Prom (6 page)

“I’m going to shower,” I said.

“Good idea. You smell like cheese.”

I stepped around her and went up the stairs. “I’m headed over to TJ’s after.” I opened the screen door. “You coming in?”

She tilted her head back. “Not yet. I want to look at the stars.”

I looked up. You couldn’t see shit from our yard.

When I got out of the shower, Dad was reading a bedtime story to Billy. They were stretched out on Billy’s mattress, Billy holding Binky Rabbit and Dad with his arm around both of them. The light from my desk was shining on the tops of their heads. They had the exact same color hair, a mix of honey blond with a little copper red in it.

It didn’t make me mushy or anything.

I sat on the end of my bed and reached up for my basket of nail polish supplies. I didn’t want to go to TJ’s with my toenails looking skanky. I soaked a wad of toilet paper with nail polish remover and went to work on my big toe.

“And then what happened?” Billy asked.

Dad peeked at me over the top of the book.

“And then the wicked brothers yelled at Kenny and called him names and made him eat dog food.” Dad turned the page.

“Was it gross dog food?”

“Disgusting,” Dad said. Billy grinned and wiggled. “After he ate the dog food, he had to clean the wicked brothers’ rooms, and polish their motorcycles and get the video games all set up so the brothers could play them as soon as they came home from Bad Guy School.”

“But he couldn’t play the games, could he?”

Dad’s eyes went all buggy. “Are you kidding me? The wicked brothers had, um, cameras, hidden cameras everywhere in the castle. If Kenny even pretended to play video games, they’d throw him in the dungeon for a week!”

Five toenails were polish-free and I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are you reading to him?”

“It’s a fairy tale,” Billy said. ‘Kenny-ella.’”

“Oh, God.”

Dad marked his place in the book with his finger and closed it. “What’s wrong?”

“‘Kenny-ella’? What the hell is that?”

Billy sighed like I was a moron. “Kenny-ella is the littlest brother, and he has wicked brothers and a stupid sister, and they all pick on Kenny-ella and make him do the worst jobs in the castle, but what they don’t know is that Kenny-ella is really a superhero, and the magic taxicab driver gives him a secret ray gun. . . .”

I held up my hands. “I get the picture. The cabbie is a nice touch.”

“Hey. We’re reading here. Keep your comments to yourself.”

“‘Kenny-ella’ isn’t even a real fairy tale. You’re warping his mind.”

Billy’s chin jutted out and he hugged Binky Rabbit tighter. “We’re not warping, we’re reading.”

“Whatever,” I said. I tore off another piece of toilet paper and attacked the other foot.

“Thank you,” Dad said. “We’re reading. Now where were we?” He opened the book and pretended to scan the page. “Here. When the castle was clean and the motorcycles polished, Kenny went to his bedroom. . . .”

“With no stupid sister in it . . .” Billy butted in.

“Which he didn’t have to share with his stupid sister,” Dad agreed.

“Because his sister had her own castle,” I said. “With no wicked brothers or motorcycles or crazy parents.”

“Did the sister’s castle have any video games?” Billy asked.

“Of course. And a maid, and a cook, and a magic closet that filled with new designer fashions every morning when the sun came up.”

“Do you mind?” Dad asked.

Billy sat straight up and bounced a little on his mattress. “And the sister’s castle was right next to the brothers’ castle, and they all got ice cream whenever they wanted, and they all lived happily ever after. I gotta go pee.”

A car without a muffler turned the corner, coughed its way down the street, and parked next door.

“Sounds like Nat—” Dad started.

I was gone.

Grandma opened the front door, still in her dripping suit and bathing cap. She said something I didn’t understand and waved for me to follow her. She had known me since I was in second grade, but she always acted like I spoke Russian.

The Shulmensky house was the exact same shape and size as ours, but it felt twice as big, even with books and newspapers piled on the floor and covering the furniture. For one thing, it didn’t have extra kids or animals laying around. And it was fancy, like a magazine, with pretty curtains that Grandma sewed and pillows and rugs. The Hannigan house smelled like boys and dog and coffee. The Shulmenskys’ smelled like furniture polish, boiled meat, and that weird orange tea they were always drinking.

Grandma dragged me up the stairs to Nat’s bedroom. She put her finger to her lips. We leaned towards the closed door and listened.

Nothing. Silence, except for the sound of Grandma’s suit dripping on the hall carpet. I tried the handle, but the door was locked.

Grandma frowned and yelled something Russian. She could have been saying, “Open up, your best friend is here.” On the other hand, it could have been, “America is a great country because of canned ravioli.”

There was a murmur inside.

Grandma smacked the door once with her hand and waddled back down the stairs.

The lock turned.

I pushed the door open. “Nattie?”

Nat was sitting at her desk with the phone to her ear and her back turned towards me. She hadn’t trashed her room. The animé posters were still on the wall, the scrapbooks neatly stacked on their shelf, her bed was made, and the stuffed penguins were lined up on the pillows in order of size.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She held one finger up in the air. “Yes,” she told the phone. “Can you give me her name?” She wrote in a notebook. “And her phone number?” More writing. “Great, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much for your help.”

She hung up the phone and spun around in her chair. “What’s up?”

Her nose was its normal pale self. Her eyes were not puffy. No tears. It didn’t look like she had banged her head against a wall or thrown herself on the ground for an all-out temper tantrum. No rope burns on her neck, no razor marks on her wrists. She looked fine, like nothing had happened.

I laid the back of my hand against her forehead. Her temperature was normal. “Are you medicated?”

She laughed. “What are you talking about? What’s up?”

I sat on her bed and held a penguin. “I thought you might be a little upset, seeing as how the most important thing in your world was cancelled today. Hello? The prom?”

“It’s not really cancelled. Not yet. Mr. Banks encouraged us to find another hotel. He was really supportive.”

“I’m confused.”

She picked up a thick pink notebook with sparkly stars on it. “Mr. Banks gave me Miss Crane’s notes, all the suppliers, potential vendors, everything. The prom is on and it’s going to rock.” As she talked, her voice was going higher and higher until it sounded like she just took a hit of helium.

“But you don’t have a hotel yet.”

“I’m still working on that.”

“And what about food, and the decorations, and a DJ?”

“We’re having a big meeting after school tomorrow. You should come.”

“You guys started planning for this back in October, Natalia, seven months ago. Seven
months
. You think you’re going to pull together a different hotel, different everything in a couple days? Get a grip.”

She shoved a pencil in the electric pencil sharpener, checked the point, and put it in the pencil holder. “It would be really fun if you helped me. Really.”

“Can’t. I’m on my way to TJ’s.”

She took a cigarette out of the pack on the desk and lit it. “Why? Does he need more money?”

“For your information, he worked all weekend. Construction. He’s looking at a union job.”

“Bull.”

“You calling him a liar?”

She tapped the ash into an ashtray. “Let’s just say he exaggerates and leave it at that.” She held up the pink planning notebook. “It would be so awesome if you helped me. I mean, you don’t have to go, but the behind-the-scenes stuff, it could be a blast. Honest. Cross my heart.”

I put down the penguin. “It’s just a dance, Nat. Let it go.”

She gripped the chair. “
Just
a dance?”

I should have left when I found out she wasn’t dead. “Well, yeah. I mean, you love it and all, but for kids like me . . .”

Nat rolled her chair a few inches closer. “Just a
dance?
”

“A stupid dance.” I stood up. “I gotta go. TJ’s waiting.”

Nat rolled in front of the door to block my way. “No, no, really. I want to hear this. Why is it stupid?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I do. I totally do.”

I took a deep breath. “You wear a pretty dress, buy shoes that don’t fit, and pretend for one night that you don’t go to Carceras, you don’t live around here, you pretend that you have money, that you’re a movie star or a rap star, or anything except what you really are which is a poor kid from a broke family going nowhere. It’s not real. Jesus, Nat, you’re going with a guy you don’t even like, somebody you barely know, just so you can act like you’re in love for a few hours. You’ll wake up the next morning and still be the same old person. Why bother?”

She took a hit on the cigarette, sucking so hard I thought it was going to explode into flame. She blew out the smoke and reached for her phone book.

“Go play with your boyfriend,” she said.

“Whatever,” I answered.

TJ, his sister Becca, and Becca’s new baby lived with their aunt Lana in a house that should have been condemned years ago. My family was “no-extra-money-for-nothing” poor. TJ’s family was “government-cheese-for-dinner” poor.

When I got there, Aunt Lana was at her second job, tending bar at The Haystack. Becca had no clue where TJ was. She handed me her baby because she had been holding it all day long and her arms were ready to fall off. The baby was seven weeks old. It still didn’t have a name.

“Max is nice,” I said.

“Max is a dweeb.” Becca pointed the remote and switched from MTV to MTV2. “My baby is not a dweeb.”

“How ’bout Harley?”

“That’s a girl’s name.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I knew a girl named Harley down in Avalon.”

“Oh.”

I shifted her kid to my other hip. “You’re sure you don’t know where TJ is?”

“The baby and me were taking a nap. I heard him come in. He must have left, right? What about Fire?”

“Not.”

“Rock?”

“He’s a baby, Becca.”

“He won’t always be a baby. He needs a strong name.” She switched back to MTV. “How about Storm?”

“Storm is a girl in
X-Men
. Didn’t you see the movie?”

“Damn. Why are all good names girls’ names?”

“You should have had a girl.”

“Maybe next time.”

Max/Harley/Fire/Rock/Storm wailed like his blanket was on fire. We changed his diaper and tried to feed him and rubbed his stomach and rubbed his back, but he wouldn’t stop. I wanted to ask Becca about TJ’s so-called job, but she was busy. We put him in a new outfit, but he kept crying.

“If TJ calls, tell him I’m going to the park,” I finally said.

Becca could barely hear me with the baby screaming in her ear.

“You should call him Noise,” I said.

She nodded her head, but she wasn’t looking at me; she was patting her baby’s back and rocking back and forth and watching ten skinny girls shaking their things in Snoop Dogg’s face on the TV. Snoop Dogg looked skizzle-old, if you ask me.

I knew I should go home. It was after nine. I had homework. My highlights needed touching up. My sheets needed changing. I should apologize to Nat. Ma had chores for me. I had homework.

On the other hand, I missed him. And the last place I wanted to go was home.

If TJ was anywhere, he was probably shooting hoops at Pennhope Park. It only took me fifteen minutes on the bus. The lights were on and the courts were all busy. The bleachers were packed with girls watching ball players and guys watching girls watching ball players, and TJ was sure to be in there somewhere.

I pulled the cord.

He wasn’t there. Nobody had seen him. Nobody had talked to him.

I borrowed a cell phone and called him twenty times. No answer.

I just hung out, honest. Did not partake of illegal substances, except for some Budweiser. Did not hook up with anybody. Did not shoot baskets. (Was wearing a skirt and my best flip-flops, and was not going to tempt fate.)

I sat on the bleachers with Moira O’Malley and her cousin Brie and some of their friends from St. Cecelia’s who I didn’t really know but had seen around. I said “yo” and they said “yo” and Brie said “what’s up” and I said “boys suck” and she said “no shit, you gonna sit with us?” and I sat.

Moira gave me a warm beer. We watched the game.

Brie asked me if it was true that our principal had gambled our prom money away in Vegas. I said no, my Math teacher stole it. They looked disappointed.

Some guys from Mother of Hope came over to where we were sitting. They smelled like summer sweat and hair gel. Brie and the other St. Cecelia girls went with them to Burger King to get shakes. Moira didn’t want to go ’cause she was waiting on a guy who hadn’t shown yet. She and me walked over to the playground, sat on the swings, and talked about Father Nunzio, who taught our CCD class in sixth grade. He was the hottest priest in the diocese. His masses were like boy-band concerts, with all the girls crowded up in the front pews having unholy thoughts.