What's Your Status? (7 page)

“Well,” I said. I couldn’t think of any way around it. “Yes?”

Turtell shook his head again. “Yeah. Not going to happen.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You want Kittson to win, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!” Turtell looked offended that I would even have implied otherwise. “I just don’t want her to dance with anyone else. That’s all.”

I felt like we were speaking in riddles. “But if she wins prom queen—”

“Which she will,” Turtell said reverently.

“Yes. So if that happens, she’s going to have to dance with whoever wins prom king.”

“Not necessarily,” Turtell said, opening his book with a small smile.

This didn’t sound good. “Glen,” I said carefully. I had the feeling that I needed to get in front of this before it got worse. Kind of like when Schuyler announced she wanted to go blond. “You’re not going to do anything, right? I mean—”

“MacDonald!” the teacher at the front said, waving my yellow detention slip.

“Don’t worry, Mad,” Turtell said. “It’s all good.”

“What?” I asked, growing more concerned. “What’s all good?”

“MacDonald!” the teacher yelled again, and I looked over at her. “Unless you’d like to stay a little longer…” she said.

“I’m coming,” I said, standing and swinging my bag
over my shoulder. I looked down at Turtell. “We’ll talk about this more,” I said. “Right, Glen?”

“Sure,” Turtell said, still focused on his book and not looking at me. “See you, Mad.”

I headed to the front of the classroom and retrieved my signed slip from the teacher. I really didn’t understand what Turtell was getting at. How did he expect Kittson to win prom queen but not dance with the prom king?

I added this question to my ever-growing mental list of things to deal with and walked to the classroom that had been assigned to us for prom committee meetings. It was, of course, located at the opposite end of the school, and as I hurried over there, I wondered if Putnam High had been laid out in this idiotic way just to give the students some extra cardio. As I got to the classroom, I glanced at my phone to check the time and realized I’d missed almost half the prom meeting. Through the door’s narrow window, I could see Kittson holding forth.

“Madison!” someone called. I turned to look down the hallway and saw a skinny kid in a gray hoodie. Tanner Matthews, sophomore, aspiring DJ, and the number one reason this prom might be an epic disaster, was running toward me.

“Hey, Mad!” he yelled at full volume as he approached. I mimed taking something out of my ears, as I’d had to do every time I’d had a conversation with him. Tanner looked at me quizzically for a moment, then pushed back his hood and pulled out his earphones. Tanner was short, even for a sophomore, with long emo bangs he was
always pushing out of his eyes. He wouldn’t have been my choice for DJ, but he had been willing to do it for free, which became a necessity after Kittson spent our music budget on the highest level of personalized gift bags, which contained things like flash drives and pens that lit up.

“Hi, Tanner,” I said. I glanced toward the door to see Kittson frowning at me and pointing at her wrist.

“I thought I might catch you here,” he said, reaching behind his back and taking out a pair of drumsticks, one of which he twirled between his fingers. “We need to talk about the prom music.”

“We do,” I agreed. But Tanner didn’t expand on this, just started drumming on the classroom door, causing Kittson to glare in my direction again. “Listen,” I said, trying to move things along, “I need to get a sense of what kind of music you’re going to be playing. The prom is this Saturday, after all.”

“I know,” he said, building his drumroll to a crescendo. “And I’m working on a playlist now. I can play it for you if you want. But I kinda need some guidance here, Mad.”

“Just play…you know…” I said. I started to make a hand gesture, but then stopped, as hand gestures seemed to be getting me into trouble today. “Prom music.”

“Yeah,” Tanner said, now twirling the stick in his other hand. “You’ve said that. But I don’t know exactly what that means.”

The trouble was that I didn’t, either. I’d never been to a prom, and neither had Tanner. And I didn’t think
the prom movies I’d watched were a good indication of reality, as everyone always seemed to be doing synchronized dances in them. “Just…” I started, wishing that Kittson hadn’t bought illumination pens and we’d hired a real DJ. A real DJ would not be asking me these questions. “Just songs people want to dance to. And then slow songs, so people can slow dance. And…um…mix up the two.”

Tanner’s eyes lit up. “Songs like this one?” he asked. He handed me one of his earbuds, and knowing from previous near-deaf experiences that Tanner kept his music at full volume, I held it slightly away from my ear.

Tanner scrolled through his black iPod and selected a song. The sound of screeching tires reverberated, followed by a guy yelling, “Love is dead! Love is dead! Love is dead!
Dance!
”

I lowered the earbud and looked at him. “What is this?”

“Murderous Marionettes,” Tanner said, looking pleased with himself. “Is that the kind of song you meant?”

I handed the earbud back to him, my ears still ringing slightly. “No.”

Tanner’s face fell. “But it said ‘dance.’ It said it right in the song!”

“Right,” I said. “I heard that. And good…initiative.” I looked toward the door again, very aware that with every minute that passed, Kittson was getting madder. “Look, I’ll try to make you a list of songs so you can get a general feel for what we want. Okay?”

“Sure,” Tanner said. “That would be good.” He scrolled through his iPod. “Want to hear the playlist I pulled together anyway? Because maybe some of it
is
what you want.”

I looked at the iPod doubtfully. “Does it have more of those Evil Puppets songs?”

“Murderous Marionettes,” Tanner corrected. “And yes!”

“Um,” I said, edging toward the door, “why don’t you go ahead and save that playlist—just in case—and I’ll try to come up with a list for you in the meantime?”

“Kewl,” Tanner said, finishing up with a rim shot and twirling his sticks once more before shoving them into his backpack. “Catch you on the flip side, Mad.” He headed down the hallway, and I pulled open the door in time to hear Kittson say, “That’s all for today. See you at tomorrow’s meeting. And please be on time, because Dr. Trent is going to be attending!”

I stepped aside as four of the other prom committee members filed out, all typing on their phones and handheld devices. They appeared competent and responsible, but I knew it was all a facade. Most of the members of the prom committee were résumé kids. They were there to put the committee on their college applications and really didn’t care about it at all. So they were notoriously flaky, which was why Kittson and I were basically pulling the whole prom together ourselves.

Kittson was still standing at the front of the room, straightening up a pile of papers, her long blond hair
hanging stick-straight down her back. I felt myself smiling, wondering what time she’d had to get up in the morning to achieve that look. The fact that Kittson and I had become friends was a source of constant amazement to me. It wasn’t like we were incredibly close, but we were friends, no question. A few months earlier, I never would have thought it was possible. But then, a few months earlier, I could never have imagined her dating Turtell, either.

“Sorry,” I said as she put her notebook into her designer purse. “I was talking to our esteemed DJ.”

Kittson looked over at me. “And?” she asked.

“Well…” I stalled. “He’s making…progress. He had a sample mix to play for me.” I thought it was better that Kittson not know exactly what was on the mix.

“Oh, good,” she said with a sigh of relief.

“How was the meeting?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Who knows if anyone was even paying attention?” she said. “But we went over procedures for the new voting system, and then talked about delivery of the Hayes crown.”

I was suddenly very glad I’d missed the meeting. I’d been hearing about the Hayes crown since freshman year. It seemed like someone was always droning on about how it was one of the school’s most treasured heirlooms and had been used to crown every prom queen since the fifties. And it must have actually been pretty valuable, since the year before, there had been a motion to get it appraised so that we could build a new gymnasium. But the school board had revolted, talking about “keeping tradition alive in our
heart and on our head.” At any rate, the crown was one of those things people seemed to go crazy about for absolutely no discernible reason. Every spring, anticipating various schools’ senior prank days, Dr. Trent removed the crown from where it normally sat, inside the main trophy case, and locked it in his office.

I was also happy to have missed yet another discussion about the voting system. Dr. Trent had put a new system in place that would let students vote for the prom king and queen using a text-messaged code sent to their cell phones the night of the prom. It was supposed to ensure more immediate, accurate results and prevent smear campaigns.

“Oh, good,” I said quickly, so she wouldn’t fill me in. “So I’m all caught up, then.”

“Dr. Trent is presenting the committee with the Hayes crown
tomorrow
,” Kittson said gravely as she zipped up her bag. “So if you could avoid detention, that would be great.”

“It’s not like I
try
to get detention—” I started as my phone chimed, letting me know I had a new Q message. As subtly as I could, I pulled it out of my pocket and snuck a glance at it.

La Lisse → mad_mac
Mad, où es-tu? Are you coming?

Shy Time → mad_mac
Hey, Mad, are you still meeting us for coffee? I got you your ush, JIC.

“You’re absolutely right,” I told Kittson, wanting to wrap this up as quickly as possible. I clicked on Lisa’s update to see her location and saw that she was already at Stubbs. My friends were waiting, and I hadn’t seen them all day. “I promise I’ll be at the meeting tomorrow.”

“Good,” Kittson said. She shook her head and slung her bag over her shoulder. “These people. They act like this is supposed to be
fun,
or something.”

I pressed my lips together to stop myself from smiling and followed Kittson out of the classroom.

CHAPTER 3

Song: Coffee’s For Closers/Fall Out Boy

Quote: “She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).”

—Lewis Carroll

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled Judy, née Jetta-son, my green Jetta, into a parking space in front of Stubbs Coffee, the place that had been our regular hangout for the past few years. Through the plate-glass window, I could see my friends sitting in their regular seats—Schuyler curled in the corner of the couch and Lisa sitting next to her. As I pulled open the door, I saw that they’d left my spot—the armchair—open for me.

“Alors!”
Lisa said when she saw me. “Mad, where have you been? We were about to leave.” I glanced at Schuyler, who shook her head and mouthed,
No we weren’t.

I smiled and studied my two remaining best friends. Lisa was petite, only about 5' 1'', but she made up for it with both her big hair and personality. She had been on a French kick for a while now, constantly inserting Gallic
phrases into her conversation. I’d gotten used to it, and so was always surprised when someone who didn’t know Lisa met her for the first time and invariably assumed she was an exchange student. Schuyler towered over Lisa—she was 5' 10''—but didn’t have the same forceful personality. Shy was, well, shy around people who weren’t her close friends. But the two of them were BFF, and had been since Schuyler had come to Putnam High from Choate three years earlier.

“Hey,” I said, dropping my bag and settling into my chair. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Prom stuff?” Schuyler asked sympathetically, handing me a plastic cup.

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. I took a sip and immediately felt better about life. Schuyler had gotten me that month’s usual—an iced latte with caramel and an extra shot of espresso. “Prom stuff,” I confirmed. “There’s a very good chance that the DJ might ruin the prom, guys. Just a heads-up.”