Will Work for Prom Dress (13 page)

“He’s already seen me with Zander. It won’t be a huge shock. I’ll just tell him I wasn’t expecting our day of shooting to be anything but two friends taking pictures in the park.”

“So much for honesty. Didn’t he pretty much ask you specifically on a date?”

“Oh, right.” I’d forgotten my “I’m going on a date, on a date, on a date” litany from the other day. Not to mention his flower.

“Trust me. Make up something about how busy you are right now. Use that speech as an excuse. People understand heavy workloads when you’re trying to get into a college. He’ll back off, and this way you haven’t hurt his feelings. There’s time yet—I’ll help you nail down Zander for the dance. Once David asks someone else, it won’t be a big deal how things shake out. It’s the only way to go. Just whatever you do, don’t bring up the fact there’s another guy. I know about these things.”

“Yeah, well, last time you
knew about these things
, I talked myself into thinking Zander wasn’t into me. Which is why I’m in this mess to begin with.”

“You make a good point. But what do you have to lose? If you just brush David off in general, you don’t have to worry about what Zander will think, because there will be nothing happening between you and David, right?”

“I guess. I gotta go, David’ll be waiting.”

Anne gave me a quick hug. “Good luck! Come by backstage after if you want and dish all the gory details.”

“You’re enjoying this all a little too much,” I said.

“Yep!” She laughed and headed toward the theater.

I took the long way to the art room, less than eager to share the latest developments with David. Part of me hoped he’d be gone when I got there or think he had the time wrong. But he was sitting on the counter smiling and twirling the keys to the opened darkroom on one finger when I walked in. Despite Anne’s advice, I still thought the best way to handle this situation was to be totally honest.

“Hey, you. I’ve hardly seen you today,” he said. “Mrs. Albertt left the keys with me. She was very impressed I stayed to help you.”

“Heh, I bet. It’s been a crazy day.”

I gathered up twelve rolls of film from the class, along with the three we had taken at the park. Even with David’s help, I’d need to have four or five developing tubs
going at once if we were going to finish by dinner.

“So, what do we do first? Turn on the warning light, right?” he asked.

He flipped the switch that turned on the red lightbulb placed above the door outside the room. No one would open the door and ruin the photographs while it was lit.

I almost groaned aloud. This also meant no one could leave the room. I spaced that. As I heard the door click behind us, I realized Anne’s method of dealing with this mess might be best, considering that David and I were going to be stuck together in here for the next two hours.

“Give me the list. I need to check it. Earlier, I prepared the chemicals we would need—developer, stop bath, fixer—by mixing them as instructed. I also secured the negatives, so we can run two processes at once to save time.” I handed him the instruction sheet to look over, and launched into the easy letdown. “So, I’ve been running like crazy today, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. No time for your boy at all. Guess you girls have a lot to sort out for the dance.”

I glanced at the sheet and squinted. “Did we make sure that the temperature of the chemicals is at least sixty-eight
degrees? Let’s place the containers in a pan of several inches of water to regulate that. These negatives are just about ready to splice.” I handed the tube to David. “Well, that’s sort of the thing,” I continued. “I really don’t have time right now. Remember when we were talking about colleges? The thing is, I don’t have many options to choose from.”

“I’m sorry. Here I was going on and on about where I might go and who I turned down. No wonder you got all weird.”

I ignored the comments and continued reading from the worksheet. “So we organized the equipment so that you can find them in the dark. Got the film reel, film container, and scissors for cutting the film from the film spool? Let’s flash these others while we’re doing that to save time … and make sure I’m not making a total mess of this.”

I was making a total mess of this. He’d probably never understand my real feelings about his choice, but that didn’t matter. He seemed to understand the college pressures, so I went with what was working. “Yeah. I’m just really stressed, but it looks like I might have a way out. It’s going to take work and time. A
lot
of work and time. Like, too much energy to get wrapped up in something with you right now. I hope you understand.

“We’re developing several rolls at once, so fill the developing tank with developer almost to the top. These should be transferring now—here we go, and here they are!” I pointed down at the images, slowly coming into focus on the wet paper.

“So you’re a girl with focus. I get it. It’s all good, Quigley.” He ribbed me with a wink and an exaggerated Art King smirk. “After all, I can see how a girl could get too distracted by my charms.”

I smiled. “Thanks for understanding, David.”

So Anne was right. I had stopped things with David without hurting his feelings. Now I could see what might happen with Zander without guilt hanging over my head. Perfect. By the time prom rolled around, David would have moved on to Maria or whoever he ended up asking.

“Wow, awesome. That one came out exactly like what we were going for!” David said.

“You’re right. But something’s missing. The ones in the museum seemed like everything was stopping for a reason. These just look like blurred action shots.”

“True,” he said. “But we’re definitely close.”

“I think so. Now we just hang them to dry.”

I tensed as David’s body came up behind me in the dark. He smelled like peanut butter and Dr Pepper. I felt his breath on my neck about a second before he started kissing it. I yelped and dropped the photo. I jumped backward into David as the liquid in the tub splashed on me.

“Crap! What’s in these chemicals?” I patted down the table looking for a towel to wipe off my wet arms and shirt.

“How should I know? You’re supposed to be the expert here, Teach’. Why’d you jump like that, anyway?” David slid his arms back around my waist. “It’s all good. We’ve got the place to ourselves.”

I peeled his arms off me and turned around to face him. “I thought we just talked about this.”

“Sure. You’re busy and tied up with school stuff, priorities, yadda-yadda. But this is perfect. Here we are,
in
school, doing school stuff—it’s like the ultimate in multitasking!”

He leaned in for a kiss.

“There’s this other guy,” I blurted.

David stopped cold. “Other guy?”

“Well, yes. It’s not anything to do with you—”

“You’re stopping me from kissing you right now. So it seems like it does have a little something to do with me.”

“No, I mean. I was hanging out with him first, and then things got—”

“Wait. Is this the guy I saw you with at the exhibit?” David took a step back. “You know, the exhibit
I
invited you to?”

“Umm.”

“Gotcha.”

“You don’t understand.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I think I do. I’m outta here.”

He slammed the door open. The flash of bright outside light made me wince. I spun around to see all the carefully half-developed images floating in the tubs slowly disappear. My hopes of untangling the mess without hurting anyone vanished as quickly as the hard work of my classmates.

I barely had the strength to dial Anne’s number. Jogging home after spending almost four hours in a lab swirling and hanging and squeegeeing a million photos, for the second time, was a stupid idea. It had been so long since I rode the bus I forgot the schedule. I really needed a car.

Anne picked up on the second ring.

“So where were you earlier? I waited at the theater the whole afternoon,” Anne said.

“Let’s just say things didn’t go so great with David.”

“You went and told him about Zander, didn’t you?”

I peeled off my sock and inspected my heel for blisters. “Well—”

“Quigley! I told you.”

“Okay, fine. This time you were right.”

“So it was bad.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be making plans for that joint limo to prom.”

I could hear the British accents of some BBC sitcom coming from her TV, followed by clicking as she channel surfed.

“When are you going to ask Zander?”

“I’m not sure. Is he too old? I mean, will he think it’s completely stupid?”

“He’s only eighteen.”

“Is he? He seems so much more mature. How did you know that and I didn’t?”

“I snuck a look through Mom’s records to check out The Spikester’s details. How’d you think I found out about the kid? Anyway, he’s having a birthday in two weeks!”

“The Spikester? What’s he going to be, thirty-four?”

“Hardy har har. No.
Your
man. I was checking his sign—you two are totally compatible, by the way. A week from next
Thursday he’ll turn nineteen. But that’s only a couple years older than you are, no biggie. It’s not like he doesn’t know we’re still in high school.”

“I guess so. Man, I can’t believe it’s his birthday. What am I going to get him?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you find something perfect. We need to go try on some dresses anyway. We can do it this weekend. Oh, before I forget—The Spikester set us up with a sweet side gig.”

“Babysitting?”

She snorted. “So, so funny. He’s got this RISD grad bud who branched off and started creating these crazy, fantastical performance art programs.”

“Anne, my days as a dead body are over.”

“No, nothing like that. Well, okay—they do improv and scripted scenes sometimes, but they also do parade work. There’s a big Earth Day parade downtown and they’ve signed on for it, but his troupe could use some extras. It’s supposed to be very
Midsummer’s Night Dream
on acid.”

“Lovely.”

“It will be! The sprites even get harnessed up to flit around high up on the float. The Spikester is helping with
the costumes, and he says he thought of me the whole time he did this one shimmery-fairy bodysuit.”

“TMI, Anne. TMI.”

“Wait, you won’t believe this. The Spikester told the guy about me and the guy said I was in, so then—and now you can feel guilty—he tells the guy I have this really cool best friend and is there a place for you? And the guy says, ‘Can she play a piccolo?’ ”

“No!”

“Yes!”

I thought back to when Anne and I first met, in line for instrument signup for third-grade band. A short, freckled kid lumbered past us, weighed down by a massive tuba. Anne leaned over and whispered, “Piccolo.” “Piccolo?” I whispered back. She glanced around to make sure no one else could benefit from her genius. “Think of the walk to the bus.” She held out a pinky. I hesitated just a moment before extending mine with a nod and starting what would be a lifelong tradition of blindly following Anne’s questionable advice.

“So I tell him—Quigley? Quigley can
rock
a piccolo! She’ll play the best piccolo in the history of the parade.”

“Anne, piccolo was
hard!
It was the worst. Four months
and we never even once hit a decent note. They made us switch to the cowbell.”

“Maybe they just needed more cowbell. What does it matter anyway? You’ll get the forty bucks and fake it. The rest of the instruments will drown you out.”

I pulled the laces loose on my other running shoe. “Anne, can I ask you something without you getting pissed?”

“When you start out like that, probably not,” she laughed.

“I’m just wondering. Do you think we’re being a little silly about the dress thing?”

There was a moment of silence on the line. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just a lot of money to waste on something your mom would be happy to make us for free.”

“That’s not the point. It’s the principle of the thing, Quigley! I thought you were with me on this. Where’s the best-friend support?”

“I know. It was just that Zander told me the other night how he bought his car for only four hundred dol—”

“Gawd, Quigley. You’re not going to be that kind of girl who is always spouting ‘my boyfriend said this’ and ‘my boyfriend did that’ now, are you?”

I blushed at the
B
-word. “No! I just thought it seemed like something real to hold on to, compared to a dress we can really only wear the one time.”

“Fine. You go find yourself a car for four hundred bucks. I’m sticking with the plan. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll pull over in the limo and give you a ride when I see you broken down on the side of the road. But no promises.”

I sighed. “You’re pissed.”

“Of course, I’m pissed. We’ve been working at this for months now. You wouldn’t have even
met
your guy if it weren’t for my Betterment Plan and getting us this gig with my mom. Now you’re backing out.”

“No, I’m not. I swear. I was just bringing it up for discussion,” I said.

“Well, are we done discussing?”

“Totally.”