AFTER A WEEK OF festive vacations, sleeping in, and massive college tours, classes at Meadowbrook High School were back in session. Even though the students wouldn't get the opportunity to sleep in until the weekends rolled around, it felt good to be back where they spent most of their time for the past several months.
On the Wednesday after school resumed, Dr. Terry decided to gather her choir for an hour-long intensive choir rehearsal after school. Meadowbrook's Advanced Mixed Choir was stoked for their last performance of the year, especially since they'll be singing two iconic songs, Man In The Mirror, composed by Micheal Jackson and adapted by Joyful Noise and We're All In This Together from the hit movie, High School Musical. Having the Troy or Gabriella part in the musical's song was everyone in the choir's dream, even as a small child.
But unfortunately, not everyone in the choir could have the part. Troy's part was handed down to Jayden, while Gabriella's part was handed to Angelica. Even if those were two major parts of the song, there were still other solos that were just as important, like Ryan or Sharpay's part. The part for Sharpay was given to Jolien, who was completely stoked about it, and the part for Ryan was given to Alexander.
Inez didn't mind all that much, however. As much as she liked having solo parts, blending in with the rest of the choir was just as great. But that didn't mean she didn't have an important solo in the choir's other song, Man In The Mirror. By Dr. Terry, Inez was given the solo part, which was a major part of the song. Because the choir had been working on this particular song for a few weeks before spring break approached, Inez already had all the lyrics memorized and locked into her brain.
If anything, she was ready to crush rehearsals and class times going forward.
Speaking of rehearsal, the choir was gathered in the school theater on the singing platform, centered towards the middle of the wooden stage. Dr. Terry ordered specific students to stand in specific places based on many factors, such as volume, voice projection, vocal range, and height. Sometimes, it would take a few minutes, usually five at most, possibly six if the choir director decided to push it. If anything, however, Dr. Terry wasn't the kind of choir director who'd waste valuable time worrying about everyone's positions on the choir platform.
Once everyone's position was perfected enough for the choir director's liking, she stood in front of the rim of the stage on top of a podium, flipping through her two-inch binder of her score sheets of each and every vocal part of this particular choir's songs. Then, she clasped her hands to get everyone's attention.
"Okay, everyone, thank you for coming to this after-school rehearsal," she announced. "Time is ticking away and I don't want to go over my time limit, so let's get started with Man In The Mirror since we just did We're All In This Together in class today. We'll revisit it later." Taking a sip of water from a clear thermos cup, she gestured to Inez to step to the front of the stage, where a microphone on a stand was set up.
With care, she yanked the microphone off of its stand, she stood before everyone else, feeling her body sway left and right slightly. To pass time, she ran a few fingers through her fresh medium box braids, which hung from her head to her hips. Dr. Terry gestured to her laptop, which sat on a rolling cart, connected in many electric cords to connect with the theater's speaker system. Before she could press play to the audio for the song, she raised her hand in the air to prepare the choir to begin singing the song as she quietly muttered. "One . . . two . . . one, two, three, four."
Inez synced her voice with the start of the song, which was the light chime of a piano key. The end of the first line consisted of her hitting one of the lower notes. This time, she nailed it, due to months and months of training in the scales the choir used as warm-ups. It was certainly convenient that Dr. Terry always considered practicing scales as important. Even if they were annoying at times to the choir, they were absolutely necessary.
The girl with the braids sung her way through each verse, steadily, yet following the pace of the soundtrack, which sounded from booming speakers all around. When the main chorus came around, the rest of the choir joined by easing into the song, their voices steady and still, not overshadowing Inez's solo, but still sounded like one. One voice. One choir.
One everything.
With that exact spirit, the choir carried it into the rest of the day's rehearsal. Not a minute was wasted, and Dr. Terry had time to heavily lead the choir into places they can improve to have an excellent performance. After about half an hour, choir practice concluded, and the choir director dismissed everyone to leave. Inez joined her best friend, Jolien, who was gently making her way down the singing platform.
When the brunette girl practically leaped off of the lowest part of the platform like a kid, she wrapped her arm around best friend for a bear hug. There was nothing like a passionate hug from your best buddy.
"Nez, you did so well on your solo! No one can do it better than you," Jolien raved like a cheerleader. She was practically Inez's personal cheerleader, as all best friends should strive to be.
"Stop, you're being too sweet," the girl with the braids gushed as she gestured to her friend to walk backstage with her.
"I'm just telling the truth," Jolien remarked with a shrug as she picked up an orchid purple backpack that sat against the wall, buried by dozens of other backpacks.
Before Inez got the chance to lean down to retrieve her backpack, she was interrupted by someone's fingers crawling up her shoulders from behind her before the person planted a quick kiss on her right cheek. With a giggle, her head spun around to see a smiling Alexander.
"Hey, Nezzie," he whispered, his voice sugary. "You did so well on your solo. You were made for it."
"You sugarcoat everything," the girl giggled before she took his hand, squeezing it tight. "But thank you."
Alexander answered simply. "I'm not sugarcoating anything, I'm just being honest."
"Hello, I'm like, right here," Jolien intervened as she waved her hands in the air dramatically. "You guys are making me feel way too single."
"We're sorry," Inez apologized, followed by a grimace.
"But you two have fun. I have a nail appointment in thirty minutes, so I'll see you guys tomorrow," the brunette announced as she adjusted the straps for her backpack. "Bye."
"Bye," the couple said in sync as they watched her round the corner to the main stage area. Now, it was just them alone. Even if they were surrounded by many other choir students who were gathering their things, the couple was by themselves.
Before neither of them got the chance to say anything, an ecstatic Jayden, Alexander's best friend, approached them as he retrieved his backpack, swinging it onto his back afterwards. "Hey, you two."
"Hi, Jay," the Korean boy said as he held out his hand to meet his friend's for a handshake. "What's up?"
"I'm going to go to my locker real quick to grab something, but what's good with you guys?" The mixed boy questioned before a smirk crawled onto his lips. "You guys seem happy. You've been like that since we came back from break. Were y'all busy . . . ?"
"We're just excited to be . . . back, that's all," Inez muttered. A spark in her brain lit up. Her boyfriend's best friend wasn't direct about what he meant when he said that they were a little happy, but being not-so innocent, she knew exactly what he was talking about. She turned her head to face her boyfriend, who was smiling uncontrollably.
"I can tell y'all did something over the break," Jayden teased as he chuckled at the redness of his friend's face. "I know the face of someone who just got laid."
"But that was last week," the Korean boy exclaimed before he cupped his mouth with his hand. The secret was out.
"My instincts don't lie," Jayden chuckled. "But was it good?"
"Jayden," Alexander nagged with a groan as his face reddened even more.
Inez giggled at her boyfriend's response, but deep down, she was dying inside. All she could hope, however, was that no one in their surroundings would overhear them. Based on how everyone was rushing past the small group huddled up, she heavily doubted it. But anything was possible — anything.
She didn't want anyone hearing her rather erotic experience from last week.
Fortunately, Jayden decided to playfully shove Alexander in the shoulder before he winked, sauntering away to socialize with a few other choir students walking away. The Korean boy let out a relieved sigh as he turned to his girlfriend.
"Well, that was unexpected," he said with a grimace as both of them trailed behind the many choir students ahead of them.
"Yeah, but it was kind of interesting," Inez remarked as she primped a braid behind her ear so it wouldn't block her face. "I just hope no one overheard our conversation."
"Don't worry your pretty little self about it, Nezzie," the Korean boy assured her as he massaged his hand over her shoulder. "It's an hour after school and everyone wants to go home. No one is willing to eavesdrop on a normal conversation when they could be getting home to eat some actual food and rest."
"And if someone did?"
"They're crazy," Alexander said simply with a tease.
Shopping at the mall located at the border of town was always known to be busy and lively, especially on weekends. The aisles of the mall were filled with many individuals, who spilled into and out of stores every moment. It was a hassle for Inez and her mother to get through so many people to get to Macy's, a popular American department store. The goal for the day was to successfully purchase a prom dress before all the racks were completely empty, but based on how busy the mall was, it seemed sort of impossible.
The first thing the mother and daughter saw when they walked into the store was the section of perfume fragrances and cosmetics. Instead of going past them, Gabrielle decided to approach the small section of Chanel perfumes and spritz a few sprays of Coco Mademoiselle all over her upper body. The sugary aroma of the fragrance begins to prickle Inez's nose, which tempts her to come closer.
But she knows what she came to the mall to do, and it wasn't to try out perfumes.
"Mom, do you really have to spray so much perfume? We're wasting time here," she insisted as she planted her hands on her hips. "You already have enough Chanel, Dior, and whatever other designer perfume brand samples at home."
"There's no such thing as enough perfume samples, Nez," Gabrielle said simply as she set the fragile glass of perfume back into its original space, the salmon pink fragrance inside shifting a bit through the process. "But fine."
"Okay, just one second," Inez said before she grabbed the display glass of Chanel N°5 fragrance spray. She sprayed a bit over her salmon pink T-shirt before she returned the perfume.
"And you were telling me to hurry up, little girl?" Her mother narrowed her eyebrows before she began to walk away from the fragrance section of the department store.
Inez swore, her fingers laced around one another. "It was tempting."
As they walked through the many sections located all around the store, such as the large women's designer shoe section and the junior's clothing section, they finally made it to the section for dresses, right past the up and down escalators at the center of the store, which crossed each other like an 'X' while looking from the side. The dress section was packed like peas in a pod. Multiple pairs and groups of other high school students and their moms were invading the section, leaping from one clothing rack to the other, multiple floor-length dresses in hand.
As the mother and daughter approached a nearby rack, Gabrielle looked through the remaining dresses, only to let out a sigh afterwards. "See? I told you that these things tend to sell out fast. Prom is approaching extremely fast."
"Yeah, I see what you mean now, but we can find something. It's not like the store is completely sold out of dresses. But it will kind of be hard since Alexander and I both agreed on matching with red," Inez reasoned as she ran a hand through a floor-length glitter silver dress. She let go of it before she looked through a series of other dresses, determined to find one that was just right for her.
"Oh, you two have very nice taste in colors," Gabrielle acknowledged as she began to look through a rack of dresses. Even if a lot of the golden options were already gone, there will still be hidden gems concealed within the racks. There had to be. It wasn't like prom was like a week or two away.
After all, Inez was pretty patient for a shopper. Her mother and her weren't in some type of rush. It was a Saturday afternoon, and they didn't have any plans for the day.
Inez wasn't having much luck finding a dress she liked. They were either a color other than red, weren't appropriate for prom attire, or simply red, but didn't like the style. Ever since she was little and found out what prom was, she always wanted to wear a sparkly, floor-length dress that made her look like a princess. The dresses she was looking through, however, didn't give off those vibes.
But she wasn't going to give up, even if it took the remainder of her afternoon.
As she continued to look at the particular rack, dress by dress, Gabrielle rummaged one off of it, holding it up towards her body afterwards to model it. "This dress looks gorgeous. Do you like it? It looks like it can fit you."
The dress was ruby red, not too bright, but had a nice deep hue of red. It had thin spaghetti straps to hold up the dress. On the knee area, it had a cut-out on the right side, supposedly left when worn, which gave the dress more value. Not only that, but it had glitter all over, shining through the artificial store lights from above.
A lot of dresses Inez has seen had those values individually, but not all together. The dress was perfect.
"I love it! Can I try it on?" Inez exclaimed in awe as she gazed at the dress, as if it were a piece of cake.
"Of course. Let's find the fitting room," Gabrielle chirped as she handed her daughter the dress. Soon enough, they zig-zagged their way through other moms and daughters searching for dresses to a fitting room hidden by the wall. Despite there being many rooms to try on clothing, the fitting room was packed, especially since it was a weekend.
Inez managed to find an available room located in the corner of the fitting room. The room was sort of small, but it was big enough for her to change out of her casual clothes to her gown. Gabrielle stood outside of the room just in case her daughter needed help with putting on the gown, which she did when it came to zipping the zipper all the way up.
The girl looked into the full-body mirror fastened to the wall inside the small space of the room, observing herself left to right and top to bottom. The gown didn't push down on her body or loosen up either. It was the perfect fit, and the cut-out on the left by her knee brought more value to the dress.
"This looks nice on me. I think I want to buy it, Mom," Inez announced as she turned around in the mirror to see how the dress looked from the back. It wasn't too revealing, but it wasn't too disclosed, either. It nicely brought out her natural shapes without clenching too tight to her skin. The dress also touched the floor, making a trail as she took a few steps forward.
"Okay," Gabrielle hummed before slightly lifting up her daughter's arm to reveal the price tag hanging from the side. Her mouth fell open. "Oh wow, this is two-hundred thirty dollars. I should have enough money for it on my card, however."
"Really?" Thank you, Mom," Inez acknowledged before she extended her arms to give her mother a bear hug. "But do you have any heels at home I could borrow that are red? It'll save us a few dollars."
"Uh-huh, I have plenty of heels in my closet. Feel free to take whichever ones you want. Mi armario es tu armario," her mother recited before she spun her daughter around to unzip the zipper of her gown.
The girl chuckled as she looked down at her toes. "I didn't know that you knew Spanish."
"I took the class in high school. It's a miracle I still know a few words. Plus, I'm a nurse practitioner — sometimes, I speak it with patients and their parents," Gabrielle said before she stepped out of the fitting room, closing the wooden door behind her.
After a few minutes of waiting for her daughter to get back into her regular clothing, Inez came out with her soon-to-be dress wrapped in her arms as they walked past the dozens of other fitting rooms to return to the area where dresses are sold.
A store clerk with shoulder-length blonde hair and a black and white women's suit was adjusting a few dresses on a high rack. She noticed the mother daughter as they walked past, a bubbly smile forming on her face. "Hey, are you ladies ready to check out?"
"Yes, we are," Gabrielle nodded her head as she adjusted her large purse, which was fastened against her shoulder.
"I can take you right over there," the store clerk recited as she pointed to a rather distant checkout area with no line whatsoever. It beat the other checkout line in the other direction, which was bubbling with people. "Follow me."
"Thank you," Gabrielle acknowledged. Her daughter and her trailed behind the store clerk through a maze of clothing racks to the checkout station. After the store clerk typed a few things into the computer, Inez handed her the dress as her mom rummaged her wallet out of her purse.
"This is a beautiful dress. You'll look gorgeous in it during prom night," the clerk admired with a smile as she scanned the shopping tag, rummaging a plastic dress garment bag from below the counter. "There's a five-percent discount today, so including tax, your total will be two-hundred twenty-one dollars and fifty cents."
Gabrielle placed her card over the card reader, which scanned the chip within an instant. Once the card reader lit up and released a 'ding' noise, she punched in her pin before the purchase was confirmed. A receipt printed from a machine as the store clerk carefully placed the dress into the garment bag. When she was through, she handed Inez the receipt and bag as a smile flashed on her face.
"Thank you for shopping with us," she smiled at both individuals before turning to the girl. "Have an amazing time at prom, sweetie."
"Thank you," Inez smiled as she held the dress in her arm, which she could see through the clear garment bag. She could finally call the dress her own to wear when pom would approach the next month.
On prom night, she always wanted to look like a princess in a floor-length dress. Now, she could finally live that dream in real life. The best part was that she'd be going with the person she loved and cherished.
Now that was a true dream to live.
a/n: prom is coming up!