Disclaimer: One of these days I will own something interesting. Today is not that day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. So, if it looks familiar it probably doesn't belong to me.
Operation: YES!
By Lyra Matsuoka
Chapter 7 : Shall We Dance?
Every year, the Prom has a theme. Said theme is never revealed until the day before Prom for reasons that have yet to be explained to me. I personally think it has something to do with the sadistic glee that comes from dozens of girls wailing simultaneously 'But my dress won't match!' Class elected representatives and the student body council theoretically select this theme with the able help of the "Prom Committee". I have always harbored suspicions that cyborgs from another planet would have better luck with themes than any Prom Com. I'm sure that many people find 'Jungle Paradise' and 'Night on the Town' to be delightful themes, but I was getting a little tired of having my picture taken with construction paper cutouts of a cityscape and/or leafy greenery as a background.
But this year, I had a date. A hot date. A World Series, Academy Award level date. That helped my cynicism considerably.
The school was in an uproar. Finals were rapidly approaching. So was graduation, but that wasn't what had most people in a dither. Dresses had been purchased, limos and tuxedos rented, and now we waited with breathless anticipation for a theme. Of course, elections for Prom King and Queen were in full swing, posters and streamers and various other 'Pick me, pick me, oh god pick me' paraphernalia were strewn about center court and the quad. Mina had chosen a tasteful topaz and gold banner that said simply 'Mina'. Personally, I thought she was a shoe-in. My boyfriend didn't need to bother with electioneering. He was more popular and visible than any other guy at our school, and with the shenanigans he'd enacted to entice me to be his date, his stock had soared. Darien Chiba didn't need to put a banner in the hallway. He just had to walk down said hallway and smile.
It was disgusting. Or it would have been, if I hadn't thought it was so damn cute.
I, of course, had been put through the slight humiliation of 'I told you so' and 'Knew it all the time' banter that continually circled my head when the two of us were together. I bore up gracefully, especially since Darien and I had done something few people had expected. We had actually started dating. It wasn't just the Prom anymore. We were an official couple.
That was gratifying, I must say.
The last bell of the week rang on Friday, and the Prom Countdown began. With slightly more than 24 hours to go, girls poured out of the school building chattering about manicures, hairstylists, restaurants and corsages. Guys meandered out, moaning about soon to be empty wallets and payday advances. I just smiled and slammed my locker door, and proceeded from the building. I felt an arm drape about my shoulders and smiled up at my boyfriend, who had endured more humiliation than I had believed the male ego possible of withstanding. I received a 120-watt smile and a kiss for my trouble.
Darien was really good at this boyfriend gig. I was getting better by the day. We received good-natured and a few outright hostile looks from single folk as we walked toward natural light and the end of our day. Having been one of those shooting the dirty looks a few weeks ago I ignored them. The intercom buzzed to life as we crossed over the school seal.
"Attention all students. The theme for Prom this year will be...drum roll please..." (a few obliging students pounded on lockers and stomped their feet. I rolled my eyes as a contribution to the festivities) "Stairway to Heaven!"
Cheers and groans broke out amidst the crowds of students. I nodded slowly.
"Not a bad choice, Mr. President," I said with a grin. "Tell me, who on the committee is a Zeppelin fan?"
"I'm wounded that you have to ask," Darien said, a hand going to his heart. I laughed and we resumed our leisurely trek back to my house. Darien had gotten in the habit of walking me home after school. This routine worked for the most part, especially when I came home right after school. If I returned a few hours after school, they were slightly less lenient. They didn't seem to buy my story that Darien was helping me with my homework. I couldn't blame them. They aren't stupid. But my mom and dad had done something very similar in high school, if with different people, and so my mom was keeping my father under control.
With any luck, this included the combination to the gun safe. Of course, now that Darien was a confirmed Zeppelin fan, as was my father, tensions might ease a wee bit. Hopefully that information would ease the way through the necessary ten minute conversation between the moment Darien arrived at my door to pick me up for Prom and the moment we made our escape into the night. Memo to self: mention similarity in interests over dinner. More than once.
Twas the night before Prom, and all through the house, my parents were worried, my brother a louse - mostly because he refused to stop mocking me about the Prom and, in particular, the parental reaction to my date. This in mind, I had scheduled to spend the night at Amy's place with the rest of my friends, partially to escape my family and partially to have a great time experimenting with personal beauty products. Tomorrow day would be spent styling each other's hair before our nail appointments. Typical female preparation rituals to take place amidst obscene amounts of junk food and movies such as 'Dirty Dancing.'
It was very brave of Ami's mother to offer their apartment. I was sure that there was insanity running through her family, but Amy had assured me that all was well. Her mom was on call and likely wouldn't be in the apartment for long, and actually trusted her daughter and her daughters friends not to blow the building up or set something important on fire. Reassured by the possibility of parental absence I had packed my bags and was getting in some last minute practice on my heels. This was endlessly amusing to my brother, who hadn't managed to stop laughing since the moment I put the heels on and terribly worrisome to my father, who hadn't been truly calm since I announced that I was not only going to Prom, but that I had a date with an older man. My mother was doing her best to keep the peace, but she hadn't managed to chase the wild look out of my father's eyes. So I pretended not to notice and he pretended that it wasn't happening. This was effective enough to keep the peace.
Last minute scrambling for flowers, cars, dinner reservations and even dates had upped the ration of happy and stressed out students by quite a lot. I was ready to pick up the red rose boutonnière the next afternoon and that was my only mandatory job. Otherwise, it was all gravy. Or colored bubbles. Or whatever particular metaphor starts your engine.
My to-do list firmly tucked in the corner of my mind, I finished throwing necessary items into my overnight bag and booked it out the door.
"Don't forget, I need the bathroom between 5 and 6 tomorrow night!"
"We won't forget, sweetie. Have a good time!"
My brother's shouted reply was muffled, either by food being shoved in his mouth or a hand being clapped over it.
There was no reason for anything eventful to happen that night. I made my way over to Amy's apartment and headed inside with a song in my heart and a bounce in my step. It was an innocent girls night with no foreseeable consequences. Amy answered the door and stepped back to let me inside, smiling all the while. I helped her break open the snacks that the five of us had been accumulating over the last few days. And eventually the rest of the crew showed up and out came Amy's mom who beat a hasty and well mannered retreat and left us alone in her well appointed apartment.
But it was Mina who began the chaos. Mina who had a brilliant idea and the supplies to pull it off - it was Mina who brought the hair dye.
"I absolutely refuse to do this," Lita said, studying the small box that promised highlights that looked completely natural. I was skeptically eyeing the five boxes arrayed in front of us, and Amy was looking at them with undisguised interest. I rolled my eyes and reached for the box closest to me.
"Well, this is a box for blonds, guaranteed to brighten your natural color and emphasize your natural highlights. And as I happen to like my hair just the way it is, I won't be participating."
"All right, all right, if it will make you guys feel any better I'll go first!" Mina proclaimed. "I bought this stuff off the shelf at the corner store. How bad can it possibly be?"
"And here comes the nightmare," Lita muttered as Mina traipsed off into the bathroom with her box of Golden Shimmer hair color clutched tight in her hand. Raye and Amy exchanged a dubious look and I heaved myself up off the floor and looked toward the bathroom. And started in to do battle.
Somehow I managed to convince Mina that it would be best to do just one strip of her hair, in case the color didn't turn out quite the way she expected. This seemed to be less than an issue for her, but I was having horrible mental visions of all the bad ways this particular experiment could turn out. And so, while Raye, Amy and Lita applied Lita's special, homemade, super secret facial mask, Mina and I tooled around with boxed hair color.
And, of course, it went wrong, though I'm sure that surprises no one. It certainly didn't surprise me. Notice that I didn't say it went horribly wrong, though. Because the effect was actually sort of cool. The Golden Shimmer hair dye had the interesting effect of turning her hair this shade of topaz - that was only a few shades darker than her dress. And since the streak was right near her face, it appeared as though Mina had intended this effect all along. And after her initial freak out, she decided that it wasn't so bad after all, and would make her stand out even more from her competition.
Another set of brilliant plans perfectly executed. Of course, the main topic of the night was My Plan. You could hear the capital letters every time it was mentioned. My Plan was the final step in the dance that I had begun with dumping a milkshake all over Darien's head. He thought he'd had the last word with that rose scavenger hunt and the tuxedo, but no.
This was going to be fantastic.
I didn't want to make Darien suffer. I'm not evil. But I did want to add a little extra something to Prom night, mostly because the guy had gone to an awful lot of trouble to convince me to go with him. Of course, between my refusals and his varied attempts, we'd pretty much exhausted creative avenues. And what I was going to say took some time to plan. 'Thank you' seemed a little too trite, and I didn't really want to get him a gift. I wanted to equal the gesture he had made to ask me to Prom, and I wanted it to be visible.
And since I couldn't ask him to marry me, I had to be a little more imaginative.
Truthfully, I had been thinking about something of this nature since I'd agreed/been bribed/been wooed into attending this function. But between me, my friends, Darien's friends, and the kindness of a few random strangers, I was ready to rock and roll.
The night of Prom rolled around quickly. I was surprised by how quickly it had arrived, honestly. I spent an extra forty minutes in the bathroom while my mother made chocolate chip cookies to shut my brother up and my father made a big show of stomping around the house while muttering about casings and trigger sensitivity. It didn't seem to matter that no one in the house was impressed; and if it made him feel better, I was all for it.
When the doorbell rang, my mother answered. This was a pre-arranged event carefully scheduled between the two of us. My brother was busy conquering a fire breathing troll or something of that ilk on his PlayStation and my father was content to lean against the dining room doorway and glower. I gave my lashes a final swipe with the mascara wand, checked my hair, and swept downstairs to make my entrance.
And I pulled it off in spectacular fashion. If I hadn't nearly fallen when I reached the bottom of the stairs it would have been even better, but I was willing to take what I could get. Besides, Darien caught me and we both started to laugh and couldn't seem to stop smiling after that. Because of this, all the pictures my mom took of the two of us are incredible. As I usually have a goofy expression on my face when pictures are taken of me, I was suitably grateful for that small mercy.
I won't bore you with the details of the drive to the restaurant and the dinner, mostly because it involved a lot of silence and staring at each other adoringly. We were those kids in the fancy outfits that old people sigh over and very young people roll their eyes at. We were a little sappy and had big smiles on the whole time. There was flirting, there was hand holding. It would have been totally disgusting if it hadn't been me who was participating.
And after a good dinner and a decadent dessert, we left for the Prom. The DJ was acceptable, though not fabulous. He played the greatest hits of every year since my parents attended Prom and we danced happily along with the beat. Hey, we're high school students and most of us were riding a high born of hormones, sugar and endorphins. We would have moshed to Mozart.
It was nearly impossible to talk on the dance floor or in that immediate vicinity, but we managed to track down our friends for a big group picture. We did the formal one, but the best one features Mina being held by her date, Raye and Chad cheek to cheek and grinning like maniacs, Amy and Greg outright giggling at each other, Lita and her guy arranged artfully on the ground and with almost identical mischievous gleams in their eye and me sort of half piggybacking on Darien. It was a great moment, and one that I am proud to display to anyone who wants to see it.
And eventually they announced the Prom King and Queen, and Darien and Mina took their turn on the dance floor with their plastic and sparkling crowns and the song 'Blue Moon' playing in the background. They each got a gift basket and had their picture snapped for the yearbook and the Prom picked up again. But I had somewhere to be.
"Hey," I said, sidling up to Darien and tapping his crown with an index finger. "Good look for you."
"Why, thank you," Darien said, attempting to look royal. It would have been much more effective had his crown not chosen that exact moment to slide forward, showering him and me with glitter. After a few minutes of laughing and sneezing as we batted ineffectually at the sparkling motes, we turned our attention to the dance floor.
"Good Prom," I said softly, leaning back against Darien's chest. I smiled a little when his arms came around my waist and his lips brushed against the top of my head. I got all melty inside when he did that.
"The best," he said, and my smile got bigger.
"The best, you say? Well, we do have gold streamers."
"And cotton ball clouds. Don't forget the cotton ball clouds."
"The music could be better."
"So could the punch."
"But the decorations are pretty classy."
"And they put beta fish on the tables for a touch of the wild."
"I am impressed with the student counsels dedication," I said, turning in Darien's arms and standing on tiptoe to brush my lips against his. "But you know what would make this night perfect? I mean, really top this off"
"Do tell," Darien said.
"A chocolate malt."
Darien froze for a second, then threw his head back and laughed. I waited for his amusement to run its course, and then took his hand.
"Come on," I said.
And so we went to the Crown Arcade and ordered ourselves a chocolate malt. And burgers and fries. And we sat there in the florescent light and threw fries at each other and drank the malt through two straws and banged our foreheads together a few times more than I would have thought we would. And slowly, other people we knew started showing up and joining our table until we had a whole crowd of high school kids in fancy clothes and hairdo's ordering junk food and playing video games.
I glanced toward the park and saw what I had been waiting for. Once again I grabbed Darien's hand and pulled him to his feet.
"I have a surprise for you," I said. He widened his eyes in mock fear and moved the empty malt glass out of reach. I punched him playfully on the shoulder and made a face as I led him toward the door. Curious, our friends followed us to the park.
There was a band playing in the gazebo, just like there was every weekend starting in late March. And as always, the trees were lit with twinkling lights and lanterns glowed around the pond and the Japanese style bridge. It basically screamed romance, and though I hadn't had a hand in planning to location I was willing to take credit for having thought to utilize it. There was an open area around the gazebo, and I tugged Darien toward it with a single minded intensity. He followed, casting a few bewildered glances at his buddies over his shoulder as he went. I looked over at the man playing drums in the band, a man who happened to be an old college friend of my mother, and nodded once. He grinned and gave the signal to his buddy on guitar who struck the opening chord of the song I had chosen to complete my grand, if slightly personal, gesture.
Darien turned to look at the band, comprehension dawning on his features. He laughed once and hugged me. I slipped my arms around his neck as the drummer sang the lyrics into his microphone.
"When it's love you give, I'll be a man of good faith..."
"Thanks for not giving up," I whispered into Darien's ear as 'All For Love' played in the background. I felt him smile against my neck.
"Thanks for not saying no. Eventually," he whispered back. I knew that other couples were joining us and swaying slowly to the music that meant something very special to Darien and I. All of our friends were there and happy and having a grand old time, and I was dancing with a guy who really knew how to dance.
As I turned my gaze up to the star speckled night sky, I saw a shooting star race toward the full moon. I closed my eyes to wish, and opened them not a second later.
No need to wish. Things were pretty perfect just the way they were.
FIN