21 Proms

by David Levithan

  And Dad says, “Are you sure you don’t want to go? It’s a night you never forget, prom.”

  My mom looks askew at him and says, “Didn’t you get stood up by Suzie Spears?”

  Dad smirks. “And I never forgot it.”

  “Right, so I’m not going,” I say. “But a couple other girls who aren’t going might just hang out here and watch a movie or something.”

  “No drinking,” says my dad, and I just laugh. I like the idea of drinking fine, but in practice it never works for me. Beer tastes like carbonated pee, wine tastes like spoiled grapes and gives me a headache, and anything harder than that tastes like dragon breath.

  “No house messing up,” my mom says.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell them. “Nobody would ever come to my house looking for a crazy-fun party.”

  This prophecy seems to be coming true on Saturday afternoon. Carly drives over — keeping her supplies in her trunk so my parents won’t know the scope of the get-together Carly’s hoping for — and we spend the day making our Morp dresses. Mine involves black leggings and this hideous but great-fitting dress I got at a thrift store. The dress is a swirly mess of colors, but it doesn’t matter because I’m slowly covering it with small squares of yellow and black duct tape. I’m going to the Morp as the world’s most beautiful duct tape honeybee.

  And Carly? When she gets into my room, she closes the door behind her, tosses her backpack onto the bed, and unzips it. She dumps out a plain black summer dress, glue, two dental floss containers, and somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred condoms. “It’s a condom dress,” she explains. “Because the Morp is all about safe sex. So, yeah. What I’m doing is I’m using a little hole punch to put two holes in each wrapper, and then I thread the floss through it two ways, and then because that actually doesn’t work that well, you glue each condom to the dress as you go. It’s kinda, um, time consuming.”

  “Um, where did you get all those condoms?”

  “They’re free at the health center at Rollins,” she says, which is this college close to Carly’s house. “They keep them in this wicker basket in the entryway. So every day after school for the last three weeks, I walked in, grabbed, like, two handfuls of condoms, and walked out.”

  “They didn’t look at you funny?”

  “Not really. I mean, I did begin to worry that the nurses were back there talking about the girl who has sex thirty-seven times a day, but whatever.”

  My dress is done within an hour, but even with two full-time condom seamstresses, we don’t get Carly’s finished until seven, partly because we have to hide it under the bed every time we hear parental footsteps approaching my door. But once we are finished, the dress looks amazing. I carefully hold it up and she slithers into it. There are still hints of the black summer dress, particularly near the neckline and the hem at her knees, but Carly is mostly condoms.

  My parents leave at seven-thirty, whereupon Carly and I immediately go out to her car and bring in two cardboard boxes full of supplies. Said supplies include snacks, fruit, soda, cups, plates, a little trophy featuring a faux-gold disco dancer that reads at the bottom morper of the year, an air horn, the book Martha Stewart’s Entertaining, a Twister mat (“in case things get desperate — or dirty!” Carly explains), a Gatorade bottle filled with disturbingly brown liquid, and several sterling silver serving platters that Carly has obviously ganked without permission from her folks.

  “What’s the brown shit?” I ask.

  “The brown shit is the normal, healthy shit,” Carly answers. “Far preferable to the green or blue shit.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “It’s scotch,” she says. “My dad has this gigantic scotch collection, and so what I did was I took a little bit of each bottle. It’s really expensive stuff. I hope mixing it doesn’t ruin it.”

  I unscrew the orange Gatorade cap and sniff while Carly contorts herself to get into the condom dress without dislodging any Trojans. It smells like rubbing alcohol. “Maybe later,” I say, and commence to get dressed, rearrange furniture, chop up cantaloupe, and move anything that looks breakable into Mom and Dad’s room, just in case.

  Screw You Aunt Franny shows up at precisely 8:12. They lug in amps and a little drum set from the back of Tyler Trumpet’s minivan and set up next to my kitchen. Even standing close together, the band takes up about a third of the room, which might be a problem except their entire audience consists of me and Carly. Tyler Trumpet is wearing this badass bright green tweed suit with a skinny black tie and a paisley button-down. He looks ridiculously awesome.

  The singer, Dan, asks Carly, “Do you want us to, like, start now or wait till later?” And Carly says, “Let’s wait a little bit.”

  Shortly thereafter, our friend Lesley arrives, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a sandwich board that reads this is a morp gown. Then this goofy guy Carl, who’s wearing a suit of armor constructed entirely out of aluminum foil. Fellow clarinetist Jane is next, wearing a fluffy, green A-line gown on which she’s Sharpied the names of all her favorite bands and books.

  And then everyone we’ve invited has come, and then people we didn’t invite come, and then more people we didn’t invite come, until I have to turn the thermostat down to 52 degrees to keep the house from boiling with body heat. There are people I’ve never seen here, and they keep stopping me and complimenting my dress and saying that this is a fantastic party, and I’m like, it hasn’t even started yet, just wait till Screw You Aunt Franny plays. And it all feels so good that together we have overcome the tyranny of prom. By nine o’clock, everyone who’s anyone is at prom. And everyone who isn’t anyone — and that’s an awful lot of us — is crammed into my living room.

  Some kid named Frank, with whom I am passingly familiar, tells me I look cute as he hands me a cup of Coke, which I realize after approximately one tenth of one sip contains a healthy dose of Carly’s dad’s scotch. I put it aside, because I want to enjoy this properly. I see Carly across the room, weaving her way through the crowd, trying to keep people from brushing against her because the condom dress is more fragile than it looks. Then she comes up to me and says, “I’m going to introduce the band, so find Tyler Trumpet.”

  I can spot that suit across the room, so I walk up to Tyler and ask him if he can start playing now. Also I say, “Your suit is ridiculously awesome,” and he smiles and looks at me just enough for me to see his so-very-blue eyes, and then he’s off to gather the band.

  Once they’re behind their instruments, the drummer bangs away for a minute until the crowd starts to quiet down and then Carly jumps behind the one microphone, and immediately everyone shuts up entirely. She says, “First, a few rules. Don’t break anything. Don’t spill anything. Don’t do anything gross. And if at any time you hear this” — she holds up the air horn and gives it one brief but earsplitting blast — “then immediately shut up. Ladies and gentlemen. The best band at our entire school, and possibly on the entire planet. Put your hands together for Screw. You. Aunt. Franny.”

  Dan, the singer (and guitarist), who is cute in that I-probably-don’t-shower-as-often-as-you’d-like-but-I’m-tall-and-look-sexy-when-playing-the-guitar kinda way, walks up to Carly and kisses her on the cheek. Carly goes flush for just a moment, but then laughs in that way she has, and Dan the singer takes the microphone and says, “I’m Dan, this is Tyler Trumpet, and back there is Joe Drummer. And we used to be Screw You Aunt Franny, but Tyler just renamed us Little Maggie and the Magical Morpers. Now we’re going to cor the cuff out of this Morp.”

  And it takes me a second to realize I should reverse the cor and the cuff, and it takes me another second to register that Tyler Trumpet has possibly just renamed his band after me. They launch into something fast and loud, and I throw up my hands and dance. The bumblebee duct-tape dress wasn’t made for dancing, certainly, and it isn’t exactly a breathable material, so I’m starting to sweat, but I don�
��t give a shit, because this is what prom ought to be, and I like all these people, even the ones I don’t know, and everyone is just dancing, and Tyler is jumping up and down as his fingers slide around the bass. I can hardly even tell when they move from one song to another; it’s just all of us dancing together, band and crowd alike, and, God, Carly is such a genius. I find myself dancing next to Carly and I say, “God, Carly, you’re such a genius,” and — and I hear something over the music very faintly. And then I don’t hear it anymore. And then I hear it — the phone. Phone. “PHONE!” I shout to Carly.

  She raises the air horn and gives it a good one-second blow. The band screeches to silence and so do the rest of us, and then I tear across the living room to the cordless, trying to beat the fifth ring. I grab it just in time.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, baby. Just calling to check in.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “How’s it goin’?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Did anybody end up coming over?”

  “Um, it’s just me, Carly, Lesley, and a couple people,” I answer, and some people stifle laughter. I look up and everyone is staring silently at me. I look back to the carpet.

  “Well, we miss you here. Mr. Johnson just told me that this is the fewest people they’ve had at prom in years.”

  “Yeah, that sucks, Mom. So I’ll see you later tonight?”

  “Yup. We’ll be home around midnight.”

  “’Bye, Mom.”

  “’Bye.”

  In the second of silence that follows, I keep looking at the floor, but I gather the guts to say, quite loudly, what’s screaming inside of me: “Monsieur Johnson just told my parents that it’s the smallest prom crowd in years.” The roar of approval I get in response could be measured on the goddamned Richter scale.

  Little Maggie and the Magical Morpers start up again. People get to dancing, and I walk to the kitchen to get some chips. Sometimes, witnessing a party is even better than being part of one. I’ve always liked moments like this: quietly watching all these people having all this fun. Carly loses a couple condoms off her dress when these guys Bill and Tony raise her up so she can crowd-surf around my living room. Tyler Trumpet bounces on his toes, his sweaty hair in his face, staring down at his bass. A kid wearing a tuxedo T-shirt tries to sip from his cup without stopping his dance moves. And then the Magical Morpers transition into a new song, a soft and slow one. It’s this Mr. T Experience cover — “Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend” — and the kids who smoke pull out their lighters and wave them above their heads. And I’m happy — really happy — just to watch. It’s the floor instead of the bed, I know, but maybe that’s just who I am: Maybe I need the littlest bit of discomfort. Maybe I need a little space between me and the life of the party.

  The band takes a break then, and I watch Tyler Trumpet as he walks across the living room and right toward me, his eyes on me the whole way. And then he’s close up to me and he says, “I like you.”

  And I say, “What?”

  And he looks away then and says, “I like you? I have a crush on you?”

  And I say, “Say it, don’t ask it.”

  And he says, “I like you.” And then I’m up on my tiptoes and all of a sudden I’m kissing him, just once and softly. And then he says, “Dan was going to say it into the mic if I didn’t tell you,” and I say, “Oh, well, I’m glad you told me,” and he says, “Me, too,” and then he leans down and kisses me, and his hand is against my cheek, and I sort of melt a little.

  He says, “I was watching you in the kitchen and I kept wondering why you weren’t dancing?”

  “I think maybe I am a watcher and not a doer.”

  And he pauses for a second, because he’s actually listening to me, and then he says, “Yeah, I understand that. I’m like that, too, sometimes. But you’d be a great doer. Wait, that came out perverted. I mean, you sorta tag along behind Carly, but you’re so much funnier and prettier and more interesting than her,” and I say, “Bullshit,” and he says, “Seriously.”

  And I say, “Okay, fine, Tyler Trumpet. I’ll do anything you want me to do for the next five minutes.”

  And he says, “Jesus, talk about perverted,” and I blush and laugh.

  “Well, first kiss me,” he says, and I do. And I keep kissing him, even as I watch a smiling Carly rip a condom off her dress and throw it us. She tells us to get a room, but this is what I want right here — the carpet and the bed at once. And then, still kissing me, speaking directly into my lips, he says, “Get your clarinet.” Which I do.

  And then I’m staring out at the crowd as Little Maggie and the Magical Morpers gather back onstage for their second set— which will include the same twelve songs as the first set. Only the songs are different this time, because it’s Joe Drummer on drums, Tyler Trumpet on bass, Dan the singer on singing and guitar, and Maggie on punk rock clarinet.

  Tyler Trumpet reaches an awkward hand out before they start playing and touches the small of my back, and something about him and what he said and this place and the total Morpness of the world fills me with this crazy confidence, and I realize that these people aren’t going to make fun of me for this. And Tyler plays the bass line once while I watch, and then Joe Drummer says, “ONE TWO THREE FOUR” real fast, and then it’s a cacophony of bass and guitar and voice and drums — and clarinet. I tear the goddamned place up with my clarinet, and Carly is right in front of me making devil horns in her condom dress and screaming, “RIP IT, MAGGIE!” and I’m only sort of following the chord changes, but I’m playing fast and loud and Tyler is smiling while he stares at his bass, and then after the second chorus, Dan the singer screams, “CLARINET SOLO!” and it’s just me trying to affect punkness on the clarinet against Joe Drummer’s pulsing beat, and the crowd is yelling, and I have to keep myself from smiling all goofy so I can blow into the clarinet right.

  And then the band comes back, their sound washing over me, and Tyler looks up at me. He mouths four three two one, and then all at once our sound crescendos, and then disappears. And this is the very best part about punk music: There’s a moment, right after the band stops playing all at once and right before the crowd goes nuts. That’s the best silence I’ve ever known, and I’m feeling it as a band member for the first time. Then people start yelling and clapping, and I can’t stop myself from smiling. I curtsy and try to walk back into the crowd, but Tyler grabs me by my bumblebee duct-taped waist and says, “We really need you on the next one, too,” and so I pick up my clarinet again.

  After everything else — after Carly awards me the Morper of the Year trophy for my “heroic clarinet playing,” and after everyone goes home except for me and Tyler and Carly, and after we pick everything up and put the garbage bags in Tyler’s minivan, and after we put the breakables back in the living room, and after Tyler leaves me with the best kiss in my admittedly limited kissing lifetime, and after Carly and I watch TV, and after my parents come home, and after we fall asleep with Carly in the bed and me on the floor — after all that, I still feel like a punk rock Morp superstar. It’s the kind of feeling that just lingers and, in lingering, makes you slightly but permanently different. Better, even.

  The Prom Gallery

  Jodi Lynn Anderson asked a boy named Pat to prom and never recovered from the rejection, which probably stemmed from the chunky plastic jewelry she wore and the fact that one time she accidentally drooled in front of him. She was later reprimanded by Sister Miriam for dancing too close to her date. She is the author of such novels as Peaches, Tiger Lily, and The Vanishing Season.

  Holly Black is the author of the bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles, the Modern Faerie Tale series, the Curse Workers series, the Magisterium series (written with Cassandra Clare), the Newbery Honor book Doll Bones, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, and The Darkest Part of the Forest. Visit her on the web at www.blackholly.com.

  Libba
Bray did not get asked to prom. Not even after she posted her phone number in black electrical tape in a strategic location on her body. One arranged (*cough* pity *cough*) date later, she did manage to go to prom and has a vague memory of pogo-ing to the B-52’s. Libba is the author of the novels A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing, Going Bovine, Beauty Queens, and The Diviners. She invites you to drop by her website, www.libbabray.com.

  Rachel Cohn did not go to prom. Her books include Gingerbread, Shrimp, Cupcake, Beta, and, with David Levithan, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Visit her on the web at www.rachelcohn.com.

  Elizabeth Craft lives in Los Angeles. She and her writing partner are the authors of a young-adult novel, Bass Ackwards and Belly Up. Elizabeth is happy to report that despite being emotionally scarred by numerous high school dances, she managed to meet the man of her dreams.

  Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the bestselling series The Au Pairs, Blue Bloods, and Witches of East End. Her story is absolutely true. Just thinking of her date’s beer-and-whisky-laced breath still makes her swoon. She is married to a very cute guy who never attended a prom. At their wedding they danced to Annie Lennox’s “Seventeen Again” because Melissa thought of her wedding as the ultimate prom.

  Daniel Ehrenhaft did not attend a prom, but he did rent an expensive tuxedo once. Now he owns a tuxedo. He is wearing it as he writes this. (Okay, he is wearing boxer shorts and a smelly T-shirt.) His wife went to an amazing prom in New York City, and her date was a really nice childhood friend who went on to become a famous screenwriter — and, yes, Mr. Ehrenhaft is jealous on a variety of levels. His novels include Tell It to Naomi, 10 Things to Do Before I Die, Drawing a Blank, and The After Life.