Yellow it is.
Carefully, Hattie and I detach the sleeves, which actually have tulle inside of them to keep them pouffy, and we are left with a not-so-horrible yellow polka-dot strapless dress with a very pointy sweetheart neckline. The skirt falls into layers of ruffles, none of which we can spare, because I need every bit of length I can get.
“You really should have let me touch up your roots,” Hattie says as she curls my hair.
She had me pull a chair into the bathroom from thekitchen and face it so that my back would be to the mirror.For the big reveal, she said.
“I don’t like that I can’t see what you’re doing.” I fiddle with the evil-eye charm hanging from my wrist. I’m even wearing the black plastic spider ring from Thanksgiving.
“This is what they’d do if you went to a salon anyway. Trust me, okay? Have I ever led your hair astray in the past?”
It’s true. Without Hattie I might have a mullet, and I love the way the freshly warm hair feels against my back every time she releases it from the curling iron. “What are we even supposed to do at prom?”
“Whatever you want,” she says. “Dance. Eat. Make fun of people.”
My phone buzzes then, but it’s not a text or a call. Instead it’s an alert from the National Weather Service issuing a severe thunderstorm warning. “Great.” I hold up the screen for her to see. “I don’t think it will matter much what you do to my hair at this point.”
“Text Saul and tell him to put the top on the Jeep.”
Since I don’t have a license and Ruth doesn’t have a car, Saul has volunteered himself as our ride. I shoot off a quick message as Hattie puts the finishing touches on my hair.
“Okay,” she finally says, and rests the curling iron on the side of the sink. “Close your eyes and stand up.” She kicks the chair into the hallway. “You can look.”
When I turn around and open my eyes, it’s not that I see some kind of transformation. No, I look very much like myself. I have to duck a little to get the full picturesince our mirror is so short, but my watery blue hair has been meticulously curled into loose waves that make me look like the kind of mermaid that might sing you to your untimely end. The yellow-and-black polka-dot dress doesn’t hurt my eyes as badly as it did at the thrift store, but maybe that’s just the crappy lighting in our bathroom. It almost looks like something you might find in the mall. Still, it’s not quite cool enough to be vintage.
I nod. “I love it. You’re sure the shoes are okay?”
We both glance down at the pointy red flats Mom got me two years ago for Christmas. Having size-twelve feet has always resulted in limited footwear options.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say they match,” says Hattie. “But that makes it more Ramona.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what we might look like if we’d grown up with money?” I ask. “Or if I weren’t tall?” I shake my head with my hands on my hips. “I don’t know. It makes me think.”
Rain begins to splatter against the bathroom window.
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess. But then aren’t those all the things that make us who we are?” She sits down on the chair in the hallway and holds her belly. “Sorry. Just can’t stand up like that for too long. It’s not like you wouldn’t be Ramona if you weren’t poor or tall, ya know? But I feel like dealing with the consequences of those things have been what makes you, well, you.”
I nod. And I guess she’s right there. Maybe it’s not all the little labels that make us who we are. Maybe it’s about how all those labels interact with the world around us. It’snot that I’m gay. It’s that I’m gay in Eulogy, Mississippi. It’s not that I’m tall. It’s that I’m too tall for the trailer I live in. It’s not that I’m poor. It’s that I’m too poor to do and have everything I want. Life is a series of conflicts, and maybe the only resolution is accepting that not all problems are meant to be solved.
When Saul pulls up, I run outside with my army jacket draped over my head. Ruth sits in the back in an icy-blue floor-length halter dress with her hair half pulled up and curled into ringlets.
“You look great,” I tell her. “Superhot.”
“Yeah, she does,” says Saul.
“Thanks,” Ruth says. “Mom and I actually agreed on the dress.” She leans forward. “That’s before I told her you were my super platonic gay date.”
“She’ll live,” says Saul as he reaches over my lap and into his glove box to retrieve two corsages, which happen to match each of our dresses. “I knew neither of y’all lesbians would think to buy these.”
“You asshole,” Ruth says as he slips hers over her wrist, “why’d you have to go and make tonight special?”
“My two babies are off to prom,” he says. “It’s already special. And hey, I didn’t even go to my prom. You’re making my gay dreams come true right now.”
“Well, I’m glad someone’s dreams are coming true tonight,” says Ruth.
“Hey now!” I slide the elastic band over my wrist. “FYI, I am a very dreamy date.”
The rain softens just barely as we pull up to the EulogyCivic Center. I hold my jacket out so that Ruth can duck underneath as we both run inside.
