by Diane Hoh
“It’s very nice,” Mitch said. “You look very nice, Liza.”
Liza seemed then to become aware of Margaret, standing at Mitch’s side. Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you? What are you doing with Mitch? Go away!” She reached out and slapped at Margaret’s hand, still in Mitch’s. “Let go of him!”
“Liza!” a voice from the doorway called. Heads turned. Margaret recognized the couple striding quickly across the floor. A tall, authoritative-looking woman, expensively dressed in a maroon suit, and an equally tall gentleman: Liza’s parents. Both faces were anxious, and, Margaret thought, embarrassed. “Liza, dear, what are you doing here? How did you sneak past us?”
Liza turned. “Oh, hello, Mother. Father. I can’t leave just yet. I haven’t danced with Mitch. You will just have to wait.” She turned back to Mitch, smiling up at him expectantly.
“No,” her mother said firmly, “Liza, we have to go now.”
Mitch looked down at Margaret, a question in his eyes.
She nodded. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Go ahead.”
Then Margaret stood aside as Mitch led Liza, in her bizarre garb, out onto the dance floor. He waved a hand toward the band and they began playing a slow melody. The colored ball above the dancers’ heads spun gently, surrounding them with a soft rainbow glow.
Liza lay her head on Mitch’s chest as he spun her slowly around the floor. For those brief moments, at least, all of the rage and the hatred seemed to have drained out of her, and she looked content.
Margaret felt tears stinging her eyes and, when she looked at Caroline, she was surprised to see tears there, too, sliding slowly down Caroline’s angled cheeks.
No one in the gym uttered a word. There was only the sweet, poignant music and the couple gliding along the shiny hardwood floor, all eyes on them.
Liza’s parents, watching from the sidelines with pain in their faces, waited patiently.
When the music ended, Liza’s head lifted, she looked up at Mitch and, smiling, said,” Thank you. That was very nice.” Then she turned toward her parents and said, “I’m very tired now. I’d like to go home, please.”
They took her home.
Epilogue
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN an hour, maybe less, before spirits lifted again and the fun resumed. But it did resume. It was prom night, their “happy ending” to four years of high school, and after a while the image of the sad, sick girl standing in the doorway in a dress too big for her, her face a clown mask, faded. Laughter and music and chatter replaced the painful silence.
Margaret, dancing in Mitch’s arms, had no idea what would happen with them. Maybe they would go their separate ways when college began in the fall. But as long as she lived, a part of her would always love him for what he had done for Liza.
Liza would spend the rest of her life paying for what she’d done. One little dance didn’t seem like much to give her in comparison.
“So,” Mitch said, looking down at her with a smile, “you never did answer me about soft-ball. I need you on my team this summer. How about it?”
“Well, let’s see,” she answered slowly, “I have to work at Quartet, and get ready for college. But I might be able to squeeze in some time to play.”
Caroline danced by, smiling. Margaret remembered what good sports Jeannine and Lacey had been, finally, about not attending the prom. “There’s just one condition,” she added quickly. “Caroline, Jeannine, and Lacey play, too. We’re a package deal.” Because we’re a quartet, too, she thought. Like Liza and her friends. But I want us to stay that way, for as long as we possibly can. “Deal?”
“Are they any good?”
Margaret grinned up at him. “The best. Like me, they are the very best.”
“Done,” he said, and laughed.
A Biography of Diane Hoh
Diane Hoh (b. 1937) is a bestselling author of young-adult fiction. Born in Warren, Pennsylvania, Hoh grew up with eight siblings and parents who encouraged her love of reading from an early age. After high school, she spent a year at St. Bonaventure University before marrying and raising three children. She and her family moved often, finally settling in Austin, Texas.
Hoh sold two stories to Young Miss magazine, but did not attempt anything longer until her children were fully grown. She began her first novel, Loving That O’Connor Boy (1985), after seeing an ad in a publishing trade magazine requesting submissions for a line of young-adult fiction. Although the manuscript was initially rejected, Hoh kept writing, and she soon completed her second full-length novel, Brian’s Girl (1985). One year later, her publisher reversed course, buying both novels and launching Hoh’s career as a young-adult author.
After contributing novels to two popular series, Cheerleaders and the Girls of Canby Hall, Hoh found great success writing thrillers, beginning with Funhouse (1990), a Point Horror novel that became a national bestseller. Following its success, Hoh created the Nightmare Hall series, whose twenty-nine novels chronicle a university plagued by dark secrets. After concluding Nightmare Hall with 1995’s The Voice in the Mirror, Hoh wrote Virus (1996), which introduced the seven-volume Med Center series, which charts the challenges and mysteries of a hospital in Massachusetts.
In 1998, Hoh had a runaway hit with Titanic: The Long Night, a story of two couples—one rich, one poor—and their escape from the doomed ocean liner. That same year, Hoh released Remembering the Titanic, which picked up the story one year later. Together, the two were among Hoh’s most popular titles. She continues to live and write in Austin.
An eleven-year-old Hoh with her best friend, Margy Smith. Hoh’s favorite book that year was Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.
A card from Hoh’s mother written upon the publication of her daughter’s first book. Says Hoh, “This meant everything to me. My mother was a passionate reader, as was my dad.”
Hoh and her mother in Ireland in 1985. Hoh recalls, “I kissed the Blarney Stone, which she said was redundant because I already had the ‘gift of gab.’ Later, I would use some of what we saw there in Titanic: The Long Night as Paddy, Brian, and Katie deported from Ireland.”
An unused publicity photo of Hoh.
Hoh with her daughter Jenny in Portland, Oregon, in 2008. Says Hoh, “While there, I received a call from a young filmmaker in Los Angeles who wanted to make The Train into a film. They ran out of money before the project got off the ground. Such is life.”
Hoh in 1991, addressing a class at the junior high she had attended in Warren, Pennsylvania.
A 1995 photo taken in Austin, Texas, with Hoh’s grandchildren. Says Hoh, “Although my deadlines for Nightmare Hall were tight, I made time for my grandchildren: Mike, Alex, and Rachel. I'm so glad they live here.”
A current photo of Hoh at home in Austin, Texas.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1996 by Diane Hoh
cover design by Andrea Uva
978-1-4532-4815-7
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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