Second Helpings

  I remembered how Scotty had blurted out his prom proposition without even acknowledging Taryn’s presence in the room. Taryn was a nobody at Pineville, so she didn’t even have to eavesdrop. Her very insignificance made her one of the most powerful people in school.

  “There was only one bit of information I was never able to get, which is why I wrote this last item.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Who really peed inside the cup,” she said. “Because it wasn’t me.”

  “Really?” I said, pretending to be shocked, but without overdoing it. I was very aware of how even subtle hand gestures or facial tics could give me away.

  “I lied because I thought it would make me popular,” she said with a grimace. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  I patted her shoulder sympathetically.

  “I thought that if I wrote this item, perhaps Marcus would maybe, I don’t know, reveal the truth to squelch this rumor. . . .”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  “Then I’d have a hot rumor going around about me, which is more than I could ask for on a regular day.”

  How sad. Really. Outwardly, Taryn does everything within her power to go unnoticed. Yet she secrely harbors this sick desire to be popular. If there’s one thing I can say about myself, it’s that I’ve been blessed by a complete disregard for popularity. I’ve never really wanted to be popular. All I’ve ever wanted was one person who totally understood where I was coming from—who wasn’t a thousand miles away.

  “But I guess I’ll never know who did it,” she said. Her huge eyes fixed on me, unblinking.

  “I guess not,” I replied.

  the thirtieth

  Wow.

  Yesterday, little Marin Sonoma didn’t exist. Today she does.

  I love her despite her completely ridiculous name, which is a testimonial to her cuteness. She’s the tiniest, pinkest, baldest thing I’ve ever seen, and when I held her, this sleepy six-pound, four-ounce bundle, I cried.

  Yes, me, the female least likely to get ga-ga over goo-goo. I can’t explain this transformation. All I know is that now that she isn’t just a concept, now that she’s an actual living, breathing little person, my whole outlook has changed. I want to be the Cool Aunt, the one who takes her for weekends in the city and whisks her off to Broadway shows, museums, and Central Park. I want to be the one who spoils her and makes her mom seem like a clueless dork. I look forward to this.

  Strange, isn’t it?

  Even stranger is the profound effect this event has had on me and my dad. That’s right. My dad.

  My mom was still at the hospital, and we were alone in the car on the way home. I can’t remember the last time we were alone anywhere together.

  “I remember the night you were born like it was yesterday,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything, so unaccustomed was I to my father’s voice sans his typically antagonistic tone.

  “We were so happy to have you.”

  “Really?”

  He looked at me with surprise. “What do you mean, ‘really’? Of course we were happy.”

  “It’s just—” I cut myself off, not knowing whether this conversation was possible or appropriate.

  “What, Notso? What?”

  “It’s just . . . after Matthew died, I kind of always thought you were too sad to have another baby.”

  He inadvertently hit the brakes, sending us both lurching toward the dashboard. After apologizing he proclaimed, “You couldn’t be more wrong! We were thrilled to have you! What ever gave you an idea like that?”

  I stared straight ahead.

  He took a deep breath but never took his eyes off the road.

  “Notso, I know it hasn’t been easy between the two of us, but I want you to know that I have always loved you. I worry about your well-being. I want what’s best for you. I still don’t understand why you stopped running or why you would give up something you were so good at, but I’ve had to let it go. I still don’t agree with your college choice, but I have to respect your opinion. I won’t lie to you, I wish I could still hold you for financial blackmail, but my dear mother thought you needed this. And out of respect for her and you, I have no right to stop you from doing what you want to do.”

  This was the most my father had said to me . . . possibly ever. And he wasn’t done yet.

  “On the way to the hospital that night, a song came on the radio. Whenever I hear that song, to this very day, it always reminds me of you.”

  “What song is it?” I asked, expecting from his tone that it must be something deep and significant.

  “ ‘Flashdance,’ ” he replied.

  “ ‘Flashdance’? ”

  He tried—in vain—to sing the line “What a feeling!”

  Our lack of musical ability is something we have in common, so I burst out laughing. As soon as I did, I was afraid it would start another battle about my insensitivity and immaturity. But my dad started laughing, too.

  “That movie really tugs on those old heartstrings,” I said.

  “I know, it’s really sentimental, huh?” he said, still chuckling. “But whenever I hear that song on the radio, I remember the joy of that night.”

  When we pulled into the driveway, I realized I will probably not have another conversation like this with my father for another eighteen years. I didn’t really want it to end, but I didn’t really know what else to say. I guess I could have taken advantage of the moment and tried to explain why I quit the team, and why I’m able to run now, on my own, for myself, without the pressure of having to win, but I just couldn’t. Maybe someday, but not today.

  My dad broke the silence.

  “It could have been worse,” he said. “It could have been ‘Maniac.’ ”

  And we both cracked up some more, enjoying our new—our only— inside joke.

  I’d like to think that this is the first of many, but I’m not holding my breath. We’re more alike than we are different, but that doesn’t guarantee we’ll get along. After all, he’s still my dad. And I’m still me.

  June 1st

  Hope,

  Remember when we were freshmen? We thought the seniors were so damn mature, and we couldn’t wait to be them. All of Pineville culture revolved around them—Senior Athletic Awards Banquet, Senior Powder Puff Football, Senior Prom. The seniors ruled the school. So why do I still feel like a clueless freshman? Could it be because I’ve exiled myself to bystander status with all of the above and more? But would participation have given me a sense of belonging? I doubt it.

  While I’m happy to be running again, I don’t regret quitting the track team. Even after Kiley went out of his way to tell me that a freshman broke my school record in the 1600. All my records will be broken by someone, someday, whether I ran this year or not. Someone, someday, will break that freshman’s record, too.

  And I don’t regret not joining the Powder Puff football team either, even though it would’ve been the perfect school-sanctioned opportunity to slide-tackle Manda and Sara.

  As I said on the phone, I don’t regret turning down Scotty, guaranteeing that I will make it through all four years of high school without ever having attended a formal. It’s only slightly disconcerting, though, knowing that I’ll go through the rest of my life hearing the horrified cries of WHAT? YOU NEVER WENT TO YOUR PROM? whenever the subject comes up in adult, post-high-school conversation. If you spend any amount of time with my mother or sister, you know that it does indeed come up with startling frequency.

  Only twenty days left of school. When I think about everything that happened in the past month—my first family death, my first birth, my first real conversation with my father—I realize that twenty days is more than enough time for anything to happen . . . almost. You know what I’m not talking about, the only rite of passage that I—that we—have yet to make. But I’ve sexiled myself to bystander status on that front, too, and twenty days is definitely not enough time.

  Wistfully yours,

/>   J.

  june

  the second

  KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. It was my mother’s knock, one that went from the knuckles straight to my skull.

  “Jessie, Bridget is here to see you,” Mom said. “She said it’s urgent.”

  I popped out from under the covers.

  “Send her in.”

  The last time Bridget arrived at this early an hour on a Sunday, it was to break the news about Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace. So I knew whatever it was that was bringing her to my door was indeed urgent.

  Bridget walked in, her face as deep and red as a gash without a Band-Aid.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  She coughed up her ponytail.

  “What? Did you see a trailer for Bubblegum Bimbos on the Internet or something?”

  “No. It’s . . . like. Okay.”

  “Bridget, what is it?”

  “I can’t go to the prom with Percy!”

  Of course. What could be more important than the prom?

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’ve got, like, this really big audition in L.A. for a TV movie about OxyContin abuse the next day,” she said. “It’s like a really juicy part, and as much as it kills me not to go to the prom, Percy is insisting that I don’t pass up the opportunity.”

  “Okay, so what does this have to do with me?”

  “Will you go with him instead?”

  I shrank back under the covers.

  “Jess! He’s already put down his deposit for the tux, and I’ve already paid for the ticket, and we don’t want them to go to waste.”

  “Why would Pepe want to go to the prom with me when you’re his girlfriend?”

  “Because you’re, like, his best female friend,” Bridget said. “And you’re, you know . . .”

  “What?”

  She sat down next to me on the bed. Her eyes got a little moist. “Well, you’re, like, my best friend, too, and I’d like to see you go to the prom with someone fun.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say. I had never really thought about my relationship with Bridget. With Hope’s best-friend status still secure, who was Bridget to me? My childhood playmate? The one friend who has known me since diapers?

  But thinking back over the past year or so, Bridget has been more than my former best friend. She was the fallback person I went to whenever I needed to have a face-to-face heart-to-heart. But I had obviously penalized her for one reason: She wasn’t Hope. So what if she wasn’t my intellectual equal? So what if she’s sometimes more ditzy than I can handle? Bridget was still the only person at Pineville I completely trusted, even if she wasn’t my actual best friend. She was indeed, just as she had said, “like” my best friend. Sometimes that’s good enough.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go to the prom with your boyfriend.”

  She clapped her hands enthusiastically, proving that you can take the girl out of cheerleading, but not the cheerleader out of the girl.

  “And I’ll try not to sleep with him, too.”

  With that, Bridget squealed and smacked me in the face with a pillow. I yelped and whacked her back. Thus began a very girlie pillow fight, the kind that’s the fuel of countless adolescent boys’ fantasies.

  the fifth

  I very intentionally did not tell my mom right away that I was going to the prom. As it is my mother’s custom to obsessively ask about any school-spirited PHS function, I figured I would just wait until she brought it up, then have a lot of fun by stunning the hell out of her by blithely mentioning that yes, after four years of abstention, I was finally making her dreams come true: I was going to attend a high-school formal, and I needed to shop for a dress. Not an anti-prom dress. An actual prom dress.

  Although I am loathe to admit it, I was kind of looking forward to getting an eat-your-heart-out kind of dress. Whose four-chambered organ I wanted to dine on, I’m not so sure. Truth is, once I agreed to go with Pepe, the prom actually seemed like sort of a fun idea.

  Watch for lightning.

  However, my mom, in a unique spin on her usual annoyingness, and being preoccupied with her darling first grandchild, did not ask. So today, two days before the prom, I was still dressless. As much as I didn’t want to run to my mom for help, that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

  “Uh . . . Mom?”

  “Mmmm,” she said. She was distracted by the latest pictures of ittybitty Marin. I leaned over to take a look. Bethany and G-Money had put one of those awful lacy headbands on her. Babies are cute enough as they are, so why do parents feel the need to decorate them like a Christmas tree? I could tell from the sour expression on her face in the pic that Marin did not enjoy the accessorization. Either that or she was crapping her diaper.

  “Uh . . . Mom?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Mom, I thought you would like to know that I’m going to the prom on Friday night.”

  My mother slapped down the pictures. “You’re going to the prom???!!!”

  “Yeah.”

  She just stared at me all bug-eyed and in disbelief.

  “I was asked, so I decided why not?”

  “By who? Scotty?”

  “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you that Scotty is a total jackass and that I would never go out with him?”

  “Jackass isn’t a nice word, honey,” she said.

  “Well, he’s not a nice person,” I replied.

  “Then who? Len?”

  “He’s still with Skankier,” I replied.

  “Skank isn’t a nice word, Jessie,” she said. “It’s disrespectful to all women.”

  “Well, so is her compulsive need to sleep with everyone else’s boyfriends.”

  She tapped her forefinger to her temple, deep in thought. “That boy from Silver Meadows? Marcus?”

  I snorted. “Definitely not.”

  “Then who, Jessie?”

  “Pepe. I mean, Percy,” I replied.

  “Who is Percy?”

  “He’s a junior in my French class.”

  “You’ve never mentioned him.”

  This was true enough. Isn’t it funny how I could sit next to someone every day for three school years, form a friendship with that person, yet never, ever mention him once in front of my parents? It just goes to show you just how little they really know about my life, even the stuff that wouldn’t be such a big deal to mention.

  “We’re French-class friends.”

  “You must have made quite an impression on him if he asked you to the prom.”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh, Jessie,” my mom said, girlishly swatting my wrist. “Don’t be so modest.”

  “No, really, Mom. He’s Bridget’s boyfriend.”

  Now my mom was stumped. “Why would Bridget’s boyfriend want to go the prom with you?”

  Then I told my mom the whole complicated story.

  “This is all very strange, Jessie,” my mom said.

  “Yes, it is,” I replied. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s two days before the prom and I’m still dressless.”

  My mom took off her reading glasses and shook her head with pity. “Well, it’s too late now.”

  “What do you mean it’s too late?”

  “You cannot buy a dress this far into prom season.”

  “And why not?”

  “Why not?” she said, exasperated by my ignorance. “Why not? I’ll tell you why not. When Bethany was a freshman and started dating that senior boy—what was his name? Well, whatever his name was, he broke up with his girlfriend and started dating Bethany right before the prom, and we had a simply awful time trying to find something suitable for her. The only dresses left this late in the season are simply awful. Tacky, tacky dresses that I would not spend one penny on.”

  “Well, what do you suggest? I came to you for help. I thought you’d love this.”

  “Well, I suggest that next time you not wait until the last minute to get a date.”

  “I guess I’ll
just wear jeans.” I knew that would get her panties in a bunch.

  “Don’t test me, Jessie,” my mom said. “Let me think.”

  At this point I didn’t even want to go shopping with my mom anymore, which is why the following suggestion didn’t sound as ridiculous as it might seem.

  “Have you looked in Bethany’s closet?”

  “Ugh,” was all I could reply, remembering the suit I wore to the disastrous Piedmont tea.

  “She’s got at least a dozen formal dresses up there. Aren’t the eighties back in style again?”

  “Mom, that’s a swell idea and all. Only you’re forgetting that Bethany had boobs in high school and I do not.”

  “Come,” she said. “Let’s take a look-see.”

  So my mom and I scoured Bethany’s prom archives. There were a lot of truly god-awful dresses up there. An iridescent purple Gone with the Wind ball gown. A white multilayered knee-length number that looked like a wedding cake. A skintight hot-pink minidress with ostrich feathers sprouting from the shoulders.

  But then, in plastic, toward the back, was a red silk, one-shouldered dress with a swishy, asymmetrical bottom. It was so retro it was cool again.

  “Ooooooh,” my mom said. “I always loved this one. It’s so fiery. So Carmen.”

  I held it up to me and was shocked that it looked like it could fit. I thought my sister was always way more bodacious than me, but my mom assured me that Bethany was as boobless as I was back in high school.

  “She didn’t fully develop until college,” she confessed. “Neither did I.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. We’re a family of late bloomers here.”

  So there’s hope that I’ll be busting out of my A-cup bra yet.

  I tried on the red dress, and would you believe it? With a slightly padded strapless bra, this sucker would actually fit me.

  My mom burst out crying when she saw me in it.

  “You’re”—sniff!—“all”—sniff!—“grown”—sniff—“up!” She hugged me tightly and blubbered into the back of my head.