When they’d finished taking the shot (with Tim seated and Wren on his lap), the photographer called for the next couple.
“Don’t go yet, Wren. Angela and Doug have just arrived — let’s have a cast picture,” Liz suggested.
We arranged ourselves in a tight group. Zack squeezed in between Wren’s silver lamé and Liz’s pink layers of lace, looking like the mischievous tag-along of an elf and a fairy godmother. Doug stood beside Angela on Wren’s other side, and Jay and I stood at the back. When the photographer complained about our heights, Jay bent slightly at the knees, and I took off my shoes, but Angela snapped at him to make it head and shoulders.
Just as the photographer told us to say, “High school blows cheese!” Brooke came inside, all pretty, blond perfection.
“Oh, look, it’s the freak-show shot,” she said snidely.
As though in a perfectly timed answer, Lady Gaga began thumping out from the dancehall.
“Baby, we were born this way!” Zack yelled at Brooke.
“Only some of you were smiling,” the photographer complained.
“It’s time to let our freak flag fly,” Doug directed. “On my count — ready? And action!”
As one, we yelled and punched the air. Liz was holding her tiara, Zack his corsage, while I waved one of my cross-dresser shoes. We all sang along to the song, laughing, pulling faces, and posing in every weird way we could imagine, while Brooke frowned disapprovingly at us, tapping her small foot impatiently as she waited for her shot in front of the lens.
There was a moment in the flash-lit madness when a realization hit me with the force of a minor explosion. We freaks were the ones that belonged. Not the Brookes of this world with their average shapes and heights, clear skin, straight hair, and blandly attractive faces. They were in the minority.
The rest of us, the majority of us, all felt like misfits in some way. Each of us was unique, different in some way that made us strange or unacceptable to those who wanted us to conform to their definition of “normal.”
Jay and his sister confused and disappointed their father, who thought sons should play sports and daughters should wear dresses. Zack was an aberration in a family who thought straight was the only way to date. My mother was different, and I was bizarre to anyone who thought “feminine” should come in small packages. Wren was too short, Liz too tubby, Mark was too serious, and Tim not serious enough. Doug was too arty for a boy, Chloe not interested enough in fashion for a girl, and Loretta defied anyone’s classifications of masculine and feminine. My father was a fifty-something father-to-be, and Jim — well, Jim loved Elvis. Enough said.
None of us was normal. But “normal,” as I’d learned in math, was just a statistical concept, an averaged smoothing out of all diverse and interesting permutations to some hypothetical midpoint so generalized it was unlikely to surprise or offend. Or to delight.
Normal was nice. Normal was bland. Normal was damned boring. Our differences, our own brand of crazy, were what made each of us special and unique and fascinating.
For the first time in my life, I knew I fit right in. Right here, right at this moment, with this crazy mixed bag of kids, I belonged.
The photographer interrupted my epiphany. “I’m not taking any more group shots,” he insisted. “You need to pair up for the couples shots. Those are the ones your parents pay for, kids.”
I stepped away from the group, smiling with a joy that came from a certainty located deep inside me. Because — finally — I got it. I didn’t want to be five foot five of normal. I didn’t want regular-sized feet. I didn’t want to be predictable or typical or average. I wanted to be exceptional. Hell, I already was exceptional. It was time to own it.
When my turn came, I stood straight and tall in front of the camera, lifted my chin and announced, “I have no partner,” before the photog could even ask.
“Can you sit or take off your heels?” he asked.
“No. I want a full-length shot of me in this dress, same as everyone else gets.”
“You’re not like everyone else.”
“Nobody is.”
Clearly irritated, he moved his tripod and made adjustments to his camera. “You’re making my life harder, kid,” he grumbled. “I’m not happy.”
“Oh really, which one are you then — Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, Sleepy or Doc?” I asked, cracking up Jay and Jessica, who were waiting next in line.
After I’d had my photo taken, I sailed into the ballroom and began dancing. I didn’t stop all night. I danced with Zack and Rob. I danced with Liz. I danced with jesters and jokers and even, briefly, with Tim, who moved his feet so quickly, I couldn’t step on his toes. I danced with Chloe, then with Chloe and Rob, and then in a massive throng, all of us jumping in time to the music until the sprung floor was bouncing, and I was sure we’d crash right through it to the world waiting beneath and beyond.
Light-headed, gasping and hot, I snuck outside for a few minutes and took a moment to send a selfie and a text.
Hey Mom, Having so much fun :D Really glad I came. Wish you could see the awesome collective craziness! Love you.
The reply came instantly.
Love you, too. I’m so proud — of the both of us!
When I went back inside, a slower song was playing.
“Can I have this dance?” It was Jay, leaning against the doorway. Waiting for me?
“Won’t Jessica mind?”
“I think she’s planning on running away with the D.J.”
I glanced over to the music table. Sure enough, Jessica and the D.J. were all over each other.
“For old times’ sake?” Jay held out his arms in invitation, and I slipped right into them.
He pulled me close, moved his hands around my waist and rested their warmth against the bare skin of my back. I threaded my arms around his neck, rested my head against his shoulder and held on tight as we swayed to the music — a new version of an old song about fast cars, and feeling like you belonged, like you could be someone. You and me both, lady. I belonged in myself, and I belonged in Jay’s arms, too.
I wondered if there was a chance for us to get together again, now that there were no secrets holding us apart. For new times’ sake. For the sake of the new me, who finally felt confident enough to trust her whole self in a relationship with this amazing guy.
Chloe and Greg rotated past us. His eyes were closed in apparent bliss, but she noticed Jay’s and my clinch and gave me an encouraging thumbs-up before moving on.
When Jay pulled back slightly to look down at me, I almost whimpered at the loss of contact.
“Guess what?” he asked.
You still like me? You’ve guessed that I still like you, and none of the rest matters?
“I give up,” I said.
“I got into Julliard.” He said it softly but proudly, his eyes gleaming more gold than green in the dim light.
“Of course you did,” I said, seizing the excuse to hug him, to plant a congratulatory kiss on the cheek of my golden boy. “I should probably get your autograph now, before you’re too famous to remember me. Though it’s entirely possible that I’ll win my first Oscar before you do.”
He frowned down at me in bemusement.
“For costume design,” I said.
“You got in? At the fashion school in New York?” He grinned widely, and I only just resisted touching the smile lines fanned out at the corners of his eyes.
“I got a full ride,” I said.
“So, we’ll both be in New York at the same time?”
“Yeah, but it’s a big city,” I warned.
“True. But I’m a big guy and you’re a tall girl — we stand out in a crowd. I’ll find you. And if we don’t screw things up again, maybe we could be big and tall together.”
“Mind if I interrupt?” Jessica said. I pulled back guiltily, but Jay held on to my hand.
“Look, is it okay if I ditch you?” she said to Jay. “My ex wants to get back together again.” She
jerked her head back toward the D.J.
“I can understand that,” said Jay, his eyes on me.
“Somehow, I didn’t think you two would mind,” she said, with a knowing look. She waved a couple of fingers and left.
“I’ve been dumped at the prom,” Jay said in a tone of mock-hurt.
“You should’ve come alone,” I teased. “It’s harder to get dumped by yourself.”
“I should’ve come with you.” He was serious now.
I swallowed, gazing back at him. The beautiful song had ended, and some awful uhnts-uhnts house music was playing. In the middle of the noise and movement, Jay and I stood as still as statues. What were we waiting for? Hadn’t we wasted enough time already?
“Do you think … do we have to wait for New York?” I asked him. I had to yell it over the music. “Or could we start now?”
Breathless, kind of shocked by what I’d just said, I stared hard at Jay’s lips. They mouthed one word, slowly, exaggeratedly.
“Now.”
He pulled me tight up against his full, glorious height and — in front of everyone, with no bet and no secrets and no holding back, and on no one’s cue but our own — we kissed.
At once, the wind was back. And it was the same, but it was also different. This time it came at least as much from inside me as it came from Jay. It was a hurricane of energy that raced through my heart and blew through my head, gusting away the cobwebs of my old hang-ups, my self-imposed limits, and childish fears.
It roared inside me, this new wind, like an unstoppable force blowing a new life into me. Blowing me into a new life. I knew it would carry me all the way to New York and beyond, that it would drive me up against Jay and meld me with him, that it would propel us through the passion of our love, and the adventures of theater and fashion.
And I knew that it would carry me further still — to a place beyond heartbreak or loneliness, to a place unfettered by failure or triumph. I knew that it would blow me all the way into myself and spin me around in its vortex, until I fit comfortably snug inside my own skin. Home at last.
~ 54 ~
A bliss-filled hour later, Jay and I noticed that our friends were starting to leave.
“After-party at Jim’s?” I asked him.
“Hey, it wouldn’t be prom without Elvis,” Jay said.
I found Chloe, and we fetched our bags from Greg’s car then joined the line in the girls’ restrooms to change into our after-party outfits. I slipped into my wide-skirted, fifties-style dress — another homemade creation which fit me perfectly — and kicked off the stilettoes with a deep sigh of relief. Never had I been so glad to put on my roomy, flat men’s high-top sneakers. It had been fabulous to be glamorous, but when it came to shoes, I realized, nothing beat comfort.
On the way to Jim’s, Jay kept looking over at me and smiling, and we both talked nonstop about everything that had happened since Christmas. Plus some things from before.
When we pulled up in the lot outside the diner, I said, “Before we go any further, are we agreed we’ll do it differently this time? More talking, more honesty and understanding?”
“Yeah.” He shook my hand, sealing the deal. “And no Tim, or Mark, or anyone else?”
I nodded. “And no Faye, or anyone else.” We shook again.
“More movies — some of them from this century — and less ice-skating.”
“Uh-huh. Less family drama, and more kisses.” I blushed as I said it, but I still said it. New confident me.
“Absolutely. In fact, more making out all round.” This time, when we shook hands, he didn’t let mine go. He played with my fingers, sending tingles up my arms and sparking a warm pulse at the core of me.
“And definitely no secrets!” I insisted, my voice breathy.
“Oh dear,” Jay said.
My heart dropped. What now? “You have a secret you haven’t told me?”
“A terrible one I share with my mother.”
Jay’s face was one hundred percent serious. But that meant nothing. He could still be pulling my leg. Couldn’t he? Please, please let it not be something awful, please let nothing ruin this moment, our new beginning.
“Do you both have a third nipple, or webbed toes?”
“Worse than that, according to my father. He hates it.”
“Tell me now!” I demanded.
“Come on,” he said, opening the car door. “I’ll show you.”
Inside, Jay headed straight for Jim. After a brief chat, a beaming Jim strutted over to the jukebox, while Jay grabbed my waist, kissed the worried crease between my eyes, and tugged me onto the section of floor where the tables and chairs had been cleared away to create a small dance floor.
The music started its distinctive guitar strums, Jay pulled me close, and we started dancing. As Elvis urged us everybody to rock the jailhouse, Jay whirled me around like a lightweight rag doll with my skirts spinning out at my sides. He swung me over his back and between his legs, twirled me in an arc around his torso, scooped me up in his arms, tossed me high and caught me low, while I gasped wide-eyed, and tried not to fall or get tangled in his legs.
“You can ballroom dance!” I accused when the music thrummed to a stop and everyone in the diner stood and applauded our performance.
Tori, who stood beside the stand of condiment bottles, clutching a ketchup-stained wiping cloth, stared sourly at Jay and me. She didn’t applaud. She’d cheer up when she discovered I hadn’t gone to the prom with Rob, but though she’d won eight hundred bucks, I felt like I’d won something more than the bet. Something priceless. I wished Steve could’ve been there to see us, too, but you can’t have everything — not even when you’re queen of the world.
Besides, having Jay was more than enough. He’d helped me tick off every item on my bucket list of experiences to make me feel adorably cute. Except one.
“Hey, Jay? I need you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Scoop me.”
“Scoop you?” He made a gesture like spooning ice-cream.
“I want to be scooped!” I lifted my arms, dug them under an imaginary person and hoisted them up, to demonstrate what I meant.
“Your wish is my command.”
As though I weighed no more than your average girl, he scooped me up in his arms, carried me easily over to the table where Chloe and Greg sat, cheering us on, and sat down, holding me on his lap.
“Was that good for you?” he asked, laughing.
I kissed the smiley crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “It was perfect!”
Bucket list complete, I could let go of the need to feel like anything other than who I really was. And who I was, was gloriously tall. End of story.
I was high on love and laughter, and feeling magnanimous to everyone. When I was crowned, I decided, I’d ditch the Law of Tall Girls. Let people date whoever they liked — the world would be a better place with more love and more variety.
It didn’t matter who you dated, or how you looked. What mattered was how you felt.
And I felt on top of the world, like the queen of all of me.
~ The end ~
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Peyton and Jay’s story!
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- Joanne Macgregor
&
nbsp; Acknowledgements
My thanks to my editor, Chase Night, and to my fabulous beta-readers, Edyth Bulbring, Nicola Long and Emily Macgregor for their invaluable feedback. I deeply appreciate each one of you!
Other young adult books by Joanne Macgregor
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Scarred
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Recoil (The Recoil Trilogy, Book 1)
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The Recoil Trilogy is also available in a great-value boxed set.
Refuse (The Recoil Trilogy, Book 2)
Everyone wants Jinxy, except the one she loves. In a near-future USA decimated by an incurable plague and tightly controlled by a repressive government, teenagers with special skills are recruited and trained to fight in the war against terror. Now a rebellion is brewing.
Rebel (The Recoil Trilogy, Book 3)
Can you win a war without losing yourself? Sixteen-year-old online gamer Jinxy James has been trained as an expert sniper in the war against a terrorist-spread plague which has decimated the USA. Now she’s a wanted fugitive, on the run with a rebel splinter group, risking everything to save and protect her loved ones.
The Law of Tall Girls Page 29