Well, they did, I correct myself. You just waited down the block, flinching every time a car passed by and wondering whether the Stanford admissions people would ever overlook a misdemeanor charge.
“So where now?” I ask, excited. “Back to prom?”
“Nope.” Bliss speaks up from the backseat. She’s got some kind of journal, and she’s flipping through the pages with a wicked smile on her face. “We’re going to Brooks. The campus is down I-32. Just make the exit out of town.”
The college? “I know where it is, but why —?”
“We’re going to deliver this little gem to Kaitlin’s boyfriend.” Bliss doesn’t even wait for me to ask the question; she’s already crowing over her grand plan. “Jason will freak when he finds out she’s been cheating. And his roommate hooks up with Brianna sometimes, so she’ll be, like, the first to find out. If we plant it so he doesn’t know it came from me, I’ll be completely clear.”
“Right,” I say quietly. I knew the high-school hierarchies were complicated, but this level of strategy and planning is almost Machiavellian. I glance in the rearview mirror again and wonder if I’m getting in over my head.
Jolene must be thinking the same thing, because she nudges me. “I’m kind of surprised you’re still with us.” She gives me a long look. “Figured maybe you’d get out and walk.”
“I said I was in,” I repeat firmly.
“Come on, you were tempted though, right?”
I shake my head. Even if the thought did cross my mind, oh, a few dozen times, I don’t want either of them to know. “We made a deal; I’m not backing out.”
I feel Jolene study me for a moment as I try not to wilt under her steady gaze, then to my relief she turns to Bliss. “Let me see it,” she orders, reaching back. Bliss hesitates, clutching the diary to her chest, but then Jolene snaps her fingers and Bliss relents.
“OK, but read it aloud. I want to hear everything!”
“‘March twenty-sixth.’” Jolene kicks her bare feet up on the dashboard and begins to read, mimicking Kaitlin’s nasal voice. “‘Brianna was bugging me all through lunch today. She wants me to fix her up with Duncan —’”
“Jason’s roommate,” Bliss adds.
“‘— but she doesn’t know he already told Jase he thinks she’s only, like, a seven. He’ll hook up with her, but he said she acts like such a slut.’ Ugh.” Jolene slams the book shut and tosses it back. “You keep delightful company, you really do.”
I have to agree, but in the mirror, I see Bliss shrug. “Uh, who are you to judge? JD McGraw? That Eric guy?” Her voice is dubious. “Those guys are, like, walking felonies.”
Jolene stiffens. “At least when they fight, they do it to your face.”
“They would hit a girl?” Bliss’s voice rises.
“No.” I don’t look over, but I can practically hear the eye roll in Jolene’s reply. “It was a metaphor. Instead of stabbing you in the back, like your crowd does.”
Immediately, I can feel the mood shift. “So I need to take the next exit ahead?” I pipe up, before they can launch into a vicious showdown.
Bliss stops, turning to me as if she’d forgotten I was even here. “Yeah, and then it’s straight through for like, twenty miles.”
“OK.”
They fall silent as I merge onto the highway. Jolene settles back, scratching at the pink polish on her nails as she gazes out the window, while Bliss curls up in the backseat with the journal. Slowly, the stretch of used-car lots and industrial warehouses on the outskirts of town makes way for open countryside and the occasional shadow of half-built suburban developments, houses standing empty in unfinished rows. I keep a careful eye on the road and wonder yet again what strange forces brought the two of them together. Because despite Jolene’s whole explanation about revenge on Kaitlin and Cameron, something just doesn’t add up.
That’s the thing about being invisible, I suppose: they might not know who on earth I am, but I know plenty about them. Bliss and her clique don’t pause for breath during their girls’ bathroom bitch-sessions when I slip in, but the moment someone else — someone real — walks through that door, there’s nothing but “Shh!” and giggles and whispers until they leave. Jolene’s just the same. I work a few shifts in the front office for extra credit, so I see her all the time, dragged in after they catch her smoking, or fighting, or answering back. She waits, slouching in the chairs right opposite me, but has never even looked my way.
But here they are. In my car. Together.
Jolene begins searching in the glove compartment, flipping through CDs with a noisy rattle. She looks up suddenly and catches my eye, holding it as if she’s challenging me. I look away, embarrassed, but she really doesn’t care; she never has.
“You know, this stuff isn’t bad.” She’s looking at my music selection with a frown, as if she can’t believe I could possibly have any taste at all.
“Oh. Thanks.” I murmur a response, and then look up to find that she’s holding one of my dad’s classic country mixes, not any of the vaguely-cool indie music I threw in there. With a swift movement, she slams in the CD, and suddenly, the loud guitar chords make way for a gentle bluegrass twang.
“What?” Bliss protests immediately. “Come on!”
Jolene ignores her, humming happily along to the old song.
“You like that stuff?” I venture.
“It’s in my blood. Can’t you tell?” She gives a wry laugh. “Born and raised with nothing else on the radio.”
Her name, of course.
“I was lucky,” Jolene continues, adjusting the seat so she’s lounging way back — forcing Bliss to shift over to the other side. “She nearly named me Dolly. If there’s one thing I can thank my dad for, it’s convincing her otherwise. Can you imagine?”
I give a nervous laugh of agreement.
“Dolly?” Bliss lets out a sharp squeal, kicking the back of my seat in the process. “Who would even call their kid that?”
“Says the girl named after a freaking state of mind,” Jolene snaps back.
There’s silence again — the dulcet tones of Dusty or Roseanne or whoever sighing away, the momentary sharing clearly done.
I don’t mind. It’s enough for me just to focus on the road ahead, taking us farther away from town and that gleaming country club full of my own foolish dreams. I always love driving, getting out, away. If I’ve had an even worse day than usual, or I feel that loss begin to ache again, I’ll take the keys and just go. Dad’s surprisingly understanding, given his oft-quoted statistics about road safety, but perhaps it’s Stella, murmuring in his ear about giving me space; either way, at least they let me. An hour here, a two-hour trip there — it doesn’t seem like a lot, but I sometimes think it’s the only thing that keeps me together anymore.
It’s funny, to think I could crave more space. After all, I have nothing but distance around me all day long — a silent kind of force field hovering as I wander the faded linoleum hallways. But that’s different. That kind of distance diminishes me, slowly sapping my strength away. Out here, with the radio playing loud enough to drown everything but a beat or a soaring melody, I feel most like myself. There’s this one song that gets it just right, a guy singing about a dark windless night, and how a song can just surround you, punching right through your mind, pumping in your blood. Moments like that, I feel as though everything gets stripped away — school, Mom, all that endless work for grades and application essays — and there’s nothing left but the core of who I am, so I can finally know myself. Like myself, even.
Eventually, as always, the road runs out, and I take the familiar exit and turn toward the college campus. I’ve been out to Brooks a few times before to use the library for research projects, so I save myself the embarrassment of getting lost in the crisscrossing sprawl of buildings that radiates from the old main core. Slowing to avoid the students who see jaywalking as their God-given right, I make my way to the front quad, a neat patch of grass framed by three sm
all red-brick buildings — long since dwarfed by the new concrete sports complex and gleaming academic hubs.
“So,” I say, turning off the engine while they collect purses and pull their shoes back on. “I guess I’ll just wait here for you?”
Jolene nods, already reaching for the door handle. “We shouldn’t be long. Which dorm is this guy in, anyway?”
“Ummm . . .” Bliss sounds less than certain. “I can’t really remember.”
“You’re kidding.”
But she’s not. Bliss shrugs. “I’ve never really paid attention to the directions, I just followed Kaitlin. . . .” She screws up her face, deep in thought. “His dorm is big, I guess, with a whole load of vending machines in the lobby. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“You’d better get out,” Jolene says to me. “This one’s completely helpless.”
I look down at my floor-length black satin gown. “It’s OK. I’m not really dressed for —”
“You look fine,” Jolene interrupts. “Better than I do, anyway.” She plucks at a ruffle with disdain. I decide not to argue, and soon we’re all standing in front of the quad, surveying the campus. It’s getting dark out, but there are floodlights fixed on the side of every building, and every pathway is bathed in a bright glow. “So how many dorms are in this place?” Jolene asks, a note of resignation in her voice.
“Fifteen, maybe?” I carefully hold my skirt off the dusty asphalt.
“And you really can’t remember a thing?”
“Sorry!” Bliss beams at us, obviously forgetting for a moment who she’s pulling her sweet and innocent act with. The smile slips. “We’ll find him eventually. We’ll just have to ask around.”
“Or we could look him up in the student directory?” I suggest.
They both turn to me.
“You know, the online catalog of every student and their room number?” It seems obvious to me, but Bliss’s face lights up as if I’ve just suggested a miracle.
“Genius! See, I knew you’d be great at this.”
“Not so fast,” I say quickly, before she gets too carried away with false praise. “It’s for students only. We need somebody else to log us in.”
“No problem.” She grins. “Just point me in the right direction.”
Helpless. She calls me helpless, and then I can’t even remember where we’re going. Way to go, Bliss — striking a blow for popular-girl stereotypes everywhere.
I follow the others across campus, trying to ignore my flush of embarrassment. It’s not that I’m so bad with directions — fine, maybe just a little — but the truth is, Jolene’s right. I never once stopped to notice where Jason’s dorm is, or how to get there. I was always with Kaitlin or one of the other girls, and they just called ahead and had one of the guys meet us by the main gates. I never saw the point in wandering aimlessly around when there were tons of cute boys willing to point the way. But what’s so wrong about that? Not everyone needs to possess every ounce of human knowledge to survive. I mean, that’s what Google is for.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I ask, walking faster to catch up. Meg is scurrying ahead of me, her head down and the fabric of her dress bunched up in her hands to keep it from sweeping the ground. I feel a pang for that outfit — bombshell black satin, and she’s skulking down the path as if she’s draped in a garbage bag. Some people don’t deserve high fashion.
“The library.” She nods to the concrete-and-glass building looming up ahead.
“Right.” I sigh. “Figures.” Girls like Meg are always programmed to detect the nearest gathering of nerds and bookworms.
I look around. It’s warm out, and the campus is busy with students already in the weekend spirit as they head out for the night, joking around on the lawns and yelling to each other about plans for a pajama party or karaoke session at the bar. Even though I shouldn’t be impressed by college kids anymore, I can’t help but soak it all in. I always love how these older girls look so at ease with themselves, as if they have everything figured out. Jolene’s that way as well — she’s got this mysterious air of self-possession, like she genuinely doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. Maybe I’ll get that way, too: just wake up on my eighteenth birthday with all the answers, and not even blink if Courtney “helpfully” points out that my mascara’s smudged, or that she and Nikki have tickets to Jared Jameson’s next show and — pause — I can come along, if I want.
I can dream.
For a moment, I wish I could just take it all back and go get a glass of punch instead of looking for that useless lipstick. Maybe now I would be giggling happily with Kaitlin, or sneaking kisses with Cameron in the shadows of the paper streamers and balloons, oblivious. I’d be stupid and naive, sure, but at least I’d be happy. Ignorance is Bliss, right?
“We’ve got to do something about these dresses,” Jolene mutters, climbing the front steps. She’s been bitching about her ruffles all night so I barely register the comment, but then a group of gothy-looking girls gives us a long stare, and I realize that she might have a point. If someone in white face powder, a corset, and a floor-length Victoriana skirt can look at us like we’re the weird ones, clearly, a change in outfits is required.
“Later,” I agree reluctantly, “but stop tugging it. It makes you look even more awkward.” She glares at me, but stops twitching as we file into the atrium.
It’s a huge, modern building, with information desks and security barriers along the front, and then at least three vast floors of shelving, work tables, and computer stations. Even though it’s Friday night, the place is packed with students clutching note pads, their eyes full of a glazed panic that can mean only one thing: finals.
“I don’t know.” Meg hedges. “You need to register for a reader’s pass, and they’re pretty strict about —”
“Come on,” Jolene interrupts, tugging me quickly to the barrier farthest from the bored security guy. He’s staring off into space, and the librarians all seem busy with a long line of students, so she plucks Meg’s access card from her hand and swipes it through, squeezing us together past the entry in a single knot of bodies. “See? Simple.” She steers us to a safe row of shelving and then raises an eyebrow at me. “Well? You said you had this next part under control.”
I need to win back some credit, and fast, so I give them a superior grin. “Leave it to the expert. Just watch and learn. . . .”
Spinning on my heel, I sashay toward the stairs, quickly thinking up my plan. Up on the first floor, it’s quieter — home to only hard core study nerds, I can tell. The individual study booths are set back between the shelves, and everyone looks settled in for the night, giving off this air of total desperation.
The other girls trail behind me as I walk the length of the room, mentally crossing off the prospects as I go.
“Are we just taking a stroll for the hell of it?” Jolene mutters, dragging her shoes on the dull gray carpeting. “Or are you lost — again?”
“Shh!” I glare.
And then I spot him: the blond boy in the corner, with square black glasses and a robot printed on his gray shirt. He’s squinting at his laptop, surrounded by loose-leaf papers, and has a smudge of highlighter on his chin. Perfect.
“Hi.” I make my approach with a big smile, not waiting for the others to follow.
The boy looks up. Up close, I can see that he’s actually kind of cute, not gawky like I first thought. His hair is cut messy and short, and he’s got some of those sideburns, like he should be playing in an indie rock band. Automatically, I flip my hair and jut out one hip. “Can I ask a teeny, tiny favor?”
He gives me a vague smile. “Sorry, but I’m kind of busy. . . .” Instead of offering to help, the boy just looks back at his laptop like I’m already dismissed.
“Oh.” I hide a frown and widen my smile instead. “It won’t even take a minute!” I chirp. “Well, we won’t.” I gesture at Meg and Jolene so he doesn’t think I’m trying to stalk him or anything.
The boy glan
ces past me.
“See, we’re trying to track down a friend of ours, but I’ve completely forgotten what dorm he’s in. Could you maybe look him up for us? Jason Gilbert. He’s a sophomore,” I add, but the boy isn’t listening. “Umm, hello?”
He looks back quickly, recovering. “Uh . . . sure.” A pause. “What do you need again?”
“His dorm address,” I explain slowly, trying not to sigh. He must be really zoned out from studying. “I think you can look it up online. . . .”
Meg is gazing idly at a shelf of books behind me, so I beckon her over. “Meg, come here and tell . . . ?” I wait for him to introduce himself.
He seems to snap back to life. “Scott. I’m Scott.” He smiles at us. Finally.
“Tell Scott what we need,” I finish, giving him another big smile. I push Meg into the chair next to him. “I’m just going to go make some copies, OK? Do you know where the nearest machine is?”
“Uh, just around the corner.” He’s back to looking blank and dopey, but at least I get an answer this time.
“Thanks!” I leave them to it, hoping Meg can manage to get something useful out of him. When in doubt, delegate.
Sure enough, there’s a Xerox machine waiting in the empty hallway beneath a notice board crammed with neon flyers and ads for the Students Against Unethical Vending Machines group. College kids. I fumble in my purse for quarters, but aside from gum, lip gloss, and mascara, I come up empty-handed.
“Here, I’ve got some.” Jolene appears beside me and fetches a handful of change from her ugly backpack.
“Thanks.” I flip through the diary, trying to find the pages with the most dirt to copy. “I figured it would be good to have a backup. Insurance, you know?”
She nods. “Good thinking.”
“What was that?” I joke, setting it to copy. “A compliment?”
She snorts. “Yeah, well, you’ve lowered the bar so far, I have to applaud any rational thought at all.”
I decide to rise above her digs and focus on the task at hand. The machine spits out the first few pages, so I turn to another section and set it to copy again.
The Anti-Prom Page 5
