Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom (20 page)

This isn’t exactly how I pictured this going,” my father says. He doesn’t—or can’t—look right at me so we look at each other in the reflection of his office mirror. To call it an office is sort of an insult to offices worldwide because it’s really just a three-quarters-finished porch which means that it’s ridiculously hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and nice in the fall and spring. Tonight is one of those spring nights where you can feel summer tapping you on the shoulder, daring you to imagine swimming in the lake, eating greasy fries at the Shake Shack, or kissing someone before you creep back into your own bedroom. I’ve imagined all of those things for myself, but I guess I never thought my parents would have imagined them, too.

“So, how did you picture it going?” I ask my dad’s reflection.

He shifts in his Teva sandals, absentmindedly picking at a leftover hermit cookie from a Giant Brooks sweets tray. He pauses and for a second I think he’ll brush off my question but then, when he puts his hand on my shoulder, I realize he’s waiting for me to say it’s okay. “Look,” I tell him, “I won’t be mad. At least, I don’t think I will. It’s not every day that a girl puts on her best outfit and that outfit has a tie and cumberbund.”

Dad cracks a smile. “For starters, I thought I’d give these to Danny.” Dad holds out a small green velvet box that has one corner bashed in. “You know my dad didn’t have much in the way of stuff. Things. That wasn’t where he came from.” Dad’s cheek has a cookie crumb on it and I focus on that to avoid his eyes. “When your mom and I got married—quickly, I might add—he was already an old man. All hunched over from too many years of lifting bags of concrete.”

“This is a really depressing speech to eavesdrop on.” Danny clears his throat from the doorway.

I reach for the nearest thing—the rest of the hermit cookie—and chuck it at him and he’s gobbled it before my dad’s fully registered the intrusion.

“Anyway,” Dad says, “my dad was a fighter. Poverty. Hard times. Lack of food stamps.”

“Walking to school in the snow uphill both ways,” Danny volunteers.

“Danny!” my mom scolds, but it’s only halfhearted.

“I know I’ve told you both this before,” Dad goes on, our father-daughter moment now a family one. “But the truth is, I didn’t know if I’d be any good at being a father because even though he was a brave guy, a fighter, my dad sort of …”

“Sucked?” Danny suggests.

“Wasn’t supportive?” I try. Dad nods.

“Yeah, he thought we were nuts to open up a grocery store, wouldn’t even sign his name to the bank loan, which made it near impossible to get the initial money.”

My mom steps in. “Listen, these kids have a Prom to get to, so let’s get to the point.” She gives “the look” to my dad, the same one she used when Danny got his sex talk and the same one they exchanged before telling us Grandma Jo had died.

“Did someone die?” Danny asks. At Lucas’s suggestion I invited Danny and Anabel to join in our night out so he’s in full stud mode, with his tux on, his hair clean and slicked to the side. Danny even smells decent—or rather, he doesn’t smell nasty, which is a start.

“No.” Dad opens the box. “These were my dad’s cuff links, the only decent thing he owned. He gave them to me on my wedding day.” Dad’s eyes well up with tears and even Danny flinches. “I don’t want you to wait that long for my approval, Tessa.”

“Dad—” I start, but he unfurls my fingers and puts the box in my right hand.

“You asked and I’ll tell you. You were never that little girl who wore a dish towel on her head pretending it was a bridal veil.”

“No, that was you, Danny,” Mom adds with a smirk.

“And it wasn’t like I looked forward to the day some guy would storm in here and take you on a date or anything.” Dad wipes the cookie crumb from his face and looks me right in the eyes. “But you do imagine things—like how much you hope your kid is happy in life, finds something to do every day that has some meaning to it. How you hope your kid finds someone to love them as much as you think they’re worth.” He sucks in a long breath. “And at first, I have to admit this or I’ll feel dishonest, at first I was thinking, this is a loss, right? No husband, no bachelor party or what have you. But then I sort of went through all those pictures in my mind—”

“Like a film reel,” my mom adds. I picture them up at night, huddled in bed comparing losses.

“And the thing of it is that nowhere in those pictures did I have a man. I suppose I figured it would be a boy, but the reality is it doesn’t have to be. And so we made the shirts.”

“And we’re really behind you one hundred percent,” Mom says.

I go to my dad and hug him, the box clenched in my fist. When I pull back, my mom comes over and opens the box with her usual businesslike manner and fixes the cuff links on the French cuff of my fancy white shirt.
The silver and onyx gleam, and when I look in the mirror my whole family is smiling at my reflection—even me.

I change bags for the eighth time and realize that no matter what kind of purse I bring they all look weird with a tux. Oh well. I take one last look in the mirror as Anabel honks outside. My hair is pulled up in a slouchy-on-purpose bun, with a few wisps at the front so I don’t look like a creepy plastic mannequin, and my tuxedo is fantastic, as I thought it would be. I used two oversize safety pins to nip the shirt at the back so it’s more fitted, rolled the jacket sleeves a little to showcase the cuff links, and topped the whole look off with some lip gloss, which for me is full makeup. And heels, ones Anabel convinced me to wear. She’d bought them on sale, and shoved waddedup tissues in the toes because they were too big. “Never pass up a good heel,” she’d said. “Because comfort is not the only issue.” She removed the tissues so I could fit my feet in, and slid them on, Prince Charming style. I could see why Danny liked her so much. “You’re really nice, Anabel.” And instead of saying nothing, she looked up at me and said, “And I can see why he tries to do right by you.” She’d also instructed me about how to wear my hair so I didn’t look “like a creepy ballerina” while telling me about her cousin Greg in Atlanta who’d been living with a guy for a long time.

My heels shine in the porch light.

“Check it out,” Danny drawls as we nudge past each other toward the driveway.

“Don’t be crass.” I laugh and give his arm a quick squeeze as a thanks. “What the—”

“I know!” Danny pumps his fist in the air.

Another honk sounds but it’s not from Anabel’s dented old Taurus. “A limo?” I ask.

“Don’t ask me,” Danny says, and rushes for it.

The back tinted window slides down and Anabel, in a sequined strappy dress, sticks half her body out and waves. “Seriously. I had nothing to do with this.”

I’m almost to the limo, grin stretching Cadillac-wide on my surprised face, when the back door opens and Lucas steps out. “You want black-and-white-movie glamour? You got it,” he says, and reaches for my hand.

“Luke.” I say his name and it’s so much more than just that. It is thanks and sorry and love all rolled into that sound. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Well, I know. But I’m on this no-asshole kick and I kinda like it.”

I go with it, nodding and checking out Luke’s outfit. “You look like Cary Grant in
The Philadelphia Story
.”

“And you’re even better looking than Katharine Hepburn.”

“Impossible,” I say, and we hug, our suits rustling. “Really, Lucas. This is above and beyond the simple night out.”

Lucas offers the limo up like it’s a prize. “Did I tell you
I’d find a place for us to wear our tuxes?” I nod. “And do I always come through? Don’t we always do that for each other?” I wait a few seconds before I respond. And I have my own film reel the way my parents did—me and Lucas crashing our Big Wheels, Lucas running the whole way from Main Street to Giant Brooks because I fell and needed a Band-Aid, Lucas asking me to help him buy the best-smelling deodorant at Hailer’s and how we uncapped every single one until I found a brand that didn’t make me gag. How we were each other’s first and last dance partners at all the school socials just so we didn’t have that pressure of finding anyone.

“You’re not my fallback, just so you know,” I tell him. “Don’t think just because I’m not … in love with …”

“My awesome maleness?”

“Exactly. Just ’cause I’m not in love with you doesn’t mean you’re not the absolute best thing to ever happen to me.”

Lucas tugs me toward the car. It’s the first time I’ve ever been this close to a limo—they don’t even have rental companies around here, which means this one must’ve come from a few counties over. “But see, I realize that my time as the pinnacle of bestness is limited. At some point you’ll meet Katharine Hepburn for real …”

“First off, she’s dead. So eeew. And second, I thought
I
was Katharine Hepburn. Am I dating myself?”

“Can you just turn around and smile so Danny can take our picture and Anabel can hike down her totally inappropriate but totally awesomely short dress?” After a
few photos, Lucas holds the door for me and when I slide in, I don’t have to worry about my dumb gown or flinch when people compliment me, because I feel so good. Good in my clothing. Good in the car that looks so out of place on our wide rural street, the mailboxes like old clucking hens. Good with my family and Lucas.

And the feeling lasts, even when Luke pins a wilting rose to my lapel, when Danny and Anabel drink from the flask in her bag, and even as we drive the long way through town, past the yacht club with its valet service and lines of cars just like this one.

“Hey, look,” I say as our ride zooms past the club, its music audible from here, the limos all in a row. “We blend in.”

We get driven to the south side of town, past Giant Brooks and the car dealership out on Second Street with the yellow-and-red flags I always thought looked like a carnival but were just a lame attempt at getting people to buy used vehicles.

At night, with the stores dark and the train tracks empty, the billboards vacant, our town looks really small. And it is. Maybe growing up I didn’t realize that, but now I understand it’s the kind of place people move away from, and how my parents are different because they came back. And how Luke’s mom did, too. And how I might not ever be able to do that because like some old Western shootout movie, it might not be a big enough place for me and everyone else.

I look across the limo at Lucas and he’s got his arms
stretched out on the seat backs, and my brother’s phone is blipping every two seconds, which seems to have Lucas all agitated.

“Don’t you think you should answer that?” I ask Danny.

Danny and Anabel are in lip-lock already but take a break so Danny can respond. Lucas gives him a sort of signal.

“What’s going on?”

Danny and Lucas have a conversation with gestures the way only guys who run laps and travel for hours to away games can: through gestures and eyebrow raising.

“Ahem, I would like to be clued in here,” I say. And then, just to hammer the point home, “Hello? Are we all on Team Tessa or what?”

And as I ask this, the limo slows down.

I put my hand to the window and peer out through the darkened glass. “Do we have a flat?”

There’s no other reason to pull into the former Hailer’s Drugstore, parking lot of past lives, unless Lucas forget something at home.

But where the Discount LiquorMart once proudly advertised Blue Nun and Pabst, there are no plywood boards covering the storefront.

Instead, there are lights.

And not just any lights. A Hollywood-style spotlight points to the Midwestern sky. Wound together across the entire storefront are multiple strands of purple, red, white, green, blue, and yellow twinkling lights. It’s bright. It’s slightly tacky. It’s a rainbow.

“It’s perfect,” I say, and open the door so I can get a better look.

Lucas escorts me out of the limousine. When I stand up, Danny claps his hands and from somewhere—I can’t see where at first—comes a bellowing noise.

“Is that a tuba?”

“Hooray for sousaphones!” Lucas shouts as the entire marching band from Brookfield-Mason begins to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The music floats down and I realize the band is on the Discount LiquorMart’s flat roof, playing just for me.