Prom Kings and Drama Queens (11 page)

“Check it out,” Daniel said. “I did a little informal survey. Last year’s junior prom was called ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ More like ‘Some Expensive Evening.’ ”

Daniel really knew how to suck the magic out of things, but I had to admit he was right when I read:
Two prom tickets: average cost $140

One prom dress: average cost $175

One pair of women’s shoes: average cost $85

One pair of men’s shoes: average cost $90

One purse: average cost $35

One tux rental: average cost $125

One corsage: average cost $35

One boutonniere: average cost $18

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Limo: average cost per couple $70

Prom pictures: average cost $25

After-prom hotel: average cost per couple $100

Total average cost: $898

“And that’s only the things that are legal,” Daniel said.

I closed the folder. “Wow, I can’t believe men’s shoes are so expensive—they’re so plain.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Daniel said.

I laughed. “Just kidding. Okay, you’re right. It’s a ridiculous expense. But what are we supposed to do about it. It’s just a list—what kind of article do we write?”

Daniel pulled into the parking lot of the nursing home. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I thought you could come up with that—since you don’t seem to like
my
ideas.”

I sneered at him and opened the car door. “I still have until Monday to come up with an idea, remember?”

Daniel closed his car door. “Fair enough.” Once we were inside the nursing home, Daniel did most of the talking to a woman at the front desk.

Judging by her excitement over our presence, I guessed she hadn’t been told we were there because it was police-enforced community service. A woman named Frances escorted us into a large recreation room. An 104

institutional odor that always reminded me of chicken with rice soup met us at the door along with a tiny woman who greeted us with, “It’s about time you two came to visit me.” Frances brought the tiny woman to a couch and returned to explain that she greeted almost everyone that way. “She thinks you’re her son and daughter-in-law,” Frances whispered.

Daniel smiled. “I remember. Last year when I came, she yelled at me for not sending her flowers on Mother’s Day.”

I tried to get the idea of Daniel and I being a couple out my mind. “What did you say to her?” I asked.

Daniel shrugged. “I told her it wouldn’t happen again.”

Frances slipped her hand into the crook of Daniel’s elbow. “Now, don’t be modest.” She turned to me. “The next day he came with a bouquet of flowers and told her it was a belated Mother’s Day gift.” Daniel looked slightly embarrassed at first, and then the corner of his mouth turned up in another smirk. He looked at me and said, “Shall we mingle?” I stayed close to him as we paused next to a table with two men playing cards. It must have been a high-stakes game because neither one of them looked up. I wasn’t sure what the stakes would be in a nursing home. The green Jell-O sitting on the snack table?

“What do we do?” I whispered to Daniel.

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“Just talk,” he said. Then he sat on a couch next to two women.

One of the women, who was wearing a flowered dress with a zipper down the front, turned to me and said, “You look just like my granddaughter.” I smiled.

“How old are you, dear?” said the other woman, who held a handkerchief in her hands.

“Sixteen,” I said.

“Oh,” the woman in the flowered dress said, “my granddaughter is twenty-five.”

I wasn’t sure whether to be happy that I appeared sophisticated enough to look like a twenty-five-year-old or depressed that I looked nine years older than I should.

“Is this your young fella?” the one with the handkerchief asked.

Then the other woman hit her lightly on the arm and scolded, “They don’t call it that anymore, Esther.” She turned to us. “It’s Significant Other now, isn’t it?” I was just about to explain that Daniel was not my Significant Other, or any other Other for that matter, when a third woman grabbed my hand and shook it.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

She looked at me with squinty eyes. “Your hands are sticky,” she said. “Whadja eat?”

I pulled my hand away reflexively and then felt a lit-106

tle embarrassed for doing so. “Nothing,” I said. Did she think I was trying to steal the green Jell-O?

The woman walked away. Daniel leaned over and whispered, “Some are more lucid than others.” After that, we talked to several people who asked us how old we were and said again and again how we reminded them of someone. After a while the woman who thought I looked like her granddaughter asked us to play the piano. “Yes, please, please,” everyone began to chant.

I looked at Daniel, puzzled.

“I guess they think we know how to play.”

“Do you?” I asked.

“A little. How about you?”

“Lindsay’s tried to teach me a few things. You know,

‘Heart and Soul’ and some others.”

Daniel smiled. “Well . . . let’s hit it.” He grabbed my hand and brought me over to the piano where we sat next to each other on the wooden bench. Daniel looked at me and counted, “One, two, three, four.” Then he promptly went into the bumpa-dumpta-bumpa-dumpta part of “Heart and Soul.” After a few measures, I joined in. We played the same eight measures over and over again because neither of us knew any more.

After a while I could play it without looking down, so I watched the people around us. They all wore 107

smiles. Some were clapping and swaying from side to side. Others tapped their feet in time with the music.

And a particularly exuberant group got up to dance. I couldn’t believe such a pathetic rendition of something I wasn’t even sure was a song could make them so happy. I turned toward Daniel. He looked really dorky, shaking his head and lifting his hands high in the air between notes. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at him or admire him for losing himself in the music, no matter how lame it was.

After a while, Frances announced it was time for the afternoon snack. Some people came over to Daniel and me to thank us.

“So,” Frances said, “will you come again?” Daniel looked at me as if he were waiting for an answer. “Um, sure,” I said. I didn’t know exactly how many times Daniel had told his father we would go to the nursing home, and I didn’t want to be the one to say no in front of Frances. She seemed so nice.

“Hungry?” Daniel asked, once we were back in the car.

I
was
hungry, but did I want to spend a whole meal with Mr. Arrogance? Hunger won out and I ended up at Char-Hut, sitting across from Daniel, watching him eat a very messy veggie burger.

“It’s good,” he said. “You should try it.” I stabbed a piece of chicken in my salad. “No, thanks,” I said. “Veggie burgers are one of those things 108

that even my mother couldn’t make look appealing.

They just look like orange burgers. Yuck.” Daniel took a huge bite of the sandwich and licked some ketchup off his lower lip. “Sometimes looks can be deceiving.”

109

THIRTEEN

Emily Breezes Through

Brian curved around the causeway onto A1A. The view to my right turned from concrete and glass to golden sunlight sparkling on the water. I tried to capture and freeze the whole picture of me sitting in Brian Harrington’s car with the gorgeous backdrop of Fort Lauderdale beach.

We drove through a gate into a parking lot next to several boats. “I hope this isn’t a mistake,” Brian shouted above the car radio. “I had to lie to my parents about where I was going.”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” I yelled back.

As I stepped out of the car, the gravel crunched under my feet. “I think it’s over there,” I said, pointing 110

toward a couple of large boats with open seating on top. The wind blew my hair into my face and I stumbled on some stones.

Brian put his arm around my waist. “You okay?”

“It’s just the rocks,” I said, stumbling again. Or maybe the fact that Brian Harrington’s bicep was draped across my back. This is it, I thought. This is what it feels like to be so close to Brian that it’s actually
normal
for him to be touching me. I wanted to fold myself into the crook of his arm and stay there forever.

But I kept on walking.

When we got to the
Conga Queen
, Captain Miguel was nowhere in sight. I turned to Brian. “I guess we just wait for him on the dock here.”

We sat, dangling our feet and watching the fish swim beneath us. My stomach fluttered like the fish tails as Brian’s leg brushed against mine.

After a few minutes of silence, Brian and I began to talk at the same time. “You go,” he said.

“Oh, I was just going to ask about the game—against St. Bart’s.”

Brian’s face brightened. “Didn’t you hear? We won!”

“Wow,” I said. “Great.” It was hard to ignore basketball news at Crestview, but I’d managed to maintain my ignorance of it—until now.

Brian laughed and revealed that hidden dimple below his eye. “So, you’re not exactly a basketball fan.” 111

I spotted a tiny fish scurrying to catch up with the rest of the school. “Who at Crestview isn’t a basketball fan?” I hoped that was vague enough.

Brian plucked a pebble from behind us and threw it toward a loop in a nearby rope. “Yes!” he shouted, when it went through the circle and plunked into the water. “Next weekend we go to state.”

“Cool,” I said.

Brian reached for another rock and then spotted the captain coming down the dock. “Is that the guy?” he said.

“That’s him.” I stood and straightened out my jeans and tank top.

Captain Miguel approached us and tilted his hat.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

I chuckled inside at his formality. Lily would love that. “I don’t know if you remember me, but . . .”

“Lily’s neighbor!” he exclaimed. “Ah. Of course. I have been hoping to see you again. You gave her my note?”

“Yes.” I gestured toward Brian, who was now standing. “And this is Lily’s grandson, Brian.” Captain Miguel grabbed Brian’s hand and shook it for several seconds. “Your grandmother is a wonderful woman. She spreads much happiness by her dancing.” Brian nodded awkwardly.

“So what brings you back to the
Conga Queen
?” the 112

captain said. “You want to take another cruise—so soon?”

“Oh, no,” I said, unzipping my purse and riffling through the junk until I found the note. “This is from Lily,” I said, handing it to him.

His sunburned face flushed as I placed the sealed envelope in his hands. He accepted it with reverence and said, “Wait, please. Right here.” Then he disappeared onto the
Conga Queen
. About a minute or so later, he returned with another note, again in the shape of a boat. Wow. He must have taken a speed-writing course.

He handed it to me. “I have been saving this. For your return. You will give it to Lily?” I shrugged, not knowing what to answer in front of Brian. I knew his family wasn’t thrilled by the whole matchmaking thing, but I couldn’t tell Captain Miguel that the Harringtons saw him as the star in their version of
Deuce Bigalow: Hispanic Gigolo
. “Sure,” I said.

The captain looked at his watch. “I must go now to get my passengers.” He smiled, shook our hands, and then walked toward a crowd waiting to get on the
Conga Queen
.

I looked at Brian uneasily. “Um. He’s a cool guy, isn’t he?”

“Seems like it,” Brian said. “It’s just weird. You know. That someone would be interested in Grams, like . . . that way.”

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I didn’t ask what he meant by “that way.” I definitely did
not
want to think about Grams and Captain Miguel doing it on the high seas.

We got back into the convertible. I slid the captain’s note into my purse and inhaled the sea air.

“What will you do with the note?” Brian said.

I knew how Brian’s family felt about Grams and the captain, but I didn’t think he felt the same way. “I don’t know. Bring it over to your grandmother later?” I paused. “Or else you can give it to her.”

“Oh, no,” Brian said. “My mom’ll kill me if I get more involved in this.”