by Lara Zielin
“No, it’s not. But I’m just not the same person I was before it came. I’m certain I went back to work too soon after the lumpectomy, and every day I’m just so damn tired. I haven’t been making good choices on a lot of fronts, not just the prom. I was looking at radiation on top of everything else, and I just wasn’t sure I could handle it.”
“Is that why you resigned without a fight?” I asked, watching my mom’s shoulders shake through her suit. She nodded.
“At first, I thought the whole thing could just blow over. That’s why I was so furious when you spoke to Rod Barris. At that point I realized that I might not be able to keep the whole thing quiet. But then I slowly realized that maybe things shouldn’t be quiet. That maybe I should rethink my priorities and just step down.”
My mom walked back to the table. She wiped away the tears that had left her face blotchy and swollen. She looked like she was allergic to her emotions. “When the whole thing happened with Neil, I was so upset, Aggie. It was such a blow. Not because you’d been caught, but because I realized I knew so little about what was going on with you. Not only had I been tired, but I’d convinced myself that because I was an educational professional, I understood you. But really, I think I just told myself that because I couldn’t think of a way to overcome all this . . . difference we’d built up between us.”
My heart contracted and pushed a bubble of emotion into my throat. I tried to keep it down. Don’t blame yourself, I wanted to say. I’m at fault, too.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I said. “I hid stuff from you and sort of shut down too. I haven’t exactly been the easiest teenager ever.”
The bubble was back in my throat, but this time it popped and tears started rolling down my cheeks. “I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to let you down. I’m sorry if you’re ashamed of me.”
“Oh, Aggie,” my mom said, then kissed the tip of her fingers and placed them on my swollen eye. “I’m not ashamed of you, honey. I’m sorry that I made everything so complicated and awful. I love you, and I’m so very proud of you for trying so hard to do what you believed was right.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, taking in the cool feel of her fingers on my hot, swollen face.
We sat that way for a long time, fingers and faces touching. For the first time in days, the frantic anxiety of the prom faded, replaced by the quiet of the kitchen all around us.
After spending a half hour in the bathroom soaking my face to cut down the swelling, I made a phone call.
“Hey, shit dick.”
“Why, Aggie. It’s good to hear your voice,” Rod Barris said. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear from you again. I figured you were done speaking to me.”
“Well, you did totally scam me,” I said dryly. “You made me think you’d change your stupid story if I told you who the father of Sylvia’s kid was.”
“It’s not such a stupid story if you think about it. It’s all over the evening news. The story I just did—‘Investigation into Prom Scandal’—got a lot of attention. In fact, I may get a new job out of it. I have an interview at the Paul Bunyan Press in Minneapolis next week.”
I suddenly pictured that scene in Planet Earth where thousands of cockroaches crawl on top of the massive piles of bat poop in those caves in Borneo. Rod was totally one of those cockroaches, crawling all over St. Davis’s crap.
“Well, good for you, Rod,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could. “My mom and I will think of you when we see Sylvia get her crown at the prom.”
There was a pause. “You and your mom? Are you going to prom together?”
“Well, technically, I do have a guy meeting me at the dance,” I said, thinking of Fitz and trying not to smile, “but as my official, bona fide date, yes, I’ve decided I’m taking my mom.”
Rod laughed again. “Well, I’ll be. And I suppose you’re calling me so I can print the story and get you some good press?”
“Something like that. Just so people don’t think this is the last they’ve seen of Gail Winchester. Or me, for that matter.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee we’ll have the column inches free. The paper has plenty of content these days, as I’m sure you can imagine. Getting this story in will be a long shot.”
“Well, you must be used to that. I mean, look at the odds stacked against your gene pool evolving.”
Rod scoffed. “Tell me, just out of curiosity, what’s your motivation for doing this? I mean really. Your mom? At a dance?”
“I just want people to know that I’m not ashamed of my mom. And she’s not ashamed of me.”
“Hmmm,” said Rod, apparently thinking this over. “Very touching. You think you guys will wear matching dresses?”
I could hear the sarcasm in his voice, but I refused to let him get to me.
“Thanks for your time,” I said. And then hung up on him.
Chapter Thirty-seven
SATURDAY, MAY 2 / 6:05 P.M.
“Aggie! Are you ready?” my mom called up from the bottom of the stairs.
In the bathroom, I zipped up my gown and put the last sparkly barrette into my hair—which I’d had done that afternoon at an actual salon.
“Coming!” I called.
I took one more look at myself in the mirror. My eyes were shadowed with “Expensive Pink” instead of “Decay.” My lips were a soft rose, and my cheeks wore a matching blush. I looked about as un-Goth as I could get, and I loved it. For the first time in forever, I felt like I was looking at myself.
My left eye, still black and blue from where Beth hit me, stood out on my skin. I hadn’t tried to cover it with any makeup—not for the dance or for anything else. I’d wanted people to see it. I’d wanted to show that it’s okay to be bruised. Everybody gets bruised. It’s whether or not you let the bruises wound you more deeply that matters.
Here goes nothing, I thought, and stepped out of the bathroom, trying not to trip on my heels as I made my grand entrance.
“Woo hoo!” Jess hooted from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s the fisher queen!”
I laughed, thinking I’d have to tell Fitz about that comment when he met me later at the dance. I was already excited that when I told him my gown was the color of a lake at sunrise, he totally understood what I was talking about.
“You look awesome,” said Jess.
“Thanks.” I smiled, making it to the bottom of the steps. “So do you.” Jess and her mom were wearing little black strapless dresses that made them both look like they were twenty-two years old.
“Oh, Aggie,” my mom said as I approached her, “you look beautiful.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “You too.”
And it was true. She had her hair pinned up, with a few curls escaping here and there. Her lean frame fit into a shapely black dress with a “mermaid flare,” as the salesclerk called it, that ruffled at the bottom in sheer petals.
“Enough talk!” my dad said, coming forward with the camera in one hand and a box in the other. “I want to get a picture of all these lovely gals!”
He put an arm around me, squeezing hard. “Aggie,” he said, “you look wonderful.”
I caught a reflection of myself in the hallway mirror and thought maybe he was right. My lake-colored gown, with its empire waist, made me look way skinny. Eat your heart out, Neil, I thought.
As if on cue, Jess grinned said, “Neil is going to die when he sees you, Ag.”
I grinned back. In a way, while I didn’t want him to die when he saw me (if he came to the prom at all, that is), part of me hoped he’d at least ache a little bit. Especially when he spotted me with my arms wrapped around Fitz.
“Hey, watch this,” said Jess, extending the ring finger of her left hand. “I’ve been practicing doing that, just for Neil. It’s not my middle finger since that one’s missing, but I figure it’ll get the point across when he asks you to dance at the prom, which a thousand bucks says he’ll do. Especially now that you’re famous and everything.”
Jess was referring to the “Mom Prom” newspaper article that had run in today’s paper. Rod had printed the story about me taking my mom to the prom after all. PRINCIPAL, DAUGHTER TO HOLD HEADS HIGH AT DANCE, the headline had read.
This afternoon, a few other girls in the school had called to tell me they were planning on taking their moms to prom, too, mostly in protest for the way things had gone down at the school. About half the student body was still convinced that something had happened with the election—though what, no one was able to say officially—and that we’d deserved a doover. Ideally with more candidates to choose from than just Sylvia and Marissa.
Despite everything, Sylvia, it seemed, would get her crown and her moment in the sun on prom night. But I had made sure that, by bringing my mom, I’d leave my own impression on the night. When I showed up, it would be more than just a gala for Sylvia and Beth.
“Here,” my dad said after the first round of photos was over. He handed me the box he’d been holding earlier. “I had this made for you.”
“What is it?” I asked, opening the lid. And when I caught sight of it, I laughed out loud. It was a corsage, but it was made entirely of fishing lures—hooks removed, of course—each one layered on top of the other to resemble a small bouquet.
“I love it!” I cried, throwing my arms around my dad’s neck. “Thanks.”
My dad squeezed me back. “You’re welcome,” he said, and his voice caught a little. I blinked back the tears in my own eyes, relieved that my dad and I were finally on solid ground again. He’d apologized to me about the tournament and had admitted the bass dying was his fault.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I’d replied. Though I did try and use the situation to guilt him into getting a new boat.
Back in the living room, my dad smiled. “I got a lure corsage for your mom, too,” my dad said, grabbing another box off a nearby table.
“Really?”
My mom held out her wrist. “Let’s get this bad boy on. And maybe I’ll actually use these things sometime. What do you think about that?”
The idea of my mom fishing made me grin so big my bruised face hurt, and right then my dad took another photo, officially starting round two of the picture marathon.
“There’ll be lots more photos like this,” Jess said, elbowing me as my dad took his nine-hundredth shot, or what felt like it. “Rhonda Pritchard said on the news she expected papers, magazines, and TV stations to cover it from as far away as London. They could be storming the scene, for all we know. Real live paparazzi.”
“For us?” I asked.
Jess shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe for Sylvia?”
“Well, it’s okay by me,” I said, and meant it.
Whatever happened tonight, we would take it in stride. If anything, we’d swallow back tears, since we’d all know that Sylvia and her baby deserved better than Ryan even if she didn’t know that truth for herself yet.
“I guess we should go find out if it’s true, if our junior prom really is one of the most magical nights of our lives,” said Jess, grabbing her purse.
“I’m not sure I believe in magic,” I said.
“Me neither. So maybe we should go in there and raise some hell.”
“All right then,” I said. “Let’s hit the Hofbräu Haus.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My life sparkles like a bedazzled prom dress because of the people who are in it and share it with me (my life, that is, not the prom dress). While I’ll never be able to thank my peeps adequately for their support and help getting The Implosion of Aggie Winchester out the door and off to the dance, I will nevertheless go ahead and take a stab at it here.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Stacey Barney, for her guidance and expertise from start to finish. In her capable hands, this story came to life. Thank you for working so hard to make The Implosion of Aggie Winchester what you knew—and what I hoped—it could be.
Thanks also to my agent, Susanna Einstein, who has the patience of Job when it comes to us writers. Well, okay, when it comes to me. Thanks for getting into the ring when I need you to and always having my back. If I could, I would buy you a pony.
Thanks, too, to the rest of the good folks at LJK Literary Management, especially Larry Kirshbaum. I often wonder why you’re not barrel-chested, because how does that huge heart of yours even begin to fit behind your ribs?
I am super-duper thankful for my University of Michigan family, especially my colleagues in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Thanks for bringing the love when Donut Days came out and for your understanding when I frequent the coffeemaker, bleary eyed, after a long night of editing. I am especially grateful to Peggy Burns for creating a culture of giving not just in the office, but in life. I just looked up awesome in the dictionary and it totally had your name in the definition.
My other Michigan shout-out is to Brad Meltzer, who bleeds maize and blue and oozes kindness from every pore. (Sorry, was that a gross visual?) Thanks for giving my writing career a jump start and for inspiring me to become an author who says thank you more often.
My writing partners in crime are invaluable beyond measure. Dan Tricarico is the bestest friend I never met (in person, anyway), and Rhonda Stapleton is crazy and wonderful and probably has rock fever. Ellen Baker has shared the tears and frustrations and joys related to just about everything I’ve written, The Implosion of Aggie Winchester included. Thanks, Ellen, for being a friend, writing partner, and fellow chocolate addict.
Thanks to Colleen Newvine and John Tebeau, who still head up my cheering section. You are framily—that is, friends and family both—and I love that you were with me when the deal with The Implosion of Aggie Winchester was finalized. You were also with me when some other stuff happened, but we won’t talk about that right now. Suffice it to say, thanks for always . . . well, being there. And for being fabulous.
Thanks to the Turncoat Spinecrackers, the 2009 Debutants, the women of Ypsi Studio, Diana Rose, Lauren Myracle, and anyone who’s ever been in a single one of my wacky videos.
Thank you to my parents, Chuck and Susan, and my other parents, Bob and Dianne Hess.
And finally, thanks to my husband, Rob. You’re the reason I’m a halfway decent writer, because you inspired me to go there with my stories and because you believed I had enough courage to put it all on paper. You’re also the reason I have a packed lunch during the week, that I dream big, and that I buy dresses I might otherwise not. You’re my heart, and I love you more than pink kittens. Which, as you know, is an awful lot.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
Donut Days