“Then someone else will!” she told him angrily. “I almost died. I came back to life. I don’t want to wait forever.”
“You’re only sixteen. That is hardly forever,” Danny said, kissing her again, running his hands along her warm back. Then he said, “I’m confused, Maury.”
“You were with Bridget.”
“We were together for three years first.”
“So?”
“So, you have to know it’s right. I know I want to be with you, but not like that. At least not yet.”
“I know I do. I know that my whole life could go by.”
“You just trust me because I’m Danny Carmody, good ol’ Danny. And you have that confused with a bigger feeling. If I did this, it would be like taking advantage of a kid….”
She slapped him across the face.
“Don’t! I’m not a kid!”
“I take it this means you don’t want to go to the prom,” Danny said, standing up.
“Yes, I do,” Maureen said. “I am just so…um, haunted. No.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Hungry for life.”
“I know. I am, too. I feel like a part of me was buried.”
“Bridget is dead,” she pleaded with him. “We’re…alive.”
“I know. I have to think. You do, too.”
“Will you be ashamed of me?” she asked. “At the prom?”
“That’s stupid, too.”
“I have the body of a little kid. I know it.”
But not the mind or the heart, he thought. “You have weeks to eat nothing but chocolate and ice cream.”
“Danny, I’m sorry I slapped you. I’m sorry I…what would you call it?”
“Tried to rape me?” he asked lightly.
“Yes. I will not rape you again.”
“You sound like English is your second language. Do you mind my saying that?”
“It is not my first language.”
“What’s your first?”
“Martian,” she said, and all of the tension drifted out of the air.
“You are my friend, Maureen. It’s not like I’m not attracted to you.”
“Thank you, Rag…Danny!”
“You were going to call me the dog’s name!”
“Look.” She pointed to her head. “Swedish cheese.”
“Swiss cheese, you mean.”
“Shut up,” Maureen said. “I can punch you.”
When Jeannie got back from Mass and they told her about the prom, she was worried. What if all that stimulus was too much for Maureen? What if she started to cry? Got hysterical? Had a seizure? She didn’t have…bathroom accidents anymore, but she could say something.
“Mrs. O., people at dances don’t stand around and have long conversations. The girls just squeal and go to the bathroom, and the guys just wait for it to all be over,” Danny told her. “I’ll look out for her. It’s got to be terrible not to be a normal kid.”
“She’s getting better. Since being home, her speech is a lot better. A LOT. But she’s never going to be the same,” Jeannie said. They were deliberately making tons of noise with the bags and the cabinet doors to make sure Maureen didn’t hear them.
“Then they’re immature idiots if they don’t get it. She is who she is now.”
Jeannie patted Danny’s arm. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go try to find something she can wear, in a size two.”
“Don’t make it a baby dress, Mrs. O. Let her look like the other girls.”
In the end, Leland came, sobbing, apologizing for being so rude to Henry, and asked to help do Maureen’s hair.
Everyone knew Leland had a gift for this, so it was great that she had the big regret at the right time. Molly, Taylor, and Britney B. came, too.
Leland tied a satin band around Maureen’s head, gelled her short hair around it, letting the ends of the band trail, and then sprinkled everything with a fine dust of hair glitter to match the strapless silver dress. The dress had a wide band and pleats that fell straight, disguising Maureen’s little-boy hips. The hem dipped below Maury’s knee on one side and rose way too far above on the other side—according to Bill. Britney swept dark gray eye shadow with silver highlights on Maureen’s brows. She applied eyeliner and colored mascara. Heels were out of the question, so Maury wore black ballet slippers.
By seven o’clock, Maureen looked like any other girl.
The others departed, like a swarm of butterflies.
Molly and Taylor were the last to leave. The only one of the four who was a junior, Taylor had made prom court—Bridget would have been the sophomore representative. Taylor was the first cheerleader to be on court since Eddy went to Bigelow. She needed to take extra care with her prep, even though she was absolutely sure no one would let her be queen. Her dress was cream, floor length with berry-colored off-the-shoulder ruffles. She would wear a berry-tinted ribbon with a cameo around her neck and shoes to match. Very Gone With the Wind.
Everyone else was wearing strapless sheaths.
Taylor didn’t want to look like anyone else.
“I have to go, but we’ll see you there!” Taylor told Maureen.
“I’ll never forget you guys did this,” Maureen said slowly.
“We’re just happy you’ll be with us again,” Molly said with an air kiss, as she jumped into her car. She didn’t put on her seat belt, and Maureen felt her stomach fold and tighten. But she dragged that out of her mind.
Taylor stopped for a moment.
“I have to tell you something, Maury,” she said. “When I do the Liberty or when I tumble, I feel like you’re with me, every time.”
Maureen threw her head back. “After all that, if my makeup drips…runs…I’m sunk. I don’t want to cry.” She and Taylor hugged each other hard.
Holding Danny’s arm, she smiled widely for the hundred pictures her parents insisted on taking. Then she revealed her surprise, an aluminum cane. Tommy had brought it; and Maureen had practiced, marching across the room when everyone else was in bed.
“You need to bring the walker just in case,” Jeannie said, hovering.
“Mom, I’ve practiced for a week,” Maureen said. “If I get tired. I can sit down. The theme is Paris in Springtime. They have little tables. Britney said. Don’t you think that anyone would give his chair to a crip?”
“Stop that,” Jeannie said. She looked at Maureen thoughtfully. Then she went upstairs and came down with her mother’s cane, which had a rubber tip but was made of dark wood with a silver lion’s head at the end of the long handle. “You might as well do it in style.”
Maureen tried out the old cane to see if the length was right. Grandma Forbes had been small, like Maureen, so it fit her like a hand in a glove.
Finally, they were in the car.
Danny had planned to take Maury to dinner. But she confided that she had enough stamina for the dance but not for two huge new events in one night.
“I don’t have a memory of going to a restaurant,” she confessed.
So they drove through Culver’s. Danny got a double Butter Burger and Maureen fried shrimp with onion rings.
“Oh,” she cried a moment after biting into the first onion ring. “Bad breath! I just love onion rings!”
“I’ve got two full packs of strawberry bubblegum.”
“Never thought I would be happy for that!”
“And baby wipes in the glove box if you get your hands dirty! I use them all the time, because my hands look like feet after I plow with my dad.”
“I picked the right date,” Maureen said.
“As I recall, I picked you,” Danny told her.
“Fair enough.”
“Let’s go someplace quiet to eat,” Danny suggested. He wanted to calm himself before they walked in. His parents were not in favor of it. His mother had gone so far as to call it “sick,” and for the first time in his life, Danny told her to shut up. His father, in a towering rant, would have grounded him on the spot if it were not for the fact
that this would disappoint Coach—Danny noticed that his father didn’t mind disappointing Maureen. He was more interested in Danny’s berth on varsity at 163 pounds than in Maureen’s feelings, or Danny’s for that matter.
“Do you want to drive to the creek?” he asked Maureen, who had delicately covered herself with napkins in case one of her hands shook when she tried to eat her fried shrimp.
“I want to go to the cemetery,” she said. “I have never been. I would like Bug to see me.” She said suddenly, “Onions!” and then apologized. “That happens sometimes. If I think really hard about something, I say it without knowing. I want to go see Bridget.”
Tears burned at the back of Danny’s eyes. But he drove to the cemetery—there was plenty of light to see by—and spread a blanket on the grass near Bridget’s grave so they could sit down to eat.
“It’s not exactly a white tablecloth and candles, but it’s clean,” he said.
“I’m fine,” Maureen said. “I love it outside.”
Now I’ve done it all, Danny thought. I’m having my dinner on prom night at my dead girlfriend’s grave with her best friend. But Maureen didn’t seem depressed or even overemotional.
“Bridgie Bug,” she said softly, touching the pink granite. “Look, I’m all new. I’ll never be you. But I’m going for both of us.”
They ate in silence, enjoying the warm but not yet oppressive evening air. In a few weeks only idiots would sit outside at the mosquito witching hour.
“Are you nervous?” Danny asked.
“Not so much,” Maureen said. “Remember, I was dead. Not much scares you after.”
She did falter a moment when Danny pulled up in front of the school. She threw back her head so that no tears would ruin her eye makeup. “Do you recognize it?”
“I don’t remember how it looks. But I know I was happy here,” she said.
Couples were scurrying toward the entrance, but Coach had given Danny his faculty permit so they could go in at the side door. There was a long breath of silence when they walked slowly into the gym together. Then, slowly, everyone began to approach them, gently touching Maureen’s arm, saying how beautiful she looked. Brittany W. even said she wished she could be that thin. They sat at a table and drank ginger ale punch, and gradually Maureen’s heart slowed down. With Molly seated beside her, looking like a costume doll in her hoop skirt, Danny slipped away and drank a shot of vodka with Ev outside the gym. A wad of bubblegum to cover the smell and he felt entirely at ease.
At nine, the court did the grand march down the white satin carpet with their dates.
As they waited in a row—Taylor, Sheila Braden, Maria Brent, Abbey Jewell, Francie Castellucci, and Lisanne Colawitz, the odds-on favorite—Mr. Beckwith got up to read the name.
There was a drum roll, and then he opened the envelope handed to him by the president of the faculty senate.
“Well,” he said. “Well. By vote of the student body, this year’s king of the junior prom is Mark Shessel. And this year’s queen is…Lisanne Colawitz.”
Lisanne took a deep breath and smiled as last year’s queen placed the tiara on her long, blond hair. She didn’t act surprised. She acted as if it were her due. Everyone cheered and whistled. Danny had to admit Lisanne had a body that wouldn’t quit. She took Mark Shessel’s arm and licked her teeth to pose for pictures—when everyone noticed that Mr. Beckwith was still standing on the stage at the mike.
“Before the traditional dance, I, um, have a second announcement to make,” he said. “This is untraditional. The faculty senate and Key Club have unanimously agreed to bestow a second honor at this event. They have chosen a prom princess from the sophomore class. And that girl is…Maureen O’Malley.” He looked out over the lights. “Maureen, are you here tonight?”
Maureen was so stunned that she couldn’t answer or even get out of the chair. Assuming that she felt weak, Danny helped her to her feet. Maureen glimpsed the look of shock and rage that passed over Lisanne Colawitz’s face before she smiled widely and began to clap. Sheila recovered in a second, and Taylor jumped up and down.
The rest of the kids stomped and clapped, with far more gusto than they’d shown for Lisanne.
Slowly, Maureen made her way to the stage, leaning heavily on Danny’s arm, and waited while the vice principal, Joan Karls, brought out a bouquet of white roses, a tiara, and a sash with PROM PRINCESS etched in blue lettering.
Mark Shessel’s comment was pure Mark. As quarterback for three years, he was used to untoward attention. The red velvet crown on his head made him look like someone out of a cookie commercial.
“I want to thank everybody out there for having such good taste—in me,” he said. When the giggles died down, he added, “What I really want to say is that Lisanne is the queen of queens and everybody knows it. But I would give this crown back to see Maureen’s face again when Mr. Beckwith said her name.”
People applauded wildly.
Lisanne said, “I want to thank everyone in Bigelow, and especially the student senate and Bigelow, for this honor. I really feel I represent Bigelow and hope that I can be the best we have to offer in my year as queen.” She stopped, then added, “And we all know what Maureen has gone through, so this is a nice surprise for her.”
“They expect you to say something,” Danny whispered.
“I can not say,” Maureen told him urgently. “No one knows I talk like this.”
“You’ll do fine. Go slow and look right at me.” He lifted her onto the stage as Coach and Mrs. O’Malley, summoned by a frantic cell phone call, tore in through the door.
Maureen smiled and leaned on her cane.
“I know,” she said, and drew a deep breath. “I know that this is not me. I mean, for me. Not really. I know it’s because this thing happened to me. But I am.” She paused again. “Happy that all of you let this happen. It might not be fair to Lissy and Mark because this is their night. So many things aren’t fair, though. Bridget would be here if things were fair. I am happy because this and everything else made me feel not like an old lady tonight. I feel like a happy kid. And I did not…” Maureen looked down at Danny. “I haven’t felt like a happy kid for a very long time. Thank you.”
As she left the stage, Maureen was engulfed by a sea of teachers and kids who kissed her and congratulated her. After Lisanne and Mark, she and Danny posed under the phony rose arbor for a prom photo; and the Bigelow Beacon took a picture that would be on front pages all over America by Sunday morning—even before Thursday’s Beacon was published in town. The picture in the Beacon, under the headline “Our People’s Princess!,” would be twice the size of the rightful king and queen’s.
When the photos were over, Maureen and Danny left. Maureen was visibly drooping, her eyes hardly open. It was only ten o’clock. In the car, she relaxed, took off her satin headband and the band across her chest. She ruffled her hair with her fingers.
“Do I get to keep this?” she asked.
“I think there’s never going to be another one. So I guess it’s yours.”
“Maybe I’ll do two in a row,” Maureen said with a laugh.
Danny asked, “Are you happy?”
She asked, “Were you in on this?”
“No way. I swear. I was as surprised as you.”
“Promise? Real?”
“I promise. Did you feel happy, though?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am feeling happy.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“I am.”
“What would make you happy?”
“If I knew it. Was. Real.”
“They all sounded like it was real,” Danny said.
“I don’t mean that,” Maureen answered. She turned in her seat and looked at him in the way he remembered, that open-flower face that invited anyone to hurt her or to love her.
An hour later, they drove to a Kwick Stop far out in the country, where no one knew either of them, and Danny made a purchase. Then he and Maureen slipped into a ski
resort that was closed for the summer. As he spread out his blanket, Danny reminded himself that he had spent part of almost every day with this girl for the past five months—and before that he’d known her for most of his life. So it wasn’t really their first date.
On Danny’s picnic blanket, in a cove of small pine trees, they made love.
Afterward, they held each other tight and cried.
Neither of them knew if this was right, or if it was the beginning or the end. It was impossible not to think of Bridget. But Maury was right.
They were the ones who were alive….
A week later, when she heard the doorbell ring, Maureen opened the door to receive a package. It was only when she saw the horror on the man’s face that she remembered she was wearing only her underwear. She simply hadn’t remembered to get dressed. A doorbell rang, so she answered. By the time Jeannie got downstairs, Maureen was huddled in the laundry room with her face in her hands. Her father had come running, but too late. Why had she opened the door?
The mailman lived on Sweeney Street, near Taylor’s house, and it was his wife who told Taylor’s mother. Taylor told Maria and made her swear not to tell anyone else. And by that night, fifty kids were texting each other about Maureen the Queen and her nudie act.
Evan Brock was afraid to tell Danny, afraid someone else would first. As it turned out, he was at bat when the catcher murmured, “I wish my prom date answered the door naked.” Danny ignored him, popped up a high fly, and jogged back to the bench, where he asked Evan what the hell the guy from Ludding was talking about. Evan had no choice but to tell him. Then Danny had no choice, at the end of the game, but to ask the guy to take a walk. The catcher was on his ass in the dust, rubbing his jaw, when Danny turned on his heel to get on the bus.
But before he could, the catcher said, “Is it better with a gimp?”
In an instant, Evan Brock jumped the catcher, the first baseman was all over Danny, and both teams stormed off the bus to get in on the rumble. Danny ended up with a three-day suspension and had to sit out the playoffs. The catcher had to miss the next game.
But that would have been the end of it if someone hadn’t posted a photo of Maureen, smiling shyly in her tiara, on top of a gross topless photo on MyPlace.