TWENTY-THREE
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, check out my new series, THE EMPRESS CHRONICLES at http://diversionbooks.com/ebooks/empress-chronicles
By the time Connor’s arm is about ready to fall off, and my hands are black from charcoal, and Mrs. Cupworth has come and gone several times, bearing limeade and teacakes, apparently thrilled that I’ve taken to the space—that my “artistic sensibilities have been stirred,” it occurs to me that if we were normal Greenmeadow juniors instead of outliers and freaks, we’d be getting ready for Prom.
“I’m sort of curious about it,” I admit to Connor, clinking ice in yet another tall glass of refreshment. “Are you?”
Connor is rubbing his arm. “Nah. Not really.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you wonder what Cathi Serge and Walter Pine are wearing? Maybe his and hers Amish outfits?”
Conner feigns shock at my cattiness. “That’s not very Martha of you.”
“Speaking of Martha. I’m not feeling really great about keeping quiet on what I know about her boyfriend. If anyone needs to hear what’s on Sabine’s voicemail, it’s her.”
Connor considers this, running his hand through his hat-hair. “She made her bed,” he says. “As they say.”
“Still. Maybe we should, you know, take a drive out there. Watch the action from afar?”
“Where’s it at again?”
That’s the thing about Connor. Some things he’s just clueless about. The whole school had been buzzing about the unprecedented venue, the Multnomah Country and Golf Club, in lieu of the usual converted gymnasium. This year, it was a combined deal. Juniors and seniors together, plus their dates. Tickets were $75 a piece. They were serving prime rib. And for the vegans, there would be some sort of casserole. “Made from Parisian mushrooms,” I tell Connor.
“Yeah?” he says. “Well, if you want to. I think the whole thing is sort of lame.”
We bid Mrs. Cupworth adieu. Connor will return tomorrow, he tells her, with his gas-powered hedge trimmers. He’ll take care of that unwieldy laurel. And me, I couldn’t be happier with the set-up. “You’ll have to drag me out of here,” I offer, and even though I’m smeared in black like a chimney sweep, she takes my one hand in both of hers the way fancy old people do, and she tells me how happy she is to hear it.
We’re back in Connor’s noisy truck, and rumbling down Mrs. Cupworth’s driveway before I realize that, in these past few hours, I’ve not thought once about Mom and Dad or school. And only a little bit about Sabine. It’s been an afternoon of happy normal.
Also, I’m feeling almost like Connor’s my boyfriend, him driving all sure of himself in this big old truck and me riding shotgun, trying to tune in something reasonable on the crappy radio. We could be like that old John Mellencamp song about Jack and Diane. He must be feeling it too, because in between shifts he squeezes my knee and sort of glances over at me.
It’s just about dark again, and if we hurry, we’ll probably be able to catch some of the prom-goers climbing out of limos, their corsages pinned neatly to their vintage bodices in keeping with the 60’s theme. I’m pretty sure Martha will be wearing some original gown proffered from eBay. A frock that might have cost the sum total of the Cupworth Prize. Or more. And for Nick, maybe she scrounged up a Nehru jacket, one of those coats with a Mandarin collar, circa British invasion.
Certainly they wouldn’t take Sabine’s Volvo. Or even Martha’s zoomy little Beemer. No, they would most likely rent a classic vehicle, some mid-century boat of a Chrysler with sharp fins and shiny chrome. Dusk has turned to coal black, and Connor asks me again if I’m sure I want to head to the country club. If I’m certain I want to stir the Greenmeadow pot. I am. Pretty sure. Even if he’s not.
“What you told me last night, about Sabine and her need to play with fire?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe that stirred something in me. Like, she was so much more of a risk taker than me, you know? Always pushing the envelope. The whole, she lived on the edge thing.”
“Brady,” Connor reminds me as we round the corner to the swanky country club, “people don’t always do edgy things because they’re brave. Sabine was scared to fail. It drove her to do stupid shit sometimes.”
It’s true, what Connor says. And I’m remembering how, in middle school, she’d play the Eraser Game with the boys. How it went was, you’d have someone rub a pencil eraser hard on your arm while you drilled through the alphabet, A through Z, coming up with words that started with all 26 letters in turn. The person with the biggest wound at the end of the game, won. And if you made the person who was erasing your arm stop before Z, you were a total pussy. It was the stupidest game ever, but Sabine always had something to prove. She stopped playing it after joining the cheer squad. There were other ways to be best, ones that didn’t involve being disfigured.
We stop at the edge of the driveway into the club, and pull off the road onto a maintenance path. With the yard tools and mower in the back of Connor’s truck, no one will really suspect we aren’t simply the contracted help, working after hours to deadhead the rhodie blossoms and keep Multnomah Country and Golf Club well-tended so the wealthy can enjoy perfection while they whack those little white balls.
We scramble out, and dart through the bushes and between trees like stealth troops in combat. The charcoal on my hands feels like part of the costume. Cat burglars on the prowl. Connor has traded his Mariner’s hat for a black ski cap. All we need are walkie-talkies, but, of course, we have iPhones.
The clubhouse is lit up with Christmas lights and candles, and as we approach it, I begin to feel a surprising sadness wash over me. Brady Brooder, always the outsider. Why wasn’t I wearing a sequined, feathered, cocktail dress? Where was my tulle skirt and sweetheart neckline? My strands of pearls and velvet hair tie?
Prom, for me, was all about the outfit. For years I drew elaborate gowns in my notebooks. Princesses and starlets, goddesses and beauty queens. As we inch closer to the action, Connor and me, I get sadder. Sabine was so looking forward to Prom. She’d had a dress on back-order, and had already made an appointment with the hairdresser. Things you realize when someone dies—there are appointments to cancel. Mail from prospective colleges just keeps coming, addressed to Sabine Wilson. Cheer camp brochures. Invitations to apply for a student credit card.
Mom made a dozen copies of the death certificate, sending them hither and yon. Like birth announcements in reverse. Where it would say weight and length on a birth certificate, there is a fill-in-blank line for cause of death. In Sabine’s case, complete internal decapitation.
Connor slides in next to me as I crouch behind a golf cart. Limos pull up, and all our peers spill out of them, one after the other. Up-dos, tuxedos, long and short gowns. Some girls are like storks, pegging along on heels too high for them. Others are wearing modest pumps. The boys are all over the map. Everything from super formal to polo shirt and Dockers. I glance over at Connor, wondering for a second which way he’d go. Sport jacket, probably. I don’t see him in a tux.
He crawls the fingers of his hand over to where they find mine. He whispers, “Seen enough?”
I shake my head, and then, my phone vibrates. I look down. Mom. Figures. I told her I’d be home by nine, and it’s ten after. I push the I’m not answering this button, and continue gawking at the prom attendees. So far, no Martha and Nick.
“Would you have gone?” I ask him, as Walter Pine slinks out of his mother’s sedan, yanking Cathi Serge by the wrist. They look good, actually—fashionable, even—which annoys me. Walter’s hair is slicked, and he’s wearing a plaid cummerbund. Cathi’s hair is ringlets, and aside from the poufy sleeves of her gown, she looks pretty awesome.
“Maybe. I already had a date lined up.”
“Who?” I demand, louder and more jealous than I should.
“Melinda Root.”
Oh. Another cheerleader. “Isn’t she going out with Tom Aceno?”
He nods. “Now she is, yeah.”
Connor’s stock was pretty high before the accident. And me, I was popular by association. The little sister of the Class Hottie. The designated licenseless driver, just a phone call away from bailing her sister out.
My phone vibrates again. Another Mom call. Jesus.
And then, it pulls up. A jet black limo from one of the better limo rental places. Scrubbed whitewalls, gleaming rims. It’s got to be the ride of the King and Queen. He gets out, Nick does, that Ichabod-skinny lacrosse captain, and, sure as shit, the delicate, bracelet-covered arm of Martha follows. It’s like they’ve practiced this. A red carpet entrance paparazzi-ready. Her gown is amazing. Salmon, strapless organza. There’s a crisscross bodice and a little rose at the waist. The skirt is full and reaches just below her knees. Martha has great calves. Slender, long. I must have sighed, or even gasped, really loud, because Connor nudges me. “I’ll ask you again. Seen enough?”
I nod, but keep staring at them, Marnick, as they saunter into Prom.
Bitch, says Sabine.
“No kidding,” I say, out loud.
“Huh?” says Connor.
Mom calls me a third time. I slide the answer slide and hiss, “What?”
There is quiet on the line.
“Mom?”
I look up at Connor, whose eyebrows are squinching again. I shake the phone, as if it’ll correct a bad connection. Why won’t she talk?
Then, her breath, exhaling around a raspy, throat. An after-weeping noise. The sound of fear that you just don’t hear come out of my mother. “Brady, honey, your dad’s in the hospital. There’s been an accident.”
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, check out the entire book at http://diversionbooks.com/ebooks/moment as well as my new book THE EMPRESS CHRONICLES: http://diversionbooks.com/ebooks/empress-chronicles