Prom Girl

The search for the Tuxedo

The day before prom is a day when you really should have stayed in bed.

Let me explain it to you. The typical day-before.

School bags are filled with a lot more then just books and pencils. Prom dresses have been bundled in, too have a last minute show too their friends. Bottles of hairspray, three inch stilettos, springy elastic hairbands and pearl hairslides to experiment with hairstyles in the girls toilets. Strapless bra's exchanged, broken bracelets mended, and for some, desperate invitations to go to Prom together still hanging in the air.

It's a time of havoc in the small halls of Springsteen high school.

It's also a time where I really need some girl company, so I've arranged to meet Celia during her break of preparing the hall for the prom. She emerges in baggy jeans covered in dust, probably from fixing the lights onto the ceiling.

'Sandy! Help.me.' She drags me into a nearby bathroom, pointing to her afro.

'Fix, please. I don't want to turn up looking like a cat's shat on my head to prom.' She desperatley tries to smooth back her hair with her dusty palm, but it just makes it spring to life even more, and she wails.

'Babe, calm. Either way, your hair will look like some hot shit, super sexy, cat turd, so cool it!' I pull out a brush from my bag, and gently comb through her tangles. Soon, I've made it super flufffy and shiny with help from my Frizz ease hairspray, and a bluebell flowery clip.

'See? It will look great tomorrow!' She throws her arms around me, and I grin.

'Were gonna be some fine chicatita's!'

                                                                                    *

It was ten at night when Justin called.

'Sandy dude, I need you ASAP! Can I pick you up in my car? Tux problems.' He sounds like he's about to have a nevous breakdown.

'Justin, dude. I will come only if you promise me one thing.'

'Whats that?'

'Never call me dude again.'

I can hear the smile in his voice. 'It's a deal.'

Ten minutes later, were parking outside his house. Im suprised to find its not at all what I thought it would be. Whereas his appearance shows off wealth, his house has a simple red brick, victorian style. 

Opening the door, he leads me into a long, stone hallway and opens the door to a spacy living room with a cream carpet and huge, plasma TV. On the sofa sits a middleaged man with a beard and round glasses, a beer in one hand and a teastained book in the other. He looks up and smiles, his magnified eyes twinkling.

'Why hello! You must be the Sandy I've heard so much about. ' He sets down his beer and leaps up to shake my hand. Justin lets out a groan behind me and I elbow him in the ribs.

'Yes, I am. Nice to meet you, Mr Parks.' I smile politley and the man chuckles.

'Please, call me Rupert. And this is my wife, Susannah.' A women about the same age as my mum enters the room, coming forward and enveloping me in a hug.

'Mum!' Justin exclaims in horror and we both laugh.

'He's such a stick in the mud, our Justin.' Susannah smiles and im struck by how pretty she is. Her hair, unlike Justin's, is very fair and curls around her round, friendly face, and she has very deep dimples in the corners of her mouth.