Three Quarters Dead (3 page)

If you did go with somebody, you didn’t have to be in love with him. It was cooler if you weren’t, though it was good if he was in love with you. Who you were on prom night became your final senior statement.

People wondered who Tanya would go to the prom with, if she bothered to go with anybody at all.

“Not Spence Myers,” Tanya said, though they’d look perfect together. Blond god. Blond goddess. “We know each other too well.”

Which I thought was the most sophisticated thing I’d ever heard in my life. Of course, I didn’t know what it meant. If their families were friends or something, that could have been the problem. Tanya put up with very little from family.

“Besides, Spence has some growing up to do,” Tanya said. “I’ll get back to him later.” Which I thought was the second-most sophisticated thing I’d ever heard in my life. Though how much more growing up did Spence Myers need to do? He was writing his optional senior thesis on PACs and GSEs in the last two Congressional elections. What
were
PACs and GSEs? And how much more evolved could Spence get?

Some noons we just had to wait for the guys to go away before we could get back to ourselves. One time Tanya got caught in the crossfire between Noah Brolin and Bob Silverman. They were debating about which was a better backup college, Bucknell or Tufts. Something like that.

Finally Tanya had heard more backup college talk than she needed to hear. “Guys, please,” she said. “It’s not like you’re looking at Harvard or Princeton. Bob, your father went to Brown. He gave them a building. You are so in there.” Her eyebrows arched their highest. “And Noah, you and Nate are looking for swimming scholarships. You’ll go where the money is. End of story.”

This sort of left Bob and Noah just standing there. Tanya could talk guytalk better than the guys. And she put up with very little from them. She was amazing. “Enough with the colleges. We’re seniors. Let’s
be
seniors,” she told them. “Let’s live in the moment, okay?”

Because Tanya was definitely the Queen of Now.

But what did we spend all that time talking about when the boys weren’t buzzing and butting in? Why can’t I remember more? Why can’t I live in that moment? I reach for us, and we slip through my fingers. I strain to hear, but we’re fading now and farther off. The four of us, our heads close, just out of earshot.

One thing I remember that really impressed me was about prom dresses. The subject came up a lot even in October. Also, who would you shop with for your dress?

“I’ll take Joanne,” Tanya remarked, and Natalie stared at her.

“Joanne?”

“Why not?” Tanya said. “Not the first round, of course. Not for actually picking the dress. We’ll do that first, at Nordstrom. Maybe we could all go into the city and have a look at Bergdorf—do lunch upstairs there. Stay overnight at my aunt’s. We’ll make the basic dress decision. But then I’ll take Joanne back later—let her think she’s part of the process.”

I wondered as long as I could, then had to ask. “Is Joanne a senior?” I limped along behind as usual, and they all screamed, even Makenzie.

Because Joanne was Tanya’s dad’s live-in girlfriend. Tanya’s parents were divorced. So were mine, but in Tanya’s perfect life she lived with her dad. Her mother was an archaeologist. She was always on a dig in Syria, or someplace. I wished my mother was on a dig in Syria, or someplace.

THEN THERE WERE other noons when the girls were too busy for much talking. They’d be texting the questions on some Algebra II or science test from that morning for people in the afternoon class. “It’s my take on community service,” Tanya said. “It’s not like we owe the afternoon people anything in particular. But we have to keep some control over the teachers. Really, the way they make us grovel for grades. Honestly, who do they think they are? Could they even
get
real jobs in, like, business?”

Tanya put up with very little from teachers.

SO I SUPPOSE I actually remember quite a lot about those noons, and what was said. What Tanya said. But surely there was more to the code than I ever cracked. Moments I missed. Clues. An hour here, an hour there, now gone forever.

There’s one thing I almost noticed. Lunch at Tanya’s table sometimes seemed to go on longer than regular time. Of course the bell at the end always went too soon, right in the middle of a sentence, which was annoying.

But for lots of lunches, time just seemed to stand still, the clock locked at high noon. The rest of the food court and school, and the world, kind of fell away. It was funny. Odd. We hung there in Tanya’s special space, this island in time, because she said so. She really, truly was the Queen of Now.

But then came that miracle noon I hadn’t even dared to hope for. It was the last golden day of October, and all three of them turned to me. Me. Just like that.

They’d been talking about Halloween. Their own take on Halloween. I couldn’t picture them going door to door, holding out their little plastic jack-o’-lantern pails. Anyway, I’d never been included in anything but lunch. I had the idea they thought maybe I wasn’t quite ready for . . . prime time.

But then Tanya turned to me, like I’d been on her agenda all along. From that day she’d overlooked the phone in my lap and drew me with her eyes into the group. “Tonight at my house, Kerry? Just dessert and coffee. Decaf. Then we’ll see where the evening takes us.” Just like that.

Me? Time really did stand still then, like my heart. And the countdown till tonight started ticking. They’d decided on jeans and bulky sweaters.

“What a pity,” Makenzie said. “I can still get into my old Tinker Bell costume.”

BEFORE MY PARENTS’ divorce, we lived so near Tanya’s house I could have walked up there. Now my mother had to drive me. Which I didn’t particularly like. But anything to get there. Halloween was already happening all over town.

Some people went a little overboard on the house decorations. Life-size scarecrows beside doors and floodlit ghosts escaping from dormer windows and plastic tombstones on lawns, reading REST IN PIECES. Fake cobwebs by the ton.

It was still the kiddy time of evening. The crosswalks were crowded with parents and nannies leading tiny trick-or-treaters. Little Brides of Frankenstein and one Snow White after another. Dinosaurs and flop-earred Eeyores. Mini-mummies unraveling along the pavement. Small, toddling Draculas with their black tailcoats sweeping the pavement behind.

Waiting for a light, my mother said, “Remember the year you wanted to be the Little Mermaid?”

“Turn left at the top of the hill,” I said, because you could almost see Ridge Road from here.

The Halloween decorations were all professionally done. Not an artificial cobweb in sight. Nothing floodlit. Only a few front lights were on to welcome trick-or-treaters. Now we were at Tanya’s, because Natalie’s Audi and Makenzie’s Scion were parked out by the curb.

“Don’t turn in the drive,” I told my mother.

“I have to turn around,” she said. “Call me when—”

“I’ll get a ride home.” I was out of the car already, heading up the curving flagstone walk over all that rolling lawn, not a leaf fallen on it. Not a plastic tombstone. It was a long, rambling house, country French, probably. At the entrance was an arrangement of squashes and gourds and ears of corn in designer colors. A florist had done it. Very restrained.

I rang the bell, and lights flickered inside, through the leaded-glass window of the door. A tall, willowy figure was coming closer, a silhouette. I wanted it to be Tanya, but when the door opened, it was a really thin, really glamorous woman in a white turtleneck sweater.

“You must be Kerry,” she said. “I’m Joanne.”

She led me through the fabulous house, up a step, down a step, over Oriental rugs glowing in dark reds and blues on polished floors. If you were going to imagine the house Tanya would live in, here it was. We moved toward warm light and laughter. It wasn’t the formal dining room. It was another one, and I could see them from here, around the table: busy at something, leaning over to each other, being in their zone.

And here was the great part. They were all three wearing these towering, black, pointy witch hats: black felt with wavery brims and half as tall as the room. It was great. They were.

Joanne turned just at the door. “Watch your back,” she murmured. But I looked behind me, and there wasn’t anything there.

THEN IT WAS the four of us. “Here’s Kerry finally,” Tanya said, though I was on time. “Joanne, you can bring in the dessert now.”

They were sitting around this table in their witch hats, she and Natalie and Makenzie, and I’ll never forget one thing in particular. Laid out on the table in two neat rows were miniature black coffins. Nine of them. Little coffins with handles. The rest of the table was littered with orange and black ribbon, note cards, little parchment scrolls like tiny diplomas, rolls of tape. All kinds of stuff, but the little coffins were what I really noticed, after their hats.

When I’d sat down, I saw the coffins were gift boxes of Belgian chocolates, from Neiman’s. The three of them were dressing up the boxes even more, tricking them out with black bows. Makenzie was writing on a little scroll.

“It’s our annual Halloween Hotties award for the top ten senior guys,” Tanya said. “A tradition.”

“Which we’ve just started this year,” Natalie said.

Makenzie sat on her foot, carefully lettering away, busy as a bee.

They put me to work on the name tags. Then Natalie tied them onto the coffins with orange and black ribbon and little grinning pumpkins on pipe cleaners:

They decided to give Nate and Noah Brolin a joint award. Tanya said that as individuals, they didn’t quite make the grade. And Nate was seeing a girl from some other school. Greenwich, people said. So Tanya thought Nate wasn’t really committed to Pondfield. But being identical twins added interest, and Nate and Noah were co-captains of the swim team.

Makenzie lettered a special card for the Brolin brothers:

“Cute,” Tanya said, but there wasn’t time to make a special rhyme for everybody. The rest got citations on little scrolls, reading:

Four.

I saw that, and my eyes stung. Was I one of them, one of four classy witches? They watched me see that. Tanya did. Her eyes reeled me in. Once again it was like a story that jumps to a happy ending.

Now Tanya was reaching down under the table to bring up another witch hat. For me. She handed it over the table. So I thought, this is it. I’m in the magic circle. I wasn’t quite, but I thought I was. Makenzie glanced up at me in the hat, then back down at the scroll she was finishing. And there we sat, with our tall black hats pointing at the ceiling, and the future.