Back To You (24 page)

Before I knew it, it was Prom time again.  I overhear
d many people getting excited about their dress or who asked them and who didn’t.  So far, no one had asked me.  Mom told me we didn’t have enough money for me to buy a dress anyway.  Kim felt bad for me, so we went out and found a pattern for a dress (actually a couple of patterns we fit to make a one-of-a-kind dress.  We bought some cream colored satin and she said the dress would be ready when it was time for prom.

About three weeks before prom, Jack was hanging out
with a few of us at Randy’s house.  Randy and Paulette had reconciled and were going to prom together.  When Randy asked Jack if he was going, he was very adamant that he was not going and prom was for cheerleaders and geeks. 

“Why waste the money to take a girl out to dinner, buy her a corsage, rent a stupid tux all for a dumb dance with lame music?”

Well, alrighty then.  I guessed that his relationship with Veronica wasn’t going so well.  Come to find out, it was over.  She broke his heart.  Good.  Now he knows how it feels.

“But prom is a rite of passage.”  I said.  “I don’t want to look back on my high school years and wish I had gone.”

“So who are you going with?”  He snapped at me.

“No one yet.  But even if I don’t have a date, I will still go.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like ‘what-if’s’.  We are only going to have one Senior Prom in our lives.”

“But why go by yourself?”

“Because I still have friends you know!  I won’t be ALONE.”  Stupid jerk.  I hate that he can get me so mad som
etimes.  “I don’t hear you asking me to go.”

“You won’t find me at some stupid dance.”

“Suit yourself.”

The next week, a guy
who had already graduated called me and asked me to prom.  Everything was all set.  My dress was beautiful.  I wasn’t going alone.  This guy was only a friend, but I talked a big game about going alone.  Actually I was scared to death to go alone.  And after that nice scene in front of everyone, I would have had no choice.

A
las, alone I would be.  My date was called to drill that weekend.  Randy and Paulette said I could tag along with them.  I made myself promise that I would go.  That Kim hadn’t made a dress I would never wear.  I couldn’t prove that Jack was right and it was pointless to go to a stupid dance.  As hard as it was, I would hold my head high and have fun, damn it.

I checked myself out in the mirror as I put on the finis
hing touches.  Hair down and curled, make up just right, satin dress with layers of ruffled satin running down the entire back from my waist to the floor.  The front of the dress was simple and elegant with a sweetheart neckline, capped sleeves and straight skirt that was fitted at my waist.  Matching satin shoes that were just high enough to give me some extra height.  Not bad if I said so myself.  Too bad Jack wouldn’t be there to eat his heart out.  I blew a kiss to myself as I headed down the hall.

Mom wasn’t even home that night,
so no fawning and fussing while taking a thousand pictures.  Randy had already picked up Paulette when he knocked on my door.  He looked fantastic in his tux.  I was go glad he was my “date”.  I wasn’t sure I could have held my head high enough to go completely alone.

You couldn’t get two more polar opposites than Paulette and I in the looks department that night.  Her dress was short, black and white with a fluffy balloon skirt.  She had on flats which gave her the appearance of a twelve year old in a party dress.  I actually felt tall next to her.  My dress was almost the same color as my hair, and that added
a look of elegance.  Paulette’s dark hair and black eyes were so opposite of mine, it was probably comical to others.  I imagine Randy was feeling pretty good about himself since he had TWO dates to prom.  He had even taken the time to pick out two different wrist corsages to match our dresses.

It was tough walking through the door when we first got there.  I knew a lot of people were staring and even talking about me.  I didn’t want to know what they were saying.  I
briefly thought about running from the room and hiding until it was over.  But I didn’t.  Running would have been more embarrassing.  So I stayed.  I watched everyone get pictures taken.  I talked to the teachers who chaperoned.  I was part of a group picture of a bunch of my friends I had rarely ever seen all together at one time.  And surprisingly enough, I had plenty of dance partners.  Mostly for fast dances, but I had a couple of guys ask me to dance the slow ones.  It didn’t take long to forget that I was dateless.  Well, maybe not forget, but I had a good time anyway.

T
rue to his word, Jack never set foot in the place.  For a brief moment I thought I saw him in the parking lot when I went out for some air.  Maybe it was just wishful thinking.  But then again, I didn’t want him there.  Something about him made me feel weak and soft inside, even after all this time.  He had rejected me, and I really didn’t want any more feelings of rejection, especially at prom.

*****

Jack sat in his car, mentally beating himself up
.  It’s just a stupid dance
, he thought.  He just couldn’t bring himself to go in.  So he sat in his car and watched his classmates arrive in style.  Some even went so far as to get a limo.  He had never seen so much glitter and glam in his life.  Girls in high heels and dresses that made them uncomfortable and guys in monkey suits.  He didn’t wear a tux, but had on some dress pants and a nice shirt, just in case.

It was when he saw Randy pull up and let the girls out of his car that Jack wavered just a moment.  There was cute little Suzy wearing a stunning dress that was
nothing like the other dresses he had seen.  She looked so elegant.  Her date was a fool to not come with her.

Jack couldn’t believe how she held herself.  So conf
ident, so sure of herself, so brave to walk in without a date.  It was like she snubbed her nose at all of the guys who didn’t ask.  It was like she snubbed her nose at him.  Maybe he was the fool for not asking her.  She absolutely took his breath away.

He sat in the car a while longer.  Popping open a beer and watching people go in and out of the building.  Some of them snea
king off to hotel rooms, anxious to get out of the dress clothes.  Some walking in a dreamlike state and some looking more miserable than he could imagine. 
That’s me
, he thought. 
Mr. Miserable
.  When he thought he couldn’t sit there any longer, he saw her come out for a bit of fresh air.  She couldn’t see him of course.  And she was smiling and talking to everyone out there, until she broke away and stood against the railing.  Her expression was thoughtful, almost sad.  He almost got out of the car to go to her.  But he didn’t.  Instead he left the parking lot and headed to his favorite place by the lake.  Alone.

C
hapter 20

Before we knew it, graduation was upon us.  Caps, gowns, new dresses, parties to plan.  It was overwhelming.  Perhaps the flurry of activity was necessary to keep us all from worrying about the day after graduation.  That was truly the big day.  The day when you realize you are free from life as you had known it.  And it was the first day of the rest of your life.  Cliché, I know.  But it was so true.  Most of us had turned eighteen already.  We partied and drank and danced and everything else you can imagine.  Most of us also dreamed of the day we could walk out the door of our parent’s house without worrying about curfews or stupid rules, and move out to our own places.  Most of us were college bound.  Some would go to the college in town, some were off to Baton Rouge or New Orleans, and a very few of us dreamed bigger and headed as far away from Hammond, Louisiana as we could.

I had attended a college weekend back in February, right a
fter my eighteenth birthday.  Mom drove.  Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.  The first all women college in the US.  It was old.  It was forward thinking and yet old fashioned.  I fell in love the minute we pulled onto the small but gorgeous campus.  That weekend I met a ton of people, competed for a scholarship and set my sights on a college designed for a person like me.  A woman who WANTED to learn, not just academics (which were excellent), but also for women who wanted to learn who they were and what they were capable of.  It was a place I could finally let go of the shy girl and break onto the scene with strength and vibrancy.  Okay, I was HOPING I could.

However, I had to get past graduation first.  Dad was coming to town.  Andrea and the kids were coming too.  Of course Kim and Mom would be there.  I was a bit nervous that all of us would be there TOGETHER.

Final grades came in and I missed cum laude by a couple hundredths of a point.  Dumb luck and stupid geometry.  Oh well.  But I did get the scholarship.  Between the scholarships, grants and loans, my dream of heading to Wesleyan had been made a reality.  I could barely contain myself!  It was a chance to start over and reinvent myself.  And that was exactly what I planned on doing.

*****

What do you give someone for a graduation gift?
  Jack thought as he stood in the Hallmark store and stared at the wide variety of gift items. 
What do you give to a girl that once loved you but has moved on?  A girl who is leaving and following her dreams of becoming a writer?  A girl as complex and amazing as Suzy?

Jack didn’t need to get her anything.  He was just being a sappy sentimental idiot for thinking that she would care if he got her anything.  He also knew that if he didn’t do something to let her know that she still meant something to him, he would r
egret it.  Then he saw it.  It was perfect.  He took it to the counter to have it wrapped.

Jack had fallen hard for Veronica
, and she shredded his heart. She cheated on him and dropped him like last week’s leftovers.  He couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore.  He spent weeks moping.  His heart was broken.  He understood the looks of hurt and pain that Suzy had given him after their breakup.  The difference was that he still wanted to be around Suzy.  Maybe even date her again.  But she was leaving.  And she probably wouldn’t be back.  Jack didn’t think he could handle another heartbreak.

H
e still didn’t know what he wanted out of life.  College?  He was tired of school.  He wasn’t a terrible student, but he wasn’t an honor roll student either.  He was tired of the pressure he was getting from everyone about what his future should be.  He hadn’t even graduated for heaven’s sake!  Jack just didn’t want to think about it at all.  Until he was ready he would work at his parents store and take a little time to figure out what he wanted out of life.

He had all the time in the world, right?

*****

The morning of graduation, Mom
, Andrea and Kim plopped on my bed.  I was quickly awakened by the three of them yelling and bouncing.

“Ungh, ga wayyyy.”  I mumbled in my pillow.  But I smiled anyway.  It was my day of freedom.

“What?”  They were definitely going to play this one out as far as they could.

I rolled off my pillow a little, “I said go away.”

“Oh no way!”  Kim was bouncing me so that my body was coming off the bed with each big bounce.  She used to do that to me when I was little.

“Well, if you don’t stop bouncing I will either pee on you or get sea sick!”  I was grinning.

“Would you look at that mess on her head?”  Andrea said playfully.  “Will the cap even fit on that mop?”  She was running her hands through my hair, making it even more of a mess.

“HMMM, I don’t know?  Why don’t we see?”  Mom said as she plopped the cap on my head.  It fell off of course.  “Guess not.”

“What happens if she can’t wear the cap?”  Kim played along.

“Then she doesn’t graduate and she is stuck in high school forever!”  Andrea teased.

“Nuh UH!!!  NO way am I staying in that place any longer than I have to.”  I teased back.

“Maybe a little
hairspray and some bobby pins will help.”  Mom added.

“Don’t worry, I will get it under control by this afte
rnoon.”  I promised.  “But they are pretty strict about how flat the top of the cap has to be if worn properly.  That might be a challenge.  Besides, it is completely nerdy looking.”  I giggled.

“You ARE a nerd!”  Kim laughed and then rushed out of the room, dodging the pillow I threw at her. 
Then I was mobbed by three kids all under the age of four.  It was one of the best mornings of my life.

After breakfast, I started getting ready.  We had to take turns taking baths and sh
owers.  I was fairly certain that the hot water heater wheezed a sigh of relief when we were all done.  As I was finishing up my makeup and hair, I closed the door to my room for a few minutes and sat on my bed.  I had this funny feeling in my stomach.  I looked at the things I cherished so much that they held permanent places on the top of my dresser or on shelves.  A few books, the first carousel horse I received, a soft white teddy bear (the first real teddy bear I ever had) that Megan had given me for Christmas that year, the stuffed Garfield that Jack gave me the summer we dated, my shriveled up wrist corsage from prom, and the pretty little box Jack gave me for my seventeenth birthday.  I kept my bobby pins in there, so I picked it up and ran my fingers over the embroidered purple roses on top before I took a few out to put in my purse.  I wished things had been different with him.  There was still a lingering feeling that it just wasn’t resolved with us.  I didn’t have time to think too long on that because Dad knocked on the front door.

A couple of hours later I was wishing I had broken in my new shoes a little more.  We had been standing there forever, waiting for the procession.  The teachers had to check each one of us to make sure that our caps were on straight and our gowns were on and zipped properly.  I had a special stole because I was in the top twenty of the class and was inducted into the National Honor Society.  Some of the girls were whining because they would mess up their hair if they put the cap on the way it was supposed to be worn.  Some of the guys had taped messages on the top of the cap so the audience could laugh as we walked in to the auditorium.  In the movies, graduates usually sat with friends.  In real life, we were organized alphabetica
lly.  And not one single friend of mine had a last name near enough to mine alphabetically that I could even wave to them.

T
hen it was over.  We all filed out, returned our gowns, kept our caps and tassels, and headed out to the parking lot to our families.  True to the movies, this was the most fun!  Pictures, pictures, pictures!  Randy came up to me and gave me a huge hug.  I felt bad for him because he only had his dad there for him.  I asked them to hang out with us.  Megan came over and we got our pictures taken too.  Other people, even people I didn’t know all that well were coming up and hugging and congratulating me, happy to be done with it all.  As the parking lot began to empty, we were standing around deciding on where to go eat dinner as a whole family when I spotted Jack standing off to the side waiting for a chance to come up.  I ran over and hugged him.  He held on tight.  When he let go, he handed me a small box wrapped neatly with a bow and a fake diploma.

“I got this for you.”

“Jack, you didn’t have to...”

“I know.  I wanted to.” 

I just looked at the box.

“Well, go ahead.  Open it.”

Inside the box was a beautiful ceramic figurine.  It was a Precious Moments girl sitting at a desk with a typewriter.  I was stunned.  I looked up at him, not knowing what to say.  I was guessing my expression said everything he needed to know as a hint of a tear shimmered in my eye.  He paused and touched my cheek with the back of his hand, a gesture that he had done so often when we were a couple. 

“Promise me something.”  He said.

“Sure, anything.”  My stomach was doing flips, my knees were shaking even though it was ninety degrees outside.

“Don’t forget your dreams, Suzy.”

Just then Randy and the rest of my family walked up.

“Picture time!”  My dad has his camera ready.  So Randy and Jack stood on either side of me.  Just as we smiled, a slight breeze came through and blew our hair every direction.  It was a great picture.  And two of the guys I had come to cherish very much in my high school years were standing with me as the wind took the last moment of our Hammond High School days with it.

*****

Jack was bored.  He lounged in his pool on a blow up raft, hanging his hands in the water wondering what to do that day. 
He thought the summer after graduation would be different.  After all, their lives had changed, right?  They were out of high school.  But no, that summer was like the others.  Hot, humid and boring.  He actually looked forward to the days he had to work, because then he had a chance of seeing his friends drop by for a frozen yogurt.  He hated the work, dealing with customers in a hurry, moms and screaming kids, rude people treating him like a servant.  It made him want to scream.  Having friends drop by, or even the occasional hot girl, made it almost bearable.  That and it was nice to have extra money.  Maybe once a week, Suzy came by with Randy or Megan.  She didn’t always buy something, but she popped in and said hello.  Sometimes she would hang out and chat during the slow times of the day.  She told him about getting ready for college.  Those were the best days of all.  He would watch her face light up when she talked about leaving.  When she walked out of the store, he would stare longingly as she disappeared from view.  He wasn’t sure if it was because he missed her already, or if he was jealous she had a future to look forward to, or maybe it was both.

*****

I was so bored.  Well, maybe bored wasn’t the right word.  I was restless.  Dad and Sharon moved back to Arkansas so I wasn’t going to have a super California summer.  All of the past summers since we moved there, I had spent the worst part of it in California.  Now the oppressing heat was dragging me down a little.

I had no real reason to be bored.  I had to rely on my friends to get around so having a job wasn’t an option.  That didn’t mean I was doing NOTHING, though.  I spent a lot of time with Megan g
oing to dance clubs on the weekends, movies during the week, and the occasional concert.  It was when we went to the Bon Jovi concert that it really seemed to hit us both that things were getting ready to change big time.  We wrapped our arms around each other as they played “Never Say Goodbye”.

One night at the local dance club we went to, I saw Randy with two of his friends.  Josh was one of them.  Josh wasn’t the best looking guy in school, but there was something about him that made you dreamy
-eyed when he looked at you.  He was a mess though.  He drank too much, did ecstasy and refused to settle with any one girl.  On the other hand, he was an incredibly gifted artist.  He had amazing potential, but I feared he would never explore it because he was also stuck in the “small town” mentality.  That night, he was a bit drunk.  He asked me to dance.  He asked for my phone number.  I went home that night with a stupid smile on my face. 

Although I still felt that there was unfinished business between Jack and I, I resigned myself to be friends, and only friends.  I enjoyed talking to him.  He
was a little more like the Old Jack.  He listened to me when I talked about almost anything.  He talked back, he smiled a lot.  Occasionally he would grab my hand if we sat at an empty table in his parent’s yogurt shop.  I had missed that part of him so much.  He was always so easy to talk to.

The romance with Josh went back and forth all summer.  Come to find out, his best friend was also interested in me.  Josh was the one who always got the girl, so he was afraid to get too close to me so his friend wouldn’t be hurt.  Well, that and Josh was petrified of having real feelings for a girl who had the pote
ntial of breaking his heart.  He was so confused that he made me confused by calling and spending time with me and then not calling for a couple of weeks.