I shook my head, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m not dressed.”
“Right.” He eyed the bag I was holding with my dress inside.
I raised my chin. “Besides, nobody wants to go with me.”
“Trey! You coming?” Ned Moffat called.
“In a minute.” Trey regarded me a moment. “Get changed. I’ll walk you inside.”
“I... I couldn’t,” I stammered. “You can’t.”
He grinned. “Mrs. Ferguson’s chaperoning, right?” The AP English teacher. “She’ll let me in.”
“But your friends...”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You guys go on. I’ll meet you at Sallie’s.”
There was some good-natured grumbling and then they left.
“Off you go,” he said to me. “I’ll wait.”
In a daze, I went to the girls’ locker room, empty except for some girls from the marching band changing out of their sweaty uniforms. Outcasts, like me. At least they had one another.
I listened enviously as they chattered and laughed, fixed their hair and their faces, borrowed lip balm and gum.
“... in the wrong place,” the short girl complained. “Every time.”
“At least he’s consistent,” her friend said, and they all laughed.
I edged around them to get to the mirror. “Excuse me.”
“No problem.”
“Is that...?” A whisper.
“Amy March.”
“Oh.Oh.”
“Didn’t she...?”
“Ssh.”
“I like your dress,” one of them said kindly. Her face was vaguely familiar. A friend of Beth’s?
“Thanks,” I said with dignity.
Momma said we couldn’t afford a fancy new dress I would wear only once. So I’d altered Meg’s dress from five years ago, when she was on homecoming court. I’d taken in the bodice (a lot), shortened the skirt, and hand-stitched a ribbon of bling at the waist.
“Little Amy,” Trey said when he saw me. “You clean up good.”
I glowed at the compliment.
Beauty is as beauty does, our mother liked to say. Which wasn’t much comfort if you were fourteen years old and worried that your nose was too big and your chest was too flat and you were never going to catch up with your sisters. Our father called me “Princess,” but he was always quicker to teach or preach than hug or approve.“‘Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.’”Anyway, Jo was his favorite.
But floating into the gym on Trey’s arm, wearing Meg’s old dress, I felt for a moment like Cinderella going to the ball.
Or like Carrie before she got hit with a bucket of pig’s blood.
