The Prom

by Saundra Mitchell

  “I’m sorry,” I say, even though it’s not my fault. I hold up the bear helplessly.

  Principal Hawkins eyes it in my hand. His kind face hardens, and he straightens his back. “This is unacceptable, Emma. We’ll find out who did it, and they’ll be handled appropriately.”

  “Please don’t,” I say. “Things are bad enough as it is.”

  Alyssa puts a hand on my arm. Her dark eyes are liquid, too. I feel the pull between us; it’s hard not to give in. If I could collapse in her arms, everything—well, it wouldn’t be all right. But it would be better, at least for a moment. Softly, she says, “If you let them get away with it . . .”

  “No, it’s not worth it.” Folding into myself again, I can barely say it above a whisper, but I do say it: “Maybe none of this is worth it.”

  Principal Hawkins shakes his head. “No, uh-uh. You have rights, Emma. I have an email from the ACLU liaison. They’re prepared to step in if they have to. In fact, they said your case has already attracted some attention online.”

  “Besides on my channel?” I say, stunned.

  “Oh yes. This is a big deal,” Principal Hawkins says. “For you, absolutely. But for all the kids just like you, too.”

  I blink in disbelief. “What are you saying? I’m like a gay, white Rosa Parks?”

  Principal Hawkins gives me a look. “Uh, no. I’m absolutely not saying that.”

  “You’re the gay, white Emma Nolan,” Alyssa says. “You’re leading this charge.”

  “Exactly. And I’m proud to be a part of that,” Principal Hawkins says. “This is so much better than dealing with students on meth.”

  At that, Alyssa and I both rear our heads back and say, “Wut?”

  Principal Hawkins waves it off. “I’ve got a principal friend in Terre Haute. All he deals with are bad smells and meth, all day long.”

  For some reason, that breaks the heaviness of the moment. I laugh in spite of myself. No, not myself. In spite of everyone else. I laugh because I’m not on drugs. I laugh because the legal cavalry is coming. I laugh because . . . because I need it. I even slump against Alyssa. Just a little bit, just for a moment.

  “Well, I’m not on meth yet. We’ll see how the next couple of days go.”

  “We’ll get you through this,” Principal Hawkins promises.

  And then Milo Potts, the FCK treasurer, comes screaming around the corner. Both figuratively—he’s running at top speed—and literally, his voice cracking. “Principal Hawkins! Principal Hawkins! Come quick!”

  Calmly, Principal Hawkins approaches him. “Everything’s going to be all right, Milo. What’s going on?”

  “There are people outside,” Milo shouts. “They have picket signs about prom!”

  Oh. Crap.

  8. The Invasion

  ALYSSA

  There is trouble right here in Edgewater, Indiana. Crammed behind three sets of double doors that lead into the parking lot, I stand with Emma as we stare at the picketers outside.

  We’re not the only ones. It feels like most of the high school is pressed in here with us. The small space buzzes like a beehive, and it’s unbearably hot with so many bodies and so little room. Also, it smells like at least half the people in here just finished gym class without hitting the showers. But we have to be pressed to the glass, because we can’t miss the biggest show ever to hit James Madison High.

  Outside, Principal Hawkins stands on the curb, his back to us. He’s got one hand on his hip, and the other—I’m guessing—clapped to his brow. Though we’re all dying to hear what’s going on out there, Principal Hawkins told us to stay inside, and he said it in a Stern Dad voice that would make most of us feel legitimately guilty for letting him down. It feels like there are hundreds of cell phones flashing, all turned toward the parking lot . . . and the strangers with protest signs that fill it.

  “Who are these people?” I ask under my breath.

  Emma subtly loops her pinkie with mine and squeezes. “I don’t know.”

  Nearby, somebody reads one of the signs as it turns toward us. “Classically trained singer dancer activist?”

  “What the hell?” somebody else says.

  I’m speechless. Literally. A dark-haired woman carries a sign that reads ANNIE GET YOUR GIRL, and the sign is the least striking thing about her. Her hair is short and tight, and her lipstick is one shade darker than blood-red. She’s wearing this jumpsuit-pantsuit thing in the same scarlet, and her heels are sharp enough to serve steak-on-a-stick at the county fair. When she stops to talk to Principal Hawkins, she talks with her whole body: shoulders thrown back, hand gesturing at the sky.

  Whatever she’s saying, Principal Hawkins hangs on every word. He’s a moth caught in her light, nodding and nodding and nodding.

  From behind us, Nick and Kevin boom out, “Go! Go! GooooolDEN?!”

  Everyone else calls back, “WEEEEvils, go, go!”

  With that display of athletic privilege, Nick and Kevin cut through the crowd. Arms held out straight, they shove open the front doors. And since they’re the most popular guys in school, everybody else pours out behind them.

  In the rush, I lose hold of Emma’s pinkie and we’re swept out of different doors. I can’t even hope to get back to her until everybody stops pushing.

  “Hey,” a guy yells, “it’s Mr. Pecker!”

  And . . . he’s right! My mouth drops open, and I stare at the heavyset man with the NO MORE MR. NICE GAY sign.

  He’s probably Principal Hawkins’s age, but he has a perfectly smooth face that’s instantly recognizable. He used to play the weird neighbor on Talk to the Hand, which we all watched in middle school.

  He was so popular, they even aired extra webisodes with him. They’re probably still online, in fact. Whenever the kids on the show got into some kind of trouble, he’d randomly burst in and try to solve everything. Usually in ways that blew up in his face and threatened to destroy property.

  And now he’s at James Madison High, in a silver-gray suit, carrying a blatantly pro-LGBTQ sign. When people recognize him—and you can tell they do, because suddenly there’s an echo of “Pecker, Pecker, Pecker!” in the air—he throws his head back ever so slightly. Like he’s soaking their attention up, like it has a reverse-aging effect. His skin is really smooth—maybe it does.

  “All students,” Principal Hawkins booms, his voice rising over the crowd, “need to return to their homeroom classes immediately!”

  “Why?” booms the brunette woman. Impressively, her voice carries better than our principal’s does. She’s shorter than he is but somehow takes up all of the space in their tight little circle. “Are you afraid of a little truth? Are you afraid these young Indianans will be exposed to . . . the truth?!”

  Principal Hawkins raises his hands. “No, this is a matter of safet—”

  The woman cuts him off. “Sir, I am the Dee Dee Allen, and the spotlight only dims when I will it! I read three-quarters of a news story about dear little Emma Nolan, and I knew I had to come!”

  I turn my head so fast, I think I pop something in my spine. Across the way, Emma freezes. I recognize that look on her face, the flight-because-she’s-not-going-to-fight face. Suddenly, everyone’s looking at her. It couldn’t have been scripted more perfectly. Emma’s face is bright red, and she clutches the strangled teddy bear in her hands.

  “This,” Dee Dee Allen, mysterious picketer, continues, “is an OUTRAGE! You act like a mob of angry villagers while poor Emma’s heart breaks! And let me tell you, I’ve played Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast; I know all about angry mobs!”

  “Ms. Allen,” Principal Hawkins says, but she interrupts him.

  “The prom should be for everyone! Straight and gay and LGBTQIA! Plus all the other letters I don’t know, but are all equally worthy of love!”

  Now the kids around me start to roil and boil, a kettle
full of indignation. People shout back, but it’s a mush of sound. The kind of mush that signals the beginning of a riot, actually.

  Little spikes of panic race through me. I don’t think anything really bad will happen, but this . . . this feels like something really bad might happen. I look to Emma again. Her face is strained and anxious. I know she feels the turn in the crowd, too. And she knows—we know—that if they turn, it’ll be on her.

  I am the student council president. I have a responsibility. The last thing I want is for everyone to stare at me and speculate about me. But actually, the last thing I want is for everybody here to hurt Emma. They already threatened her today; this could be the spark before the bang.

  Without another thought, I act. Jumping up on the concrete benches, I throw my hands out. As loud as I can, I call out, “Go! Go! GooooolDEN?!”

  And like it’s built into their DNA, my fellow students all turn toward me and bellow back, “WEEEEvils, go, go!”

  Now that I have all the attention, Ms. Allen and—I hate to call him Mr. Pecker, but I don’t know what else to say—Mr. Pecker look incredibly annoyed. I don’t care. They’re not my concern. My classmates are.

  With everyone looking to me expectantly, I try not to let the woozy feeling in my chest spread too far. Fainting would probably put an end to this dangerous situation, but taking a header into cement seems like it would be counterintuitive.

  Rubbing my hands on my jeans, I say, “These fine people, whoever they are, have a right to their opinion. And . . . and so do you. Everybody should be heard. People have been whispering about prom for too long now. As your student council president, I am saying here and now, let’s have that talk. I’m officially inviting everyone to a public meeting in the gym tonight at six thirty to hash this out, once and for all.”

  I’m absolutely sure I hear Ms. Allen mutter, “Who is this broad?” but I don’t care. Emma catches my eye, then jerks a thumb over her shoulder. She’s not dumb—she’s getting out of here before she gets hurt. Since all eyes are on the parking lot, Emma slips back into the school and disappears from sight. I don’t know if she’s going to bail on the rest of the day or what, and I don’t need to. Wherever she’s going, she’s safe, and that’s what matters.

  My mouth is instantly dry, but I wave a hand at our picketers. “Ms. Allen, Mr. . . .” I don’t want to say Pecker.

  Graciously, the man waves a hand in a flourish and projects, “Glickman. Barry Glickman, star of stage and screen!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Glickman. You and Ms. Allen are welcome to come tonight.” I turn to the students, who stare at me, and I can’t even make out their expressions. Their faces are rapt but unfocused. I hold out my arms to them. “And you’re all invited. So are your parents. Everybody gets a say. This is our school. We will protect it. But this is also our community, and we will respect it. All of it.”

  Now that the spell is broken, Principal Hawkins puts a hand on Ms. Allen’s arm—a really kind of familiar hand, if you ask me. But he regains his authority, and the sharp look that makes even the most beef-hearted senior quail.

  “Thank you, Miss Greene! Now that we’ve set a time to discuss the issue, this gathering is over. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to return to their classes immediately.”

  “But, Tom,” Ms. Allen says, intoning his first name like they’re long-lost friends, distress written across her face in broad strokes. “We haven’t even met the girl!”

  “Later,” Principal Hawkins tells her.

  My classmates break and trickle back inside. Slowly, because you never know when something else might happen, but they keep moving. They straggle until there’s no one left outside but me, Principal Hawkins, and a handful of strangers with picket signs.

  Emma’s gone. Long gone. And even though I put a stop to the human tsunami that threatened to drown her, guilt gnaws in my stomach. I could have done more. Or better. Or something. Because now that the blur of adrenaline is fading, suddenly the realization of what I’ve actually done settles in.

  I just asked everybody in Edgewater to come testify at Emma’s witch trial.

  Oh no.

  A little dizzy, I sink down to sit on the bench, rather than stepping down and staying on my feet. Principal Hawkins exchanges a few more quiet words with Ms. Allen and Mr. Glickman, then strides over to me.

  Even though I’ve never been in trouble at any point during my four-year high school career, I crumple a little as he approaches. To my surprise, he sits down beside me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You showed an incredible amount of leadership just now, Alyssa.”

  Weakly, I say, “Didn’t I make it worse?”

  “No,” he says. His voice is warm and low and comforting. “I think you did what we should have done weeks ago. You’ve dragged this out of the shadows. You’re insisting we handle this civilly and discuss the issue like human beings.”

  Glancing past him, I see Ms. Allen and Mr. Glickman in their own discussion huddle. To Principal Hawkins, and only to him, I admit, “They forced the issue. I was just trying to calm everyone down.”

  “And you don’t think that was worthwhile?”

  For a moment, I’m quiet. Finally, I shake my head, “No, I do.”

  “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, Alyssa. Every step we make toward better is a step in the right direction.”

  At this moment, I can hear Emma cracking a joke about how Hallmark card that sounds. But also laughing at his sincerity—not in a cruel way, just in disbelief. In surprise that anyone can be that optimistic, that full of hope.

  I don’t think it’s funny, though. Those words lodge into me, right between my ribs, the tip of their arrow just nicking my heart.

  Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

  Not perfect. Just good.

  Wow.

  9. John Proctor Problems

  EMMA

  In general, going back to school after the school day is over is not high on my list of good times to be had.

  And it still isn’t. Nan and I pull up to the school at a quarter till six in the hope that I can find Alyssa and talk to her first. But there’s no way that’s happening, because a veritable river of people pour off a bus that says BROADWAY ACROSS THE STATES on the side of it. They have signs, they wear bright colors, they have hair lengths that are inappropriate for both the guys and the girls around these parts.

  Streaming across the parking lot, they march toward the single illuminated door in the dark school: the one that leads to the gym. Their voices ring up to the night sky, singing snatches of show tunes I don’t recognize and barking out cadences I do. They’re here, they’re queer, and they cordially invite the people of my high school to get over it.

  They crash into the Extremely Angry Parents of James Madison High on the sidewalk, mingling like a violent smoothie that no one in their right mind would want to taste. They force a bottleneck at the doors, with people shot through them seemingly at random. The parents yell at the Broadway people to go home and, even better, to go back where they belong. Right in front of all the reporters, who round out the melee.

  Parked along the curb, there are two news vans: one from Evansville, which isn’t far from us, and one from Indianapolis, which is both far and our state capital. They have lights and video cameras, complementing the reporters with just camera-cameras who keep trying to fish people out of the stream to give statements.

  Mr. Thu and Mr. Gonsalves, our school security guards, are doing what they can to keep everyone calm. The way they gently urge the horde inside results in a process about as graceful as stuffing a cattle chute. Which is to say: people move, but it ain’t pretty.

  Nan and I straggle back a little. She clutches my hand, sure and strong. “Bet they wish they’d just let you go to prom in peace, huh?”

  “I’m starting to wish we’d just gone with boys and ditched them after we
got there,” I reply. That’s only 15 percent true. Maybe 25. The number falls and rises with each step I take. Angry voices spill from the gym already. The meeting’s not supposed to start for another half hour, but it’s already bedlam when we get inside.

  The bleachers on either side of the gym are pulled out, but hardly anyone is using them. The Broadway people wave their picket signs on one side, and the only local over there with them is our resident anarchist-slash-goth, who is basically on whatever side causes the most trouble. She ran a student council campaign on the slogan End the Tyranny of Tater Tots at Lunch. (She lost.)

  The locals shake their spirit cowbells (ten dollars each, available at the bookstore or the box office at any Golden Weevils home game) angrily on the other side. They don’t chant. They don’t sing. But they do yell at the Broadway people, so loudly that the veins on their collective foreheads jut out in syncopated time.

  I’ve never spent a lot of time picturing what sound looks like. Buuuut, I’ve just walked into Hieronymus Bosch’s Cacophony, gouache on board, 2019.

  My fingertips tingle. So do my toes. Something heavy keeps thumping into my ribs from the inside, then crashing against the inside of my skull. I could be having a heart attack. Or a stroke. Or both! That would probably make me a modern medical miracle, way more newsworthy than falling in love with a girl and wanting to go to prom.

  Alyssa, my Alyssa, stands next to Principal Hawkins. Her dark hair falls in perfect cascades over her shoulders. She’s wearing the same outfit she wore to Model UN, a gray jacket and pencil skirt, black patent heels. She looks so professional up there, so accomplished.

  And yet, she holds a megaphone and stares at the mess her meeting has already become. There’s despair in her eyes and discontent on her coral lips. When she texted me about it, she made it sound like a tea party. Everyone gathered to respectfully discuss whether or not I deserve civil rights. I mean, she didn’t put it that way, but the emphasis was on how orderly it would be.