Will Work for Prom Dress

by Aimee Ferris

  “Well?” he asked with a cocky grin that let everyone in the room know he already knew my response would be yes. Before I could open my mouth, the class burst into applause and laughter. David took a little bow with a hand flourish. One of the guys got up to slap David on the back in congratulations. Even Mrs. Albertt smiled and offered David a little golf clap for his cleverness.

  I felt a sudden rush of sisterhood with every woman in the world who has ever cluelessly attended a major sporting event, only to be surprised during halftime or the seventh-inning stretch by an unwelcome and very public scoreboard proposal. And like so many of my sisters, I caved to the peer pressure of what seemed like a thousand expectant faces and plastered on a fake smile while tightroping around how to pass without destroying the asker and ruining the enthusiasm of everyone involved.

  If anyone had the strength to outright refuse the offer while surrounded by so many witnesses, well, it wasn’t me. Instead of verbally accepting, which would have been too much like lying, I walked over and gave David a little half hug and took the flowers, setting off a chorus of “Woooooooo”s until Mrs. Albertt admonished the class to bring our attention back to photography.

  How had I spaced this? It had long been a tradition for seniors to compete in outdoing the rest of the class by coming up with crazy schemes to ask their crushes to prom. Just that morning, the letters on the backlit school sign at the parking lot entrance had been rearranged by a hopeful prom-goer asking her boyfriend to the dance. I never expected something like this from David so soon.

  I kicked myself for not calling Anne and filling her in on the Zander developments immediately; she could have stopped this mess for me. I’d been so swept into the romance and thrill of Zander’s kiss and declared interest, I wanted to protect the feeling and savor it untarnished before risking my best friend “Anne-alyzing” it. Big mistake. As it was, she’d probably encouraged David through T-Shirt, thinking she was doing me a favor.

  I practically flew out the door when the bell rang.

  “Quigley, wait up,” David said.

  “English exam,” I called over my shoulder and kept moving.

  It was a good thing David didn’t know me better, or he’d never have bought my eagerness to get to class. As it turned out, neither did Mrs. Desmond.

  “Quigley? What a surprise, you’re early. This is good, I needed to have a word with you in private.”

  I walked in the classroom and slumped into a desk in front of her podium, stuffing the roses under my seat.

  “Look, you’re a good kid. You come on time and never miss an assignment. But you’ve got to start pulling your academic weight in this class. If you don’t do well on the final, you’ll be dangerously close to failing the course. I don’t know what school you have in your sights, but it is not unheard of for universities to uninvite already accepted students.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Desmond.” I decided not to point out that being uninvited wasn’t a worry in my case. I wasn’t exactly the queen of prefixes, but I knew enough to see it was hard to get uninvited when you were never invited in the first place.

  “I normally don’t do this, but I want to give you a break. Would you be interested in some extra-credit work?”

  I stifled a groan. “Sure, thank you.”

  “Don’t look so worried. This is actually more creative than the technical work we’ve been doing lately. I’ve heard you have quite the talent for art, so maybe this will appeal to your right-brain mind-set.”

  She handed me a little booklet.

  “Every year, the local Rotary Club invites each school in the state to submit one motivational speech from a student.” She pointed at the teetering stacks of jumbled paperwork covering her desk. “I happen to be organizationally challenged, which is why this one slipped past me.”

  I smiled. It was refreshing to have a teacher admit a weakness.

  “Unfortunately, the deadline is Friday. I know it doesn’t give you much time, but I really won’t be able to hold a contest to find this year’s applicant in so short a period. If you’re interested, I will just submit yours. What do you say? Knock this one out of the park, and it might significantly raise your grade and keep you from failing.”

  I wasn’t much of a speechwriter, but with my records I could hardly turn down the offer. “Okay, sure. Thanks.”

  “By the way, nice flowers. This must be the magic day of madness. I had a costumed Puck singing telegram show up in my fourth-period AP lit class. Put to shame yesterday’s student jumping onto his desk to perform the opening of the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene—so trite. Ah, iambic-pentameter prom invites—what will you kids come up with next?”

  The rest of the day went by in a blur. I had several conversations with imaginary David in my mind during current affairs and trig, while ducking corners and jogging up deserted back staircases to avoid the real one. The dialogue went pretty well, but I wasn’t so sure how the discussion would go outside of my head. Anne stopped by my locker for a brief end-of-the-day check-in. She wore a bright yellow, too small T-shirt with a giant YES!!!! across the chest.

  “Do I even want to know?” I asked, pointing at her outfit.

  “Present from T.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did I hear my name?” T-Shirt strolled down the hall, stopping just long enough to swing in and kiss Anne for about thirty seconds longer than was comfortable to stand watching.

  “Ah,” I said, pointing to the YO, ANNE—WE GOING TO PROM OR WHAT? across his back. “Nice.”

  T-Shirt came up for air with a smile. “Thanks! I heard David did the deed. Done deal. You girls pick out the grub spot; we’ve got transpo covered. I know a guy.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  T-Shirt gave Anne an endearing good-bye swat on the butt and continued down the hall.

  “Excellent!” Anne squealed. “This is so great! Isn’t it great?”

  I checked to make sure T-Shirt was out of earshot. “No. We need to talk.”

  The locker next to me erupted into a woman’s sultry voice loudly singing a suggestive chorus of “Say Yes,” startling the girl spinning in her combination, as well as everyone within ten feet, except for the guy holding a little MP3 remote, and the cluster of his buddies high-fiving his success halfway down the hall. She opened the door to the little player wrapped up with a big bow and her own friends’ “Awww”s.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.” I pulled Anne into the bathroom for enough privacy to fill her in and debate my options on getting out of the mess.

  “I’m just going to be honest with David,” I said for the third time.

  This made her roll her eyes, for the third time. “I’m telling you, guys don’t want to hear they are getting ditched over some other guy.”

  “He’s already seen me with Zander. It won’t be a huge shock. I’ll just tell him I wasn’t expecting our day of shooting to be anything but two friends taking pictures in the park.”

  “So much for honesty. Didn’t he pretty much ask you specifically on a date?”

  “Oh, right.” I’d forgotten my “I’m going on a date, on a date, on a date” litany from the other day. Not to mention his flower.

  “Trust me. Make up something about how busy you are right now. Use that speech as an excuse. People understand heavy workloads when you’re trying to get into a college. He’ll back off, and this way you haven’t hurt his feelings. There’s time yet—I’ll help you nail down Zander for the dance. Once David asks someone else, it won’t be a big deal how things shake out. It’s the only way to go. Just whatever you do, don’t bring up the fact there’s another guy. I know about these things.”

  “Yeah, well, last time you knew about these things, I talked myself into thinking Zander wasn’t into me. Which is why I’m in this mess to begin with.”

  “You make a good point. But what do you have to lose? If you just brush David off in general, you don’t have to worry about what Zander will think, because there will be nothing
happening between you and David, right?”

  “I guess. I gotta go, David’ll be waiting.”

  Anne gave me a quick hug. “Good luck! Come by backstage after if you want and dish all the gory details.”

  “You’re enjoying this all a little too much,” I said.

  “Yep!” She laughed and headed toward the theater.

  I took the long way to the art room, less than eager to share the latest developments with David. Part of me hoped he’d be gone when I got there or think he had the time wrong. But he was sitting on the counter smiling and twirling the keys to the opened darkroom on one finger when I walked in. Despite Anne’s advice, I still thought the best way to handle this situation was to be totally honest.

  “Hey, you. I’ve hardly seen you today,” he said. “Mrs. Albertt left the keys with me. She was very impressed I stayed to help you.”

  “Heh, I bet. It’s been a crazy day.”

  I gathered up twelve rolls of film from the class, along with the three we had taken at the park. Even with David’s help, I’d need to have four or five developing tubs going at once if we were going to finish by dinner.

  “So, what do we do first? Turn on the warning light, right?” he asked.

  He flipped the switch that turned on the red lightbulb placed above the door outside the room. No one would open the door and ruin the photographs while it was lit.

  I almost groaned aloud. This also meant no one could leave the room. I spaced that. As I heard the door click behind us, I realized Anne’s method of dealing with this mess might be best, considering that David and I were going to be stuck together in here for the next two hours.

  “Give me the list. I need to check it. Earlier, I prepared the chemicals we would need—developer, stop bath, fixer—by mixing them as instructed. I also secured the negatives, so we can run two processes at once to save time.” I handed him the instruction sheet to look over, and launched into the easy letdown. “So, I’ve been running like crazy today, but I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that. No time for your boy at all. Guess you girls have a lot to sort out for the dance.”

  I glanced at the sheet and squinted. “Did we make sure that the temperature of the chemicals is at least sixty-eight degrees? Let’s place the containers in a pan of several inches of water to regulate that. These negatives are just about ready to splice.” I handed the tube to David. “Well, that’s sort of the thing,” I continued. “I really don’t have time right now. Remember when we were talking about colleges? The thing is, I don’t have many options to choose from.”

  “I’m sorry. Here I was going on and on about where I might go and who I turned down. No wonder you got all weird.”

  I ignored the comments and continued reading from the worksheet. “So we organized the equipment so that you can find them in the dark. Got the film reel, film container, and scissors for cutting the film from the film spool? Let’s flash these others while we’re doing that to save time … and make sure I’m not making a total mess of this.”

  I was making a total mess of this. He’d probably never understand my real feelings about his choice, but that didn’t matter. He seemed to understand the college pressures, so I went with what was working. “Yeah. I’m just really stressed, but it looks like I might have a way out. It’s going to take work and time. A lot of work and time. Like, too much energy to get wrapped up in something with you right now. I hope you understand.

  “We’re developing several rolls at once, so fill the developing tank with developer almost to the top. These should be transferring now—here we go, and here they are!” I pointed down at the images, slowly coming into focus on the wet paper.

  “So you’re a girl with focus. I get it. It’s all good, Quigley.” He ribbed me with a wink and an exaggerated Art King smirk. “After all, I can see how a girl could get too distracted by my charms.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for understanding, David.”

  So Anne was right. I had stopped things with David without hurting his feelings. Now I could see what might happen with Zander without guilt hanging over my head. Perfect. By the time prom rolled around, David would have moved on to Maria or whoever he ended up asking.

  “Wow, awesome. That one came out exactly like what we were going for!” David said.

  “You’re right. But something’s missing. The ones in the museum seemed like everything was stopping for a reason. These just look like blurred action shots.”

  “True,” he said. “But we’re definitely close.”

  “I think so. Now we just hang them to dry.”

  I tensed as David’s body came up behind me in the dark. He smelled like peanut butter and Dr Pepper. I felt his breath on my neck about a second before he started kissing it. I yelped and dropped the photo. I jumped backward into David as the liquid in the tub splashed on me.

  “Crap! What’s in these chemicals?” I patted down the table looking for a towel to wipe off my wet arms and shirt.

  “How should I know? You’re supposed to be the expert here, Teach’. Why’d you jump like that, anyway?” David slid his arms back around my waist. “It’s all good. We’ve got the place to ourselves.”

  I peeled his arms off me and turned around to face him. “I thought we just talked about this.”

  “Sure. You’re busy and tied up with school stuff, priorities, yadda-yadda. But this is perfect. Here we are, in school, doing school stuff—it’s like the ultimate in multitasking!”

  He leaned in for a kiss.

  “There’s this other guy,” I blurted.

  David stopped cold. “Other guy?”

  “Well, yes. It’s not anything to do with you—”

  “You’re stopping me from kissing you right now. So it seems like it does have a little something to do with me.”

  “No, I mean. I was hanging out with him first, and then things got—”

  “Wait. Is this the guy I saw you with at the exhibit?” David took a step back. “You know, the exhibit I invited you to?”

  “Umm.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I think I do. I’m outta here.”

  He slammed the door open. The flash of bright outside light made me wince. I spun around to see all the carefully half-developed images floating in the tubs slowly disappear. My hopes of untangling the mess without hurting anyone vanished as quickly as the hard work of my classmates.

  I barely had the strength to dial Anne’s number. Jogging home after spending almost four hours in a lab swirling and hanging and squeegeeing a million photos, for the second time, was a stupid idea. It had been so long since I rode the bus I forgot the schedule. I really needed a car.

  Anne picked up on the second ring.

  “So where were you earlier? I waited at the theater the whole afternoon,” Anne said.

  “Let’s just say things didn’t go so great with David.”

  “You went and told him about Zander, didn’t you?”

  I peeled off my sock and inspected my heel for blisters. “Well—”

  “Quigley! I told you.”

  “Okay, fine. This time you were right.”

  “So it was bad.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be making plans for that joint limo to prom.”

  I could hear the British accents of some BBC sitcom coming from her TV, followed by clicking as she channel surfed.

  “When are you going to ask Zander?”

  “I’m not sure. Is he too old? I mean, will he think it’s completely stupid?”

  “He’s only eighteen.”

  “Is he? He seems so much more mature. How did you know that and I didn’t?”

  “I snuck a look through Mom’s records to check out The Spikester’s details. How’d you think I found out about the kid? Anyway, he’s having a birthday in two weeks!”

  “The Spikester? What’s he going to be, thirty-four?”

  “Hardy har har. N
o. Your man. I was checking his sign—you two are totally compatible, by the way. A week from next Thursday he’ll turn nineteen. But that’s only a couple years older than you are, no biggie. It’s not like he doesn’t know we’re still in high school.”

  “I guess so. Man, I can’t believe it’s his birthday. What am I going to get him?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll help you find something perfect. We need to go try on some dresses anyway. We can do it this weekend. Oh, before I forget—The Spikester set us up with a sweet side gig.”

  “Babysitting?”

  She snorted. “So, so funny. He’s got this RISD grad bud who branched off and started creating these crazy, fantastical performance art programs.”

  “Anne, my days as a dead body are over.”

  “No, nothing like that. Well, okay—they do improv and scripted scenes sometimes, but they also do parade work. There’s a big Earth Day parade downtown and they’ve signed on for it, but his troupe could use some extras. It’s supposed to be very Midsummer’s Night Dream on acid.”

  “Lovely.”

  “It will be! The sprites even get harnessed up to flit around high up on the float. The Spikester is helping with the costumes, and he says he thought of me the whole time he did this one shimmery-fairy bodysuit.”

  “TMI, Anne. TMI.”

  “Wait, you won’t believe this. The Spikester told the guy about me and the guy said I was in, so then—and now you can feel guilty—he tells the guy I have this really cool best friend and is there a place for you? And the guy says, ‘Can she play a piccolo?’ ”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  I thought back to when Anne and I first met, in line for instrument signup for third-grade band. A short, freckled kid lumbered past us, weighed down by a massive tuba. Anne leaned over and whispered, “Piccolo.” “Piccolo?” I whispered back. She glanced around to make sure no one else could benefit from her genius. “Think of the walk to the bus.” She held out a pinky. I hesitated just a moment before extending mine with a nod and starting what would be a lifelong tradition of blindly following Anne’s questionable advice.