After Dakota (29 page)

Claire sits in the living room while their dad straightens Bryce’s tuxedo and tells him how to reach in through his zipper if his shirt billows out. Their mom circles the scene, taking a whole roll of pictures; Claire abstains from offering any photo advice, even when her mother shoots directly into the lamp. Obviously a day no one in the house ever thought they’d see. For once, there’s no yelling about art school; they must’ve called a truce for the evening.

After Bryce leaves to go pick up Noel, Claire goes to her room to wait.

Tonight is Karon and Sharon Longerot’s sleepover birthday party; Claire RSVP’d back when the invitation came but all along thought it didn’t sound like fun, going to a party where she’ll be a stranger. Now that she’s a prisoner here it doesn’t matter anyway.

After her parents have gone to bed – or rather, her mom has fallen asleep while reading
Hollywood Wives
in bed, while her dad lies conked out on the couch – Claire climbs out the window. The rhododendron cushions enough of her fall that all she gets is a scratch across the forehead. Her dad’s spare car key is right where it always is: in the little magnetic holder under the bumper. She opens the trunk and has her bike halfway out when a better idea lands. Starting the car is safe enough; all ears are at the back side of the house and won’t hear the engine.

Claire backs down the driveway and all the way out the dark cul-de-sac.

So improbable is Bryce actually being here, in a tux, in this ballroom, at
prom
, that at any moment the hotel authorities could realize he’s wandered into a party at which he doesn’t belong. They’ll offer him the choice of the easy way or the hard way before escorting him outside, each of them holding one of his arms, his feet pedaling the air. He’ll explain that, no, he’s here legitimately, that Noel hadn’t given up on him when he found her at church. That she said, “I would love to” the second he finished asking the question, like she’d been waiting.

In the meantime, to prevent sensory overload – to hold on to some semblance of sanity – his brain becomes a camera, breaking the whole event into snapshots:

Noel looks way different, made up and without her glasses (though Bryce wishes her dress showed more leg and cleavage).

The dance floor is so crowded during the fast songs that you can barely move, which is a good thing in Bryce’s eyes since that kind of moving is not something he’s well-equipped for.

Beth Stevens and her date stay on the dance floor, lips locked no matter what song comes on, an egg carton-sized corsage on her wrist.

Amazing how girls normally rated mid-scale rise when all dressed up. Where has Zoe Wallace been keeping that body hidden?

Mr. Buckland’s blue frilly tuxedo doesn’t look like the thing a former rocker should be wearing.

Cam’s girlfriend, non-girlfriend, girlfriend again looks like a movie star. A high eight, maybe even a nine. In hindsight, Bryce would’ve ditched himself to hang out with her. Certain gestures of hers, certain angles, remind him of someone but he can’t place who.

Where did the prom committee find a DJ named Cocoa Puff?

Mr. Collier lurks near the punch bowl to make sure no one spikes it (or to spike it himself).

Bryce and Cam stand together while their dates are in line for the bathroom. “We finally made it to prom,” Bryce says. “Unbelievable.”

“I wonder how many of these people we’ll never see again after we graduate,” Cam replies.

“Hopefully most.”

“There’s always the reunions. 1994. 2004.”

Bryce says, “You can come from California in your flying car. Tell me how it goes.”

“Please, like you won’t show up.”

“I’ll probably be living in a moon colony by then – I don’t wanna travel that far just to see which chicks have gotten fat.”

Two football players, who look like they’re about to Hulk out of their tuxes, walk up. “Are you the dude who threw the desk at Mrs. Gordon?” one of them asks Cam.

“Uh, I just yelled at her. No desk throwing.”

“Nice job, man.” They both slap him five and tell their own horror stories: detention, campus cleanup.

When they move on, Cam grins and says, “Life is pretty good.”

Bryce knows exactly what to do when a slow song plays (thank you,
American Bandstand
). He and Noel rock side to side to Journey’s “Faithfully.” She’s a head taller than him, his ear against her collarbone, her heart keeping time with the drum.

He knows to remember this moment, that this might be the one he thinks about on his deathbed. However close at hand, or far in the future, that is.

Yes, life is pretty good.

In the front seat of his car, Cameron watches Rosemary suck on the remainder of the joint and considers that she might be a figment of his imagination. A vivid hallucination would seem more realistic than this relationship actually unfolding the way it has.

If he hadn’t gone to the mall at night to buy new jeans, he wouldn’t have seen her and Garrett collecting petition signatures at a table outside Mervyn’s.

They wouldn’t have had this conversation when she came over to him:

“I got scared when you said you loved me. I’m sorry.”

“You could’ve told me.”

“I know, I’m a terrible bitch. I heard about you and Mrs. Gordon. Was that on my behalf?”

“Yes.”

“And after I treated you the way I did. I wouldn’t blame you for staying miles away from me.”

He wouldn’t have realized he didn’t want to stay miles away from her.

He wouldn’t have gone to the rental store with Bryce to get their tuxedos (and had to wait for the salesman trying to find Bryce’s small size).

He wouldn’t have had to endure multiple photos in the living room, with his mom sniffling and saying she can’t wait to send them to his grandma.

He wouldn’t have met Rosemary’s parents – Edgar and Jane – when he came to pick her up. And baby Samantha, who sucked on her fist and stared at him.

He wouldn’t have had his breath taken away when Rosemary came out of her bedroom, in that midnight blue dress with the deep V-neck, her hair swept up. Dakota and so much more. His hands shook as he tried to put the corsage on her.

He wouldn’t have slow-danced and kissed her during the Genesis song.

They wouldn’t have stepped out to get some air and had the smell of weed slink past from the parking lot. “I could use some of that right about now,” she said. Cameron remembered what he still had in his car ash tray, left there back on a night he refused to think about now.

She passes it back, the once mighty joint now barely big enough to grip. He finishes the last of it, rolls down the window partway, flicks it out. He’s about to ask if she’s ready to go back in when she climbs onto his lap and kisses him hard.

Just as suddenly as she attacked him, she pulls back. “Wait. I’m famished right now. Are you hungry? Can we go get something to eat?”

Claire travels light, just her and her coat (zipper fixed after an hour of fiddling). Inside the pockets: a wad of cash made up of leftover lunch money and allowance; the High Priestess Tarot card; her house key; a tinfoil square. Inside the square are four white pills she bought from Kaleo in Advanced Photo (this after overhearing a whispered drug conversation in the darkroom one day).

She drives as if her dad were in the seat next to her: signal, brake slowly, hands at ten and three o’clock. This isn’t so hard.

She drives up outside Karon and Sharon’s house, on their street with its archway of leaning trees. Claire can picture the scene inside: the pajamas, sleeping bags, mugs of hot chocolate, truths and dares. On her way over here, Claire thought she might tap on the twins’ bedroom window. She could hang out with girls for a change, listen to the Sandia gossip, put on a smile like she was having fun until it was time to get the car back home.

Now that she’s here, that doesn’t seem appealing at all. She opens the foil square and takes one of the tablets, so thin her fingernails are needed. She does what Kaleo told her, which comes down to sticking out your tongue and letting the tablet dissolve bitterly.

A glance in the rearview mirror reveals lavender rhododendron petals nestled in her hair. She leaves them be.

She drives onward up the street, destination unknown.

Bryce and Noel sit alone at a round table for ten. A forest of red and white balloons surrounds them. The dress shoes are killing his feet – luckily Noel doesn’t want to dance in the mayhem that’s unfolded since Cocoa Puff put on the 90 mph music. Trevor’s dad works at the Coronado Club, and somehow, some way, Trevor got keys and is hosting a “soiree with a very exclusive guest list” after the prom. Somehow Bryce got on that guest list; maybe Trevor is feeling nostalgic for these days before they’re even over.

“Are you having fun?” Bryce asks, almost ready to apologize for them sitting alone due to his lack of friends.

“I am. Thank you so much for inviting me.”

Mr. Buckland comes up to the table. “Bryce, you have a phone call.”

The phone is in the hotel lobby, at the end of the registration counter.

As he listens, staring at his reflection in the gold COURTESY PHONE plaque on the wall, he’s struck by how odd it is for his dad to be making a call like this instead of his mom.

“Bryce, I’m sorry to disturb you but we have a serious situation here. Your sister took my car and disappeared. Before we get the police involved, do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

No, Claire does not get to ruin this night. She doesn’t get to make things all about her. Bryce has waited too long for this. He says, “Sorry, can’t hear you – it’s pretty loud in here” and hangs up.

Cameron stops at Circle K on the way to Trevor’s party at the Coronado Club. As soon as he pulls into a parking spot, Rosemary rushes inside, her need to pee having temporarily overtaken her appetite.

If he hadn’t chosen this Circle K out of the hundred in the city, he wouldn’t be stepping out of his car right when the red Chevy drives into the lot.

Zaplin parks, cuts the engine and the blaring Scorpions song. “Look, it’s Tennessee Tuxedo,” he says as he gets out. He wears some kind of mechanic’s uniform, which doesn’t lend itself well to a comeback. And who should emerge from the passenger side but Victor. Those two brains combine to come up with a plethora of comments: Cameron’s shiny shoes, the flower in his lapel, his hair.

“Cameron, they have powdered donuts! How wonderful is that?” Rosemary says from the glass doors. The lusty look on Victor’s face makes Cameron want to shove him in the pizza oven.

When both morons have gotten off a few comments, including trying to figure out why Rosemary’s with this nerd, it’s her turn. “Aren’t you the two blokes who have each other’s dicks for lunch in the toilet every day?”

Cameron laughs out loud. Zaplin calls Rosemary a name and it’s game on. No slapping this time. The Circle K clerk – Henry-something, class of ‘81 – comes out right when the shoving starts. “You guys get outta here or I’m supposed to call the cops.”

“Where d’you want to take this?” Zaplin asks.

If he hadn’t chosen that Circle K, Cameron wouldn’t be following Zaplin’s car out to the dirt roads past the Air Force base, a private city with its its ever-burning lights, from whence a plane arcs up into the night like a flying whale.

He wouldn’t be pulling up right alongside while engines growl on similar roads nearby, jungle beasts stalking the night. A group of cholos watches the two white boy racers line up; one of them in a dress shirt sashays over to stand in front of the cars, no words needed.

Zaplin guns his engine and keeps gunning it; Victor shouts something from the passenger seat, lost in the noise. Cameron would normally be thinking about his oil, his coolant, his transmission, but not now.

“This is not how I imagined prom night,” Rosemary says, awash in the glow of the dashboard.

“Sorry, but it’s the only way I can shut that fucker up.”

“No, it’s bloody exciting! After this you’re buying me some food, though.” She flashes that heart-melting smile. In a movie, this would be the moment to say the
L
word, but he doesn’t dare after last time.

The cholo raises his arm and drops it.

Zaplin’s car leaps forward.

Cameron jams the gas pedal all the way down.

The highway speed limit is fifty-five but since the light on the speedometer is burnt out, Claire has no idea how fast she’s going. Eighteen-wheelers roar past going the other way like dinosaurs.

She spins the radio dial with one hand through Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult, but can’t find the song. The song that will tell her she’s doing the right thing.

The next exit is the drive-in movie theater. She has a vivid memory of coming here once, she and Bryce squeezed in between their parents for a movie about two bumbling cowboys, though Claire spent much of the time watching the other cars. All those strangers who drove to the same spot you did, everyone together but separate at the same time.

She always wanted to come back, and this is her night to do what she wants. As she gets closer, instead of seeing the movies fifty feet high and a field of cars, the place is dark, abandoned. Untamed weeds mark the former parking spaces; waist-high poles with lifeless call boxes line the ground like headstones. The elements long ago won the battle against the screens, leaving them grim and tattered.

She parks outside the broken fence and climbs through, stands in this landscape like a time traveler flung forward into a future after humankind has ruined the world. How far forward – or not – would she have to go for that?

“Crapola,” she says and her voice floats to nowhere.

She remains depressingly sober. Maybe Kaleo sold her baby aspirin; maybe even now laughing about how stupid freshmen are. When Claire’s waited long enough, she sits down among the brown shoots that rise through split concrete and lets a second pill melt onto her tongue.

Occasional small critters scurry past, blinking at her with bright eyes, disappearing into the dark or into holes, maybe a whole world beneath this desolate one. In the distance, the whoosh of highway traffic.

She sings to hear the echo: “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan. Cuz I’m a wo-man.”

She wanders around in search of a place to pee. Unbuttoning her pants is way harder than she remembers; her fingers seem to be on strings not connected to her brain. She eventually gets them undone, squats, lets go. Don’t pee on the shoes. “I don’t have any toilet paper,” she says to no one.

She walks toward the screens, her footsteps thudding between her ears. Wait, there are more movie screens now than when she got here. The ground tilts and she’s falling. She covers her head, ready for impact.

No impact – still standing.

What’s that thing Bryce used to say?
Kiss my grits!
Claire says it aloud, laughing, so dumb, those guys and their jokes.

F.T.E.

The old men.

Laughing so hard now she can’t catch her breath. She rolls onto her back, cheeks wet, tears rolling down into her ears. The laughing finally subsides. Her chest hurts. Everything’s blurry: her hand shimmers in front of her face, the five painted nails blooming like spilled black ink. A distant voice in her brain tells her
you don’t want to get your coat dirty
.

The night stares back down at her, the crescent moon trying to fight its way into full view through webs of clouds. “Kiss my grits,” Claire says or yells or whispers to a sky full of starlight that went out thousands of years ago.

A bug whines in her ear but she has no ability to swat it away.

One of the screens gets suddenly brighter, to the point where she has to shield her eyes. Not a movie, a mushroom cloud roiling up from the earth. Instead of a deafening roar, there comes a negative sound, a spreading out of all-encompassing silence.

It’s happening!

She closes her eyes, unafraid, waiting for the heat that will reduce to her to ashes and wipe the world blank.