by Nancy N. Rue
We were standing in the hall before school with our rack and our dressers and our dilemma, discarding the idea of asking Coach Wendover, who couldn’t control the class enough to guarantee that everything wouldn’t be lifted and sold on the black market before the end of the first day — when Sunny went by on her way to the history room.
“What’s all this?” she said.
“It’s for the dress shop.” Patrick grinned all the way to his earlobes. “Have we met?” Oh, please.
Sunny’s eyes flicked to me and back to him. “I’m Mr. Linkhart’s long-term sub. So where’s all this going?”
“We don’t know yet,” Valleri said. “We can’t find a teacher who we think will want the responsibility.”
“It’s for the prom campaign, right?”
You promised me! I wanted to shout at her.
She looked at me as if she’d heard me, and for an awful moment I was sure I had yelled it, her eyes looked that stung.
“You should’ve asked me,” she said, gaze right on me. “I’d be happy to help.”
“Are you serious?” Patrick said. “It’ll be in there ‘til, like, Friday, taking up a lot of space.”
Valleri giggled. “Don’t try to talk her out of it, Patrick!”
Sunny still hadn’t taken her eyes off of me. “This okay with you?”
“If it’s okay with you,” I got out. Because, frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Then it’s a done deal. Follow me.”
“Sweet,” Patrick said. To me he added, as we pushed the rack down the hall, “What did she say her name was?” “She didn’t,” I said. And I couldn’t believe that either.
We didn’t get any donations on Wednesday, but Patrick was still optimistic. The word hadn’t really gotten out yet, he said.
Still, the what-if-this-totally-bombs thoughts kept me tossing and turning half the night, and I overslept the next morning. I was barreling down the stairs with my stuff flying out behind me when I saw Sunny at the bottom, car keys in hand. “You want a lift?” she said.
“You’re driving?” I said. “Don’t you usually walk?” She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. “Can’t. I have a backseat full of formal attire to haul.”
“Oh,” I said. “Wow.”
She wasn’t kidding. When I slid into her front passenger seat, I had a white sequined number hanging over one shoulder and a blue chiffon something tickling the back of my neck.
“I don’t know if anybody’s even going to want any of this stuff,” Sunny said as she peered over it to back out of the driveway. “But it’ll make it look like we have a lot and people will get excited.”
“Well, the people in your classes will,” I said.
“Actually, I thought I’d put the dress rack out in the hall before and after school and during lunch so they can get a preview. Is that all right with you?”
“I don’t know if I can always be there then.”
“I’ll keep an eye on it. If you don’t like the idea —”
“It’s great,” I said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She leaned forward to look at me around a pouf of turquoise tulle. “If I don’t do something fun soon, I might implode.”
“All right, then,” I said. “And — thanks.”
Sunny just smiled.
It took us two trips to get all the stuff up to her classroom. When we got back the second time, Joanna and Alyssa were standing in the hallway, each holding a bulging black trash bag.
“Donations?” Sunny said as she breezed past them.
Or this morning’s garbage? I couldn’t help sniffing the air for traces of rotten fruit.
“We brought a few things,” Alyssa said, as usual ignoring me. Joanna wasn’t as good at it. My very presence made her eyes water like she was allergic to my aura.
“We’ll just leave them,” Joanna said as we all followed Sunny into the room.
Sunny dumped her last armful on her desk and turned, hands on hips. “No, actually, I think — and Tyler, you tell me if you agree — we probably ought to go through everything while you’re here and make a list for you to sign so we can get things back to you if they’re left over.”
Joanna looked at Alyssa, eyes popping like she had a thyroid condition. Alyssa took to scratching at her arm.
“Do we really have to take the time to do that?” she said.
My antennae were already up. “It’ll save us from any issues later,” I said, nodding at Sunny. I whipped out the loyal spiral notebook and flipped to a new page. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Joanna appeared to be about to snatch up her bag and run, but Alyssa lifted her trim little chin and removed the twisty from hers. Fixing her eyes defiantly on me, she pulled out a pair of gray silky-looking pants that on closer inspection weren’t gray at all but faded black, and riddled with those pills you get on sweaters you’ve had for ages. That was followed by a short pink sateen-and-net getup that had to have been somebody’s Halloween costume. I stopped her when she produced a red velveteen jacket my grandmother might wear to a Christmas party in the nursing home.
It was all I could do not to tell her to put that stuff on and show herself in public. But I knew it wouldn’t work — and this thing was going to work if I had to have a complete personality makeover to make it happen.
“Cleaned out Grandma’s attic, did you?” I said.
Alyssa sniffed. “I thought somebody could use it.”
“Who?” I said. I waited, eyes wide.
“You didn’t say it had to be new stuff.”
“Yeah, but this hasn’t been new since Ms. Dalloway went to the prom. Would you wear any of this to a formal dance?”
She tossed the blondeness. “No, but I’m not —”
“Not a Kmart Kid?”
“Exactly. Do you want this stuff or not?”
Joanna was already edging toward the door with her bag.
“What does your dad do for a living, Alyssa?” I said.
“Why?”
“Just work with me here.”
“Dr. Hampton?” she said, as if I were an imbecile. “He’s a dentist.”
“What if his practice went out of business tomorrow? Nobody in town had dental insurance anymore, nobody could afford to have their teeth fixed. Decay ran rampant and he was out of a job. No point in moving to another town because it’s the same everywhere. Would you get to keep shopping at Hollister?”
“No,” Joanna said.
Alyssa gave her the “shut up” look.
“Would you be the same person if six months from now you had to buy your clothes at Kmart? Walmart? J. C. Penney?” “I don’t know,” Alyssa said.
“I do. You’d still be pretty like you are now. You’d still have every guy wanting to date you. You’d still be you — except you might have to come to our dress shop to get a formal.” I tapped her garbage bag with my toe. “And I don’t think you’d want anything that’s in there. In fact, you’d probably be offended. Then you’d think maybe you were less than the people who had the insensitivity to even offer you ragged pants and an old Halloween costume. And you’d be wrong.”
By then, Joanna was already gone. Alyssa snatched up her bag.
“To answer your question,” I said, “no, we don’t want that stuff. But if you have something that wouldn’t insult the people we’re trying to help, we’d love to have it. They deserve that respect.”
“Thanks for the sermon,” Alyssa said.
She flounced out, nearly steamrolling Hayley, who was trying to get in the door with a pile of garments in plastic dry-cleaning bags.
“She didn’t bring in a bunch of junk, did she?” Hayley said when Alyssa was gone.
“Pretty much,” I said. I had to get my mind around the fact that she was speaking to me.
“She said she was going to and I told her — well, it’s not like she listens to me now. Anyway — “ Hayley once more did her imitation of a six-pack of open sodas. “I brought s
ome really cute stuff —”
“Is this where we’re supposed to drop off the dresses?”
All three of us turned like one person toward the door. Mr. Baumgarten was standing there, up to his chin in silk, satin, and sparkles.
“Let me take that,” Sunny said. Of course, in her tiny arms it looked like twice as much. It took everything I had not to envision Mr. Baumgarten in drag.
“My daughter’s a freshman at NYU,” he said. “They don’t do much in the way of fancy dances there. She said you could have these.”
I picked up my spiral notebook and my pen. It was working. It was really working.
Chapter Fourteen
I actually looked forward to giving Mr. Baumgarten’s donation for my high at the dinner table that night. I didn’t see how my parents wouldn’t consider it evidence that what I was doing was a good thing.
I guess my father had never realized the significance of a prom dress.
“This still seems like an awful lot of misspent energy to me,” he said. He stopped my protest with a creamy palm. “I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just asking for some hard proof that you’re going to achieve anything beyond a bunch of dressed-up girls.”
“I’ll give you some proof.”
My head jerked from Dad to Sunny. She laid her butter knife across her plate and rested her forearms on the table so she could lean toward him.
“You should have heard Tyler talking to some little rich bimbette this morning. She could have told that snotty little princess to take her bag of rags and sit on it. That’s what I wanted to do.”
“How did you get involved in this?” Dad said. The debate sparkle in his eyes winked out.
“I’m providing the storage space,” Sunny said, “because I believe in what Tyler’s group is doing. If I could continue?”
“Go on,” Mom said. Although she was without dimples, she didn’t look angry.
“Tyler was magnificent. She laid it out for that girl in no uncertain terms, but she did it without putting her down or being condescending. It was impressive.”
“How did the girl respond?” Dad said.
“She knew she was wrong. She tried to save face, and Tyler let her.” Sunny looked at me. “Me? I’d have made her grovel a little. I tell you, Daddy, I felt like I was watching a master at work.”
“Thank you,” I said. I couldn’t come up with anything more, because I was stunned.
“Good for you, Ty,” Dad said. “But is it going to change anything? That’s my question.”
“I think it already has,” I said.
“Tell me how.”
“I don’t think I know exactly how yet. These are just baby steps.”
“Well, we’ll see.” Dad made a squinty face and returned to his chicken breast.
Sunny stabbed hers with her fork. “For Pete’s sake, Dad. Tyler’s doing everything you taught us to do and you’re giving her absolutely no support.” She looked at me again. “I’m sorry — I know I said I’d let you handle it. Just — never mind. If you’re planning to keep dogging her, Dad, I’d like to be excused.”
I was way ahead of her. We met in the foyer, the suddenly silent dining room behind us.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “Yeah, I did,” she said. “I’m sorry if I — “ “No. I appreciate it.”
She nodded, but I could see the tears in her eyes.
“I’ve gotta — “ “Go.”
We split at the top of the stairs and I went straight to my window seat. I should have felt vindicated, but there was still too much to figure out about this whole parental thing. It was like diagramming a sentence.
Before the heat even got me to the sweaty stage, I was reaching under the cushion. My phone signaled a text, and I stopped, hand warming on RL.
Another threat from somebody? I’d already decided it wasn’t Hayley who’d sent the last one. It just didn’t match all her effervescence. Had to be Alyssa, although after me turning down her garbage bag full of rags, wouldn’t she know I’d be on to her?
I knew I should just ignore it, but curiosity won out. I grabbed my phone, teeth set for the warning. But it was from Egan.
STILL NEED YOUR ESCORT, it said.
I closed the phone and tapped my fingers on the RL cover. I’d forgotten all about getting a guy to walk me across the stage, and I wasn’t any closer to knowing who that could possibly be than I was the last time I remembered.
The prom was now nine days away. Who was I going to ask who wasn’t already going with somebody? And who could I ask about who to ask? Valleri was the logical choice, but she didn’t know anybody. I even thought of Sunny — how weird was that? But I gave that idea up before I had a chance to warm to it. I’d already caused a split between her and Dad, and I’d seen that it upset her. It upset me too, not being able to spar with him at the dinner table without suddenly being afraid I was going to get stabbed. I had a feeling it went a lot deeper with her. She was, after all, his “baby.”
What had happened to my ability to analyze, come up with a plan, implement it, and move on? How long had it been since I’d been able to do that? It was like being nominated for prom queen had erased my rational mind.
I stopped tapping my fingers on the leather cover. Now there was somebody I could ask. Did the Bible give dating advice?
Probably not. That even sounded a little sacrilegious. But I opened it anyway, to the first page that felt warm.
You’re back. Good.
I closed my eyes. I need clear instructions. If you give me that, I’ll know this is for real.
And then I swallowed. I wanted it to be for real.
Yeshua addresses that very thing in this next story. He was teaching people in the temple, telling them who God is and how they can know Him. They were asking a lot of the same questions you are, actually.
At least I was on the right track.
Of course, the high priests and the religion scholars and the big shots in the temple were all lurking, trying to catch him in a loophole.
That was another thing I’d never understood in Sunday school. What was it about him that they hated so much? Jesus was out there healing people, telling them they were forgiven, that they didn’t have to drag their issues around with them anymore. What was to hate?
You digress. But that’s okay. It bears explaining.
These guys and their fathers before them had been in charge of the Jewish temple for generations. They’d come to command respect — however grudging it might be — and they got the best seats for dinner, had people coming to them for advice, which was heady stuff for them. And they were in with the political authorities, sort of like lobbyists, to keep the Romans from denying them their rights to practice their religion. So they had two problems with Yeshua. One, if people believed in him, that would sap them of their power, which basically defined them. And two, if there were any problems among the Jews, the Romans would say, “See, you’re a bunch of troublemakers,” and, zap, they wouldn’t be able to worship at all. It’d be like the Babylonian exile all over again. They were too busy protecting the status quo to let any of what Yeshua was really saying get even close to their souls.
So they were the Ruling Class, only on a larger scale.
There is always a “Ruling Class.” So this particular day, they were feeling pretty threatened by Yeshua and the way the people were responding to him, so they called him out. They said, “Who authorized you to come in here and speak like this? We want to see some credentials.” Yeshua answered them with a question.
Still another thing that had always bugged me. Jesus never seemed to answer the question somebody asked. He just took off on some tangent. Although, now that I thought about it … I tended to do the same thing. Not that I was like Jesus or anything.
We’ll get back to that. Do you want to hear the question?
I nodded at the book.
He said, “About the baptism of John — who authorized that? Heaven? Or human beings?” They were tr
apped, and they knew it. They motioned to him that they’d get back to him, and then they gathered in a knot over in the corner and whispered to each other, all hissy and panicked. “If we say heaven, he’ll want to know why we didn’t believe John. But if we say human beings, then all these people who were convinced that John was a prophet of God will be on us like white on rice. We’ll have a riot on our hands!”
I had to hand it to Jesus. He got them right where he wanted them without a single argument.
They had to tell him they couldn’t answer his question. So he said, “Then I’m not answering yours either.”
I waited for more, but the space was blank. I actually liked that story, but I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it.
It’s what you’re not supposed to do that’s important. Like you said, you’re not Yeshua. But, then, who are you in the story?
There weren’t a whole lot of choices. I wanted to be one of those people sitting in the temple, absorbing everything Jesus said.
You’re getting there.
But?
You’re a very smart girl. You can answer that question.
I closed the book and glared at it. Okay, so I was a high priest-y kind of person who asked questions just to get into a debate. Was that it? Or was it just that there was no logical solution to some situations?
That was a scary thought. Was I supposed to feel my way to an escort for the prom? Somehow know what I was supposed to do about my father arguing with me every baby step of the way? If I could do that, why did I need Jesus?
Because you can’t feel your way without me.
I stared at the book. The cover was closed. I hadn’t just read that. But, then, where did that thought come from? That thought that didn’t sound like me?
I closed my eyes and folded my hands under my chin, the way I’d seen Valleri do. If I couldn’t do it without Yeshua, then why didn’t he show me what I was supposed to do?
Nothing came. Maybe I was asking him wrong.
Actually, was I asking him? Or was I still posing some kind of intellectual question?
I picked up the book, hugged it to my chest, and closed my eyes again. “Yeshua?” I whispered. “Will you show me what to do? Because thinking this out isn’t working. Maybe you don’t even care about prom escorts, but parents, that has to be important, right? I want to honor them — but I want to do what’s right for the people who are getting tromped on at school. How can I do that and get them on board at the same time? What’s it going to take? Asking Kenny to be my escort — the whole family thing? Graham Fitzwilliam? I mean, I’m almost willing to do that …”
