“What? Yeah, right. I don’t believe you,” I said, even though I did. Of course Jeremiah had been to five proms. He was exactly that guy, the one everyone wanted to go with. He would know how to make a girl feel like the prom queen even if she was nobody.
Jeremiah started ticking off with his fingers. “Junior year, I went to two, mine and Flora Martinez’s at SacredHeart. This year, I went to my prom and two others. Sophia Franklin at—”
“Okay, okay. I get it. You’re in demand.” I leaned forward and fiddled with the air conditioner control.
“I had to buy a tux because it was cheaper than renting over and over again,” he said. Jeremiah looked straight ahead, and then he said the last thing I was expecting him to say. “You looked good at yours. I liked your dress.”
I stared at him. Did Conrad show him our pictures? Had he told him anything? “How do you know?”
“My mom got one of the pictures framed.”
I hadn’t expected him to bring up Susannah. I’d thought prom would be a safe subject. I said, “I heard you were prom king at your prom.”
“Yeah.”
“I bet that was fun.”
“Yeah, it was pretty fun.”
I should have brought Jeremiah instead. If it had been Jeremiah, things would have been different. He would have said all the right things. It would have been Jeremiah in the center of the dance floor, doing the Typewriter and the Lawn Mower and the Toaster and all the other stupid dances he used to practice when we watched MTV. He would have remembered that daisies were my favorite flower, and he would’ve made friends with Taylor’s boyfriend, Davis, and all the other girls would have been looking at him, wishing he was their date.
chaptertwelve
From the start, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get Conrad to go. He wasn’t a prom kind of person. But the thing was, I didn’t care. I just really wanted him to go with me, to be my date. It had been seven months since the first time we’d kissed. Two months since the last time I’d seen him. One week since the last time he’d called.
Being a person’s prom date is definable; it’s a real thing. And I had this fantasy of prom in my head, what it would be like. How he would look at me, how when we slow danced, he’d rest his hand on the small of my back. How we’d eat cheese fries at the diner after, and watch the sunrise from the roof of his car. I had it all planned out, how it would go.
When I called him that night, he sounded busy. But I forged ahead anyway. I asked him, “What are you doingthe first weekend of April?” My voice trembled when I said the word “April.” I was so nervous he’d say no. In fact, deep down I kind of expected him to.
Warily, he asked, “Why?”
“It’s my prom.”
He sighed. “Belly, I hate dances.”
“I know that. But it’s my prom, and I really want to go, and I want you to come with me.” Why did he have to make everything so hard?
“I’m in college now,” he reminded me. “I didn’t even want to go to my own prom.”
Lightly, I said, “Well, see, that’s all the more reason for you to come to mine.”
“Can’t you just go with your friends?”
I was silent.
“I’m sorry, I just really don’t feel like going. Finals are coming up, and it’ll be hard for me to drive all the way down for one night.”
So he couldn’t do this one thing for me, to make me happy. He didn’t feel like it. Fine. “That’s okay,” I told him. “There’s plenty of other guys I can go with. No problem.”
I could hear his mind working on the other end. “Never mind. I’ll take you,” he said at last.
“You know what? Don’t even worry about it,” I said. “Cory Wheeler already asked me. I can tell him I changed my mind.”
“Who the hell is Corky Wheeler?”
I smiled. I had him now. Or at least I thought I did. I said, “Cory Wheeler. He plays soccer with Steven. He’s a good dancer. He’s taller than you.”
But then Conrad said, “I guess you’ll be able to wear heels, then.”
