How I Found the Perfect Dress (17 page)

“It has to be, but it isn't,” she said, amazed. “Miss, you are taking this dress
today
if I have to pay for it myself. I never heard of this designer either. ‘Goddesswear by the Fabulous Finnbar'?”

 

 

W
ith mЧ stunning five-dollar prom dress purchased and neatly folded in a Strohman's bag, I ducked into the dressing room and mirror-hopped my way to Jolly Dan's. I was careful to avoid being seen by the Wee Folk woman as I made my way down the hall. I didn't have the time or the patience to admire that gag-inducing, yet feminine pink dress one more time.

“The elf is game,” Jolly Dan told me, sounding wary. “But he wants to meet both sisters first.”

“Fine.” I was determined. “The sooner the better. I'll bring them tomorrow.”

“N-not tomorrow,” Jolly Dan stammered. “Tomorrow's bad. Tomorrow's busy, a very busy day. Thursday too, it's awful, I'm completely booked.”

“When, then?” I demanded. “I need those shoes for my friend, as soon as possible.” I fixed him with my semi-goddess stare again. “Surely you don't mean to go back on your word?”

“Hush, you demanding beanpole! It's just that . . . well, I want to spruce myself up first.” All of a sudden he looked bashful—or, considering his size, make that Bashful, as in Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, Doc, and the other two Disney dwarfs whose names I could never remember when Tammy quizzed me. “Nothing major,” Jolly Dan mumbled, staring at the floor. “Beard trim, haircut, a new apron, lose a few pounds. You only get to make a first impression once.”

What? Colin's health and maybe even his life were in danger and I had to deal with Jolly Dan's insecurity attack? “Relax! You're perfectly fine the way you are,” I told him, trying not to sound impatient.

“Then why do they sell all that beauty stuff in the mall?” he asked.

It was a valid question, but I didn't have a good answer for it, so I reassured him as best I could and left. And, speaking of the mall, since I was already there I decided to buy a pair of shoes. Not for myself—for Colin. Knowing him, he almost certainly hadn't packed any extra footwear for his trip to the States. Before I could steal his old Nikes I'd have to replace them with something else, or he'd be traveling back to Ireland in his soccer cleats.

That meant I needed his shoe size, so I called him again as I rode the escalator up one more level to where the SportShoe store was. The phone rang a bunch of times before he picked up.

“Sorry, Mor, I almost missed ye there.” He sounded out of breath.

“Why? Are you okay?” I thought of the dead rats and started to freak out. “Are you disoriented? Have you been losing weight?”

“Perhaps, I dunno. At the moment I'm up to me elbows in this papier-mâché gunk. Yer gnome chum is looking rather mummylike at the moment. But don't worry, I didn't cover his nose.”

“That's good.” I was on level three now, not far from the shoe store. “Quick question: What size shoes do you wear?”

“Same size as me feet,” he quipped. “Why d'ye ask?”

“It's for a math project.” Sadly, the continual making up of lame excuses was turning out to be my main semi-goddess superpower. “We're collecting the shoe sizes of people we know, and compiling statistical data and calculating the, uh, probability that two people chosen at random could, you know, share shoes and stuff.” My cheeks were turning pink from lying, and I was glad he couldn't see me. “Just—what is it?”

“Ten and a half Irish, forty-five Euro, no clue what that is in American,” Colin said. “A maths project, eh? That's impressive. By the time ye graduate ye'll be able to calculate the odds on the football betting pools. A useful life skill if ever there was one.”

“I'll figure it out, great.” Now I was standing directly outside SportShoe, with all those huge guy-sized sneakers displayed in the window, each one practically big enough to drive. “Thanks. Okay, I'll see you—”

“Hey,” he said. “If ye have a sec, Mor, I wanted to talk to ye about this school dance thing yer mother mentioned—”

“Not right now, Colin. I really have to get this math assignment done.”
Why why why
did my mother have to blab personal things about me to everyone she met? Especially Colin? A person with whom she should not be having conversations
at all,
in my opinion, and especially not about me?

“I just had one thing to say about it—”

“Oops,” I said, cutting him off. “Can't hear you, sorry! I'm going through a tunnel—”

“A tunnel? Are ye in a train?”

“Right, I'm getting in an elevator! Later!”

I hung up on him.

Fek.
Why did Colin want to talk to me about the junior prom?

He wasn't going to ask me to go with him, because he was flying back to Ireland on Sunday. Prom wasn't until Thursday. The twentieth. My birthday.

And he wasn't going to tell me
not
to go—to wait until I was older and we were both on the same continent and could attend such important and romantic life events together, the way we were obviously meant to.

Nope. I knew Colin well enough to predict exactly what he was going to say.

He was going to tell me—

Never mind. I put the whole prom thing out of my mind and went into the shoe store. The important thing was not whether or not I got to go to a stupid dance.

The important thing was that Colin got to
stop
going.

 

 

sarah had arranged for WednesdaЧ's final prom committee meeting to be held at Dylan's house, at the exact same time Ass Your Kiss Goodbye was not-so-coincidentally rehearsing in the garage. Sarah had also arranged for many of their friends to be randomly passing by the house. In a series of Oscar-worthy performances, each of them acted completely surprised when they saw the guys setting up, and then stuck around to listen.

Soon the rehearsal had sneakily turned into an impromptu performance, with about thirty people preparing to get their groove on in the driveway. Clem and Deirdre were giving out glow sticks, just to add to the concert atmosphere.

“Sorry about the noise,” Sarah said cheerily to Mrs. Blainsvoort. All the living room windows were open, and the sounds of electric guitars being tuned and Dylan warming up on his drum kit were flooding into the house.

“Perhaps we should reschedule.” Mrs. Blainsvoort looked miffed. “Or meet at your house, as we usually do?”

“No time, the prom is next week,” Sarah said. “And who knew my parents were going to have our whole house painted today? Wish they'd told me earlier!” She smiled sweetly at Mrs. Blainsvoort.

“It just seems rather odd,” Mrs. Blainsvoort said with suspicion, “since our only remaining agenda item is—”

“The music!” Sarah grinned. “I know!”

As the band launched into its first number, Mrs. Blainsvoort's hands flew halfway up to her ears. But instead of their usual hardcore covers of classic Kiss, today the band was trying out some mellower song stylings.

The crowd reacted with coached enthusiasm to the band's new sound. More importantly, Mrs. Blainsvoort was sucked right in.

“Oh! I
love
Abba!” she exclaimed.

“Cool! We do too!” said Sarah. The three of us—Sarah, me and Mrs. Blainsvoort—looked out the window. Under the leadership of Clem and Deirdre, the crowd in the driveway was singing along happily and waving their glow sticks in the air. It was like a light beer commercial, only more fake.

“I must say, when you first mentioned your boyfriend's band, I was expecting something—edgier,” Mrs. Blainsvoort said, her hips swaying to the music. “Do they know ‘Dancing Queen'?”

“If you let them play at the junior prom next week, I promise you, they will learn it,” Sarah declared.

“I had no idea this was the type of music you kids are into. Perhaps I
should
reconsider.” Mrs. Blainsvoort was snapping her fingers, only slightly off the beat. “I'll think about it.”

The band formerly known as Ass Your Kiss Goodbye (Sarah told Mrs. Blainsvoort that they were called The School-boys) kept up the easy listening act until Mrs. Blainsvoort left. Then everyone came inside and a victory-is-nearly-ours toast of Red Bull was poured for all. I did my best to avoid being alone with Mike Fitch, but he snuck up on me while I was in the kitchen getting ice from the dispenser.

“So,” he said, while my back was to him. “I hear you have a boyfriend who lives in Europe.”

I was so startled I spun around without letting go of the switch on the refrigerator door.

“What?” A stream of ice chunks clunked and slid all over the kitchen floor. “Who? I mean, who told you that?”

He smiled and bent down to gather up the slippery wet shards.

“Sorry to startle you,” he said. “It's just getting to be kind of dumb, the way I talk to Dylan and Dylan talks to Sarah and Sarah talks to you. I thought it would be better if we talked to each other. Radical, right?”

“Very,” I said, holding a rapidly melting ice cube in my hand. “What do you want to talk about?” I instantly regretted asking, since I already had a good idea of what Mike wanted to talk about. “Hey, the band sounded totally convincing,” I babbled, to keep him from speaking. “Even playing Muzak, you guys rock.”

“Maybe we should change our name to the Ironicks,” he joked. “Morgan, listen—”

“Ha ha ha.” I forced myself to laugh. “Ironicks, that's pretty funny. That's really—”

“I was going to ask you to prom.” He held up his hands, as if to show me he wasn't carrying a weapon. “Not as a date. If your heart belongs to someone, I totally respect that. But if the lucky Euro-dude is not here, why don't you let me, you know—escort you?”

“Mike.” I was totally flustered. “That's dumb. You should ask someone who could be a real date. Half the girls in the junior class would kill to go with you.”

“I doubt that,” he said, looking embarrassed.

“Okay, three quarters.” That made him laugh.
Shut up Morgan,
I scolded myself,
why are you flirting with him?

Mike smiled. “The thing is, I don't want to just go through the motions with someone I'm not crazy about.”

“That's how I feel too,” I said.
No! Disagree with him! Be unpleasant! What are you, on automatic boy pilot?

“See? We have something in common already.” He wiped his wet hands on his jeans. “Bottom line, I'm kind of freaked out by the whole prom-date phenomenon. The junior prom was always kind of a joke, you know? But this year it's so serious, with the tuxes and the dresses and everything. . . .”

Mrs. Blainsvoort,
I thought grimly.
This is all her fault.

Mike was looking at me with those warm, chocolate-brown eyes. “The fact that you're the only girl at school who's not making a huge deal out of this just makes me feel really comfortable asking you.” The melting ice water was dripping down my forearm, but I couldn't bring myself to move.

“Plus you're cool,” Mike went on, “and it would be fun to dance and hang out with you and all our pals. So why don't we go together, as friends, and have a good time? No pressure. Okay?”

No pressure, right.
But I could imagine it: Supercute Mike would look so handsome in a tux, and I would be feeling like pretty hot stuff myself in that knockout dress, and there would be
couples, couples, couples
everywhere, slow dancing under the soft lights and stealing kisses when the chaperones weren't looking. . . .

Wouldn't it be the absolute definition of pathetic to sit there saying,
No no no, we're just friends
all night long? Wouldn't it be far better, or at least easier, to sit home on my birthday, missing Colin and eating junk food and watching movies with Tammy, and pretend the junior prom was not happening at all?

There was no sign of ice in my hand anymore, just a cold puddle that was starting to overflow. I dashed to the sink and spread the fingers of my cupped hand, letting the water trickle down the drain.

“I'll think about it,” I said.

“Great.” Then he kissed me on the cheek, just casually, and left, and I thought,
No no no.

But maybe it was already too late.

t
hanks to the sportshoe shop and a dip into mЧ saved allowance, I had a nice new pair of Converse high tops to trade Colin for his old Nikes.

But when to make the swap? Saturday was the day of the robot competition, and Sunday—too soon!—Colin was heading back to Ireland. Friday after school I had to bring the gnome sisters for a trial double date with Jolly Dan and the elf. I planned to deliver Colin's old sneakers to Jolly Dan then too, assuming, of course, that the date worked out and Jolly Dan held up his end of the bargain. Leprechauns were known to be tricky about stuff like that.

So today, Thursday, was not only the best but the only day to nab Colin's shoes. Mom was working as usual, and since my dad finally had a job interview, I was stuck babysit-ting Tammy after school.

Perfect,
I thought. Tammy would be my secret, irresistible, Colin-attracting weapon.

“Here,” I said to her, as I dialed his number. “Tell him you need an emergency soccer coaching for your big game tomorrow.”

Tammy had all her second-grade homework worksheets scattered on the couch around her, to conceal the fact that her eyes were glued to the television. “I don't
feel
like playing soccer,” she said, staring at the cartoon. “I feel like watching
SpongeBob
.”