How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

  five

  pissed off does not begin to describe how i felt about what was obviously a major shout-out from my old pals, the Faery Folk. “Wee Folk Custom Tailors!” I exclaimed. “Those fekkin’ faeries—”

  But the look on Colin’s face shut me up fast. Colin believed in Unix programming and a pint of Guinness after a long day’s bike ride. He believed that a guy in college should not date a sixteen-year-old girl, no matter how convinced she might be that he was her soulmate and the world’s best kisser. But he did not believe in faeries, or leprechauns, or mermaids, or Tinker Bell, or any of that “faery claptrap,” as he called it.

  I knew without question that his strange dreams, unexplainable fatigue and those bizarre notes were some kind of faery mischief, but there was no way was I going to try to convince Colin of that. At least not until I figured out what kind of troublemaking the Faery Folk were up to.

  “Really, Mor,” Colin said gently. “Ye didn’t used to say ‘fek’ so much before ye met me, did ye?”

  “I know,” I said, embarrassed. “My dad is on me all the time—”

  “Ye sound like a proper Irish girl, is all.” He grinned. “I’m proud to have had such a beneficial influence.”

  Colin Was onlЧ too glad not to obsess anЧmore about his mysterious problems, and we spent the rest of the afternoon gabbing away like we’d never left Ireland. He was full of questions about American high school life, and I wanted to know all about his first year at DCU. A couple of hours passed without us even realizing it, and much too soon my family was back from their shopping expedition. It was time to take Colin to his dorm at UConn.

  Dad drove, and Tammy begged to come along for the ride. I was strapped in the backseat with Tammy, and Colin was up front. The whole way to the campus, my dad grilled Colin about the particulars of this robotics intensive.

  “It’s a competition, really,” Colin explained. “They bring together students from all over the world and divvy us up into teams. Then we’ve got two weeks to build and program a little robot bugger that’ll more or less do what we tell it.”

  “What’s a ‘little robot bugger’?” Tammy asked.

  Colin twisted around to face us. “There’s something ye need to remember about me, Tammy,” he said, red cheeked. “If I say an unusual word and ye don’t know what it means, chances are it’s not fit for ye to repeat. Especially at school. D’ye understand?”

  “Did I say a bad word?” Tammy asked, delighted. “I thought robots were toys!”

  “Well, yes, they can be, of course,” Colin fudged. My dad kept driving and said nothing, which was not necessarily a good sign.

  “‘Robot’ isn’t a bad word,” I explained. “It means machines that move around and do things.”

  “Oh,” said Tammy. “Like the cows and chickens at Lucky Lou’s.”

  “No, no, lass, now I’ve got ye all bollixed up—I mean, confused.” Colin looked at me in desperation. “Cows and chickens are animals. They’re not robots.”

  “They are at Lucky Lou’s,” I corrected.

  “But I thought it was a grocery? The one with all the magnificent veggies?”

  “It is,” I said, “but it has these animatronic farm creatures too. You kinda have to see it to believe it.”

  Colin opened his mouth to ask something else, but Tammy interrupted.

  “So which word was the bad word?”

  “Bugger!” my dad roared. That shut us up for the rest of the trip.

  the UConn dorm Was standard-issue state school architecture—a big, institutional-looking box, built in the days when land was cheap and cinder block was plentiful. A far cry from the ivy-covered, Magic Kingdom castles of Yale, but it was good ol’ UConn that brought Colin back to me, and I swore then and there to get myself a school hoodie at the campus store out of sheer gratitude.

  Dad couldn’t find a place to park and Tammy needed to use the bathroom, so she came inside with us while Dad circled. Colin stood on one line to find out where he was supposed to pick up his room key, and I stood on another line for the ladies’ room with Tammy.

  Watching Tammy do her twirling pee-pee dance dressed in the latest taffeta-and-tiara ensemble made my brain start churning all over again. One flowy princess dress, fit for a half-goddess. That dress was meant for me obviously. The receipt was still in my pocket, but what was I supposed to do with it?

  And why were the Faery Folk picking on Colin? His exhaustion, his strange dreams, these inexplicable slips of paper—all that needed to stop, pronto. If my pals in the faery realm were trying to get my attention, they’d succeeded. Now I just had to figure out what they wanted.

  “Morrrrrrrgan,” Tammy sang out, not unhappily. “I can’t wait anymore! I need to peeeeeeeee!”

  That got us to the front of the line finally.

  after i brought tammЧ back outside to Wait With Dad, I offered to help Colin carry his stuff upstairs, though he hardly needed my help. The dorm room was as spare and tiny as a cell. I looked around the four bare walls and wished I could cast some enchantment of my own: sprinkle some magic faery dust that would keep him safe from harm, or at least make sure he got a decent night’s sleep.

  But my half-goddess talents didn’t seem to extend to making magic on purpose. In Ireland I’d only been called on to undo the pesky enchantments of others, and that had mostly involved paying attention and the occasional display of spunk. Could the Faery Folk could even show up in Connecticut? Land of the mall, the McMansion, and the junior prom? It didn’t seem possible.

  Then again, my standards for what was possible or not possible had gotten a serious ass kicking in Ireland, so maybe I was due for a few more surprises.

  Colin dropped his backpack on the narrow bed. It wasn’t much more than a cot, really. “Before ye go,” he said, turning to me, “there’s something I’ve been meanin’ to do.”

  “What?” I prayed that my breath was still minty from the gum I’d chewed in the car, but Colin only took my hand.

  “Apologize. I owe you an apology, Mor, and now’s as good a time as any.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “No, you don’t.”

  “Hush, woman!” He smiled. “When all this mad stuff started happening, with the dreams and the notes—I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So I went a bit silent with people. It seemed easier at the time, but only because I didn’t know what else to do.” He looked at me with his patented mix of goofball charm and utter sincerity. “Ye must think I’ve gone off the deep end.”

  “Not any deeper than usual,” I teased.

  He grinned, and reached for me. But before he could do what I’d been hoping and praying he would do since the moment he’d arrived, an absolute knockout of a girl—think Lucy Liu, age twenty and with an attitude like she’d just won a lifetime membership to Mensa—rapped once on the open door, marched up to Colin, and stuck out a hand.

  “Are you Colin? I’m Alice. According to the team assignment sheet, we’re going to be partners.” Her eyes skimmed me from top to bottom, but apparently she didn’t see anyone worth acknowledging because she just kept talking to Colin. “In the competition, I mean. And I hope you’re planning to win! Because I’m expecting to.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Colin said affably. “How d’ye do? A pleasure to meet you, Alice. This is my friend, Morgan.”

  “Are they letting children in the program now?” Alice didn’t bother to disguise her displeasure. “How precocious.”

  “Nope,” I answered, giving her my most deadly stare. “I’m just helping Colin move in. Then straight back to kindergarten.”

  “Right,” she said, already tuning me out. “Anyway, Col, we should have a strategy meeting. Compare skill sets. Figure out what our strengths and weaknesses are.” She crossed her arms, the picture of impatience. “Anytime you’re ready. I’m here to work.”

  She called him “Col.” How gross was that? I thought.

  “Skill sets, righty-o.” Colin’s voice was full of good cheer and a
twinge of mockery too, though you’d have to know him to be able to tell. “I’ll be with you in a jiffy, Al.”

  He winked at me, and together we walked down the hall to the elevator. I wished I could stay, or at least give that horrible girl a pinch to shut her up. But my dad and Tammy were waiting downstairs, and I was a half-goddess with some urgent faery sleuthing to do. I’d lingered too long already.

  “Good luck,” I said. “Have fun at school.” I lowered my voice. “Don’t take any crap from ‘Al.’ ”

  “I can handle her. Thanks for everything, Mor.” The elevator arrived, and Colin gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “See ye at soccer practice.”

  soccer practice, verЧ funnЧ. Colin had promised Tammy he’d come over the following Saturday to teach her some real Irish “football” moves, guaranteed to destroy any lingering Tammy-is-a-weenie sentiment left over from January’s Santa debacle. Second graders might forgive, but they never, ever forget.

  Until then he was completely booked, with classes all day and a heavy workload at night. That meant I’d have to wait six whole days to see him again. How insane it was that Colin was so nearby, yet busy doing things that didn’t include me! How amazing that I’d see him in less than a week! My emotional repertoire was getting a major workout.

  Still, the feeling that burned hottest inside me was frustration: How the fek was I supposed to find Wee Folk Custom Tailors and Alterations? I even looked in the Yellow Pages, but no such place was listed. I’d have to keep my half-goddess wits about me and stay alert for another clue, but for now, the receipt and the promlike nature of Colin’s dreams were all I had to go on.

  The situation became most painful at that week’s junior prom committee meeting where, naturally, the only thing the girls wanted to talk about was Colin.

  “Is he as great as you remember?”

  “Was it like you’d never been apart?”

  “Did he kiss you hello?”

  “Did he kiss you goodbye?”

  “Has he been seeing anybody else?” That was from Deirdre, and it stopped me in my tracks.

  “I—I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t ask him.” He certainly hadn’t mentioned such a thing. It sounded like he’d done nothing for months but struggle with schoolwork and his mysterious affliction.

  “There’s only one question that really matters,” Sarah said with authority. “‘Is Colin taking Morgan to prom?’” The three of them stared at me like a trio of owls, round-eyed with curiosity.

  “He can’t.” I threw up my hands. “He’s only here for two weeks.” Colin would be gone by the sixteenth of March; the junior prom wasn’t until the twentieth. Right on my birthday, in fact.

  Wails! Moans! Many questions were simultaneously shouted into my face—“Can’t he stay longer? Aren’t you upset? Is it true that Mike Fitch bought you a soda at the basketball game?”—but the interrogation was interrupted by the arrival of the evil prom planner, Mrs. Shirley Blainsvoort of Promfessionals Inc.

  As you might expect, she was kind of a freak: bone thin, platinum-haired and so done up with makeup and hairspray that she looked embalmed. Once a month she showed up at our committee meetings armed with questionnaires to collect our “appropriate student input,” and never for one millisecond did she stop pretending that we were her valued clients, not the students whose God-given right to throw their own weird prom she’d cheerfully snatched away.

  “Today, we’ll address one of my favorite prom topics,” she announced gaily, once she’d taken off her twelve layers of pashmina shawls, demanded hot tea with lemon and perched herself on a chair. She’d made the same comment about everything so far: the location, the dinner choices, the type of flowers in the centerpieces—all were her “favorite prom topics.” “Today we’ll talk about music. They say it’s the food of love, you know!”

  We stared at her blankly. With a tight smile, she passed out a questionnaire.

  “We don’t need a questionnaire for this,” Sarah said. “We know who we want to play at the prom.”

  “I have a wonderful DJ,” Mrs. Blainsvoort cooed. “He’s very experienced. He can play any type of music you like.”

  “DJs suck,” Sarah cooed back. “We need live music. We’re having a band.”

  “The problem with live music,” said Mrs. Blainsvoort pleasantly, “is that the musicians can only play the songs they know. And they have to take breaks and bring in all types of instruments and what have you. And sometimes, frankly, they’re not very good.” She wrinkled her nose. “Haven’t you ever been to a wedding where the band was just—lame?”

  Could anything be lamer than hearing Mrs. Blainsvoort call something lame? She was trying to bond with us now. She must have been scared. She could feel her promfessional control slipping through those bony fingers. For sheer entertainment value, I’d say this was the best prom-planning committee meeting we’d had so far.

  “My boyfriend’s band rocks,” said Sarah, speaking just as pleasantly as Mrs. Blainsvoort had.

  “It does,” added Deirdre.

  “Everybody loves them,” said Clem. “The whole junior class wants them to play.”

  “Your boyfriend!” Mrs. Blainsvoort exclaimed. “Well, that settles it. We simply cannot have nepotism. It wouldn’t look right. Besides,” she said slyly, “wouldn’t you rather have your boyfriend dancing with you all night? Not jumping around on stage, singing his heart out to every girl in the room?”

  In that moment I knew, and Clem and Deirdre knew, that Mrs. Blainsvoort had just made a huge and possibly fatal mistake. I saw Sarah’s face change, and we all understood exactly what it meant.

  Over her dead body—or Mrs. Blainsvoort’s, more likely—would Dylan’s band, Ass Your Kiss Goodbye, not be playing at the East Norwich High School junior prom.

  When igot home there Was a funnЧ Card from Colin in the mail—the real, U.S. Postal Service mail, post-marked from UConn and mailed the day before. It was a “Happy First Day of Kindergarten” card, and where he’d found one at the beginning of March I couldn’t imagine, but that was Colin for you.

  Thanks to the magic of e-mail, I’d never seen Colin’s penmanship before. Tracing my fingertip over his rounded, sloppy guy-script underscored the fact that the weird notes he’d been finding were unmistakably written in his own handwriting.

  The card read:

  Mor,

  Help! Pris’ner of geekdom here, seeking refuge. Can’t get a spare minute on the computers in the lab to e-mail you, all my new schoolmates are too busy plotting the robot rebellion.

  Alice is a pip, but not so bad once you get past her personality. Works me like a dog for sure.

  Sorry to say the dreams are worse than ever. The all-powerful dorm-lounge coffee keeps me more or less upright during the day, but my mental alertness leaves something to be desired.

  Speaking of coffee, enclosed find the latest “Missive from Beyond.” Peculiar, innit? I want to check out those robot cows, though, might come in useful for the competition, so perhaps you’ll take me veggie shopping after soccer practice.

  See you Saturday—wear cleats.

  “Coach” Colin

  Missive from beyond? With shaky hands I unfolded the note Colin had tucked inside the envelope. It was written in the same loopy scrawl as Colin’s card to me, but in emerald green ink, with a dusting of glitter. It read:

  Having trouble staying awake?

  You need a JOLT of caffeine!

  Redeem this coupon for

  One FREE lucky latte

  at lucky, Lucky Lou’s.

  six

  the double pliers. the back and forth. the jumping Macarena. Each of the soccer moves Colin tried to teach Tammy had a name, and by the time they’d learned a few different ones, it was like the two of them were speaking their own language.

  “That’s it, girl, now give me the Fake and Turn! Good, now dribble, dribble and nail it with—a False Hesitation!”

  “Like this?” Tammy stopped in her tracks and did
a strange little dance involving the soccer ball.

  “Yes, excellent! Now, Spin-Chop-Spin, and run for the goal! Run! Go! That’s it! Let’s throw in the Reverse Easter Bunny, just to be merciless. . . .”

  “Wait!” Tammy wheezed, breathless. “Stop!”

  “Stop?” Colin was panting just as hard and so wobbly I was afraid he might fall over. “But we haven’t won the World Cup yet!”

  “I need a drink.” Tammy collapsed and lay on her back on the damp ground. I was freezing in my new UConn hoodie, but the two of them were red-faced and sweating in their T-shirts. Colin reminded me of a sheepdog who’d just been turned loose on the farm after being locked up in a city apartment for months—a blue-eyed hunk of bounding, panting, muddy bliss, except he looked like he was about to pass out.

  “I could use a drink meself,” he said, his hands on his knees. “Alice is very big on the veggie shakes. She says that’s what ails me. A lack of”—he stopped to catch his breath—“zucchini juice and plankton.”

  I didn’t much like hearing him talk about Alice, to tell the truth, but at the moment I was more concerned about how exhausted he looked. “Maybe that’s enough for today,” I said, offering him a drink of hot cocoa from my thermos. “You should take it easy.”

  “I know. It feels good to have fun, is all.” He took a swig. “Most days it’s like I have a constant hangover with no carousin’ to blame fer it. Bloody inconvenient.”

  “I’m tired, Coach,” Tammy yelled from the ground. “Can we stop now?”

  “Tired! Does Beckham walk around sayin’ he’s tired? Was Pelé known for complainin’ about needin’ a snooze?” Colin stretched and groaned. “I’m totally knackered meself. Ready for a hot shower and yer ma’s breakfast deluxe. A nap, if I’m lucky. And then, the veggie shopping,” he added, catching my eye.

  “Yay!” Tammy yelled. “I love Lucky Lou’s!”