Prom Date

by Diane Hoh

  When Margaret said nothing, he added hastily, “Look, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s a grim enough day without talking about this now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Margaret knew he wanted her to say, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m not scared at all.”

  But she couldn’t say that. Because it would have been a lie.

  Chapter 12

  THE CROWD WAS BEGINNING to disperse. People were anxious to get away from the sadness of the burial site and out of the nasty weather.

  “Do the police have any idea who did it?” Margaret asked Mitch. “Who kicked Stephanie’s foot off that deck?”

  “No. Eddie says they don’t. Transients hang around the Point sometimes. But even if they knew for sure who it was, Eddie’d never tell me, not until an arrest was made. He shouldn’t have told me as much as he did. He was tired when he got home after it happened, and needed to talk, and I was there, so …”

  Like me and Mom the other night, Margaret thought. Sometimes you just couldn’t keep things, especially bad things, inside. And maybe you shouldn’t. Might make your brain explode or something.

  “Got a ride home?” Mitch asked. “I’ve got my truck.”

  “Caroline brought me. But I’m not going home. I have to go straight to the store.”

  “I can take you there. Would Caroline mind? I mean, if you want to.”

  If she wanted to? Did she want world peace? An end to starvation? Did she want the person who had shoved Stephanie off that deck safely behind bars? “That’d be nice. Thanks. Let me go tell her. You wait here.” She didn’t want Mitch witnessing Caroline’s reaction. It probably wouldn’t be pretty.

  To Margaret’s astonishment, Caroline didn’t seem to mind at all. “Oh, that’s okay,” she told a stupified Margaret. “We’re not going home, anyway.” She waved a hand to include Jeannine and Lacey. They were already on their way toward Michael, who was surrounded by his own friends. Liza still looked as if she were in shock, her eyes blank, her face drawn. Beth and Kiki had stopped crying, but seemed drained, their usual vitality gone. “We’re all going back to Stephanie’s house to pay our respects,” Caroline said.

  Margaret raised an eyebrow. “All? Meaning ….?”

  “Oh, you know. Jeannine and Lacey and I, and all of Michael’s other friends.”

  “Michael’s other friends?” Caroline barely knew Michael Danz. None of us know him, Margaret thought, any more than we knew Stephanie. Jeannine had been on Stephanie’s basketball team at school but Margaret doubted that they’d ever exchanged more than two words. Not one of them could stand her, and they’d never made any secret of that. “You’re going back to her house?”

  “Um-hum.” Caroline’s eyes were still on Michael.

  Margaret couldn’t stand it. “Happy hunting,” she said caustically and left to return to Mitch.

  The disgust must have been apparent in her face, because he asked, “Problems? She mad at you?”

  “What? Oh, no, she’s not mad. They have plans.”

  “Would you rather go with them?”

  “Absolutely not. But aren’t you expected at Stephanie’s house?”

  He took her hand as they walked through the rain along the cemetery road to the parking lot. “That place is going to be mobbed. Stephanie knows … knew I’m not good in crowded places. She wouldn’t expect me to show up there.”

  She wouldn’t have expected Caroline to show up, either, Margaret thought, wiping her face dry with a tissue when she was seated in Mitch’s new red pickup. Or Lacey or Jeannine.

  Could they really be that desperate to go to their senior prom?

  And had any of them been wearing black shoes at the picnic?

  That thought was so involuntary and so stunning it took Margaret’s breath away. She reeled with the shock of it. She couldn’t really have wondered that, could she? What was wrong with her? Jeannine might not be the swiftest person in the world and Lacey was bossy and cynical. But they’d been Margaret’s friends for years, and Margaret had never seen either of them commit a deliberate act of cruelty. As for Caroline, she couldn’t even bear to shoo away the alley cats when Adrienne told her to.

  Whatever had happened at the top of the lighthouse, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her friends. No way.

  Besides, this wasn’t one of those disgusting teen horror films where the girl was so desperate for a date, she took a chain saw to anyone who stood in her way. This was real life. As in, Stephanie was really dead.

  As Mitch turned the ignition key, he asked lightly, “Haven’t changed your mind about the prom, have you? I mean, if you’re worried about a connection between it and Steph’s death. Kiki tells me they’re not going to cancel. She checked with Trotter.” Trotter was Toomey High’s vice principal. “He said canceling would just make things worse. I think he’s right.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind.” Margaret shook raindrops from her hair. “And my dress is blue. Deep blue.”

  “Unlike shallow blue,” Mitch said seriously as they left the cemetery road for the main highway.

  Margaret laughed. “But don’t rent a limo, okay? Too pretentious. Can’t we just go in this?”

  “A truck? You want to arrive at your senior prom in a truck?” He glanced sideways at her. “Hey, look, the check from my grandmother had more than one zero. I can deal with a limo.”

  “No, I mean it. I’d really rather go in this.”

  “Finally,” he said with a grin, “what I’ve been looking for all my life. A cheap date.”

  Margaret laughed again, but then wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. Liza would never have settled for anything less than a limo, and Liza was the kind of person Mitch was used to. Maybe, Margaret thought, my inexperience at attending proms is showing.

  Too bad. She really did think limos were a waste of money, so why should she pretend otherwise? If he wanted Liza, he’d have asked Liza.

  But he probably did, Margaret. Lacey’s voice. What was it doing inside Margaret’s head? He probably did ask Liza, Lacey’s voice continued matter-of-factly, only Liza said no because she wanted to go with a college guy. And all of the other Pops were already taken. So Mitch settled for you. But of course you already knew that, right? Everyone at school does.

  Shut up, Lacey! Margaret ordered. Mitch did not ask Liza. He was broke. He said so, and I believe him. It’s not his fault everyone at school assumes he wanted to take her.

  Lacey’s voice subsided. But her words continued to ring in Margaret’s head.

  I don’t care, she decided finally. I don’t care why he asked me. I’m going with him, and that’s all that counts.

  “The cops are going to question Michael,” Mitch said suddenly. “Because he admitted they’d had an argument the day of the picnic.”

  It took Margaret a few seconds to make the switch from Lacey’s snide, imagined comments to Stephanie’s brutal death. When she had, she said, “They argued a lot. But they always made up.” She glanced over at Mitch. “They can’t think he did it!”

  He shrugged. “Why not? Eddie says you always look to the closest person … a husband, a boyfriend, a sibling …”

  “But Michael loved Stephanie!” Margaret remembered then Caroline’s quiet comment in the cafeteria about Michael being unfaithful to his girlfriend. Was that true? With whom? Whoever she was, maybe the police should talk to her, find out if she now expected Michael to take her to the prom, with Stephanie out of the way. Wouldn’t she be someone who would have a reason not to help Stephanie back up onto the observation deck?

  Gross!

  If the police hauled Michael downtown for questioning today, he wouldn’t be at the Markham house when Caroline and the others arrived. They’d be crushed. No matter what they said about paying their respects, the unpleasant truth was that Michael Danz, who no longer had a prom date, was their only reason for going over there.

  When they parked in front of Quartet, Mitch turned to her and said, “I want you
to know something. You’re the first and only girl I’ve asked to the prom. I just thought you had a right to know that.”

  As if he’d read her mind. Margaret rejoiced. Take that, Lacey Dowd! “Thanks for telling me, Mitch.” She grinned. “And you’re the first guy I said yes to.” No need to add that he was the first person who’d asked. He probably already knew that, but he was too nice to point it out.

  Then she stopped grinning because he was kissing her and she didn’t want him to bump into her teeth.

  Before she left the truck, he said, “Decorating committee meeting tomorrow afternoon. I know you’re on it. See you there.”

  Margaret frowned. “You’re not on the committee.” She’d already been to three meetings.

  He grinned. “I am now.”

  Margaret was smiling as she walked into the store. When she’d gone to the first meeting, with Caroline and the others, Liza had looked surprised to see them there. Later, she had asked Margaret sympathetically, “Isn’t it hard to decorate when you’re not going to the prom?”

  Margaret had replied, “I’m never going to be a patient in pediatrics at the hospital, either, Liza, but I still decorate there at Christmas.”

  There weren’t that many customers in the store, but her mother was glad to see her. She asked about the funeral, and then said briskly, “Well, if you’ll handle things down here, I’ll just go on up to the Sweatbox and work on those dresses.” She frowned. “Still haven’t found the red one, though. I can’t imagine what happened to it.”

  Those dresses. Margaret had almost forgotten. Was there really a connection between the destruction of those prom dresses and the terrible thing that had happened to Stephanie? How could there be? And what had become of Stephanie’s dress?

  She pushed the ugly, frightening thoughts out of her mind. Thinking stuff like that would ruin her mood. Maybe Mitch would call later and offer her a ride home after work. It was Friday, which meant they were open until nine. If her mother had a date with Sam Hollister, the lawyer she’d been seeing, Sam would pick her up at the store. Margaret wasn’t sure why, but for the first time, she was uneasy about going home alone to an empty house. She didn’t like the feeling.

  The rest of the day went by quickly. Margaret received two phone calls just before closing time. One was from Mitch, telling her he was with Michael at Stephanie’s house now that the crowd had gone, and he didn’t think he’d be leaving until ten. Would she wait for him at the store? He’d take her home.

  “Sure. I’ll do some studying, clean up around here a little.” Then she asked if her friends were still there. He said no, they’d left a long time ago.

  Margaret was a little disappointed that they hadn’t come to the store. It had been crowded later this afternoon. A lot of people had stopped in after the funeral, maybe thinking that buying a new blouse or skirt would lift their spirits. She could have used Caroline’s help. But maybe it was just as well. She wanted to talk about the prom, and she probably shouldn’t do that around her friends.

  The second call was from Scott. Adrienne had let him go home early when he’d finished his errands. He sounded angry. “You made Caroline cry.”

  Confused, Margaret asked him what he was talking about.

  “She’s been crying. I saw her this afternoon, after the funeral, and her eyes were all swollen. I knew it wasn’t because of Stephanie, because why would that make Caroline cry? She didn’t even like Stephanie. So I asked her, and she said it was because you’re going to the prom and she isn’t.”

  Margaret didn’t know what to say.

  “I can’t believe you’re going with McGill,” Scott continued angrily. “He’s one of them, Margaret. The ones we always made fun of, you and me and Caroline. It’s like you’re going over to the other side or something.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Scott!” Margaret couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What difference did it make to Scott who she dated? It was Caroline he was crazy about, not her. “Mitch is a nice guy. Anyway, it’s really none of your business. I’m sorry about Caroline, but she could be going, too, if she really wanted to.” She didn’t add that Caroline wasn’t going because she, too, wanted to be going with someone like Mitch.

  The conversation left Margaret very uncomfortable. Was Scott right? Hadn’t she meant all those cracks she’d made about the Pops? Had she just been pretending, wanting to be a part of their group all along? Was she a hypocrite, as Scott had implied?

  When she opened the back door to sweep around outside before leaving, a mangy old black alley cat was waiting expectantly. “Oh, all right,” Margaret said, knowing her mother would have a fit if she knew. “I was going to have a glass of milk and a sandwich before I left. I guess I can share a drop or two of the milk with you. But that’s all you’re getting.”

  The milk carton in the small fridge was almost empty. Deciding on soda for herself instead, she poured the white liquid into a saucer and put it outside for the cat. Then she finished straightening up, totaled up the cash drawer, ran the vacuum, fixed a sandwich and took it upstairs to the Sweatbox, where she climbed through the window to sit on the fire escape and eat.

  Friday night. The parking lot across the alley, in front of Impeccable Tastes, was full. Her mother and Sam were probably inside, enjoying prime rib or salmon.

  Maybe, Margaret thought, biting into her tuna sandwich, since we’re not renting a limo for the prom, we can afford to have dinner there. That would be nice. Romantic.

  When she had finished eating, she went back downstairs, tossed the empty milk carton, sandwich crusts, and paper plate into the trash and bundled it up, slinging the black plastic bag over her shoulder to take it to the Dumpster. Turning off the lights, she opened the door, stepped outside, slammed the door tightly behind her, and turned to double-check the lock. It was almost ten. She’d wait for Mitch in front of the store.

  As she turned around, the toe of her shoe hit something on the ground.

  Margaret glanced down, thinking she had bumped into the saucer that she’d forgotten was there. Good thing she’d remembered, or Adrienne would have seen it sitting there first thing in the morning. She would not have been happy.

  But it wasn’t the saucer Margaret’s toe had hit, it was the cat. It was lying very, very still, its whiskered face contorted in agony, frozen that way forever, its eyes bulging, its legs extended stiffly.

  Margaret stared down at it, knowing without even checking that the animal was lying very, very still because, it was very, very dead.

  Chapter 13

  THE ALLEY WAS DARK and quiet. Only muted sounds of music and conversation came from inside Impeccable Tastes, its double glass doors standing open to the balmy evening breeze. Margaret glanced around, hoping to find someone who could come and help, but there was no one.

  She looked down at the cat again. Dead? It was dead? But just a little while ago, it had mewed gratefully when she slid the saucer of milk in front of it.

  She dropped the sack of trash and crouched beside the stiff, black carcass. The cat was old, with gray around its whiskers, and very skinny. She couldn’t help wishing that the cat had ended its life elsewhere. She couldn’t leave it where it was. Adrienne might not be fond of the alley cats, but she was a pet lover in general, and she’d be very upset if this was the first thing she came across when she opened the store in the morning.

  Margaret loathed the idea of putting the cat into the Dumpster, but she didn’t see that she had a choice. It’s dead, Margaret, she told herself firmly, it doesn’t care where you put it. She could wait until Mitch came, ask him to do it. But she was the one who had fed it, and in some strange way, that made her feel responsible for it.

  A thought tugged at Margaret’s brain, like the cat scratching earlier at the back door. If it had died because it was old, why was its face so horribly distorted, its teeth showing in a grimace of what looked like anguish?

  She got up, unlocked the door, went back inside to grab a section of newspaper waiting
in the bin to be recycled. When she had locked the door again, she knelt on the rough cement beside the cat. Gingerly, carefully, she rolled it onto the newspaper and quickly thrust it into the black plastic bag. At the last minute, she dumped the saucer in, too. Wouldn’t be using that again. Then she quickly twisted the neck of the bag shut and retied the twist tie. Ugh! Her hands shook. Creepy.

  Hoisting the bag again, she hurried to the huge Dumpster. Its giant green metal lid was already open, resting against the back section of the Dumpster.

  Margaret stood in front of the bin, heaved the bag over the edge, her mind on the cat inside. She felt sorry for it. It couldn’t have had a very nice life, and an alley was no place to die.

  There was a sound behind her. Margaret would have turned, had she had time. But she didn’t. Because in the next second, cold hands reached out to grab her legs and lift her up …

  Margaret cried out. Her hands flew out to clutch at the front of the bin. But the grip around her lower body was stronger than her own. Angry. It felt angry, that grip on her legs, squeezing the flesh painfully as it lifted her lower body higher, higher.

  “Stop it!” Margaret cried, feeling her hands on the bin being tugged away. “What are you doing? Stop!”

  Her heart was pounding so with terror, she could feel her ribs shaking. At the very last second, her brain kicked into gear and Margaret kicked off one loose black shoe. If she couldn’t stop herself from being thrown into the disgusting bin, she would at least leave a sign behind that she was in there. Losing the shoe was the only thing she could think of to do. She could only hope her captor hadn’t heard the shoe fall.