The Fine Art of Truth or Dare

by Melissa Jensen

  Sienna has been a bridesmaid eleven times. She has a faux pashmina for every occasion. We left for the dance with Sadie wrapped in sparkly silver, Nonna waving from the front porch. Nonna likes Halloween, but draws the line at a costume, although she’s been known to scare small children as she looms over them in her stark black, screeching at them to have some M&M’s.

  Within the hour, Sadie and I were settled at the edges of Willing’s underwater paradise-slash-hell, watching the show and having a not-bad time. I was doing fine in my water goddess costume and Sadie was dealing. Unlike previous years, she looked more resigned than uncomfortable. To me, trident aside, she looked pretty great.

  On seeing my costume, she had actually clapped her hands and shrieked. “Oh, Ella, you’re gorgeous!”

  When we’d met up with him in the school rose garden, Frankie had let out a low whistle. “Way to go, Marino.”

  I’d waved them both off, muttering, “It’s just a dress.” A dress made just for me by a loving, if deluded, fairy grandmother, and hair and makeup thanks to a painful hour at the hands of a determined sister.

  “Sit still and stop with the whining already!” Sienna snarled as she twisted my hair into long, loose spirals and transferred the contents of a dozen bottles and tubes onto my face. “See?” she’d demanded at the end, dragging me in front of her big mirror. “See?”

  It was just me. Only, even I had to admit, not quite. I looked softer, shinier, just a little bit luminous. Now, in the light of hundreds of fake ship’s lanterns, I could still see the shimmer of whatever fragrant lotion Sienna had rubbed into my arms.

  Twenty feet away, Frankie was writhing gracefully to the music, his bell-bottoms swinging with him. His date, dressed in a matching vintage sailor suit, wasn’t quite as graceful, but he was just as pretty. “Naval surplus,” Frankie had explained the uniforms on arrival. “We’re ‘Don’t Ask’ . . .”

  “‘Don’t Tell.’” Connor finished. He seemed okay. He didn’t say much: “Don’t Tell” personified. But he clearly liked to dance, seemed to like Frankie, and had complimented Sadie on her shoes, which were fish-scale-sequined Jimmy Choo (Frankie ID’d them in a heartbeat) flats, and very cool.

  “Maybe a young Jacques Cousteau . . . ?” Sadie was still working on the boy in the suit. “But that would just be silly. I mean, a suit . . . ? Oh. No.”

  Apparently our scrutiny hadn’t gone unnoticed. Teddy-Jacques-Whoever was bearing down on us, smiling broadly under the mustache that, I noticed, was coming loose at one corner.

  “Good evening, ladies!”

  He was a senior, I thought. We didn’t have any classes together; he was AP everything, but I thought I remembered seeing him during Performance Night in the spring, part of a co-ed a cappella group. They’d done a Black Eyed Peas song—pretty well, too. He was cute, too, in a pale, lanky way.

  “Walter Elias Disney,” he said with a bow. “At your disposal.”

  “Walt Disney?” Sadie was obviously too intrigued to be shy. “Um . . . ?”

  He grinned and waved his arm at the spectacle behind him with a flourish. “The myriad talents of Johnny Depp aside, it is debatable whether any of this would have come about without me. It seemed only appropriate that I should make an appearance.”

  I nodded. “I’ll buy that.”

  He bowed again, but his eyes stayed on Sadie. “Would you care to dance?”

  “Oh. I . . . Oh.” Several emotions flooded her face in an instant: terror, pleasure, uncertainty, and why-the-hell-not. She darted a glance at me. I gave a quick, emphatic nod. I would be fine. She absolutely should dance. “Sure,” she said.

  And off they went.

  I watched for a few minutes. Sadie did well, despite the heavy skirt. She watches Dancing with the Stars religiously. Walt wasn’t bad, either, not too much flailing. He said something that made her laugh. She looked terrific. Nearby, Frankie and Connor were doing a decent version of the sixties “Swim.” I scanned the sea of undulating limbs and happy faces for, well, anything interesting.

  It didn’t take long. The Phillites were in the middle of the dance floor, a happy group of shiny hair, flashing teeth, and skin on display. The girls were all in embellished bikini tops and shimmery skirts. The guys wore loose white shirts open to a point that would have been laughable any other time, but seemed roguishly appropriate now. I saw Anna and Hannah, in crimson and aqua, then Chase, who was wearing an eye patch and flashing a gold earring. It wasn’t hard to find Alex; he was the tallest of his crowd. I got a glimpse of white shirt and square jaw, but he was facing mostly away from me. I couldn’t see Amanda at all.

  I got up. A couple of skinny pirates were eyeing me specula-tively. A wallflower, especially without a wall, was an easy target. Trying to look like I had a destination, I skirted the floor. I thought I might do a slow circuit, then come back and dance for a few minutes with Frankie and Connor. I knew Frankie would be delighted; he likes seeing me dance in much the same way he enjoys sending me up trees.

  I’d done a quarter round when I came up against a knot of Bee boys. I tried to get around them but found myself tangled in one’s octopus costume. My “Um. Excuse me?” got precisely no response. It didn’t take long to find out why. Amanda Alstead was in their direct line of vision.

  She was doing the universal dance of confident girls: arms clasped overhead, eyes closed, hips swaying to whatever the beat of the moment was. This was midtempo, not so slow as to allow for in-your-face sexiness, but slow enough to get a good roll. Her uplifted arms had her shells doing their own dance.

  It was certainly mesmerizing. I watched for a minute, wondering if I would ever have the guts to move like that in front of one person, let alone several hundred. I wondered if I even had the ability. She looked like a silk ribbon on ball bearings.

  When my ego couldn’t stand it any longer, I looked past her. There, of course, was Alex. He wasn’t watching Amanda. He was looking over her head, his bored gaze skimming over the room. Before I could turn away, it had found mine. He didn’t smile; he certainly didn’t wave. But he didn’t look away. And I had absolutely no idea what to do.

  “Hey, Ella!”

  Someone jostled me from behind. I turned to find myself face-to-Willing-mascot. The track jersey sported a familiar stylized bee. We are the Willing Hornets, but the image didn’t change when the name did (until the arrival of boys, Willing teams were, believe it or not, the Buzzies); it was engraved on too many surfaces. This one had been provided with an inked diving helmet and flippers. The rest of the ensemble included a snorkeling mask, a pair of shiny running tights, and the pièce de résistance: a sequined jock- strap. Inside it all was Cat Vernon. I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “Pretty clever, huh?” She grinned. “The contents of Davy Jones’s Locker.” Behind her, a couple of her friends were similarly attired. They all looked cheerful and relaxed. “What are you doing wandering? Come on. Let’s dance.”

  She pulled the mask down over her eyes and linked her arm through mine. Then, gently but firmly pushing aside the still-gasping boys, she pulled me into the middle of the floor, into a knot of gyrating seniors. There was a girl pirate and a boy dressed as Neptune, but not a mermaid among them.

  I danced. I turned my back to Amanda and did my own arms-half-up wiggle. I even shimmied for a minute with a cute senior dressed like a lobster. Cat’s crowd was loud and lively, and no one looked at me like I didn’t belong right where I was. By the time the third dance was over, I was giddy and a little sweaty. Everyone else in the knot jumped right into the next song; Neptune was pogoing for all he was worth. I waved good-bye to Cat and slipped from the dance floor.

  As I made my way toward the side door, I saw Frankie and Connor, now doing a synchronized brim-tapping, foot-scuffing sailor dance. They had an appreciative audience. Beyond them, Sadie was still with Walt. It seemed absolutely the right time to disappear for a little while. I was feeling the urge.

  I knew most of the classrooms would be locke
d, either from the outside by suspicious teachers or from the inside by single-minded couples. There was no way Ms. Evers would leave the art room open. Available paint was just too much of a temptation for mischief, even on a night that didn’t include Halloween pranks. For that reason, when she wasn’t around, the room was closed up tight, and locked. For that reason, she told a select few students where a key was hidden. I was one of the few.

  Five minutes later, armed with a fresh sketch pad and a handful of charcoal pencils, I was on my way out a side door and onto the brick patio that ran the southern length of the building. It overlooked the gardens. In the moonlight, the shadowed balustrades and ornamental urns took on new and interesting shapes. I settled myself on a stone step and began to draw. As the minutes passed, strange and satisfying images took shape: the curve of a fin in empty air, posts that looked like teeth . . .

  “I was wondering where the real party was.”

  I jumped, sending my pencil in a sharp line across the page. Alex was standing two feet away, one booted foot on my step, hands thrust into the pockets of what looked too much like Emo pants: black and tight.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

  “You didn’t surprise me,” I gasped, left hand plastered to my chest. “You scared the crap out of me. Who raised you? Wolves?”

  He actually grinned. “You’ve met my parents. What do you think?”

  I wasn’t going to touch that one. I just shrugged.

  “Why aren’t you inside?” he asked after a few seconds.

  “It was too hot,” I lied, closing my sketchbook as casually as I could. “Oppressive. Why aren’t you?”

  “It was too . . . God, I don’t know. Oppressive’s a good word. Some fresh air seemed like a good idea.”

  I looked past him, relieved not to see anyone else there. “All by yourself? That’s . . . bold.”

  His brows went up. For a second, I thought he was going to turn around and leave. Instead, he took his hands out of his pockets and pointed at my step. “Big words for a small person. Can I sit down?”

  I swallowed. “Sure.”

  He did, ending up with his elbows resting on his thighs and his right knee not quite touching mine.

  The silence went on just long enough to make it uncomfortable. But I wasn’t going to help him with his small talk. I’m not very good at it in the best of circumstances. Sitting almost thigh to thigh with a guy who turned me into a mental pretzel was nowhere near a good circumstance.

  “So . . . Quite a scene in there tonight.” He jerked his chin toward the open patio doors. The music was just loud enough that I could hear the lead singer mangling the words of “Beyond the Sea.” The original is one of Frankie’s faves. I guessed he was probably entwined with Connor at the moment, in slow-dancing ecstasy. Which was good for several reasons, including the one about how much snark he would give me if he caught me chatting away with Alex Bainbridge.

  “Yup,” I agreed.

  “Typical Willing.”

  “It is.”

  “Well,” he asked, “whaddya expect?”

  It was so obviously a rhetorical question that of course I answered it. My truth impulse seemed stronger around this boy, my impulse control way under par.

  “I would expect you to be dancing.”

  His expression was unreadable in the limited light. “Is that an invitation?”

  “No. An observation.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. I needed a break. It was either keep an eye on Chase while he pukes up a fifth of cheap rum in the guys’ bathroom or follow the girls into the ladies’ room.”

  I almost smiled and told him about Willing’s bathrooms and me. Instead, some truly horrific and irresistible impulse had me announcing, “Amanda looks really pretty tonight.”

  “So do you.”

  Bizarrely, I felt my breath catch in my chest, and for a long, awful second, I thought I might cry. I gripped the top of my pad tightly, concentrated on the spiral metal binding where it dug into my skin.

  “It’s a cool costume,” he said. “Water nymph?”

  “Sea goddess,” I answered quietly. “Roman.”

  “Hmm.” Alex was staring out toward the garden now, looking so at ease that I went from pretzel to knot. Could it really be that easy for him? To say things like he did without thinking? Without meaning anything at all? “Too many mermaids tonight. Not that I have anything against mermaids. Mermaids are hot. I mean, you saw my drawing.”

  I nodded.

  “You know,” he went on, “that day in the hall, you compared my stuff to two Japanese artists—”

  I nodded again, even though he was looking out into the darkened gardens now and not at me. “Suzuki Harunobu and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. They were eighteenth- and nineteenth-century woodblock print masters—”

  “Ella,” he interrupted. “I know who they are.”

  “Oh.”

  “In fact, I have a couple original Kuniyoshi prints.”

  “Oh. Wow. Wow.”

  He shrugged. “They’re not that rare. What I’m really hoping to get is one of his Princess Tamatori series. Do you know it?” When I shook my head, he explained, “You know he did all these illustrations for books and folktales. Right? Some like cartoons or graphic novels. Princess Tamatori sets off to recover this massive pearl from the Dragon King underwater. She has to fight him and all these crazy creatures on her way back. So I had this idea for a graphic novel about . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “A mermaid,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah.”

  Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then, “Your drawings are really, really good,” I said softly. “You should do that book.”

  He grunted. “You ever hear of a rich graphic novelist?”

  “You ever hear of a happy lawyer?” I shot back, less surprised at myself than amused by just how much of Frankie and Sadie had rubbed off on me in two years. I didn’t say, “You’re already rich,” which would have been too much Frankie and no Sadie whatsoever.

  “Who knows?” Alex sighed, and I let that rhetorical question go. From inside, I could hear the opening notes of “Come Sail Away.” “Why is it,” he asked after a few bars, “that they always play these schizo songs at dances? They start out slow, so you’re all psyched, then get fast halfway through, so you end up feeling like a total idiot, trying to decide what to do. One person always chooses to keep doing the slow thing—”

  “And the other one jumps back and starts boogying.”

  “Exactly! You’ve been there,” he said, smiling. I wasn’t about to mention that there for me had always been the wallflower seat. “My dad loves this song.”

  It was my turn to smile. “So does mine.”

  “So . . .”

  “So?”

  He bumped my knee with his. “Wanna dance?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Even in the limited light, he looked offended. “I am not.” In a second, he’d levered himself off the step. “C’mon. We’ll dance fast at the beginning and slow when the music speeds up.”

  “Slow . . .” I was totally distracted by the image of the two of us on the floor.

  Not, apparently, for the same reasons he was. “I’ll do a Quasimodo,” he offered, bending and twisting à la the Hunchback so he was closer to my height. “C’mon, Ella. It’s just a dance.”

  “Okay.” This time, I got it right. With my butt still firmly planted on the step, I reached up and took his hand. I didn’t yank mine back, either, once I was upright. In fact, I held on to him for what was probably a beat too long; he was the one to let go.

  I’m not sure why I thought it might actually happen. It was probably the whole Japanese woodblock/graphic novel thing. He had me at Kuniyoshi.

  We only got as far as the hallway inside the door.

  “Yo, dawg!” We both turned. Chase Vere was walking toward us, weaving a little and grinning. “Where were you? I just did some serious Technicolor spewin
g.”

  “Good for you,” Alex answered. He thrust a protective arm in front of me as Chase came to a lurching halt a foot away. I got a faint whiff of alcohol and something even less pleasant.

  “Oh. Hey.” Chase squinted at me. “Her.”

  “Ella,” Alex said tightly. “Her name is Ella.”

  “Okay, sure. Ella.” Chase nodded. This time, his unfocused gaze did a slow roam from my head to my toes. It came back to rest on my breasts, which, I discovered, was in no way preferable to my scar. “She looks hot.”

  “Jesus, Vere—”

  Whatever else Alex was going to say was lost as Chase did a slightly wobbly pivot and yelled back down the hall. “I found him! With the weird girl. Only she’s hot tonight.”

  “Vere, you jackass.” Alex turned to me. “I’m really sorry. He’s wasted.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll just go. Now.” I’d seen them; Alex hadn’t because he was facing me. The Hannandas had rounded the corner and were on their way toward us, a fierce trio wearing pretty sequins and ugly expressions.

  “What is going on?” Amanda demanded, eyes blazing from Alex to me and back.

  “Nothing,” I answered automatically, knowing even as the words left my mouth that I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.

  For all the times I’d played and replayed the lunchtime hall scene in my head, for all the times I’d imagined how it might have been if Alex hadn’t ignored me, if he’d stopped and said hello, or even just acknowledged my existence, I cringed when he announced, “Ella and I were on our way back into the dance.”

  He didn’t even have to say that we were actually planning on dancing. Amanda’s eyebrows shot up; her nostrils flared. For an instant, she looked like a really angry sea horse.

  “Who’d’a thought she had such a sweet little bod? Cover the bad part; I’d do her,” Chase mumbled. Then, almost in the same breath, “Oh, man. I’m gonna hurl again.”