Ask Again Later

by Liz Czukas

  A waiter appeared at my elbow to take my dinner plate, and I looked up hopefully. Dessert was always better than no dessert. And at least after dinner, I could hit the dance floor with my friends and stop worrying about Troy. I’d fulfilled my major obligations as a date, I figured. A few slow dances if he wanted to, and a picture in front of the sunset backdrop, and I’d be home free.

  I’d nearly finished my piece of white cake by the time Troy and Phil returned. Troy had his jacket off now, which seemed to be cooling his head a bit, if his color was any indication. But the bathroom rendezvous had definitely not made him any more likely to pass a roadside sobriety test. He fell heavily into the seat beside me. Phil clapped a hand on his shoulder, then bent low to talk to me.

  “Keep an eye on him, okay? He’s gonna be feeling no pain in a few more minutes, and we can’t have him getting us all kicked out.”

  “Why would we all get kicked out?”

  “We won’t if you keep an eye on him.”

  “Phil!” I hissed, but he was already headed back to his seat beside Tara.

  “Goo-oooood evening, everybody!” The DJ’s smooth voice cut off any further attempts to snag my brother’s attention. Though the fact that Phil was ignoring me was probably contributing to that problem as well. The DJ went into a spiel about the first dance, but he was talking so fast it was like listening to an auctioneer. Whatever he said seemed to do the trick, because as soon as he started blasting the latest dance hit, the floor was swamped.

  “Come on.” Troy stood unsteadily and patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s show Amy I don’t need her.”

  Which has got to be the most romantic invitation to dance a girl has ever gotten, right? Nevertheless, I took Troy’s hand, only temporarily impeded from standing by the back of my dress sticking to the chair—thank you, duct tape.

  I let him take me out on the dance floor, where he proceeded to do some moves I can only assume are part of a war dance in some lost tribe of the Amazon. There were a mysterious number of elbows involved, and a face that was probably meant to be sexy but looked more pained. Not that I wanted Troy to look sexy for me, but something less anguished would have been a nice change.

  I scanned the dance floor, hoping to catch a friend’s eye. This simply had to be seen. Preferably documented.

  Finally, on the opposite side of the floor from where Troy was stomping, I spotted Schroeder. I nodded my head toward Troy and grinned. Schroeder smiled back before doing an impression of Troy’s warrior dance style. I laughed and went into some awesome disco moves for Schroeder’s benefit. He responded with some John Travolta, circa Saturday Night Fever. I cupped my hand against my mouth, miming a catcall, though there was no point in making any sound. It would be lost amid the throbbing bass.

  A few of the other No Drama people showed up beside Schroeder and joined into the cross-floor dance-off once he pointed me out to them. I tried to keep my eye on Troy, but he was trained on Amy and her date like his eyes were an ex-girlfriend-seeking missile system. I was obviously just a prop in his pointless game.

  Over on the other side of the dance floor, Ally started doing the Shopping Cart, so I did the Lawn Mower, which made her buckle with laughter. Then, just as I went down for another pull start on my imaginary lawn mower, Troy did one of his elbow-thrusting moves—right into the back of my head.

  I wish I could say I was like a professional dancer, taking the blow and going on as if it was all part of the choreography, but that’s not what happened. Nope. I went down on hands and knees so fast it was like I’d teleported. Right away, someone stepped on my left hand, someone else kicked me in the calf, and I got a mouthful of some guy’s tux pants. Then, just as suddenly as I’d gone down, I was back up.

  Troy had actually had the presence of mind to help me. I was shocked. I was also in pain, since he’d gripped me by my upper arms and hauled me up backward. For the second time tonight, I was seeing stars.

  “You okay?” he asked in my ear.

  “Yeah, fine,” I grunted, rolling my shoulders. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve had some bad luck tonight. You should be more careful.”

  I stared at him, one hand pressed to the sore spot on my head where he’d elbowed me, the other rubbing my opposite shoulder. Never mind the fact that I was still wet—down to my underwear—from my involuntary bath at dinner and my dress was being held together with duct tape. Yeah. Clearly, I was the one who needed to be more careful.

  “Oh my God, Heart!” Lisa’s voice announced her arrival the moment before she put her hand on my back. “I saw you go down. You okay, girl?”

  “I’m fine.” I smiled at Troy but let it drop when I looked at Lisa. For her I made an annoyed face and flicked my eyes at my oblivious date. “I’m going to kick Phil’s ass,” I whispered.

  Lisa raised one eyebrow and leaned in to talk in my ear. “I told you to stick with the original plan.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Yet another hand landed on my back, and I turned to see Schroeder’s concerned face. “What happened? Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said again, looking down. “Apparently, I’m very accident prone tonight.”

  “She got brained,” Lisa told him.

  “Let’s get you some ice for your head.” He took me by the elbow and started away from the dance floor, but I held fast.

  “No, really. I’m fine.”

  His brown eyes searched my face. “You sure?”

  I smiled. “I’m sure. Besides, I’m supposed to keep an eye on Troy.” Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that my date had managed to maneuver himself away from me and a few people closer to Amy. “Damn it.”

  “Why?” Schroeder asked.

  “He’s drunk.” I rolled my eyes. “And Amy showed up with some strange guy.”

  “You should ditch him.” Schroeder squeezed my elbow. “He’s not your problem.”

  “Phil would kill me. And I don’t wanna get kicked out.”

  He opened his mouth again, but shook his head and closed it without speaking.

  The music changed to a slow song, and I turned to check on Troy again. He was staring in Amy’s direction, of course, but suddenly he tore his eyes away, searching for someone—I assumed me. I looked back at Schroeder, who was still holding my elbow.

  “I gotta—” I said at the same time he said, “Do you want to—”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Sure.” He nodded, letting his hand drop away from my arm.

  As I made my way toward Troy, Lisa pinched my arm. “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  “Okay, I got it.” I rolled my eyes at her. “Let it go.”

  “It’s not that—” she said, but Troy cut her off.

  “It’s like she’s not even looking at me.” His eyes were shiny.

  “Never mind,” I told him. “Forget her. Let’s just dance.”

  13 Wherein Ryan is a terrible date, and everyone comes to know the wonder of line dancing

  TAILS

  Convincing Ryan to dance was a little like coaxing a scared cat out from under a bed. I probably would have had better luck with a bit of turkey as a lure.

  “How can you go to prom and expect to sit on the sidelines all night?” I demanded.

  “It’s called prom. That’s short for promenade. That means to walk. I already walked in here. There is no inherent obligation to dance.”

  “There is so an obligation! It’s implied.”

  “Well, I don’t feel constrained by societal expectations.”

  “Ugh!” I groaned. “You are like the worst gay guy ever.”

  He went wide-eyed. “Would you stop with that!”

  I looked around at the empty seats surrounding us. “No one heard me.”

  “I thought you were going to be cool about this.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I thought you were going to dance.” I plucked my name card off the table and flicked it at him. “Besid
es, I’m helping you get more comfortable with your sexuality.”

  “A: I am perfectly comfortable with my sexuality. B: You were supposed to be cool about this, and C: Way to stereotype gay people.” He held up a hand to tick off points on his fingers as he talked.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” I caught one of his hands between both of mine. “You’re right. I’m being a bad date. But so are you!”

  “What? How?” He spread his arms wide with palms upturned. Fakest innocence ever.

  “You won’t dance with me!” I whined. Audrey, Brigitte, forgive my lack of sophistication.

  “I don’t like to dance.”

  I leaned in close to make sure no one would hear. “How do you ever expect to meet a nice guy if you won’t dance?”

  He flushed, then gave me a superior look. “You realize this is like getting advice from a nun about how to meet men, don’t you?”

  “Just because I don’t do it doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”

  Ryan snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

  “I choose not to date.”

  “It’s almost charming how you’re in such complete denial.”

  “Oh, shut up. We’re dancing.” I got up and grabbed both of his hands. And even though he was bigger than me, I got him to his feet, which was practically like him going willingly. I mean, he must have helped a little, right?

  He groaned all the way, feet plodding like I was leading him to the dentist’s chair rather than the dance floor, but he was just pretending, I could tell. He was going to thank me for dragging him out there. You’re welcome, Ryan.

  “Come on, live a little. It won’t hurt,” I cheered, giving him a perky grin and starting a simple step-touch rhythm. He didn’t move, letting me do all the work with his limp wrists trapped in my grip. “Ry-yan!” I whined, bobbing my knees and letting my head droop back in surrender. “You are killing me. You’re making the gods of dance cry.”

  He laughed, starting to sink his teeth into the role of stick-in-the-mud. “This is me dancing.”

  “Can you at least take that look off your face? You look like you’re waiting for your execution.”

  Suddenly, he threw on a cheesy grin, tossed my hands off, and started hopping around, snapping and kicking in time. He looked completely ridiculous, but I whooped and hollered like he was Channing Tatum doing a striptease just for me. “Yeah, baby! Woo! Shake that ass!”

  He collapsed into laughter, the cheesy grin relaxing into his natural smile.

  “There you go! See? You’re even having fun!” I tossed an arm around his neck and started a cancan kick line, which he completely refused to participate in.

  Conveniently, Ally and Cassidy were nearby, and they were definitely not going to pass up a good kick line. Soon after that, the No Drama girls were arm-in-arm, kicking for all we were worth. Ryan eventually had to give in, doing some half-assed kicks but laughing about it.

  The DJ was good, I’ll give him that. When he noticed we’d started an organized dance, he faded in a new song with built-in choreography. I couldn’t remember the transition step at first, but Lisa knew all the moves, and she was happy to take the lead. Ryan tried to escape, but I caught him by the arm and kept him next to me, fumbling through the moves. His booty shaking was hilarious.

  I loved the feeling of finding more and more people had joined the dance each time we did the ninety-degree turn built into the dance. In one view, I could see Tara, Olivia, and the rest of the Dance Squad really shaking it to the beat. They even had little hand movements to go with the song. My brother was watching from the sidelines with a smile. In the next view, I laughed as the people who’d thought they were safe in the back were suddenly thrust into the lead. Another turn, I was treated to another dose of Ryan’s awful hip rotations, but I had to admit, he seemed to be relaxing and enjoying himself at last. The last ninety degrees showed me most of my friends—the theater geeks, the No Drama Crew, the techies who’d shed their wallflower tendencies to get out and join the fun. Cassidy peeked over her left shoulder to catch my eye, giving me an extra butt wiggle when she saw I was watching.

  We turned again, and Ryan leaned forward to shout into my ear over the music. “You got me dancing—are you happy?”

  “Ecstatic.” I grinned at him just as the song was ending.

  “Now you have to do something for me.”

  “If it involves sitting down again, no.”

  “It involves me sitting down.” I turned to protest, but he held up a finger. “Just me. That’s what I need you to do for me. Go dance with someone else.”

  I shook my head, laughing. “I’m that lousy a prom date, huh?”

  “Yes. Now go. Dance with someone who actually likes it.” He grabbed me by the shoulders to spin me around and pushed me toward the nearest person, who was facing the other direction. I got a flash of blond hair and a black tuxedo jacket before I collided with him. It was Schroeder, who caught me in an awkward half turn.

  “Sorry!” I gasped.

  “You seem a little accident-prone tonight,” he said.

  A strange feeling of déjà vu swept through me, and I shook it off. “Guess so.”

  Schroeder looked over my head. “Where’s your date?”

  “He needed a break. Apparently, I wore him out.” I winked.

  “So you thought you’d body-slam me instead?”

  We’d both started moving to the beat without realizing it, and now we were full-on dancing. Schroeder slipped a hand around my waist as another couple squeezed behind me. “Gotta keep you from knocking everyone else down,” he said.

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “You’re so pretty when you do that.” He made a screwed-up face at me in return, eyes crossed and upper lip sneered back.

  “We should be prom king and queen, don’t you think?” I sucked my cheeks in to make fish lips.

  He copied my fish face, and we glub-glubbed at each other for a moment before breaking into laughter. We danced for a while, trying to restore our fish faces, but it was pretty much impossible to do fish lips and laugh at the same time, so it wasn’t working. Then came the glorious moment when we both actually managed to fish it simultaneously. My eyes went wide with triumph, but I didn’t dare move any other facial muscles for fear of losing my fishiness. Schroeder held up his left hand for a high five, and I slapped him a good one. He grabbed my hand when I made contact, and swept me around in a circle, all dancey-like. Pressed together like that, our fish lips were only inches apart, and it was too much. I caved first, laughing in a breathless way, but he only held out a few seconds longer, laughing too, and close enough that I felt his laughter as much as I heard it.

  Ryan’s speculations at dinner came back to me, and my heart got squirrelly—an activity I did not authorize. I found myself looking a little too long into his eyes. Brown. They were just an ordinary brown, but I liked them for that. Mine were brown, too. No extraordinary violet like Elizabeth Taylor, or sparkling green to make me feel more like a movie star. Just brown. It was a comfortable sort of color. Friendly.

  Oh dear God, I was still staring at his eyes. I blinked heavily, but forgot to look away as I did it, so when I opened my eyes again, there they were. Comfortable, friendly, brown eyes that were making my stomach swishy.

  “I—” I started, not knowing where I meant to go with my words.

  “Let’s turn our attention to the stage as your student council president takes the microphone once more.” The DJ’s patter gave me reason to blink again, and this time I remembered to lower my eyes. The music faded, then disappeared as everyone shifted their attention to the stage. Off to the side, the principal and vice principal were organizing rhinestone crowns, and I realized what was going on.

  It was time to crown a prom queen and king.

  Schroeder’s hands dropped away from me, and he muttered, “I’ll see you later,” just before he walked off.

  What did I do?

  14 In which Troy leaves me for a life of royalty, a
nd I learn the art of dance-based diplomacy

  HEADS

  I couldn’t remember who was nominated for prom court, much less who I’d voted for. It was just not the sort of thing that concerned me. Maybe it should have, considering my brother was a big football-playing senior, but well . . . it didn’t.

  So, when the music cut off and the student council president came up to announce our prom court, I was just annoyed I’d have to stop dancing. Troy had disappeared into the bathroom again a while back, so I’d finally been free to dance with my friends, which was all I’d ever wanted out of prom.

  “This ought to be good,” Kim muttered, crossing her arms.

  “Isn’t Bethany nominated?” Cassidy reminded us.

  “Oh yeah.” Kim cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered, “BETH-A-NEEE!”

  Bethany was one of those genuinely likable people who seem so rare. She had been in the fall play with us, though she claimed not to be able to sing a note, so she wasn’t in the musical currently. Still, she was a senior, and one of the sweetest people I’d ever met in my life. Kind of shocking she’d even made it to the ballot, now that I thought about it.

  Mild panic struck me as I contemplated a series of horrifying scenarios where Bethany was the butt of some cruel joke that was going to end in her getting doused in pig’s blood or something. But it wasn’t like Bethany was at the bottom of the social ladder, where she’d be likelier to be a target. And as far as I knew, she didn’t have any ability to start fires with her mind. So, I was freaking out for no reason. Probably.

  There were five girls and five guys to be named. Three princesses, the junior queen, and the senior queen for the girls, with all the matching royalty for the boys. The nominees were announced and asked to come to the stage. Every single person from my dinner table except me was called to the stage. I’d known I wasn’t nominated, of course, and frankly, I didn’t even want to be, but it was awfully hard not to feel like a loser being the only person out of eight who didn’t have to make the long walk up to the stage. Especially when Troy was called. I mean, the guy was nominally my date, and here I was, in the crowd of common folk.