All the Way (19 page)

It was like a volcano erupting, the way the laughter just happened, loud and immediate. Natalie gasped, looked horrified, and promptly forgot her next line. Darren prompted her from the wings, but she couldn't really hear him over the laughter, so she just sort of improvised. She was supposed to say, “You're a full-time sinner,” but it came out, “You're such a big, big sinner,” while staring at his crotch the whole time.

After that, there was no putting the brakes on this train wreck. People tried to stop laughing, because it was painfully obvious that something had gone wrong and his costume was
not
supposed to fit him like something a male stripper would mail order.

But when an audience loses it, I guess it's hard to get them back under control.

People were laughing so hard during their big kiss that Natalie got nervous and teetered in her high shoes, nearly falling over. And I guess all the commotion made David nervous, because he then missed a lighting cue and turned the bright white lights on for Tyler's exit.

All in all, it was a memorable night at the theater.

Emily and I danced around backstage, celebrating silently. I couldn't believe how well it had worked! Tyler, the guy who couldn't keep his pants on long enough to act like a decent boyfriend. Ha!

But the best line of the evening was spoken after the final curtain came down, when I heard Natalie say to Tyler, “Get a bigger pair of pants or go on a diet by tomorrow, buster. Because if you ruin that scene again, you're dead.”

Okay, I thought. My revenge plans were working!

One down, and one to go.

 

 

 

I have to admit it: Fun has a price.

After my triumphant revenge against Tyler Thursday night, there were a lot of Carmen haters out there. For one, Mr. Richards wasn't too thrilled with me. He
knew
it was me, even though he couldn't prove anything.

He called me aside Thursday night after some of the postperformance buzz died down.

“Carmen, I don't know what happened to Tyler's costume, but it seriously marred the performance, as I'm sure you know.” I winced. His voice and face were filled with major disappointment. “Do you think you can get it fixed before tomorrow night?”

“For sure,” I squeaked, my voice tiny and guilty and apologetic.

He spun around without saying anything else, leaving me to soak up his silent wrath.

Of course Tyler was a hater, too. I could feel him wanting to strangle me for bringing all that humiliation and ruining his big scene, but he didn't dare say anything to me. He knew he didn't have the moral high ground.

I think Natalie wanted to kill me, and at the same time admired me a little more for what I'd done, when she finally figured out it was me. I mean, she's such a predator, she doesn't respect anyone who's so weak they won't fight for what they want. My ratings went up with her just for pulling off such a crazy stunt.

The rest of the cast picked sides as the night wore on, with about half of them hating me just because they were friends with Natalie, and the other half pretty much in my court, I'm not sure why. Maybe they were beginning to figure out that I had a good reason for what I did. I think Emily helped, by spreading the true story about Tyler to some of the actors backstage.

Ariel was on my side, of course. She gave me a secret smile when I went up to her after the play to congratulate her on her performance. I threw my arms around her, gave her a big hug, and handed her a really pretty bouquet of flowers, wrapped in cellophane and tied with blue and silver ribbons, the color of her costume.

“Wow,” she said, beaming at the flowers. “Thanks. My parents didn't even bring me flowers.”

“They probably didn't know they were supposed to,” I said. How could they? No one else in the family had ever been in a high school play before.

Friday was the last performance—Norton only did two, which seemed like a shame after all that work—and the love scene went off without laughs from the audience, although two boys from the chorus couldn't help giggling when Natalie said her line about how Tyler was a sinner.

After the show, the whole cast and stage crew went to Garrity's Hole for the cast party. Garrity's was a cool party space—a big warehouse with a huge back room where they had a pool table, several big sports TVs, and a bunch of couches and tables. We all hung out in the back room drinking soda and eating slices of pizza while MTV blasted on one of the big TVs.

The place was jammin'.

“Is this crazy or what?” Emily said, beaming at me as she swigged her soda. “I mean, we'll be up all night, and tomorrow's the prom. We won't get any sleep for two days. It's insane.”

She looked deliriously happy.

“We can sleep when we get to college,” I said.

“Right.” She took another swig and started moving to the music that was blasting from MTV on one of the big TVs.

“You want to dance?” Benny Rancelli asked her.

Emily looked so shocked, I thought she was going to spit cola all over his blue Abercrombie sweater. “Me?”

“You.”

He started dancing, bumping hips with her, and she shot me a look like she never wanted this night to end, ever. Forget the prom—she was partying now like there was no tomorrow.

Could you blame her? I mean, she was going to New York for her callback on
American Superstar,
and she was looking so hot, guys were starting to notice her for the first time in her life.

I scanned the room, looking for someone else to talk to. I finally spotted Ariel hanging with Samantha Bekins, who was marginally in Natalie's crowd. I made my way over to them.

“You were fabulous again tonight,” I said to Ariel.

“Thanks! Everyone said the costumes were so great. You did an amazing job with them.” She cleared her throat, as if to say,
with most of them, anyway.

“I had fun,” I said, meaning it in more ways than one. “And I'm not done yet.”

“Oh, wow, don't tell me you meant it about having nothing else to lose, Carmen.”

I smiled like a Cheshire cat.
Let her wonder,
I decided. It would be better this way.

“Carmen, I mean, you
do
have something to lose . . .”

“Yeah. I could lose
it,
couldn't I? Why not? Everyone thinks I already have.”

She looked shocked, and I had to struggle not to burst out laughing.

“Just wait and see,” I said, my eyes dancing with the secret.

I got up and sort of shimmied through the room, making my way over to the buffet table to grab a slice of pizza. On the way, I checked out the room. Tyler was moping in a corner, obviously feeling sorry for himself because he hadn't gotten the huge applause and standing O he was used to getting. It seemed like his confidence had been shaken after Thursday night, and he didn't bring the same megawatt charisma on Friday that he usually had. Plus Natalie was ignoring him, dancing with some cute guy on the tech crew, like she wanted to shake the whole embarrassing scene out of her system.

I looked back at Tyler to see if he was watching her, but he wasn't. Instead, his eyes met mine, and he gave me an almost pleading look . . .

What was
that
? Regret? Apology? Or just plain horniness?

Who cares?
I thought.
Too late.
He was a jerk, and I was moving on.

I grabbed the last piece of veggie pizza and was just taking a big gooey bite when David tapped me on the shoulder.

“No, you can't cut in,” I said with my mouth full. “My pizza and I are having this dance alone.”

David laughed, then his face got all serious. Like he wasn't sure if I was joking because I forgave him for rejecting me . . . or I was being serious and didn't want him to interrupt my alone time with my slice.

He looked so clueless, it made me laugh. With my mouth full.

I grabbed a napkin, shook my head, and set the pizza down.

“What?” I said, half angry at him, half amused.

“Can I talk to you?” He was shouting because it was really noisy in there.

“You are,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Right.” He almost shuffled his feet, he was so nervous. “Well, I just wanted to tell you . . . I mean, I really like you, and I never wanted to hurt your feelings . . .”

“Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn't feel like making this easier for him.

“But when you asked me to the prom, I freaked because I'm just not . . . I mean, I haven't dated that many girls . . . and I don't know if I'm ready for the kind of heavy . . .”

It was too painful; I had to stop him. “Never mind,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “You don't have to apologize. Everyone else thinks I'm a slut, so why not you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, I don't think you're a slut.”

“Okay. Well, I'm not. But when you see me tomorrow night, you might start to wonder.”

“About tomorrow night . . .” he started to say.

I interrupted him before he could ask me. “Listen, I'm going to the prom with Emily. But if you want to meet us there, I'd love to hang out with you.”

“Really?” He looked so grateful.

“Yeah. Just don't be surprised if you see me doing some stuff that I wouldn't normally do.”

He looked confused, but I didn't care. “Okay.”

I couldn't wait for tomorrow night. My plan was going to work, I just knew it.

Yeah. It was going to be a prom night to remember, that was for sure—and I was going to make sure no one else forgot it, either. Not for a long, long time.

 

 

 

“Carmen? Are you still up there?” my mom called up the steps to the studio early Saturday afternoon. “I have lunch ready.”

“Yeah, Mom.” I called back. “I'll be down in a minute.”

I'd been up in the studio since early that morning, working on some modifications to my prom dress. Not that it wasn't already finished—I'd finished sewing it three days ago.

But now that I was planning to do what I was planning to do . . . I needed to change the dress a little. Make it even hotter. Lower the neckline even more. Cut a large slit up the side, so I'd be showing tons more thigh. And make sure it was supertight across my butt, so guys wouldn't be able to take their eyes off it . . . or, uh . . . me.

Sex it up a little, in other words. Not that I wanted to look cheap on prom night. Just available.

I had almost finished the last, most tedious and time-consuming part, lowering the neckline, which required sewing all those tiny beads on again, and I was trying it on to make sure the neckline was right, staring at myself in the full-length wall mirror, when I heard footsteps.

“Don't come up, Mom, I'll . . .”

But she was already there. “Oh!” she shrieked.

“Uh . . . hi,” I said. “I look pretty hot, don't I?”

My mom narrowed her dark eyes at me and crossed her arms over her stocky chest. She's little, like I am, but she's a force to be reckoned with.

“Carmen, what are you doing?”

“You know what I'm doing, Mom. Working on my prom dress.”

“No, I mean, what are you doing wearing something that shows half your thigh and nearly
all
of your bosom?” she said firmly.

“Mom, it's my senior prom. Don't give me grief, okay?”

“Give me an answer, Carmen. And don't tell me
all
the girls will be dressed like this.”

I certainly hope not,
I thought.

“Look, Mom, it's more like a costume than a dress. Everyone does that these days—dresses up in wild stuff that you wouldn't really wear if it weren't prom.”

She looked skeptical. It's hard to pull one over on her.

“Mom, please. You've got to trust me. I'm not going to do anything wrong.”

She let out a deep sigh and went back downstairs.

When Mom was gone, I slipped out of the dress and back into my sweats. I glanced out the window at Molly's house. She was heavy into prom prep, too, and apparently she'd bought
two
dresses, because she kept trying on one and then the other, back and forth, trying to decide which one to wear.

Primp all you want,
I thought, staring at Molly.
You won't be able to hang on to Joey tonight
—
not after he sees what I can offer him.

 

 

 

“Wow.” Ryan Marciolla's mouth dropped open when he saw me step out of the car at Nicko's, the fanciest restaurant in town and the only place to be seen on prom night for the traditional preprom dinner. He gazed, mesmerized, at my R-rated, too-hot-for-prime-time dress. “Wow.”

“Hi, Ryan,” I said, breezing past him with Emily. We both were totally aware that we were arriving kind of late and were making an entrance that everyone would notice.

I'd planned the whole evening around this entrance—I wanted to make sure Joey saw me looking so hot I sizzled. My hair was cascading all over the place, but actually, so was Emily's. We'd both gone to the new Aveda Concept Salon at the mall and had Roderick (not his real name) do our hair. As it turned out, Roderick only had one good hair idea, but it was killer.

Since my dress was deep red with black and silver beads, Roderick had suggested putting a sparkly silver hair clip on one side of my head. Fabulous was too lame a word for how it looked, if I do say so myself.