Someone Like You (27 page)

Macon saw me, and right then I felt it for the first time in so long, that rush and craziness, that feeling I'd had at Topper Dam. He looked good and he grinned at me, and I thought that in this desperate moment, alone at the prom, he could take me away.

It was too much, all of a sudden, everything rushing at me. The prom and Michael and my mother and the baby. Macon and Ronnie's house and that night in the car, with the glass shattering around my head. Elizabeth Gunderson and her sly smile, the cold of the woods as I'd gotten sick on New Year's Eve, Grandma Halley's hand, thin and warm, in mine. And finally, Noah coming closer and closer to me, his tongue sticking out, and now Scarlett on the dance floor, right before my eyes, swaying to the music and smiling, smiling, smiling.

I pushed through the crowd, still holding my dress, thinking only of getting out, getting away, something. I pushed past girls in their princess outfits, past clouds of cologne and perfume, past Mrs. Oakley, the vice principal, who was eyeballing everyone on the lookout for drugs and drunks. I didn't stop until I reached the bathroom door and ran inside, letting it slam behind me.

The first person I saw was Melissa Ringley, standing in front of the mirrors with a lipstick in her hand. She looked at the mirror in front of her, and me beyond it, and turned around, her mouth still in a perfect O.

“Halley, my goodness, what is wrong?” She put the lipstick down and walked toward me, lifting her dress off the ground so it wouldn't brush the floor. It was black, with a full skirt and a modest neckline. She had a small gold cross hanging from a chain around her neck. “Are you okay?”

I did look crazed, wild even. My hair, so carefully crafted into a perfect French twist by Scarlett, had somehow come un-tucked and was sticking up like a lopsided Mohawk. My face was red and my mascara smeared and that didn't even include my dress, which was bagging open in the back now that I had let go of it. Two other girls, checking their makeup, brushed past me, glanced at my exposed underwear and clucked their tongues as they pushed the door open, leaving me and Melissa alone.

“I'm fine,” I said quickly, moving to the sink and wetting a paper towel, trying to do something about my face. I pulled my hair down, bobby pins spilling everywhere. “Just a rotten night, that's all.”

“Well, I heard Noah was drunk,” she said, whispering the last word and taking a furtive look around. “You poor thing. And what happened to your dress? Oh my God, Halley, turn around. Look at that!
”

“
I
know,”
I said, my teeth clenched. I couldn't believe I was mooning Melissa Ringley.
“
I just want to get out of here.”

“Well, you can't go out there like that,” she said, moving around behind me. “Here, hand me some of those bobby pins, I'll see what I can do.”

So I stood there, with Melissa behind me muttering to herself and stabbing bobby pins into my dress, all the while wondering how the night could get any worse. And then, it did.

Elizabeth Gunderson was wearing a tight black dress and spike heels that I could hear clacking outside before she even opened the door and came into the bathroom itself. When she saw me she narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down before moving to another sink and leaning into the mirror.

“Well, this should at least get you through the rest of the night,” Melissa said cheerfully, coming out from behind me and tossing the extra bobby pins into the trash. “Just don't try any radical movements or anything.”

“
Okay,
”
I said, staring at my reflection. I could feel Elizabeth watching me. I told myself it was only fitting she was with Macon; they deserved each other. This didn't really make me feel better. “Thanks, Melissa. Really.”

“Oh, no problem,” she said in her chirpy little can-do voice, fluffing her blond bob with her fingers. “It's all part of being prom chairwoman, right?” She waggled her fingers at me as she left, the sound of music—something slow and easy—coming in as the door opened and then drifted shut behind her.

Beside me, Elizabeth was putting on eyeliner, leaning in closer to the mirror. She looked tired, worn out, now that I was looking at her more closely. Her eyes were red and her lipstick was too dark, making her mouth look like a gash against her skin.

I took one last look at myself, decided there wasn't much I could do under the circumstances, and started to leave. I had nothing left to say to Elizabeth Gunderson. But then, just as I was reaching for the door, I heard her voice.

“Halley.”

I turned around. “What?”

She pulled away from the mirror, brushing her hair over her shoulders. “So.” She wasn't looking at me, instead down at the purse in her hands. “Are you having a good night?”

I smiled, in spite of myself. “No,” I said. “Are you?”

She took a deep breath, then ran a finger over her lips, smoothing out her lipstick. “No. I'm not.”

I nodded, not sure what else to say, and reached for the door again. “Well,” I said, “I guess I'll see you later.”

I was halfway out, the music loud enough that I almost didn't hear her when she said, “You know, he still loves you. He says he doesn't, but he does. He does.”

I stopped and turned around. “Macon?” I said.

“He won't admit it,” she said quietly, but her voice was shaky, and I thought of how I'd envied her that night at Ronnie's, stretched out across the bed examining her toes. I didn't now. “He says he doesn't even think about you, but I can tell. Especially tonight. When he saw you out there. I can tell.”

“It's nothing,” I said to her, realizing how true it was. It was just a feeling, a whooshing in my ears. Not love.

“Do you still love him?” In the bathroom her voice echoed strangely, louder and then softer all around us.

“No,” I said quietly. And I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my wild hair, my ripped dress. You could even see the scar over my eye where the makeup had brushed off. But I was okay. I was. “I don't,” I said.

And Elizabeth Gunderson turned from the sink, her hair swinging over her shoulder just it had before she tumbled off a million pyramids at a million high-school football games. She opened her mouth to say something more but I didn't hear it, never got a chance, because just then the door slammed open and Ginny Tabor burst in with a blast of pink satin, her voice preceding her.

˝Halley!˝ She stopped, fluttering one hand over her chest while she caught her breath. “You've—you've got to get out here.”

“Why?” I said.

“Scarlett,” she gasped, still breathing hard. She held up a finger, holding me there, while she gulped for air. “Scarlett's having the baby.”

“What?”
I spun around to look at her. “Are you serious?”

“I swear, she and Cameron were getting their picture taken and Brett and I were next in line and right when the flash went off, she just got this look on her face and then boom it was happening—”

“Move, ”
I said, pushing past her out into the cafeteria, around the dance floor and the people drinking punch, past the band and to the edge of a crowd gathered around the tiny wooden drawbridge where everyone had been posing for pictures. There was a buzz in the air and a photographer with a huge camera wringing his hands and finally, with her face bright red and way too many people pressed around her, Scarlett. When she saw me, she burst into tears.

“You're fine, you're fine,” I said, sliding around to her other side, by Cameron who was looking kind of ashen. Someone was shouting about an ambulance and the music had stopped and I couldn't even remember the breathing patterns we'd learned in Lamaze class.

Scarlett grabbed me by the neckline and jerked me toward her; she was surprisingly strong. “I don't want an ambulance,” she said. “Just get me the hell out of here. I am not having this baby at the prom.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, looking to Cameron for support but he was leaning against the edge of the drawbridge, fanning himself with one hand. He looked worse than Scarlett. “Let's go, then. Come on.”

I helped her to her feet, her arm around my shoulder, and started to push through the crowd. Mrs. Oakley was on one side of me, saying she'd already called someone, to stay put, and somewhere in an explosion of pink was Ginny Tabor, yelling about boiling water, but all I could think of was Scarlett's hand squeezing my shoulder so damn hard I could hardly even see straight. But somehow, we were making headway.

“Where's Cameron?” Scarlett said between gasps as we burst out the door into the courtyard. “What happened to him?”

“He's back there somewhere,” I told her, dragging her along beside me, her grip still tight on my skin. “He looked a little nauseous or something.”

“This is no time for that!
”
she screamed, right in my ear.

“We're fine, we're fine,
”
I said, and now that we were getting closer to the parking lot it suddenly occurred to me that we had no mode of transportation, since the limo wasn't due back until midnight. By now we'd lost most of the crowd, all of them hanging back by the cafeteria door with Mrs. Oakley shouting about how we should wait for the ambulance, it would be here any second.

“I don't want an ambulance,” Scarlett said again.
“
I swear, if they put me in one I will fight them tooth and nail.”

“We don't
have
a car,” I told her. “We took the limo, remember?”

“I don't care,” she said, clutching at my shoulder even harder.
“Do something!”

“I will get us a ride,” I said, looking around the parking lot for any poor sucker who just happened to be driving off at that moment. “Don't worry,” I told her. “I have it under control.”

But this was nothing
Seventeen
magazine had ever covered. We were on our own.

Just then I heard a car screech around the corner, and I leaned out and waved my arm frantically, as much as I could while still supporting Scarlett. “Hello!” I called. “Please, God, please stop.”

“Oh, no,” Scarlett said quietly. “My water just broke. Oh, man, what a mess. This dress is a goner.”

“Please
stop!!”
I screamed at the car as it came closer, already slowing down, and of course as it slid to a stop beside us, engine rumbling, I knew who it was.

“Hey there,” Macon said, smiling from the driver's seat as he hit the button to unlock the door. He was in a different car this time, a Lexus, Elizabeth next to him. “Need a ride?”

“Of course we need a ride!” Scarlett screamed at him. “Are you stupid?”

“That would be nice, thank you,” I said smoothly as Elizabeth reached behind her to open the back door and we piled in, Scarlett all sticky and me scattering bobby pins everywhere because these were definitely radical movements. We were pulling away when Cameron ran up and we had to stop to let him in, too; he was huffing and puffing and still looked kind of pale.

“What happened to you?” I asked as Scarlett bore down on my bad hand, squeezing so hard my fingers were folding in on each other.

“I passed out,” he said quietly.

“What did he say?” Scarlett bellowed from my other side.

“He didn't say anything,” I said. “He's fine. Now, let's work on our breathing. Deep breaths, in and out—”

“I don't want to breathe,” she said in a low voice. “I want drugs and I want them
now.”

From the rearview, I could see Macon grinning back at us, and I had a sudden flash of the last time we'd been together in a car, speeding toward town. But I couldn't think about that now.

“Breathe,” I said to Scarlett. “Come on now.”

“I'm scared,” she said. “Oh, God, Halley, it
hurts.”

I gripped her hand harder, tighter, ignoring my own pain. “Think about what we learned in class, okay? Peaceful thoughts. Uh, oceans and fields of flowers, and country lakes.”

“Shut
up!”
she said. “God, listen to yourself.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, “don't think about that. Think about good things, like that trip we took to the beach in sixth grade, remember? When you got stung by the jellyfish?”

“That was good?” Her brow was wet, sweaty, and her hand in mine was hot. I tried not to look scared, but it was hard.

“Sure it was,” I said, and Macon was still watching me as we sped down Main Street but I ignored him, going on, “and remember baking cookies in your kitchen all those summers, and dancing to the radio, and last summer with Michael, and going to the lake, and...”

“Kiwi fruit,” she said, gasping. Beside me Cameron looked like he was ready to pass out again.

“Right,” I said, ready to run with anything, “kiwi fruit. And remember the day you got your license? And the first thing you did was back into my house, right there by the garage door? Remember?”

“Your dad said most people stick to just hitting other cars,” she said, her voice raspy, hand still gripping mine. “He said I was special.”

The lights of the hospital were coming up now, closer. I could hear an ambulance, somewhere. “I know he did,” I said, brushing the damp hair off her forehead. “Just hold on, Scarlett, okay? We're almost there. Just hold on.”

She squeezed my hand, hard, and closed her eyes. “Don't leave me, okay? Promise you won't.”

“I won't,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot, past the front entrance to Emergency. “I'll be right here. I promise.”

They put Scarlett in a wheelchair, shoved a bunch of forms in my hand, and pushed her through a set of double doors with a bang, leaving me and Cameron at Admitting with a bunch of Boy Scouts who'd had a camping accident, an old man with a bleeding forehead, and a woman screaming in Spanish with a baby planted against her hip. Cameron went over and sat down, putting his head between his knees, and after I scribbled what I could on the forms, I went to the pay phone to call Marion.