What I Wore to Save the World (2 page)

I lifted my head and saw Sarah watching me in the mirror, waiting for some kind of reaction. It'd been three months since the junior prom. All Sarah knew about my adventures that night was that, ten minutes after I'd arrived, I was sprawled on my butt in the lobby fountain of the East Norwich Country Club, dripping wet in my ironically pink prom dress and looking like I'd just woken up from a truly excellent dream.

I'd never told her what really happened, but what was I supposed to say? Should I tell her that, while she and her boyfriend, Dylan, and all the rest of our class were
ooh
ing and
aah
ing over the streamers and balloons, I'd swum through a portal to the faery realm?

Where—
surprise!
—I'd arrived at my own seventeenth birthday party, thrown by Titania, Queen of the Faeries, with music provided by Kiss and mosh-pit diving provided by a happy leprechaun? I'd even scored a truly magical birthday kiss from my one, my only, my true love, Colin, the freckle-faced hunk o'Irish hottie who pwned my heart, even though he lived an ocean away.

Surely
that
was the kind of newsworthy development that needed to be reported to my BFF, ASAP, right?

Nope. I'd never mentioned any of this to Sarah, or to anyone else, either. She and the rest of my classmates had interpreted my pink taffeta-clad water ballet as a cool and rebellious act of anti-prom performance art. So much so that nearly all of the other prom-goers had repeated the stunt at some point during the evening. Truly, it was the soggiest junior prom ever.

The school administration had not been pleased. Neither was the management of the East Norwich Country Club. The owners were frantic that those “awful teenagers” might have damaged their precious fountain. Little did they know: It takes more than some pranking kids to mess up a portal to the faery realm.

But when the principal, Mrs. Calhoun, tried to suspend any student who'd been seen going home wet, a bunch of parents (some of whom were lawyers) sent threatening letters about “the school's liability in endangering our children by placing them in an environment known to contain hazardous bodies of water.” After that the incident was mysteriously dropped, which just goes to show that the ability of the Faery Folk to conceal all evidence of their existence pales next to the ability of East Norwich parents to protect their kids from the consequences of their own stupid behavior.

I patted my wet face gently with a paper towel before answering Sarah's questioning look. “They just want to give us something to look forward to. Graduation: proof that our suffering will someday end.”

Then I crumpled the paper towel, tossed it at the trash can and missed. Sarah chuckled as I retrieved my bad toss. Sarah had once settled a bet between Dylan and some wiseass by burying twenty free throws in a row. The ball never touched the rim, and the wiseass had to wear Sarah's “Chicks Rule!” T-shirt to school every day for a month.

“A year from today it'll be us throwing our goofy black hats in the air. Oh my God, I can't wait! College is going to be so awesome compared to this.” Sarah fluffed her hair and put the pancake hat neatly back in place. Then she looked at me with her legendary I-have-a-great-idea-that's-against-the-rules expression. “Hey! Let's go look at the college wall.”

“Sarah, we're not even supposed to be in the building—”

But she was already loping out of the bathroom door into the cool, empty hallway.

It beat going back out into the sun, so I followed.

the college wall was right outside the school's main office. It was where the guidance counselors posted copies of the seniors' acceptance letters as they came in.

Personally, I hated the college wall. To me it was just another way for the seniors to put themselves in rank order, and I'd had enough of that kind of posturing when I was with Raph. But most of the juniors were drawn to it like pod people being summoned back to the mothership. It was as if there was some magical clue about our own futures hidden in all that official-looking correspondence.

Sarah let out a whistle. “Sweet! Two more people got into Brown.”

I didn't bother to ask who they were. East Norwich was the kind of school where practically everyone who graduated went to college. But there was the posse of superstar seniors (led by Raph, of course) who were genetically programmed to attend Ivy League schools and for whom nothing less would do.

I figured the two future Brown undergrads must be from Raph's crowd. Naturally, Raph had gotten into his first choice: MIT, early admission. Like there was ever any doubt.

Sarah was transfixed by the wall. Watching her read each letter, slack-jawed with concentration, reminded me of how my little sister, Tammy, would go all glassy-eyed in front of the TV, watching the same Disney movie over and over and over . . .

“Hey, look. Curtis Moore got into Northwestern.”

“Good for him.” I kept glancing down the dim hallway to see if the security guard was coming to throw us out.

“Cute! Eileen Rossiter and Mark Schmidt are both going to Stanford.” Eileen and Mark had been a couple since middle school.

“Adorable,” I said. “I predict they'll break up by Christmas.”

Sarah punched me in the arm. “Don't be such a cynic.”

“What about you and Dylan?” I countered, not very nicely. “Will you be filling out ‘his and her' college applications? Or will higher education be the end for true love?”

Sarah scowled. “It's not funny, Morgan. Dylan has his heart set on BCM.”

The look on her face made me instantly sorry that I'd joked about it. Sarah was a star athlete with good grades, and it was just a matter of time before the basketball scholarship offers came rolling in. She would have her pick of a dozen schools. However, the Boston Conservatory of Music was not likely to be one of them.

“Sorry, bad joke. You two will work it out.” I knew all too well how hard it was to be apart from the guy you loved. “You and Dylan are meant for each other.”

“I know.” She spoke softly, still staring at the wall. “I mean, it feels like we are. But how can you really know something like that?” She turned to look at me. “Anyway, what about you?”

“What—what do you mean?” I didn't want to discuss my long-distance whatever-it-was with Colin, mostly because I knew Sarah thought I was nuts for holding out for a guy who was already in college and lived so far away. Especially when our status as a couple was a lot vaguer than I wanted it to be.

If I closed my eyes I could still hear his lilting Irish voice in my head:
Ye're still in high school, Mor. Have some fun . . .

“I mean college, dum-dum!” Sarah rolled her eyes. “You haven't toured any campuses. You haven't decided on a major. Your SAT scores were, frankly, kind of weak—”

“They were pathetic,” I corrected. “Extremely pathetic.”

“Indeed they were.” Sarah was very good at scolding me. “And yet, I do not see a test-prep book tucked under your arm, Morgan Rawlinson! Are you even going to bother taking the test again?”

“Somebody's going to have to make the lattes of the future,” I joked.

“It's too late to kid around.” All of a sudden Sarah had her game face on, and it was scary. “Junior year's over. It's time to figure out what you want to do after high school.”

The click of high heels echoed down the hall moments before the all-too-familiar voice rang out:

“What are you girls doing in here?”

It was Mrs. Calhoun, high school principal and object of mockery and revulsion to all self-respecting East Norwich teens.

“We came inside to use the bathroom.” Sarah smiled brightly.

“This is the college wall. Not the bathroom.” It wasn't a question, but Mrs. Calhoun stood there like she was waiting for an answer.

Sarah kept her smile frozen in place and stood up very straight. She was a full head taller than Mrs. Calhoun, and she worked it by stepping a little too close and talking straight down at the unnaturally blond head of our school's fearless leader. “Mrs. Calhoun,” she said somberly, “the truth is, Morgan is having a
really
hard time figuring out what color her parachute is.”

“My what?” I blurted.

She ignored me and kept spewing BS. “So we came to the college wall for, you know, inspiration! Wow!
So
many great schools! You must be
massively
proud—”

“Inspiration? I hope you found some,” Mrs. Calhoun said, cutting her off. “Now, back outside, please.”

“We
totally
found some! We're done now. Thanks
so
much!” Sarah kept babbling as she dragged me away by the arm.

“What was that crap about a parachute?” I asked, as soon as we were out of earshot and had recovered from our giggle fit.

“Duh, it's this famous book about planning your life, everybody knows that.”

“Well, duh, obviously ‘everybody'
didn't
know that—”

Together we pushed open the main doors of the school.

“Admit it, Morgan. You spent your whole junior year obsessing about Colin.” Always prepared, Sarah pulled the brim of her hat down low against the sun, but the light and heat hit me like a slap. “Too bad you can't major in
him
.”

two

by the time we walked back to the field they were already taking down the tents. Sarah ran off to find Dylan, who'd been stuck playing the cymbal part in “Pomp and Circumstance” all morning in the concert band. I stood in the sun and watched as the workers tried to fold each tent into a nice, neat, obedient square, while a gust of welcome breeze made the white fabric billow and fight back.

Okay, fine: What color
was
my parachute?

Was it the sparkling cornflower blue of Colin's eyes? Or the soft red-gold of his strawberry-blond hair?

Was it the cream of his fair skin, or the tawny peach of his freckles?

Maybe it was the lush velvet green of Ireland, as seen from the window of an Aer Lingus jet.

Maybe I should go find out. All I had to do was buy a ticket.

Yeah, right.
As if my parents would pay for me to go to Ireland just to see Colin. My parents had met Colin, and they liked him, but the notion of me being that involved with someone, at my age, was not their idea of wisdom. When Colin's grandmother had died shortly after he got back from his trip to the States, I'd even hinted around about flying over to Ireland for the funeral, but they wouldn't bite.

He's in college. He lives in another country . . .
I could recite their arguments from memory.
He has his own life. It's time for you to plan yours, Morgan!

When Sarah made that crack about majoring in Colin, I knew she was teasing me the way best friends do, but it hurt anyway. Probably because she was right.

“I know you love him, but it's such a long shot, Mor gan,” she'd said quickly when I ducked my head to hide how my eyes had suddenly filled with tears. “Why risk your heart on something that's so unlikely to work out?”

But isn't that what you're supposed to do with a parachute
, a voice inside me whispered in reply.
Close your eyes, take a breath and jump?

 

 

 

my mom, the queen of anti-clutter, was facing down approximately six thousand different pieces of paper, arranged with obsessive neatness in dozens of stacks that completely covered the surface of the table my family used to eat off of.

College brochures. Course catalogs. Applications. Financial aid forms.
I watched her march around the table, tapping each pile into perfect alignment with her hands while maintaining a strangely neutral look on her face in order to hide her hysteria about my impending failure to launch.

Finally she spoke. “If you would take the time to actually
read
some of the brochures, Morgan, perhaps it would jump-start your thinking about college.”

“I'm not
stalled
, Mom. I don't have a dead battery.” I'd been in super-snarky mode ever since I got home from the graduation ceremony. Blame it on the sunburn. “I don't need to be ‘jump-started,' okay?”

“So forget ‘jump-start.' What I meant was—”

“It sounds like you're going to clamp cables to my ear-lobes or something.”

“I said forget it!” She stopped marching. “I'm just saying, if you could bring yourself to
participate
in the college selection process, it might raise your interest level. You don't even seem to be thinking about it.”

“Not thinking about it? It's all anybody talks about!” Whoops, involuntary eye roll. “I'm sick of thinking about it, that's the problem.”