Sister City

Chapter One

Chapter One

Five minutes ago I realized that I had fallen head over heels in love; it ruined my senior prom.

It is, among other things, my first prom, my first date and my first broken heart. What a major fiasco. The theme for Analy High School’s Senior Prom 2012: The Clock Strikes 12. Despite the obvious correlation between the year and the time, I thought it an odd choice. Don’t bad things happen when the clock strikes 12 in the fairy tales?

Originally the powers that be had reserved just the Flamingo Room for the prom, thinking there would be less than 250 people in attendance. Prom isn’t too horribly popular at Analy. It’s basically a big party for the football team and their cheerleader girlfriends.

Then the news spread like wildfire that Shauna Gamble had secured Rhianna to sing at prom. Her cousin was someone’s manager, or PR person, or umbrella holder, maybe. It doesn’t matter. They agreed to sing at our prom.

Everyone who qualified to attend the prom was scrambling to get tickets. At $150 a person, I wasn’t planning on going. Luka, Megan, and Marcus strong armed me into buying tickets. Two tickets. I didn’t have a date, but they said not to worry, they’d handle it. Tickets sold out less than an hour after I bought mine. Everyone who had tickets was being bombarded with offers for limos, money, even a few people went so far as to offer favors of a sexual nature. Every jock, nerd and wannabe cowboy had a date – even if they didn't have a ticket. Everyone, that is, except me, and I had two tickets!

Before school was out for the day Joan Jett’s powerful voice announced ‘I Love Rock N' Roll’ as I received a text message. It turned out to be a tweet from GCVaranini; Giancarlo was asking me to prom. He didn’t go to Analy, but he was my age and apparently Leena had told him my Twitter screen name. I didn’t know him all that well because he was home-schooled, but we had met at a competition and stretched together. He was cute, no doubt, but completely intimidating. All he did was study and tumble. I sent him a tweet back accepting his invitation and voilà. I had a date.

When the planning committee explained the situation to Principal Hellman, he dropped the entire mess into his secretary’s lap. Mrs. Miller was on top of it before he made it back into his office. She called to see if the school could also reserve the Empire Room, which would give us room for the 600 people who had already paid for their tickets. That’s how we ended up with the Grand Ballroom at the Flamingo Hotel.

The planning committee had placed cardboard cutouts from every romanticized Disney cartoon around the ballroom. Giancarlo offered me his arm as we walked through the archway that led past the dance floor to the tables. As we walked past Prince Edward and Giselle from Enchanted, I felt like I was walking into a fairy tale palace.

Now, I’m sitting here next to Prince Charming, literally - a life-size cardboard cutout of Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty – and I’m shaking. My prom dress is drenched in Doctor Pepper and tears are running down my face, mixing with the snot dripping from my nose. My date just stormed out of the ballroom, muttering under his breath, having just let loose with a string of curses in Italian. I don’t know a single word in the Italian language, and I’m pretty sure that his mother would have washed his mouth out with soap if she’d heard him.

The love of my life left minutes before, chasing his current girlfriend – who had been his ex up until recently - apologizing like a trained monkey. It was her soda pop. Now I’m alone, in a corner, at my first prom, with half of the student population of Analy High School watching my drama unfold. I am the star on my own cheesy reality TV show. This only goes to prove, once and for all, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that loves sucks. It’s the inevitable conclusion.