Thwonk (17 page)

“Great…”

She sprayed mousse through my scalp, lifting and fluffing and coaxing my hair to behave.

“He’s swimming from a long way off on this one, honey. It’s not fair, but it’s where he is right now. Shake out your hair.”

I shook.

She ran cold water in the tub.

“Stick your feet in.”

“It’s freezing, Mom, I’ll—”

“This,” Mom declared, “can wake the dead. Tonight you qualify.”

I stuck my feet in arctic water and was hurled into an energizing rush of consciousness. Mom turned to examine my face. She yanked out the heavy artillery, her middle-aged eye-care kit. It must be bad.

“Look up,” she ordered, and went to town.

She covered me and decorated me like a poor, cracked cake that had to be rescued for company. She put a light covering of mascara on my eyes, powdered my cheeks with pink, glowing blush. She said, “We all
have old ghosts we have to fight. Your dad is arm-wrestling with his right now. Can you live with that?”

I fidgeted.

Mom looked at me with exhausted eyes. “Can you at least try?”

I sniffed and said I guess I could.

“Is Dad going to be okay?”

“Eventually,” she said. “In the meantime a little compassion wouldn’t hurt.”

I nodded.

Mom stepped back, satisfied, and turned me toward the mirror.

“The natural look,” she announced. “It takes a lot longer, but it’s worth it.”

I stood before the bathroom mirror, a teenager re-born. My hair hung lush, layered, and full. Underneath it was ratted and sprayed to high heaven—but no one would be looking there. Everything tonight was on the surface. My face shone with a deep pink glow, my eye angst had been obliterated. I put on Ruby Rapture lipstick and blotted my lips in the perfect outline of a kiss.

Mom pushed me back into the bedroom, tossed me my killer red dress, my sequined shoes. In minutes I stood before my full-length antique mirror, having achieved smashing.

The doorbell reverberated in my ear. Stieglitz looked at me mournfully and didn’t bark.

I turned to Mom—our eyes locked in one of those
parent / child moments people talk about when they’re old. I ran to get the door before Dad, in case Peter started yodeling or something lame. I’d make my big entrance at the dance.

Ta da.

Dad beat me to the door. Peter greeted him with an enthusiasm only seen among used-car salesmen. “
Mr. McCreary!
” he began.

I crashed between them. “I’m ready!”

Dad’s face turned soft when he saw me. He squeezed my hand with massive depth. I squeezed his back with consummate compassion.

“Well…,” Dad said, beaming.

I took a deep breath.

Peter stammered that I was beautiful.

Mom admired her handiwork.

I did a little twirl and grinned.

Peter looked fabulous—it’s amazing what a tux can do for a bozo. He was holding a red-and-white rose corsage that was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous corsage I’d ever seen. He tried to pin it on me and nicked my skin. He acted as though he’d bludgeoned me, he was so upset, and Mom and Dad looked at each other strangely when he kept repeating that he would never, ever do anything to hurt me…

I whispered, “Don’t talk,” got the corsage in place, and pricked my finger.

Dad had his camera and was taking pictures of us.
It was good to see him with it again—he hadn’t held a camera in ages. I really hate having my picture taken, most photographers do, but it was important to Dad, who was in heavy combat against the phantoms of the past, so I played along and posed like I was the happiest person on the planet. Mom leaned against the grandfather clock in the hall, taking it all in. I could tell she didn’t buy it. Dad put his camera down and looked at me nervously, like all fathers do when their teenage daughters are dressed to kill and can pass for twenty-five-year-old women.

“Boy, those nails of yours sure are red,” he muttered.

Mom tucked her arm in his to keep him still.

Peter promised my parents that he would take excellent care of me, he would never leave my side, not for a minute. When you’ve found the girl of your dreams, he said, the girl who fulfills your every hope and desire, you’re sure not going to be a jerk and let her out of your sight. Mom and Dad listened, their smiles growing thin. Peter said he had written a poem about me and would everyone like to hear it?

I said, “Gee, this has been nice,” and yanked him out the door into the waiting white stretch limo and the frozen tundra of high-school memories.

The limo pulled up to the front of Ben Franklin High and came to a leisurely stop to make sure everyone drinking beer in the parking lot was paying attention. A limo had never been seen at the King of Hearts Dance to my knowledge—limos were reserved for proms—but when you are impending royalty, you do these things as a matter of course.

The driver opened the door as a dutiful coachman and Peter bounded out to help me. Getting out of a car gracefully has never been my strong suit, especially in
heels, and I scooted closer to the door so I wouldn’t have to lunge, swung my legs around, and tottered up to victory. Peter said “Thank you, my good man” to the driver, which was really lame, but not as lame as what he did next—picking me up, that is—
carrying
me over an ice puddle so I wouldn’t get my shoes wet. I was flailing my arms to break free when I heard Lisa Shooty ask Al Costanzo how come he never carried
her
over puddles? I saw Heidi Morganthaller glare at Jeff Dintsman, who apparently didn’t carry her either. I told Peter he could put me down and smiled like a southern belle who had just lost the family estate and planned to keep the news to herself.

He lowered me gently like I was a rare, delicate thing. I squared my sexy shoulders, took Peter’s hand, and swept inside the Student Center doors, redefining majestic.

I sucked in my breath at the sight: the Student Center had been transformed into unparalleled Valentine splendor.

Hundreds of hearts twinkled, iridescent lights shone from tables, walls, and chairs. Sparkling students floated among crepe paper and lace. Scads of red, pink, and white helium balloons decorated the stage. Giant King of Hearts playing cards surrounded the dance floor. A spiral white staircase rose directly to the left of the sainted statue of Big Ben himself, who was clad in a makeshift equivalent of Valentine boxer shorts. The
banner above the stage read,
WHEN TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE
…Everyone looked supreme. There were more girls wearing red dresses than anything, but my dress was the reddest.

Peter took my arm and led me through the
WHEN TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE
archway that was shaped like the inside of a real heart and made lub-dub noises when Roger Dexter, president of the Electronics Club, pushed the control button and kicked the side. Peter had to duck down to get through the heart, but I didn’t. It was just my size. Everything tonight was just for me!

We paraded down the royal-red carpet and stepped onto the dance floor, bathed in low, earthy light. I threw back my shoulders and tossed out my hair.

Ta da!

I pranced past Robbie Oldsberg, Connecticut’s premier rodent, and his mousy date. I looked Julia Hart straight in her baby-blue eyes and she looked away first. I shouted hi to Trish as she hurried by in pink silk with Tucker, her face flushed with love. Tucker looked like he would rather be having brain surgery than be at a school dance. Trish said hi back flatly so I’d know she was still ripped.

“You look great,” I muttered as she rounded the buffet table.

“
You
look great,” Peter whispered to me.

A spotlight illuminated the stage. Popularity surged through my veins. Gary Quark, resplendent in a
lime-green tux, announced Heather and the Heartbeats, who danced out in glittering dresses and mile-high hair. Heather asked everyone if we were ready to have a really good time.

“
Yes!
” we shouted.

Were we ready to celebrate Valentine’s Day like no school had ever celebrated it before?

“
Yes!
” we hollered.

Were we ready—Heather checked the banner—to have our hearts beat as one?

“
Yes!
” we answered unequivocally.

I could feel the magic tingling in my toes. I could feel the silk of my killer red dress hugging me in all the right places. I could feel Peter’s glazed eyes staring at me.

“I don’t think I can keep my feelings inside,” he protested.

“
Swallow them!
”

He gulped.

Heather shouted, “Let’s do it!” as the big, glittering Valentine heart above the dance floor began to twirl. The band broke into pure, unadulterated rock and roll, and the boogying began.

Most guys are rotten dancers, but not Peter. We sensed each other’s moves, twisted at the same pace. My skirt was twirling, my hair was flying, and most importantly, Peter wasn’t talking. Rays of stardom bounced off the sequins on my killer red shoes, announcing to the world that A. J. McCreary had finally arrived!

We danced three fast dances without a break, and I wasn’t even breathing hard when Heather crooned a syrupy ballad and we fell into our partner’s arms, shuffling and swaying down to slow dancing. Peter draped himself around me like a hormone-drenched gorilla and I tried to look appropriately lost in the moment. All around us love-soaked couples clutched each other in massive emoting. I wanted to be emoting too, but when you’re Queen of the Hop you can’t have everything.

Peter was nuzzling
very
close, making breathing difficult. He was about to whisper something grimly devoted when Heather called for a line dance. Everyone made room for Peter and me to lead. Up to the front we ran, raising our hands, shimmying down. Kids jumped in behind us unafraid, kids I’d never figured would join a line dance, but everyone was a hoofer tonight, except for Trish and Tucker. It makes you appreciate the depth of the teenage soul. It makes you realize how we’re all so much more than we appear in the cafeteria. I wanted to shout that as their leader, I would not fail them. I knew what it was like to be a shadow in the Student Center and I wouldn’t forget from whence I had come. I twirled the line into a unified circle symbolizing the depth of the hormonal experience that we all shared. We were churning on the downbeat, the chaperons were clapping from the sidelines, everything twirled round and round in a great rush of Valentine splendor. The line broke left and we faced the stage, clapping and shouting as the Heartbeats sang “oo wa oo” on the backup with profound
meaning. Jody Barnabo was taking photographs; it was strange to be in the center of the action instead of on the sidelines photographing it. I jumped left, right, and gave her all my best expressions. That’s when Peter stopped dead in his tracks, grinned at me maniacally, and shouted to the air like a supreme loon:

“
Isn’t she great?
”

I can’t describe the horror.

“
I mean
,” he continued to the dancing crowd representing, and I’m estimating here, every person I’ve ever met in my bleak life, “
look at her, will you all?
”

Everyone looked.

And you know how it is when everyone’s looking at you—you imagine all sorts of things. I checked my nose to make sure nothing was hanging out of it and tried to make the best of the worst moment of my life.

I mumbled that I wasn’t that great.

“
Oh, yes, you are!
” Peter cried, picking me up against my personal will and twirling me in public.

“
Oh, no, I’m not!
” I said, snarling, digging my manicured nails into his neck.

Heather and the Heartbeats, capping the moment, broke into “Your Love Is Lifting Me Higher,” and Peter followed suit, lifting me higher still, as the crowd cheered and I burned with humiliation, finally wriggling myself into position to let loose a debilitating kick to his shin.

He put me down.

“
Never
,” I hissed, “do that again!”

Peter was rubbing his leg. “I’m sorry, baby, I—”

I grabbed the lapels of his tux. “I’m almost five nine, buster! I’m not anybody’s
baby
!”

I stormed from the dance floor, found the closest folding chair, and crumpled into a heartrending heap. Lisa Shooty dashed to my side. “
How
did you get him to do that, A.J.?”

I searched her perfect face for signs of sarcasm. She was serious.

I looked at the crowd of my peers who were smiling at Peter and smiling at me and if they thought anything was cosmic, they sure weren’t saying it. Peter could do anything because he was popular. It was the Emperor’s New Clothes all over again. I shuddered at the power of high-school hunks. I cringed as Peter floated up to me and reached out his stupid hand. I looked away. The music swelled, my stomach churned. He pulled me up from the folding chair and onto the dance floor, pressed me toward him, and flattened my corsage. The metaphor was too dim to ponder.

I was standing with Peter at the buffet table. He was close to drooling. Heather and the Heartbeats had taken a break to pull themselves together and spray their hair with liquid asphalt. I really prayed they’d be done
spraying soon because break time was not good for Peter. It meant we had to talk.