How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

  Strangely it was last year’s ASPCA benefit prom, where every attendee went home with an adopted puppy or kitten, that sent the school administration over the edge:

  Because of the eccentric and even subversive junior proms organized in previous years by student-run prom committees, the administration feels the student body can no longer be trusted with this important responsibility. This year the PTA will engage a professional prom planner to coordinate all details, with appropriate student input welcome as always.

  Or so said the memo from the principal, distributed to all juniors the first week of school. “‘Eccentric’? ‘Subversive’?” Sarah had gone wild when she’d read it. “Just because we might throw a prom that’s actually interesting?”

  With the prom planner on board to make sure this year’s bash was nothing more or less than your typical annual festival of teenage girls in flowy princess dresses and teenage boys in search of a six-pack, the prom committee was reduced to offering opinions about food, music and décor, and selling tickets at school. I didn’t care. To me, being on the committee was just a way to get some face time with Sarah. Now that she had a boyfriend, her fascination with couples-oriented social events had skyrocketed.

  Last year I’d been the one with the boyfriend. I’d been the one who acted like a jerk. To her credit, Sarah had hated Raphael from the start.

  He’s arrogant and bossy. He treats you like you’re not smart. And he’ll make you drop all your friends, wait and see.

  I didn’t get how right she was until after Raphael dumped me on the last day of sophomore year (after which I hacked off all my hair in a broken-hearted tantrum). It would have been nice to have Sarah’s shoulder to cry on about that, but I’d let the friendship slide because of my all-Raphael, all-the-time attitude. Now we were slowly building it back. Going to prom committee meetings was a small price to pay.

  Sarah’s boyfriend, Dylan, couldn’t have been more different from Raph. He was a junior like us, smart and nice and genuinely crazy about Sarah from what I could tell. His only flaw was that he could be very solitary sometimes. We’d all learned that when Dylan went off on his own, you didn’t follow him around asking what’s wrong. He just needed his space.

  Also—and I don’t mean to sound mean about this, because it’s just the truth—he was kind of short.

  Now, personally, I have no problem with short. It’s just that short guys tend to go after short girls, which Sarah most definitely was not. Sarah was tall—five feet ten-and-a-half inches in her bare feet, with good posture to boot. So it was just funny that she ended up with Dylan. Some kids made cracks about it, but most people thought they were all the more cool for not caring about the height difference. Sarah was one of the star players on the girls’ intramural basketball team and Dylan played drums in a band, so that helped in the coolness department too.

  (I don’t know how it is at other schools, but at East Norwich, if you’re already a little bit cool, like Sarah and Dylan, and then you do something potentially uncool, it just makes you cooler than you were before. You have to have that starter cool first, though. Otherwise, no matter what you do, it’s just a downward spiral.)

  Anyway, Sarah having a boyfriend made her a bit more forgiving of my atrocious behavior last year. Still, when the fall term started, we were awkward with each other for weeks. I guess she wanted to be one-hundred percent convinced that Raph and I were permanently broken up and that I was, maybe not the same old Morgan but a new, older and wiser version of the person she used to think was worthy of being her best friend.

  That’s BF, not BFF. I was pretty sure the forever part was history now.

  Snacks Were another big draw of the prom Committee meetings, and the other members, Clementine and Deirdre, were halfway through a huge bag of Cheez Doodles by the time I arrived. Clementine and Deirdre were the kind of slightly creepy best friends who were always, always together. They’d been that way since middle school. At the moment, they even had matching orange lips.

  Let’s talk about corsages, I prayed, as I took my seat at the dining room table. Unlike my family’s oversized, open-plan house, Sarah’s house had a nice cozy dining room with French doors at either end so people could sit and talk in privacy. Let’s pick color schemes. Anything but the big, bad question . . .

  “So, who’s taking everybody to prom?” Deirdre squealed, like she didn’t start every meeting by asking the same fekkin’ thing.

  “I think Tommy Vasquez is gonna ask me,” Clementine confided. “His friend Jordan told me that Tommy wanted to know if I had a date yet. If he asks me, what should I say? Should I say yes?”

  “Tommy is cute,” Deirdre said. “But don’t say yes right away. ’Cause nobody knows yet who Mike Fitch will ask. And if he asked you, you wouldn’t want to be taken already, right?”

  “Oh my God, Mike Fitch!” Clementine fanned herself and pretended to faint. In terms of popularity, Mike Fitch was definitely the rock star of the junior class, but in a good way. Unlike Raphael’s egomaniacal reign of terror over the seniors, Mike actually deserved to be popular. He was funny and kind and gorgeous, with pale blond hair and big brown eyes, plus he was the lead guitarist in Dylan’s band. The fact that it was a Kiss tribute band just added an extra touch of ironic sex appeal to the guy. Who would guess a good egg like Mike could do such a killer Gene Simmons impersonation?

  “You think Mike Fitch might ask me? He’d never ask me. Would he?” Clem started to get revved and shoved a fistful of Cheez Doodles in her mouth to calm herself down.

  “Nobody knows,” Sarah said mysteriously. “Nobody knows who Mike Fitch likes. Dylan says even Mike’s guy friends don’t know.” One major perk of Sarah having a boyfriend was that it gave us a mole in the enemy camp.

  “So who, ummm, are you thinking, ummm, that you might go to prom with, Morgan?” I knew Deirdre was umming out of pity. It was common knowledge that I’d been damaged, dateless goods since getting dumped by Raph.

  “It sucks that you can’t go with Colin,” Sarah said with a sigh.

  “Oooh, who’s Colin?” Clem and Deirdre practically pounced on me. There wasn’t anybody at school named Colin.

  I didn’t answer right away and not just because Sarah was right. It did suck. It sucked that Colin was so far away and that he thought I was too young to really be his girlfriend and that, to tell the humiliating truth, I hadn’t heard from him in a while.

  No, I didn’t answer because it was hard to know where to start and what to leave out. Was this a good time to tell the junior prom planning committee that I was part goddess? How might that news go over? I helped myself to a Cheez Doodle.

  Cheez Doodle, Snack of the Goddess. That idea made me crack up. Sarah must’ve thought I was having a breakdown.

  “You know? Colin?” she prompted, trying to make me snap out of it. “That guy you met in Ireland last summer?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Right.”

  Like I could forget who Colin was.

  two

  Colin had Written me e-mails two or three times a week in August and September, then once a week in October, then twice in the whole month of November. It didn’t take the Global Positioning System in my dad’s Subaru to see in which direction this trans-Atlantic correspondence was heading.

  Then he sent one really short note in December:Mor,

  How’s tricks? Hope the hair’s growing in nicely. Dublin

  City University is ripping yer man a new orifice, I’ve never been so knackered in me life. Brain’s in a constant fog from all this high-class education, either that or I need some vitamins. Must crack some books and grab a snooze.

  be good luv—

  Colin

  And then, nothing. No Merry Christmas, no Happy New Year, no come-back-Morgan-Ireland-isn’t-the-same-without-you.

  The old Morgan would have curled up in a ball of hurt and disappointment and made up lame reasons why he’d stopped writing. Run over by a truck—sorry, “lorry.” Too busy with school. O
ut shopping for Christmas presents, including one for me, Morgan, the one and only female person on his mind, despite all the zillions of girls his own age he was meeting at DCU . . .

  After that pathetic exercise had run its obsessive course, the old Morgan might have exploded in a burst of anger and told herself that Colin sucks, and maybe written him some fake and cheerful note about her fictional new boyfriend, just to see if it made him jealous.

  But that was before the summer. Before Ireland. Before the old Morgan discovered she was really Morganne, the fearless, flowy-dress-wearing, part-goddess legend who had the power to undo enchantments, talk to horses, swim with mermaids and rescue stolen children from the clutches of mischievous faeries.

  Obviously I hadn’t told Sarah everything about my summer in Ireland. I’d kept it simple and magic-free: I met this cute guy in Ireland and we really hit it off, so maybe when I’m older . . .

  Like a pal, Sarah had acted all overexcited about Colin, the way friends with boyfriends act when their friends without boyfriends get some temporary scrap of male attention. I knew faeries and mermaids were real, but Colin’s feelings for me were starting to feel like something I’d made up. So what if Sarah was nice enough to play along with my fantasy world? Sooner or later the truth would come out, just like with Tammy and Santa.

  I sure could use another shot at being Morganne, I thought, as I slammed the alarm on my clock radio off and faced the much simpler truth that winter break was over and I had to get my butt to school. The old Morgan comes back much too easily.

  “morgan, i need mЧ santa picture. Where is it?”

  On her first day back at school after the holiday, Tammy made an unfortunate discovery. Over the break, the entire second grade of Idle Hour Elementary had decided that Santa wasn’t real—all except Tammy.

  But Mom had nothing to worry about when it came to Tammy’s future presidential bid. That kid stood her ground in front of twenty-five cynical brats calling her a dumb baby, and she even promised to bring in proof. Why wouldn’t she? In her mind she already had some: the photograph I was supposed to have taken of Santa on Christmas Eve. Seems Tammy hadn’t forgotten about it after all.

  Bloody hell, as Colin would say.

  “I don’t have it, Tam,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t actually see him. I’m sorry.”

  “But you said.” Tammy’s big eyes started to fill with tears.

  “Want more yummy pasta? Mmmmm!” Dad lifted the wriggly noodles onto his own plate. Mom was working like a fiend these days and wasn’t home yet, so he’d made dinner. He was ridiculously pleased with himself about it too. I mean, come on—spaghetti from a box and sauce from a jar? It wasn’t like he’d mastered the Joy of Cooking or anything. “Maybe Santa can’t be photographed,” he added helpfully.

  “What, like a vampire?” This slipped out of my mouth before I had time to shut myself up. Tammy let her spaghetti slither out of her mouth and stared at me like I was driving a stake through Santa’s heart, right there at the dinner table.

  “Santa is not a vampire!” she yelled. “Why are you so mean?” The red sauce dripping down her chin made her look somewhat bloodthirsty herself, but I was done making wise-cracks. Too late, though. Tammy fast-forwarded to full melt-down and ran off to her room, bawling.

  “Morgan, was that necessary?” Dad slurped more pasta and chuckled. “But the vampire Santa idea is pretty funny.”

  Okay, maybe vampire Santa was funny, but getting hammered at school by your whole class was not even remotely amusing. Sometimes it was like Dad had no memory at all of being a kid.

  “It’s not a joke.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “She can’t face all those kids again without some backup.”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Dad declared.

  “The kids at school are not going to drop this, Dad! I’m gonna go talk to her.” I started for Tammy’s room.

  “Morgan, don’t tell her about—you know,” he called after me, and I turned around. He mouthed the word Santa. “Let her enjoy it a while longer.”

  “Does she look like she’s having a good time to you?” I snapped. “You’d rather she got teased than you have an argument with Mom, that’s all.” As soon as I said it I knew I’d gone too far.

  He wiped his lips with his napkin, a little too calmly. Ruhroh. “Fine,” he said. “Go tell her, right now.”

  This was how Dad won fights—he waited until you were being unreasonable and then switched sides. “Tell her what?” I asked, knowing I was beat.

  “Tell her,” Dad said, putting his elbows on the table and lowering his voice, “that there is no Santa.” He sounded awfully chilly all of a sudden. How chilly? Imagine the ambient temperature of Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. “If you think it’s so urgent that your sister know the truth, you do it.”

  “But—I mean—won’t Mom be mad?”

  “Your mother’s not here right now, is she?”

  Mom’s not here because you got downsized from the bank and she had to find a bunch of extra clients with sloppy closets for her to organize, I thought. That this misfortune had somehow led to Tammy crying in her room over vampire Santa seemed both unlikely and unfair, but I’d already learned that life could be random like that: First Bank of Connecticut has a bad year, and now I had to be the Santa-killer.

  i tapped on tammЧ’s door before going in. she Was in her pink Ariel beanbag chair, watching The Little Mermaid for the zillionth time to calm herself down.

  “Sorry about what I said about the vampire,” I said. “It was a joke.”

  “Not funny,” Tammy barked, staring straight ahead at the TV.

  “Listen.” I sat down on the foot of her bed. “I think you’re old enough to know the truth about stuff. That’s why I came in here. To tell you the truth.”

  “Really?” She clicked the remote to mute the TV and turned around to face me. “About everything?” For a heartbeat I wondered if this conversation would skip right over Santa and go straight to boys and sex, but Tammy seemed far more interested in the Santa thing right now.

  “About whatever you ask me,” I replied. “So if you don’t want to know the truth about something, just don’t ask. Deal?”

  She thought hard. She chewed her lip. “Deal,” she said.

  “If you’re not sure, start with something small,” I suggested.

  “Okay.” This was a big moment in a little girl’s life, and we both knew it. She took a deep breath. “Is the tooth fairy real?”

  Whew, an easy one. “Totally real,” I said. “I’ve seen her myself.”

  “You have?” Tammy was amazed. This was not the answer she’d expected.

  “I swear.” Tinker Bell too, I could have told her, but I didn’t want her to be afraid to put her new pajamas in the wash or something.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What about the Easter bunny?”

  I mulled that one over. “Dunno, but probably not,” I said finally.

  Tammy seemed disappointed, but also excited by her newfound maturity. To know the real deal about the Easter bunny—she was in the big-girl leagues now for sure.

  “And the groundhog?” she asked gravely.

  That cracked me up. “Of course groundhogs are real, Tam! You’ve seen them at the zoo.”

  “I mean on Groundhog Day!” she said, leaping up and pummeling me with her grubby fists. “You know, that thing they do with the shadow?”

  “No, that’s bogus.” I scooted back on the bed to make room for her. “The weatherman makes it all up.”

  “I thought so!” Tammy cried in triumph. She climbed up next to me. “Let’s go in order so we don’t leave any out. What holiday comes next?”

  “After Groundhog’s Day? Valentine’s Day, I guess.”

  “Cupid!” she exclaimed. “Is Cupid real?”

  “That’s a tricky one,” I said, leaning back on the pillows. “Cupid is, like, mythological. That means he’s not totally real, but not totally fake either.”

  “
Huh.” She frowned. “That is tricky. I think I get it, though. And what comes after Valentine’s Day?”

  What did come after Valentine’s Day? A swirl of mist clouded my brain. There was some holiday; what was it? Something to do with green. Something to do with Ireland . . .

  “Saint Patrick’s Day.” It felt like someone else’s voice was coming out of my mouth. “Saint Patrick’s Day comes next.”

  “Leprechauns!” Tammy knelt on the bed and put her hands on my shoulders. “What do you think, Morgan? Are leprechauns real?”

  Now, the thing is, I might have seen a leprechaun, when I was in Ireland. I mean, I think I did, but it was just for a second. And this ancient warrior-dude named Fergus had assured me I hadn’t, because he said there was no such thing as leprechauns, and he should know, right? Being somewhat magical and mythological himself?

  “Leprechauns,” I said to Tammy, “are controversial.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means people disagree. Most people would say no, they’re not real.” I smoothed a wrinkle out of the Insanely Happy Pretty Princesses comforter on Tammy’s bed. “Personally, I’m not sure.”

  Tammy’s face scrunched up in a thinking-hard kind of expression. “So,” she said, “some things are true, some are bogus, some are missological, and some we just don’t know?”

  I smiled. “That about sums it up.”

  “Will you watch Ariel with me?” Tammy reached for the remote. With a click, the Little Mermaid resumed belting out her show tune. “Oh!” Tammy wheeled around so fast she almost knocked me off the bed. “Mermaids! They’re real, aren’t they, Morgan? Aren’t they?” I felt every inch of her being shimmering with hope.