The Prom Queen (14 page)

Tap.

My eyes popped open in the dark. I strained to listen.

What had I just heard?

Someone at the door? At the window? Someone trying to get into my room?

My chest was heaving as if I had just run a marathon.

Tap tap.

There it was again. And it was coming from the window. I reached over and flicked on my bedside lamp. Everything appeared normal enough. I got out of bed and walked slowly over to the window. I forced myself to look out, but with the lights on I couldn't see a thing.

Tap!

I snapped my head back before I realized it was just a tree branch, being blown by the wind.

Just a tree branch—but it looked like a skeleton's bony finger.

I slipped back into bed, and the tapping continued. It was as if the branch were beckoning to me, tapping out a message, trying to tell me something.

I was up all night.

I didn't go out all weekend. I spent most of the time in my room, lying on my bed. On Saturday night my parents and aunt were supposed to go to a dinner party, but my mom canceled so I wouldn't be alone. I objected, but not very hard.

Every time the phone rang, I jumped. I kept expecting it to be Justin. Dawn called instead. “I heard that Justin was at your house last night,” she said.

“News travels fast.”

“Some kids saw his car parked in your drive,” Dawn explained.

Shadyside was such a fishbowl. Everybody was always watching everybody else and finding out your business. “Yeah, he came over,” I admitted.

“I know
that,”
Dawn teased. “That's what I just told you. What I want to know is what he wanted.”

“Good question. I have no idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I have no idea what he wanted. He gave me the creeps, if you want to know the truth.”

He was giving me a lot more than the creeps—coming toward me with that letter opener in his hand—but I wasn't ready to start spreading rumors and accusing him.

At school on Monday I avoided him all day. It wasn't easy. I kept catching him staring at me. Once, between classes, I turned the corner of an empty hallway and almost ran right into him: “Hi,” I mumbled, then hurried on before he could say a word.

“Hey!” he called after me, but I kept walking.

When I got home from school, I found a letter sitting on my pillow. It was from Kevin. I tore it open.

“Guess what?” the letter began. “Dad finally gave in. You've got a date for the prom!”

I was laughing and crying at the same time.

The prom. This Saturday night.

It seemed like such a long time ago that I had
even cared about it. Kevin didn't know what was going on, which made his letter seem even sweeter somehow.

I held the letter against my cheek. If only Kevin were coming sooner.

Now all I had to do was make it to Saturday. Make it to the prom.

Tuesday evening was the first dress rehearsal for
The Sound of Music,
which would be performed on Friday night. Everyone was tense, as they always are at a dress. Only at this dress everyone was
really
tense.

For one thing it was hard to walk around the stage without thinking about Elana. It was especially hard for me. I kept picturing how she had looked, sprawled facedown in the middle of the floor.

“Come on,” Robbie was yelling, “let's get this show on the road, or we'll be here all night.”

I was busy rechecking the props on the small table I had set up in the wings when Dawn came up behind me. Her heavy Pan-Cake makeup made her look very weird offstage.

“Has Justin tried to see you again?” she asked me.

“No.”

Dawn stared at the stage, biting her lip hard. “Only four days to go.”

“I know.”

“I can't wait for the prom to be over.”

“I know how you feel.”

Dawn said, “Maybe we should bag it now and get out of town. Would Kevin let us stay with him in Alabama?”

I suddenly remembered—how could I have forgotten? “Hey, guess what? I have a date after all. Kevin can come.”

For a moment the tension broke. Dawn whooped and clapped me on the back. “That's great!”

I shrugged. “I'm so frightened and upset right now, I can't really enjoy it. I mean, think about it, Dawn—if someone is killing the prom queens, there isn't much time left.”

“I know,” Dawn said, her eyes watering as she squeezed my hand.

“Places, everyone!”
shrieked Robbie from the auditorium.

“Break a leg,” I told Dawn.

“Am I sweating?”

“Yes.”

“This stupid makeup,” she complained. “It's so hot and it gives me zits.”

Abruptly she reached out and gave me a hug. I could feel her heart pounding.

Then Dawn “Sister Maria” Rodgers hurried off to start the show.

“Okay, listen up,” Robbie called from the auditorium when we were all set to start. “This time, no matter what happens, don't stop. We're going to get all the way through this show for once.”

Then we began.

Dress rehearsals are supposed to go badly. It's an old theater tradition. “Bad dress, good show,” actors always say.

If that was true, we were headed for one of the greatest productions in the history of Shadyside High. Everything went wrong.

Nuns kept entering at the wrong time. The reverend mother walked right into the captain's house in the middle of a scene. People dropped lines right and left and improvised crazy new ones. There were long, horrible pauses during which everyone on stage just stared at everyone else in bewilderment.

But Dawn was probably the most uptight. She kept referring to the housekeeper as the baroness and mixing up all the names of the Von Trapp children.

It was the first time we'd practiced with the band, instead of just a pianist. That went about as badly as every other part of the show. The musicians were either way behind the singers or far out in front. It was like a race where the lead keeps changing over and over again.

I made my share of bloopers, I have to admit. When Sister Maria quit her governess job and ran back to the abbey, I pulled on the wrong rope. A flat came flying in and almost beaned Dawn again.

When it was finally finished, Robbie called the whole cast onstage. “Okay,” he said, “I hope you got that out of your system, because that was the
worst production of
The Sound of Music
in the history of the theater.”

“Oh, come on, Robbie,” the freshman playing Gretel called. “It wasn't the
worst.”

“Yeah, Robbie,” said the captain, pulling off his fake mustache. “At least we made it through the whole thing.”

“And we're all exhausted,” the baroness chimed in.

“Okay, okay, sorry.” Robbie came up onstage. “I guess I'm exhausted too.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You're right,” he said. “We'll pull it all together. I know we will.”

He stared down at the pages and pages of notes in his hand. “You know what? You all deserve a break. I'm going to give these notes tomorrow. Everybody go home now and get a good night's sleep.”

There was a cheer from the cast. Not much of a cheer. Everyone was feeling pretty tired. The actors all trooped toward the two dressing rooms to start slathering on cold cream to get all that awful makeup off their faces.

It always took me longer than anybody else to get everything squared away after rehearsal. First I had to hunt down all the props the actors hadn't remembered to return to the prop table. Then I had to take the props back up to the prop room. Then I had to pull up all the drop sets and make sure they were secure.

I was on my second trip to the prop room when I
noticed that the closet door was slightly ajar. I was positive I had left it closed tight. I hadn't opened that door since the last time I had noticed it was open.

So. . . .

So that meant that somebody else had been up there.

I froze.

And then a voice behind me said, “Hey.”

It was Justin. He was blocking the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, staring at me with those pale blue eyes. He looked as nervous as he had the night before.

“So . . .” he began in a fake movie voice, “we meet at last.”

“Justin—” There were people still there, I reassured myself. And if I screamed, they'd hear me.

“I don't know, Lizzy, call me crazy. But I've been getting the feeling you're avoiding me.”

“That's crazy.”

“But the thing is, I haven't asked you what I came to ask you last Friday night.”

Should I make a run for it, screaming? There was about four feet separating us. Maybe he'd be so surprised I could break through.

Too late. He had started to move toward me slowly. His face seemed so tense. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets. Did he have a knife?

“What I wanted to know,” he said, “is if you had a date for the prom.”

I stared at him in amazement.

“Well, don't look so shocked. I know you're a little mad at me and think I'm an egomaniac and everything, but the fact is . . . well . . .”

“You're asking me to the prom?” I said.

He grinned sexily. “Right.”

I began to breathe again.

“You're asking me to the prom?” I said again.

He laughed. “Well, yeah.”

I laughed too. So that's why he had been so nervous! Nervous about asking
me
to the prom. I couldn't help it—I felt great. “I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just—”

Justin came closer. “Hey,” he said softly, “what do you say?”

“Lizzy? Are you up there?”
a voice called up from the stage below. It was Dawn. I moved toward the door. Justin followed.

“I'll be down in a second,” I called back. I shut the prop-room door behind me; then Justin and I moved along the catwalk.

“Uh, listen,” I said quietly, “I can't go.”

Justin's face fell.

“I'm sorry. I'm really flattered actually. But Kevin—I just found out—he got permission to come after all.”

“Oh.” Justin seemed really disappointed. “That's great!”

We looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Then he said, “Well . . .” He went down the ladder first. I followed.

“Hi, Dawn,” he said when he got down to the
stage. She was in black jeans and a pastel green tank top. I could see she had left plenty of makeup around her eyes.

“See you around,” he told me and sauntered off as casually as he could.

Dawn was staring at me with fear in her eyes.

“What's going on?”

I smiled. I told her what Justin had wanted.

“He asked you to the prom?” Dawn beamed. “No! I don't believe it.”

It annoyed me a little that she would be so surprised. “What's so strange about that?”

“Nothing.” Dawn began poking me in the ribs. “So? So? What did you say?”

“I told him I'm going with Kevin.”

She seemed disappointed and lost interest in the subject. “I forgot about that. So, are you almost done?”

“Five more minutes,” I said.

She picked up my leather bomber jacket, which I'd left on a chair. “Isn't it a little hot for this?” she said, trying it on. “It's spring, remember?”

“Then how come I'm always cold?”

Roger Brownmiller, who was playing Uncle Max, came out of the dressing room and called to Dawn. “You coming?” He was the last person besides us backstage.

“I'm going to wait for Lizzy,” she said.

“Don't get down on yourself,” he told her as he left.

“Thanks,” Dawn said. She watched him go, then
turned back to me. “You wouldn't believe how many people have been telling me not to commit suicide or anything. Was I that bad?”

“We all stunk,” I said.

“Thanks a lot,” Dawn said. She slumped out onto the stage. “Hurry up,” she called, zipping my jacket up and down. “It gives one the creeps being here all alone.”

I wish she hadn't said that. I had been concentrating so hard on the show that I had forgotten to be nervous for a couple of hours. Suddenly the fact that we were all alone in the semidark auditorium came home to me.

I remembered Elana. All the other bad memories weren't far behind.

“I'm almost done,” I called.

I couldn't see Dawn now. And she didn't answer.

“Dawn?” I said. “Please don't play games. I can't handle it.”

This time she answered me.

She answered with a bloodcurdling scream.

I
raced out onto the brightly lit stage.

No Dawn.

Then I heard someone thrashing around to my right. I whirled around. It was hard for me to believe what I was seeing.