French kiss (31 page)

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"You better!" Marisol commanded. She gave Cady a "see you later" kiss and hustled away toward Ed.

Cady watched her best friend disappear and scanned the room again. Lucas was still missing. But she spotted a hotel-sized couch along one wall. Sitting down seemed like a good idea.

"Excuse me," Cady said weakly as she squeezed onto the cushions next to a boy named Fly. She recognized him from calculus. His girlfriend, who didn't go to Chesterfield, was at his side.

"Mmmnh," Fly grunted. He had crystal blue eyes. Cady couldn't help but stare. His girlfriend looked stoned.

"What are you looking at?" Fly's girlfriend asked.

"Nothing," Cady said, fanning herself with an open hand. "It's just hot."

"Hot," the girl said as she put her hand on the inside of her boyfriend's leg. Without even turning around, Fly slid his hand halfway up his date's skirt, revealing more of her fishnet stockings. They both moaned.

Cady tried not to look. She'd come without a date, and so the sight of two kids feeling each other up made her bristle with utter, total, complete disgust.

And a teeny bit of jealousy.

After all, she'd gone to all this trouble with the red dress.

You know you want it. You know, you know, you know you want it.

The music thumped again. Cady fussed with her long brown hair. She'd stupidly sprayed hair gel into it earlier

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that evening and now it was sticky like a spider web. She could barely comb her fingers through the top. "Ouch."

Make-out Boy elbowed Cady in the side as he raised his hips and pressed into his girlfriend.

Where was a chaperone when you needed one?

Cady stood up again and walked toward an exit. She needed air.

Through a set of sliding glass doors, Cady wandered onto an enormous mezzanine-level patio and perched over the wide iron railing. She'd begun the night with a group of friends. Now she was alone.

Cady gazed across a field at the main road behind the hotel, tracing the red and white paths of taillights and headlights on cars and trucks moving toward unknown destinations. The traffic made her dizzy. And although the hotel patio was cooler and much quieter than the flashing ballroom, Cady's head still ached.

All around, kids gulped night air and stole French kisses. Cady wished Lucas Wheeler was here, too, with his square shoulders and sweet tongue. Kissing her. She wanted to finger the lock of curly hair that swept across his forehead. She wanted to gaze into his deep-set brown eyes. He always smelled like burned incense and his voice was rough, like he smoked, even though he said he hated cigarettes. He was warm all the time, even in winter.

Everything about Lucas Wheeler was made for kissing.

Prom noise filtered upstairs to guest rooms on the third floor, so hotel security came around with their buzzing

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walkie-talkies, trying the best they could to keep the rowdiest graduates quiet. No one was listening.

Students stumbled to the elevator bank, half-drunk with the alcohol they weren't supposed to be drinking. Some headed upstairs to rented suites where they planned to hook up, watch movies, drink some more, and stay up all night long. Others made their way toward the hotel parking lot and lined up for their limousines.

Everyone needed someplace to go, and anywhere was good, as long as it wasn't home. Not yet.

The distressed wooden clock on the mezzanine wall read eleven o'clock. There was still time for Cady to salvage prom. If she hurried. She grabbed the hem of her dress and moved swiftly toward the coat check area. When she got there, Cady leaned into the table, drumming out a song beat with impatient fingertips, and waited for the coat checker to return.

Most of the musicians in her class hoped for a late night prom jam, since it might be one of the last times they played together. A group planned to meet at Big Cup, a makeshift coffee house for teens that was set up in the basement of a local art gallery. Cady wished she'd brought her faded jeans and a tee to change into. How was she going to jam in this dress?

"Um, can you hurry it up?" Cady asked the checker, who seemed lost in a maze of bags and coats. "My bag's cowhide with a big silver buckle and it should be sitting next to a guitar case. I mean, how many Fenders are back there?"

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Through the loudspeakers, music sped up. There would be a few more fast songs before the end of everything.

Off in the distance, Cady observed a girl standing alone, fingering a blue tassel fringe on a scarf around her neck. Cady guessed that girl had been waiting for a dance since prom began. Sometimes strangers seemed so familiar, Cady thought. Nearby, two other girls jokingly lifted up their shiny tops for just a nanosecond while a cluster of guys applauded. But no one paid much attention to them or their belly-button rings.

Where was the damn bag?

Not so far away, a couple appeared, arguing, just outside the main doors to the main ballroom. Cady couldn't see the guy at all. He stood hidden behind a pillar. But she knew the girl right away. Cady recognized the low dip in the back of Hope White's long prom dress.

Cady moved her eyes over the curve of Hope's shoulder, down her naked spine, down the V-line of her silk dress, and ending at Hope's slender ankles. Everything about Hope's form was perfectly sewn, buttoned, and zipped. But the poker-straight blond hair was down now, not up, like it had been earlier that night. And Hope's normally eggshell white skin was flushed.

Cady could tell something was wrong.

Then the boy stepped into view.

"Lucas?" Cady said weakly.

He waved his arms wildly in the air, as if he and Hope were doing a dance. But they weren't.

Cady's pulse raced and she edged closer.

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"Leave me--" Hope said.

Cady could only hear some of the words.

"Cut the--" Lucas said.

"Don't--"

"Lies--" Lucas cried.

Then he raised his left arm up high over his head.
SLAP.

Cady clasped a wide hand over her gaping mouth. Hope fell to the floor.

Someone nearby screamed and the room spun on its axis. Biceps boy, Darius West and his basketball crew, Fly and his stoner girlfriend all turned.

Everyone stopped. Time stopped.

"Hey!" a guy cried from halfway across the room. "Wheeler. What the hell did you do?"

It was Jed Baker, one of the biggest kids at Chesterfield. "You're hamburger, asshole."

Jed lunged and body-slammed Lucas into a wall. A few more guys came over quickly, muscles pumped, knuckles primed.

"Watch out!"

"Did you see that?"

"He hit a girl!" someone screamed.

From out of nowhere, another kid tried to sucker-punch Lucas right in the face. Lucas bobbed to the side and stumbled back, coughing.

"Let--me -- go--" Lucas mumbled, tugging at his own collar.

But no one let go. The crowd moved in tighter, like a vise.

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"What just happened?"

"He hit a girl."

"You piece of--"

"Stand BACK!" a chaperone shouted. "Stand back! NOW!" He clapped his hands.

Reluctantly, the guys pushed away from Lucas, and Cady raced over. She kneeled down beside Hope, who sat on the floor in a crumpled pile, prom dress bunched up around her like purple icing on a dirty cake.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Cady asked, touching Hope's arm.

"No ..." Hope said. She touched her own cheek. There was a handprint. "My face ... burns ..."

Cady leaned in closer. Her insides were grinding. The whole crowd was grinding.

"Can you stand?" Cady asked Hope.

Another teacher rushed over. "Does someone want to tell me
exactly
what happened here?" she yelled.

Pale yellow organza and floor-length pink satin swooshed as girls hurried to give their own scattered versions of the story. But everything was happening too fast to make any sense.

"Lucas Wheeler just lost it."

"Someone call hotel security."

"Oh my God, oh my God."

Cady squeezed Hope's hand. "Can you stand?" she asked again.

"No." Hope shook her head.

Then Cady looked up, and saw Lucas clearly for the

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first time. He wiped the corner of his mouth and stared down at his shaking palms.

There was blood on his mouth and hand.

"Oh, shit," Lucas said aloud. "This is bad."

A few more muscle-heads shoved their way toward him, but a chaperone got in the way. "Stand back, I said! Stand back!" he wailed.

The angry crowd moved in and out like it was breathing.

"Just--wait--
please
--let me explain ..." Lucas said.

Cady saw Lucas thrust his arms into the air, surrendering to the chaos. She'd never seen him look so scared. His eyes appeared to cross and then uncross like he'd had too much to drink, and Cady guessed that he had. His buddies had probably laced a cup of punch with hard stuff.

"Incident on the mezzanine level. Send up the manager, please."

Out of nowhere, two hotel security guards appeared, pushing through the mob, walkie-talkies in hand. They each grabbed an arm and started to lead Lucas back toward the elevators.

"Hey! Where are you taking him?" a girl yelled.

The taller security guard waved the girl away.

"Out of my way," the guard growled. "This is an accident, and we'll handle it from here...."

"It was no accident!" Hope sobbed, trying to be heard above the crowd. "HE HIT ME!"

"He hit her!" the crowd repeated loudly, eyes rutted with angry judgment.

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Cady gazed deep into Hope's eyes, across from her. The truth had to be there. Where was it? Then Cady looked over at Lucas. He stared back, jaw locked. He spoke softly --too softly--to be heard above the din. But Cady could read his lips.

"I screwed up so bad," Lucas said. "It wasn't her. You were the one."

Cady's chest clenched. She knew what he meant.

In one instant, she understood everything.

Cady pulled herself up from the floor and stretched out the fingers of her left hand. She grabbed at air like she was grabbing for Lucas, even as he was being dragged away by the two security guards. And in spite of everything that had just happened, she still wanted that dance.

She still wanted.

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Prom Night June 15, 8:12
pm

Hope

Girls crowded around the sink inside the marble bathroom at the Chesterfield Suites. The air reeked of jasmine perfume, baby powder, and antiseptic. A restroom matron sat in a small black leather chair off to one side, passing out hand towels and checking to make sure no one sneaked cigarettes or worse inside the stalls. She had a tip dish on the counter next to her, but it was empty.

Everyone had to pee. The line wound halfway out the door. Girls whispered excitedly about their prom dates or their outfits or, in most cases, about someone else's outfit-- and how tacky/ugly/slutty/fill-in-the-blank it was.

"Hey, does anyone have any deodorant?" one girl called out to everyone else in the room.

Hope pressed in front of one sink mirror. She looked up while washing her hands. The pale pink gloss she'd applied an hour earlier had all but disappeared. She spotted Cady Sanchez in the mirror.

"There you are," Hope said, sidling up to Cady. "I wondered if I'd find you."

"You look ... amazing," Cady said. Her face glowed.

Hope smiled. "Like the dress? It's an original Vance. Dad insisted."

Cady nodded. "Wow."

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"Your dress is nice, too," Hope said, stroking the fabric. Her fingers slid lightly across Cady's wrist. "You really need lipstick, though. Something red hot."

"I put some on when I left the house," Cady said. "But then I forgot to take the tube with me. Dumb, right?"

"I'd give you some of mine, but this is too pale and it just wouldn't go. Sorry," Hope said. She blew a kiss into the mirror.

"So where's your date?" Cady asked. "You come with Rich?"

Hope grinned. "Uh-huh. He's outside with his friends."

"I bet
he
likes your dress," Cady said. "What's not to like?" Hope countered with a shrug. "What ever happened to that text-messaging guy?" Cady asked.

"Him?" Hope flinched a little. "Who cares?"

"He stopped texting."

"Well." Hope paused. "Not exactly. Actually, he might be here tonight."

"Here?" Cady blurted, taken aback. "At prom? Are you kidding?"

Hope shook her head. "He goes to Chesterfield."

"What? Cady asked, looking concerned.

"I know. I should have told you, Cady. I wanted to tell you. But then I couldn't. Please don't make a big deal ..."

"Your stalker goes to our school," Cady said with disbelief. "How can you not make a big deal out of that? Who the hell is the guy?"

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