By the end of the meeting, we had seventy-five hours left.
118.
Wednesday was a blur of phone calls and begging and making notes and making promises and getting promises. Every time I crossed an item off the list in the notebook, I had to write down something new. We bagged the idea of a coat check. The fire marshal was cool with our plan. Helium balloons were out. Streamers were in—the cheerleaders had extras from a pep rally that got cancelled. On and on and on. I didn’t have time for lunch and forgot to eat dinner—actually forgot. It suddenly made sense how all those girls in the prom magazines got skinny enough to fit into their dresses.
Ma kept my dress hanging in the kitchen where she could talk to it and touch it as often as she wanted. Whatever kept her happy and off my case. Dad scored the car he promised for Persia Faulkner. I gave Malcolm the details, he met the guy, saw the car, and told me that if I ever needed anything in the way of air-conditioning duct cleaning, he could get me a good deal with his dad. I was just happy Persia wasn’t going to poke out my eyeballs with her nail file.
I was on the phone to Nat every hour. The best time to talk to her was twenty minutes after she took her pain meds, after the pain stopped, but before the serious buzz began. I really should have only called her every four hours, but it was fun to listen to her when she was all messed up. She kept her grandmother baking pastries and was able to make a couple of calls for me. She also explained the whole “thong discussion.” I told her that it was nobody’s business what underwear girls had on, and it didn’t matter if they banned thongs in the Midwest somewhere, this is Pennsylvania, yo, cradle of liberty and all that, and we were not checking thongs at the prom.
Ashley Hannigan, prom organizing queen and defender of thongs. Who knew?
The worst thing was when Nat’s so-called prom date Jason gave me a note in the hall that said he couldn’t take Nat to the prom, because wheelchairs freaked him out, because his brother was in a wheelchair before he died of blood cancer. I heard from Monica that he was taking Evelyn Choo, who had two working legs and one of the cutest butts in school.
I waited until Nat was totally cooked on her meds to drop the bomb. She laughed and said she was pretty certain Jason was gay, and the only reason she was going with him was because she knew he wouldn’t bug her to get laid. Then she cried because she was going to be stuck in a wheelchair for her night of magic moments.
You can learn a lot about your best friend with the aid of legal pharmaceuticals.
119.
TJ showed up all excited after dinner. He pulled me out on the front porch to talk.
First, we had a long kiss. Then he said, “You are the most babelicious, awesome girlfriend in the history of the world. Of the universe.”
“Wow,” I said. “What finally convinced you?”
“This.” He picked up a cardboard box from the porch swing. “It came to the apartment.”
“You opened it?”
“Yeah.”
“But it has my name on it.”
“So? It’s our place, right?” He reached in and pulled out a handful of condoms in colorful wrappers. He poured them back into the box like they were gold coins and kissed me again.
“Um, TJ, you don’t understand.”
“Ashley Hannigan, you are the hottest.”
The look on his face reminded me of a Labrador retriever again.
“Give me that.” I snatched the box out of his hands. There was a short note inside from the doctor at the free clinic. He wrote that I couldn’t tell anyone where these condoms came from or he’d get in trouble. There were one thousand condoms in the box. The doc hoped that would be enough.
I looked at TJ. “These aren’t for us, moron, they’re for the prom.”
He looked like I had smacked him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. “Can’t we keep some of them?”
“How many do you want to keep?”
“How about, ah, two hundred.”
“Ten.”
He sighed, grabbed a huge handful from the box, and stuffed them in his pocket.
I folded up the flaps of the box. TJ wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. “Want to come back with me and use a couple?”
“I can’t. I only have forty-seven hours left. You can stay if you want, but if you do, you have to help us fold the origami flowers.”
120.
Just before I got to school the next morning, a 32 bus pulled into the curb right next to me. The door popped open, but nobody got off.
“Ashley? Is that what you’re wearing today? You’re going to catch your death.”
That voice again.
You think it’s embarrassing when your mother pulls the minivan over to talk to you, try having her behind the wheel of a full-sized city bus. There was no point running into the school and hiding. She’d find me.
I turned to see her in the driver’s seat, her belly bumping up against the wheel. “Yes, this is what I’m wearing, Ma. It’s summer.”
“It’s only May and it’s chilly. Come here, young lady.”
I stepped up into the stairwell. The passengers stared. A couple waved at me.
“You remember Mrs. Meadows?” Ma asked.
“Hello, Ashley,” said the black lady sitting behind the driver’s seat.
“Hello, Mrs. Meadows,” I said. She was a regular. “Nice to see you again.”
“I hear exciting things about your prom,” Mrs. Meadows said.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Ma pulled the sweater off the back of her seat. “Put this on so you don’t look cheap. Your boobs are spilling out.”
Mrs. Meadows smiled. “Your mother has a point, dear.”
I folded the sweater on top of my books.
“Don’t forget you need to make time for pictures tomorrow night,” Ma said. “Your aunts are all coming with their cameras.”
“Maaa!”
“Pictures are important,” Mrs. Meadows said.
“And your aunt Sharon wanted me to ask if you filled out those applications she got for you.”
“I’ve been a little busy, don’t you think?”
“I hear they’re hiring again at the soup factory,” Mrs. Meadows said.
The school bell rang.
“I’m going to be late,” I said.
“Did TJ pick up his tux yet?” Ma asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you better check,” Ma said. “Knowing him, he’ll ‘forget’ to pick it up or some other crap.”
Mrs. Meadows shook her head slowly. “I’ve heard about that boy.”
“She talks to you about TJ?”
“Mrs. Meadows understands,” Ma said.
“I raised seven of my own,” Mrs. Meadows said.
“Hey, lady,” shouted a guy from the back. “I got places to go.”
Mrs. Meadows reached forward and patted my arm. “Have fun at your dance, dear.”
Ma pushed in the clutch. “You better hurry or you’ll be late.”
“Right.”
“And put on that sweater.”
“Whatever, Ma.”
121.
The rest of Thursday was just like Wednesday, only busier. But at least I was beginning to win the Battle of the Pink Notebook. Now when I crossed off one of the to-do things, another one didn’t pop up.
People in the halls were saying “yo” and “hey” to me. A couple white girls had sunburns from tanning salons. The cafeteria sold out of lettuce and bottled water to all the ladies trying to drop twenty pounds in two days. Monica said we sold more than 150 tickets—enough to pay the DJ and buy soda and real food, instead of making us beg our moms to cook.
Having to miss so many classes to get all the prom stuff done was a definite plus in my book, but things were so under control, I actually made it to gym on Thursday.
Go me.
Gym was cool because Boyd couldn’t make us do anything. The custodians were laying down the floor covering, helped by
a bunch of the guys from the class. I convinced Boyd to let the rest of us hang the streamers. I wanted the lights to go up, too, but I was afraid if we hung them too soon, they’d get stolen. Miss Felony Crane showed us you can’t be too careful with teachers, especially the ones still in grad school.
I had my hands full of purple streamers and tape when Boyd yelled at me that I had been called down to the principal’s office.
122.
When I walked into Banks’s office, the first thing, the only thing I saw, was my best friend, out of the house for the first time since her accident.
“Nat!”
She was sitting her wheelchair, the cast sticking straight out, covered with the old afghan from her house. Her eyes were uncrossed and she looked sad, but you had to figure that made sense.
“Whassup? You here for the rest of the day? Can I push her around?” I asked.
“Have a seat,” Banks said from his chair. His computer was turned off this time.
“You hurting?” I asked Nat. “Should you be here? I was coming over after school to fill you in. We are rocking the house. Almost everything is done. That reminds me, Mr. B. The DJ signed your ‘no drugs, no booze’ agreement. Lauren will drop it off later.”
“Please,” Banks said. “Sit down, Ashley.”
That’s when my Spidey-sense tingled. Something was wrong in Promland. “Is this about the condoms again? I was going to talk to you about that.”
“Please read this.” Banks handed me a piece of paper.
It was a list of students who were banned from Senior Activities because they cut class, blew off detention, didn’t pay fines, and whatnot. The list of names filled the page.
An air conditioner kicked in and a breeze blew across the room.
I looked at Nat. “Was this in the notebook? Did we forget to take care of something?”
“That’s not it,” she said.
The only sounds were the phone ringing out on the secretary’s desk and the clock ticking on the wall behind me. I shivered.
“You’re on the list, Ash,” Nat said. “They won’t let you go.”
“What?”
Banks straightened the pens on his desk. “I’m afraid your own actions have banned you from the prom, Ashley.”
The words didn’t make sense. Nothing was making sense. I couldn’t find my name on the list until Nat rolled over and pointed it out to me. I was squeezed in between Makesh Hall and Ian Hansen. Still, it didn’t sink in.
“I’m not going?”
“We can’t make an exception,” Banks said.
“I tried to tell him,” Nat said. “We wouldn’t be having this prom if it weren’t for you.”
“But I cut class to make the prom happen. I had to.”
“Even if we eliminated the cuts this week, you have dozens of detentions to make up. Mr. Gilroy assured me that the two of you had several discussions about this. You have to take responsibility for your actions.”
“Gilroy won’t budge,” Nat said. “He said you were too high-profile now to cut you a break.”
I looked at the list again. I knew Ian. We had been in Biology together. He broke out in hives a lot. I shivered again and put on my mother’s sweater, which I had been dragging around all day along with the pink notebook.
“District policy, you understand.”
But it bugged me that I didn’t know this guy, this Makesh Hall. Was he new? How could there be somebody who got in as much stupid trouble as I did, and I didn’t know his name? How many other Makeshes were there?
“You have killer library fines, and you have a record number of detentions, Ash. What were you thinking?”
The sweater was a little prickly, but it smelled like Ma: laundry soap, bleach, and peach body lotion.
“If we make one exception, we have to make others. Rules are rules.”
I was out the door before I realized I was moving.
Nat tried to follow me, but she couldn’t turn her wheelchair fast enough. “Where are you going? Ash? Ashley?”
123.
Once upon a time there was a girl who screwed up everything.
124.
I walked out of the building. I walked to the bus stop on the corner. I got on the first bus that showed up. Didn’t check to see where it was going. I just got on. Sat down. Rode to Olney Terminal, where I got off.
I crossed the lot to another bus. Handed the driver my transfer. Couldn’t sit down because the bus was crowded with tired people. Every time a seat opened up, an old lady would get on, or some ancient guy with a cane and no teeth, and of course, they got the open seat.
We drove south, way south, past Temple, past the churches on Broad, past the clinics, the wig shops, check-cashing places, past BK and KFC and Mickey D’s. More tired people got on the bus, got off the bus, walked on the sidewalks home to dinner and maybe a drink. We passed City Hall and hurried through the nice part of the city with glass-fronted hotels and restaurants with candles and the ugly new concert hall.
I buttoned the sweater and stared at the ads above the bell cord: domestic violence hotline, a play I never heard of, a poster in a language I couldn’t read. Across from me, a white lady with over-permed hair and a nurse’s uniform was reading a book to her daughter. Next to them, a college-looking Hispanic guy dozed, his head tilted backwards, earphones plugged in good and tight.
I must have fallen asleep, too. Next thing I knew, the driver hissed air out of his brakes and shouted “Airport! Last stop!”
I rubbed my eyes. No nurse. No college guy.
“Let’s go, sweetheart!” The driver stared at me in his rearview mirror and pointed to the open door.
“I don’t want to get off here.”
“You don’t got a choice. I’m back to the garage as soon as you walk down them steps.”
“But this isn’t my stop.”
“And I’m supposed to care? Next bus back into town will be here in forty-five minutes.”
“My mother’s a bus driver!”
“And my mother’s the Queen of England. Have a nice night.”
125.
I had never been on an airplane. Always wanted to. My family couldn’t afford to leave the state. We sure as hell couldn’t afford to leave the ground. And airports were for other people, rich people, people going places, you know?
I walked in.
It was not what I thought it’d be. It was just as crowded as school, except instead of backpacks, people dragged huge suitcases on wheels. The security guards were in shape and intense. I thought for sure the security cameras had zeroed in on me as the only person who didn’t belong there, the only fake. But nobody tackled me.
I followed the crowd up an escalator to the long line in front of the metal detectors. Again—just like school. When I finally got to the front, a tired Asian lady in a dumpy blue polyester suit and crappy shoes asked for my ticket. I told her I just wanted to see the planes and no, I didn’t have a ticket. She stared at me in exactly the same way as the sales ladies at Bloomingdale’s who know that you don’t have any money so you might as well leave before you accidentally shoplift a fifty-dollar bracelet.
She kicked me out of the line.
I bought a soda and a packet of cashews and stared at the departure and arrival monitors. I hadn’t heard of half of those places: Burlington, Grand Rapids, Ottawa, White Plains. The people standing around me knew. They were so busy with their rolling suitcases and their IDs and their tickets to God-knows-where, they couldn’t even see me.
No, wait. Cancel that. They could see me. They were staring at me.
“Is that your phone?” asked a lady with overplucked eyebrows.
“My phone? I don’t have a phone,” I said.
“You sure?”
“My phone. Wait. I do have a phone.”
The lady backed away from me and I opened my purse. The phone was buried under gum wrappers and tissues. The screen flashed TJ Barnes. TJ Barnes. TJ Barnes.
I answered.
&
nbsp; Guess who.
TJ was all meet-me-at-the-apartment—I-scored-some-dope.
I was all my-life-sucks-we-can’t-go-to-prom.
He was all that-is-so-awesome-I-looked-like-a-dork-in-the- tux-I’ll-come-get-you-let’s-get-high.
I was all not-in-a-party-mood-can’t-you-tell-I’m-pissed-why-are-you-buying-dope-we-need-furniture.
He got all why-you-bitchin’-me-out-are-you-on-the-rag.
I don’t know what came over me. Maybe the airport X-ray machines gave off brain tumor waves or something. I dropped the phone in a trash can and headed for the escalator that would take me back down to ground level.
126.
The sun was setting by the time I finally got home. The boys were watching a war on TV with the sound turned off. Mutt was curled up in the corner, his nose under his tail.
“You’re in trouble,” Billy said.
“Where you been?” Shawn asked.
“Ma’s crying,” Steven said.
“Why?”
There was hammering in the basement and Dad’s voice. “Goddamnit!”
“She’s upset,” Shawn said.
“About the prom,” Steven added.
Two heavy feet hit the floor above us. “Is that Ashley?” Ma called.
Before I could bribe them to keep their mouths shut and run out to catch the next bus to anywhere, Billy yelled, “She’s baaaa-aack!”
The hammering stopped.
“Get out while you can,” Shawn whispered.
Dad came up from the basement and Ma came down from her bedroom. They met in the dining room. Billy unmuted the TV and the sounds of the battle exploded in the room.
“Oh, baby!” Ma blubbered.