Will Work for Prom Dress (22 page)

“The other half of the time you spend trying to fit in. Why? I don’t know. Most of the people you are trying to fit in with aren’t the people you would want to hang out with,
anyway. It’s the people you are afraid of who you spend most of your time trying to impress. Buying these jeans and that computer. Got to have those shoes and this purse. Got to get this cool job to afford those jeans and that purse. It’s a never-ending cycle of wasted energy. And then the good people trickle past, and you blow it. Because you’re too busy playing some stupid image game to remember to show your real self.

“Maybe, if we spent a little less time on all that useless drama, we would have enough time to do what our real jobs are—making big decisions wisely. Personally, I think it’s pretty insane to ask anybody my age to be wise when our heads are spinning in fifteen different directions. Maybe making big decisions wisely is just a matter of measure twice, cut once.”

I grabbed the microphone from the holder and strolled as I spoke, arm flung out at some invisible place outside the hall.

“Measure twice, cut once
. I really want to go to the Art Institute of Chicago. But why? Because I’ve always wanted to? Is that as good as I can do? Because it sounded cool to me when I was twelve and it’s easier to just go with the flow? I never gave it a second thought. It was my first thought, and I didn’t have the energy to take a second look and find out if it still fits.

“Measure twice, cut once. I don’t tell my friend what she’s doing is stupid and dangerous—sorry, Anne. Why? Am I unsure whether it is stupid and dangerous? No, I just don’t want to rock the boat or cause her any more stress when she’s going through a tough family time. Maybe if I gave it a little more thought before deciding to keep my mouth shut, I’d see that the stress she’d have if things went bad could totally wreck her family and her life. And on top of that, what she’s doing could ruin someone else’s life!

“Do you think those kids who stole the stop sign at Zander’s intersection ever gave a second thought as to what might happen after their prank? I don’t think so. I know they didn’t. Because I go to school with those guys. Maybe not the exact ones who took that exact traffic sign, but they might as well be. None of them want to hurt anybody. They just never gave it a second thought.

“I know big decisions aren’t going away, and that learning to make those choices is part of growing up. But maybe learning to stop and give things a second measure should be just as important, before we cut our way into a consequence we just can’t live with.”

I clunked the microphone in its stand and left the podium, walking straight out to the parking lot, hitting resend again
and again, not caring if Zander thought I was a crazy stalker chick. An echoing roar of applause erupted from the building a few minutes later. Probably for my having left. Anne ran out. We hugged and got into the car.

“Are you okay to drive?” I asked.

She nodded. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I guess I sounded like a nut in there. It was all just too much. No wonder he never talks about his past.”

“I get it. And you didn’t sound like a nut to everybody. After you left, some guy walked up to the podium and handed something to the red blazer lady.”

“Let me guess—a note suggesting they do a background check on prospective speakers before handing them a mic?”

“No. It was a check made out to the Alexander Macintosh III Scholarship fund—to cover the full tuition and expenses of the other two finalists.”

I stared at Anne.

“What? Not just because of my stupid speech. Who on earth would do such a thing?”

“T-Shirt’s dad.”

I had worked all night to finish the gift, but the end
effect was worth it. I didn’t have the loaner camera anymore, so I took photographs from old shoots and morphed the focal point to leave a blank still spot of photo paper canvas in the middle of chaotic movement. I went back in my head to Ms. Parisi’s first class. Using long fluid lines, I sketched a fiery purple-and-red reproduction of Zander’s dress on a faceless model standing on top of a table in the busy school cafeteria.

The furry mohair couture appeared perched on a traffic island between lines of speeding cars. The Daughters of the American Revolution garden party dress donned a willowy figure riding a single falling leaf down from the branches of a sugar maple. Soon, I had a full portfolio done. I wrapped it and left the now framed print of the sketching couple loose on top. That one would come later.

I walked up the hospital corridor to the physical therapy wing, preparing myself to be turned away, or worse. Anne came through when she reached out to The Spikester for the details on Zander’s whereabouts. In my desperation to see Zander face-to-face, I had jumped at The Spikester’s suggestion to show up and surprise Zander but was questioning it with every step down the waxed floor.

A nurse walked me in and pointed out Zander, who was zoned out between reps while sitting on a piece of equipment that could cross as a workout machine or torture device. In the corner, the redhead Anne described from the parade helped a little boy lean on crutches and shift one ankle at a time down on a padded floor mat.

I averted my eyes as I came around the front of the therapy machine and realized Zander sat shirtless. I blushed dark red at the sight, half in awe of his well-defined and sweaty body, half in shock at the mass of swirling pearly-white scars thickly winding around his left shoulder and extending down like badly sewn seams. In the full minute it took him to register my face, I had to stop myself from sprinting out three times, longing for the safety of my car. Zander self-consciously jumped for a towel to cover his scars, then
shrugged with a sigh of defeat and looked up at me, eyes hopeful for acceptance.

“Hi,” he said softly. He struggled his way out of the machine and stretched. He led me out into the hall, pulling on a T-shirt.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. It’s okay, I’ll go.”

“No, no. Just wanted to talk and not disturb Brett—” He pointed back toward the room at the boy leaning heavily into his crutches. “I help with him sometimes. He’s kind of like a little brother.”

“Anne said she saw you at the parade. I was the pickle.”

He raised one eyebrow, and I giggled in relief of the familiar Zanderness of him.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said.

We stood looking at each other, done with the small talk, waiting for the other to speak.

“Quigley? I know this is probably not going to happen, but do you think I could have a hug? I could really use a hug.”

I practically launched myself at him, and we stood there in the middle of the hall, hugging for what seemed like a wonderful eternity.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “So, so sorry.”

I felt like crawling into him, but settled for kissing his chest directly over his heart, wanting to somehow make all the pain go away. “No, I am. I know how it must have sounded that night. It wasn’t like I really thought that stuff was no big deal. I know I kept saying things like that, but I didn’t feel that way. I just wanted to protect Anne. I’m not good at half-truths. I got lost in trying not to let too much slip.”

“I had no right to talk to you like that. It was just plain wrong. You can’t imagine how ashamed I felt. I couldn’t even face you enough to call. After I’d calmed down, I assumed you hated me and would never speak to me again.”

“No, but I can see why you were frustrated. And I did stand back and not jump in when someone’s safety was at stake. I totally get that. Even before I found out about what you went through and lost.”

He shrugged. “I know it’s a little obnoxiously chipper, but these days I try to think of it as what I went through and
found
. A new way. A new life. I mean, me? A jock?”

I giggled.

“Well, it’s not that funny! But seriously, I was a different
person then. You’re going to think this is crazy, but after the accident, I was here at the hospital for a real long time. Months. Not fun. I had a roommate for a few weeks from California. We still talk when the occasional bad day gets us down. The guy was in a bad motorcycle accident out here, and they put us together while he healed enough to transfer home. His girlfriend was a model on a designer reality show shooting in L.A., so we watched a whole marathon of it. By the end, his girl had been tossed off when her designer lost one of the final challenges, and I was hooked. I could just see where the designers were missing that special something. Once I could get my good hand on fabric, it turned out that my brain could translate that to working with material, too.”

“So that’s why you can’t draw! You’re a leftie and you had to switch to right!”

He gave a sigh of exasperation, waggling a perfectly good left hand my way. “While I would like to blame my lack of talent on the accident, I’m just awful. Thanks for that, though.”

We laughed and stood there holding hands in comfortable silence until I remembered his gift. “Oh! I got you something.”

Zander pulled back the embossed paper and opened the portfolio.

“Happy birthday! I would sing, but you really don’t want that,” I said. “Might make these sick folks even worse.”

“OMG, Quigley.” He flipped through each page, reacting with a little gasp at several. “These are amazing. Truly.”

I blushed and waved away the compliment. “I had good inspiration.”

“It’s all of my designs. You’ve found where they belong.” He pulled me close and kissed me. “Thank you. This is the best present I’ve ever gotten. I love it.”

“There’s one more thing, but on the off chance you didn’t hate me, I wanted to see if you wanted to go to the citywide show with me tomorrow and see it in person.”

I pulled out the shot of the sketching couple. Zander stared at it for a long moment. “You’re amazing.”

I reveled in yet another snuggle. I could get used to this.

“So, you got the slot in the show!” he said, pulling back. “Excellent. I’m guessing Mr. Art King is not your biggest fan right now.”

I thought of the “lonely goatherd” prank that could have cost me a scholarship, had I not blown it on my own. “Oh, it’s mutual.”

Zander laughed. “So what are you going to do with yourself today?”

“Wow, you know so much about my school now that you know when Senior Skip is?”

“Senior Skip?”

“It’s an ‘unofficial’ official holiday for seniors. It always falls on the day of prom and all the seniors are expected to ditch. It started when all the girls were blowing off the last half of the day to get their hair and nails done.”

“Ah. I’m afraid the seniors don’t have the corner on the market today. Your whole school is closed. I saw it on the news while I was working out. I thought that’s why you were here.”

“Why is the school closed? Did they cancel prom, too?”

A shadow of hurt crossed Zander’s face, covered quickly by a polite smile. “No, I guess you’re still on for that.”

“Not for me. Anne and I are having an anti-prom party at her house tonight. Lots of terrible-for-you frozen food, trashy celeb magazines, old John Hughes movies, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds … fun?”

“Yes
, fun. You just don’t understand these things.”

“But wasn’t prom the whole reason you guys were working for Ms. Parisi this semester?”

“Sure. But it’s okay, really. I got a one-hundred-dollar check for the regional essay contest, and added to the four hundred dollars I saved for the dress, it’s exactly enough to
buy myself an SLR digital camera. The kind that comes with different lenses that you can control F-stops on and adjust the way the picture is taken, like the old-school models.”

“Sounds like you’re decided.”

“Yeah, I guess. Some things just aren’t meant to be. Why is school closed, though?”

“Haven’t you seen the news?”

My phone rang, earning a nasty look from the nurse.

“Those aren’t allowed in here. They interfere with the medical machinery somehow,” Zander said.

I nodded and tried to understand the jumble of words Anne blasted through the phone.