Prom Date (20 page)

Margaret felt tears stinging her eyes and, when she looked at Caroline, she was surprised to see tears there, too, sliding slowly down Caroline's angled cheeks.

No one in the gym uttered a word. There was only the sweet, poignant music and the couple gliding along the shiny hardwood floor, all eyes on them.

Liza's parents, watching from the sidelines with pain in their faces, waited patiently.

When the music ended, Liza's head lifted, she looked up at Mitch and, smiling, said, "Thank you. That was very nice." Then she turned toward her parents and said, "I'm very tired now. I'd like to go home, please."

They took her home.

It might have been an hour, maybe less, before spirits lifted again and the fun resumed. But it did resume. It was prom night, their "happy ending" to four years of high school, and after a while the image of the sad, sick girl standing in the doorway in a dress too big for her, her face a clown mask, faded. Laughter and music and chatter replaced the painful silence.

Margaret, dancing in Mitch's arms, had no idea what would happen with them. Maybe they would go their separate ways when college began in the fall. But as long as she lived, a part of her would always love him for what he had done for Liza.

Liza would spend the rest of her life paying for what she'd done. One little dance didn't seem like much to give her in comparison.

"So," Mitch said, looking down at her with a smile, "you never did answer me about softball. I need you on my team this summer. How about it?"

"Well, let's see," she answered slowly, "I have to work at Quartet, and get ready for college. But I might be able to squeeze in some time to play."

Caroline danced by, smiling. Margaret remembered what good sports Jeannine and La-cey had been, finally, about not attending the prom. "There's just one condition," she added quickly. "Caroline, Jeannine, and Lacey play, too. We're a package deal." Because we're a quartet, too, she thought. Like Liza and her friends. But I want us to stay that way, for as long as we possibly can. "Deal?"

"Are they any good?"

Margaret grinned up at him. "The best. Like me, they are the very best."

"Done," )3te said, and laughed.

,#-^

About the Author

"Writing tales of horror makes it hard to convince people that Tm a nice, gentle person," says Diane Hoh.

"So what's a nice woman like me doing scaring people?

"Discovering the fearful side of life: what makes the heart pound, the adrenaline flow, the breath catch in the throat. And hoping always that the reader is having a frightfully good time, too."

Diane Hoh grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania. Since then, she has lived in New York, Colorado, and North Carolina, before settling in Austin, Texas. "Reading and writing take up most of my life," says Hoh, "along with family, music, and gardening." Her other horror novels include Funhouse, The Accident, The Invitation, The Fever, and The Train.

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