New Year's Eve (2 page)

“Yes,” Pete said. “We each have tons of Christmas money.”

Jamie nodded. “But I'm in my pajamas.”

“After they're gone, we'll get you dressed.”

The boys lay on the floor listening. Their big brother George was running around. “These dress shoes are too tight!” George yelled. “I can't even move.”

“Then how did you get in my bathroom?” hollered their father.

Jamie whispered, “Why are we going to the ball?”

“Come on!” Pete said. “You've just had a two-hour tantrum because you wanted to go to that ball.”

“We're going to see Lee,” Kevin said. “Dontcha wanna see Lee again?”

They all wanted to see Lee again. Lee had not just dated their sister; he had practically dated them. He had taken them to the state fair, and he was willing to go on the roller coaster six times in a row. He had taken them on their first—and only—train ride. He let them help change the oil in his car, and there was that memorable night when he and Kip were going to a rock concert and the little boys pleaded to go, too, and Kip told them to drop dead and Lee said, “Oh, all right.”

They would never forget how they were allowed to stuff themselves into the backseat and go to the rock concert, too.

Still, there were a few problems with going to the ball to see Lee.

Number one, he was not there with Kip.

Number two, Kip was there with Mike. Mike didn't want Kevin and Pete and Jamie around. He had enough family of his own, and other people's families annoyed him. Kip's brothers didn't actively dislike Mike, but they didn't really like him either.

They worshipped Lee.

Jamie scrambled up.

“Where you going?” whispered Pete. “We got plans to make.”

“I want to ask Mommy if it's okay.”

His two brothers caught him by the ankles, pulling him smack down on the carpet, and when their mother responded to Jamie's screams, they lay on top of him. “It's what he deserves,” Kevin explained.

Mrs. Elliott was struggling to fit into a gown she had worn two years ago to a formal evening. “Luckily,” observed their mother, “in this life most people don't get what they deserve.” Jamie wasn't bleeding so she walked away.

Except me, Kip thought, who had opened the bathroom door to see what this new type scream of Jamie's meant. I am getting what I deserve.

“I got the lesser of the two,” she whispered to the quiet mirror. “The better one wouldn't put up with it. Of course not! That was one of the things that made him better!”

She had to put her mascara on all over again. How many times would she cry it off tonight? She could remember a dance where half the girls spent the whole Saturday night in the girls' room because they cried so much. Would this New Year's Eve Ball be like that? Kip slipped her mascara wand into her tiny evening bag just in case.

It was hard, under the circumstances, to feel good about a New Year. A New Year in which to make more stupid decisions? Kip thought bleakly. A New Year with three hundred sixty-five days, all of which I can goof up again?

George flung open the bathroom door.

“I am not running a toll booth on the Turnpike here,” Kip said. “I would like a little privacy please.”

None of her brothers paid attention to that sort of remark. “How do I look, Kip?” George asked. He was jumping up and down with nervousness, patting the ruffles on his white dress shirt, and checking for the hundredth time to be sure the cufflinks were still in place.

“You look excellent,” Kip said, without looking.

“You didn't look,” her brother accused her.

“I've told you and told you. You want me to do something for you, then remember to call me Katharine.”

“Katharine, how do I look?” her brother said obediently.

She turned. All George looked was young. He was three weeks short of sixteen and had just set a record in the Elliott family for growth spurts. His elbows jutted far enough to the sides to block traffic. His huge feet clumped along like a clown act. His hands could circle watermelons. A nose that belonged on an elder statesman sat in the middle of a little boy's face. In the rented tuxedo George looked dressed up for Hallowe'en, hoping to get mostly Almond Joy bars.

“You're so handsome,” Kip said, tugging at his lapels as if there were something to straighten. And he was. Or at least, he would be one day. He had a few years to go. Now he was just tall. And young.

“Will Beth Rose like me?” George asked.

“You know she likes you. She's over here all the time and you crack jokes with her as much as I do.”

“That doesn't count,” George said. “I'm just your kid brother then. She has to be polite.”

Kip pretended there was more work to do on her eyelashes. It gave her time to think of the right thing to say. But nothing came to mind. She had set up George with Beth Rose because Beth's beloved Gary was going with somebody else, and Beth didn't know anybody to ask. George was tall enough and he had clothes to wear. That was it for qualifications. He was a sophomore, and this dance was for seniors; he was a bumbling half-grown twerp compared to Gary Anthony. And how could any senior girl not make the comparison?

Here Beth Rose had been the envy of the school for practically a year: plain, wallflower Beth on Gary's arm, and over that year, Beth flowered like her name into a beautiful mature rose.

And Gary, oblivious or bored, drifted on.

To Gwynnie.

Kip had been unable to form much of an opinion about Gwynnie. The girl was just too weird to get a handle on. The Vampire, Kip once referred to her as, and the nickname stuck. Kip didn't know if the nickname would hurt Gwynnie or amuse her because Gwynnie did not appear to have the normal human emotions. Gwynnie was more like a walking mannequin dressed from a vast disorder of clothing.

Gary was rather preppy in his drifty way, and yet at the same time a complete “townie”—he'd rather stay home rebuilding the transmission on his old Chevy than learn to sail. This boy with Gwynnie? Gwynnie, who everyone felt was more likely to take up witchcraft than to run a comb through her hair during the coming New Year?

She was dressed finally, and ready for Mike. Mike was getting George as well as Kip, and they would drive on to collect Beth Rose. Not the most congenial foursome Kip could think of, but they should last for the short drive to The Hadley. She looked at the three little brothers. They were up to something. She could spot that a mile away. Oh, well, who cared? She would be at The Hadley, dancing and laughing and pretending to be calm when Lee came in with Anne. Her brothers could bake cakes in the elevator for all she cared.

Jamie's pajamas bottoms were half off. His top was buttoned wrong. The thick glasses that rode his tiny nose were bent and one lens had a milk splotch. “You look pretty, Katharine,” Jamie said, staring up through the milk splotch.

Kip thought she might cry. She hugged him fiercely. “Happy New Year, Jamie,” she said.

T
AKE ONE SLIM AWKWARD
red-headed teenage girl with no self-confidence. Dress her in the loveliest antique gown imaginable, and set her lightly on the dance floor in front of Prince Charming. One kiss, and she turns into a Princess.

It's not just for fairy tales, thought Beth Rose Chapman. It really works. It worked for me. But that was last year. This is this year.

For what the fairy tales neglected to mention was that Prince Charming was the type of guy who liked more than one princess. And once the prince moved on, the magic spell was broken.

“The beautiful girl,” Beth Rose said, “is in serious danger of turning back into a wallflower.”

Beth Rose examined her reflection. Her mirror was a cheap rectangle from the discount store. The bottom was blocked by rows of lovely bottles, full of perfumes and creams. For a whole love-filled year she had not cared about purchased beauty. Gary loved her no matter what scent she wore.

Now she was back at the beginning.

And in the beginning, Beth Rose thought ruefully, there was panic

The kind of panic where your mind said constantly, if I just pick out the right eye shadow, the right perfume … then he'll like me. If I just buy the right dress … If I just use a different conditioner….

Panic, of course, resulted in decisions like going to the hairdresser yesterday. It had seemed intelligent at the time. She couldn't go on forever with the same old hairdo. And her bright auburn curls were long tangles that hurt to run a brush through. “Do something interesting with it,” Beth Rose commanded the stylist. New hair would be a good beginning to a New Year; perhaps with new hair she would begin sleeping through the night, instead of weeping through it. She cried so often for Gary that she had to leave the bed half made each morning, so the damp pillow and the top sheet with which she mopped her eyes would dry during the day.

“Cut it all off,” Beth Rose said grandly at the beauty shop.

And that, indeed, was what the stylist did.

There was not a hair on her head longer than two inches. Some of it was scarcely half an inch. The red curls tightened into little knots all over her head. If she brushed hard, it turned into red fluff, sort of like cake icing. But the curls were tough, and as the minutes passed, they tightened, and popped back into place, so she looked as if her hair had been made of yarn: tied into French knots by someone trying to learn embroidery.

Now when she had to face Gary with his newer, better princess, she was practically bald. She had never noticed before what a long neck she had. Now that her thick red hair no longer hid it from view, her neck felt very conspicuous. Her ears looked like little white doorknobs.

All year she had had such poise! Could it really have been a gift of Gary exclusively? Gould it really be that she, Beth Rose, had none, except what she borrowed from him? She resented Gary for that, and despised herself for it: but how much easier it was to be poised when somebody special loved you, and made it clear in public. And when that special somebody very clearly in public chose to love another girl … well, the old poise was a little harder to come by.

At least her dress was perfect.

Brocade, and of all the unexpected colors for a redhead to pick, it was lavender. Deep rich lavender like violets in spring. Silvery lavender weeping willows were embroidered over violet streams. The brocade pattern wound and shimmered around and around, vines twining together, streams flowing beneath and above.

Tightly shirred around Beth's narrow waist, the dress covered one shoulder and left the other bare. It gathered in a bustle around her hips, twisted around her legs, and ended in a ruffled flourish at one ankle, leaving the other leg open to the knee.

Although it covered most of her, it was a very sensuous dress, and more sophisticated than anything she had ever worn. It was not last year's sweet fragile antique lace, and it was not last summer's gentle pastel cotton. It was this year's brilliant elegance.

I can't go mousy with a dress like this, she decided, choosing makeup.

Instead of the usual little-girl colors recommended for redheads, she tried dark dusky shadows about her eyes. High up beneath her eyes, she sculptured cheekbones. Then she turned off all the bedroom lights except the tiny reading light by her pillow. The dim light cast mysterious shadows on the new high cheekbones she had drawn in.

However, nice high cheekbones were not as good as poise.

“There is always the possibility,” Beth Rose said to the friendly dark, “of just not going to the dance at all.”

Beth Rose had considered this every ten minutes since her date had been arranged. Seventeen days now. That was a lot of consideration. The date embarrassed her. Everybody would know who her date really was—somebody's little brother—and they would know he was there because nobody else would go with Beth.

Gary would pity her.

She thought she could not bear it that the boy who had loved her, admired her, laughed with her, and teased her, would now feel that embarrassing emotion—pity. At least Beth Rose was not the only one in this boat: Kip had lost Lee, and the girls had spent many an hour on the phone, endlessly going over the reasons and agonies in their love lives.

Some senior year, Kip had said more than once. Senior year is supposed to be perfect. Problems are okay when you're a sophomore or a junior, but by the time you're a senior you should have it together.

The boys did have it together, of course. It was just that they had it together with other girls.

Gary's new princess would shine so much that even in this stunning purple brocade, Beth would feel faded, like old jeans.

She studied her reflection again. The brocade shimmered. Her pale skin was ghostly, and delicate. And actually, now that she was slightly used to it, how nicely her head was shaped! She had always thought of her head as a large red thing balanced heavily on top of her shoulders, but now she saw it was neat, small, and attractive.

Maybe the haircut wasn't grotesque.

Maybe in the darkness of the dance, nobody would recognize her date as Kip's younger brother, drafted for the occasion.

Maybe in the dark she would find another romance.

“Oh right,” Beth said. “And maybe I'll win the lottery, too.” She turned the lights back on in order to find her evening bag. Mistake. For there, lying beside her silver purse, was the crimson red invitation to Gwynnie's After Midnight party.

Gwynnie was the new girl in town.

She did not dress, talk, act, or move like any other girl in Westerly. Sometimes she wore black: huge skirts made of sweatshirt material that hung down to her ankles, with huge sweatshirts, jet-black jewelry, and dark sunglasses. Sometimes she wore horn-rimmed sunglasses and a man's pinstriped wool business suit, with scarlet suspenders to keep up the enormous trousers. She had a leather bomber's jacket she paired with a red velvet skirt (and suede sunglasses) and an antique smoking jacket of dark green silk that she wore with jeans (and rubber wrap-around sunglasses).