by Tina Ferraro
“Okay, listen,” he began. “About the prom. I admit when I asked you, we barely knew each other. And if Kylie hadn't come back …” He threw a look at me, which I caught, then let go. “But she did come back. You know?”
I knew. Oh, did I know.
I'd been the proud owner of The Dress for about forty-eight hours when Alison arrived on my doorstep— gasping for air—to say she'd just seen Kylie with Rascal at a red light. At school the next morning, he'd pulled me aside to say Kylie was back to finish her junior year, which of course put him in a tight spot as far as the prom went.
Three more days passed (long, hopeful days) before he gave me the final word. He was taking Kylie. He had to. She was his girlfriend, after all.
“If I'd known she was coming back,” he'd said in the van that day, “I never would have asked you.”
I'd studied his face, willing him to the next level. To a sentence that included the word “sorry.” When that didn't happen, I decided to force his hand. “So you're saying you're sorry?”
He'd shrugged a shoulder.
“So sorry you're going to pay me back for the dress I never got to wear?”
“Hey, I bought you a mocha,” he answered, and flashed the smile. “Besides, I half expected to see you at the prom with some other guy.”
“I'm still a sophomore,” I said. “At least, I was until about an hour ago.”
“McCreary's in my year. He could have taken you.”
Jared? That was sure out of left field.
Anyway, as an athlete, I knew when to play offense and when to retreat. This had been one of those backoff moments. I'd gotten about as much out of Rascal as he was capable of giving. I had to quit while I was ahead. (Or at least more ahead than behind.)
He'd dropped me off at home, and the entire summer had slipped away before our paths crossed again.
Leaving me ample opportunity to rewrite our past and fantasize a future—in and around occasional bursts of glad-to-be-rid-of-him clarity.
It was safe to say that when it came to Rascal and getting on with my life, I was still a work in progress. …
Which sort of explained why I was standing in my bedroom now, transforming myself from a starting setter to a behind-closed-doors prom queen. The conversation with Rascal (and maybe vestiges of last night's dream) had fogged over my brain. And there was only one remedy.
The Dress was pink organza, called “cotton candy” by the owner of the vintage clothing store where I found it. Strapless, the top almost looked heart-shaped from the way it was tapered in at the waist, and the fabric was embroidered with tiny roses that covered miles and miles of crinoline.
Thoughts of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday had floated through my mind while the shop owner had mumbled that she didn't remember seeing the dress on the rack before.
Now, think what you will, but the word “magic” did come to mind. What it did for my curveless, shapeless figure was otherworldly.
Or at least it had seemed to me that day last June, with Alison beaming at me in the dressing room mirror, and Jared out in his white Camaro, probably dozing because that had been, like, the tenth shop I'd paid him to drive me to.
Without hesitation, I'd forked over every last cent of the money my grandmother had left me.
And for what?
So The Dress would hang behind my door like last year's backpack? So I could wear it to my junior prom this upcoming June, with some friend of a friend or lab partner as my date? Or as part of a group who went dateless for a Girls' Night Out?
Or for moments like this, when I zipped myself inside the pink perfection and gazed into the mirror in secret admiration. I was beginning to feel like Snow White's stepmom—developing a close relationship with the mirror and all.
Slow-dancing to pity party songs in my head, I imagined my hands locking around Rascal's waist. Then traveling up around his neck.
I sang to myself, trying to do my best Paul McCartney.
My dream hands broke from their locked position around his make-believe neck, roamed forward. To his throat. Where they started to squeeze his jugular—
See why my mom wanted me to start up that list? I seriously needed to try to make light of things.
I dropped my hands, real and imaginary, and plopped down on my polka-dot bedspread, the beautiful skirt of my dress making a whooshing sound beneath me.
Why was I torturing myself this way? That prom was ancient history.
What I really needed to do was take the stupid thing off and donate it to Goodwill. Maybe somebody out there could actually get to wear it outside her bedroom.
But I was stalling. As soon as I defrocked, I'd have to call my dad and try to break the ice. Ask him how he'd been these past couple of months, since neither of us had bothered to pick up the phone.
Maybe I'd sit just a little bit longer.
Create a human-sized nest in which to hide from the world—primarily people you'd rather not be related to.
“Nicolette!” Mom called down the hall. “Dinner!”
A crazy surge of embarrassment shot through me, though it was impossible to tell whether it was from getting caught in The Dress—or the singing and dancing.
I poked my head out of the door and called that I'd be there in a minute … once I'd replaced the silky garment in its plastic bag and neatly covered the tracks of my madness. But I didn't say that second part out loud.
•
In the old days—when my dad was still with us— Mom had been a Martha Stewart wannabe. A woman who decorated for every holiday that Hallmark made a card for, cooked meals from scratch, didn't believe in giving store-bought gifts.
On top of that, she truly enjoyed having my friends over, stirring up pitchers of lemonade, playing endless board games. One time she told me she would have loved to have had more kids, and then her voice had drifted.…
I had thought for the longest time that she meant it simply hadn't happened. Until I was old enough to realize the real problem: Dad.
Bruce Antonovich. The computer whiz who'd spent the first part of my life either “at the office” or in front of a screen. Who'd encouraged Mom to quit her job as a receptionist when I was born, to stay home with me full-time. And, as she and I independently discovered as the years went by, so she'd be there all the time that he was not.
Dad. Yeah, what a guy.
But oh, it gets better. Much better.
So when I was, like, twelve, there was this new woman at Dad's work. Cathleen Monterey, with slick dark hair and, as it turns out, the slick trick of getting what she wanted. In this case, it was Dad. (God knows why—he was, like, forty, graying, and lived in his own universe half the time. But there's no accounting for taste.) A few weeks before my thirteenth birthday, he packed up his laptops, grabbed a handful of his mini—Almond Joys, and left.
The next thing we know, Cathleen, aka “Caffeine,” so called because of her raging intensity and bitter aftertaste, suddenly goes all fat.
And then—what do you know?—I've got a half sister.
So, that's bad enough, right? No … no … Dad goes and pulls the ultimate whammy He “puts his career on hold” to stay home with the brat. I believe it's called paternity leave or something. He starts doting over little Autumn (who is fittingly named after the season in which her mother is known to fly around on her broomstick) and pretty much becomes absolutely everything to her that he's never been to me.
Bitter much? Me?
And probably worst of all is the effect it has had on Mom. She always puts on these cheery smiles and tries to tell me that she'll eventually come to terms with it all. But as I believe I mentioned earlier, there's been a lot of crying going on behind closed doors.
After getting her realtor's license, Mom proudly stopped taking alimony from Dad. She decided she would only take child support, so for the past two years she's clomped out of the house every weekday morning in business suits and no-nonsense pumps. But in addition to appearing professional, she looks te
n years older now, with extra weight, and these worry lines around her eyes and across her forehead.
But every time things start to get a little gloomy, she becomes this kind of rah-rah cheerleader. Which was what I'd expected last night, when she'd been flipping through the mail during dinner and opened the envelope marked SECOND NOTICE. But instead of a forced hundred-watt beam and some random suggestion like we have mint chip ice cream for dessert, she had burst into tears.
She actually admitted she'd gotten behind on the mortgage. That she hadn't closed so much as a rental lease in at least three months, and there wasn't much in the works. She didn't know how she'd manage to catch up anytime soon.
I didn't have to be a straight-A student to understand we could lose the house. That we'd have to move to an apartment somewhere. And that there simply were no apartment buildings in our school district.
Which meant me getting kicked out of overcrowded Hillside High School. Off the volleyball team. Losing Alison. Losing contact with kids I'd gone to school with my whole life. And okay … abandoning any teeny, tiny hope of wearing The Dress to Rascal's senior prom instead of his junior.
The whole thing made my head swim…
The whole thing made me furious at my father.
And that is why my plan had been hatched and why I was now standing in the kitchen holding the phone to my ear.
My heart did this bing-bang thing when his deep voice answered. No matter how extreme my hatred for him, part of me wanted him to sound totally overjoyed at the sound of my voice, and say something like “I was just telling Cathleen how much smarter and cuter you were at Autumn's age.”
Hey, a girl could dream.
Instead, he paused, and I wondered for a devastated moment if he was trying to place my name and voice.
But it was raw concern that whipped back at me. “Is everything all right?”
Oh, God, if only I could answer that honestly!
“Yeah,” I said instead, realizing it had been such a long time since I'd called that he probably had a right to wonder. “I just wanted to know if you're going to be home after school tomorrow.” And then I all but kicked myself. Would Dad even know what hour constituted after school? “Like four, four-thirty? I was wondering … if I could come by?”
Another silence followed, one that shimmered across the telephone line between us. I imagined Dad calculating Autumn's nap schedule, or perhaps trying to reschedule a vital playdate with another two-year-old. I mean, we're talking earth-shattering stuff here.
“Sure,” he finally said. “That works. How are you getting here?”
“Alison's brother, Jared.”
That didn't seem to faze him, although I wondered if he even remembered My-Best-Friend-Since-I-Was-Twelve or knew she had a brother.
“Okay. Anything I should know ahead of time?”
Yeah, I take cash or checks.
“Like,” he went on, filling the empty air, “will you and your friend be staying for dinner?”
“No, we'll need to get back.”
“Okay. Well, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Nicki.”
Irritation rose up inside me. But I mumbled something similar, then hung up. I took a few steps into the living room and fell into Mom's blue and white plaid rocker-recliner.
Nicki.
God, that name clawed at me. My little-kid name. From, like, elementary school. No one called me that anymore. No one who was in my life, at least.
And he was “looking forward to seeing” me? Say what? If I hadn't called tonight, he probably would have gone days without even thinking about me.
“Nicolette? Honey?”
My mom interrupted my thoughts, calling out from the back of the house.
I worked to find my voice, my composure. “Yeah?”
“Can you bring me a bath towel?”
I swallowed hard. “Sure.”
I took a big breath and made my way to the hallway linen closet. Passing over the towels that had been around so long that Dad might have actually used them, I settled for a firm beach towel Alison had brought me from Hawaii. Not exactly what Mom wanted, but all I could bring myself to touch.
“Here, Mom,” I said as I slid it through the opening.
She called out her thanks and closed the door.
I had just enough time to make my other phone call. To the other guy I really didn't feel like talking to, or spending time with.
I punched in the McCreary house line first— whether it was out of laziness or habit, I didn't know. When Alison answered, I filled her in, but when she asked how it had felt to speak with my dad … I clammed up. Which was weird. I didn't do that with her. She didn't do that with me. We were all about honesty and “being there” for each other's feelings.
But in the back of my mind, I think I knew that repeating Dad's parting line would make it more … real. So I just laughed and told her it was about as much fun as a math test.
We made plans to meet up during morning break; then she told me to try Jared's cell phone because he'd gone to the print shop.
(The print shop?)
I took the number from her, figuring it was easier than reaching for my jeans in my gym bag. And faster. I'd get my dirty work done as quickly as possible.
He answered on the first ring, his voice loud against a drone of background noise.
“It's Nicolette,” I announced, holding the phone away from my ear.
“Yeah,” he yelled. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“If it works for you.” Wherever he was, the noise was deafening.
“Meet me at my car after sixth period. I park on that side street off the north gate.”
Meet him off campus? Of course. God knows he couldn't be seen at my locker or walking the halls with me two days in a row, or rumors might start up that we were actually friends. Imagine what that would do for his rep.
“Yeah, okay.”
“What?”
“Oh-kay!”
“I'll need gas.”
“We'll have time.”
“I meant,” he yelled, “make sure you bring money.”
For lack of a better response, I laughed, though I doubted he heard it over the grinding machinery. Then I called out a loud “See ya later” and disconnected.
Before I ended up with a headache as big as the dread I had about tomorrow.
There's one thing I want to make clear: I did have a boyfriend once. A real one. Who called me and kissed me and even took me on dates. We were together the last five weeks of my freshman year, until he went off to be a camp counselor, and to this day, when we pass in the caf or hall or something, we still say hello.
So it wasn't like I was a total freakazoid when it came to guys. (No matter how it looks.)
Alison's dated, too. At one point we'd done this pinkie-swear thing that our friendship would always come first, but I think we both knew it was a form of wishful thinking—the hope that guys could fall for us so hard that we'd actually have to be concerned about something like that.
•
During morning break that next day, we sat on the bleachers and drooled over some particularly hot hot-ties. Alison was tying her orange-red hair into a pony-tail while I made a so-fast-you-barely-heard-it mention of my plans with Jared.
I didn't want to give her any ideas about her brother and me hanging out. In the past, she'd been a buffer when I needed a ride, and I didn't want her imagination to get going and cause a crack in her reality: the collision of two completely separate areas of her life that had no right coming together without her direct involvement.
I know it cracked my version of reality. I had no desire to spend any more time with Jared McCreary than I absolutely had to.
I popped open a snack-size bag of Fritos and tilted it toward her. She declined with a shake of her hand, her gaze pinned on the field where a runner was slowing down and stripping off his shirt.
“Too bad camera phones are banned at school,” she said wistfully.
&nb
sp; I knew I was supposed to laugh, but instead I grunted. I'd been the brunt of that camera phone and wasn't about to let her forget it. “Too bad they aren't banned on the beach, too.”
Alison turned, mischief sparkling in her eyes. “You aren't still mad?”
“Mad's not the right word,” I said, remembering how she'd told Canadian Guy I'd hold his beer while he futzed with sunblock—even though I totally didn't drink—and then took a quick, incriminating photo of me with the can. She'd laughed, held the phone waaay above her head, and said either I became her slave, or she'd e-mail it to Coach Luther.
I'd tried to smile, but the threat had all-too-real implications. Any Hillside athlete who got caught drinking had his or her stupid butt thrown out of sports.
“Anyway, Nic, you know I deleted it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I did.” A smile curled her mouth. “But maybe you want to buy me some cookies at lunch today, just to make sure?”
I swatted her arm and, wanting a radical change of subject, launched into the big BS story I'd told Mom last night. “I waited until she'd turned out her light. Then I called out from my room, like I'd just remembered, ‘Oh, Mom, I have to stay late after practice tomorrow. I told Coach Luther I'd help her take down the nets and stuff for the basketball game.’ ”
Alison's face pinkened as she swallowed a sip of Diet Pepsi, and then she laughed so hard I thought soda might come out her nose. “You know basketball season hasn't started yet, right?”
With anyone but Alison, I might have tried to cover my stupidity. “It hasn't?”
“Seriously!” She laughed and tucked some loose hair behind her ear. “Okay, okay, here's what you do. If you get caught, you claim you said, um, something like badminton. Yeah, that would be good.”
“Does our school even have a badminton team?”
“I don't think so. But we've played it in PE. Seriously, you'll never get to that. Because you'll be too busy going off on how she wasn't listening to you. How nobody ever listens to you.”
