Bad Haircut (13 page)

Dave and Anita both had lipstick on their faces. Anita surprised me: she was short and thick, with a pug nose and a loud laugh, not a person I'd see making French fries and fall in love with. But Dave kept touching her every few seconds— gropingly, the way a blind man might—as if to reassure himself that she was real, and not some glorious mirage.

Dave's friend Ted Wenkus had also brought a girl I'd never seen before, a tomboy with a Prince Valiant haircut and a crooked smile, the kind of girl who was probably good at pinball and could blow interesting smoke rings. Ted reminded me of a giraffe: he had a freakishly long neck topped by a head the size of a cantaloupe. I knew him mainly by reputation. Over the winter he'd figured out how to get an outside line from the chem lab phone, and had amused himself by calling faraway places and asking about the weather. It became a strange in-joke for a couple of weeks. People would grab you in the hall and say, “It's snowing like crazy in Billings, Montana. Pass it on.” Ted and his date were both pretty drunk.

Rita Sue Branzino, on the other hand, looked like she could have used a drink. A talented tap dancer and a shoo-in for valedictorian, Rita Sue was headed for Princeton in the fall. Every Halloween she dressed up like a different piece of fruit, and she always won first prize for best costume. Her boyfriend was tall and blond, surprisingly handsome, though he seemed nearly radioactive in his dazzling white tails.

“This is Robert,” she said, smiling stiffly. “He's going to Harvard.”

Ted Wenkus and his date howled with laughter.

“This is Suzy,” Ted announced. “She's going to the bathroom.”

* * *

 

Somehow I'd gotten it all wrong. Even though I knew we had to share a table with three other couples, I had allowed myself to imagine the prom as an intimate, romantic scene, a last chance for Sharon to fall in love with me. Instead we had to listen to Rita Sue enumerate the wonders of Princeton while the band (Jimmy Dee and the Dee-Lites) cranked out a bouncy Carpenters’ medley, and Dave and Anita French-kissed between mouthfuls of bloody prime rib.

The drinking at the previous year's prom had apparently gotten out of hand, prompting our advisers to announce a hard-line anti-alcohol policy. If you wanted to drink (like everyone at Table Eight with the exception of Rita Sue), you had to hide in a bathroom stall to do it. As the night progressed, we spent more and more time in the downstairs rest rooms, boys with boys, girls with girls. Our secret party required fancy flask relays and elaborate comings and goings, lending the evening an aura of teamwork and intrigue.

I'd never seen Sharon tipsy before. She seemed more animated than usual, a little less vigilant. When Suzy asked for a dance partner, Sharon was the first volunteer. She was a cool and limber dancer, sexier than I expected.

“Sharon's great,” Dave told me as we made our fourth trip to the rest room.

“Thanks,” I said.

We pressed ourselves against the bannister to make way for Vince Fowler, Harding's superstar heavyweight wrestler. Vince had chosen to wear his bow tie on his forehead, making his face look like a frightening birthday present.

“Fuckin’ prom!” he shouted, slapping us five as he passed.

The rest room attendant greeted us with a nod. His job, as far as I could see, entailed sitting on a stool and listening to the Mets game on a transistor radio.

I followed Dave into an empty stall. He flipped down the toilet seat and climbed on top of it, so anyone passing would only notice one pair of shoes. He took a long swig of blackberry brandy and handed me the flask.

“We're all going to the Arrowhead after this,” he said. “You guys should come.”

“What's the Arrowhead?”

“You don't know?”

I shook my head.

“It's a motel on Route 9. Twenty bucks a night, no questions asked.”

Someone knocked on the door. Dave dropped into a squatting position. The latch rattled.

“Open up. It's only us.”

Giggling, Ted and Robert piled into the closet-size stall. Without a word, they joined Dave on top of the toilet, all three of them balancing precariously on the horseshoe-shaped seat. The
flask made another circuit. Ted nudged Robert. They were drunker than we were and had become fast friends.

“Dude,” he said, “you've got to tell these guys.”

“Huh?” Robert seemed a little bewildered. He had one hand on Ted's shoulder and was marching in place on the seat, lifting one white shoe, then the other.

“You know,” Ted told him. “Puke City.”

Robert moaned. “Man, that was a secret.”

Ted turned first to Dave, then to me. He had a big smile on his little face.

“Every time they have sex, Rita loses her lunch.”

Dave and I exchanged grimaces.

“During?” I asked.

“After,” said Robert. “She can't help it. It's some kind of reflex.”

Dave reached past me and patted Robert on the arm.

“That must be awful.”

Robert nodded. “It kind of detracts from the experience.”

“Well,” said Ted, “just hope they have barf bags at the Arrowhead.”

When I got upstairs, Rita Sue was alone at the table. Sharon, Suzy, and Anita were on the crowded dance floor, where a forest of waving arms spelled out the chorus of “YMCA.”

“Hey,” I said. “How come you're not out there?”

She shrugged, took a sip of water, and smiled. “You and Sharon make a good couple.”

“Robert's a nice guy.”

“I'm glad you're all getting along,” she told me. “He can be a little shy.”

Daria Peck was elected Prom Queen. When Mr. Landon announced her name, she let loose with a bone-chilling wail, as if she'd just been informed that her whole family had gone down in a plane crash. She shrieked again when Mrs. Petrosky crowned her with a silver tiara and the crowd burst into applause.

The lights in the banquet hall grew dim.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Jimmy Dee, “I'd like to invite each and every one of you onto the dance floor for the final and most special song of the evening, the one that you, the Harding High Class of ‘79, have chosen as your prom theme. And while you hold on tight to that certain someone, why not take a moment to reflect on the meaning of this wise and beautiful song of love, composed by the multitalented Mr. Billy Joel.”

Despite my write-in vote for Aerosmith's “Dream On,” the class had chosen “Just the Way You Are” by a wide margin. I took Sharon's hand and led her onto the dance floor as the music began.
Jimmy Dee's electric piano was sick with reverb, his voice soggy with emotion as he begged his lover not to change the color of her hair.

“I hate this song,” Sharon whispered.

Beams of light ricocheted off the spinning disco ball, painting the dancers with swirling stripes of color. The floor was so packed, all you could do was hold your partner and sway a little from side to side. Couples around us began making out; it reminded me of that scene in
Carrie
, just before the blood started to fly. I glanced hopefully at Sharon. She smiled back. But before I could kiss her she pulled me close, resting her forehead on my collarbone.

I brushed my fingertips across her shoulders, inhaling the peculiar and luxurious atmosphere of her hair. She didn't protest, so I stroked her neck, ran my knuckles over the ridges of her spine, traced with my palm the soft slope where her hips began. Her body was warm and my hands trembled. I wanted that stupid song to last forever.

I was nervous when we got into the car. We still hadn't figured out what to do next.

“They're all going to a motel,” I said.

“I know. Anita asked if we wanted to go.”

“Should we?”

She stared straight ahead through the windshield, clutching her white shawl tightly to her throat.

“What would we do at a motel?”

“Would it be so awful?”

“I guess we could watch TV,” she conceded.

“That last dance,” I said. “Did you feel my hands?”

“They were shaking.”

“It was nice to touch you.”

“I had a good time,” she said. “It was fun being part of a group like that.”

The cars around us pulled out, forming a long line at the exit. We were like a small island of indecision in a dark corner of the parking lot.

“What should we do?” I asked.

She gave a little shrug and gazed down at her lap. The barrettes were gone; her hair hung moplike, concealing her face. She tried to tuck some behind her ear, but it spilled back out. She lifted her head and fixed me with a suspicious look.

“Can I trust you?”

“Sure.”

“I'm going to tell you something. But first you have to promise to be nice to me.”

I promised. She unclasped her evening bag and took out her wallet. She removed a photograph from a laminated pouch and pressed it into my hand.

“Remember,” she said. “You promised to be nice.”

I flipped on the dome light and found myself looking at a school portrait of a girl with olive skin
and straight dark hair. She wore a white turtleneck and a dreamy yearbook expression. Her nose was big, but it seemed to fit with the rest of her face.

“That's Lorraine. She was my best friend.”

“So?”

“We got into big trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

She bit her lip. “You have to understand. We spent a lot of time together.”

A middle-aged waitress with a platinum bouffant stepped out the front door of the Manor. She lit a cigarette and exhaled into the night. The smoke hung momentarily in the air, a ghostly, quivering blob. I turned off the light. Sharon took back her picture.

“Her brother found her diary,” she said. “It had some stuff about us.”

“Stufi?”

“Her parents freaked out. They made her transfer to Catholic school. They wouldn't even let us talk on the phone.” She snapped her fingers. “It happened like that.”

“Wait up,” I said. “What did she write in the diary?”

“I don't know. I didn't see it.”

My hands were shaking again.

“Did you guys do something?”

“It happened,” she said. “I don't see why everybody has to flip out.”

“How many times?”

“I don't know. What difference does it make?”

I had a bad moment. The interior of the car seemed to expand, until a vast distance separated me and Sharon on the front seat. Pictures from dirty magazines flashed through my mind. I turned away from her and found myself startled by the sight of my own tuxedo, the eggshell cummerbund bulging like a pot belly. A sickly laugh escaped from my throat.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“What's wrong?” My voice was loud with indignation; I didn't want it to sound like that. “What's wrong? You invite me to the goddam prom and then—”

She cut me off. “Look, I'm sorry I brought it up. I thought you would understand.”

“I'm not sure I do.”

“Fine,” she said. “Maybe you should just take me home.”

“Maybe I should.”

The key was in the ignition, but my hands remained frozen in my lap. We just sat there like people at a drive-in, watching the waitress finish her cigarette. She dropped it on the pavement, stepped on it, and went inside.

“Why do you think we moved here?” she asked.

“Because ofthat?”

She waited for me to look at her, then nodded.

“You're kidding.”

“I thought it would blow over, but it kept getting worse. Kids started saying stuff to Gail, and my mother just couldn't deal with it anymore.”

“God.”

“You think we deserved that?”

I shook my head, remembering the way she'd looked her first few days at Harding, so anxious and alert, the way she had hugged her books to her chest, and how badly I'd wanted to get to know her. I remembered, too, how she had always changed the subject when I asked about her old school and the friends she'd left behind.

“I wanted to tell you a few times,” she said. “But I lost my nerve.”

“You ever hear from her?”

“I write her letters, but I don't send them.” She smiled. “I have this dumb fantasy she'll come visit me in college, and I'll dump this stack of like a hundred letters in her lap, and she'll read them and know everything that's happened to me.”

I could see it. Two girls in a bare room, envelopes everywhere.

“Don't forget tonight,” I told her.

Sharon looked at me. Her face was a question, close enough to kiss.

* * *

 

The front office of the Arrowhead Motel was constructed to resemble a gigantic roadside tepee. The desk clerk, though, was an Indian from India. I expected him to give us a hard time about our age and prom clothes, but he completed the entire transaction without making eye contact or saying anything except the price of the room. I signed us in on the register as “Mr. and Mrs. Billy Joel.”

The room was small, decorated in dark brown and burnt orange. It smelled of an ongoing conflict between mildew and Lysol. A picture of the Eiffel Tower hung crookedly over the bed. Through the thin wall, we could hear the couple in the next room having sex. The man's name was Jack.

“Well,” said Sharon, “at least it's no one we know.”

The black and white TV had no vertical hold. No matter how many knobs I twisted, the picture just kept rolling by, like a broken slot machine.

“Oh no,” said Sharon. “We're stuck in the Arrowhead with no TV. This is one version of hell.”

I made a quick trip to the yellow, slightly funky bathroom, and returned just in time to hear the action in the next room come to a surprisingly abrupt halt. Sharon was standing by the bed, examining a green metal box on the night table. It had a coin slot but no instructions.

“What the heck,” she said.

She took a quarter from her purse and
dropped it in. To our amazement, the bed began to rumble and vibrate. We dove on for the ride, rolling toward the center of the saggy mattress. We felt only a gentle trembling at first, but it grew gradually stronger, and then stronger still, until it seemed, for a few turbulent seconds, that it wasn't just the bed, but the earth itself that was shaking beneath us. When it was over, we stared at each other in stunned silence.

We giggled all the way through the second quake. By the end of the third, we were laughing so hard that Jack from next door started pounding on the wall. Lucky for him, we were all out of quarters.