Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom (17 page)

“We brought the stuff from Giant Brooks,” Danny says as Mrs. Gertrin stands there.

“Yes,” she says, her lips pinched and her raven eyes not moving from my face.

“And the napkins,” I say. My feet start bouncing and in a minute I know I’ll start sweating and wishing I were in a crowd of loud, angry protesters instead of under this woman’s intense gaze. “You always want napkins.”

Danny takes my lead. “Yeah, napkins are key. Can’t really eat without ’em. Well, you can, I mean, I do all the time but—”

“You’re very … prompt,” Mrs. Gertrin says, like that explains why we’re standing here. “I’ll forward payment once we check the stock.”

Danny wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand.
“We’re supposed to get it now.” He looks at me and then at her. “Sort of standard, you know?”

More throat clearing. “Yes. Well.”

Danny puts out a hand. His TEAM TESSA shirt is bright in the sun, dampening around the
T
and the
M
.

Mrs. Gertrin disappears without explanation and we wait, leaning on the van until it gets too hot. “Two more seconds and I’m going in,” Danny says.

“What’s her problem?” I ask, like we both aren’t perfectly aware of it.

Mrs. Gertrin comes out with an envelope. “You’ll find the exact amount is in here,” she says. “Check.”

“Never mind,” Danny says, and shoves the envelope in his back pocket without checking, just to make a point. Then we leave, driving back to the store in air-conditioned silence.

The quiet is broken of course by the ranting and raving at the store. “What gives?” Danny asks, cupping his hands to see why the crowd has grown even larger.

I reach for the envelope and then, just because I know Mom and Dad need to make a deposit, I open it up. “Danny … ,” I start.

“Check it out!” Danny says, reaching for the door handle.

“No, Danny—wait!” I grab his shoulder and stop him. I show him the check.

It takes only a few seconds for Danny to reach the same conclusion I did. The check is for a few thousand dollars. It is from the personal account of Mrs. Himmelrath.

“You don’t think—” Danny looks like his dog was just hit by our van.

I nod. “She’s doing it. I know it. Jenny Himmelrath’s mother is throwing a Prom. A
private
Prom.” As soon as the words are out, I feel sick. I start to put my head down so I don’t pass out when Danny tugs at my hand.

“Tessa.”

“Leave me alone,” I say. “I can’t do this anymore.” Josie can’t. I can’t. My family can’t.

“Tessa,” Danny says, insisting. “Check it out.”

So I look up because I have nothing else to do, nothing left to say. At the front of Giant Brooks, right where our lake chairs and grills usually go, is a booth. Only this one isn’t selling summer charcoal or bug spray. My father and mother, my mom standing on an upturned milk crate, are waving things in the air, shouting. I can’t help but start to smile through my tears.

My parents are selling purple TEAM TESSA T-shirts.

And people are buying them.

I got a one-day suspension for wearing a TEAM TESSA shirt. The next day, they sent five kids home for wearing them. And the day after that, when thirty kids showed up in them, the administration just gave in.

So on day four, I wear mine again, and it feels pretty good. Actually it feels great. Those of us in the shirts are still way less than half or even a third of the people at school, but it is really nice to be able to look around in the hall or any class you happen to be in and know that the entire world isn’t against you. Maybe three-quarters of the world—or at least of the school—but the important part is not feeling alone. Whenever I see another person wearing a TEAM TESSA shirt, we lock eyes for a second and exchange a smile. Usually right before someone “accidentally” knocks into us.

Tessa made me watch
West Side Story
once. We both
talked about how beautiful Natalie Wood was in that movie pretty much the whole time, and yeah, I suppose that should have been a clue, but what can I say, it’s really hard to see something when you’re not looking for it. Or, I guess, when you’re looking for its opposite.

Anyway, it’s a corny old movie that I didn’t really like all that much except for the beautiful–Natalie Wood part, but I’m thinking about it a lot today as Team Tessa walks around in its gang colors, exchanging hostile looks with the enemy gang that’s on our turf. Or maybe we’re on their turf. Or maybe it’s both of our turfs.

It’s not quite Sharks versus Jets around here yet, though. For one thing, the other gang can’t quite agree on their uniform. I’ve seen a few TEAM JESUS shirts, one NORMAL AND PROUD one, and one that says THIS IS INDIANA, NOT SAN FRANCISCO, which is a not-very-catchy slogan that’s both hard to say and hard to figure out.

The other reason things haven’t reached
West Side Story
levels of deadliness, apart from the fact that nobody is spontaneously breaking into song, is that the tension level has gone way down. Sure, there are still people bodychecking me into lockers, and so many people have written “fag” on my locker that I’ve stopped trying to clean it off (though I do still patrol Tessa’s locker pretty vigilantly, and nothing stays on there for more than two class periods), but that feeling from the first couple of days—like any random person might explode in a spree of hate crimes at any moment—has gone away.

Of course, it took all of about twenty-five minutes to find out about the Himmelraths’ “Go Straight to Prom” event at the yacht club. It’s not an official school event, true, but almost everyone will be there. There will be girls shaking it to the secular sounds of Miss Kaboom in revealing dresses, bad food, and plenty of spots at the yacht club for people to sneak away and pour some of their mom’s vodka into a glass of punch, or smoke a quick joint, or just cop a feel. Yep, it should be a wholesome family event.

And yet, I wish I could go. I wouldn’t betray Tessa again even if I were invited, which I’m sure I’m not, but still. I mean, I do live in this town. As much as I try to resist it, I’m not immune to the idea that Prom is an important ritual of being a teenager. Hell, that’s why I asked the girl I loved to go with me by using a big lighted sign. And now it’s something I don’t get to do. I don’t get to do it with school because people are stupid and narrow-minded, and I don’t get to do it with my classmates because I stood up, however weakly and late, for my friend. Well, I guess I deserve it. It feels, in a way, like a just punishment—not for standing up for Tessa but for failing to stand up for her. Oh hell, I guess I can admit it, it’s punishment for standing against her when she needed me.

Someone left their invitation lying out in the weight room. I pick it up and look it over: “Go
Straight
to Prom! Come as God made and intended you.” I don’t know what to think about God—Mom always says the people who
talk loudest about their faith are the ones least likely to be living it—and since we never go to church or anything, it just never seemed like an urgent question to me. Yeah, I have been involved in team prayers before games, and I certainly enjoy a moment of quiet before I have to pitch, but I never really thought a high school baseball game was something God, if he exists, would really have the time to care about.

So like I said, I haven’t thought about this question a lot, but I really want to ask somebody: Don’t you think God made Tessa this way? Because who the hell would choose this if they didn’t have to? I know Tessa is stubborn, but she’d never throw her whole family, their business, and her college fund into jeopardy unless it was something she had to do.

The whole thing kind of makes me sad. One thing that’s cool about the official school Prom is that, unlike every other party, the cool kids can’t exclude anyone. Even the most unpopular kid in school can get dressed up and go pretend to have fun right alongside the popular kids. Well, not this year, I guess.

After my workout I shower and head over to Giant Brooks.

The parking lot is packed with pro- and anti-Tessa factions. There are Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky license plates in the parking lot. It looks like there’s a pretty steady flow of people shopping, which is good. I haven’t been able to get back to the library to continue my Facebook plan on
behalf of Giant Brooks, but it looks like other people have taken up the baton.

Right by the front door, there is a table staffed by none other than Kate Sweeney. She’s managing a huge crowd of people lined up to buy T-shirts. Most are TEAM TESSA shirts, but there are also some that read SHOP GIANT BROOKS: GOOD FOOD FOR EVERYONE.

I shoot Kate a puzzled look and she smiles at me. I head inside to the office to punch in. Since I’m no longer ashamed to face Tessa’s folks, I peek my head into the office and see Tessa behind her dad’s desk. “Um. Hey,” I say. “You in charge today, or what?”

She looks up and smiles. “Yeah. Mom and Dad are at a UPS Store doing fulfillment on the e-commerce part of the business.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“They’re shipping T-shirts. All over the place. Once people saw them on the news, everybody wanted one. Well, not everybody. But a lot of people. Enough that it looks like we’re not going to lose the store.”

“Well,” I say, “that’s good.” I’m too ashamed to say anything else.

I try to think of what it would mean to Brookfield if Giant Brooks closed. I kind of feel like it would be the last nail in the coffin of this town with the dead Main Street. And I almost caused that. Suddenly I don’t feel like I can look Tessa in the eye. The floor is pretty interesting in here, so I start examining it.

“Lucas—” she says, and then stops.

“Well, I guess I’m gonna go stock some shelves—” I start. I still can’t look at her.

“Lucas, I just want you to know …” I look up at her, and she’s looking at me with tears in her eyes. I look at the floor again and wonder if there’s any way for me to just sink right through it.

“Um. I was. I mean, you …” I trail off.

“I want you to know,” Tessa starts again, her voice stronger this time. And then she pauses again. “That Kate could use some help at the T-shirt table. So why don’t you go help her after you punch in.”

“Um. Okay.” I kind of want to talk to my best friend, Tessa, about this girl I think I probably have a crush on, but it’s like I don’t really have a best friend anymore. I slink out of the office and head up to the table.

“Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Kate says when she sees me. “It’s been crazy—completely nonstop since I got here.”

“I didn’t think you worked here anymore,” I say.

“I didn’t. But, you know, with my T-shirt-selling expertise from working at Wild Thingz!, I’m kind of a natural for the job. Plus I set up the website for them.”

“You’re a woman of many talents,” I say.

“You have no idea,” she says, smiling, and I’m really glad there are a ton of people here buying T-shirts, because I have no response to that.

My shift flies by because so many people want to
buy shirts, and pretty soon it’s closing time at Giant Brooks.

“Um,” I say to Kate, “do you want to, um … get some ice cream or something?”

She smiles. “Yeah. I’d like that.” I’m relieved that she doesn’t ask whether it’s a date or mock me for taking so long to ask her out or anything.

We head back to the office to punch out. The door is closed, but I can hear Tessa’s raised voice behind it. “Really? Are you really saying that to me right now?”

Kate and I walk away, and I say, “You know, I kind of wish I could just knock on the door and make sure everything’s okay.”

Kate looks at me. “That girl eats broken glass and spits nails. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t need you to protect her.”

I laugh at the description. Is that how people see Tessa? “I know she doesn’t need my protection. But she might need my support. You know? It’s just weird. She was the most important person in my life for as long as I can remember, and now I can’t even really talk to her. Not like we used to, anyway.”

“Yeah. I’m familiar with that. Have you noticed me hanging with all my high school friends this summer?”

“Nope.”

“That’s because we’re growing apart. We’re not the same people we were at fourteen. So maybe that’s how life is, you know? You change, other people change, and people come in and out of your life.”

I think about that for a minute. Maybe she’s right. She’s older and wiser than me. But I’m just not ready to give up my friendship with Tessa yet. But I decide I’m a little tired of thinking about the whole thing. “So, what’s Purdue like?” I ask.

Kate’s face lights up. “Hey! You’ve discovered a new topic of conversation! Good for you!” Not that many people can get away with teasing me without pissing me off. But Kate is definitely on the list.

We walk over to the Dairy Barn. We’re in line for soft serve when Steve Sedacca walks by us with two giant-size chocolate-dip cones. “Sweeney!” he says, smiling. Then he looks at me. “You some kind of fag hag now?”

“As a matter of fact, she is,” I say. “I give her fashion tips, we talk about how guys are jerks, stuff like that.”

Steve certainly wasn’t expecting that, so all he can respond with is, “Well, see ya, Sweeney.”

“Always a pleasure,” Kate says, and we laugh. We get some ice cream, and, not wanting to sit here and wait for all the Steve Sedaccas in town to come up and say nasty things to us, we start walking back toward Giant Brooks. She tells me which dorms are the best, which core classes are the worst, and which fraternities I should avoid pledging (in her opinion, all of them).

As we’re walking back to the parking lot so Kate can get her car, we’re both swinging our arms, and our hands kind of touch, and then our fingers are threaded together. It’s weird. When guys are bragging in the locker room,
nobody ever talks about getting some hand-holding action. But it feels really good. And, I mean, it’s one thing to kiss somebody behind a tree at a kegger and another thing to intertwine your fingers out on the street where anyone could see you and run to everybody else talking about what it means.

I don’t know what it means. If anything.

“You want a ride?” Kate says.

“Sure,” I say. “I live on Main Street.”

We don’t say anything for most of the ride back to my house. “God, Main Street just makes me so sad these days,” Kate says. “Remember when we were little, and people used to walk up and down and say hi to each other and stuff? Maybe it’s just nostalgia for being a little kid, but I feel like Main Street used to be the best part of living here. Now it’s just a bunch of empty stores. Somebody ought to do something with it.”

“Somebody should,” I say.

The car stops, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to try to kiss her or not. “So this is it,” I say, pointing at my door.

“Okay,” Kate says.

I don’t get out of the car. I look at her. She’s looking at me. And before I can think about it too much, I give her a quick kiss. On the lips.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, hopping out of the car.

“Thanks for the kiss,” she says.

“Anytime!” I say. I bound up the steps to my apartment, and I guess maybe I’m a little loud.

“Is that a herd of elephants, or is it my son?” Mom’s groggy voice calls. “Because if it’s not the elephants, somebody’s in trouble.”

“Sorry, Mom!” I call out.

“Stop sounding so chipper. I’m trying to sleep,” she says.

Just then, my phone gives a loud beep.

“Really?” Mom says.

“I’m really sorry,” I say, fumbling with the phone to put it on vibrate.

I look at the phone. It’s not from Kate, whose number, for some stupid reason, I still don’t have. I don’t know why I got my hopes up. It’s from Tessa.

“Can I talk to you?” it says.