Goodbye, Rebel Blue

by Shelley Coriell

  I sit on the counter, my flip-flops tapping the cupboard. Raising my hand, I make a giant check mark in the air. “Bucket list complete. Congratulations.”

  Macey pulls me off the counter. “Now time for yours.”

  Together Macey and I drive to the Bolivar house. When Gabby opens the door and sees me, her eyes grow wide but quickly narrow into a glare. She jams her arms over her chest, her new, sleek haircut swinging. The hair hangs to her chin at the sides and is cut short at the back. She wears vampy bangs slashed with a streak of hot pink.

  “Good choice,” I say. “Pink’s a great color on you.”

  Gabby wrinkles her nose. “It’s the clip-on kind.”

  “Even so, it has panache.”

  Her teeth dig into her bottom lip. “You think so?”

  “I know so.” I squat and grab her hands. “So much that I’m here on my knees begging for your help.”

  “My help?”

  “I need a prom dress, something with massive amounts of panache, and I only have forty bucks and two days.”

  Gabby’s jaw drops. “Two days is not a lot of time to find a prom dress.”

  “I know.”

  “This time of year, dresses have been picked over.”

  “I know.”

  Her expression grows grimmer. “And it’ll be hard to find a dress for forty dollars.”

  “I know.” I grab her hand. “Which is why I need you.”

  Gabby turns her face skyward as if seeking help from every god in the universe to deal with me. Then she peeks at me out of the corner of her eye to make sure I’m watching this show of diva drama. “This is not going to be easy.”

  “I know.”

  She pulls herself so close, our noses almost touch. “But I like you, Rebel.”

  “I know.”

  Gabby squeezes my hand and runs through the entryway, calling over her shoulder, “Okay, get in here. We have a lot of work to do.”

  Next to me, Macey lowers her head. “She scares me.”

  “But she has panache,” I say.

  We follow Gabby into the living room. “You know, if you would have given me two weeks, I could have made something.”

  “And it would have been spectacular and unique and perfect for me.”

  “But we don’t have two weeks.” Gabby pushes up her sleeves and points to a stack of fashion magazines. “Start flipping through those, and let me know what you like.”

  For the next half hour Macey and I go through Gabby’s fashion magazines while Gabby holds color swatches to my face and makes dire clucking sounds.

  “Look at this one,” I say as I point to a bright purple dress with puffy tiers. “I like the color.”

  “Too much ruching,” Gabby says. “Not good for short people like you. You’d look like a gnome.”

  I point to a sheath in pale yellow. “This one’s less poufy. Plus, I like the small straps.”

  “Wrong color. You’d look like a seasick caterpillar.”

  “Gabby, you know, this isn’t good for my fragile ego,” I say with more than a hint of truth.

  “We don’t have time for egos.” She holds her hand out to Macey. “Hand me the next stack of color swatches.”

  “Maybe I should wear cargo pants and a tank.”

  Macey and Gabby don’t laugh.

  “That was a joke.” I thought prom was supposed to be fun. It’s starting to scare me.

  Once Gabby is armed with ideas and colors, we head for the mall. None of the dresses are right. One dress, a light blue thing with a petallike skirt, is doable but four times my budget. I sold two of my frames to Aunt Evelyn for one of her staged beach houses, and I have exactly forty dollars, but Gabby is determined. After coming up empty at the mall, we head to a thrift store off Calle Bonita, where we find plenty of eighties-type prom dresses with big sleeves and butt bows.

  Macey digs through a rack and finds a bright blue slinky dress with a single shoulder strap and wispy train. “What do you think of this one?”

  “I’d get tangled in the skirt, fall, and make an even bigger fool of myself,” I say.

  “Definitely not for you,” Gabby says. “But you could pull it off, Macey.”

  “I don’t wear colors,” Macey says.

  “Maybe you should,” Gabby says as she browses through the rack. “That will look drop-dead gorgeous on you.”

  “Yeah, Macey, try it on. That way you can be my date.”

  Macey realizes I’m not joking. She tugs at her hoodie sleeve. “I can’t, Rebel.”

  I don’t press her. Some things take time, like peaches. “Maybe after a few more pies.”

  Macey puts the dress back on the rack. “Maybe.”

  I try on more than twenty dresses. Nothing fits. Nothing looks good. Nothing is right. The only thing that piques Gabby’s interest is a slim, floor-length, whitish dress with thin straps and a wispy overskirt, but it has a stain the shape of the Hawaiian Islands on the front.

  “Maybe it’s a sign.” I hang the dress back on the rack and puff back the lock of sweaty hair dangling over my forehead. “Maybe I’m not meant to go to prom.”

  “No,” Macey and Gabby say in unison. Gabby hands me the stained dress. “Try it on.”

  I slip on the dress and walk out of the tiny dressing room stall. “It’s …”

  “… plain,” Macey finishes for me.

  “There’s no color, no flair,” I say. Nothing screams I’m different and proud of it. The dress isn’t pure white, more like ivory, and the overskirt is delicate and gauzy. It has a high waist and narrow skirt, something that might have been worn to a wedding in the 1960s. “And it’s too long. Plus, there’s Hawaii.”

  A glint fires in Gabby’s eyes. “But it has panache.”

  “YOU HAVE A ZIT!” GABBY PRESSES HER HANDS TO her cheeks.

  “It’s not the end of the world.” Macey pushes me onto the edge of my bed and takes a cosmetics bag from her purse. “I have a great concealer.”

  I hug a throw pillow to my chest. “Maybe it is the end of the world. So let’s forget about prom and hang out and make s’mores.”

  Gabby gives me a don’t-even-go-there look.

  Macey smooths lotion over my face and neck. Then she dots concealer onto my chin, covering the lone pimple that had the nerve to show up on the day of what will most likely be my one and only prom. With sure, steady hands, Macey blends the edges and smooths on a thin layer of foundation.

  “Been practicing?” I ask.

  “A little.” She dusts my entire face with a light coating of powder. “An extraordinary person once told me a bit of cover-up doesn’t change who you are on the inside, just hides some things that distract others from seeing what’s important.”

  I breathe in the pie wisdom. I’m falling for Nate, and, for him, I’m choosing to go to prom.

  Macey applies a touch of eyeliner, mascara, and only traces of blush and lip gloss. “Gabby says less is more.”

  “Glad one of us has a handle on things,” I mutter. My fingers pluck at the throw pillow.

  One of the Cupcakes, a girl named Sandy, walks in, and Gabby squeals with too much joy. “Hair time! I want a half-up, half-down, with curls framing her face.”

  Sandy is a Cupcake. She is also one of my dates. The Cupcakes, those who don’t have couple-type dates, are in Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Bob’s master bedroom and bathroom primping and preening for prom. Last night when Pen invited me to go to prom with her and her friends, my jaw fell to the floor.

  “Why are you asking me?” I’d said. One Polly Pocket does not a relationship make.

  Pen’s lips had pinched below her wrinkled-up nose. “I have no choice.”

  “Aunt Evelyn’s making you?”

  “Sucks to be me,” Pen said, but the words lacked her normal bite. While Pen and I still aren’t bosom buddies, I accepted the date. Walking into prom on the arm of a Cupcake is better than walking into prom alone.

  The Cupcake hairdresser pulls my hair into a tight upswe
ep. My eyes stretch and tilt, and my temples throb. “Feels a little tight,” I say.

  She smooths loose curls along my shoulders. “You can’t have it too loose, or the hair will fall out of the updo while you’re dancing.”

  I’m not sure if tonight’s mission will include dancing. There are no formulas, mathematic or otherwise, on how to take the guy you’re falling in love with from a girl in his calc class. I can tap his date’s shoulder and say Excuse me, but may I cut in?

  Or … Back away from the sporto, Calculus Girl; he’s mine.

  Or … Choose me.

  I nibble the inside of my cheek while the Cupcake spritzes my head with hair spray and proclaims me done.

  “Now for the dress.” Gabby wiggles her fingers in excitement and pulls the plastic from a dress hanging on the back of my door. If there is a God—and the jury’s still out on that—he or she is yukking it up with a choir of heavenly angels at the idea of me owning and wearing a prom dress.

  Macey helps Gabby slip the gown over my head, and I try not to panic as the gauzy fabric flutters down my body. The dress no longer looks like a 1960s bridesmaid dress. Gabby shortened the front to thigh length, and soft folds of ivory taper at the sides and hang to the floor in the back. She pulls a wide, light blue velvet ribbon from her fairy-godmother bag and ties it under my bustline, hiding Hawaii. The band of high-waisted color makes me look taller, and in some magical illusion, more full-chested.

  “Now this.” With a flourish, Gabby pulls a hair clip from her bag.

  I run my fingers over colorful glass. “It’s beautiful. Where’d you find it?”

  “Your aunt made it,” Gabby says. “I called her to get some sea glass because I was thinking about gluing it to a barrette, but she offered to make something instead.”

  Gabby clips on the ivory barrette, and bits of blue, frosty glass hang in a sparkly wing along one side of my face. My aunt is staging my hair. I should laugh, but I’m too nervous.

  Gabby runs into the hallway like an excited puppy and calls out, “Pen, you got the box?”

  Penelope carries in a shoe box and eyes me from head to toe, grimacing only slightly. At least she didn’t make gagging sounds. “Here. I wore them last year to the Mistletoe Ball.”

  Macey pulls a pair of gargantuan heels from the box. They’re ivory stilettos with pearls and scalloped lace along the sides. Gabby clasps her hands to her chest. “Oh, Penelope. These are perfect. She’ll look like a frosty mermaid.”

  Gabby’s right. The flowing ivory gown, blue swirling ribbon, wave of shimmering blue sea glass, and sparkly shoes are perfect. “Except for one little problem,” I point out. “I’ll break my leg after ten steps.”

  “You’ve tangoed in heels,” Gabby reminds me. But that was when Nate the Great stood at my side. It’s easy to dance in heels when you know someone’s there to catch you when you fall.

  “Can’t you at least try?” Gabby is no longer the demanding fashion diva. She looks like a little girl caught playing in her mother’s closet who’s been told the game of dress-up is over.

  I grab the daggerlike shoes and try not to growl. “Okay.”

  “Time to go!” Uncle Bob yells from the living room.

  Macey offers me her arm, and I hobble out of the bungalow. In the front yard, Aunt Evelyn poses us on the porch in front of flowers and under a lattice arch while Uncle Bob takes photos. I try to duck behind a giant flowerpot, but Aunt Evelyn drags me into the picture.

  “The corsage!” Gabby screams as we’re walking down the path. “I forgot the corsage.”

  Cousin Pen groans, and Aunt Evelyn looks panicky. Uncle Bob walks across the porch and plucks a spray of small white flowers from one of the giant flowerpots. Daisies. My mom’s favorite flower. With a wink, he hands me the flowers, which I tuck into the blue velvet ribbon above my waist.

  Gabby claps her hands in approval and gives me a hug. “Have a magical time.”

  I squeeze back, not with as much joy as Gabby, but with sincerity and gratefulness. I know nothing of this world, and it scares the hell out of me. Only for Nate would I be something I’m not. When you care for someone, you sacrifice. At least for one night.

  Pen and the Cupcakes walk toward the car while Macey gives my hand a final squeeze. “Good luck.” Her tone is grave but fused with steel, as if she’s sending me off to battle. I picture land mines and bombs and smoking guns. I squeeze Macey’s hand and head for the car. I make it two steps when I spin and run back into the house.

  “Nooooooooooo!” Gabby runs after me.

  I wave her off. “It’s okay. I’ll be back. I need to get something.”

  Pen grumbles, and the look on her face asks Causing trouble already, are we?

  I hurry to my room, now quiet and filled with fading light. I open my nightstand drawer and slide my hand along the bottom, fumbling through the clutter until I find the penny. My prom dress has no pockets, and Gabby didn’t have time to find or manufacture a matching purse. I tear a single stitch from the skirt hem. Loosening a few more stitches, I slip in Percy’s wheat penny, the one that saved his life.

  Percy believes in lucky pennies, Macey believes in forces to combat evil, Kennedy believes in higher beings, and Nate believes in God and His saintly army. I’m still not ready to admit that something else may have a hand in my destiny, but tonight I’ll take all the help I can get.

  I sit in the backseat of a Cupcake-mobile.

  I giggle at the thought. The other girls in the backseat sniff. They must think I’m drunk. I press my lips together, holding in maniacal laughter—and the contents of my stomach. By the time we get to the Del Rey Nature Preserve, this year’s prom venue, my head feels as if someone buried an ax in my scalp.

  “You guys go ahead and go in,” I tell the Cupcakes as we pile out of the car. “I need to fix this hair-clip thingy.”

  “You sure?” Sandy asks. “It might be awkward to walk in by yourself. We can wait.”

  Three other Cupcakes nod. Even Pen gives me a quick dip.

  “Go ahead,” I insist. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Pen shuts the car door but doesn’t leave my side. “You okay?”

  I slide my fingers into the hair shellacked to the side of my head and try to tug loose a few hairs. “No.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “No, I need to do this.” Or I will regret with every cell in my body not trying to patch things up with Nate. I want him to know I’m willing to do this. For him.

  “Then stop messing with your hair. You’re going to ruin your look.” Penelope untangles my fingers and tugs a lock from the updo. “There, that’s better.”

  The skin at my temples is less tight, and my head no longer throbs. Pen holds a compact mirror. A long blue streak spirals down one side of my face. Much better. I steady my hands on the sides of my gown. I have nothing to lose tonight. Nate’s already not talking to me, and I don’t give a crap about embarrassing myself in front of Del Rey School luminaries. I can do this.

  A pathway of crisscrossing bricks leads to the entrance of the preserve’s event center. My step grows steady and quickens. When Pen and I reach the entryway, I lift my foot to the first step, but I can’t move. I give my foot a tug and stumble forward. Pen grabs me before my carefully made-up face slams into the sandstone patio.

  “I told Gabby I can’t walk in heels,” I say.

  Pen helps me stand upright, but I fall again. I look at my foot and see half a shoe. The stiletto heel is wedged between two bricks. I reach down and snatch the broken heel from the ground and slip out of the shoes.

  Pen gasps. “You are not walking in there barefoot, are you?”

  “I don’t have much of a choice,” I say on a hiss.

  Pen rubs her knuckle across her chin. “I guess you’re right. Everyone takes their shoes off after pictures anyway.”

  I breathe in her words. Right here, right now, bare feet are right. The sandstone is gritty but still warm from the sun. My mom didn’t sign m
e up for soccer or dance lessons, and she was a horrible math teacher, but she taught me how to be confident in bare feet. Anyway, Nate likes my toes, and according to his ten-year-old sister, he like likes me.

  With the wounded pair of shoes dangling from my fingertips, I walk into prom with Pen. The sign on the easel at the door announces Welcome to Bella Notte.

  Before me stretches an Italian courtyard. Roman columns guard the entryway. Trellises with grapevines line the walls. Twinkle lights hang from potted trees. At the photo station sits a gondola against the backdrop of a faded Venetian palazzo.

  Ride in a gondola in Venice, Italy, with the love of my life.

  I get dizzy, and Pen jumps back. “Do not throw up on my dress,” she says.

  I release the breath I’d been holding. “I’m good. It’s all good.” Because this is no longer about Kennedy’s list. The list is gone, and she stopped talking to me days ago. This is about me. And Nate.

  Assured that I’m not going to make a fool of either one of us, Cousin Pen heads off toward a group of Cupcakes. The large room, aglow with only twinkle lights and candles, holds at least a thousand students. An entire wall of glass overlooks the ocean, and somewhere on that ocean is a twenty-five-foot boat with a teak deck and dolphin bobblehead, and when Nate takes that boat out next summer, I want to be on it.

  Shoeless, I walk the perimeter, squinting through the semi-darkness for dark hair and dimples. I picture Nate in his proper and perfect prom attire: black tuxedo, shiny black shoes, and raven-wing hair, every bit of him oozing charm and confidence.

  Hundreds of students crowd the dance floor, and I zigzag through the dancers, tapping shoulders and nudging people out of the way in my search for Nate. On my second swing around the floor, the emcee announces the senior prom court. The queen is a girl with orange-red hair and red platform shoes with laces and a tassel, like something out of a 1940s movie. The guy wears a cute scarf.

  Nate is nowhere to be seen. I rush outside and search the patio and fire pit area. I try the rooftop lookout. I even scour the parking lot, searching for his dad’s truck. No Nate. But he has to be here, because he’s a prom kind of guy.