21 Proms (7 page)

Now the photographer is saying, “Okay, then.” And looking through the viewfinder. His finger rests on the button, and I flash him a
live long and prosper
as the camera clicks.

“What did you just do?” he asks, but I'm already off the stool, standing in front of his little table with my hand out for him to print out the picture and give it to me. He prints it out and hands it to me.

“And a frame,” I say. He gives me a frame.

Inside the gym the terrible dancing is already well under way. I strut my way toward the center of the dance floor.

On the way there, I see Norah. We were friends when we were little, then her mom opened her front door for a Bible-thumper that rang the bell, and Norah got all new church friends and stopped drinking soda. Then last year her mom left the church and now Norah and I talk in the halls and ride the bus home together. She says she and her mom miss their church friends sometimes. I like Norah because when I think of her I think,
She's of the world, like me
. The other kids here, they think the world is full of people like them. But it's not. It's filled with people like Norah, and like me. I've seen them at emergency rooms and car impound lots, and peace marches and the DMV. I know that I'm not as alone as people here want me to think. I've got a whole world out there waiting for me, and they've just got each other.

Norah's dancing with the quiet kid from art class who's always making moony eyes at her. Norah's dress is a prom night miracle. I recognize it right off. It was her mom's, and Norah and I used to dress up in it when we were little kids. It fits her perfectly. Norah sees me as moony art boy is dipping her, and she jumps up to hug me.

“You're here!” she yells.

“Wow, Norah,” I say. “You look really pretty.”

She spins around and giggles, then fingers the silk of my dress.

“It's so soft!” she says, smiling at me. She glances at Mr. Moony and whispers, “He came over and talked to my mom and convinced her to let me go.”

“That's great,” I say to her, and then I say it to him, “That's great.” He blushes.

“Want to stay and dance with us?” she asks.

“No. I'm going to go dance in the middle.”

“Okay.” I love Norah because she doesn't warn me not to go.

There is a knot of bodies in the middle of the floor. They have their arms slung around each other's shoulders because the DJ is playing “their song,” the one that was always on the radio the summer they all went down to a beach house where they had fights and lost their virginities. I've heard the stories. They are all crying and vowing undying love for each other, even though I think it's a little early in the night for that. The song ends, and the hugs turn to screams when the DJ starts playing the next song, which is a sweet cut off a new album that's on permanent repeat on the stereo at my house.

There's scattered laughter as I walk across the floor. They think it's funny that I can walk to the rhythm. They'll think what's next is funny, too, I'm sure, because what they don't know is that I can
dance
.

I can shake it, drop it, and pop it. My Robot is unbeatable and I can Mashed Potato, too. I don't do the Worm because that's for amateurs. My mom and Philip and I and sometimes Robert dance all the time. My mom can flip all of us over her back when we swing dance, and I'm sure Philip could flip me but he's not allowed to because he lets go too soon or too late, and if I get a concussion they might jail him. All our living room furniture is on special sliding discs that we ordered from the TV, so we can spread out and have ourselves a dance-off. Mom usually wins these — because of her poundage she can make dance moves look like an army invading. She's the living room champion. But I can lay it out here, in front of these amateurs, and I do.

I dance the bejeezus out of the song, and the next one, and the next one after that. Some people laugh and try to dance with me, some against me, a few try to nudge me off the dance floor, but I dance on. I go to school here, like everyone else, and if Mom says I'm going to have a prom, well then, I'm having myself a prom. I'm drinking the free punch.

Philip's waiting for me in his truck at the bottom of the school driveway when I get there. We smile at each other through the windshield.

“Let's set up the summer porch tonight,” he says as I walk by his window. “I already put out the beds.”

I climb into the back of the truck. He's put a blanket on top of the bale of hay, which I appreciate. He takes the long way home, through the fields and over the ridge. The wind blows my hair, sending it shooting out in front of my face. Through the tangle I can see the blue-black sky, and the stars.

My brother likes to drive. I am going to leave this place one day.

Better Be Good to Me

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

Intro/Count-off

So there are some things you should know.

My name is Zack. I was once seventeen. Now I am balding and pudgy, but I'm okay with it. My wife is okay with it, too. Or so she says. She can say anything, though, because she's still beautiful. (Jerk.) To cut to the chase: We are the parents of a seventeen-year-old; let's call her “Harper” — screw it, that's her real name — who is about to go to her prom. With a boy named Randy. Yes, Randy. None of this may seem like a big deal, except that Harper's mother and I lost our virginity to each other the night of
our
prom. (Or the boarding school equivalent; more on that later.) By luck or fate, we ended up at the same college. Once there, we dated in earnest. Senior year, we conceived Harper. We married soon after. We were both twenty-one.

No, I don't have any regrets. No big ones, anyway. Personally, I get a kick out of being a decade younger than any other parent in Harper's class. All the dads are fatter and balder than I am, including Randy's — a boost for my self-esteem. But whenever my wife and I admit to new acquaintances that, sure, we can trace our roots as a couple back to the prom (or the boarding school equivalent), we inevitably get the: “Oh my God, it's so romantic you were high school sweethearts!” And we both chuckle to ourselves, because even though we were and are in love, the truth is a little stranger than that.

So now, Harper, I turn my attention to you. Your mother and I are thrilled you had no interest in attending boarding school. We love having you home. We also think that Randy is a nice kid: polite, quiet
… he could lose the lip pierce, but whatever. The point is, consider this a cautionary tale. Just because Randy is your prom date, you don't have to sleep with him. (Besides, Randy's best friend may be more your type. Kidding. Jesus. Awful joke. Pretend I didn't say that… . ) NO SEX AT ALL!!! NO DRINKING OR DRUGS!!! YOUR MOTHER AND I WANT YOU HOME AT 1 A.M. AT THE LATEST!!!

Oh, and one more thing. Seeing as this story takes place in May 1986, you may not get many of the references. For your convenience, I've included a glossary at the end.

I: Prisoner of Your Love

“Mom, does liking this song make me gay?”

My roommate stares at himself in our closet mirror as he asks me this question. He stares in the mirror a lot. But tonight he has an excuse: He has just donned a tuxedo, and he is adjusting a paisley bow tie. (A real one, not a clip-on like mine.) Seventeen, and he's an expert at tying bow ties. His other skills include skeet shooting while high, pilfering from his trust fund, and hitting on Miss Wyatt, our 19th-century comp lit teacher, who sometimes flirts back.

The song at issue is Tina Turner's “Better Be Good to Me.”

It blares from his stereo, a kick-ass piece of equipment — a Bang and Olufsen. Unfortunately, the right speaker is positioned at the head of my bed, where I am sprawled in my boxers and T-shirt. These days, you can't turn on 105.9 FM (“Connecticut's Classic Rock, from AC/DC to ZZ Top!”) without hearing some horrendous two-year-old Tina Turner track. I expect this sort of crap from MTV. MTV broadcasts a steady barrage of synthesized cheese, performed by androgynous clowns. The Thompson Twins? I can't identify the gender of a single member. Not that it matters, but still … how can any self-respecting classic rock DJ segue from Bad Company to semi-new Tina Turner and not feel shame? This is wrong.

“Yes, D,” I finally mumble. “Liking this song makes you gay. Very, very gay.”

He smirks, not taking his eyes off himself. “But Tina Turner is tight with The Who. Remember
Tommy
? She was The Acid Queen.”

“Speaking of which, how are you feeling? Anything melting yet?”

“Nothing is melting. Not even that pimple on your nose.”

“Blow me.”

He winks at me in the mirror, his dilated pupils glittering like two black marbles. “I can't blow you, Mom. I already have a date.”

I laugh and grumble. I wish something
would
melt the pimple on my nose.

Earlier this afternoon, my girlfriend, Marci Wolf, offered to lend me a stick of cover-up for tonight's “huge rite of passage.” (Her actual words, I swear.) She smiled straight into my nose as she did so. I brusquely informed her that I do not wear cover-up. The Thompson Twins wear cover-up. Tina Turner wears cover-up. Not me.

II: Entangled in Your Web

My roommate's name is DePaul Adams. His family controls the entire U.S. shipping industry. (Or something.) In recent months, he has taken to psychedelics with the all-consuming zeal of a religious fanatic. He is Dorchester Prep's Timothy Leary, a self-appointed guru of chemical mind expansion. Give him an excuse; he'll drop a tab of acid. He drops it before lacrosse practice. He drops it for late-night cram sessions. He dropped it one Friday morning to “deal with Chapel,” even though the drug's effects tend to last at least twelve hours, so by dinner he was still off in the land of looking-glass porters and marmalade skies. Tonight, he has dropped it in celebration of the Spring Ball, the aforementioned rite of passage and Dorchester's sad parody of a prom.

He's also my best friend.

When my Grandpa Joe died this past winter, DePaul sent a letter of condolence to my mom so breathtakingly elegiac that it made her cry. He was hallucinating when he wrote it. Oh, and he keeps two dwindling sheets of Daffy Duck Blotter in our mini fridge (still over a hundred tabs) — more than enough LSD to get us both expelled, and probably enough to land us each a stretch of ten-to-twenty in a federal penitentiary.

III: Hot Whispers in the Night

“You should get dressed, Mom,” DePaul says. He tears himself from his reflection. “The chicks will be here soon.”

“Turn this garbage off first,” I groan from my bed.

“Never!” He cranks the volume and starts to jig around the room — his bow-tied, tuxedoed body a sudden squidlike cross between a Deadhead and the cast of
Beat Street
, arms flapping in waves, a blissful smile on his face.

I laugh again, but I am depressed. I am depressed because DePaul is happier than me, and he always will be, even without the LSD. I am depressed because he is going to Princeton in the fall, whereas I am going to NYU (I didn't get into Princeton), and because he never gets zits, and because I am stone-cold sober. Furthermore, DePaul owns his tuxedo. I rented mine. My parents are not billionaires. My family has not bequeathed me a trust fund. My bow tie is neither real nor paisley; it is fake and black, like a waiter's.

Mostly, I am depressed because DePaul wants me to have fun tonight, and I want to have fun, too. But I can't. I have a secret.

Not that I mention any of this. I've never mentioned it. I've never even
hinted
at it. I came close to whispering it to a certain someone once, late at night, off campus, when we were both drunk … but I stopped myself. Like I'm doing with DePaul right now.

Instead, I tumble out of bed and start climbing into my own tuxedo — while my best friend continues to jig, and Tina Turner's overplayed atrocity continues to blast from his thousand-dollar speakers.

IV: I'm Captured by Your Spell

Fifteen minutes later, there's a knock on our door.

“The chicks,” DePaul whispers to his desk lamp. He and the lamp have been chatting for a while now. His eyes are all pupil; the irises have long since disappeared.

I scowl at him. My fake bow tie is asphyxiating. The cummerbund threatens to flatten my kidneys. Every item of clothing suffocates me in some way, down to the rented black shoes and socks. Yes, I've rented socks. The guy at the tuxedo place insisted on it, claiming my own socks were “too thick” and wouldn't match the rest of my “ensemble.” (Too thick?) Dressing in one of these things is tantamount to extortion. It ran me $197.35 — $2.65 shy of my monthly allowance; $2.65 doesn't even cover my acne medication. It barely buys a sandwich. I vow never to wear a tux again.

DePaul tries to scowl back, but ends up giggling. I shuffle over to our door and open it. The chicks are indeed here, DePaul's girlfriend and mine. Side by side.

Rebecca Weiss and Marci Wolf.

Rebecca is a freshly showered vision, her long red curls still damp (she refuses to use a blow-dryer because of “the static”). She's applied a dash of eyeliner, but no lipstick. She's not even dressed formally. She's in
sandals
(I can see her red-painted toes) and a rumpled skirt and a loose-hanging Indian print blouse (I don't think she's wearing a bra, either) … and every article of clothing accentuates every curve of her flawless porcelain body, right up to her eyes … those wondrous, slinky, hazel eyes.

Conversely, Marci hides her eyes behind freakish chlorine-blue contacts. She's slathered on about an inch of makeup. Blond hair = blow-dried. Silver hoops dangle from her ears like a pair of hollowed-out air hockey pucks. Her strapless pink dress reminds me of the gruesome bridesmaids at my aunt Irma's wedding. (Irma was a newlywed at the age of fifty-three. She married an accountant named Melvin Lewis, who is kind, but resembles a four-hundred-pound pork roast.) Needless to say, Marci is not wearing sandals. She is wearing high heels. They are plain and black, like my tux.

Marci smiles straight at the zit on my nose and says, “Hey, handsome!”

V: Captured!

So, in case you haven't figured out my secret —

I am an asshole.

Plus, yes, I am in love with my best friend's girlfriend. Call it cliché, call it pitiful or whatever you want, but there's another problem on top of all that.

Rebecca and Marci are also roommates. And best friends. Like DePaul and me.

In other words, I am not only in love with my best friend's girlfriend, I am in love with my girlfriend's best friend. And she is the same person.

Evil, I know. Confusing, even. But to clarify, it's not just a crush. It's empathy. It's
feeling
(the feeling I could never have for Marci): for Rebecca's acerbic wit, for her redheaded bohemian beauty, for how she hates MTV but secretly enjoys it. For how she loves Van Halen circa 1978–1984 as much as I do, and thus believes Sammy Hagar should be shot. For how she laughs so hard that she loses herself. And for the braces she once wore, because now that they're gone she's hotter and knows it.

If only I loved Marci … if only I even
liked
Marci enough not to be bored with her and irritated by her (evil again, but true) … if
only
, everything would be perfect. DePaul and me, Marci and Rebecca: two pairs of roommates and best friends, hooked up with each other. There is no better boarding school scenario. After all, sex at Dorchester is tough to schedule. Sex generally occurs when one's roommate is out. So imagine, if your roommate could sneak out and trade places with your significant other's roommate … why, all four of you could be having sex every night of the week!

But sneaking out has never come up among us. For one thing, it's traditionally up to horny males to initiate such liaisons, and DePaul won't make a move. He seems as bored with Rebecca as I am with Marci. (How? HOW!!! Is he
that
blind?) And I am too much of a wimp to sneak out — even for sex. I am too much of a wimp to have sex, period. I am a virgin. I want the first time to be amazing, and I'm scared it won't be with Marci. Maybe that's weak, but I don't care. Finally, on a practical level, DePaul is often tripping too hard late at night to do anything else except chat with his desk lamp.

VI: Oh, Yes, I'm Touched by This Show of Emotion

“I said, hey, handsome,” Marci repeats. “Hello? Zack? Anybody home?”

I force a smile. “Sorry. Hey, Marci. Thanks. You look beautiful.”

Marci sighs and brushes past me into the room, her heels clattering. My eyes meet Rebecca's for a moment. She smiles back, but I detect displeasure. I can't blame her. I really wish I weren't such a jerk or a liar. Rebecca's best friend deserves someone better than me; she deserves someone better
to her
. Chalk it up to inertia. Or chalk it up to a simple probability: If I break up with Marci, I will in all likelihood wind up on Rebecca's shit list — a place I refuse to be.

“Rebecca's in a pissy mood,” Marci announces.

“Why's that?” DePaul asks.

“Because she found out yesterday that she didn't make it off the wait list at Stanford. She's pissed because now she's going to NYU. As if that's a bad college. You know where I'm going? Oberlin! Picture a bunch of drugged-out cellists in a godforsaken wasteland — no offense on the drugged-out part, D — but seriously …”

Marci's voice fades into nothingness.
Rebecca is going to NYU???

Rebecca snickers and shakes her head. DePaul furrows his brow at her, as if genuinely concerned. (He's most likely puzzling over how she has morphed into a unicorn or a giant daffodil.) Part of me rejoices — the part reserved for unwholesome fantasies. Suddenly, I am ecstatic that I didn't get into Princeton.

“Zack, you got into NYU, too, right?” Rebecca asks me point-blank.

“Yeah. Actually, my parents already sent in the tuition deposit.”

She wriggles her eyebrows. “Mine, too. Maybe we'll get mugged together. Or better yet, we can buy switchblades for protection, and every once in a while we'll hijack a taxi to go visit DePaul in his ivory tower. Princeton is only two hours from the ghetto.”

I burst out laughing.

Marci turns to me. “What's so funny?”

“Uh, I … um, nothing. Sorry. It was just what Rebecca said — about the ghetto, and about us going off together to the ivory tower. I mean, with the switchblades. New York City is not that dangerous… .” I don't finish. I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about. Whatever it is, it can't be good. Silence falls over the room.