by Anne Hansen
“Sweetie, he won’t be able to take his eyes off of you,” David sighs. He twirls his index finger, instructing me to spin.
I do.
I spin like I haven’t spun since I was a little girl playing dress-up in my mother’s closet. I spin and the fabric lifts and falls like a shimmering dream around me.
“It’s like wearing stardust,” I breathe, looking over my shoulder into the full-length mirror. “Like wearing...moonlight.”
David purses his lips, holds up his phone, and snaps a picture, the thousandth one of the night. “That’s the most dramatic way of saying, ‘This silver dress is pretty’ I could have imagined. You do look like a goddess. And I love your hyperbole.”
My skin tingles like every nerve ending is electrified. “No. No exaggeration. This is the most beautiful dress in the world.”
David comes behind me and squeezes my shoulder, kisses my cheek, and taps me on the head with a sparkling lavender wand that’s sitting on his dresser. “Vin Moretti won’t know what hit him.”
I suck in a breath. “I don’t know. Vin is...he’s been…really distant.”
“Right,” he says, switching the wand out for a cane with a silver ram’s head handle that’s leaned against his desk. “So typical. There you are, right in front of his face, but it’s like he just can’t see you. That’s why we covered you in stardust. He’d have to be blind to not notice when you come in like a shooting star.” He shivers and rolls his eyes. “That was beautiful. And ridiculous. Your utter nonsense is rubbing off on me. I both love it and am deeply embarrassed.”
I wrap my arms around David’s neck and breathe his delicious cologne in. “I love you so much.”
“Ditto, beautiful,” he whispers. “Come on, Cinderella. We can’t let the ball start without you.”
For all his usual drama and costuming, David looks very understated in his navy suit and gleaming silver silk tie. He leads me to the driveway where his father’s 1969 Pontiac GTO waits like a growling, gorgeous shark of a car. David drags his fingers over the gleaming red paint reverently.
I catch my breath, the old desire to get behind the wheel and drive fast and free rearing up in my heart. I guess I’m way more my mother’s daughter than I ever thought.
“Isn’t she sex on four wheels?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for my answer. Because he doesn’t need to hear it. No sane person with eyes would think this car was anything but… “The perfect carriage for a fairytale princess. M’lady?”
I take David’s hand and let him help me into the soft leather seat. “Thank you.”
He leans against the roof of the car and looks down at me. “Thank you for being the very first real live person to wear a David Lombardi original,” he says, giving me a smile that takes my breath away. “When I see you look like this in a dress I made, I know I’m going to make it in fashion someday. I know it.”
“I know it, too, David.”
I watch him walk back to the driver’s side with a jaunt in his step. When he gets in, he turns the ignition on and says, “Let’s go tear the dance floor apart. We only have a few months left at Eastside, and I think we should enjoy every single second before we jump into the big, gorgeous world out there and never look back.”
I smile, but there’s a weird clenching low down in my stomach that probably has everything to do with the stress that’s been building up to a boiling point around me. My father has made it his mission in life to point out why I’d be better off without Vin. He thinks he’s being very subtle, but the constant talks about ‘choosing a better crowd’ and ‘keeping my goals for the future’ are clearly about Vin.
And, the thing is, I know my father loves me. I know he’s going to see any guy I bring home as not good enough. And I love Vin. But I’ve been wondering if I really am closing my eyes to the problems that are right in front of my face.
The night I was stranded in Grantham Park, the cop asked him about the car he was driving not having plates. He told me it was a car he was transporting for the shop, but told her it was a birthday gift.
I knew he’d stolen cars before, and I knew he had to finish things off for his uncle, but I guess it all seemed like concepts before I saw the shiny metal of the car right in front of me. Who did it belong to? How had it messed up that person’s life to come home to find something of theirs stolen?
Even if whoever it belonged to had the money and insurance to replace it, that’s not an excuse to steal. The thing is, Vin never wants to let me know anything about what he does for his uncle or why. I was going to ask him about that car, but he showed up at my house with a swollen lip. He said he walked into an open cabinet.
I wonder if it was his uncle.
“Penny for your thoughts?” David says.
I twist my hands in my lap. “What if someone you love did something…illegal?” I ask.
I watch one of David’s eyebrows creep up high on his forehead. “Are we going to pretend this is purely hypothetical?”
“Please,” I whisper.
“First of all, I come from a long line of criminals. My uncles are in a pretty bad gang back in Sicily, basically like mobsters. My great-grandparents were bootleggers. And I’m pretty sure my aunt sells painkillers she swipes from work. How else can a nurse afford the Jimmy Choos she wears out dancing with her boy-toys?” He looks over at me. “As far as I see it, there’s illegal and there’s immoral.”
“What’s the difference?” I ask, watching the streetlights whizz by out the window.
“Illegal covers a whole lot of things, Keira. I mean, driving a car too fast is illegal. And I get it. It can hurt someone. It can create chaos. But if I found out someone had a few speeding tickets, I wouldn’t kick him to the curb.” He clears his throat. “On the other hand, there’s shit that’s just straight-up immoral. No question. That would be the big stuff. Rape, hurting kids, violence on innocent people…the stuff that makes you a filthy human. If you cross the line to immoral, I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
I can’t help laughing at David’s colorful figurative language. “Okay. Say it’s not immoral in the hurting people way. But it’s worse than a speeding ticket.”
“Ah.” David pulls up at Eastside, which is already buzzing with girls in colorful dresses and guys in tuxes and suits, all smiling, kissing, jumping around, snapping pictures. There’s an energy flying around that I can feel here in the car. “Then you’re in the vast gray area where there are no hard and fast rules.”
I let out a long sigh. “That doesn’t help.”
“Could you forgive whatever this completely anonymous mystery person has done?” David asks, turning to look at me with his eyes narrowed. “Or would you look back all your long life together and judge him for doing what he did?”
“I could forgive,” I decide. “If he stopped. That’s the problem. What if he can’t stop?”
David gets out of the car, comes to my side, and opens the door. He holds his hand out to take mine and pulls me close when I step out. “Then he’s an idiot who doesn’t realize he’s throwing away his one chance to be with the best girl in the world.”
“Thank you.” I kiss his cheek and hold his hand tight.
He smiles, then scans the crowd and crows, “There she is!”
Lily hears his voice and turns. I gasp.
“David, did you…?”
“Make her dress?” His smile is smug. “Isn’t it dreamy? Kind of Cleopatra meets Chanel. And green is so Lily’s spirit color. She looks happy with that lug from the football team, doesn’t she?” he muses.
We both watch as she drags the smitten linebacker in a suit that’s slightly too small along behind her. It was a toss-up to the very last second, whether or not she’d get the nerve to ask him out, and we spent many lunches telling her to just ask him already. “Almost makes me forgive her for not driving over with us,” David murmurs.
“Keira! You look amazing!” Lily gushes.
“No, you look amazing. Like a goddes
s.” I notice her date can’t take his eyes off her. She’s radiating happiness.
“Thank you. Um, the DJ set up early, so there’s already a pretty packed dance floor. You guys in?” She points to David and me.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t even ask that question.” David spins neatly on his heels as Lily cheers. “Let’s blow this shit up.”
“C’mon, Keira!” Lily calls, but I shake my head and tell them I’ll be there in a minute.
Vin agreed to meet me, but every time I tried to talk to him about details, the conversation turned to how much he’s screwed up, how I’d be better off without him. After a while, I started to avoid him entirely just to keep from arguing with him all day…and myself all night.
I walk around the parking lot, the chilly night air breaking my skin into goosebumps. Couples are wandering here and there, trying to avoid the chaperones who stick their heads out now and then and call them back in. There are a few whiffs of cigarette smoke coming from the wall that leads to the gymnasium, and a few whiffs of something stronger than cigarettes coming from the bushes that border the football field. The beat of the music pounds from inside and gets my hips swaying.
I don’t see him at first, but once I do, I realize he’s been there the whole time, watching me.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask so softly I’m not sure he hears.
Vin steps out of the shadows, and I catch my breath. He’s wearing a dark suit jacket that fits his wide shoulders like a glove, a crisp white shirt, dark pants and his combat boots, all shined up. His tie is knotted off-kilter, slightly messy but very charming, just like him. I walk up to him and adjust his tie with sure fingers, as I sneak a deep whiff of the smell I love—crisp cologne and something on his skin that’s just pure male.
“I love watching you,” he says, one hand on my hip, the other on the back of my neck. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in my life.” His eyes rake up and down my body, and I feel my blood rush through my veins.
“You clean up pretty nice yourself.” I grab at the lapels of his jacket. “So, are you off tonight?”
His mouth goes hard and his hands slide down over my wrists. “You act like I have some kind of real, reputable job, Keira. I never have days off from the kind of shit I do.”
“Can we not talk about work tonight, then?” I ask.
Sure, it’s stupid to turn a blind eye, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know if Vin will change. And, whether he will or not, I love him. Tonight I just want to be a carefree high school senior in love. Is that too much to ask?
“I have to tell you—”
I put my fingers over his lips and shake my head. “No. No talking. I want to dance. Please.”
He glances around and frowns, but I drag him in before he can come up with some other reason to not have fun.
Which is sad. Because this summer, I decided Vin was the funnest guy I’d ever met, hands down. I’d never laughed so loud or so long with anyone before. A few weeks ago, I felt like that old Vin was coming back to me, and I was sure things were going to be okay again.
Then he started pulling away, and now here we are, at the edge of something that scares me more than anything in my life ever has, and all I want to do is forget it all and dance.
Just dance.
I drag him into the bigger gymnasium on the west side of the school, which has been completely covered in crepe paper, foil-covered stars, and mirrorball lights. Sure, it still smells like floorwax, but it’s sort of magical, how transformed it all is.
The song we walk in on is fast and crazy, and Lily and David are in the middle of the floor dancing like their lives depend on it. I know Vin can dance because I got him to at Silver Poplars, but he digs his heels in when I try to pull him onto the floor.
“Dance with me,” I plead, tugging on his hand.
“I need to tell you—”
“Less talking, more dancing,” I joke.
He gives me an embarrassed smile. “I don’t dance, Keira.”
“Of course you dance. You forget that I was with you all summer. You were a dancing fool then. Remember?”
I want him to laugh. I want him to let go of this whole tortured badass thing and be that guy he was when I first met him, so full of life and passion. The guy I fell madly in love with. But he doesn’t laugh…he doesn’t even look happy.
His eyes are sad. He gives me a half-hearted smile. “Right. Okay.”
He follows me to the center of the floor, but it feels like a hollow victory. He dances, sure, but it’s clear he’s not into it, and that breaks my heart more than all the lies, all the pulling back and negativity we’ve been juggling the last few weeks.
It must be really bad if he can’t even fake this to make me happy for one night.
The quick, pulsing tempo stops and the strains of a sweet love song fill the room.
It hits me like a bucket of ice cold water. This is the same song that crackled over the radio of his crappy truck as we sat in the bed watching fireflies blink gold over our heads this summer.
“If you could change any one thing in your life, what would you change?” I linked my fingers through his.
He held our hands up, untangled our fingers and curved his hand into a ‘c’ shape, silhouetted by the moon. I did the same, and, where our hands met up, it made a lopsided heart.
“That’s a tough question.” He dragged me into his arms and kissed along my neck, over my tank top strap, under my tank top strap. His fingers distracted me from what I’d just asked him.
“No fair.” I wiggled away from him. “You’re distracting me. Answer the question.”
“Okay. Any one thing?” He took my hand and kissed me on the palm. “I wish I’d met you when I was young. Me and my brother are different. He was always good, steady, hardworking. I was always more wild. Cared more what other people thought of me. Did crazy shit. I think if I met you, you would’ve been all I cared about. And I would have been more like Dom. Dependable.”
I laughed and rolled on top of him. “Maybe I like you wild.”
“Then I guess I wouldn’t change a thing.” He teased his hands up and down my thighs, making me shiver all over again. “How about you? Anything you’d change?”
I was quiet for a few long seconds before I tumbled on top of him and held on for dear life. “I’d want my mother back. She would have loved you. She was wild too. Strong. Passionate. I guess it’s a weird thing to say, but you remind me of her so much in some ways.”
An embarrassed burn worked its way from my scalp, down my cheekbones, and over my neck. What had possessed me to say something so bizarre to this big, strong tough guy?
But Vin smiled so wide, his teeth glinted in the moonlight. “That’s the nicest compliment anyone’s ever given me. I know how much she meant to you. I know how much you wish she was here. And I know nothing will ever take away the pain of losing her, but she’d be so damn proud of the woman you’ve become.”
The tears poured fast and heavy down my cheeks as I kissed the lips of the guy I knew, without a doubt, would be my one and only love.
The memory smashes over me so quickly, I half expect to look up and see a navy blue sky full of stars. Instead I look at the waving strands of blue crepe paper hanging from the rafters.
How did it turn from all that passion, all that love, to this? This is just a pale shadow of what we once had. What Vin promised me would be real.
It finally dawns on me that this has zero chance of working if Vin won’t hold up his end.
I back up when he tries to take me in his arms. “It’s okay. This was a dumb idea. Tonight. This whole thing. I’m sorry.”
I turn on my glittering heels and walk fast, past David and Lily, who try to stop me, out the wrong door and into the dim hall that leads to the band room. I turn in a circle, completely out of sorts, and Vin catches me in his arms.
“Keira, wait,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t want to do this this way. I didn�
��t want to let you—”
“Let me what?” I ask, and I want to march away from his embrace. Instead I find myself putting my hand on his arm, leaning my head on his shoulder. “Let me get close to you again? Let me in? Let me help you?”
“You have helped me. You’ve changed my life, Keira. You’ve got to realize that.” The music spills into the hall and he cradles me against his body, swaying in time with the song. He nuzzles my neck and laughs a little. The sound loosens something deep in me. “I never danced before you.”
I ball my hands into fists around the lapels of his suit jacket, then give up. When I’m with him, my willpower is shot. I wrap my arms around him and sway with the rhythm.
“Do you even like dancing?”
“Only with you.” He kisses my temple, and that sweet gesture somehow means more than all the wild, sexy kisses we’ve exchanged in the last few weeks.
“Why are we so far apart?” I ask, not sure he’ll understand.
“Because you’ve got no fear when it comes to me. I’m like a ticking time bomb, and you’re the only one not running for cover.” His hands move up my back, along my arms, his lips brush over mine as the music swells. “It would be better if you backed away.”
“Why would I ever be afraid of the person I love most?” I ask.
He groans and shakes his head. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not scared to say what I feel.” I pull him closer, tighter. “I’m not scared, but I’m tired of being with someone who is. I’ve given you time. I’ve given you space. You need to give me some hope that I’m not fooling myself here.”
“Damn it. Fuck,” he whispers. He yanks me close and kisses me, his mouth rough and fast over mine.
I arch into his hard body and kiss back. It’s a good kiss, a kiss that’s edged with raw adrenaline, but there’s something raw and urgent about it.
Something that makes it feel like this kiss is delivering a good-bye I’m not ready for.
His hands run over my body, catching on the silky silver of my dress and heating my skin under the fabric. I press my fingers against the stiff fabric of his suit, trying to push back until I find skin. I want to peel everything between us away and go back to that primal place where it’s just the two of us, nothing in the way, nothing hidden.
