21 Proms (8 page)

“So, D, how do I look?” Rebecca pipes up. She glares into the black holes that should be DePaul's eyes. “Zack just complimented
his
girlfriend.”

DePaul studies her for a moment. “You're shimmering?” he offers with a shrug.

Rebecca grins flatly. “That's sweet, D. Much appreciated. Just try to keep it together tonight, all right? The sixties are over.”

VII: Should I Be Frightened by Your Lack of Devotion?

After a clumsy presentation of corsages, the four of us head to the dining hall.

DePaul does keep it together, as much as he can. He only stops twice during the walk to gape at the moon. (In all fairness, it's full.) But when we arrive, my depression sinks to a new low. Marci was on the Spring Ball decorations committee, and it shows. The dining hall is bedecked with streamers and balloons. The scuffed-up wooden tables are shrouded with white linens and set with genuine napkins and silverware; they're even festooned with plastic floral arrangements.

“Real flowers attract too many bugs,” Marci explains to me in a stage whisper.

My God.
Who is this girl? Okay. I have to admit: The streamers look nice. Still, even with rented napkins, you can't fool me. This is the dining hall. This is the same stuffy cafeteria where we eat every single meal every day of our goddamn lives — meals like “Nantucket Canned Scrod.” Marci and the rest of the decorations committee cannot magically transform this room, no matter how noble their intentions. This is not a prom. This is Dorchester's Spring Ball. This is a fraud.

“Whoa!” DePaul exclaims as the four of us sit down. “This place feels amazing. It's vibrating. It doesn't even feel like the dining hall. It feels like a …
prom
.”

I bury my face in my hands.

“What's the matter?” Marci asks.

Before I can think of a lie, DePaul gasps, “Holy shit!”

I lift my head. DePaul jabs a finger at the stage — a makeshift wooden platform in an area normally reserved for garbage disposal.

“Check out Miss Wyatt,” he says. “She's drunk. I heard she went to college with that band. Right, Marci? I think they're, like, an R.E.M. cover band …”

For once, DePaul isn't seeing things. Miss Wyatt
is
drunk, staggering amid an array of amps and drums, slurping some kind of suspiciously clear liquid from a Styrofoam cup. It's a cruel irony. The Spring Ball is
the
night when the faculty is supposed to be on high alert for student drinking, an offense punishable by suspension, yet she's wasted, while the four of us haven't imbibed a single drop. (Aside from DePaul, we haven't ingested anything more potent than breath mints.) On the other hand, who can blame Miss Wyatt? She's young. She's trapped here, like the rest of us. So what the hell? Bottoms up! Her musician friends sip from identical cups as they adjust their instruments, pedals, and microphones… . They are a bunch of underfed artist types, much like Miss Wyatt herself. I'm very worried they'll suck.

“So, you guys?” Marci prompts. “We should all get up and dance as soon as —”

Without warning, the band bursts into Peter Gabriel's “Sledgehammer.” Miss Wyatt stumbles offstage. My ears perk up. They don't suck. They're
good
, even. The sound is bass-heavy and metronome-steady. My fingers drum the tablecloth.

“OH MY GOD!” Marci shrieks. “I love this song! Miss Wyatt said these guys only did college rock.” She casts a sidelong glance at me and starts to fidget in time to the music, the universal sign language for:
This is your last chance. I've asked you to dance, so please dance with me, unless you truly are the biggest asshole on the planet.

I peer around the dining hall. It's packed with fellow seniors, most in rented tuxes and formal dresses like Marci and me. (DePaul and Rebecca are pretty much the only couple in exception to the rented-tux-and-formal-dress rule.) All are as antsy and deserving of fun as Marci. Several leap to their feet and sweep their dates onto the floor.

I turn away from Marci. I can't help it. I
am
that big an asshole.

VIII: Should I?

DePaul scoots toward me. “Hoop earrings, Mom,” he breathes in my ear. “Dig Marci's hoop earrings. Chicks who wear earrings like that … it's a sign. They're saying they want to get freaky. That's why I should bang her.”

“Excuse me?” I whisper back. I know I should be offended, or at least
act
offended. But all I can do is laugh. “What kind of sign are you talking about? You want to bang my girlfriend because of her hoop earrings?”

“It's obvious you don't want to bang her.”

I swallow. “It is?”

“Mom,” DePaul chides, “when Marci and Rebecca first came in tonight, you looked Rebecca from the bottom up. But you looked Marci from the top down —”

“Will you guys stop whispering to each other?” Marci interrupts. Her glossy lips curl in a frigid smile. “It's not very polite. Can we either get up and dance, or can we all have a conversation?”

“Sorry!” I push away from DePaul. “What do you want to talk about?”

“That's a very good question, Zack,” Marci replies curtly. “I want to find out, once and for all, why DePaul calls you Mom. I want to know why you let him do it.”

“Because I breast-feed him?” I joke.

Rebecca slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from cracking up.

Marci doesn't so much as blink. Her face is an ice sculpture.

“Hey, Marci, Zack's just kidding,” DePaul says. “Come on, let's dance. I love this song, too.” He throws out a hand to Marci — surprisingly steady, considering his condition — and whisks her out onto the floor with the rest of the couples.

I sag back in my chair.

“You handled that very well,” Rebecca remarks.

“I thought so.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Rebecca leans across the table. “How did you and Marci get together anyway? I mean, really.”

I think for a minute. “Because you and DePaul started going out. And she was pretty aggressive. I mean, she let me know she had a crush on me… . I was just flattered. Plus she's sort of hot, and she's your roommate — also, she has a last name that starts with
W
. We sit near each other at Chapel and stuff. It worked out.”

“Very romantic,” Rebecca snorts. “‘She's sort of hot.' I have a
W
name, too, Zack. I sit closer to you than Marci does. I sat closer to you yesterday.”

“But you're going out with DePaul,” I hear myself mumble.

Rebecca doesn't respond. I stare at Marci as she clings to DePaul and tries to follow his crazed moves. He's far surpassed Deadheads and
Beat Street
; he's in shaman trance territory. Then again, “Sledgehammer” is a great song.

“You know what, Zack?” Rebecca says. “You should either break up with Marci this second, or go out there and cut in on that dance. Because Marci wants something to happen with you tonight.”

IX: Should I???

Everything freezes. I stop breathing. My fake bow tie threatens to cut off the oxygen to my brain. “Something to happen? Like what?”

“Oh, come on. Don't play dumb. Marci thinks the Spring Ball is a ‘huge rite of passage,' and she isn't talking about the fake prom vibe.” Rebecca sighs. “I just wish DePaul wanted something to happen tonight, too. That's why I'm in a pissy mood. Not because I'm going to NYU. I'm psyched to go to NYU.
You're
gonna be there.”

“Yeah. I am.” The plastic flowers on our table spin as if
I've
just dropped Daffy Duck Blotter. “But you're in a pissy mood because … ?” I leave the question hanging.

Rebecca looks straight into my eyes and smirks. “Surprise, surprise. Yes, Zack, I am a virgin —” She stares down into her lap. “I'm probably going to regret saying that. Whatever. The cat is out of the bag. So I might as well finish. I don't want to lose my virginity to DePaul. I just wish he wanted to lose his virginity to me.” She lifts her head. “You know what I'm saying?”

I nod, biting my lip. “Actually, I do. Can I ask you something now?”

“Of course. Please take your cat out of
your
bag.”

“What is it that you like about Marci? I mean, why are you guys best friends?”

Rebecca frowns. “That's not a very nice thing to ask about your girlfriend.”

“I know. But I'm not in the mood to be nice. I'm in the mood to be honest. Like you're being.”

A smile flits across her face. “You want to know what I like about Marci, Zack? What I love about her?
She's
honest. She is the most honest, unpretentious person I know. She buys into the whole romantic notion of a prom. And she's proud of it. By the way, that dress she's wearing? It's the same dress her own mother wore to
her
prom. Marci did this all for you.” Her hazel eyes bore into my own. “For you, Zack.”

I'm not sure how to respond to that. I feel sick. My eyes flicker toward Marci as the song ends. She and DePaul pull apart, hooting and clapping — and the band immediately launches into R.E.M.'s “Radio Free Europe.” In a flash, DePaul and Marci are back in each other's arms, whooping it up.

“What are you thinking?” Rebecca asks.

“That I'm happy Marci seems to be having fun right now,” I murmur — and I am telling the truth. “And that I want to get out of here. I want to go throw out D's stash of acid. I know some uptight asshole teachers are gonna be checking our rooms and trolling our mini fridges for booze tonight, and I don't want them to stumble on … you know.”

Rebecca nods. “Yeah. I do know,” she says with a rueful smile. “Hey, I'll come with you if you want. I don't really feel like hanging out here, either.”

“You don't? What about —”

“Mr. Tambourine Man? Seeing as he's going to finish up the night on Pluto, I don't see much point in sticking around.” She brushes a red curl behind an ear and fixes me with another intense stare. “That leaves the question of Marci, though.”

My mind whirls.
I can either stay here or go back to my room alone with Rebecca. I can either stay here or go back to my room alone with .
. .

I jump out of my chair and hurry across the dance floor. The song is blaring full force; DePaul's face is soaked with sweat. He's grinning crazily. His eyes catch mine.

“I'm gonna go get some punch,” he gasps over the music. He stares at one of the balloons on the ceiling, and then lurches away.

Marci is breathless, too. Her lungs heave beneath her strapless pink gown.

“Marci, I'm sorry I've been such an asshole to you,” I confess. “I really am.”

She sniffs. “You're not
that
sorry.”

“Can we … I don't know — talk? Can we —”

“How about we talk tomorrow?” she interrupts, following DePaul. “I want to have fun tonight. It's the Spring Ball. I've put too much time and energy into this night not to have fun.”

X: Oh, You Better Be Good to Me

Rebecca tries to console me on the walk back to my dorm. I'm not quite sure what to make of her behavior. I've been an asshole to her best friend. She should be
telling
me that. But instead she loops her arm in mine and snuggles close, making it impossible to concentrate on a word she's saying.

The halls are eerily quiet. There are no faculty prowlers, looking to bust illicit drinkers. With silent and professional detachment, Rebecca and I remove the sheets of Daffy Duck Blotter from the mini fridge and open DePaul's desk, to slip them inside a porn magazine or whatever he has hidden in there (more LSD?). And the whole time, I'm wondering,
Did Rebecca just agree to come back here because she wants to hook up?
I don't trust myself to speak —

And then our eyes come to rest upon the sole contents of DePaul's drawer: an unsealed envelope with Rebecca's name on it. There's a date scrawled on it, too, at the top. A future date: June 11, 1986. The day of our graduation.

For what seems like a long time, we both stare at DePaul's sloppy handwriting.

Honestly, I'm surprised that there's anything in the desk at all. I've never actually seen DePaul
open
the desk. Besides, he keeps his porn magazines very publicly strewn on the trunk by his bed. Come to think of it, I've never seen him open one of those, either. As far as I can tell, he only buys porn to piss off Rebecca and to screw with the heads of the teachers who inspect our rooms.

Rebecca turns to me. It's my decision. My pulse picks up a notch. I nod.

She opens the envelope as delicately as she can. I read over her shoulder.

 

Dear Rebecca,

Whew. We are finally OUT OF HERE! I would say congratulations, but I've already congratulated you in our caps and dresses. I mean, gowns. And just so you know, I am not tripping right now. But you might be wondering why I decided to write you a letter. How to phrase this? I am figuring things out. I am............... Shit, this is harder than I thought!

Okay. So. You know me, and I think you love me — as a person, that is. A very flawed person, of course. Zack knows me and loves me, too, I think. But there's something neither of you knows and it's been driving me crazy because I want to tell you both because when I said it to myself in the mirror just now, it felt really good. Except, here's the problem:

I think I may be gay.

Hmm. It definitely felt better to say it out loud than to write it. Looking at these words on the paper, they just seem so.......... GAY.

Ha! Sorry. Lame attempt at comedy. All right, so part of the reason I'm writing this letter, too, is to clear up one matter once and for all: You and Zack. You know what? Nothing would make me happier than you and Zack. No joke. Maybe something will happen this summer with you guys, away from school. He's a total dick to Marci, and I'm a total dick to you, and even though my reasons for being a dick are different — and I apologize for them — I know why Zack is a dick. He's just as into you as you are into him.