by Tom Perrotta
“I don't know why,” I told him, “I still carry it around.”
Mike stared at the card for a few seconds, then shook his head. The juke box cast an eerie red glow across his face.
“That was a strange time,” he said. “Do you see her anymore?”
“Not for years.”
I did see Matt and Mr. Pasco on occasion. They had a thriving home improvement business—John Pasco & Son—and did a lot of work around Darwin. I also saw Pam Devlin from time to time. Sometimes she recognized me, usually not. She'd gone off the deep end since Matt broke up with her, and now spent her days wandering around town in dirty clothes, talking to an imaginary companion.
The Pascos’ segment on Wake Up, America! had lasted only a couple of minutes. It analyzed their grocery bill in minute detail and portrayed them as “American Dreamers in an era of belt tightening.” It could have been about anyone. But Jane never recovered from the experience. She remained moody and distant in the months that followed, and wouldn't answer my calls. As soon as she got the chance, she left town for college and, as far as I knew, never came back.
Just the Way We Were
Dave Horvath and I went to Towne & Country Tuxedo to get ourselves outfitted for the senior prom. On his girlfriend's instructions, Dave chose a powder blue tuxedo to match his eyes. I selected a tan tux with lighter beige piping on the cuffs and lapels. The cummerbund, bow tie, and pointy shoes came in a color called eggshell.
Dave was an unlikely candidate for the passion that had claimed him. He was scrawny and good at math, with a pale hangdog face and an expression generally frozen somewhere between shock and sadness. Until one fateful night in the winter of our senior year, he'd never even had a girlfriend. Then he walked into McDonald's, saw Anita draining the golden oil from a basket of fries, and fell in love on the spot. “I looked at her,” he told me, “and I just knew.” She must have known too, because she agreed to ride with him to Echo Lake when her shift was done. He claimed she unzipped her ugly brown uniform that first night. He said she tasted like burgers.
On our way home from Towne & Country, Dave told me to check the glove compartment if I wanted to see something cool. What I found, hidden beneath the road maps and travel packets of Kleenex, was a pair of yellow cotton panties, limp and slightly frayed at the edges. There was a tiny smear of dried blood in the crotch.
“They're Anita's,” he said.
“She let you keep them?”
“She's got a really open mind about stuff like that.”
I put the panties back in the glove compartment.
“What about Sharon?” he asked. “What's she like?”
He was looking for a swap, a secret for a secret, and I would have been more than happy to comply. But I'd never come close to seeing Sharon's underwear, let alone keeping some as a souvenir.
“She's different,” I said.
Dave's laugh was short and explosive.
“I bet she is.”
Sharon had moved to Springdale in November of our senior year. She just appeared out of nowhere in four of my classes, this skinny, birdlike girl with watchful eyes and frizzy brown hair that seemed to have been scribbled on her head by a cartoonist.
She wasn't that pretty, but I couldn't stop staring at her. I had this weird feeling she was going to be important.
We had the same lunch period. She ate by herself, then wrote in a spiral notebook until the bell rang. I pulled a chair up one day and introduced myself. She nodded politely, but her pen kept moving across the page.
“Hey,” I said, “you writing a book?” She ignored me, encircling the notebook with her left arm, as if to prevent me from copying. The tip of her tongue protruded slightly, giving her an air of deep concentration.
“This might sound strange,” I said, “but the moment I saw you I knew we were going to be friends.”
She gave up and closed the notebook. “Who are you? The Amazing Kreskin?” “Come on,” I said. “It's just a feeling. Haven't you ever had a feeling about someone before?” “Yeah,” she said. “But not about you.” I was persistent. She was lonely. Within three weeks we were eating together every day. I found out that she came from Richards Grove, a wealthy town about a half hour away, and that her parents were divorced. She talked a lot about San Diego, where her father lived with his new wife (as part of the custody arrangement, she and her sister spent summers there). Sharon wasn't crazy about her father, but she loved California: the people had open minds, and the ocean turned purple at sunset.
My friends assumed from the start that I was putting the moves on her, but they were wrong. We didn't even see each other out of school until January, when she invited me to her sister's tenth birthday party.
“My mom's worried,” she said. “She's afraid I don't have any friends.”
“Oh, so now I'm the token friend.”
She patted me on my hand. “I hope it's not too much trouble.”
They lived in an apartment complex near the highway. Sharon's mother answered the door. She tugged on her hair and pretended to scream when I mistakenly called her Mrs. Phelps.
“Please,” she said. “Call me Delia. I'm not Mrs. Phelps anymore, thank the Lord.”
Delia's face was an older version of Sharon's— sadder, slightly bloated. The skin below her eyes was loose, darkened like a bruise. Her clothes, though, reminded me of a high school girl: tight designer jeans, red high heels, fuzzy cowl neck sweater.
“Don't mind me,” she said. “Tonight's my dancing lesson. My boyfriend and I do Arthur Murray. It's a blast.”
“Sounds great.”
“Careful,” Sharon called from the kitchen. “She'll try to teach you the Hustle.”
Everything in the apartment radiated a uniform, vaguely depressing newness—the furniture, the carpet, the appliances, the paint on the walls. Gail, the birthday girl, sat hugging her knees in front of the TV, studying a rerun of The Brady Bunch. With her pudgy face and sandy hair, she could have been a Brady girl herself.
“Are you Sharon's boyfriend?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “We're just friends.”
On TV, Mr. Brady lectured his boys on tolerance of the opposite sex. Girls are different from us, he said. We have to learn to respect and love them for who they are, as difficult as that might be. In another room, Mrs. Brady told the girls the same thing about boys. Sharon lit the candles on the cake.
Gail sulked through our spirited, nearly melodic rendition of “Happy Birthday,” but she blew out the candles with a vengeance. Delia asked her if she made a wish.
She nodded. “I wish we could go move back to the old house.”
Delia winced. “Now, honey …”
“The move's been tough,” Sharon told me.
We started in on the cake. No one seemed to know what to say.
“So why did you move?” I asked. It was something Sharon had never really explained. “I hear Richards Grove is a pretty nice place.”
They stopped chewing and looked at me. Sharon said it wasn't that nice. Delia said they needed a change. Gail glowered at her plate.
“Great cake,” I said.
After Delia left, I hung around for a couple of hours with Sharon and Gail, playing a card game called Uno. In the months that followed, I became a kind of permanent guest at the apartment, spending three, sometimes four evenings a week there, doing my homework, watching TV, helping Sharon babysit Gail. I was never quite sure if I'd adopted them or if they'd adopted me.
My parents assumed Sharon was my girlfriend and kept agitating for a meeting. When I tried to set them straight, they just smiled and told me to invite her over anyway. I finally gave in, just to get them off my back.
I warned Sharon not to expect too much. My parents were nothing like Delia. They weren't particularly talkative, didn't go to Arthur Murray or hold surprising opinions. They spent most nights in front of the TV, complaining that nothing was on.
Despite my concerns, it turned out to be a pleasant evenin
g. We played Scrabble, then sat around the table for a couple of hours, eating Oreos and listening to my parents trade sob stories about their deprived childhoods. Around eleven-thirty, way past his bedtime, my father bounded upstairs and returned with his air force photo album.
“I spent two years in the Far East,” he informed Sharon. “It was the adventure of my life.”
“That's right,” my mother added. “The Philippines still haven't recovered.”
I'd seen the album several times, but that night it seemed unfamiliar, full of new information. Sharon pointed to a picture of my father standing near the wing of a propeller-driven airplane.
“You were handsome,” she told him. “You look just like Buddy.”
My father and I blushed simultaneously. It was the first time she'd complimented my looks.
My mother laughed. “That was a good thirty pounds ago.”
“I was twenty then,” said my father. “Not much older than Buddy is now.”
A sleepy-looking guy with dark wavy hair appeared frequently in the album, making faces or holding devil's horns over my father's head.
“That's Billy Penny,” he said. “My best friend. We met in Basic and stuck together the whole way.”
“Where's he now?” I asked.
“Dead.” My father cleaned cookie crumbs off the table, lifting them with a moistened fingertip. “Car accident. We'd only been stateside for a week. We were planning to drive to California, look for work out there.”
It was funny to hear my father talk about a best friend. He certainly didn't have one now.
“That's terrible,” said Sharon.
My father scratched his head. “Life's a funny thing. If Billy hadn't died, I might never have met Ann. Buddy might not have been born.”
All three of them stared at me, as if to verify my existence. I didn't like the idea that someone else's death was indirectly responsible for my life.
“Hey,” I said. “Don't look at me.”
Gail and Delia were asleep when we got back to the apartment. I followed Sharon into the dark kitchen. She asked if I wanted a soda. I asked if I could kiss her.
She leaned against the refrigerator and hung her head. “Oh boy,” I heard her whisper. She didn't resist when I pressed my lips against hers, but she didn't exactly respond either.
“Did you enjoy that?” she asked. The question wasn't angry or flirtatious.
I said I would have liked it better if I thought she liked it. She sighed and ran both hands through her wonderful hair.
“Okay,” she said. “Let's try again.”
The second time didn't work either.
“I'm sorry, Buddy. I don't think this is a good idea.”
“Why not? Don't you like me?”
“I got involved with a friend once before. It was a complete disaster.”
“We're different,” I said.
She chose that moment to open the refrigerator door and take out a bottle of Pepsi.
“Please,” she said. The bottle made a kissing noise as she twisted the cap. “Let's just forget this happened.”
Sharon just wanted things to stay the way they were. She said she thought of me more as a brother than a boyfriend. I did my best to act like a brother for a couple of weeks, but it got tiring. I had to change tactics.
I tried to hurt her into loving me back. I started showing up late at the apartment, leaving early. I talked a lot about other girls I found attractive.
“I'm not standing in your way,” she told me. “If you want to go out with someone, be my guest.”
It was already April, a good time for a senior fling. With time running out, people made themselves available. It was possible to experiment, to compromise, to make up for lost opportunities. I left a party one night with Janice Maloney, a sweet, chubby girl I'd known since kindergarten. She wasn't that drunk, but she let me touch her anywhere I wanted. Then she held me tightly and wept.
“I'm going to miss you,” she said. “I'm going to miss everybody. I just wish this year would last forever.”
* * *
Every time I said the word prom around Sharon, she laughed and stuck her finger in her mouth. I understood her reaction, but I also happened to be suffering from a severe case of premature nostalgia. Now that I was about to leave Harding, I was haunted by all the experiences I'd missed. I felt like I'd spent too much time on the sidelines, at the edges of high school. But the prom, that was dead center. I decided to go without her.
I made a mental list of candidates but couldn't work up the nerve to ask any of them. One by one, my possibles found other dates. With only three days to go before the deadline, I finally managed to ask Patty Green, this cute junior, my partner in phys ed archery. She blushed and told me I was a week late: she'd already agreed to be a mercy date for her brother's best friend Bruce Davis, a nice guy with a heartbreaking case of acne.
Comforted by the knowledge that I'd at least made an effort, I resigned myself to staying home. I made plans with a group of guys who were holding a “Fuck the Prom” party. Then, miraculously, the day before the deadline, Sharon popped the question. It came out of the blue, at the tail end of another sad night.
“You're kidding,” I said.
She shook her head.
“You want to go to the prom?”
“It's my mom,” she whispered. “She's afraid I'll regret it for the rest of my life if I miss the stupid thing.”
In a funny way, her answer came as a relief. I thought at first that she was just feeling sorry for me and was offering herself as an act of mercy. At least this way she could believe that I was doing her a favor. And I, in turn, could wear my rented tuxedo with a shred of dignity.
The dress she wore belonged to her mother. It was a strapless pink chiffon with a flaring knee-length skirt, a party dress from the fifties. Her shoes were black, her anklets lacy white. With her hair pulled back in barrettes and pink lipstick that echoed the dress, she looked like a beautiful dream of herself.
Elegantly, as though she did it every day, Sharon held out her bare arm so I could slip the wristlet of flowers over her hand. It was a slow and somber operation. When it was done, she pinned a flawless white carnation to my lapel, and her mother began to weep.
“Mom,” said Sharon. “Please.”
“I can't help it,” she said. “You just look so perfect together.”
“Welcome Prom Couples!” said the marquee outside the Blue Spruce Manor.
The Manor had a plain exterior—white stucco washed with blue and red lights—but inside it was Glitz City. A shimmering teardrop chandelier dripped from the ceiling; the wallpaper felt like velvet. In the corner, camouflaged by tall fake plants, a medieval suit of armor stood guard over a miniature waterfall that gushed mysteriously from an opening in the wall. Sharon's eyes widened.
“Wow,” she said. “Is this tacky or what?”
I gave her an affectionate poke in the ribs. “Loosen up. It's your senior prom.”
“Oh yeah.” She reached up and straightened my bow tie. “I almost forgot.”
Flashbulbs popped as we entered the banquet hall. I was struck by an unexpected wave of emotion at the sight of so many familiar, radiant faces: these were the people I'd grown up with, the ones I'd soon be leaving. The band was playing “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” and my vision went a little blurry. Sharon on my arm, I nodded and smiled like a movie star on Oscar night as we threaded our way to Table Eight. Our tablemates had already arrived. Except for Dave Horvath, I wasn't really friends with any of them.
Dave and Anita both had lipstick on their faces. Anita surprised me: she was short and thick, with a pug nose and a loud laugh, not a person I'd see making French fries and fall in love with. But Dave kept touching her every few seconds— gropingly, the way a blind man might—as if to reassure himself that she was real, and not some glorious mirage.
Dave's friend Ted Wenkus had also brought a girl I'd never seen before, a tomboy with a Prince Valiant haircut a
nd a crooked smile, the kind of girl who was probably good at pinball and could blow interesting smoke rings. Ted reminded me of a giraffe: he had a freakishly long neck topped by a head the size of a cantaloupe. I knew him mainly by reputation. Over the winter he'd figured out how to get an outside line from the chem lab phone, and had amused himself by calling faraway places and asking about the weather. It became a strange in-joke for a couple of weeks. People would grab you in the hall and say, “It's snowing like crazy in Billings, Montana. Pass it on.” Ted and his date were both pretty drunk.
Rita Sue Branzino, on the other hand, looked like she could have used a drink. A talented tap dancer and a shoo-in for valedictorian, Rita Sue was headed for Princeton in the fall. Every Halloween she dressed up like a different piece of fruit, and she always won first prize for best costume. Her boyfriend was tall and blond, surprisingly handsome, though he seemed nearly radioactive in his dazzling white tails.
“This is Robert,” she said, smiling stiffly. “He's going to Harvard.”
Ted Wenkus and his date howled with laughter.
“This is Suzy,” Ted announced. “She's going to the bathroom.”
* * *
Somehow I'd gotten it all wrong. Even though I knew we had to share a table with three other couples, I had allowed myself to imagine the prom as an intimate, romantic scene, a last chance for Sharon to fall in love with me. Instead we had to listen to Rita Sue enumerate the wonders of Princeton while the band (Jimmy Dee and the Dee-Lites) cranked out a bouncy Carpenters’ medley, and Dave and Anita French-kissed between mouthfuls of bloody prime rib.
The drinking at the previous year's prom had apparently gotten out of hand, prompting our advisers to announce a hard-line anti-alcohol policy. If you wanted to drink (like everyone at Table Eight with the exception of Rita Sue), you had to hide in a bathroom stall to do it. As the night progressed, we spent more and more time in the downstairs rest rooms, boys with boys, girls with girls. Our secret party required fancy flask relays and elaborate comings and goings, lending the evening an aura of teamwork and intrigue.
