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Analise sat next to the dress, stroking it. Was this a bribe?

“You’ll survive without him, Isa. Trust me.”

On coronation day, the court members were excused an hour early to dress. Analise assumed she would need only five minutes of the allotted time and then watch the other girls preen with their personal entourages. Melia found her, though, armed with a Caboodle of makeup, hot rollers, and hair spray. “Did my mother put you up to this?” Analise’s waterworks restarted.

Melia thumbed her tears. “Of course she did, liebchen. She loves you.”

“Doesn’t feel like that,” Analise moaned, the weight of her gloom increasing. She’d erased Taylor’s voicemails from the past two days, but the confused rejection continued chiseling her mind. They had no classes together but had shifted their orbits during passing time over the previous weeks toward one another, and now she hid in the nearest bathroom, waiting for eternity to end. Even worse, they’d rehearsed coronation yesterday, and the couples were paired by alphabetical order. Analise faked a stomachache and cramped over in the bleachers as another girl took her place to practice with him.

Melia dabbed Analise’s eyes dry and set about transforming her. With a few minutes remaining, she helped Analise into her dress, cinching the zipper.

Missy, all gussied up, swished over, and appraised Analise. Her unhinged mouth slowly came together in a silent but emphatic, Wow!

“Is my bra showing?” Analise teethed her shimmery lip.

Missy frowned. “No one is going to care if your bra is showing. You look incredible! Have you seen yourself?”

Analise wanted a picture with Melia, but time ran out, and she was left hobbling into her heels as the court took their places in the bleacher wings. The junior classmen were announced first, followed by the candidates for king and queen. They were to walk in from opposite sides of the gym and greet one another in the center.

The band started. “Go, Ana!” someone hissed from behind.

The student body cheered, pounded the bleachers, and rose to their feet. In her four-inch heels, death by tripping was a possibility. Analise stepped carefully and focused on the floor. She saw Taylor’s shoes, his trademark soccer shoes instead of the shiny ones that came with the tux rental.

She curtsied and waited for Taylor to proffer his arm. But he didn’t. She reluctantly lifted her face to meet his. And there it was. He wanted her to see it. Analise squeezed her eyes, unable to keep from absorbing his hurt. Taylor took her hand. They walked. His familiar scent left her awash in this forbidden craving for him, and she felt herself unraveling.

They reached the dais. She slipped her hand from his arm and pressed it to her stomach to quell its tumbling. The remaining nominees arrived, and Analise exchanged tepid hugs and pasted smiles with each girl. The marching band played their final note. Analise resisted the urge to pinch her arm. She counted the band members opposite the bleachers where the Homecoming court resided, starting with the percussion. The reigning king and queen from last year took the microphone.

Analise moved onto the brass section.

“Your 2005 chosen King is . . . Taylor⁠—”

Cheers and stomping feet drowned his last name. Soccer balls materialized and flew onto the gym floor, bouncing with echoing thuds amongst the uproar of jubilant pandemonium. Her heart swelled with happiness at the deep smile that broke his intensity. It fell when he caught her eye, but she lost sight of him when the soccer team rushed to the floor and ambushed Taylor in congratulations.

The teachers and staff worked crowd control, righting the ship onto the regularly scheduled program, and when the moment came to crown Homecoming queen, Analise dutifully gripped hands with the girl next to her.

“And your 2005 Homecoming queen is . . . ”

Students threw out names, stalling the proclamation.

Analise floated her gaze to Taylor. He mouthed her name right before it boomed over the loudspeakers.

The congratulatory hugs smothered her dazed response. She remained rooted as if her high heels were screwed in place. A heavy crown was thrust upon her head, a robe draped over her shoulders, and a scepter laid into her palms. She’d have to suffer his morose eyes the rest of the day and into the evening, where he’d wave limply from their perch on the convertible at the parade, and she’d wilt upon having to hold his stiff arm during the Homecoming procession at the football game.

They prodded Analise to the podium next to Taylor. Her eyes zeroed to the walkway above the bleachers where she saw Ulla. She waved to her, big, airplane-taxiing arms that Ulla ignored because she didn’t seem to care about Analise, too fixated on someone else. She followed Ulla’s line of vision, landing on Taylor’s mom snapping pictures with a zoom-lens Nikon. When Analise looked back to Ulla, she was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Analise

If Friday’s festivities weren’t bad enough, if Analise’s cyclical tears throughout the night weren’t bad enough, Saturday afternoon certainly was, marking the kick-start of the next twenty-four-hour installment of the Homecoming debacle. First, primping at Missy’s house amongst the other senior girls in their group. Next, pictures at the lakeshore. Then dinner, and finally the dance, followed by Conner’s cabin. Ulla insisted she go. “But Taylor will be there!”Analise had wailed. “And you’ll be with Dave, won’t you?” was Ulla’s quip, the subtext not escaping Analise. As if sleeping with Dave was the cure-all.

At Missy’s now, the girls gossiped as they curled and pinned one another’s hair and applied makeup. Several half-drunk cans of Coke, Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, and Starbucks coffee cups dotted the room. Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” played from Missy’s iPod speaker. Analise sat on the bed applying eye shadow, wondering how on earth she was going to replicate Melia’s artistry. Especially with dark circles under her eyes.

Taylor’s date, Fiona, had done little to mask her pouting that week about not being on the court. But Taylor was now King. Fiona gleefully shoved a bobby pin into Missy’s hair in front of the vanity mirror. “How many rooms does Conner’s cabin have again?” she asked with a coquettish giggle.

Someone answered, “I’m pretty sure Barnes is still a virgin.”

“Not for lo-ong,” Fiona sang. “Hey, Ana, you mind if I deflower your king?”