Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom (8 page)

The
Brookfield-Mason Regional Bee
!

Brookfield, IN. Our small Midwestern community was rocked by the news this week that the entire future of this year’s Senior Prom is being questioned due to one student’s demand to attend the Prom with her lesbian date, both of them in suits traditionally worn by males.

The Brookfield-Mason school district has the right to cancel or alter school functions as necessary for the safety and well-being of the students and staff, and, according to Principal Hartford, “School policy requires that Prom dates be of the opposite sex.”

Of course, this is not just an issue for one teen, but for all of the students at Brookfield-Mason who have been planning for the big event since last year, even going so far as meeting during
the summer break to discuss themes and improvements. One student directly involved in the scandal is Lucas Fogelman: “I just think it’s really selfish … our whole Prom is going to be about [Tessa Masterson] instead of just being a normal dance.”

Tears are already streaming down my face, but when I read the last sentence, I just start sobbing.

“I mean, maybe some people won’t even get to go to Prom now because of their religion, and I just think she ought to think about somebody besides herself and not do this.”

There are umbrellas for rain. Parkas for blizzards. Storm cellars for tornadoes. But there’s no protection for this. I close the search window where I had the Ted Williams book all ready to purchase from a used bookstore, put my head on the desk, and try to figure out what on earth to do next.

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

Mom is yelling at me. I have learned from long years of experience that one does not answer this question. Answering the question only leads to problems. The best way to handle this is just to sit back and wait for the storm to blow over.

“I don’t even know where to start. It’s like you’ve betrayed everything I thought I raised you to be! Friendship, decency, loyalty … Do any of these things mean anything to you?”

Again, not a question it would be wise to answer in any way. Mom takes a deep breath and continues, “You and I would quite literally be out on the streets if it weren’t for the Mastersons. It’s bad enough for you to throw your
best friend under the bus because of a blow to your male ego, but for you to put that family at the mercy of the hypocrites who—” And here’s where it gets weird. Mom stops yelling at me because she’s getting choked up.

“I gotta get out of this house. I’m too mad at you to be here right now,” Mom says, and off she goes.

So I’m all alone in a house with no cable. It’s dark out, which means I can’t go practice my pitches. It’s not my night to work at the store, which means Tessa will be there, which means I really can’t go there. And anyway I’m not sure the Mastersons are gonna want to keep me employed. If the boycott works at all, they’re going to have to start cutting people’s hours, and if I were them, I’d certainly start with mine.

And there’s nowhere else in town I can go and not see a million people who want to talk to me, and I hate them all.

There are the people who think I’m a hero because I’m standing up for biblical values. Like I’ve ever opened a Bible in my life. Maybe if I did, I could find the part about how making a girl’s life into a living hell is something that God thinks you should do.

And then there is the much smaller group of people who think I’m an evil jerk because I sold out my friend knowing exactly what was going to happen.

I don’t feel like that’s true. I actually sold out my friend not realizing or caring exactly what was going to happen. Which is better. Right?

The phone rings. “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Steve Gershon from the Cincinnati—” I hang up the phone.

A couple minutes later it rings again. “This is Wells Randolph Tarrow, chair of the National Organization to Defend Marriage—”
Click
.

Two more reporters call, and I just unplug the phone.

I turn on WLW and listen to the Reds game for a while. After four innings, Mom comes home.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t … Whew. My love for you is unconditional, which means I still love you when you’re an asshole. But you’ve got to do something to fix this.”

“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Neither do I, kiddo. But you’ve started this, and you’ve got to do something about it.” She ruffles my hair and heads off to her room. Soon I hear the electronic beats of Miss Kaboom drifting out.

I try. I really do. I say this to the reporters outside school the next morning. “I just want everybody to go home and go back to not knowing Brookfield, Indiana, even exists. It’s really … This is not that big of a deal, it’s really not.”

But then this question comes out of the crowd: “Have you been targeted by liberal activists? Why are you changing your position?”

“I’m not changing my position.”

“So you still feel like it’s wrong to have a gay couple at your Prom?”

“No. I don’t think I ever said that. Look, I was mad, and—”

“So you’re angry about what’s happening in this town?”

I look at the crowd of people slavering for a good quote from me. I look over at the protesters with their antigay signs. “Yeah, I’m angry about what’s happening in this town.” I realize that they might use that quote to make it look like I’m some big antigay crusader, so I add this: “I mean, look. I don’t know much about religion. So I need somebody to explain to me why God is going to get so angry about two kids who like each other dancing on Prom night. I don’t go to church, but isn’t loving your neighbor supposed to be part of the deal? So why are so many people so full of hate?”

I feel like everybody is staring at me all day long. I don’t talk to anyone, and I guess I’m doing an okay job of giving off don’t-talk-to-me vibes because nobody approaches me and tries to talk to me.

And then there’s baseball practice. Despite Danny’s earlier threat, nothing’s really happened. But then again, Danny hasn’t been pitching at batting practice since then. Until today.

As promised, an inside fastball “gets away” from Danny, and I have to hop back to avoid getting hit on the hip. The general chatter of practice stops, but I barely notice since I’m staring out at Danny on the mound. He’s giving me a pretty good intimidating-pitcher stare. But I’ve got one of those too, so I give it right back to him.

It seems like a long time passes until Danny’s next windup, but in pretty much no time at all after that, I’m on
the ground with my batting helmet about ten feet away from me.

He hit me. In the head.

Baseball has rules, and one of them is that pitchers who throw at the head get dealt with outside the rules. Anybody who watches baseball knows this. Danny knows this. And even if he didn’t before making varsity, he would have as soon as Coach Hupfer said this at our first practice: “Anybody throws at your head, you charge the mound. We’ll take whatever happens, but every team in this league needs to know they can’t intimidate us. If you let anybody throw at your head without throwing a punch at them, you’re benched for one game and probably forever, because you’re just not tough enough to play the game.”

It’s never happened, but even still, Danny’s ready for me by the time I get to the mound. I still get in a hard shot to his face and he goes down. Then I’m on top of him, and the world disappears in a bloodred fury of fists and feet until eventually I’m being held back by three or four guys while another three or four guys hold Danny back.

I spit at him, and my bloody spit makes a little stain on his uniform shirt. “You gonna kill me? You wanna kill me? You’re gonna have to do better than that!” I scream at him.

“This isn’t over!” he screams back.

And then we’re sitting in Coach Hupfer’s office, and he’s yelling at both of us about team unity, and about how he hopes we’re happy with ourselves because we’ve each just
earned three-day suspensions from school, which means missing two games, and about how we really need to think about the team before we think of ourselves.

“Masterson,” he barks, “haven’t you and your family caused enough trouble for this school yet?” Danny doesn’t threaten to rip the coach’s guts out, but he really doesn’t have to; the look on his face is pretty clear.

And even though, yeah, I am a big—okay, huge—part of the trouble that they “caused,” and even though I’ve ruined my friendship with Tessa forever, and am still mad at her, and even though I’m damn sure mad at Danny, I do bristle at hearing the coach bad-mouth the Mastersons.

“And you,” coach says, turning to me. “I’m sure those scouts are gonna be a lot less impressed with your circle change when they see you’re a hothead.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m still better off than a fat ass with only one pitch,” I say. Poor coach. Of course we’ve all Googled his stats. Even me, with no Internet at home. Three seasons with the single-A Quad Cities River Bandits in Davenport, Iowa, and each year his weight and ERA went up.

And now the coach doesn’t have to say
he
wants to rip
my
guts out. “Get the hell out of my office,” he says. “You both make me sick.”

We walk out, and I see Danny fighting back a smile. Finally he turns to me and says, “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Yeah, well, I kind of can’t either,” I say. I’m about to
ask Danny if we’re cool, but I know we’re not cool. We’ll probably never be cool again. But maybe he won’t throw at my head anymore.

“Listen, Danny, I never … I never meant for any of this to happen. Will you tell Tessa—”

“I’m not telling her shit. You wanna tell her something, tell her yourself. You’re pretty good at talking to people these days.”

So I try. After Mom is through yelling (and yelling and yelling) at me, and taking away my Xbox that I bought with my own money, which hardly seems fair, I mope around all weekend and then, on Sunday night, text this to Tessa: “I’m so sorry.” I get nothing back, and since I’m up till one a.m. waiting to hear from her, I decide to call.

“The number you are calling has been disconnected,” a pleasant female voice tells me.

I finally fall asleep some time after that and am woken up what feels like about five minutes later by Mom blasting her music at four thirty a.m. before she leaves for work at the bakery.

“Mom! Miss Kaboom at four thirty in the morning!? Really?” I yell.

Mom pops her head in and says, “Oh, were you trying to sleep, my suspended son? I’m so sorry!” She flashes a grin but at least turns the music down. But not off. So I can’t really get back to sleep until after she leaves, but
once I’ve been up for half an hour, it’s practically impossible for me to get back to sleep.

I thought it was going to be sort of cool to be suspended. I figured I would sleep in, lie around the house, play some video games, and, best of all, not have to see or talk to anybody for three days.

But Mom has ensured that I won’t be playing video games (she took the cables to work with her! What mom knows enough to do that?), we have no cable, and I’m awake at four thirty in the morning.

Here’s how bored I get: I read two chapters ahead in the American history textbook. I wind up doing a couple of days’ worth of math, too. I’m actually thrilled to see Mom when she gets home because even fighting with her is better than solitary confinement.

And we don’t really fight. She seems to be happy with the punishment she’s exacted, so we watch an eight o’clock crime drama together and it’s sort of pleasant.

She lets me sleep in the next morning, so it’s seven thirty by the time I get up. I’m bored by eight thirty. And by nine, I’m really hating myself. I’ve got to talk to Tessa. Or at least get a message to her.

I walk over to the library, present my rarely used card, and sign on to one of the computers. I go to create a Facebook page, but I need an e-mail address for that, so I create an e-mail address. I guess I could just e-mail Tessa if I had any idea what her address is. I finally get my stupid Facebook account and search for Tessa but can only
find two Tessa Mastersons who aren’t my Tessa Masterson. Or I guess I should say they aren’t the right Tessa Masterson. So I can’t send her a message that way. Facebook suggests I join the “100,000 Strong for Tessa Masterson” group. I don’t know what that is or why it only has five thousand members. It also suggests I join the “Indiana for Traditional Values” group, which also has five thousand members. I log out of Facebook. I realize I have to go talk to Tessa at the store.

I’m about to log off the computer when, just because I’m sitting there, I search for “my best friend is gay.”