21 Proms

by David Levithan

  We walked into the men’s room just as half the football team was peeing out the beers they’d tailgated. I thought, We really shouldn’t be doing this. But Dutch’s boldness carried me on. He held my hand and opened the stall door as if it was the door to Cinderella’s carriage. When he closed it and locked it behind us, I could hear the jeers. One of the guys pounded on the door, and I jumped. Dutch looked ready to start fighting … but soon the jeers faded. The football players left. Other people came in, but they had no idea what we were up to — not unless they looked down and saw the two pairs of legs.

  This time we just kissed and groped, and it was almost like the beginning. Only it didn’t feel like the beginning, because I knew the beginning had passed a long time ago. Dutch was murmuring how hot I was, how great I was, how cool this was. Usually I could lose myself in that for hours. Usually that was how I knew I was okay. That being me, that doing this, was okay. I loved that he said these things, and I loved that when I was with him I could believe they were true. Which is different from loving him. But in some ways more powerful.

  There was a spot on his back that caused him to shiver whenever I touched it a certain way. I loved that, too. I loved knowing his body that well. But it only worked when we were lying down, relaxed, quiet. When we were pressing against each other in a bathroom stall, there wasn’t that kind of vulnerability, that kind of control. It was like we were now one thing, and everything outside the stall was another. As opposed to when we were truly alone together — then we were each one thing, and the wonder came from combining the two.

  After a while our mouths and hands took their usual course. When we emerged from the stall, this kid I’d been friends with in seventh grade — Hector — was at the sink, washing his hands. He looked in the mirror and saw us emerge. And then he shook his head, as if to say, What a waste. And I thought, You asshole. I turned back to Dutch and gave him a long, hard kiss, right in that mirror. Us against the world.

  Here’s the thing — even if it was just sex, even if he didn’t say “I love you,” even if I knew it wouldn’t last, you have to understand that I would have been alone without him. I would have been so alone.

  I held his hand as we went back into the ballroom. I couldn’t get him as far as the dance floor, but we found friends to talk to, joke with, tease and be teased by. I could see a few teachers and administrators wanting to say something to us about our clothing choice, but as long as we held hands, it was like we were invincible. When the prom queen and prom king were announced, I half-expected it to be us. I was a little disappointed when it wasn’t, because I would’ve liked nothing more than to have walked on stage with Dutch, to give him that royal kiss in front of the whole school, to prove that we’d been here, unafraid.

  The DJ announced that there was only one more song until the prom song, and that couples should reunite and head for the dance floor. Dutch looked over at the DJ, then grinned and sparkled even wider. He held me by the hand and led me in the direction of the dance floor. Then, just as we were about to get there, he pulled me to the side, into the shadows. He pointed, and I saw what he’d found — a small crawl space under the stage, beneath the music. “Come on,” he said, hunching down, heading inside. I followed.

  It was a maze of dust and wires and reverb. There was barely enough room to sit upright, so Dutch stretched out on the floor, staring up as if the bottom of the stage was full of stars. I crawled next to him, and he immediately rolled on his side and kissed me. His hand ran over my back, then down below my waistband.

  The first sounds of “In Your Eyes” came through — the drum and the bell, the steady heartbeat. And then Peter Gabriel’s first words — Love, I get so lost sometimes. I heard them so deeply at that moment. Even though Dutch was pressing into me. Even though I was turned on and warm and with him … I thought to myself, I’m missing something. I stopped kissing Dutch back, and the minute I stopped kissing him back, he knew it and he stopped kissing me. But he didn’t pull away. He didn’t let go. Instead he pulled back enough to see me. To read me. And I stared back at him, daring him not to move. I thought it again — I’m missing something. A few feet away, couples were dancing to their prom song, holding each other tight. I was missing that. And at the same time, I was here, under the stage, being held in this different way. Looking into his eyes. Having him look into my eyes. Staying quiet. Just watching. Feeling our breath, his hand still on the small of my back, on the skin. I realized I would always be missing something. That no matter what I did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn’t miss meant more to me than the things I missed. I had to think about what I wanted, outside of the heat of wanting.

  I had no idea whether Dutch noticed any of this, or what he was thinking. When the song was over, we made sure we’d been hanging in the moment before a kiss, not in the moment after one. Then we crawled back out from under the stage and walked back to our friends. I forgot to hold his hand.

  Later that night when we were naked in my basement, naked afterward, he said it to me. And even though it was too late, I didn’t say, “No, you don’t.” Instead I kissed him once, quietly. Then we lay there, and I let time pass.

  The Great American Morp

  by John Green

  Generally, I prefer floors to beds. I remember when I was about five, I’d been sleeping on the plush carpet of my old bedroom for thirty days in a row when I asked my mom, “Do you think I can set the world record for sleeping on the floor?”

  And she said, “Maggie, there are a lot of people who sleep their whole lives on the floor.” For about a week, I was really pissed off at all the world’s homeless and/or bedless for stealing my world record.

  I was not a shining example of human excellence as a five-year-old, is what I’m saying. But I’ve made tremendous progress.

  So I’m lying on the floor reading Moby-Dick just for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of reading about what has to be the longest and most metaphorical whale hunt in all of history. Or possibly because it’s the topic of my AP English final — the last paper I will ever write in my high school career.

  My mom comes in.

  “Maggie,” she says.

  And I say, “Yeah?”

  And she says, “What would you say if I told you that me and Dad were gonna be the photographers at your prom?”

  Usually in this situation I’d correct her grammar, but — oh, sweet holy Lord. Not my parents. Not taking prom pictures. My parents. These are people who think the world’s funniest joke is to tell photographic subjects to say Cheez Whiz rather than cheese. Don’t get me wrong: They’re great photographers, and I’m glad that they’re good enough at it to put a roof over my head and everything. But not prom.

  So I say, “No.”

  And she says, “Well, but, sweetie. The original photographers have another commitment, so we’re gonna cover for them. It’ll be fun! And also it pays well. With you about to go off to college …”

  I don’t say anything, and then after some more hemming and hawing and it-will-be-funning, she leaves. Immediately, I call Carly.

  “My parents are the new prom photographers,” I announce.

  “Oh, God,” Carly says. “I can’t go. Oh, God. I’m not going.” You know your parents are genuinely and truly horrible when your friends find them embarrassing.

  “I’m not going either,” I say. “I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

  Carly says, “I’d rather be Cleopatra and get bitten on the boob by a cobra.”

  “I’d rather spend months chasing after a fat white metaphor and then have that metaphor crash into my boat and kill me,” I say.

  “I’d rather wear a scarlet A to school every day,” she says.

  “I’d rather throw myself under a Russian train,” I say.

  And then she says, “I’d rather
— uh, I’d rather spend a month on a raft with Huck Finn?”

  And I say, “Yeah, but that doesn’t make sense because you’d love to do that.”

  “True. He’s such a dirty-boy-with-a-big-heart — all naughty and troubled and cute and tan.”

  “God, we are so cool. And by cool, I mean retarded.”

  “So we just won’t go,” Carly says after a moment. “Although that will mean turning down all of our many gentlemen callers.” This is entirely a joke for me — I’ve had about three gentleman callers in my life, and that’s only if you consider my second-grade boyfriend, Robby “The Dirt Eater” Reynolds, a gentleman. But Carly is the cutest not-horrible girl in our school — by which I mean that unlike most of the girls who guys like, Carly does not go home every night and jill off to the thought of buying a Juicy Couture bag.

  The next morning before school, I’m sitting on the steps leading to the band room (I play the clarinet, and I so don’t give a shit whether anyone thinks that’s lame). I’m gulping Diet Mountain Dew in a vain attempt to awaken when Carly walks up and says, “We’re going to have a Morp.”

  And I say, “A Morp?”

  And she says, “It’s a backwards prom.”

  I look at her blankly for a second and then say, “So, like, you lose your virginity and then go to a dance?”

  Carly laughs. She always gets really into laughing — throwing back her head and pushing her shoulders back. Carly has a very loud laugh and is not entirely immune to laugh-snorts, but with her shoulders back like that, it’s hard to notice anything except her unfairly good body. Like, I have always believed that God ought to give you either boobs or natural thinness. It is completely ridiculous for God to give both to, say, Carly, and then give neither to, say, me. I realize that as divine injustice goes, this is minor stuff, but still.

  “No, dumb ass. It’s a party instead of prom. We’ll only have people we like, and we’ll all dress up hilarious and we’ll just have a party. No ridiculous theme, no hideous dresses, no DJ with a mullet, and no professional photographers. It’s like prom, except without all the things that suck about prom.”

  The first-period bell rings, and I follow Carly through the door, asking, “Yeah, but where would we have a Morp? I believe the Sheraton ballroom is already booked.”

  We stop in the middle of a hallway, bodies all around us, pushing toward class, and Carly smiles and says, “Well, I hear your parents will be away for the evening,” and before I can even say no, Carly spins around and heads off toward class. I turn in the opposite direction, off to the nonstop joy ride that is French III. My main problem with French is that it has always fallen during first period and, as it happens, I can’t listen during first period.

  “Maggie, que ce porterez-vous au bal d’étudiants?” asks Monsieur Johnson, staring at me. But if he’s talking to me, I wonder, why is he speaking French? Surely by now he has noticed that I don’t speak or understand the language.

  “Uh,” I say. “Uh. Je ne sais pas.” No American can say “I don’t know” in French with the subtle and sophisticated accent I’ve managed to capture. It is the only sentence I know, but God — I know it well.

  Anyway, it turns out that Monsieur Johnson is asking me what I’ll be wearing to prom, which I figure out because prime prom king candidate Jesse Burns, who is, I’ll admit, kind of good-looking in that I’ve-got-a-nice-jawline-and-not-too-much-muscle-but-enough-believe-me-although-man-am-I-ever-dumb kind of way, answers the same question by saying, “Uh, a tooxado? A tuxeedah? Comment tu-dis, like, tuxedo?”

  I ridicule Jesse, but let’s face it — he’s better at French than I am. I scribble a note in my notebook:

  C,

  Hypothetical question: If Jesse Burns asked you to prom, would you still rather have a Morp or would you leave me languishing at home while you offered the esteemed Mr. Burns your cherished maidenhead?

  Luv,

  Mags

  I’m standing in line for pizza at 10:48 that morning — because for reasons that only God truly understands, school believes that it’s perfectly acceptable to start lunch before 11:00 a.m. Someone bumps the back of my knee and I buckle forward for a second and then turn around scowling and it’s Tyler Trumpet, whose real last name I don’t know, but he plays the trumpet in our band and also plays bass in a punk band called Screw You Aunt Franny that Carly likes a lot.

  “Jesus, sorry, Maggie.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, not thinking much about it either way.

  And he says, “Carly said you’re having a party.”

  “She seems to think so,” I say.

  “Yeah. On prom night?” Tyler is the kind of guy who says things as questions when he could just say them as statements.

  “That’s right.”

  “She said I should come?”

  “Oh, yeah, you should,” I say, “although I’m not totally sure we’ve decided to even have a Morp.”

  And Tyler says, “Well, if you do, we could play the party.”

  “Play the party?”

  “Screw You Aunt Franny?” Tyler says/asks. I should add here that Tyler is cute, in that My-hair-is-always-in-my-face-and-I-can’t-look-directly-into-your-eyes-because-it’s-like-staring-at-the-sun-but-then-occasionally-you’ll-see-how-blue-my-eyes-are-and-that’ll-make-you-slightly-gooey-although-who-cares-because-I-can’t-bring-myself-to-speak-declarative-sentences-let-alone-have-a-decent-conversation-with-you kind of way.

  “I will take it under consideration,” I say, and then Carly walks up and stands next to me and says, “Hey, Tyler,” and he says, “Hey,” and she says, “Can I cut?” and he says, “Sure.”

  And then she says to me, “Did Tyler tell you about Screw You Aunt Franny?”

  And I say, “I don’t think we can really have a band. I mean, my parents are only going to be gone for, like, five hours at the most.”

  And Tyler says, “Well, we only know twelve songs.”

  Carly presses a folded piece of paper against my hand. When Tyler turns around to talk to some other band kids, I unfold the paper and read it quickly.

  M,

  Funny you should mention that, Nostradamus: Jesse Burns cornered me by my locker after second period and asked me to prom. I told him I was sorry, but I had a Morp to attend.

  C

  I stare at Carly. “No shit?” I ask.

  And she says, “Well, he told you, right? That’s why the note.”

  “No. He didn’t tell me. He’s never even spoken to me. The question just popped into my head.”

  “Dude, you’re psychic. What am I thinking right now?”

  “I can’t believe you rejected Jesse Burns.”

  We’re at the front of the line finally, and I’m handed two slices of pizza with green peppers. The peppers make it good for you, see. Vegetables. Finally, Carly says, “That wasn’t what I was thinking. I was thinking that, man, we had better have one hell of a good Morp now, or else I’ll be, like, a forty-year-old lady working in a convenience store smoking Virginia Slims and I’ll be all, like, ‘Everything woulda been different if only I’d gone to prom with that Jesse Burns.’”

  Honestly — and this is about the darkest secret I can imagine — I probably would have said yes to Jesse Burns. I just don’t think I could have stopped myself. But that’s why Carly’s a superstar and I’m … me. And being me is neither particularly easy nor particularly hard. It just is. Put it this way: I’ve done lights for all the school’s plays this year. I sit there, in the dark, and my job is to put the spotlight on other people.

  Two weeks after her initial Morp inspiration and five days before the actual prom, Carly shows up outside the band room one morning before school. I’m sitting on the steps talking to a couple girls, and Carly hands me this note:

  M,

  Okay, here’s my grocery list so far: chips, soda, air horn, plastic
cups, paper plates, napkins, and raw materials for world’s funniest Morp dress. Am I missing anything?

  C

  “Air horn?” I ask.

  And she says, “Yeah. Haven’t you always wanted an air horn?”

  “Not really,” I say, but I’m not sure she even hears me because the air horn that is the first-period bell goes off right as I start to talk, and I’m drowned out. I head to French III, write up a note of some other things we might need, and then give it to Carly. She’s doing the shopping, since I’m doing the hosting. We’ve already made a guest list that numbers fifteen people, counting the three members of Screw You Aunt Franny, and sent out photocopied handwritten invites:

  Dear (insert your name here),

  Carly and I feel that you don’t suck, so you are cordially invited to attend the Great American Morp, Saturday night, at Maggie’s house (2246 Leu Road), beginning at exactly 8:12 PM. There will be a prize for most hilarious costume. That prize will be seven minutes in the closet with Carly. Aww, yeah. We’re going sixth grade on y’all.

  Truth or Dare,

  Maggie and Carly

  A couple people immediately tell us that they probably won’t come. So I’m vaguely worried that our Morp will consist entirely of Carly and me sitting around talking and watching TV and eating a shit ton of Doritos, but that would be okay. Better, certainly, than putting on a dress that makes me appear to have been attacked by a gigantic blue Christmas present (bow and all), and then having my dateless prom picture taken by my parents.

  The Thursday before the Morp, Mom and Dad are watching this crime show on TV they like, and I sit down on the living room floor in the middle of it. Then, during the commercials, I say, “I might have a couple friends over on prom night,” which is a technically true statement.