by S. Celi
“It’s not your fault.”
She gave me a rueful look. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I left my crown on the table at The Syndicate.” She closed her eyes, as if the realization annoyed and disappointed her. “Some Prom Queen.”
“I’m sure someone picked it up. Someone will get it to you.” Even as I said it, I felt bad. Of course she’d want that crown. I would have wanted it. What a fail. I should have remembered something like that. Crowns mattered to girls, especially when they won them.
Her eyes drifted open, and when they did, I wasn’t sure what I saw. “It’s probably in the trash somewhere.”
“It’s not your fault that you missed your curfew.” I just wanted to say anything to make her feel better. God, this morning had turned awkward, and I couldn’t figure out how to change that.
“It is my fault, Geoff.” She hooked her fingers around the door handle, and when she looked back at me, her eyes had turned cold. “Listen, I had a good time with you last night.”
“I did, too.” If only I could find the words to really express how I felt at that second, but they didn’t exist in the English language.
“A really good time. You’re a nice guy.”
“It’s the blond, bushy eyebrows. That’s what did it. They drew you in.”
Maybe I should have said more right then. I could have. I had more than a good time. I had a great time, and that night in the hotel was something perfect. Something I might never experience again, no matter how much I wished I could.
She glanced down at her dress, and I had the sudden urge to reach out and grab her for one last kiss. I wanted to do something to tell her how much I thought I loved her, but at that moment, I was too afraid to say anything. Like an idiot. A better man wouldn’t have made a dumb mistake like that.
“See you later,” she said, as she opened the car door. She got out, slammed the door behind her, and walked up the brick path to her house. I waited for her to look back at me.
She didn’t.
I SAT IN the BMW for a long time after I’d parked the car in the garage. I didn’t get out. Didn’t move much. Didn’t do anything.
On the way home, I turned on my Radiohead playlist and blasted the OK Computer album as I drove the car through Robert Hill’s central business district, past the Starbucks and by the school. Heritage High School still had the remains of After Prom decorations out on the front lawn, but just like me, they resembled a wilted mess of hope and anticipation. Balloons touched the ground, losing air. Broken streamers littered the front walk. Even the sign saying “Prom to the Stars” had a few missing lights.
Morning-afters didn’t look good on anything, or anyone.
“Karma Police” played six times while I sat in the garage before I decided to get out of the car. By then, it was just after eight a.m.
“You might as well go inside, since the fantasy’s over,” I muttered to myself, as I flipped off the engine. “Can’t sit out here all day.”
As I got out, I noticed something on the passenger seat. A small bobby pin with a crystal on the end lay tucked between the grooves of leather. No doubt it came from Laine’s immaculate prom hairstyle. I picked it up, and put it in my pocket. At least I had some kind of keepsake from the night.
Mom, David, Blake and Bruce had all gathered in the kitchen. When I walked in, Mom stood near the sink, holding a half-washed plate in her hand. Blake, Bruce and David all sat at the bar that jutted out from the kitchen island, with untouched breakfast in front of them. They all stared at the TV, and I noticed they had turned it to the morning news show on FOX.
Odd. They almost never watched the news.
“Hey guys,” I said.
“Oh Geoff, oh my God!” Mom looked over at me, jumped, and dropped her plate on the floor behind the cooking island. It crashed against the slate tile and shattered.
David stood up. “You okay, hon?”
“Damn. This is my favorite china,” Mom said, now on the floor. “We’ve been trying to call you, Geoff.”
“You have?” I looked down at my phone. Yep, the missed calls were there, right along with the text messages from Josh. I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t noticed them. I stepped forward. “Let me help you.”
“Watch out Geoff, there’s sharp pieces of glass here.” Mom looked up at me, and that’s when I noticed she’d been crying. Puffy eyes, a red rose, and splotchy forehead gave her away. In fact, I wondered if she might resume crying at any second.
“Mom. What’s going on?” I sat back on my heels.
“Oh Geoff, it’s just so terrible. I just . . . this is so awful . . . I just can’t believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“It’s all over the news. They’ve been doing reports all morning, live reports. What’s that reporter’s name, over at WCPO? Shannon? Or is it Alison?”
“It’s the one whose dad was that Bengals Pro Bowler, I think, hon,” David said.
“Mom. What are you talking about? Live reports on what?” I glanced at David. “Alison’s on the NBC station. And you guys are watching the FOX station. Just so you know.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve been switching back and forth all morning.” Mom shook her head, still obviously upset. “They’ve all been reporting on it.”
“Reporting on what?” I willed her to form a sentence that made sense.
She gulped. “Evan Carpenter. He was in a car wreck last night.”
“What?”
“A huge car wreck.”
Maybe I didn’t hear her correctly. “Car wreck? What?”
“Yes.” She paused, and bit her lip. “A drunk-driving accident. It was two cars over on 471. He hit another car, and flipped three times.” She swallowed back some of her emotion. “They said he was driving eighty-five miles an hour when he hit the other car. Honey, Evan died. And so did the driver of the other car. He was in his fifties.”
“What? Oh my God. Are you serious?”
“Yes.” She gulped. “They said he was dead on arrival at the hospital. They didn’t even make it to St. Elizabeth around the corner.”
“Jesus Christ.” My mouth went dry. “He’s dead? I can’t believe this. There must be a mistake.”
“I know, honey. It’s so awful.”
I leaned up against the stove, and my head started to spin. Above me, the TV hummed as the newscast resumed, but I didn’t hear any of the words. All I could think about was Laine. She could have been in that car with Evan. She could have died, too, but she didn’t. She didn’t die, because she was with me. Me. She was with me. And we’d just spent the night almost having sex in a hotel room paid for by Evan. A guy who had just died.
“Oh, honey, I know this is horrible news.” My mother said this, but her voice sounded hollow, like she was talking to me through a tin can. A large tear rolled down her face. “So sad. This is just what After Prom was supposed to prevent.”
“I had no idea.”
“I was so worried about you when you didn’t come home last night.” Mom reached out, and put her manicured hand on my knee. “I’m so glad you’re home now.”
“I was out with some friends.”
“I guessed that. I hope you had fun.”
“Evan had such a bright future,” David added. He sounded far away, too. “One of the most sought after recruits for Ohio State next year. Full scholarship. Maybe even the NFL.”
“Wow,” I managed after a moment. “Terrible news.”
“He was my best friend,” Blake said.
“Mine too,” added Bruce.
I glared at them from my place on the floor. What twits. They mostly hung around Evan during football season, and sometimes they went to the same parties. That was it. I couldn’t remember a time when they’d had him over to the house, or went over to his. That friendship was thin at best. But it was just like them to co-opt a tragedy and place themselves at the center.
“I’m gonna go upstairs. Do some thinking
.” I pushed the small pile of china shards I had gathered over to Mom. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Oh honey, that’s just fine.”
“Do you want me to help you clean up the rest of this?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got it. And there are some muffins on the island. Make sure you grab one before you go up to your room. Apple cinnamon.”
“I’m really sorry to hear all this.” I said it not because it was how I felt. I said it because it was the only appropriate thing to really say.
With my hands tucked behind my head, I lay on the bed and started up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. For once, I liked the quietness of my room, and the break it gave me from the rest of the house. At least here I didn’t have to pretend like I cared for some asshole on the football team who got drunk, slapped the girl I loved, and then died in a car accident he’d caused. An asshole like that didn’t deserve my sympathy.
Maybe that was heartless. Maybe it was mean. And maybe it was the wrong way to feel, but, as I lay there, I knew with certainty it was the way I felt. Part of me wished I could remind everyone how awful Evan had acted toward Laine before he died. Too bad people considered it rude to talk badly about dead people. Sometimes society really sucked.
This was one of those moments.
I lay there on the bed for a pretty long time, and I didn’t sleep. Instead, my thoughts wandered back to the night before; Laine had looked so beautiful, and she’d felt even better when I held her. I was sure no one would ever feel the way she did, and that anyone I might have from here on out wouldn’t compare. It had to be that way, right? Wasn’t this what love was?
My phone buzzed in my pocket about a half hour after I lay down. When I pulled it out and looked at it, I had another text message from Josh.
9:05AM Dude, are you home yet?
Me: Yep.
Josh: Why didn’t u call?
Me: Busy
Josh: Can u believe that about Evan?
Me: Nope
Josh: Did u leave Prom w/Laine?
Me: . . .
Josh: Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
Me: Not that big a deal.
Josh: WTF
I threw the phone down once more, because Josh didn’t need to know all about what had happened the night before. No way. Laine and I had our perfect night. Just the two of us. No one else needed to know details, not even my best friend.
Right?
I got up off the bed and wandered over to my desk in the far corner of the room. I decided to wake up the computer and check Facebook. Always a good plan.
I figured I’d see all kinds of posts about Evan, and it turned out I couldn’t have been more right. Facebook announced in my news feed right way that fifteen people had shared the article from the Cincinnati Enquirer announcing Evan’s tragic death. “Prom King Dies in Tragic Accident,” the headline screamed, and it already had about seventy comments on the article. Some people had vague Facebook posts up, talking about “living for every day” and “making every moment count.” Others claimed Evan as their best friend or a person they looked up to in life; I read it all with distaste. No matter what people said, I knew the truth about Evan. I saw who he really was at Prom—a coward, an asshole, and a bad person. It didn’t mean I wished him dead, but it did mean I didn’t have to mourn his death.
I checked Laine’s Facebook page last.
“I can’t believe this, my heart has broken,” it said. Forty-five people had commented on her status, most of them juniors and seniors from school. Over and over again, they told her how sorry they were that she’d lost the love of her life. And that was all. She didn’t reply to any of the comments, and after staring at them for about fifteen minutes, I couldn’t resist sending her a message myself.
Of course, I did it by direct message.
“Are you okay?” I wrote. “Just call me if you want to talk. I’m thinking about you.” Then I sat back and waited for her to reply.
She never did.
MONDAY, MAY 6TH
EVAN’S DEATH STRANGLED the Heritage High School hallways. It sat in every classroom like an unwanted visitor, and wrapped through the hallways like an odor no bleach could destroy. Teachers said grief counselors would come to school all week, then passed out black ribbons to Heritage’s six hundred students. We all pinned them to our chests, right above our hearts, and we wore them every day. All four Cincinnati TV stations did live shots for their morning shows and noon newscasts in front of the school, and reporters interviewed a couple of students as they walked from the school parking lots to first period. For the first time in my four years there, Heritage High administrators closed the school doors during lunch, and no one ate off campus.
As soon as I arrived at school the Monday after prom, I searched for Laine. She was all I thought about, all I wanted, all I needed. I could make it through the nightmare of people grieving if I had her to do it with me.
I saw her in the hallway between second and third period. A couple of friends surrounded her and her locker, all with sympathetic looks. They had on black dresses, dark heels and somber expressions, as if they had coordinated their outfits. Laine didn’t smile or laugh, either, and her slumped shoulders made me wonder if she had slept at all since that morning at the Cincinnatian Hotel.
I didn’t see her at lunch, or in the hallway afterward, like I always did. In fact, I didn’t see her again until AP English. When I walked into class she already sat at her seat with her textbook open, as if she was reading it, and something about the way she sat made me hesitate to talk to her. She didn’t look up from the pages at all as everyone else filed into the room, with their usual conversations about homework assignments and the food at lunch. I stood by the door, sized Laine up, and then took my seat in the second row.
“Good afternoon,” Mr. Langston said after the bell rang. Just like the students, he wore a black ribbon on his chest, although his was askew and already frayed against a mustard yellow button-down shirt that magnified a ketchup stain on his stomach.
“I have a few announcements to make here, before we get started.” He cleared his throat, and picked up a piece of loose-leaf paper from the lectern. “We just got an email that funeral arrangements for Evan Carpenter will be on Wednesday afternoon, at one p.m. at the First Episcopalian Church here in Robert Hill. Visitation is Tuesday from four to eight p.m. at Truitt Funeral Home. Any students wishing to attend the funeral will need to bring a written excuse from their parents.” He cleared his throat again. “Now. Does anyone have any questions, or comments?”
“Did they say anything more about the police investigation?” someone asked from the back of the room.
“No.” Mr. Langston gripped the sides of the lectern, and his bony knuckles popped out from his chalky white skin.
“Just can’t believe he died,” I heard someone say across the room.
“Look, I never had the pleasure of teaching Mr. Carpenter, but I know a lot of you were friends of his, or looked up to him. He certainly appeared to have a bright future playing football for the Buckeyes.” He paused, and then dramatically shook his head. “It’s a shame that will never happen for him. A big shame. And on that note, I need to remind you that the AP test is Friday. Five days. I know for many of you this will be long week, so I suggest you use the rest of this hour to study for the test.”
I stifled my groan, as the rest of my classmates opened up their study guides. Mr. Langston’s right about this; we were all about to have a long-ass week. I had the AP Calculus test on Wednesday morning, the AP English Language test on Friday morning, AP Biology the following Monday, AP German on the fifteenth, and I would follow that up with European History on the same afternoon.
I needed to get to work, but before I did, I glanced over at Laine. She still didn’t look up from her notebook, but I saw her wipe away a few tears.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8TH
“DAVID,” MOM CALLED from just inside the garage. “Are you and the boys ready?”
> “We’re coming,” he yelled from somewhere upstairs.
She clicked the key fob on her Mercedes SUV and turned her sad, sympathetic eyes to me. “So. Are you ready to do this, honey?”
“Yeah, Mom, I am.” I leaned up against the garage wall, and put my foot at a ninety-degree angle against it. With my hands tucked into my gray pants, I studied her. She had the strangest expression, as if someone she’d loved and cared for had died, not someone she knew from Friday Night Football, the local news, and gossip shared around the dinner table.
“How long do you and the boys want to stay at the visitation, Geoff?”
I shrugged my answer because in truth, I didn’t want to go at all. I didn’t want to pay my respects, or honor a person I knew to be a fraud, and an asshole. Evan Carpenter had never been nice to me, not even in kindergarten, and on top of that he’d been even worse to Laine. He didn’t deserve anything, but at that moment I was stuck. The whole senior class and most of the rest of the school planned to attend the services. Much of the larger community would be at Truitt Funeral Home that night, too, and David liked to keep up the pretense of prominence.
We had to go, no matter how much it pained me.
“Well, I guess while we wait for them, and um . . . we’ll just get in the car,” Mom said, motioning for me to follow her.
Once the engine started and she turned her attention to the radio, I decided I might as well admit my misgivings. “Do you really want to go to this?” I asked her.
“Of course I want to go.” She looked at me through the rear view mirror. A frown split her smooth forehead into equal parts. “Why do you ask?”
“Evan wasn’t all that great of a person, Mom.”
“He wasn’t?” She didn’t look up from the console, but her hand stopped punching buttons.
“No. He wasn’t.” I paused. “Listen, can I tell you something?”
“Sure you can, honey.”
“Evan was a horrible person. Mean. A jerk.” I gulped. “He also got so drunk at prom that night that he slapped Laine Phillips, right after she and he became Prom Queen and King.”
