Just You

by Rebecca Phillips

  I stood back to adjust the bodice of my dress, the same dress my mother and I had gone shopping for the weekend after Michael asked me to his prom. The same dress she claimed was “way too old” for me and refused to buy at first. The same dress I had fought hard for. And won.

  Of course, I had to promise to wear the dress again to my own prom before she’d hand over her credit card to the saleswoman. But it was worth wearing twice. The gown I had fallen in love with was jet black, floor-length and strapless, with a boned bodice that held me in and up. It had an open back and kick pleating on the skirt. Sexy and curve-hugging. My mother almost had a stroke when she first saw me in it. Luckily I was getting ready at Dad and Lynn’s house and didn’t have to deal with Mom’s disapproving glares tonight.

  “I don’t need luck,” I said, turning back to the mirror.

  “I still think you need something old and blue,” Robin said, smoothing down a flyaway strand of my hair.

  I thought about it for a moment. “I bumped my hip on the counter the other day and got a bruise,” I said. “Will that do?”

  She held a finger to her lips, considering this. “Sure, why not.”

  “Great. I’m all set then.”

  Leanne exploded into my room then, dressed and ready in her mint green gown with the pleated neckline and glittery rhinestone straps. “Please tell me you have bobby pins,” she said, gasping for air.

  I shook my head as I applied lipstick, my “something borrowed” from Ashley. “Sorry.”

  Leanne let out a colorful string of curses.

  “I have some,” Robin said, jumping up. “I’ll run over and get them.”

  “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Robin hopped out of the room and Leanne came over to stand next to me at the full-length mirror. “I’m not used to all this frou-frou stuff,” she said, tucking some strands of hair back into her rhinestone clip. “I can’t believe I’m going to the stupid prom.”

  I couldn’t believe we were going to the stupid prom together. Doubling, anyway. Since our home-alone weekend, she and I had continued to grow closer. But if someone had told me a year ago I’d be carpooling to the prom with my stepsister, or doing anything socially with her for that matter, I would have thought they were crazy. Leanne’s date was some guy from school. Just a friend, she had made sure to let me know. Michael happened to know him from one of his classes, which was a bonus.

  “Back,” Robin called as she sailed into the room. She handed Leanne a stack of bobby pins.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “No problem.” Robin examined Leanne’s noncompliant hair. “I can help you put those in so they won’t be noticeable.”

  Leanne looked relieved. “Thanks.”

  As Robin played hairdresser, I located my silver high-heeled sandals and strapped them on. Michael and Owen, Leanne’s date, were due any minute now. We still had two rounds of pictures to endure before we could even go to the prom. After here, we were heading over to Michael’s house. I wondered briefly if his dad would stick around to see us all dressed up.

  The doorbell rang downstairs, followed immediately by Leo’s barking. “One or both of the guys are here,” Leanne said, standing very still as Robin finished securing her hair.

  I hunted around for my silver bracelet, finding it on the dresser. “Probably Owen. Michael said he might be a little late.”

  “Owen’s here, LeeLee,” Lynn called from downstairs.

  “She did not just call me that in front of him,” Leanne muttered.

  “Done,” Robin said, stepping back to admire her work. “A category five hurricane would not budge this hair.”

  Ready to roll, the three of us descended the stairs and joined the gathering in the foyer. Dad was clutching his camera and grinning wide while Leanne’s date stood stiffly off to the side in his tux. Owen was cute and kind of preppy, which surprised me. As a rule, Leanne went for skinny guys with piercings who wore a lot of black and listened to dark, depressing music.

  “Wow,” Lynn said when she saw us. “Steven, would you look at our girls.”

  “All grown up,” my father said, gazing at us both with equal amounts of pride and affection, a detail that was not lost on Leanne. She seemed flustered by all this attention. When her date held out the corsage he had brought for her, she quickly yanked it out of his hands, blushing even deeper. Owen looked a little alarmed when she opened the plastic container and pinned the flowers on herself, brushing off his offer to do it for her. Dad snapped a picture as the doorbell rang again and Michael finally appeared.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling to see everyone assembled by the door. When his eyes landed on me, they grew warm with approval. I simply gaped like a dead trout in response, struck speechless by the vision of him in a tuxedo.

  “Let’s go down to the park to get some pictures,” Dad suggested.

  As everyone filed out, Michael and I hung back for a moment so he could present me with my corsage, which consisted of white roses and baby’s breath, all tied together with a silver ribbon. “It’s beautiful,” I said as he pinned it on my dress.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “So are you.” I ran my fingers along the lapels of his tux. “But you must be so hot in this.”

  “Not as hot as you are in that.”

  I laughed and kissed him lightly on the lips. In my heels, I didn’t even have to stand on my tiptoes to reach him.

  We all walked the short blocks to Crawford Park in the blinding June sun, garnering a few smiles and weird looks from passing motorists. Dad headed straight for the walking bridge near one of the ponds. He posed the four of us on the bridge and proceeded to take eight million pictures while Lynn and Robin supervised, oohing and aahing over each shot, and Leanne made impatient noises beside me.

  “I’ll bet there are a lot of baby pictures of you,” she said to me at one point. She was right; Dad was sentimental that way. There were boxes of home movies too, chronicling years of milestones and birthdays and vacations. Most of them captured my earlier childhood, when my parents were still together and we all lived in our old house in Oakfield. Before everything changed.

  Michael nudged me between photo ops. “Look,” he said, flicking a glance over his shoulder. I turned around to look and saw the swan.

  During my long month of being grounded from seeing Michael, I’d walk over to the park at least twice every weekend, sometimes with Robin but mostly by myself, in a desperate attempt to pass the time. And on each visit I would watch the mute swan as it glided serenely across the pond, stopping every few feet to dunk its head in the water. It never failed to calm me.

  “Remember when we used to go to the park together, sweet pea?” my father said as he strolled beside me on our way back to the house. “You sure loved watching the swan. I could barely drag you away from it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, surprised he remembered that. Usually he needed pictorial evidence to remember anything.

  “I think I have a picture of you with that swan somewhere.”

  I smiled. I should have known there’d be a picture.

  Back at the house, we carefully folded ourselves into Michael’s car (we weren’t the limo-renting type) and then we were off. My family—plus Robin—stood in the yard watching us go and waving as if we were going to Hawaii for a month instead of just the prom.

  At Michael’s house, Leanne and Owen stayed in the car while Michael and I went in to endure another round of pictures. Michael’s mom positioned us in front of the living room fireplace. By now my mouth felt cramped from all the smiling, but thankfully she didn’t go overboard like my dad. We were out of there in less than twenty minutes. Free at last.

  “Done already?” Leanne said when we climbed back into the car. She looked a little disappointed to see us. So did Owen. Just friends, indeed.

  “You want us to go back in for more pictures?” I asked, grinning at her.

  “Yeah, because I really don’t think we have enough,�
� Michael said as we pulled out of the driveway.

  “Ten thousand sounds like a nice round number.”

  Leanne sighed. “Let’s just go to the stupid prom.”

  ****

  Two hours later, after a rowdy dinner at an upscale Italian place downtown with several other couples, we finally made it to the prom itself. When the four of us crossed the threshold of the hotel ballroom in which the RHH prom was being held, my eyes scanned the room for Elena Brewster as if by habit. She wasn’t a senior, but I thought she might be here as someone’s date. I wondered what her dress looked like, and if she’d dare try to talk to Michael in front of me. Ever since the beer bottle incident in March, she’d been wisely keeping her distance.

  “Dance with me?” Michael asked. He held out his hand for me to take.

  “Oh,” I said, distracted by my search. “Okay.”

  Out on the dance floor, amid dozens of other couples, Michael pulled me close to him. I wound my arms around his neck and breathed in the new scent of his tux as we swayed gently to a sappy ballad that had been on the radio non-stop last year. The heat from his hand on the small of my back relaxed me, and soon I forgot about Elena Brewster altogether.

  “Want to get some air?” I asked after we’d danced for a while.

  “Sure.”

  We made our way outside. The parking lot of the hotel was jammed with an array of tuxes and a rainbow of dresses as people gathered in groups, smoking. Michael and I kept walking until we came to the back of the hotel, which faced the waterfront boardwalk. The water was calm, the sky above it dotted with stars. We found a bench and sat down, facing the water. The air was cooler here, and smelled of salt and fish and fresh flowers. I shivered.

  “Cold?” Michael asked. He draped an arm around my bare shoulders and drew me closer. I nestled comfortably into his side.

  “No,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  We sat there for a long time, speaking every so often but mostly just enjoying the peace and darkness and each other’s company. Tonight marked the beginning of summer, and I refused to think about September or anything other than the two long months ahead. I’d think about September when it got here. For now it was just us, alone on the bench.

  ****

  Midnight.

  Michael and I were walking hand-in-hand back to the main doors of the hotel after another fresh air break. When we got inside we discovered that a good percentage of the student body had already left to hit the parties. Coincidently, Leanne and Owen were going out as we were coming in.

  “Where were you guys?” my stepsister said, scratching along the straps of her dress. The skin there was already red and irritated, as if it were revolting against itchy formal wear. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Chill out, LeeLee,” Owen teased. Leanne elbowed him in response.

  “We were down by the water,” I said.

  She nodded without any further comment. “So, should we go?”

  We unanimously agreed that yes, we definitely should.

  “Maybe we should go home first,” Leanne said as we walked to Michael’s car. “And change out of these things. I don’t know about you, Taylor, but this damn torture device of a dress is cutting off my circulation.”

  “Same here.” Not only was my dress cutting off my circulation, but I had to use the washroom in the worst way.

  “What time do you have to be home?” Michael asked me as we left the hotel parking lot, and the prom, behind.

  “Two.”

  “Are you serious?” Leanne said from the backseat. “It’s after twelve now. I don’t have any curfew tonight. Mom told me to be in by dawn. Think you can talk your dad into letting you stay out later?”

  “He’s probably asleep by now,” I said.

  But he wasn’t. Leanne and I crept into the dark house to discover my father and her mother suctioned together on the couch, making out like teenagers. Clearly they hadn’t been expected us back so early.

  “Gross, you guys.” I turned away, groaning. Leanne rolled her eyes and did the same. They’d been extra touchy-feely like this ever since they got back from their weekend of “reconnecting”.

  “Why are you home so early?” Dad asked. Lynn shifted away from him and dabbed at her lips with the back of her hand.

  “We came home to change,” Leanne said, choking on a laugh. Our eyes met, and we both started giggling.

  “So you’re going back out?” Lynn asked hopefully.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Now my stepmom smiled. “How was the prom?”

  “Great,” we said in unison, still laughing. We were eager to get upstairs and change. Our dates were waiting.

  “Well, we’ll see you later, then,” my father said, just as eager for us to leave.

  Leanne gave me a meaningful nudge and I stepped forward. “Um, Dad? About my curfew. If I have to be in by two, I’ll only have another hour and a half for the party. And Michael will have to drop everything to take me home right in the middle of it and, well…may I please stay out later?”

  Dad started to shake his head. “I don’t know, Taylor. I think two is a fair curfew for you tonight.”

  I wasn’t about to give up that easily. Besides, Dad had that “keep at me and I’ll relent but don’t tell your mother” glint in his eye. “Come on, Dad. Leanne is staying out, and I’ll be with her.”

  “She’ll be with me,” Leanne confirmed.

  “Leanne will be with her, Steven,” Lynn said, grinning at her husband, who was visibly torn between worrying about me and wanting more quality time alone with his frisky wife. He scrunched up his face.

  “Well…”

  I gave him a thousand-watt smile. “Please, Dad?”

  Leanne wrapped her arm around my shoulders and we stood side by side, smiling wide together. “Yeah,” she said, touching her head to mine. “Please, Dad?”

  My father blinked, surprised, and then his expression softened. Even if it was only sly manipulation on Leanne’s part, that “Dad” coming from her lips was what prodded him over the edge. We stood there grinning like idiots until he finally gave in.

  “You win,” he said, sighing. “Just be in by sun-up, all right? And be careful. Both of you.”

  “We will,” we promised, and darted up the stairs before he had time to change his mind.

  Chapter 23

  “Ready?” Michael asked when the four of us were once again settled in our respective seats, dressed down and tired, but ready to party, indeed.

  The mood in the car was festive. As Leanne and Owen snuggled in back, effectively abolishing their “just friends” status for good, Michael and I sat quietly in front and enjoyed a moment of reprieve before being submersed into crowds and noise for a second time tonight.

  “Want some?” Michael said, offering me a package of his ever-present cinnamon mints. I shook out two and popped them into my mouth.

  “You know why you love these so much?”

  “No.” He took a handful for himself. “Why do I love these so much?”

  I smiled. “They’re spicy and sweet. You get the best of both worlds in one little package.”

  “That,” he said, smiling back at me, “is exactly why I love them.”

  “Knew it.”

  R.J.’s house was packed when we got there. Everyone had gathered in the backyard, enticed outdoors by the warm weather and the recently-installed underground pool. Several people were cooling off in the shimmering water when we arrived.

  “So this is how the other half lives,” Leanne said, her eyes wide as she took in the expansive yard. Her expression—a cross between awe and repulsion—probably looked much like the one I’d worn at my first party here. “I feel like I just walked into an old episode of 90210.”

  I laughed. It was Leanne’s dry sense of humor that had surprised me the most about her.

  “Guys! Over here!” a voice called from the other side of the yard. It was Kayla, sitting on one of several chairs lining the pat
io and waving us over. R.J. stood next to her at the grill, spatula in one hand and a beer in the other.

  “I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Leanne said as Owen led her away to join up with some people they knew at the other end of the yard.

  I repeated Dad’s parting warning from before. “Be careful.”

  She grinned. “You too.”

  Michael and I joined Kayla and R.J. and a few others on the patio. Virtually everyone around us appeared either close to drunk or full-on drunk. I knew if I had one beer I’d be passed out asleep on the lawn, so I stuck to water. Michael had to drive me home later, so he did too.

  “This is better than some stuffy ballroom, huh?” Kayla said once we’d settled into some vacant chairs. “Taylor, you looked amazing tonight.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Kayla had been acting extra nice to me since the night she inadvertently spilled about Elena. She’d even called me a couple of days afterward to apologize again for any problems she may have caused. She thought I knew all about it, she swore, or else she never would have said anything. I told her not to worry about it, that she’d done us a favor, really, because it got a lot of things out in the open.

  “What are your plans for the summer?” Kayla asked me a while later. Michael and R.J. had gone into the house to get more food.

  “I’ll be working,” I said. This was only an assumption on my part. I still had to find a job, and not many places were eager to hire inexperienced sixteen-year-olds. But I didn’t have much of a choice—my car wasn’t going to run on air.

  “Same here.” She slapped a mosquito off her arm. “Man, I can’t believe high school is over.”

  “I know,” I said, even though I still had two more years to go. Part of me wished I was graduating too, but another part of me felt lucky to be two whole years away from adulthood and the real world.

  “You still have so much ahead of you,” Kayla said with a sigh. “I envy that, a little.”

  I was about to tell her that she sounded like someone’s grandmother when something caught my eye, distracting me. A flash of white fabric on smooth, tanned skin. Elena Brewster. She was standing by the pool, wearing a tiny white bikini that barely covered what needed to be covered. She was stunning, more beautiful than I could ever hope to be. I felt that familiar burn in my stomach.