by Liz Czukas
They had to be joking. I glared at them all for a minute, but no one was laughing. With a sigh, I turned to show them the damage. “Fine.”
In the end, I had a giant mat of duct tape, crosshatched and woven for maximum security. The shiny part of the tape was against my skin, with the whole expanse of the sticky side exposed to the inside of my dress. Of course, due to the sticky nature of the stuff, they couldn’t get the two sides to line up exactly, leaving me with a thin strip of exposed stickiness mid-zipper, but it wasn’t a half-bad job. The boys wanted to make it extra secure with a few long strips wrapped all the way around my torso, but I flat-out refused.
“Thanks, you guys!” I gave everyone involved a tight squeeze. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Flashed the entire junior and senior class?” Ryan suggested.
“Pretty much.”
“Oops!” Cassidy said as she eased back from hugging me. “One of the baby’s breath from my corsage got stuck to your tape.” Her corsage was a single yellow rose surrounded by baby’s breath. Ally’s mom had promised to make all the corsages and boutonnieres for the No Drama Crew. Yellow roses for friendship. It was understated. Tasteful. And noticeably lacking any plastic tiger charms.
“Whatever. I don’t even care.” I waved my hands, making the stupid tiger charm on my own corsage bobble and dance.
“Oh. Well, then . . . here.” She plucked off a few more and slapped them onto my back.
I laughed. “Thank you.”
“All right. Are we going back to dinner, then?” Tim asked.
“Yes!” Cassidy and I said together. I couldn’t even guess how long we’d sat in the ladies’ room.
We walked down the hall to the ballroom together, laughing about what other improvements we could make to prom with the rest of Tim’s duct tape, but when we reached the doors, they took off for the opposite side of the room where the No Drama Prom-a and all my other friends were sitting. With a pang, I turned instead for Table 20.
Maybe Schroeder and Lisa were right. I should have just gone with my friends like I’d planned.
11 Wherein I become performance art, and Ryan says terrible things that cannot possibly be true
TAILS
“The duct tape makes the outfit,” Ryan assured me.
“I have a great idea!” Ally came at me brandishing a Kleenex. “We can stick this in the gap to cover up the tape!”
She looked so pleased with herself, I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, that’s gonna be so much better.”
The zipper on my dress had given up the ghost as we climbed out of the day-care van. We hadn’t even made it into the building yet, and so far I’d managed to turn my feet black pushing a broken-down car and practically exposed myself to the entire parking lot. Thank God it was only my back showing, and thank God the zipper’s slide was still stuck at the top, or my strapless dress would have turned into a skirt in a heartbeat.
My friends could not stop laughing. It really was kind of funny, when I considered it, although I was considerably less amused than they were, since it was my back on display. The classiness was only increased by the duct tape repair job Ryan had managed to engineer with the help of his fellow techie, Tim, who had arrived just after us and parked a couple cars down the row. Tim was a guy who went nowhere without duct tape. Guys like that are the unsung heroes of the ordinary world.
“It might work.” Cassidy brought me back to Ally’s proposed decorative solution.
“Aren’t I pathetic enough?” I asked.
“No,” the girls said in unison.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “You guys are nuts. I’m not putting wads of Kleenex on my back. I’ll look like a vertical garbage can.”
“Here.” Schroeder interrupted us with his tux jacket held out for me to put on. “Let’s at least get inside, shall we?” he said.
“Such a gentleman.” Ally didn’t sound pleased with that assessment.
“Such a fun ruiner,” Cassidy corrected.
“Go ’head, Kidney, put it on.” Schroeder jiggled the jacket at me.
It was a sweet gesture, but I smiled and shook my head. “That’s okay. It’s not like the entire prom isn’t going to see my awesome duct tape repair job later, right?”
“Oh.” He kept holding the jacket awkwardly, like I’d pulled the batteries out of him.
“Thanks, though.” I smiled again before skipping ahead to put my arm through Ryan’s.
“All set?” Ryan asked.
“Yes.” I nodded. “And I’ll do my best not to embarrass you any further as your prom date.”
He laughed. “You’re not embarrassing me.”
“I’m going to be the world’s most perfect nongay prom date in history,” I whispered.
Ryan glanced around nervously. “Could you not say that so loud?”
“I didn’t!”
“Okay, then maybe not at all?”
I made a show of zipping my lips and tossing the key. “Back in the closet with me.”
“I think that’s my line.” He gave a sly smile.
“Whatever.” I waved away his pesky semantics.
My brother and his entourage were ahead of us in line for check-in. He looked back at me and jerked his thumb at Troy, who was stoop-shouldered and sad-faced without a girl on his arm.
“Your fault,” Phil mouthed. Then he grinned and slapped Troy on the back. “Don’t worry about it, man. You can scam on the girls without dates.”
“You’re being gross again,” Phil’s girlfriend, Tara, said.
Behind me, Cassidy snorted. “Ignore him,” she whispered to me.
I tried, but it wasn’t easy until Phil disappeared into the ballroom.
At the check-in table, we got two little place cards with our names on them, surrounded by palm trees. We were assigned to Table 3, and a quick consultation with Cassidy told me they were at Table 4. Perfect. Things were finally looking up.
Prom’s Moonlit Beach theme was visible, but not ghastly, with centerpieces of floating candles bobbing above a bed of tiny seashells in shallow bowls, and paper lanterns glowing along the borders of the room. Apart from a few paper palm trees I assumed were contractually obligated by a beach theme, the overall look was subtle, bordering on tasteful. Well, as tasteful as anything involving fake palm trees could be. We were sharing a table with a few other techies, including Tim, and their dates. I didn’t recognize one of the girls, but the other two I knew well enough to say hello to.
Minutes after I sat down, I felt the first push against my spine. I turned to find Ally grinning at me. “You didn’t say anything about seashells.”
“What?” I twisted to see my own back, but of course I couldn’t. Because I’m not a barn owl. And slapping around with my hand wasn’t getting the job done either. I poked Ryan and made him report.
“You’ve got one of the little shells from the bowl stuck to your tape.” He held up his thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart to indicate the size of the shell.
“Great.” I sighed.
Before I could finish processing that, I had three more stuck on, thanks to the quick work of Cassidy, Pat, and Neel. “You guys suck,” I told Neel, who had the misfortune of being the last one.
“We’re just making you look more fabulous,” Ally called from the other table.
I rolled my eyes, but I knew I had to let it go. Two reasons. First of all, getting mad would only encourage them. Second, it was kind of funny. Okay, it was a lot funny. If the situation were reversed and it were any one of my friends with duct tape sticking out of her dress, I would be the first in line with handfuls of glitter. I got up from my table and slid into the empty seat between Neel and Schroeder.
“All right. Fine. But four seashells are not going to cut it. What else you guys got?”
Ally’s eyes lit up, and instantly her hand went back into the bowl of floating candles to retrieve more of the tiny shells littering the bottom. Reaching around Neel, Kim
plucked a petal from the yellow rose in her corsage and stuck it in the middle of my back. I stood up to give them all better access, and for the next few minutes all I heard was giggling interrupted by the occasional pressure in the area of my broken zipper.
“That’s it!” Cassidy declared after a while. “No more room.”
I reached back with a delicate hand to probe at what I could feel. I found more than a few seashells under my fingertips, along with what felt like bits of paper and flowers. I probably resembled the floor at a movie theater, but I couldn’t help laughing.
“You look fantastic,” Ally assured me.
“Thanks, you guys.” After posing for pictures on a few phones, I told them I should probably go back to Ryan.
“Sorry about that,” I said when I took my assigned seat. “What do you think?”
“It’s, um, breathtaking.” Ryan leaned closer, checking out all the additions to my dress. He laughed softly. “Oh man . . .”
“What?”
“Chase,” he said, as if that explained everything. Like always, I had to do a mental double take to realize he was talking about Schroeder.
“What about him?” I did my not-a-barn-owl twisting thing again, once more failing to actually make my head rotate 180 degrees. Why was I even trying?
“He put his name on you. From his table card.”
“He did?!” More pointless twisting on my part. “That idiot.”
“Good thing he doesn’t have a date. She’d probably be jealous.”
“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “He just thinks he’s funny.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Ryan tipped his head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
He was obviously lying. I pointed my finger at him. “Bad prom date.”
“All I’m saying is guys have strange ways of flirting sometimes.” Ryan ran his fingertip around his water glass until it started to sing.
“Schroeder is not flirting with me.” I shot a glance back at the other table and accidentally caught his eye. We both looked away.
“Maybe . . .”
“I think I’d know.” I crossed my arms in defiance, even as butterflies began to emerge from secret cocoons in my stomach.
“If you say so.”
Nervousness tiptoed down my spine. “Not that it matters. I don’t date.”
“Why is that, anyway?”
I sighed, very glad the other techies didn’t seem to be paying us any attention. “I don’t want to end up like my mother.”
Ryan’s mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times. I’d seen this before. No one quite knows how to phrase the questions they always have about my mother. He finally settled on, “Where is your mom?”
“Don’t know.” I shrugged. “She left right after I was born. Haven’t seen her since.”
“Why?” Ryan blinked. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”
I laughed softly. “Please. The least I can do is a little quid pro quo for your . . . honesty.” I glanced across the table, but still we were on no one’s radar. “She was only nineteen when I was born. Eighteen for Phil. I guess it wasn’t what she had in mind for her life.”
“Jeez. Have you ever thought of looking for her?”
“Nope.” I leaned back in my chair, feeling the faint lumps of my decorations through the thick mat of tape on my back. “Why would I want to find someone who doesn’t want me?”
“Don’t you wonder, though?” He squinted at me like a specimen on the microscope stand.
“Not really. I mean, sort of in an abstract way, but I don’t remember her at all. There’s nothing to miss. It’s always been just me, Phil, and my dad. Well, and the infamous Aunt Colleen.”
He grinned. “Ah yes. She of the condom treat bags.”
“That’s the one. Anyway, the point is, I don’t want to make the same mistakes she did. It’s easier to avoid the whole dating situation and not have to worry about it.”
“What do you do if you like someone?” he asked.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to have a crush on someone and not do anything about it.” Ryan looked dubious, so I went on. “Crushes are free. I mean, who doesn’t have a thing for Captain Jack Sparrow? Nobody, that’s who.”
“And here in the real world, where the rest of us live?” He cocked his head.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s the real world or fictional,” I insisted. “Crushes are the best part of liking someone, and they are completely safe. You get all the benefits of fantasizing about someone, but none of the he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not drama. It’s all the good parts with none of the parts that make you lie awake at night all angsty.”
Ryan nodded slowly, and I thought I’d finally found someone who understood. Then he said, “You realize that’s crazy, right?”
“I assume by crazy you mean genius.”
He laughed. “What if someone likes you?”
The nervousness rekindled in my stomach, and heat crawled up my neck to my cheeks. “I guess they just don’t.” I managed not to glance back to Table 4, though I was convinced that Schroeder could feel the heat of my embarrassment even from the next table over.
“I think you might be a big liar, Heart LaCoeur.”
“Bully for you.”
Just then a piercing scream burst into the air from the far side of the ballroom.
“What the hell?” Ryan was on his feet before me, but it wasn’t long before most of the prom goers were peering across the room. I couldn’t see much over everyone’s heads, but words filtered back through the room like an aftershock.
“Olivia Riggs . . . something in her food . . . drama queen . . . would she shut up? . . . out of here . . . never mind . . . oh, please . . . joke . . . forget it . . .”
And then I could make out Olivia Riggs, who was looking like the pageant queen she was in a teal, sequined ball gown, being escorted to the main doors of the ballroom by Randi Martinez. Both of them were chattering like angry chickens and casting death glares over their shoulders.
“Cheerleader drama,” Pat announced from the neighboring table.
“She probably chipped her manicure.” Ally wiggled her fingers.
Within minutes, everyone was back in their seats, and moving onto other topics.
I went on tiptoe to look for my brother, finally spotting him at the table Olivia and Randi had just stormed away from. He was laughing himself sick while Tara looked on with annoyance. She met my gaze for a moment and rolled her eyes. I wondered what it would have been like to be sitting beside Troy for whatever had just gone down. It seemed like I’d gotten off lucky being over here. Take that, Chuck E. Cheese’s head.
12 Wherein Troy gets in touch with his primitive side, and I become a dance-floor casualty
HEADS
When I finally got back from my dress-repairing odyssey in the bathroom, Olivia had a smug look on her face. She was restored to full pageant dignity, except for the expression.
“You okay, Heart?” Troy asked. I couldn’t help noticing he was looking a bit more cherry-cheeked again. Uh-oh.
“Fine.” I smiled as I sat down. After all, it wasn’t Troy’s fault I’d been soaked and had my zipper break.
“Guess who just walked in,” Olivia instructed.
“Uhh . . .” Doing a quick scan of the immediate vicinity offered me no clues. “Santa?”
Olivia’s pretty mouth warped into a nasty smirk. “Amy.”
I didn’t know if she was trying to hurt my feelings or Troy’s, but I was certain I didn’t give a crap about my pity date’s ex-girlfriend. “Okay,” I said.
To my right, however, Troy wasn’t nearly as unimpressed by the news. He slumped down in his seat and broke out in fresh sweat. The boy could use a visit to a doctor for that perspiration problem of his, I swear.
“Who’s she here with?” he asked.
“I don’t recognize him.” Olivia inspected her nails as she said it, like she couldn’t be bothered
to check again. Someone should have hugged that girl more in her childhood.
“Where is she?” Troy stood up halfway and studied the entrance to the room. I looked, too. Solidarity? I didn’t know. Troy found her before I did, though, and he collapsed back into his seat with defeat. “I don’t know him either.”
“It’s probably her cousin or something lame like that,” Phil said. I grimaced. Wasn’t Phil the one responsible for Troy being on exactly the same kind of lame date with me? I sent a look of death at Phil, but he evaded my gaze. Why can I never kill my brother through latent psychokinesis when I need to?
“Should I go talk to her?” Troy started to get up again.
“No!” Everyone at the table was unified on that decision.
“No way, man,” Doug said. “Don’t be a pussy.”
I winced again. The P word always made me feel like retching. I prefer to think that makes me dignified rather than immature, as my brother has suggested on a number of occasions. Brigitte never used the P word, I’m sure.
“I could handle it.” Troy’s eyes tracked Amy and her date as they made their way through the tables. “I could be cool.”
“No. You definitely could not,” Phil assured him, reaching over Tara to pat him on the shoulder.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” Troy got up, and seemed to be aiming for the exit rather than the ex, but Tara elbowed my brother anyway.
“Go with him,” she said.
“Only girls go to the bathroom in groups.” Which was complete crap, since I’d personally seen Phil head off to the men’s room with at least two other guys this very night. Granted, these were alcohol-based trips, but still. My brother was just being difficult. On purpose.
Tara didn’t seem as annoyed as I would have been. “Fine. Then it’s on your head if he goes after Amy when he comes back.”
Phil mumbled something with a distinctly foul sound, but got up to follow his friend. I bit my lip and looked at Tara. “You think he’ll be okay?”
“He’ll be fine.” Tara waved a hand. “Phil will give him a few shots to calm him down.”
“Oh.” Because what Troy needed was more alcohol. I reached to scratch at the edge of my tape pad. There was one little imperfect lump just below my right shoulder blade that was getting really annoying. And truth be told, I was starting to sweat myself with the thick application of duct tape covering my entire back.