One To Watch (24 page)

“Okay,” Alison tittered, “open your eyes!”

“What the hell is this?” Bea blurted before she could stop herself. She was in the designated hair/makeup/wardrobe conference room at the Econo Lodge where they were staying, and she was positively surrounded by long, sparkling dresses.

“They’re for your date with Wyatt,” Alison clarified, as if this explained anything at all.

“In Cheshire, Ohio?” Bea was incredulous. “The only time I’ve ever even
seen
anyone in town dress this formally is—wait. No. Alison, no.”

Alison laughed with unbridled glee. “It’s prom night, baby!”

And so it was that Bea ended up in a slinky Badgley Mischka gown embroidered with ombré sequins that shifted in the light from navy blue to deep turquoise. With sky-high heels and her hair pinned back in glossy curls, Bea felt like she was finally getting the glamorous pre-prom experience she’d yearned for in high school.

“See?” Alison reassured her. “Not a disco ball at all.”

“More like that sparkly dress Ariel wears when she comes out of the water at the end of
The Little Mermaid
.”

“Oh my God, a forever look,” Alison exclaimed. “My little mermaid finally has her legs.”

“Changing her body to please a man, just like everyone,” Bea quipped.

“Not you.” Alison draped her arms around Bea affectionately.

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t if I wanted to!”

Bea thought back to her adolescence in this place, the years of fad diets and attempted starvation that never resulted in a loss of more than five or ten pounds (always immediately regained the second she ate a normal meal). No matter what she did, Bea was always the fattest girl in school, and maybe also the quietest, doing whatever she could to escape unwanted attention. As she rode in a limousine toward the small park in the center of town where she was meeting Wyatt—towering oak trees, a picturesque gazebo strung with fairy lights, and a small crowd of people cheering and waving posters, waiting to welcome home their town’s most famous daughter—she had the sense that if she wasn’t quite rewriting history tonight, she was, at least in some small way, righting it.

It was all a little surreal, but as Bea emerged from the limo, she thought the craziest part of all might just be the man who was waiting for her: Tall, broad, and golden, Wyatt looked every inch the football hero Bea remembered—except, in a perfectly fitted tuxedo, he was no longer the casual farmer in boots and jeans.

Tonight, he was the prom king.

“You look so pretty.” He smiled shyly as she approached him, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“You too,” she sputtered, suddenly very aware of the onlookers surrounding them.

“I got this for you.” He held out a plastic box, and Bea felt like they were reenacting a memory she didn’t have as she held out her wrist and he slipped on the red rose corsage. “Well, the producers did. It’s nice, though, don’t you think?”

Bea kissed his cheek and agreed that it was.

“Aren’t you chivalrous,” Bea joked as he held open the limo door, and he blushed bright red. Even though Wyatt was ruggedly handsome, the total picture of idealized Marlboro Man masculinity, there was something fragile about him—something Bea couldn’t explain but instinctively felt she needed to protect. It was a bizarre sensation, particularly since the rest of the men in the house could seem like a many-headed Hydra, different faces of one monster ready to attack.

“What was your prom like?” Bea asked when they were in the limo and en route to her old high school, two cameras rolling to capture their conversation.

“I don’t know,” Wyatt admitted. “I stayed home.”

“Really?” Bea was taken aback. “But you were on the football team, right? In our school, those guys were like kings.”

“I wasn’t really part of that,” Wyatt demurred. “The other guys—we got along and everything, but we didn’t really spend time together outside practice.”

“Why not?” Bea was genuinely curious.

Wyatt shrugged. “Different interests.”

“Oh,” Bea replied, wanting to know more, but not about to pry.

“What about you?” He nudged her knee. “I’ll bet you were the best-dressed girl at your prom.”

Bea shook her head. “I didn’t go either.”

“How come?”

“No one to go with.” Bea sighed. “I was friends with the theater tech kids; we were kind of antisocial. School dances were so not their scene.”

“But you wanted to go, didn’t you?”

Bea felt her chest tighten. She didn’t just want to go—she’d been absolutely desperate.

“I made my stepdad tape
Pretty in Pink
off cable, and I watched it over and over,” Bea confessed. “I thought Andie was so brave, going to prom alone. But she was beautiful, and all these guys secretly loved her. If I went to prom alone, everyone would have laughed.”

“Why did you think that?” Wyatt coaxed gently. “Were people at your school mean to you?”

Bea thought back to another football player—blond and tall, like Wyatt, but where Wyatt was gentle, he’d been rough. Where Wyatt was warm and inquisitive, he’d been cold and indifferent, his existence a daily punishment for Bea having had the audacity to have feelings for him.

“No.” Bea smiled as she lied. “They were fine.”

Cheshire High’s real prom wasn’t until late May—that would be a rubbery chicken dinner at a local banquet venue with ostentatious carpets and faux gilt chandeliers. This “prom,” staged for the purpose of this week’s episode, was a bonus dance funded by the
Main Squeeze
production. The Cheshire High School gym, scene of many of Bea’s athletic humiliations and faked period cramps to avoid the same, was decked out with streamers, balloons, and swirls of rainbow-colored spotlights, and filled to the brim with high school kids in off-brand formalwear dancing to the music of some band no one had heard of (whose label had surely paid for this opportunity to get them on TV). The band—which was actually pretty good, Bea noted, punky women in black lipstick and torn fishnets—was playing on a makeshift stage the crew had constructed under one of the basketball nets, illuminated by heavy production lights.

Bea and Wyatt waited to make their big entrance in a far less glamorous location: the gym’s equipment closet, lined with smelly pinnies and stacks of basketballs.

“Are you nervous?” Wyatt asked her.

“A little,” Bea admitted. “Teenagers are terrifying.”

Wyatt looked wan; Bea realized he was considerably more tense than she was. The band finished its song, and Bea and Wyatt’s field producer ushered them into place for their entrance. They heard thunderous applause as Johnny took the stage and shouted, “Cheshire High, how are you doing tonight?”

The kids cheered gamely, and in a matter of moments, the producer was shoving Bea and Wyatt through the door and into the gym, where they pushed toward the stage despite a blinding spotlight and what felt like a throng of screaming fans, light and noise pressing in on them from every angle.

“Give it up for Cheshire’s own Bea Schumacher!” Johnny shouted as Bea and Wyatt ascended the stairs to the little stage, and the kids applauded. “So, Bea, I understand you never went to a dance when you were in high school. What do you think of your very first prom?”

Bea heard some snarky murmurs from the kids—terrific, one more moment of feeling like a loser in the Cheshire High gym.

“So far, so good.” She forced a smile.

“Well, what would you say if I told you that you and Wyatt had been voted prom king and queen?”

Bea eyed Johnny skeptically. “I would say the voting was pretty well rigged, since none of these people have ever met me?”

The kids laughed appreciatively, as did Johnny. “You’ve got us there, Bea. As a matter of fact, the students chose their own prom king and queen as well—let’s welcome Cort and Tara to the stage!”

The kids started screaming and cheering again as two teenagers bounded up to join Bea and Wyatt—a guy in a rented tux who was tall and handsome and absolutely a basketball player (or maybe a football player? or maybe both?) and a girl who was blond and teensy in her lacy pink dress.

“Okay, you four,” Johnny said conspiratorially, “since there can only be one
true
prom king and queen, what do you say we have a little competition to see who wins the crown? It’s time to play the prom date game!”

Bea had no idea what that meant, but it turned out the “prom date game” was a barely reimagined version of
The Newlywed Game,
wherein Bea and Wyatt would compete against Cort and Tara to see how well they knew their respective prom dates. This didn’t seem quite fair to Bea, considering that Cort and Tara had presumably spent more than ten minutes in each other’s company prior to tonight, but it was no use protesting. A PA handed them all squares of poster board and thick black markers, and they wrote down responses to a list of questions before Johnny publicly grilled them to reveal their answers. Five rounds into the seven-round game, Cort and Tara had, predictably, won every single time.

“What,” Johnny asked dramatically to begin round six, “is your prom date’s favorite condiment?”

Bea guessed Wyatt’s correctly (“She’s right, I
do
love ketchup”), and revealed her own proclivity for sour cream (“It goes with every kind of potato!”), before Cort was forced to admit he’d misread the question when he flipped over a placard that read “Trojans.”

“It’s mustard, Cort.” Tara shook her head disdainfully. “He knows how much I love mustard.”

Cort hung his head in shame as Bea and Wyatt grinned at each other, pleased to have finally won a round of the game—but their victory was to be short-lived.

“Okay, guys, we saved the best for last,” Johnny effused. “What is the craziest place your prom date has ever had sex? Or, Cort and Tara, the craziest place they’ve ever been kissed, in your case?”

Cort and Tara exchanged a knowing look, and Tara giggled. “Whatever you say, Johnny.”

The teens were answering first this round, and it was clear there was no question as to whether they’d guessed correctly: They were both holding back uncontrollable laughter as they shouted “Mr. Asalone’s classroom!” in unison, which was met with a roar of cheers and applause from the rest of the kids. Cort and Tara high-fived, and while Bea was happy for the teens’ sex-positive attitude, it certainly didn’t make her feel better about the answer she was about to give.

“Over to you, Wyatt and Bea,” said Johnny. “Bea, what’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?”

Bea sighed and figured if she was going to be ridiculed for her answer no matter what, she might as well tell the truth. “Get ready to be really shocked, everyone,” she said with what she hoped was a good-natured laugh. “My answer is, in bed!”

The crowd was silent, and Bea saw some of the kids frown and tilt their heads with apparent pity. But she felt a surge of affection for Wyatt when he turned over his placard and she saw that he’d written “FASHION SHOW.”

“Wow.” Bea laughed. “Looks like we really stereotyped each other.”

She flipped over her own placard to show him she’d written “BARN,” but instead of laughing along, Wyatt flushed deep pink.

“Wyatt?” Johnny prompted him. “Did Bea guess right?”

Wyatt looked at the floor. “No,” he said quietly.

“It’s okay,” Bea said gently. “I mean, you heard my answer, right? Whatever yours is, it’s fine.”

He looked up to meet her gaze. “The answer is nowhere.”

Bea was puzzled for a second—but then she realized what he meant.

“So you’ve never …?”

He shook his head.

The gym was completely silent except for the sound of whirring generators. “That concludes our game!” Johnny said grandly, pushing through the sense of awkwardness that had settled over the crowd. “Bea and Wyatt, you were worthy competitors, but it looks like this year’s crowns will go to Cort and Tara!”

Everyone clapped halfheartedly as the two teens donned their sparkly plastic headgear, and Johnny moved them quickly to the next portion of the night: the dancing. The kids poured onto the floor as the band kicked back up, and Bea and Wyatt grabbed some punch and went to sit on the bleachers. Bea was grateful for a chance for a more private conversation with Wyatt—even if they were still being filmed.

“That took a lot of courage,” she told him.

He shrugged. “Didn’t have much of a choice, I guess.”

“That’s not true,” Bea argued. “You could have lied.”

“With this poker face?” A small smile played on his lips. “You would have seen right through me.”

Bea laughed warmly, and he threaded his fingers through hers.

“Does it freak you out?” he asked. “That I’m … you know.”

“No.” Bea shook her head. “It’s kind of a relief, actually.”

Wyatt tilted his head. “Really? Why?”

“I guess I just assumed I was the least experienced person here, because I’ve never been in a long-term relationship,” Bea said quietly. “It’s been really intimidating, feeling like—I don’t know. Like all of you would judge me, or not take me seriously. It makes me feel young, somehow.”

Wyatt’s face lit up with recognition.

“That’s it exactly,” he agreed. “There’s this part of me that feels stuck. Not quite grown-up.”