The Boy Recession (22 page)

On-screen, the main girl is telling the guy she’s dancing with something like, “
It is your turn to say something, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance. Now you ought to remark on the size of the room or the number of couples.
”

“Hear that, boys?” Eugene says, smacking one of the guys on the couch on the back of the head. “You gotta be making conversation on the dance floor.”

The two guys next to me, buddies who go to Catholic school in Milwaukee together, seem kind of nervous about this whole thing.

“Okay, so first I tell you how big the room is,” the first guy says. “Then you tell me how many couples there are.”

Eugene turns to me and asks, “You ready to roll, Huntro? You got your corsage?”

“Crap,” I say. “I forgot something already.”

We go into the kitchen, and Eugene opens his fridge, takes out the last corsage, and shows it to me. It’s kind of white.

I make a face at it. “Is that right? She said her dress was green.”

“It goes with green,” Eugene tells me. “Trust me.”

Eugene slides my flower thing onto the counter and puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Hunter, relax. I took care of everything. You’re good.”

“I’m good,” I say, looking down. “Shit! My pants got wrinkled! I didn’t even sit down!”

“Hunter,” Eugene says. “Listen to me. I know you. When you actually give a shit about something, you do a hell of a job at it.”

With both hands, he grabs my face.

“Kelly is lucky to have you,” Eugene says. “Because you’re gonna be a killer date.”

I laugh. “Was this a heart-to-heart, dude?”

“Hell, yeah!” Eugene says.

I think Eugene wants me to hug him, but I don’t—I just grab my corsage and follow Eugene back into the family room, where the guys are getting pretty into the movie. One of the two nervous guys behind the couch says to the other, “So I think I got it down. He was a real dick in the
beginning, but he became less of a dick throughout the night, and then she thought he was a nice guy. So you have to start out the night being a dick, and then get nice.”

Eugene turns to me sharply and warns, “Don’t listen to that. Don’t be a dick.”

T
his is as romantic as my prom night is going to get,” Darcy says. “Taping Aviva’s nipples down.”

It’s prom night, and we’re in the fancy bathroom of the Milwaukee hotel, which has velvet couches and carpet and full-length mirrors. It’s pretty glamorous for a bathroom—and we’re pretty glamorous for us. Darcy went for a ballerina-chic look, with a black corset dress with a short tulle puffy skirt with her hair slicked back in a tight ponytail. I’m in a long emerald-green dress, and I got my hair professionally done for the first time. Apparently my hair is so hopeless that they had to straighten it
and
curl it. It seemed counterproductive, but it looks really pretty now. Aviva’s gold dress is so low-cut that she can’t wear a regular bra with it. She had to wear these sticky chicken-cutlet things instead, which is what we’re working on now.

“Your prom night is romantic!” I tell Darcy. “Derek is a fun date. And your corsage is gorgeous!”

Darcy rolls her eyes at the red roses on her wrist.

“
I
bought this,” Darcy says. “I bought one for myself because I knew he would disappoint me. He tried to give me a plastic corsage with a bite out of it. Who
bit
my corsage? I can’t say for sure—but I’m guessing it was my date. And he wore that stupid hat and ruined all the pictures we took.”

“But you guys are so cute, dancing with him on his crutches!” I say. “He’s danced with you the whole night, and it can’t be easy with a cast on.”

Darcy shakes her head, but I can see in the mirror she’s trying not to smile.

“Slide it a little bit higher,” Aviva tells me. “Okay, perfect! Darcy, gimme the dress tape.”

Touching Aviva’s boobs isn’t the most romantic part of my night. Hunter has been such a great date. He posed for pictures with me, opened doors for me, and pulled out chairs for me. He asked me to dance right away, and he actually leads when we dance.

“Okay, they’re stuck to me!” Aviva announces, turning sideways to admire her profile in the mirror.

“Viva, how’s the date going?” I ask, sitting on the arm of the fancy couch. “He’s
really
cute!”

“He is super-cute,” Aviva agrees. “Even up close! And he’s a dancing fiend. When that Shakira song came on… his hips did
not
lie. This may be the best three hundred
dollars I ever spent. I plan on highly endorsing prostitution in the school newspaper.”

I smile at Darcy. “And the student journalism award goes to…”

“Not everyone is so happy, though,” Aviva says, stopping to apply lip gloss at the mirror. “Sylvia Sanchez wants a refund. Her date is super-awkward and keeps talking about how big the room is. She thinks he just got out of prison or something.”

“No way.” I shake my head. “Hunter said Eugene got professional background checks on all the escorts. Maybe he’s talking about the room because he wants to be an architect!”

“Okay, let’s go,” Darcy says, snapping her clutch shut. “I have to announce the prom king and queen.”

“
Oooh
, do you know who it is?” Aviva asks.

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Darcy says, pushing the door open. “Bobbi counted the votes.”

In the ballroom, the dance floor is almost empty. I go to our table, where Hunter is waiting for me with two pieces of cake.

“Which do you like better?” he asks, standing up to pull out my chair. “Corner piece or middle piece?”

“Whichever one you don’t like.”

“I eat everything and anything,” Hunter says. “You’ll learn that about me.”

I give in and point to the corner piece, which has more frosting. Hunter slides it over to me and hands me a fork.

“Where’s Derek?” Darcy comes up to the table holding two gold envelopes.

“He’s doing something,” Hunter says, through a mouthful of cake.

“That’s not true,” Darcy says, rolling her eyes. “Derek is never doing anything.”

“Darcy,” Hunter says. “He’s doing something
important
.”

Darcy shuts her mouth and nods. I look from Darcy to Hunter, confused. I’m about to ask what’s going on, but Darcy interrupts my thought.

“How do I look?”

I reach out and fluff her tulle skirt. “So cute. Good luck with your announcement!”

Darcy climbs up on the little stage in the front of the room next to the DJ booth, and Hunter and I turn our chairs so we’re facing that way. Up at the microphone, Darcy clears her throat.

“Hi, everybody. I’m up here to introduce tonight’s prom queen, prom king, and best couple. As I introduce them, please keep in mind that these positions come with no responsibility and zero political clout, and are merely the result of a shallow, antiquated popularity contest….”

Then she opens the envelope casually, to prove that she really doesn’t care.

“The Julius P. Heil High School prom queen is… Amy Schiffer,” Darcy says with a shrug.

Amy immediately pops up out of her seat, shrieking. She came with one of Eugene’s escorts, this very beefy
blond guy, and she hugs him before running up onto the stage. At the same table, Pam looks super-bitter, and she tries to get Josh to turn to look at her. But Josh is totally focused on Darcy, and he’s already buttoning up his suit jacket. He’s sure he’s going to be prom king.

“The Julius P. Heil High School prom king is…” Darcy stops and frowns at the envelope. “Um… Scott Paganelli?”

What? Who is Scott Paganelli?
I turn to Hunter, but he shrugs, equally clueless. No one is clapping.

“Yay!” Amy shrieks and pushes Darcy out of the way and takes the microphone. “It’s my date, Scott! Come up here, Scott!”

At Amy’s table, Pam and Josh are looking seriously angry. “He’s got a pedigree,” Eugene explains to us. “He was king at three Catholic school proms last year. That’s how I sold him to Amy.”

Darcy gives Amy and Scott their crowns. While Amy is trying to figure out how to put hers on without messing up her already frizzy red curls, Darcy sighs and opens the second envelope.

“The Julius P. Heil High School prom best couple is… Bobbi Novak and Eugene Pluskota.”

Around us, everyone is clapping really loudly—they’re probably excited to hear two names they actually know. Plus, Eugene’s escorts are standing at their respective tables and giving him a standing ovation. I turn around to see how Bobbi is reacting, expecting a squeal at such a high decibel it belongs on a Mariah Carey album. But
Bobbi is very calm. She comes over to our table, smiles at all of us, and extends her hand to Eugene.

Eugene takes her hand and stands up. The applause is really loud, but we’re so close that we can hear what he says to her.

“How did this happen?” he asks. “We’re not even together anymore! How did people think to vote us best couple?”

Bobbi can’t contain herself. Her face is all warm and happy and glowing from the candlelight of our table.

“I rigged it!” she tells him. “I rigged the vote!”

At first Eugene looks surprised, but then he looks touched and proud. And then I think he looks down her dress, but just for half a second. “That’s my girl,” he says.

A slow song is on, and Scott and Amy are already out on the floor, dancing, and Bobbi and Eugene join them.

For some reason, Darcy is still onstage, even though she opened all her envelopes already, and when the song winds down, she goes to the microphone again.

“And now an announcement I am happy to make,” Darcy says. “We welcome to the stage for their debut performance a band that is still searching for an appropriate name but is currently called… the D-Bags.”

I turn to ask Hunter, “Is Derek really playing?” But Hunter is standing up and buttoning his jacket.
What’s going on?

“This is my cue,” he tells me, and before I can say
anything, he jogs to the front of the room, jumps up onto the stage, and pulls back the red curtain. I see Derek—sitting in a chair—and my first thought is that Hunter and Derek are going to pull some prank. But Darcy backs up, handing Hunter the microphone, and I realize that if Darcy’s in on this, it can’t be a joke.

“So hey, everybody,” Hunter says, looking around at all the tables. “Hey, Scott, Amy—congrats, guys. So I’m not actually in the D-Bags; I’m just up here to sing you one song. But I’m a total slacker, as you all know, so it’s the same song I sang at the talent show thingy a few months ago. When I wrote the song, I thought that it was about my bed. But I think subconsciously… or unconsciously… I kinda wrote it about someone else, who helped me with the song. She’s my date tonight, so… Kelly, this is for you.”

Everyone is looking at me.

“You’re the healer, I’m the holder….”

Hunter looks so good in his tux, with his hair falling across his forehead, leaning forward into the microphone. And he sounds amazing. And surprisingly, the D-Bags sound pretty good, too.

“You’re the soft place that I fall, after all….”

By the second verse, people get up to dance. At my table, Aviva’s date is itching to get up and dance some more, so he pulls her out of her seat. On her way to the floor, she squeezes my shoulder.

As the song winds down, I’m the only person left at our table, but I don’t mind. When the DJ puts on another slow
song, Dave and Damian leave their instruments and come down from the stage. Darcy is waiting for Derek, holding his crutches. Hunter jumps off the stage and comes back to the table.

“How did that happen?” I ask him, in amazement.

Hunter shrugs and laughs.

I stand up to hit him playfully on the lapel of his tuxedo.

“Tell me! Tell me everything!” I beg. “How were you allowed to do that? Since when are the D-Bags actually a
band
? When did they learn your song? Tell me everything!”

Hunter laughs again, and pulls me out onto the dance floor with everyone else. Right away, he takes the lead, pulling me in close, with his hand on the small of my back.

“So?” I ask.

“A lotta people helped out,” Hunter says. “Eugene, and Eugene’s barber, and…”

“Eugene’s barber?”

“I gave the lessons, though,” Hunter says. “I mean, the song was easy, but none of those guys ever played an instrument before. We’ve been practicing, like, every day.”

“But Dave was playing the bass!” I say. “You taught him how to play the bass? You know how to play the bass?”

“Kinda, I guess,” Hunter admits, shrugging. “Teaching Dave wasn’t too bad. Teaching Derek was the worst, ’cause I was scared he was gonna do something to my guitar—like, smash it or something. But he couldn’t do anything too bad with the crutches and all.”

“I can’t believe you taught them!” I say. “In such a short time! What, like, a month?”

“Well, you’re the one who said I could teach,” Hunter says. “So I guess it all started with you.”

Hunter pulls me in really close and kisses me. He smells good, and he feels good, and his sleeves are soft against my arms, and his mouth is soft against my mouth.

We kiss for a long time, and when we finally look up, a lot of people have left the dance floor, which should be embarrassing, but I don’t care. “Hey,” Hunter says, pointing to our table. “Look.”

They’re half blocked by Derek’s crutches, but Darcy and Derek have turned their chairs toward each other, Darcy is wearing Derek’s hat, backward—and they’re kissing.

“Maybe I owe you more than five dollars on that bet,” I say.

“Nahhh,” Hunter says, his arms still around me. “The satisfaction of being right is enough for me.”

I laugh.

“So whadda you think?” he asks in his slow, easy voice, smiling down at me. “Am I a good date?”

“You’re more romantic than a Taylor Swift song,” I tell him.