Snapshots

by Pamela Browning

  The only thing was, I’d miss my soul mates, the two most important people in the world to me. I’d miss them so very much.

  And they, of course, would miss me.

  Chapter 4: Trista

  1990

  Click: Prom night in our senior year at John C. Calhoun High, Columbia, South Carolina. The three of us are posed in a latticed gazebo. Rick is standing between Martine and me, one arm around each. We’re wearing identical black dresses, strapless and slinky, with a wide white band circling the top of the bodice and identical chrysanthemum corsages on our wrists. I’m smiling up at Rick, whose expression is serious. There’s something spacey about the way Martine is grinning into the camera, though I didn’t notice it at the time.

  The fact that I wouldn’t be at the University of South Carolina the following year made senior-prom night—our last big blast together—even more poignant and important. Rick insisted on squiring both Martine and me to the dance, declaring that he’d have the two prettiest dates there. We were more than agreeable, since Martine had broken up with her boyfriend a couple of months before, and I wasn’t dating anyone special.

  It should have been perfect—the limo, our corsages, everything. Our class had chosen to hold the prom the Saturday night at the beginning of spring break at the biggest hotel in downtown Columbia. The theme was Summertime, like the song from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Martine and I shopped for two months, checking out boutiques and department stores in Greenville and Charleston before we found the perfect dresses, which were excruciatingly expensive. Dad sprang for them anyway, remarking that when you were a man blessed with two beautiful daughters, it was your responsibility to keep them looking good. Martine and I giggled at that; we were tall and blond and attracted more than our share of attention because there were two of us, but lots of other girls at our school were just as pretty and every bit as pampered by their fathers.

  Trouble started to brew a couple of weeks before the big event when I casually mentioned at the dinner table one night that Rick and one of his friends were going to chip in to rent a room at the hotel on prom night. Adjourning to hotel rooms after the dance had become standard procedure at our school, and I was sure that our parents would fall into line. We’d heard lots of chatter about other kids’ parents paying for the rooms, the rationale being that they didn’t want the kids driving home drunk, and they were good kids, never any problems, so why tempt fate? Safe at the hotel, kids could hang with their friends, watch TV, and if they were going to sneak a few drinks, so what? I’d heard stories of people puking their guts out at last year’s prom, of a girl who’d called her parents at three in the morning begging them to come to the hotel and get her, but I’d discarded them as exaggerations. Besides, in every group of teenagers, you’d find guys who considered it cool to drink until they barfed and girls who got scared when their dates became too familiar.

  After I innocently dropped the information over dinner one evening that Rick was planning to get a hotel room and that Martine and I intended to stay there overnight, my father slid his chair back from the table and drew his brows in the way that usually preceded a lecture. Martine darted a covert warning glance in my direction.

  “And I suppose Rick will be bringing you home in the morning?”

  “Sure,” I said, already sorry I’d floated the idea.

  “How? I doubt that the limo driver is going to stick around waiting that long.” Renting a limousine for prom night was the norm, and Rick had already paid the deposit.

  “Maybe Rick will leave his car at the hotel earlier and drive us home in the morning,” I said, definitely on shaky ground.

  “Sometimes guys do that, leave their cars there the afternoon before the dance,” Martine chimed in.

  “Hunh. So let me get this straight. After the prom, everyone sits around a hotel room in their prom finery? On the beds?” my father asked, a scowl spreading across his handsome face.

  “Usually, kids dress for the prom at the hotel beforehand, and afterward they wear the same clothes they had on when they checked in. Then everyone watches TV and maybe orders room service,” Martine said. “And they have tables in the rooms. Sometimes a couch to sit on.”

  “But there are beds,” Dad said ominously.

  “It’s not a big deal, Dad,” I said. “Anyhow, you don’t have to have beds to do what you’re thinking.” This seemed like common sense to me, knowing as I did two or three girls who’d had babies, and not by stumbling across them in a collard patch, either.

  He glowered across the table. “My daughters do not spend the night in a hotel room with a guy.” Have I mentioned that as a defense lawyer, our father excelled at the art of logical argument and enjoyed sparring with us?

  “Dad—” I said, not too worried at this point. His resistance might be no more than part of his training program; Dad still cherished the possibility that Martine and I might join his law firm someday.

  “Daddy—” Martine said at the same time.

  “Roger,” Mom said hastily, “maybe we should talk this over later.”

  “It’s only Rick, Dad,” I reminded him patiently. “He’s not just ‘a guy.’”

  “Roger, there will be three of them,” Mom added. “It’s hard to imagine that anything, um, bad could happen. Rick’s parents gave him permission.”

  Dad slapped his hands on the table, palms down. A vein throbbed in his neck. “Rick is a fine young man, but Trista and Martine are not spending the night at a hotel with him or any other boy. Stuff happens. Bad stuff. And don’t give me ‘Daddy, please,’ or ‘Dad, all the kids are doing it.’ Just because everyone else decides to jump off a cliff, does that mean I have to let my daughters do it?” This, of course, has a rhetorical question, and one that we’d heard often enough as we were growing up.

  “But if you don’t let us stay at the hotel all night, we’ll have to come home after the prom is over,” Martine wailed.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” my father stated firmly, tossing his napkin onto the table and stalking out of the room.

  Okay, so Dad’s abandonment of the argument meant that his decision was final. The master of our fates had spoken. I was smart enough not to push it, at least not then.

  I gazed down at my lap, my mother emitted sounds of distress and Martine burst into tears.

  Martine and I spent the next few days commiserating with each other. Our friends added fuel to the fire by declaring that their parents were allowing them to stay at the hotel overnight, and how could our parents be so mean? To which we replied sorrowfully that it was beyond us, our father was hopelessly old-fashioned and just didn’t understand. Keep in mind that this was the year that Martine and I alternated between loving our parents to death and being sure they were out to ruin our lives.

  A few days before the prom, our mother, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement, walked into our room and perched on the edge of my bed. She’d just had her hair trimmed, and it swung across her cheeks in a shiny arc as she told us she had a wonderfully exciting secret to reveal.

  “It’s about prom night,” she said, barely able to contain her glee. “The Finnerans are having an all-night party at their house and you two are invited!”

  I was folding socks to put in my drawer, and Martine sat at her desk producing a pen-and-ink cartoon for the school paper, where we both were on staff. My face fell, and Martine let out a groan. “Alec Finneran is the biggest dork in our school, and I wouldn’t spend prom night at his house for anything in the world, not even a date with Keanu.” This announcement was major, since Martine had been in love with the movie star Keanu Reeves for over a year. She even blotted her lipstick on a mini poster of him that she’d taped on the inside of her school-locker door.

  Mom plowed ahead. “Both Gail and John Finneran intend to stay up all night to monitor the party. They’ll set up tables around their swimming pool, and they’re planning to order an eight-foot-long sub.” I had to hand it to poor Mom; she was trying to make the idea
sound attractive.

  “I told you Alec was dorky,” Martine said with conviction. “Otherwise he wouldn’t agree to an eight-foot-long sub.” Her words oozed sarcasm.

  We waited in stony silence for Mom to say the next word, and of course she did.

  “Your dad said it would be okay if you stayed out at the Finnerans’ after the prom.”

  “Auurgh! I hate my life,” Martine said, flopping onto her twin bed and burying her head under the pillow.

  “Me, too,” I agreed. I crossed my arms over my chest and avoided Mom’s eyes.

  Our mother heaved a sigh, stood and headed for the door. “Mine isn’t so great right now, either. You twins didn’t arrive with an instruction manual.” She was still smiling, forced though it was. “I worry about you.”

  “We’re eighteen, Mom,” I reminded her with growing impatience. “We can take care of ourselves.”

  “You don’t even know what to watch out for,” she said with considerable conviction, and Martine and I exchanged a baffled glance. This was another parental declaration that made little sense to us.

  As Mom’s footsteps faded down the stairs, Martine spoke up, her words still muffled by the pillow, “You’d better call Rick and tell him the fantastic news about Alec Dork’s party. And don’t forget the eight-foot sub, which we’ll be eating by the romantic blue light of the Finnerans’ humongous bug zapper.”

  When we told him about the party, Rick tossed off a good-natured comment along the lines of “Let’s roll with the punches.” As a result, by the time prom night trundled around, we were psyched up for the dance and resigned to Alec’s party. A few other kids in the neighborhood would be there, and one of them was bringing his guitar. If the weather was warm enough, we’d go for a moonlight swim in the Finnerans’ pool. None of that would be so bad, really, and Rick even talked Alec out of the sub in favor of grilling hamburgers.

  When Rick arrived at our house on prom night, we oohed and aahed over him in his rented tux. He’d chosen black, like our dresses, and the white tucked shirt had a cool wing collar and cuffs fastened with links borrowed from his dad. He wore a red cummerbund and shiny black shoes. He looked fantastic and said the same about us.

  Of course, we had to troop out to the backyard and have our pictures taken in front of Mom’s prize camellias. Another snapshot, another milestone in our lives.

  When the three of us walked under the bower of fresh flowers into the ballroom at the hotel, we were a showstopper. Heads literally snapped around in midconversation, jaws dropped and Mr. Helms, the principal, favored us with one of his toothy smiles. He clapped Rick on the shoulder, shook Martine’s and my hands and directed us to the refreshment table, where Mrs. Huff was ladling out syrupy pink punch.

  “What is this stuff—antifreeze?” Martine murmured, smiling sweetly at a bevy of chaperones all the while.

  “Flop sweat,” I told her, having recently heard the term and thinking it appropriate, though I had no idea what flop sweat might be.

  Martine snickered, and Rick grinned. “Which one of you would like to dance first?” he asked as the band ground out a heavy rock beat. They were a local newbie outfit called Hootie and the Blowfish, whose popularity was growing with the college crowd.

  “I’ll dance,” Martine said offhandedly. She set her cup down on a nearby table and accompanied Rick out on the floor.

  After that, guys asked me to dance, putting both arms around my waist, and I looped my hands behind their necks. It was the classic prom waddle, nothing fancy. I’d known a lot of the boys from kindergarten—Dave Barnhill, Shaz Gainey, Chris Funderburk. They all had dates, but their dates were my friends, and we had no illusions of exclusivity.

  Things got a little crazier as the evening wore on, and the dancing became less inhibited as more people arrived. Girls exclaimed over one another’s dresses, the guys joked, the chaperones beamed approvingly the way they always do as long as things remain calm. The stays from my long-line strapless bra dug into my ribs, and I was glad to dance with Rick after a while because I could be honest about my agony.

  “You should be wearing a choke collar like this one.” With a grimace of distaste, he removed his hand from my waist and ran a forefinger inside the offending object. “But—” and he gazed down at me with a twinkle in his eyes, just managing not to ogle my cleavage “—I’m awfully glad you’re dressed the way you are. You’re gorgeous, Trista.”

  “Martine, too,” I replied automatically as she swooped into the periphery of my vision. Shaz was dipping her, and her laughter verged on the manic. I tried to catch her eye, but Rick twirled me too fast. When I remembered to look for Martine again, I didn’t see her.

  I was having such a good time that it didn’t matter. Martine and I weren’t joined at the hip, after all. Kids began to drift out of the ballroom toward the end of the evening, heading upstairs to their rooms, and I admit to a pang of frustration as I watched them leave. I was eager that night to leave my childhood behind. Senior prom marked a rite of passage, and I was heady with the promise of the future and all the wonderful new experiences that would soon open to me.

  Before the last dance, Mr. Helms climbed the steps to the bandstand. He intoned something into the microphone about the revels at the hotel being over, that mumble mumble we were a fine group of young people, that he harbored great mumble hopes as he loosed us on the rest of the world. He also said, his voice lowering on a note of seriousness, that none of the gatherings at the hotel after midnight were school-sanctioned. He’d sent flyers home stating that very fact, much to the satisfaction of my father.

  The last dance was slow and dreamy, and Rick appeared as if by magic and took me in his arms. This time, unlike during our other dances, he rested his cheek against my temple, making me conscious of how well we fit together. For a few minutes, I imagined how it would be if Rick were really someone I dated. I’d had boyfriends, a few that I liked a lot. I never fell in love with any of them, and to the guys I went out with, I was just a date who had a few interesting things to say and knew how to shag really well. No, that doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. The shag is what we call our South Carolina official dance, and I’d learned it from my parents, the 1970 shag champions of Myrtle Beach. Okay, okay, I can’t help it if that’s what they call the sex act in England. A shag can also be either a rug or a haircut, take your pick.

  Anyway, as the band wound the song to a close, Rick held me close for a moment. Then it was over, and everyone started calling out their good-nights. One boy stumbled over the edge of the dance floor, and Rick pulled me back in case the guy fell in our direction.

  “That’s Bill Kryzalic,” Rick whispered. “Drunk as a skunk.”

  “What did he do—bring booze in a flask?” The chaperones were keeping a sharp eye out for any flouting of the rules, which were clear: we catch you drinking at the prom and you get a stern lecture, plus we deliver you in disgrace to your parents. Serious infractions were penalized by school suspension, and with final exams in the offing, this could jeopardize a student’s graduation.

  “Some guys had flasks in the restroom,” Rick acknowledged. “Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

  “Have you seen Martine lately?” I asked, frowning.

  “She was dancing with Hugh Barfield about twenty minutes ago.” A lightning streak of alarm rippled through me, a warning, an alert. A glance passed between Rick and me, an instant communication of alarm. We each knew what the other was thinking, as we so often did.

  I kept my voice calm. “Think I should check out the ladies’ room?”

  “Sure. We don’t want to be late for Alec’s party,” Rick said, devilishly trying to distract me from worrying about Martine.

  Exasperated, I punched him in the arm and left. He leaned against a column, hands in pockets, to wait.

  The ladies’ room was not as crowded as it had been earlier. “Martine?” I called as I entered the anteroom, where a couple of girls were applying lipstick or tucking stray wisps of hai
r into their elaborate hairdos.

  “She’s not in here,” drawled Kaytee Blackmon, one of the girls from Spanish class. “Are you two heading up to the sixth floor for the parties?”

  I didn’t feel like launching into the poor-pitiful-us explanation. “Not sure yet,” I said, pretending that everything was normal and breezing out of there as quickly as I could.

  Rick was still leaning against the pillar where I’d left him, but he had loosened his tie so it hung around his collar. He lifted his eyebrows. “So where is she?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Rick, I’m worried.”

  “Let’s check the ballroom,” he said.

  The only people still around were members of the hotel cleanup crew, our principal and Mrs. Huff, who was packing up the punch bowl.

  “Do you know,” she said, smiling as we approached, “this is my aunt’s Waterford that she willed to me? Aunt Eulalie would be so pleased that I’ve put it to good use.”

  “Mrs. Huff, do you know where Martine is?”

  “Oh, she was out dancing the boogaloo with some John Travolta look-alike a few minutes ago,” Mrs. Huff said.

  Rick and I exchanged grins. Boogaloo? John Travolta? What century was Mrs. Huff living in, anyway?

  Still, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Martine. My concern mounted as we pressed into the lobby behind a couple of football players who were friends of Rick’s. We asked them if anyone had seen her.

  “Didn’t she go upstairs with some of the other kids?” asked one of the guys.

  “I doubt it,” I replied.

  “I’m sure she got on the elevator,” said one of the others.

  “Oh, shit,” Rick muttered. “What the hell is she up to?”

  I rested a hand on Rick’s sleeve. “Rick, she could have gone up for a while and meant to be back but lost track of the time.”