Prom Kings and Drama Queens (2 page)

While Lindsay and I weren’t exactly class pariahs, by the time we reached high school, we were both definitely in touch with our inner nerds. Mainly because of the amount of AP classes we took, but also because of our unnatural relationship to our extracurriculars—me with the newspaper and Lindsay with music. I spent an extra two hours at school every day, working for Ms.

Keenan. She’d assigned me the task of researching other high school newspapers all over the country to see how ours could be improved. She was the first teacher to treat me a little bit special and I didn’t want to let her down.

Lindsay, who practiced piano
at least
two hours a day, was resident accompanist for the Crestview Choir, which was occasionally pulled out of obscurity to sing 7

the fight song at pep rallies before a big basketball game. Neither of us had gained much acclaim for our efforts, despite the time we put into perfecting our tal-ents. In fact, I was beginning to feel like the only year-book superlative I’d ever have a chance of winning was Most Likely to Puke.

I stared at the deck, concentrating on a row of ants marching along the wooden floorboards. Lindsay tried to keep my mind off my stomach by giving me a running commentary on the parade of students.

At a school like Crestview Prep you’ve basically been with the same 150 kids since kindergarten. So by the time you’re a junior, you’ve made the rounds of friend-ship. You figure out who your real friends are and you’re pretty much sick of everyone else. Except, of course . . .

“Oooh, here comes the Boy Next Door,” Lindsay whispered.

I peeked up from my ant watching and felt that familiar flutter that a glimpse of him always triggered.

Lindsay and I rarely referred to him by his real name.

He was always the Boy Next Door.

I’d grown up in an old Fort Lauderdale neighborhood that overlooked the river. In recent years, some of the houses had been renovated by wealthy buyers and made four times their original size. The Harringtons were one of those families. They’d moved in 8

during ninth grade, and in a year, their house became a mansion with a separate guesthouse in back.

Despite the fact that Brian and I attended the same private school, my family’s name never appeared on the guest lists for any of the big parties the Harringtons often gave. So it was pretty fair to say that the Boy Next Door could have been the Boy in Idaho and I would have had as much chance of him noticing me.

I watched Brian make his way toward the back of the boat and took a deep breath to calm the jittering.

Bad idea.

The smell of gasoline made me even more seasick. I leaned over the railing.

“We should go see the captain—maybe he can help you,” Lindsay said.

I pulled a long strand of hair out of my mouth. “The captain? What can he do?”

“Maybe he’s got some kind of drugs you can take.”

“Drugs? This from the girl who beat me in the DARE

essay contest in fifth grade.”

Lindsay laughed. “You’re never going to forgive me for that one, are you? I was thinking about some kind of seasickness pills.”

I followed Lindsay to the front, eavesdropping on various conversations. One voice stood out among the others. “Do you think it’s still considered premarital sex if you don’t ever plan on actually marrying the guy?” 9

I thought it was a joke until I looked over and saw the words were coming out of Randy Clausen’s mouth.

If anyone else had asked that question, it would have been hilarious. But Randy was serious. And by the look on her face, it seemed she was having a great moral dilemma.

I didn’t stick around for the reply. By the time we reached the captain, he had already begun to steer the
Conga Queen
out of her slip. His thick silver hair ruffled in the wind as his head turned from side to side.

Lindsay waited until he was through and the boat was safely into the Intracoastal until she said, “Excuse me.”

The captain turned toward us, smiled, and raised his right hand in a salute. “Captain Miguel Velasquez at your service.”

Lindsay cleared her throat. “Hi, I’m Lindsay Johnson and this is Emily Bennet. She’s not feeling too great.”

“Ah, she is seasick?” He pointed to a bench next to the captain’s chair.

Lindsay and I sat as he continued. “Let me tell you about seasickness. Your stomach feels this way because your body, it senses the unsteadiness. But your eyes, they do not see it. What have you been looking at?”

I shrugged. “The floor. The ants.”

10

“That is your first mistake,” Captain Miguel said.

“You must look at the water. If your eyes see the motion, your body will understand what you are feeling inside.”

A large boat drove by us, creating whitecaps that rippled and slapped against the side of the
Conga
Queen
. The captain pointed to them. “Watch. Then your body will be in harmony with the sea.” At first I thought he’d inhaled a few too many gas fumes from starting the engine so many times. It didn’t seem like a great idea to look at the very thing that was making you sick. But after a few minutes of watching the waves, I did begin to feel better.

The night was clear and the air was just cool enough. I stared at the water as we drifted down the river, listening to the other boats beep as they sailed by.

Each time we heard a horn, Captain Miguel waved.

“Do you know all those people?” Lindsay asked.

“Most everyone,” the captain said. “That is the best part of this job—the people. There are the other captains, the passengers, the fishermen. I wave to them all.” He steered the ship between a row of houses. “This is my favorite part,” he said, picking up a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we begin our tour.” His voice got lost over the music blaring from the back of the boat, where a DJ played a combination of techno and rap. I looked back and saw Randy and 11

Brandy dancing with Brian and some of the other basketball players.

The captain pointed out a couple of huge houses that belonged to well-known people—one of them had been a big TV star in the seventies and the other owned a chain of restaurants I’d never been to. I suddenly realized where we were headed when the captain shone a huge light on a familiar house in the distance.

“Hey, that’s your house,” Lindsay said.

Captain Miguel turned toward me with his eyes so wide his forehead looked like an accordion. “That’s
your
house?”

“Um, no, not the one the light’s on,” I said. “The one next door.”

His forehead smoothed out. He seemed deflated for a second. “So you know her, then?”

“Know who?”

“The dancer, the one who—”

Before the captain could finish, he was interrupted by someone yelling, “Hey, Brian, there’s your house.” I’d heard from my parents and the neighbors that Brian’s grandmother danced in the backyard on Saturday nights for passing ships, but I’d never seen her myself. All the cruises I’d taken along the river had been during the day or on other nights. A huge wooden fence separated our houses, preventing us from seeing into the Harringtons’ backyard. I didn’t 12

think the show was good enough to risk climbing the fence or springing for a Saturday night cruise.

Apparently the captain felt different.

As we got closer, he turned toward Lindsay and me.

“Every Saturday, she is out there at nine o’clock without fail.” He looked at his watch. “Shhh. It is almost time.”

As if on cue, music began blaring from Brian’s backyard. A figure dressed in white pants and a sparkly silver top strutted toward the water. The captain adjusted the light so it made a circle in the grass with her standing in the middle. The music in the back of the boat got lower.

Then she began to dance. Her top shimmered as she spun in circles. I recognized the song from the movie
Young Frankenstein
—it was “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

“Hey, she’s pretty good,” Lindsay said.

“No,” Captain Miguel said. “She is not just good.

She is wonderful!” Then he turned toward me with a strange look. “Do you know her? Do you know her name?”

He sounded kind of like a freshman guy mesmerized by the prospect of meeting the homecoming queen. But could it hurt if I told him her first name? “It’s Lily,” I said. I wasn’t sure how I knew that. I must have heard my mother mention it.

“No one in the neighborhood really knows her. She’s 13

sort of, you know, a couple of tap dances short of a Broadway musical.”

“Not her!” Captain Miguel yelled, as if I’d committed blasphemy. “We should all be as crazy as she is. Do you know how much joy she brings to the people who watch her?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything. It’s just what people say about her.”

“What people say,” the captain said, shaking his head. “Yes, people say things. But do they go out of their way to make life a little more beautiful for others?

That is the trouble. Everyone says you should be this way or that way. What is wrong with being a little different, a little crazy, like . . .” He paused for a second, and then whispered almost reverently, “Lily.” By now Lily had finished her routine and was taking a bow. The captain blew the ship’s horn and waved. Lily waved back, bowed again, and blew kisses.

The captain turned the light away from her and pointed the boat toward the Intracoastal. He was quiet for a while, staring out over the wooden steering wheel.

Then he turned to me. “Emily,” he said. “Do you think you might deliver a message to Lily? From me.” I swallowed. “Um . . .” Would the Harringtons even let me in their house? And what if this Captain Miguel was some kind of perv?

I looked at Lindsay for guidance, but she just 14

shrugged. “Why not?” she said. “You might score some points with the Boy Next Door.”

I turned back to the captain. His pleading eyes were more like a schoolboy’s than a stalker’s.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll deliver the message.” 15

THREE

Emily Delivers on Promise

I pressed the Harringtons’ doorbell and then gazed up at the humongous entryway. It was bigger and archier than any doorway I’d ever stood in. I clutched the note in my pocket and examined the wasp nests above me.

Great. The sting of humiliation wasn’t all I had to worry about.

What was I doing? I mean, really. Look at the entire literary history of love letter delivery.

Romeo and Juliet.

Dead.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Dead.

Cyrano de Bergerac.

16

Dead. And ugly.

Was there still time to bail? Leave the letter in the mailbox and hope for the best? Wait. I was forgetting the whole reason I was there: the Boy Next Door.

As I thought about the alternate words, Boyfriend Next Door, a shadow appeared behind the etched glass.

Before I could see who it was, “Emily?” sounded through the glass.

The door opened and there stood Brian in his gym shorts and no shirt.

Struck speechless for a second, I collected myself and blurted, “How did you know it was me?”

“Video camera. The monitor’s in the kitchen.”

“Oh,” I said. “Very Big Brother.”

Brian knitted his brow.

“Nineteen Eighty-four?”

He shook his head. “Before my time.” So he wasn’t a literary scholar. But those biceps. My eyes darted back to his face. “How are you doing?”

“Doin’ well,” he answered, nodding several times.

“Doin’ well.”

The whole “doin’ well” thing was a Brian trademark that made girls giggle like they’d just dropped a couple of IQ points. Other guys tried to imitate him, but it never quite worked for anyone else.

After a long pause in which I might have spent a little too much time preoccupied with Brian’s abs, he 17

lifted his chin and said, “So what’s up?”

“Ummm. Oh yeah,” I said, coming out of my six-pack stupor. I hoped Brian’s parents weren’t in the kitchen watching. I wasn’t up for a starring role on Harringtoncam.

I stuck my hand in my pocket and mumbled, “I have this note . . .”

Brian got that look again, as if I was talking about something before his time. “Note?” he said.