by Laura Preble
“Okay, I’ll start,” Becca says, exasperated at the slowness of my response. “Cheaper. Our ticket prices will be half of what the zombie prom will cost.”
“Zombie prom?”
“Oh, yeah. We call it that because only the brainless, sheep-like followers will go to that one.” Becca taps me on the head with one large finger. “Hopefully your brains are still intact.”
“To be honest, I think a zombie prom sounds pretty fun.” I know I’m going to regret saying it, but I can’t help it. Evie’s rabid typing and that stupid chart have made me cranky and uncooperative. “If that’s a way to get people to go to the other dance, it’s a good idea.”
“You’re not helping.” Becca stands up, paces the room, and stares at the ceiling as if looking for a flash of inspiration to come from above. “Okay, so, cheaper. Obviously, the record-breaking aspect of the thing should be pretty cool.”
“Comfortable shoes,” Evie mutters, typing furiously.
“But we still need something else,” Becca murmurs, her back to me as she gazes out her window. “We need something that nobody else has ever done.”
“Well, this whole virtual prom thing sounds pretty much like uncharted territory.” I hesitate to mention that maybe nobody will actually care, because most people who go to a dance pretty much want to be concerned with themselves and the person they’re dating. But I don’t want to burst her bubble and risk a nosebleed. “But if you want something different, what about location?”
Becca turns, her face transformed. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated, almost as if she’d just returned from a trip to the eye doctor where they put in those nasty drops. I’m probably exaggerating, but she really does look excited. “Location,” she whispers.
At that moment, the bedroom door flies open, and Amber and Elisa swoop into the room. “We got your message,” Amber says, swinging her hair dramatically. “We came as soon as we could.”
“So, where are we?” Elisa arches an eyebrow and peers over Evie’s shoulder. I see a glint of disappointment in her eyes; after all, Wembley had been our electronic note keeper for the past year, and now he (it?) was being replaced by a newer model. I know how he (it?) feels.
Becca brings them up to speed, finishing where they came in: “We need to think of a stunning, unusual, amazing, mind-blowing location.”
“And we need to have good food,” Elisa mentions, tapping Evie on the shoulder and motioning toward the laptop. Dutifully, Evie taps away.
Amber sits cross-legged on the floor, Elisa continues to hover over Evie, and Becca has migrated back to the bed. “Location,” she whispers again. It’s like a chant. Or a curse. Or a CD that skips.
After several uncomfortable minutes of no one having any good ideas, Becca growls, frustrated, and says, “We need a change of scenery. Let’s go get a latte or something.”
Caffeine sounds great to me. As we file down the stairs, Thea comes into the foyer. “Honey, where are you all going?” Her hands are covered in some guacamole-green gook. “I was going to ask if you could help me with my new organic clay mixture.”
“Uh, maybe later,” Becca says, frowning at the stinky green stuff. “We really need to go run an errand. Can Meredith help you?” Meredith is their live-in maid who is too classy to actually do much real work.
“Meredith refuses to do anything that has to do with art,” Thea complains. “She says it’s a liability thing.”
“Thea!” From somewhere toward the back of the house (it is a mansion, after all), Melvin’s voice echoes. “Thea, I need that special tea. Hurry up! I’m supposed to do it every hour!”
“Men,” Thea says, laughing uncomfortably.
Becca shoots her a bemused look, darts into the kitchen, and returns with an oversized rag towel, and dabs at Thea’s hands, a look of disgust on her face. “You shouldn’t let him order you around like that.”
“He’s hurt,” Thea says defensively.
“Hmm.” Becca hands the towel to her mom. “There you go. We’re off to get wired. Want anything?”
Thea frowns and waves at us. She doesn’t approve of caffeine.
Lucky for us, a coffee place opened up a couple of blocks from Becca’s house earlier in the year, but we’ve hardly been there at all. We cover the two blocks in no time, everybody chattering at once about food, clothes, dance music, and of course, the unidentifiable mystery location that needs to be revealed.
The Endless Pot is a bad name for a coffeehouse, especially if teenagers go near it. The person who started the place must have had one too many cups of espresso is all I can think. But anyway, the place is nice, walls painted a dark bloodred, mismatched chairs and sofas left over from somebody’s garage sale, art on the walls, and a sleek black granite counter speckled with white paper fortunes born from discarded cookies. I think the owner used to run a Chinese restaurant and had to get rid of the cookies, because no matter what you order, you get one.
We get our drinks (and fortune cookies) and find a circle of ratty furniture to occupy. I get a ridiculously low gold brocade chair that makes it impossible to eat or drink without contorting my body into torturous positions.
Amber cracks open the cookie she gets with her double soy cappuccino, then unrolls the crinkly white paper. “Hmm. Says here that I am ‘well respected by my pears.’ ” She looks up over the soup bowl-sized blue mug, and says, “Guess that one should have been Shelby’s. She’s the vegetarian.”
Elisa is already munching her cookie, and has discarded the fortune. “Mine always says the same thing: Made in China.”
“You’re reading the wrong side.” Becca picks it up off the floor and shows her. “See? Yours actually says, ‘There were three bears, one died, the other was very bad.’ ”
Elisa stares at her, snatches the slip of paper, crumples it, and throws it back to the floor. “I think the other side makes more sense. That’s why I always read it.”
“Enough of this, ladies.” Becca sighs, sipping her iced coffee. “Location, remember? We need a place to hold our prom.”
“How about here?” Amber asks, gesturing at the pieces of abstract art in dazzling blue, garish red, and bio-hazard yellow. “This place has character.”
“If by character you mean art that would make Picasso puke, I agree. So no, that’s not going to work for most people. Besides, it’s way too small.” Becca leans against her leopard-printed sofa.
“Too small?” Elisa squeaks. “How many people do you think are going to come to this shindig?”
“At least three hundred,” Becca says breezily, as if she’s talking about a bowling team instead of a sizeable chunk of the school population.
As she says this, I am gracelessly trying to sip from my latte, but when I hear the number she has in mind, I just end up blowing steamed milk foam up my nose. As I blot it away, I say in a strangled voice, “Are you kidding? Are you delusional? Three hundred?”
Becca eyes me coldly. “Shelby, if you’re going to rain on my parade, you’d better bring a damn big umbrella.”
Everyone pauses, and Elisa says, “Becca, what did that mean, exactly?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve always wanted to say it. Now, let’s drink up and get the creative juices moving.”
Several coffees and trips to the bathroom later, we still have no brilliant ideas. “Maybe my fifth cookie will hold some ancient Chinese wisdom,” Evie says wryly, cracking open yet another dry, cardboardlike confection. “Yep. Here it is: ‘Look to your father for enlightenment and to drive a path out of the darkness.’ ” She balls it up and tosses it to the floor with all the others. “Somebody gets paid to write that crap. Can you believe it?”
While the other girls chatter, I notice a change in Becca’s expression. It’s the same maniacal gleam she always has when she gets an impossible idea. She sits up slowly, slowly sets her cup on the chipped wooden coffee table, and slams her hands down so hard the ceramic mugs shake in their little saucers. “I’ve got it!”
“I don
’t want it,” Elisa mumbles, rescuing her drink from certain sloshing.
“You’ve figured it out?” Evie asks eagerly. “The location?”
“Yes. ‘Look to your father for enlightenment and to drive a path out of the darkness.’ That’s it.” She gazes at each of us, expecting a cheer or at least a response of some kind. We all stare blankly. “Don’t you get it?”
Elisa clears her throat and says, “I think I speak for all of us when I say this, Becca. What the hell was in your coffee?”
Becca growls her most frustrated growl and puts her arms over her head, as if shielding her brain from the draining effects of hanging out with us morons. “God, it’s so obvious! Father, enlightenment, drive, path out of darkness . . .”
“A church? We’re going to have our prom in a church?” Amber asks doubtfully. “It would have to be one of those really liberal ones. Maybe the Unitarians—”
“No!” Becca jumps up, does a little happy dance (which is actually a pretty big happy dance since she’s taller than most people) and she starts chanting in a singsong voice, “The drive-in, the drive-in, the drive-in!” She sits back down abruptly as a cranky manager gives her a disapproving glare. “We can rent out the drive-in movie theater and do the screening of my dad’s crappy horror film, but instead of that being our fund-raiser, we have the geek prom there after the movie. It will be the event.”
Nobody says anything for a minute, since we’re all stunned at the impossibility of the task. Becca turns to Evie like an excited puppy and squeaks, “Isn’t it brilliant?”
Evie smiles, pushes up her dark-framed glasses, and says, “Um, yes. Brilliant. How in the bloody hell do you expect us to rent a drive-in movie theater and power it for several computers and video setups?”
Becca seems slightly deflated by reality, but still perky. “Okay, I guess there are some small details to work out,” she says as everyone else groans. “But I just know it’s a great idea. Picture it: Kids in funky formal wear moving under the stars on a huge dance floor surrounded by huge video monitors. Above it all is the white screen of the drive-in, where a first-time screening of a famous director’s horror film will start the evening. After that, the dance kicks in, and we have the whole thing catered with amazing food, and have an awesome DJ providing the tunes, maybe even a light show on the movie screen!” She leans back against the leopard cushions, a coffeehouse goddess in her own delusional world.
The rest of us share glances ranging in emotion from disbelief to panic. Becca notices our less-than-enthusiastic responses, purses her lips tightly, and huffs back against the sofa, disgusted. As the best friend, I guess it’s my duty to say what everyone else is thinking: “Becca, it’s a fantastic idea, but it’s not doable. Even if we all want to do it, there are so many things getting in the way. How would we rent a drive-in? How would we get the equipment and power to do the virtual prom? How could we decorate a gravel parking lot to look like the bayfront Hyatt? Who’s going to want to spend prom night shuffling through stones, old cigarette butts, and discarded Good & Plenty boxes? Drive-ins don’t exactly scream elegance.” The other girls are nodding, except for Evie, who glares at me. The truth hurts.
Becca, though, seems energized by my list of obstacles. “Is that all?” she squeals. “Oh, all that stuff is simple. Simple!”
“Really?” Elisa asks, amused. “Do you happen to have several thousand dollars sitting around doing nothing?”
“No,” Becca says proudly, “but my dad does.”
As the realization dawns on us, the temperature in the room changes noticeably, and it’s not just because a bunch of people ordered steamed milk drinks. Suddenly Amber is chattering, and Elisa is calculating, and Evie is animated, tapping on her laptop. I’m the only one who’s not blown away by the fact that Becca plans to tap her estranged dad for mass amounts of capital.
“So?” she asks, gesturing to me. “Now are you on board?”
What do I say to that? Here’s what’s going on in my head: Fletcher kissed me, I’m still kind of tingly, I don’t want to have a fight with him, and I was counting on not being able to pay for Becca’s grand scheme; I figured that at some point, it would fizzle out, and that would be that. She’s apparently broken up with Carl, which means any move on my part to be friendly to Fletcher will be seen as treason. My best friend status is already in jeopardy because of kangaroo girl, so I can’t risk going against Becca on this unless I’m okay with losing her friendship. The whole lack of money thing was totally going to save me from any of this. And now Melvin is screwing up my life with his movie millions. I knew I didn’t like him.
That whole internal conversation really doesn’t take as long as it seems, because a second or two later Becca is still glaring expectantly at me, waiting for a response. “Uh . . .” is what I say. I’m very eloquent under pressure.
“What does that mean, ‘uh?’ Are you helping us or not?” She folds her arms across her chest, defying me to defy her.
“Uh . . .” I say again. I realize this won’t work a third time, but I’m still hoping some brilliant idea will strike my brain. Think, think, think little cerebral cortex. Pay for all that space you take up between my ears! Before I am aware of it, I say, “Of course I’m on board. Duh.” Way to go, brain. You’re dumber than I thought. I may have to evict you and send you to live on the street with all the other useless globs of gray matter, with your little cardboard brain suitcase filled with all the memories of things we used to do together. I’ll miss you.
With Melvin’s money fueling the project, I guess Geek Prom will be a success. My role is still unclear, of course; I feel an overwhelming need to have a heart-to-heart with my robot. Or my dad. I excuse myself and head for the bathroom, call my dad on the cell, and wait for him to pick up. “Hi. What’s up?”
“Can you come get me? I’m at the coffee shop by Becca’s house and I really need a ride home. I need to talk to you.” I don’t mention that I considered confiding in Euphoria first. No need to be hurtful.
“Conflict within the ranks?” he asks, laughing.
“Sort of. Can you come get me?” I glance around the pillar separating the bathroom waiting area from the rest of the place, to see if they’re still gabbing and congratulating each other, which they are. They don’t even notice I’m gone, really.
“I suppose. Want to go get some food?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be there in about fifteen.” The line clicks dead. I flip the phone shut and tuck it back into my pocket. I put on my best disappointed face and return to the gaggle of schemers.
“Wow, what happened in the bathroom?” Elisa asks. “You look so sad.”
“My dad called. I have to go home, so he’s picking me up in about fifteen minutes.” I try to look disappointed as I plop back down into the hip-sucking gold brocade.
“The dance floor should be elegant-looking, maybe that wooden panel stuff that clicks together,” Amber is saying as she stirs whipped cream into her drink. “And we need some good lighting, too. Decorations. Should it be a theme, or just classy?”
“How classy can you make a drive-in?” I blurt out. Stupid brain again, saying what it thinks.
Becca bristles a bit at my naysaying. “With the right lighting and decorations, anything can look great. I was reading this magazine about entertaining, and—”
“Whoa. You were reading a magazine about entertaining?” I choke on what’s left of the dusty fortune cookie I’d been gnawing on.
“I was in the eye doctor’s waiting room,” she says defensively. “The point is, they had a story in there about this guy who threw parties all over the world, in these really obscure locations. One was in Beijing, China, and he rented part of the Great Wall.”
“Thank God you didn’t suggest that,” Elisa grumbles.
Becca ignores her. “Anyway, the guy rented part of the Great Wall, brought up a string quartet, a generator, sheep roasting on a spit, crystal tablecloths and silverware, fine wine, and it was
the most elegant thing ever, right in the middle of this ancient, crusty stone ruin.”
“Ruins have class,” Elisa says. “They have that history thing going for them. Drive-ins are mostly associated with dancing popcorn and getting groped by the football team.” Everyone kind of stares at her, and she blushes. “Not like I know from firsthand experience or anything.”
“My point is we’ll have as much money as we need to make it fantastic.” Becca stares up at the ceiling intently. “I wonder if there’s a way to hang a chandelier if you don’t have a roof?”
“Are you sure about the money thing?” Amber asks hesitantly, wary of getting her head cut off for being a party pooper. “Have you asked your dad about it? What if he says no?”
Becca laughs her donkey honk laugh and slaps the back of the leopard sofa, which emits a cloud of antique dust and scone crumbs. “Are you kidding? He is so wanting to buy me off. I could ask him for an island in the South Pacific and he’d ask how big.” I think I see a fleeting hint of insecurity cross her face, but then it’s gone. “Don’t worry about that. He’s trying to get back with my mom, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to weasel his way back into the family.”
“And you intend to soak him for all he’s worth?” Elisa asks, shaking her head. “Sounds very Brady Bunch.”
Becca fumes a bit at the comment, but then comes out of it quickly enough. After another ten minutes of delusional chatter, I see my dad’s Volvo pull up outside the coffee shop, so I choose that moment to depart before I get asked to give an opinion that might get me in trouble. “So, I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” Becca asks, rising to walk me out.
“Yeah, I guess.” I bolt ahead of her, hoping we won’t have time for a one-on-one conversation.
“Hey.” She touches my shoulder as we reach the door, and turns me around to face her. “What’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?” I wave to my dad as if I know he’s pressed for time.
“I mean,” she says, getting closer and whispering slightly, “that you are doing everything you can to avoid having anything to do with this. Is it because of Fletcher? You can tell me.” Her eyes are all sympathy.
