Eleven Things I Promised

For my sister, who's always inspired me to do more

I was trying on a ridiculous prom
dress when the call came.

I didn't even want to go to junior prom, but Stella was insisting. At the moment I was thinking of picking up a shift at McDonald's instead, just to
avoid
it, because I don't feel all that attractive in sequins and tight, fitted tube tops and flouncy things.

Those were the styles I was seeing at Flanberger's, my only retail option. If I planned on buying anything online, I'd need my mom's credit card and would have to explain why I wasn't going with Oscar and listen to her say, “It's such a shame you two aren't together anymore,” for the thousandth time. (For the record, Oscar was a dirtbag, who I'd dumped
after I found out he was cheating on me, like, a lot.) The concept of breaking up was somehow foreign to her, which was odd considering she'd been divorced eight years already.

Over the past week I'd become as determined as Stella to go to prom, no matter how uncomfortable it made me. Prom was a thing juniors did, whether they'd recently dumped dirtbags or not. Stella had decided she was going, that this was a thing we needed to do. Prom was the week after this big bike trip we'd signed up for—the Cure Childhood Cancer Ride—another event Stella had decided we'd do together. Of course, she was a real cyclist. I wasn't. She'd done the same ride spring of sophomore year. I hadn't.

But despite the challenges of riding so far, I couldn't wait to take off on a trip with Stella.

“We'll hit the road for a week, then we'll hit up prom. It's going to be a-mazing,” she'd said as she laid out the plan in February. She was even planning to ride her bike to prom. She had it all mapped out.

She'd started outdoor training in March, as soon as the snow thawed. I hadn't. And I should have been out riding that late April afternoon with her, instead of trying to find a dress at Flanberger's. I guess I wasn't all that committed to the ride yet. I had three weeks before we left, and I knew it was time to get serious about it. Still, here I was, dress shopping. I guess
I figured Stella would pull me through the ride, the way she did with most things.

Also? Sometimes I think I was put on this earth to procrastinate.

Stella had ordered her prom dress a month ago and it was hanging in her closet.

I needed to catch up on all fronts, which is typical for me. But I had to try, because did I really want to take orders from people when they waltzed in between prom and after-prom? Would you like fries with your date? What if Oscar came in with what's her name, or what're
their
names? He would, too. He'd be clueless like that because he had no actual feelings.

Meanwhile, I'd be like Cinderella.

Literally. Sometimes I do have to mop.

No, I wasn't working prom night. I'd get a dress if it killed me, and Stella and I would go together.

“That one won't go with a rose corsage,” the salesclerk, Phyllis, told me, standing back to get a good luck at the short, flowered, sequined purple dress I was currently swathed in. “Trust me.”

“I don't think I'm getting a rose corsage,” I said. “Trust
me
.”

“Boys don't think creatively about flowers.” Phyllis sounded a bit world-weary all of a sudden. “You'll be getting a rose.”

“No one's doing corsages this year. We're not allowed to have the pins,” I told her, not going into detail about the fact that I didn't have a guy for a date.

When Phyllis gave me a puzzled look, I added, “Potential weapons or something. They don't trust us.”

“They're determined to kill prom. In my day, prom was important,” Phyllis muttered. She pulled more dresses off the racks and skittered back to the dressing room with an armful. I followed her in a daze. It was like being on a Ferris wheel that you really, really wanted to get off of, but you couldn't get the attention of the ride operator to make it stop.

“Phyllis?” I murmured. “I think I need to take a break. Phyllis?”

She wasn't listening. I closed the door and prepared to change back into my own clothes.

No sooner had I started than Phyllis rapped on the door and gently threw
another
dress over the top. “Try the peach beauty on this instant,” she commanded. “It will transform you.”

The dress was an elaborate floor-length gown with layer upon layer of ruffles. Unfortunately, real ruffles, and not the potato chips.

No way was I wearing this, not even in a dressing room. What if there was a tornado that knocked down the entire
store and I was discovered in a heap of debris with
this
thing on? Okay, so maybe tornadoes are rare in New Hampshire, but you couldn't be too careful. “No, I think I'm done,” I told her. “I need to get going—”

“
Don't
walk away from this beauty,” Phyllis insisted. “If you do, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. There's an old saying in women's wear. ‘To peach her own.' It's a magical color.”

So, now we were diving into the realm of magic. I was starting to think Phyllis needed to retire. But to humor her, I slipped out of my jeans again and pulled the dress on over my tee, not willing to commit to a full try-on. I looked at the angled neckline and how it framed my slightly round face. Something about the color did work—it wasn't one I usually wore, but it did look good against my skin.

Hold on a second. What was I thinking? The notoriously overheated Flanberger's was getting to me.
Get ahold of yourself. Those waves of fabric make you look like a curtain in a country-western furniture showroom.

My phone rang, and I slipped it out of my purse. Stella's dad? Why was he calling? “Hello?” I said.

There was a cough, an awkward throat-clearing on the other end. “Frances, it's David Grant. Stella's been in an accident. A fairly serious accident. I wanted you to know right away.”

“What—where? She . . . ?” I was already tucking my purse under my arm, lifting the latch on the changing-room door.

“The ambulance is taking her to Mercy Regional,” Stella's father said. “We'll meet you there.”

I shoved the phone in my purse and started pulling the dress over my head. The zipper was stuck and I couldn't get the dress off. I heard a slight tear and stopped pulling. I just grabbed my shoes, jeans, and purse and ran out of the store, past Phyllis, past the checkout, straight out into the parking lot.

At the hospital I sat beside Stella's brother, Mason. He told me she'd been on Old Route 91, out by the dairy farms where the road dips and curves. “Roller Coaster Road” was what I used to call it when I was little, and I'd scream with delight as my dad floored it to go up a steep hill and then zoom down the other side.

“So . . . who was it? Or was it a hit-and-run?”

“A woman driving a minivan hit her,” Mason said. “She had two kids in the back. She called nine-one-one right away, so that's good, but . . . I don't know. I have a pretty bad feeling. Car versus bike—it's never good. What if Stella . . . you know.” His voice seemed to cut out, like a lawn mower that lost its choke. He ran his hands back and forth through
his short dark-brown hair, which was sticking out in various directions.

“Don't think that,” I said. “She's going to be okay.” I had no reason to say that, nothing to base it on, but he needed to hear it. So did I.

We'd been sitting in the waiting room together for ten minutes, and we knew Stella was conscious and being treated for pain, and she had some leg and internal injuries. That was all we knew, and it was bad enough.

We'd made small talk about Stella, the ride, Mason's freshman year at Granite State College, my stupid peach dress. The minutes were wearing on us.

Mason kept bouncing his legs up and down in a very nervous way, like he wanted to run out. Maybe he did that all the time, but if he did, I'd forgotten. I felt just as jittery. I was tapping my fingers against the chair in almost exactly the same rhythm. We were a terrible ER mariachi group. The Jitterers.

Stella's parents had been in the exam room with her ever since I'd gotten here. I'd raced through the automatic double doors in the peach chiffon nightmare of a dress. I'd planned to change when I got here but somehow misplaced my jeans between Flanberger's and Mercy. I felt so self-conscious sitting next to Mason. If it was going to take another twenty
minutes until I could see Stella, then I should go find the pants.

These were the dumb things I was thinking about while I sat there on that hard red plastic seat beside Mason. It was easier to think about that than about why we were here and what was happening . . . what might be happening.

All of a sudden Mason's expression tightened. I heard footsteps in the empty hallway, coming closer. I stood up, my stomach turning somersaults, my palms sweating. A female doctor in a white coat was walking toward us, beside Stella's parents. The doctor wasn't smiling. Nobody was smiling. I wasn't breathing.

“Mom?” asked Mason. “Say something, please. Somebody.”

“Stella is resting now, and she's holding her own,” said the doctor. “We've stopped the blood loss and we've made her comfortable.”

It sounded like something I'd heard on my mom's favorite medical drama. To my mind, “making someone comfortable” meant giving up on them—it was the horrible thing the vet had said just before he put our dog to sleep six months ago.

“We're admitting her and moving her upstairs,” the doctor continued. “There are still a lot of things to sort out. She'll need some surgeries right away. . . .”

Surgeries . . . plural? She kept talking, but I somehow stopped listening. It felt like I was standing under a shower that only sprayed bad news.
Bad news. Rinse. Repeat. Bad news.
The doctor was mentioning the broken bones, the stitches on Stella's arm, how her face was bruised but was really better than it looked.

“So, can we see her now?” I asked.

“Please. I wish you would.” Stella's mom put her hand on Mason's arm, which was saying a lot. Their family didn't hug much. It was just the way they were. Stella and I weren't huggers, either. We knew we were close. We didn't have to make a show of it, the way other girls ran around hugging like they hadn't seen each other for weeks when actually it was forty-five minutes between trig and chemistry.

“Stella needs to rest right now,” said the doctor. “So please keep your visits short. They'll be moving her upstairs, out of ER, as quickly as it can be arranged.” She nodded at Stella's parents. “I'll check in with you shortly.” She strode off back down the hallway.

Mr. Grant held Mason in his gaze for a second. “You two can go visit now. I know you won't say anything upsetting, Frances. But Mason . . . just don't tell her how bad she looks. She does look pretty bad, and I know you guys always tease each other. But don't this time. Just don't.”

“Right. Got it.” Mason nodded, and I followed him down the hall to the exam room. “Like I'd say something right now,” he muttered to me. “I mean, seriously.”

“I know. You—you wouldn't.” He was a very decent guy, considering he'd once gotten a video of me falling off a trampoline and shared it with the entire world. “You want to go first?” I asked him. “Or you want to go in together?”

“Actually . . . I need a drink of water first. You go ahead on your own.”

I wished he hadn't said that. I didn't feel brave enough to go in by myself. “I can wait for you,” I said.

“No. You go ahead. I'll be there in a minute.” He looked pale and slightly ill. He had a history of puking when his family was hurt—like when Stella cut her foot on a nail in the driveway when she was five, or when their older brother dislocated his ankle doing a skateboard trick. It was almost sort of cute, or would be if it didn't involve throwing up. I decided not to push him.

When I walked into Stella's hospital room, I felt a wave of anxiety nearly knock me over. The floor was wobbly. My legs were shaking. I wished Mason had come in beside me so I'd have someone to fall onto.

I surveyed the room, not wanting to look at Stella, which was crazy. I had to look, had to go comfort her. I was scared
out of my mind. Her hands were wrapped in gauze, and her elbow was taped. She had one long, bright-red scrape on her chin, covered in ointment—it was stitches, I saw as I got closer. She had tons of small wounds on her face, probably gravel driven into her skin. Her blue eyes looked glassy, and at the same time, washed out.

I took a moment to compose myself. The last thing she needed was to see me freak out. She was going to be fine. She was banged up, sure, and she'd be on crutches for a while, but she was going to be okay.

“You look terrible,” I suddenly blurted.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“I'm sorry, Stells. I'm really sorry I said that.” Oh God. Why was I such an idiot at times? “I guess . . . it's a law for best friends to be honest, isn't it? Plus, I kind of panicked.”

Stella took a long, slow breath and winced. “In that case,” she said slowly, “that dress is hideous.”

“I know, right? I was trying on prom dresses when your dad called and—anyway, how are you feeling?”

“I can't feel anything, actually,” she said. “I guess I'm drugged up on painkillers.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about what happened,” I said.

“Quit saying sorry,” she said. “It was fun while it lasted. We were going to prom. We were going to do the Cure Ride.
And now nothing,” she said in a flat voice.

“Don't say
nothing
! We can still go to prom, we can still . . .” My voice trailed off. “Do lots of things.” I perched on a chair beside the bed. She looked exhausted, with dark lines under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept in a few days. Bedsheets and white blankets covered her midsection, but tubes ran underneath the covers, connected to monitors, making clicking noises periodically with her vital signs.