater department’s room is packed full of donations for the silent auction, so you’re going to have to find another room that locks. You could use the music room, if you want.”

  Still not talking to him.

  “And I think you have enough donations. You should make an announcement before the end of the day that people can stop bringing things in.”

  I shower him with death rays.

  He must get the message because he says, “I’m sorry about the PTSA. An alternative prom was still a good idea.”

  If he thinks that’ll soften me up, he doesn’t know my melting point.

  I have to make a pit stop before lunch, and since the cafeteria is close to the theater room, I drop by to see if Miss Wells is there so I can check out how many donations we have. I don’t see her, but I stop and gasp. Near the costume-room door, a mountain of trash bags rises almost to the ceiling. It’s like all the hoarders in the world cleaned out their houses, attics, basements, and garages.

  The silent auction is next week, and even with everyone working full-time, we’ll never sort through all this stuff.

  I slide into my chair at the lunch table across from Radhika and say, “Have you seen how much crap people have donated for the auction?”

  She stabs a cherry tomato in her salad. “My mother donated jewelry and a set of collectible brass elephants.”

  I grimace. “I didn’t mean it was all junk. I’m sure there’s some really valuable stuff in there. But it’ll take forever to sort.” She doesn’t volunteer to help, which surprises me. “I’ll ask Mr. Gerardi if we can drag everything to the gym and start getting it in some kind of order.”

  She still doesn’t…

  “I can’t,” she says. “I’m way behind in the college seminar now, and it’s going to take me the rest of the semester to catch up.”

  “Radhika—”

  “What?” she barks.

  Geez. “It’s okay. We’re just not using your father’s money.”

  She looks at me, or through me.

  “I mean it. If we sell all this stuff, we should have more than enough to fund the prom. Not that I even care anymore.” Which is almost true. Without her there, who cares? Except there’s a part of me that refuses to give up.

  “I’ll see you later.” Radhika lifts her tray and leaves abruptly. I wonder what I said, or didn’t say, or should’ve said or done. She seems so defeated. I’ll show her that we can do this, that she’s free to chase her dream of joining the Peace Corps. And I’ll convince her that she has to go to prom, even if it’s not with me.

  I hate giving up the Saturdays when Dad’s off and we play handball at the rec center. We always stop for lunch at Large Marge’s for Philly cheesesteaks, and he tells me stories about growing up with five brothers, which must’ve been a blast. I swear some of the shit they did was illegal. I guess it never got on his permanent record, since they let him into the police academy.

  I could wake him up and make him go to the rec center early before I have to leave for school to sort donations, or I could let him sleep in. When I open his bedroom door, he’s curled up, purring like a kitten. I don’t have the heart to drag him out of dreamland. Instead, I log on to my computer and check Google docs. Only Shauna and Luke responded to my Help! Alert last night about sorting today. Shauna said she’d ask the decorations committee to help, too, since they’re requesting $1,500 of the budget. I wrote, “What for? All we need are balloons.” And she wrote back, “We need more than tha
t. They have to buy favors, too.” I was tempted to write, Forget the stupid favors, but I didn’t want her on my case again. Under Shauna’s message, Connor wrote that the reservations at the Ramada were confirmed. Yay! That’s one item we can check off.

  After six hours of sorting, we still have dozens of garbage bags left. I hear Luke say, “OMG. Someone donated their underwear.” He holds up a pair of yellowed jocks.

  People do that at the thrift store, too. It’s gross. But Louisa takes the newer-looking boxers and panties home and washes them.

  “I’m only keeping the thongs,” Luke adds.

  “Just toss the underwear,” I tell him.

  He says, “Not on your life. These thongs are just my size.”

  I’m too tired to laugh at his jokes. I open a kitchen trash bag and empty it onto the gym floor. Jeans and shirts, some old CDs, junk jewelry. Then I see an object that makes my heart crash against my rib cage. I pick it up by the chain, and the silver heart spins in a circle. On the back is an engraving I had made: TO DESI, NOW AND FOREVER.

  I gave this to her on our six-month anniversary. I’m surprised when tears well in my eyes. I blink them away and swallow a stuttered sob. I think it’s the fatigue and the fact that Radhika isn’t here and this whole fiasco with prom. Why did I ever agree to get involved? I’m not a leader, and I never will be.

  I place the necklace in the bin for jewelry and finish sorting the stuff that was in the bag. A lot of these items are familiar to me, and I can’t handle it. Shoving the rest of the donations back into the bag, I throw it on the mound and stand. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m wiped,” I tell them. “If anyone can make it in tomorrow, that’d be great. Otherwise, we can finish next week. Let’s lock up the auction items in the music room and put the rest of this crap back in the theater.”

  Shauna accompanies me to the music room with her stack of bins filled with old stuffed animals and children’s toys. She says, “He’s going with someone else.”

  It takes a minute for my brain to click in. Even then, it’s sluggish. “Who?”

  “Connor. I finally just asked him to prom, and he texted me that he was going with someone else.”