The Prom

by Saundra Mitchell

  Kaylee whips out her phone. She doesn’t even have to google it; she has a Bible app right there on the home screen. It’s visible the very second she finds the passage in question. Some of the fire goes out of her—more because she’s wrong than because she’s really worried about going to Hell, would be my guess. She slaps her phone facedown and says, “That doesn’t count.”

  “So, you can pick and choose?” Mr. Glickman asks. He doesn’t let her answer, though. He rolls his head to look at Kevin. “Because let me guess, sir. You see plenty of action.”

  “I get mine,” Kevin says, pulling on his varsity jacket, and Shelby giggles against him again.

  “Well, then that means everyone at your church gets to throw rocks at your precious, precious head until you die.”

  Shelby looks distressed. “Noooooooo. Not my Kevin’s head!”

  “There’s no way that’s in the Bible,” Kevin says, because he obviously didn’t learn his lesson from Kaylee looking up a verse not two seconds ago. And, since she’s not about to be the only one who gets shamed this day, she helpfully does just that.

  Flashing her phone at Kevin and Shelby, Kaylee says, “Ope, sorry, guys. You’re getting stoned, and not the fun way.”

  With a snort, Nick points at Shelby and Kevin. And then, out loud, he literally says, “Ha ha!”

  “Don’t think you’re out of the woods, young man,” Mr. Glickman tells Nick. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s a polyester jacket and those are denim blue jeans. To Hell with you for wearing two kinds of cloth!”

  I press my lips together and watch as they look it up, as everyone else around us starts to murmur.

  “Who loves beefy nachos supreme?” Mr. Glickman asks, and then announces gleefully at the hands that go up, “Hell for you, and you, and you! Don’t you know the Bible says you can’t mix meat and milk in the same meal?”

  The murmurs grow a little louder. Other people have pulled out their phones to fact-check this. They skim through, and I hear pop-up whispers around me. Milo from the FCK curses under his breath because he found a rule about planting two kinds of crops in one field; someone else is baffled by tearing your clothes. This is probably the closest any of us have read the Bible in our lives . . . and I think it might be working?

  “This is a lot of rules,” Shelby says quietly.

  Kevin adds, “I didn’t know any of this was in here.”

  While I marvel at the sudden change at the table, Mr. Glickman stands up, smoothing hands down the front of his suit. “There’s one more thing in there you should look at. You should know that I have played Jesus Christ on three separate occasions, in Superstar, in Godspell, and in my shiksa aunt Dorothy’s living nativity. And do you know what I’ve taken away from it?”

  Since no one else says it, I volunteer. “What, Mr. Glickman?”

  “First, it takes a Jew to play the messiah with authority,” he says, gesturing at himself extravagantly. “And second, when asked which law was the most important, the man himself said that love thy neighbor was the only rule he cared about.”

  Fingers fly across screens, now searching for that phrase. Heads bob all around, and eyes raise to Mr. Glickman. Fighting back a smile, I watch as he plays my classmates like fiddles.

  He says, gently, “And if you ask me, I don’t think anybody showed Miss Emma much love on prom night.”

  Kaylee frowns. “Stop trying to get into our heads.”

  “I mean,” Shelby says, “he’s not wrong. We used to hang out with her.”

  “Before she turned gay!”

  “If she turned, that implies she had no choice.” Mr. Glickman shrugs expansively, as if to say, I don’t make the rules. “And if she had no choice, doesn’t that mean God made her that way?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  Mr. Glickman turns his gaze to Shelby. “Oh no? When did you choose to be straight?”

  “Never,” Shelby says. “I just am.”

  Mr. Glickman is silent for a minute, watching Shelby’s face until understanding finally dawns on her. With a little bow of his head, Mr. Glickman spreads his hands. His point is made. Then he stands up and gathers his purchases. The thin plastic of the bag reveals a box of Throat Coat tea and a People magazine.

  “I must be off,” Mr. Glickman says warmly. “But say it with me, once more?”

  And then the Walmart parking lot fills with dozens of voices, all crying out at once:

  “It’s Pecker time!”

  19. Their Voices Soft as Thunder

  EMMA

  When I emerge from my misery cocoon with my laptop, Nan scrambles to turn off the television.

  “Subtle,” I say as I sit beside her on the couch. Pushing the screen back so she can see, I tell her, “I know it’s on the news.”

  In fact, that’s why I came out at all. I finally decided to look at the comments on my prom night video and found that my story went viral. Or at least, the version of the story people can piece together from my video and all the interviews outside the school went viral. Shockingly, except for angry tweets that night, Barry and Dee Dee have been silent.

  Nan puts an arm around me and rests her chin on my shoulder. “I’m sorry you have to bear all this, Emma.”

  Leaning into her, I say, “Yeah, me too. It sucks. And it’s not just me, you know? Listen to some of these comments.”

  I load my channel again, hitting pause on the video. It’s not like I need to hear myself explain what happened on prom night again. Instead, I scroll to the comments—and yeah, there are some jerkwads and douche canoes dropping their turds of wisdom. But most of the responses are from kids like me. All over Indiana and the Midwest. Hell, all over the country.

  Safe beneath the curve of my grandmother’s arm, I start to read. “This girl’s from Muncie. She says she was allowed to take her girlfriend to the prom, but they kicked her out because she wore a tux. And this transboy from Seymour actually got the most votes for prom king, but the school wouldn’t give it to him. There are, like, six comments from people who said their teachers refuse to use their proper pronouns. Here’s a bisexual girl in South Bend who got suspended for wearing a rainbow-flag pin. Nan, it’s everywhere. They hate us everywhere.”

  With a soft sigh, Nan hugs me to her side. “Some of them are scared. And some are ignorant. And yes, some of them are full of hate. We can do something about the first two-thirds, and the ones left over, we leave to God to sort out.”

  An overwhelming wave of despair crashes over me. Is this going to be my whole life? Constantly explaining myself to the ignorant, always trying to convince people that I’m about as scary as rice pudding, and learning to run and hide from the ones with teeth and claws? This is my forever? I’m suddenly exhausted again.

  We’re told to hide this beautiful part of ourselves, the falling-in-love part, the dizzy infatuation part. Don’t hold hands in your Uber; don’t kiss at the movies. Think hard about whether you want to correct a stranger when they ask about your significant other and get the gender wrong. Carefully consider everything you say so these strangers don’t spit on you—or worse.

  Nan is the one person in my life who can almost read my mind. She shakes me and leans around to make me look in her eyes. “I won’t tell you this isn’t a trial. But I will tell you this is not the end.”

  I start to cry. Nan sets my laptop aside so she can wrap both her arms around me. And I just bawl, because the numbness has faded and everything that’s left is agony. I don’t want to be a news story; I don’t want to be a cause. All I wanted was a dance. One night. Barely anything, and I couldn’t even have that.

  Somewhere, in this same town, my parents are probably watching the news. And they’re probably happy. Oh, they might pretend to feel bad for me, but it would be in their twisted way. What a terrible way for Emma to learn the wages of her sin. Maybe this will make her change her mind
and her behavior. Maybe she’ll repent and we can welcome her home.

  I swear, I didn’t come out of my room to cry. I wanted to share the comments on my video. If Nan hadn’t seen it, I wanted to show her the terrible things Mrs. Greene told Channel 13 in Indianapolis. Awful, just like the new rules were awful, because people like her have learned to use our words against us. They don’t come right out and call us fag. Instead, they say things like:

  “What happened here was not the result of an elaborate plan to humiliate this girl, as has been reported in the press. The James Madison High PTA felt that Emma would not be safe unless we offered the option of a separate prom for students and parents who objected. Unfortunately, there are people in our community who are offended by her lifestyle, and we felt this arrangement, while not ideal, was the only course of action available to us.”

  Leaving out the part that she’s one of the people in the community, and that she couldn’t care less if I’m safe or not. Totally ignoring the part where she’s the one who stirred everyone up to begin with.

  But it sounds good, doesn’t it? It sounds reasonable. It sounds so much better than the truth. And it looks like, as long as people learn to lie the right way, they can get away with murder.

  My sobs fade after a while, but my chest still hurts. With every single breath, I ache.

  Nan proves her love for me once more by mopping up my slick, snotty face with a handful of napkins. Her touch is gentle, her palms warm. She takes my face in her hands and strokes my now-dry cheeks with her thumbs.

  She had no idea this is where she would be in her old age, I’m sure. Raising me instead of tearing it up on the riverboat casinos in Rising Sun. Or, I don’t know, spending winter in Florida, teaching snowbirds to play euchre so she could whip them at it. Instead, she’s stuck here with me. Looking at her, I feel the urge to cry come back up again. I’ve made everything so hard on her.

  “I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” I tell her.

  Nan takes a deep breath and strokes her fingers through my hair. “Emma, do you remember your great-uncle Donnie?”

  The name is vaguely familiar, but I shake my head.

  “Well, double great to you. He was my uncle,” she says. “He served in the Pacific during World War Two, met his lifelong beau there. Of course, that’s not how he introduced him. Frank was his friend.

  “They went off to live in California, far away from us, to hide their lives. And even though they came to every Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though we ended up calling him Uncle Frank, everybody pretended they were just war buddies. They were together forty-seven years when Uncle Frank passed, and even then, Uncle Donnie never said it out loud.

  “They’d been together a quarter of a century before the first pride parade ever happened. They both passed before marriage equality. And I’m telling you this because what you’re going through now is terrible. Inexcusable. There are people around here I’d set on fire if I had the chance, and people I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on if they were on fire.

  “So. If you want to go when you graduate, to New York or San Francisco, I’ll do what I can to get you there. I know you planned to go to IU in the fall, but if you want to take a year and settle yourself somewhere more accepting, I won’t blame you one bit. I’ve got some money saved up, even.

  “I just want you to know that you are the dream that Uncle Donnie never dared to dream.

  “You’re seventeen years old; you know who you are. The world knows who you are. It might not mean much to you now. But believe your nan when she tells you that your fight, right here, right now, matters.”

  My breath shudders as I lean back against her. I had no idea I had a gay uncle and . . . well, that’s a problem right there, isn’t it? Wrapping Nan’s arms around me more tightly, I say, “I’d like to think it does, but I just don’t know anymore.”

  “That’s all right, baby,” she says. “You don’t have to be sure right now. And we can always come back to this later.”

  “That would be nice, actually.” I really mean that, too. There’s been way too much talking lately, and too many people talking for me, too. Some quiet, inside my head and outside of it, would be a good thing. And I feel safe here, tucked away behind the lime green door in my nan’s quirky purple house, two strange ladies who belong under the same roof.

  Nan hugs me, but she also peeks over my shoulder at me. “Changing the subject, we should probably discuss my alibi.”

  My brow furrows. “For what?”

  “Well, I’m not saying that I plan to run Elena Greene over in the Red Stripe parking lot next time I see her. But I’m not not saying that, either.”

  For the first time in days, I smile.

  20. Small Town in Slow Motion

  ALYSSA

  Here I am, sitting on the hood of my car, underneath the water tower, all alone.

  A couple of hours ago, I texted Emma and begged her to meet me. She didn’t reply, but I came out here anyway. The sun is trying to shine, but hazy gray clouds blot the sky. Sometimes, spring in Indiana is daffodils and tulips, but it’s also sheets of rain and impotent thunder.

  I look at my phone again. No texts from Emma, and I’ve already waited fifteen minutes longer than the time I proposed. She doesn’t owe me anything; I know that. I just—she asked me to look her in the eyes and tell her that I knew nothing about the prom switch. There’s the thinnest gap of time between getting out of school and Mom getting home from work, and it’s getting thinner by the minute.

  A cold wind blows across the fields, and I pull my hands into my coat sleeves. In my bones, I know she’s not coming, but I wait just a little longer. Just in case. The gaping hole in my heart won’t close until I have a chance to see her. Talk to her. Explain. I’ve practiced this talk more than I practiced coming out to my mom—which is a huge part of the problem, I admit.

  The wind whips my hair around my face, and strands of it stick in the tracks of my tears. She’s not coming, and that’s fair, I tell myself. Because it’s true. That doesn’t mean there’s no hurt involved. I fought for her as hard as I could, and yes, I screwed up . . . but the fact that she believes I knew about the prom switch feels like a hot poker in my belly. I would never, and I thought she knew me better than that.

  Just then, an engine’s buzz catches my attention. I turn, looking in both directions. About a mile off, I see a little dark spot that could be a car heading this way. My throat tightens as it comes closer, closer, and I jump to my feet when I recognize the familiar shape of Nan’s Beetle. They only have the one car, so Emma doesn’t usually drive—but it’s Emma behind the wheel now.

  She pulls in next to me and slowly steps out. Bundled in a blue hoodie and a pair of blue sweats, she looks like she’s surfacing for the first time in days. She even squints at the sun a little as she approaches me. Dark circles ring her eyes, and I’m guessing that beanie she’s wearing is hiding bedhead. Stuffing the keys into her hoodie pocket, Emma keeps her hands in there as well.

  Uneasily, I shift. Her whole body is closed off, and her face is stony. She stops more than a foot away from me. Even though I didn’t expect her to throw herself into my arms, I guess I didn’t think she would be so walled off. It’s fair, I tell myself. No matter how much it hurts, it’s fair.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” I say, fighting the urge to touch her. “I didn’t know if you would.”

  Sharply, Emma shrugs. “I didn’t either. What do you want?”

  Wow, okay. My brain whispers, This is fair, but my heart protests. She’s treating me like a stranger, and whether I deserve it or not, it’s painful. I’m so used to her warmth that this iciness makes her into a stranger. Drawing myself up, I say, “Okay, well, first, I guess I want to say I’m sorry.”

  “You guess?”

  I can’t help it. I step closer. “I mean I am. I’m so, so sorry.”

&nb
sp; Emma bites her lip, then narrows her eyes. “What are you sorry for, exactly? Actually, just tell me: Were you in on it?”

  I throw myself closer still and see the agony in her eyes. The video she made on prom night plays on an endless loop in my head. It’s just hard to make it better when I can’t hold her. When I can’t squeeze her hands and kiss her tears away. “I swear to you, I wasn’t. I didn’t know about it until I got there. My mother rented a limo and threw me in it. I had no idea.”

  With a tip of her head, Emma considers me. There’s bitterness in the curve of her lips. “Nobody told you. Not even your new BFFs?”

  “What?”

  “Shelby and Kaylee? You guys looked like you were having a pretty good time to me. They didn’t mention anything about the big plan?”

  “They are not my friends,” I say furiously. “My mother thinks they are. She set everything up.”

  Emma looks away, weak sunlight glinting off her glasses. Her skin is so gray, except where the wind rasps pink into her cheeks. She looks like a porcelain doll, fragile and painted in stark colors. “And somehow, your mom planned a whole second prom and you had no idea.”

  “Emma,” I say, spreading my hands. Pleading. “You know me.”

  When she turns back to me, I see her swallow hard. She’s trying not to cry. No, she looks like she’s trying not to blow away in the wind. “Do I?”

  Catching her shoulders, I step close. Close enough that I smell her skin and feel her warmth. My body burns up with the sudden contact. It’s been so long; it’s been too long. “You do. I’m a coward, I know, I put things off too long, but you know what you mean to me!”

  For the first time ever, Emma doesn’t catch me up in her hands. They stay in her hoodie pocket, hidden and protected.

  “No, I don’t.” Her voice has no edge to it; it’s defeated. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’m like . . . maybe I’m just an experiment to you. Or maybe you’re trying to piss off your mom, I don’t know.”