Between (34 page)

I used to love school dances. I loved everything about them: shopping for just the right gown for weeks beforehand; the way it took all day to get ready, from getting my hair done to doing my makeup; posing for pictures with Richie in front of a cheesy backdrop while a professional photographer told us we make a really great-looking couple; it was all like magic.

Tonight, the school gymnasium has been transformed into an explosion of glitter, balloons, and crepe paper. A huge disco ball hangs from the ceiling, turning slowly to create shadows across the thick crowd of students. There’s a long table covered with cookies and finger sandwiches and punch. There isn’t a trace of death or sadness anywhere. It’s happy. It’s normal. It’s high school, exactly the way it should be.

By the time they get out of the limo, my friends have polished off the bottle of schnapps and are all adequately tipsy.

“I want to dance,” Mera tells Topher, tugging at his sleeve. “Come on.”

“Hey, Richie,” Chad says. His arm is around Caroline, who seems uncomfortable despite how pretty she looks. “I’m not much of a dancer. How about you?”

“Huh?” Richie barely seems to notice that Josie is standing close to his side, holding his hand. Instead, he’s scanning the crowd, looking for—for what? I have no idea.

“I said, I was never much of a dancer. Always thought dancing was for fags.” Chad elbows Caroline. “This guy’s supposed to be a dealer, and he doesn’t bring any weed. You believe that?”

Caroline stares at the crowded dance floor. She and I took all kinds of lessons together when we were little girls: ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics. She’s a
cheerleader
, for God’s sake; of course she wants to dance. “My favorite uncle is gay,” she says, “and he doesn’t like to dance, either.” She looks at Chad. “I don’t like that word.
Fag
. Don’t use it, okay?”

Chad stares at her dumbly. “What are you saying? You saying you really want me to dance with you? To get out there and shake your ass?” He shrugs. “Fine. If that’s what it takes for you to loosen up.”

And then it’s just Richie and Josie, standing alone near the bleachers, Richie still looking at everything, distracted.

“What’s the matter?” Josie nudges him. She looks like she wants to wrap herself around him, to show everyone that he’s with
her
now.

He knows what she wants. He stares down at their interlaced fingers, looks at the rest of the room, and asks, “Do you think people are talking about us?”

“What do you mean? Because we’re here together?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe.” She takes a small step closer to him. Their navels are almost touching. She stands on her tiptoes and whispers in his ear, “Let them talk, Richie. We’re good together. You make me happy.” She pulls away slightly, frowns at him. “Don’t I make you happy?”

“Yes.” There’s no conviction in his voice, though. He breathes a long sigh, gazes at the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have drank. I could get into a lot of trouble.”

“Would you relax?” She giggles. “Since when are you concerned about getting into trouble? Just stay with me. Nobody’s going to know anything. Let’s go dance.”

He shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. I don’t like to dance. I’m no good.”

“Oh, come on. You need to loosen up. Have some fun for once.” She pauses. “Liz would want you to have fun. She’d want you to be happy, Richie.”

I’m starting to get very annoyed by everyone talking about what I would want. How do they know? Josie’s wrong; I want Richie to be happy—just not with her. In this moment, more than ever, I cannot
stand
the sight of them together.

But why shouldn’t they be happy? She’s my sister. I love her. And if they care about each other, why does it bother me so much?

“I never even danced with Liz.” Richie pauses. “Well, only sometimes. Just for slow songs.”

“Is that true?” Alex has been hanging back since we got here; he seems almost paralyzed by the crowd, even though they obviously can’t see him.

I smile. “Yeah, it’s true. He wouldn’t dance fast. He would never admit it, but I always knew he was too self-conscious.” I close my eyes. “But he’d dance slow. He was a great slow dancer.” I can almost sense his hands on my waist. I can remember the way it felt to rest my chin on his shoulder. We’ve been to so many of these together, ever since our first school dance in the seventh grade: homecomings, winter formals, spring flings, Sadie Hawkins, and prom. It was always Richie and me.

Now he’s here with my stepsister, and she’s tugging him toward the floor. “Come on! I love this song.”

“Go dance with Caroline. She looks like she could use a friend.” It’s true; Chad is like an octopus, hands all over her in the middle of the floor, his grip
very
low on her waist, hips grinding against her body. She looks embarrassed and obviously tipsy, trying to keep her balance while simultaneously preventing him from putting his tongue down her throat.

“All right.” Josie pouts. “But I’m coming back for you.”

Richie strolls alone to the refreshment table, gets a plate full of cookies and a big cup of punch, and sits by himself on one of the bleachers.

Alex and I perch a few feet away from him, just watching the crowd for a while, not saying much.

“I know you didn’t … uh, you couldn’t make it to prom last year,” I finally say, “but what about other dances? Who’d you go with? Did you ever have a girlfriend or anything?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I’m reminded of Alex’s memory from the Mystic Market, and the lie he told about having a girlfriend. I still don’t understand why he did it. I would never bring it up again, but I wonder if he’s thinking about the same thing.

If he is, he doesn’t show it. Alex shakes his head. “This is the first dance I’ve ever been to.” He gives me a shy smile. “Ironically, I’ve come with someone who’s way out of my league.”

“You mean you never—not even
one
dance? Not in junior high or anything?”

“Nope.” He stares at the crowd. “Even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have been allowed. My parents. You know—religion and all that.”

“But you’re Catholic. Catholics are allowed to dance.”

“Liz, I don’t think you quite understand. My parents are
super
religious. I wasn’t allowed to go to dances or date girls … nothing like that. My mom found a
Playboy
in my room once. Know what she did?”

“Oh, please tell me.”

He won’t—or can’t—look at me. “She tore out a few of the pages. The worst ones. You know,
Playboy
has all these pictures of women who are—”

“Alex, I’ve seen
Playboy
.”

“Okay, then you know what it’s like. Anyway, she tore out a few of the photos and she put them up on the fridge. You’ve been in my house. You know we don’t have a dining room. The table is in the kitchen. So that night, while we ate dinner, I had to sit there with my parents and look at those pictures with them. My mom said, ‘If there’s nothing wrong with what you were looking at, then you shouldn’t be ashamed to have them right out in the open for everyone to see.’ ”

My mouth drops. “That’s awful. I mean,
Playboy
’s pretty bad, but … God, Alex. Talk about repressed.”

He nods. “I know. And you want to know the grossest part?”

“Oh, it gets worse? Fabulous.”

“The
Playboy
? I found it in my dad’s dresser. He never even owned up to the fact that it was his. He acted completely shocked.”

I don’t know what to say. I almost can’t imagine anything more humiliating. I look around at my classmates—at Richie by himself, sipping punch and staring at his shiny brown loafers, at Caroline and Josie waving their hands in the air, shaking their hips with the easy carelessness of pretty, popular girls, at Topher and Mera dancing cheek to cheek, even though it’s a fast song. Are any of them even thinking about me tonight? Richie is, I’m pretty sure. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. But if I were still alive, would we even still be together, knowing what I’d done with Vince?

“I guess everybody has their secrets,” I say.

“Yeah.” Alex squints at me through the dimness. “I guess so.”

The music shifts; the DJ starts to play a slow song. Almost without thinking, I grab Alex by the hand. “Come on,” I say, “stand up.”

He flinches at my touch. “What? Why?”

“Because.” I smile. “It’s homecoming. We’re here together. And I want to dance with you.”

He shakes his head. “Liz, no. I can’t. I’ve never—”

“You can, and you will. Alex Berg, Elizabeth Valchar wants to dance with you. Now get up and show her a good time.”

Still holding him by the hand, I lead Alex to the middle of the floor. “Put your hands on my waist,” I say, positioning his arms, “like this.”

“Liz …”

“No arguments.” I put my arms around his neck. “It’s easy,” I whisper. “Just … sway.”

My friends are all around us. Josie has dragged Richie onto the floor, and they’re barely ten feet away.

“See?” My mouth is close to his ear. “There’s nothing to it.”

Alex is very tense at first. But after a few moments, I feel him relax a little bit. It’s peaceful. It feels right, and good, and so ridiculous that, in life, I know I never would have considered sharing space on a dance floor with someone like him.

He steps on my feet. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at this.”

“You’re doing fine. Trust me, it would be much worse if I were wearing open-toed shoes.” I try not to wince. I don’t want him to know how much it really hurts.

Above us, the silver disco ball rotates, casting shadows all over the room. I rest my head on Alex’s shoulder and close my eyes, but not before I notice Mera and Topher by themselves in a corner, barely moving, holding on to each other tightly. Topher kisses Mera on her forehead. She beams at him. I feel happy for them.

“My mother would be praying for my soul if she could see me here,” Alex murmurs.

I smile. “How’s your soul doing right now?”

“It’s doing good.” He pulls me a little bit closer. “It’s doing pretty great, actually.”

The song doesn’t last long enough. The music ends, followed almost immediately by a synthesized drum roll. Our principal, Dr. Harville, steps onto the platform at the front of the room. As soon as the students notice her, people begin to cheer.

“What’s going on?” Alex asks.

I grin. “It’s homecoming. Time to crown the queen.”

Noank High doesn’t have a homecoming king. There’s only a queen, selected every year from the pool of senior girls. In early October, there’s a voting process where all the seniors decide who will be on court. Every year they elect ten girls. At the homecoming dance, every girl on court picks a random rose from a pile of boxed flowers. Of those ten, only one of the roses is red; the rest are white. Whoever gets the red rose gets the crown. The idea of the random rose drawing is supposedly to prevent the whole process from being nothing more than a popularity contest. Even though, when you think about it, it’s still nothing more than a popularity contest—it’s just that everyone’s voting for their top ten. In past years, I know, the list of girls has been unofficially organized by the senior boys into rankings for best face, best ass, best whatever. What can you do? It’s high school.

Dressed in a strappy black cocktail dress and high heels that make her look
very
unlike a principal, Dr. Harville takes the microphone from the DJ.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” she coos, beaming at the crowd. “I think we all know what it’s time for. Could I have the ladies of the court assemble onstage, please?”

I’m not surprised to see that all of my close friends—Caroline, Mera, and Josie—are on the court. Then there’s Grace Harvey, Kelly Zisman, Alexis Fatalsky, Anna and Mary Stevens (who are twins), Julia Wells … and that’s it.

“There are only nine of them,” Alex says. “Who’s number ten?”

“As we all know, our community lost someone very special this year,” Dr. Harville says, her tone becoming solemn. “As your principal, I was incredibly moved when Elizabeth Valchar’s name was written in on so many ballots that it became clear to me we needed to include her on court this year, even if she cannot be with us tonight.”

The crowd of students is silent. The girls onstage stand with their heads bowed, holding hands, already looking defeated. It doesn’t take a genius to understand what’s going to happen next. I realize there are no roses anywhere onstage; there isn’t going to be a selection process this year.

“After a great deal of consideration, since it has become abundantly clear what the loss of Elizabeth has meant to our student body, the faculty and I have decided to posthumously honor her as this year’s homecoming queen.”

Everyone cheers. The other members of the court applaud politely, even though I can all but guarantee there will be plenty of bitching afterward about how unfair my honor was. Even Josie doesn’t look thrilled by the turn of events; she has a tight smile plastered to her face, but her eyes are stony as she stares straight ahead. I don’t know that I blame her. No matter how special I might have been, I’m sure every girl onstage wanted to be queen—especially Josie.

But they’re not the queen. I am. And I’m here.

“Come on,” I say to Alex, grabbing his hand again. This time he doesn’t flinch.

“Why?” He follows me as we weave through the crowd. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m not kidding.” I pull him onstage. We stand beside Dr. Harville together, staring out at the sea of students. “I’m the queen,” I say, still holding his hand, enjoying the long moment of applause. “And I’m crowning you the king.”

After the ceremony, there’s still a good hour left of the dance. Once she’s offstage, Caroline manages to lose Chad in the crowd. He looks for her for a few minutes, then gives up and gets himself a plate of cookies and sits down on the bleachers to ogle all the girls in tight dresses.

Caroline finds Richie in the hallway outside the gymnasium. He’s by himself, sitting on the ground beside a vending machine, his back against the wall, head down.

“Hey, you,” Caroline says, nudging his foot. “Cheer up. It’s a dance, not a funeral.”