Will Work for Prom Dress

by Aimee Ferris

  Her argument, which I copied and pasted from her e-mail into one addressed to my guidance counselor and memorized to get my parents’ approval, argued that I’d had more art classes under my belt than any other student and “teacher’s assistant” would look good on my otherwise skimpy college applications. My first-choice school was still the Art Institute of Chicago, so the powers that be, both at school and at home, relented and allowed me to take on the position.

  This was cool for many reasons. The biggest being that one of the students taking the class was none other than self-professed Art King, David Jenkins. I got a smug little thrill each day when he took his spot at one of the studio tables like a commoner, while I took mine on the wobbly stool in the front.

  David and I had been competing in every art competition and event since freshman year. He edged me out for last year’s annual citywide show. Each school could place only one artist in the show, so I was out of luck. The $250 prize was cool, but the real thrill was the exposure. Foster Neuwirth came in from New York City every year to act as the judge. She was a Very Big Deal in the art world and came here only because it was her hometown. A nod from Foster Neuwirth could do wonders for your ego … and your acceptance into an elite art school, as she sat on the board of the Art Institute.

  Even worse than losing our school’s only spot last year to David Jenkins was the fact that he won. He won the whole citywide art show, and he was only a junior! Sure, it might have been my secret plot. But when he pulled it off, it just seemed tacky. This is when he assumed the crown—and that he was a better artist than me. But as Anne and I liked to say, if you assume, you make an Art King out of you and me.

  The pizza in my journal had gone from smiling to smirking and now wore a crown. I slid down in my seat and worked on stoking up some pencil-lead flames in a giant doodled pizza oven.

  “Ouch. Who are we setting on fire today?” Anne flopped into the seat next to me and dropped a Ziploc bag of baby carrots on the table next to a tub of hummus. “BP, baby.” She sighed in frustration at my blank look. “BP? Betterment Plan?”

  “Oh, right, sure. Me, too.” I pointed down at my plate of broccoli.

  “I’m sorry, but having the lunch lady smother your vegetables with a ladle of congealed nacho-cheeselike substance pretty much wipes out any BP aspect of your meal.”

  I pushed the plate away. Her observation, though gross, rang true.

  She leaned over and nodded in recognition at my doodle. “Ah, David. You are so talented. You really captured him. Maybe you should do a study of portraits in pepperoni for your admission portfolio. Mom clipped some of the Helga/Elvis shots from the paper that you could stick in there. Isn’t that what those artsy types like? You could make out like it’s some weird modern art political statement.”

  “That’s not really my style,” I said.

  That was the problem. I didn’t really have a style yet. I couldn’t even decide what kind of art I wanted to concentrate on. Anne had it easy. She was focused, if not driven. The current object of her focus was a guy named Erik sitting at the drama table across the aisle.

  “Erik? A theater guy?” I raised my eyebrows. “This is new.”

  “He goes by ‘T-Shirt’ now.”

  I muffled my snort in deference to her obvious deep feelings for the guy.

  “He’s usually the stage manager. It’s not like he’s up there doing the acting or anything. And lugging around all those sets sure does a body good,” she said.

  Anne suggestively swigged her bottle of flavored protein water and zoned in on him. He looked up midsentence from talking with some blonde like he’d lost his train of thought. The girl with MARIA, the name of the female lead, printed across her back, turned and shot Anne a nasty look. Having disrupted the world enough for the moment, Anne cracked up and went back to her carrots.

  “But isn’t he directing the show or something? Sounds pretty theater-ish to me. I thought you had a strict no-drama, no-wrestlers, no-debate-team rule,” I said.

  “Sure. I mean, while there are obvious benefits to the athleticism of the sport of wrestling, who can get past those weird outfits they wear? Ick. I’m sorry, but no one wants to see that. And a debate team guy would be such a drag. I like winning my arguments without having to put out a whole lot of effort. The ‘no drama’ rule, however, has a little wiggle room.” Anne pointed to the departing T-Shirt. “Besides, he only went for the assistant director job so he could wear the T-shirt around school. You have to respect a guy who can think ahead.”

  I watched T-Shirt dump his tray. A bright white stenciled, ASS. DIRECTOR stood out across the broad back of his The Sound of Music T-shirt.

  “Maria” scurried after him, dumping her own barely touched tray and shooting Anne a smug smile over one shoulder as she slid her hand into the back pocket of his Levi’s. Erik looked down in surprise and then shrugged and returned the gesture.

  “Classy.” I rolled my eyes.

  Anne hummed a few perfectly pitched bars of the song “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” and batted her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence. “Gosh, I bet T-Shirt, being a theater buff, would enjoy our gig this weekend. Perhaps I should invite him. I’m sure he has a friend he can bring.”

  I groaned at the reminder. “Explain to me again how we ended up filling in for someone at a professional dinner theater? And why I’m the one doing the acting when you are clearly the true genius in that category?” Anne might never have deigned to step foot on stage, but the girl didn’t make it through a solid two hours of her life without acting her way into, or out of, trouble.

  “I told you, you don’t have to act, you have to react. It’s really more of a set job than anything. Besides, it was my connection that landed the job, and I’m doing my part by getting us the boys. It won’t look believable unless we bring dates. It’s one little momentary bit of time in the spotlight, and you’re done. Free dinner, fifty bucks each, and we’re that much closer to our dream dresses. It’ll be fun. And showing that little upstart who she’s messing with ain’t a bad bonus.”

  “Erik, now, is it?”

  “T-Shirt.”

  “Whatever. It’s still not like you to go for someone remotely close to our age. Whatever happened to that guy Chad?”

  Anne waved a carrot stick in dismissal. “You had a point. If I’m serious about earning this money, I simply don’t have the free time to be running around with random guys all of the time. And it’s far too soon to even guess who I might want to go to prom with, so the whole exercise would be fun, but pointless. Until prom, chasing boys will be strictly limited to school hours.”

  “You are so disciplined,” I said.

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Except, we don’t have after-school jobs anymore,” I reminded her.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I heard about a job for female models and signed us up. You don’t even have to have experience! Amateurs are welcome—”

  “OMG, are you insane? That’s it. We are going straight home from school today. With your seven hundred channels, there’s bound to be at least three or four ‘after-school specials’ on.”

  “Excuse me? Remember who got the thirty-four on the ACT. And still you think that I’m stupid?” Anne said.

  “Well, ‘amateur female models wanted’ is code for ‘come and let me talk you out of your clothes and plaster the photos across the Internet—oh, and transportation included … in the trunk of my car.’ I hope you didn’t actually give them our real names.”

  “Real names, phone numbers, and measurements, actually. I had to guess at yours—”

  “Anne!”

  “Calm down, Quigley. It’s not what you think. Really, you need to cut back on the caffeine or something. Mumsy Dear is volunteering at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Fashion Institute one night a week. Some of her students need warm bodies to try their projects on as they design. They use those adjustable mannequin things for the early stages, but s
he wants them to see their creations in motion.”

  “Oh. Well, that sounds pretty cool.”

  “Told you I’d hook us up. It’s every Wednesday night from six to nine, and you can ride in with the queen of sateen herself. Ten bucks an hour to sit around waiting for some fashion geek to plaster us with chiffon. You can even bring your homework, since you seem so fond of doing the stuff.”

  “I’m just fond of graduating and getting out of this town. Not all of us can memorize the entire textbook an hour before the exam and ace it.”

  “Oops! That reminds me.”

  I went back to my notebook as Anne checked her watch and pulled out her chem textbook. The Art King pizza got a last-minute reprieve as I used my pencil of fiery death to multiply the number of Wednesdays left before prom instead. If Ms. Parisi needed us for the whole semester, we’d be only seventy dollars short of our goal. The whole pizza fiasco had set us back. Not only did we lose our jobs, but the guy had charged us for all the returned pizzas. Six afternoons of heinous hairnets and instead of a paycheck, we were down thirty-eight bucks apiece.

  “Done!” Anne slammed the cover of her textbook shut.

  “What? That was only like ten minutes, tops.”

  “Oops, better hurry then. My brain only keeps the info for about three times as long as I spent memorizing it. Is that a number-two pencil?”

  Anne plucked the pencil out of my hand and ran toward the cafeteria exit to download everything from her megabrain onto some unsuspecting exam sheet. The bell rang, signaling the whopping four minutes they gave us to get from one end of school to the other. I sighed and dragged myself up to head for the art building. At least I had my wobbly stool to look forward to.

  “Where are they?” I asked Anne for the eighth time since we walked into the dinner theater. “This place is packed and the show should start any minute. I haven’t even been told what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Relax. If T-Shirt says they’ll be here, they’ll be here. His friend Brian got busted in his dad’s car for not speeding through a yellow quick enough—”

  “You mean, running a red?” Anne’s grasp of the rules of the road was frightening at best.

  “Details. Anyway, T had to scrounge up someone else to bring last minute.”

  “Great. Nothing like feeling even more pathetic.”

  “It’s not really a date—this is just work. I’m going to run out and see if they’re in the parking lot.”

  Anne slid easily between the round tables dotting the floor and scooted for the exit. Our table sat up front and center since I’d be helping with some as-yet-unnamed element of the action. A woman dressed all in black with a tiny headset motioned to me from behind the stage curtain to meet her by the side door. I looked around and hustled over, trying to be discreet.

  “I’m sorry, was I supposed to wear all black?” I asked.

  “What? No, you’re fine. Walk with me so we don’t attract much attention. We have the Poe Society here tonight, full house. Very demanding connoisseurs of this type of show, their approval will do great things for our company.”

  We wandered out through a side door into a secret hallway from the kitchen to the theater. Waiters bustled back and forth with ominously smoking trays filled with ruby-red cocktails.

  “Dry ice,” the woman explained. “Just a few drops of water on a little piece in the middle of the tray—it gets the audience in the mood.”

  “Ah. I just thought in all black I’d blend in while I’m moving whatever you need me to. Or is it just a matter of placing a dagger or bottle of poison somewhere strategic without people noticing? Anne said I didn’t have to actually act. I’m not an actor.”

  “Oh, I think you can handle this,” the woman chuckled. “So Victoria’s daughter didn’t tell you what you’d be doing? Classic.”

  Her peal of laughter set off a fluttering in my stomach. “Wait. What exactly am I doing?”

  “Simple. Our dead body called in sick.”

  I tried to concentrate on her instructions. They’d be setting down rolls and butter as the show started. Then the salad course. Mine would arrive sans dressing and then a shot would ring out. A spotlight would land on me right as I face-planted into my romaine. I tried to memorize her advice to chow down on the rolls so my stomach wouldn’t growl from the tempting smells as everyone else ate, and to make sure I adjusted the lettuce to leave a decent-sized breathing space so I didn’t get claustrophobic. To dodge the single cherry tomato added for effect as I landed. It was just all so hard to remember when my brain was fully engaged in hating Anne. I tuned back in as the woman finished explaining the story line of the murder mystery.

  “So that’s it. At the end, the main characters will come retrieve you from your seat and do a Weekend at Bernie’s routine—you know, the dancing corpse number. Don’t worry, they’re fantastic. Just keep your eyes closed and let them flop your body around. Then, lights will come down and you come back to life to do a proper curtain call as one of our performers!”

  Music swelled from inside the theater as the waiters reemerged with empty trays.

  “Oops, better get in there! Follow this hall to the end and take a left. You can enter the theater from the back.”

  I numbly headed down the hall.

  “Oh, Quigley?”

  I turned, hoping she’d laugh and reveal it was all some elaborate prank.

  “Break a leg!”

  I turned back toward the theater, thinking of the patterned tights I’d admired on my best friend during the drive over. “Yeah. I think I just might know whose.”

  I crouched down and headed toward our table in the darkened theater as the actors performed an opening number. The silhouettes of three people sat at the table, so at least our dates had arrived.

  I slid into my seat and leaned into Anne, who cut me off. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea, Quigley. I swear. I promise I’ll make this up to you.”

  “You totally knew, the set lady told me. Now switch places with me and you do this or there’s going to be more than one dead body at this table.”

  “I can’t,” she hissed back. “We’re already in our places and they said the dead body had to sit in that particular chair. If we move now, everyone will notice and it will wreck the whole show. We need this cash and you know how I feel about acting. Where’s your sense of humor? I thought you’d think this was hilarious.”

  “Oh, really? So why were you apologizing then?”

  I grabbed the last of the rolls from the departing waiter’s tray and took an angry bite.

  “That’s not what I was apologizing for,” she said with a look of genuine remorse. “That is.”

  I followed her gaze across the table to the smirking grin of none other than David Jenkins, the Art King himself. He waggled his fingers at me.

  I was still choking on the bite of roll and trying to breathe as the waiter delivered our salads. Being unable to speak might have been a blessing since my brain in its fury wasn’t forming too many coherent words. T-Shirt, wearing his nicest YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY TOMATO—IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE MUCH SENSE WHEN YOU READ IT shirt under a sports coat, offered me his water, while David just laughed himself stupid.

  “Ewww, what is this?” Anne asked, poking at the thick pool of blue cheese dressing smothering her greens. “This is so not BP.”

  She reached across and swapped our plates with a conciliatory smile. “This is way more your style—go for it. You deserve it tonight.”

  The shot echoed through the theater and a hot blast of spotlight landed square on my face. I looked down, horrified, and gave a very convincing performance of someone about to meet her death as I flopped into my plate of creamy dressing, forgetting, until the moment it met my forehead with a sickening squish, to dodge the cherry tomato.

  Chapter Three

  I could hear the clink of my parents’ silverware in the dining room as I stood at the door watching for Anne’s mom. The urge to kill my good friend for the dinner theater fia
sco died when she borrowed the Art King’s cell at lunch, pretending to want to show off his Quigley’s Body film of me being tossed around stage with lettuce and croutons glued to my cheeks and, instead, deleted it forever. It also helped that the rash from the acid of the cherry tomato had finally faded from my forehead.

  My family was probably the last one left in America who actually sat down to dinner together every night. Anne thought it was cool, but I’d have traded for her brie-with-crackers or Thai-takeout-in-front-of-the-TV life, any day.

  I pulled at the shoulder strap of the bikini Anne had lent me. She claimed that it was “one size fits all” since the straps just tied at whatever length you needed. I probably could have fit one cheek into the narrow cloth at the back meant for both of Anne’s. But Anne didn’t believe in one-piece suits, and we needed to wear something so we could get fitted without flashing half of her mom’s design class. I’d have to find a time when Mom was out of the house to go digging through the summer storage up in the attic.

  I decided not to go into a lot of detail about the job over dinner. My parents were already a little edgy over my hanging out with Ms. Parisi. Her frequent jaunts to Milan and Madrid when Anne was little were not my folks’ idea of proper motherhood. Even the fact that she’d scaled back once her career took off and had done a complete one-eighty, discipline-wise, after Anne’s first brush with trouble at school didn’t help her reputation with them.

  Fortunately, I’d convinced my parents that Anne had taken the fall for the real troublemakers—that there was no way a lowly freshman could pull off rewriting an entire student newspaper not only to feature several teachers in compromising stories but also to announce a water main break–induced day off from school that the student population was all too eager to honor. I’d kept a straight face while proclaiming my friend’s innocence, despite the coincidence that each of the teachers Photoshopped into the home-ec sweatshop-ring article had recently reprimanded her timeliness-challenged ways.