“On three,” I said, and then grinned. “Three.”
“You are the worst!”
I swung out the passenger door and opened my umbrella over the frame to make an awning. But the rain was wild. It blew sideways into the car. Morgan screamed, and so did I, but it was too late for us to do anything other than get out, shut the door, and run as fast as we could for the gym.
We took off like two deer across the parking lot. The wind made my down parka ripple tight against my chest. Morgan’s poncho lifted and snapped behind her like a plastic flag. I kept looking back, trying to see if Jesse and his friends had gotten out of his car, but I’d have had better luck trying to see through a waterfall.
Maybe he’d already left for Zito’s.
I gripped my umbrella tight, wrestling as the wind tried to rip it out of my hands, and took careful but quick steps. Even still, there was no avoiding the puddles. I sank into a few that were ankle deep. My rain boots leaked water, rain blasted my parka from every angle.
Then, finally, I heard Jesse and his friends whooping and hollering behind us, and a couple of them chanted my name. Jesse’s voice was the loudest and it sizzled inside me like a downed power line falling into one of the big fat puddles.
Teachers positioned themselves at the gym doors, flabbergasted by our stunt, shouting at us to be careful. The cars we ran past were full of people staring out of their windshields like we were crazy. It did feel crazy. We were all screaming and laughing at how absolutely crazy it was.
And then someone pulled me to a stop.
“Dance with me, Keeley!” Jesse screamed into the wind, a steady stream of water dripping off the tip of his nose. The dummy didn’t have an umbrella or a coat. His white button-up was already see-through and clinging to his chest, his gray pants darkened to black up to his knees, his brown boat shoes squishing like sponges.
There was nothing goofy or comedic about his outfit. He’d dressed up for real, just like me.
I tried to pull him forward, angling my umbrella so it would cover both of us. “Come on, you lunatic! We’re so close to the doors!”
But he grabbed me under the arms and lifted me up off the ground and began twirling me. The water splashed around us in hundreds of drops, liquid fireworks, because he stomped his feet so hard. A gust of wind caught my umbrella and blew it straight out of my hands. It tumbled across the parking lot until it hit the chain link fence of the athletic field.
“Keeley!” Morgan shouted from a few feet away. The wind flipped her umbrella inside out but she was still smiling, as happy as I was, before she turned and ran into the gym.
Everyone who’d made it inside filled up the doorway to watch me and Jesse, pointing and clapping as he twirled me. Cars in the parking lot honked their horns and flicked their high beams on and off.
Jesse dipped me backward like a rag doll and the rain pounded my face.
Needless to say, I was completely soaked. And I almost screamed at him to stop, to put me the hell down. But when he pulled me up from the dip, when we were nose to nose, his eyes bright and his smile so freaking big and his skin slippery and sparkling, I threw my arms around him and told him to spin me again, faster, faster, faster.
It was really happening, me and Jesse, no joke.
6
* * *
Saturday, May 14
EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM ALERT: A Severe Thunderstorm Watch is now in effect, through midnight, for the following areas: Aberdeen County and the entire Waterford City Metro Area. Heavy rainfall is expected to continue through the night, with possible wind gusts up to 20 mph.
* * *
Everyone stepped aside as Jesse and I walked into the gym, applauding us as if it were our wedding reception. He and I were holding hands and laughing our asses off. The DJ immediately cranked up the volume of the music and a few girls bounded out on the floor to dance.
We had started the party. Officially.
I turned to tell Jesse that, but I slipped. Coach Dean grabbed me and saved me from falling. “Easy there, Keeley. The whole floor is wet.”
I saw Jesse disappear into the guys’ locker room. I figured he wanted to dry off. Poor thing was soaked completely through. I reached into my pockets for the gold heels but I only found one of them. Rushing back to the open gym door, I almost slipped twice more. The other shoe had probably fallen out, I bet while Jesse was spinning me. I scanned the parking lot for it but I saw only glistening water, a shallow lake growing deeper by the second.
“Can’t let you back out there, Keeley,” Coach Dean cautioned. I tried pleading with him, but he guided me aside and called out, “Slow down!” to more kids who were now following our lead and running through the rain toward the gym. Shaking his head, he hurried over to speak with Principal Bundy, but she had her phone pressed to one ear and her hand covering the other.
And then I was surrounded by girls, chorusing how insanely romantic it was, me dancing in the rain with Jesse, like we were the stars of a movie. Emma from Algebra II, Trish from my study hall, June whose locker was next to mine. They applauded me, called me the MVP of Spring Formal.
“Hey, Keeley! Smile for yearbook!”
Even though I was soaking wet, I grinned as best I could with my teeth chattering, and gave a goofy thumbs-up to David, the boy holding the camera. Luckily, the adrenaline running through me kept me from feeling the cold.
Morgan slid through to my side. She was wet too, but not as wet as me. She had a wad of napkins in her hand. Shivering, I took half the stack and told her, “I’m sorry but I think I lost one of your shoes in the parking lot.” People laughed as if that were a joke.
The briefest flash of disappointment crossed her face before she touched my arm and said, “It’s fine. We’ll come back tomorrow morning and look for it.”
I glanced around. “Where’s Elise?”
“She went to get us some paper towels from the cafeteria.” Morgan put her hand on my back and said, “I’m going to take off my jacket. I’ll meet you in the bathroom.”
“Got it.” I hurried to the bathroom, slapping five with a few more people before I pushed open the door.
It was empty.
Maybe it was because I was suddenly quiet that I finally noticed the pitter-patter sounds of water dripping off me and onto the floor. My jacket hung heavy, the wet down feathers like lead, and I felt the rain that had collected in my crappy rain boots sloshing around my feet.
I leaned in to the mirror. My hair was a straight-up mess. The bun had uncoiled, leaving a soggy puff behind my left ear, and my braids had started to come undone. I quickly pulled out the bobby pins and ran my fingers through my hair. It was sticky from the hairspray. Then I turned to the paper towel dispenser and spun the crank fast, sending a spool of thin brown paper unfurling to the floor. I ripped it off and wiped my face clean, the paper immediately disintegrating into ropy bits. I started reapplying eyeliner, but my hands were shaking too badly, so I shoved it back into my purse and figured I’d just do a touch-up of lipstick and some blush.
Elise came in with two rolls of paper towels. Actual paper towels, the white kind that people have in their kitchens. They felt as absorbent as beach towels compared to that brown paper crap.
“Thank God for you,” I said. “I think this stuff is actually just really thin pieces of cardboard.”
“You don’t look bad. You look wet, but not bad.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, laughing.
Then a song we knew, the one we’d likely be blasting all summer long, came pulsing through the tile walls. We screamed and hurried up, desperate to dance.
“Bundy better let us stay late,” I said, pulling out my lipstick.
“Yes! Yes! Keeley, you should ask her!” Elise said, leaning against one of the sinks.
“Yeah, right. Bundy hates me almost as much as I hate her.”
“I don’t get it. You’re on honor roll every semester.”
Even now, I still find that crazy. I’d been
a very good student, mostly As and Bs, always on honor roll. And I’d been a solid member of the Mock Congress team, at least before the whole thing with Levi Hamrick.
I unzipped my wet parka with the thought of laying it on a radiator to dry, but then I changed my mind and dropped it on the floor with a slap. “You,” I announced, pointing down at it, “are officially retired as of this moment. Viva la Spring Formal!”
Elise turned toward me and her face fell.
“Keeley, come here and I’ll dry . . .” Morgan bit her lip as she pushed in. She’d already peeled off her outer layers, taken the rubber bands out of her skirt, and changed into her silver sandals. She wasn’t nearly as soaked as I was. Barely damp. “Oh, shoot, Kee.”
Even though there was a mirror a few feet away mounted on the bathroom door, I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t need to. I could already tell by how wet I still felt that my dress was in bad shape. My hair was one thing. Everyone’s hair was likely a little messed up. But my dress . . . ?
“Come on,” I said, rushing for the bathroom door. “I don’t want to miss another song.” I just wanted out of there. Back to the gym, back to Jesse.
Morgan eased me to a stop. “At least sit under the dryer for a few minutes. You can’t go out there soaking wet.”
I didn’t want to, but I knew I probably should, if only to not look completely ridiculous. “Then you two go dance! I’ll be there in a sec.” Morgan and Elise looked so terribly sad for me, it was hard to stay smiling.
“Well, maybe I’ll get us a table,” Elise said. I nudged Morgan to go with her, but she ignored me and pressed the silver button on the hand dryer.
I held my dress taut like a sail in the lukewarm wind.
Trying to stay positive, I said, “That was the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me. Probably that will ever happen to me.”
Morgan nodded. She raked her fingers through my hair and it clung to her in clumps. “I should do a quick French braid. It’s not going to dry good with all the product in there.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
When the dryer stopped, Morgan hit the button again, and I turned to dry a new part of my dress. I felt my hair pulled in ropes. Even though I was trying not to look, my eyes caught my reflection in that big silver button. The silk shell was beginning to ripple, and parts of it had turned a different shade of tan than the rest. It didn’t sit underneath the lace the way it should. And the lace wasn’t creamy white anymore. It was drying a weird, tea-stained color. Jesse hadn’t even seen me in it yet.
“Don’t worry,” Morgan said. “We’ll find a dry cleaner who can fix it. Even if we have to go all the way into Waterford City.”
I bit my lip and nodded. The upset feelings crept up and squeezed me, but I shook myself out like a rag doll.
I knew that the only way to salvage the dress, the money my mom had spent, was to have the time of my life. So that was what I was going to do. For me, it’s always been as simple as that.
• • •
I hadn’t noticed when I first came in, but walking back, the gym looked pretty amazing. I mean, it still looked like a gym, obviously, but the Dance Committee had done a great job and I knew they didn’t have much of a budget. I made a mental note to compliment Elise.
White crepe paper twists were taped everywhere, wrapped around the railings of the bleachers, twirling in long strips inside a door frame to mask the ugly school hallway. The overhead cage lights were turned down, and strings of tiny globe lights were threaded around the basketball hoops and fanned out to the opposite wall. They had lots of food on the food table, two huge submarine sandwiches, chips, bowls of Hershey’s Kisses, and plenty of sodas, too. Off-brand sodas, but no one cared, especially not the guys. They’d drink anything.
I was happy to see that our running through the rain had inspired other juniors and seniors to leave their cars, because the gym was now way more crowded than it had been when we first came through the doors. Elise claimed us one of the last open café tables set up along the sidelines of the gym. I slipped off my rain boots and rubbed my bare feet back and forth against the wood floor to try and warm them up. I had a pair of sneakers in my locker that I thought about changing into, but I figured other girls would take off their shoes eventually, once people started dancing.
I looked around for Jesse, finally spotting him along the wall where the wrestling mats were folded in a tall stack. He had changed out of his button-up shirt and pants and into an Aberdeen High hunter green and gold wrestling singlet with his argyle dress socks and loafers. I guess that was his only option. I saw the lines of his tighty whities through the spandex. Any other boy would have looked gross, but Jesse, well . . . of course he looked handsome. Handsome and hilarious, which was my favorite combination. And it felt good that, just like me, Jesse was down to keep having fun tonight, wet clothes be damned. I tried to catch his eye so he’d see me laughing, appreciating his new outfit, but he was either talking with the guys or posing with random girls who came over to take pictures with him with their phones.
The DJ put on a fast song. I wanted to sit and wait for Jesse to notice that I’d come back, but that would have been lame. It would be better if he saw me having a blast out on the dance floor. So I said to my friends, “Come on. Let’s get some blisters.”
Elise stood right up with me, but Morgan scrunched up her face. “Maybe in another song or—”
I grabbed her hand and dragged her out to the center of the basketball court.
After a few songs, if it was still raining, I had no idea. I was too busy dancing. Elise mostly swayed to the beat, but Morgan and I used to dance in her basement when we were little, and we had a few routine moves down pat that I eventually forced her into doing with me. I’d always been jealous that she got to take real-deal dance lessons, but she let me wear her costumes, and she’d teach me the moves she learned and it ended up feeling like I’d taken the classes too. We’d even put on performances for her grandmother.
As much as I was there in the moment, every time a song ended, I’d wonder if Jesse would come find me. When he didn’t, I’d think about going to grab him. Could I be that brave?
But then a new song would come on and we’d scream, because it would be absolutely the one song we needed to hear right then. I guess because we’d started late, the DJ was focusing on keeping us dancing and not trying to mix in slow songs, which I was grateful for. A bunch of junior girls eventually made a circle and I kept being pushed into the center. I’d try to make Morgan dance there with me, but she always found a way to shimmy back to the edges. I hoped Jesse was watching.
A slow song finally came on. I pulled Morgan close, but she wriggled free from my arms. “Keeley!” she whispered suddenly. “Here he comes!” And this time, she hurried to the table before I could grab her again.
Jesse popped up in front of me. Still in that wrestling singlet.
“You look ridiculous,” I told him, but of course I was smiling.
“Ridiculously . . . hot?” He took my hand and led me to the center of the dance floor.
The crazy thing was, he did. Because he was handsome and confident and funny and God, could he freaking rock a singlet.
He put his hands on my waist, finding the little divots in my hips so fast and sure that it took my breath away. I lifted my arms up around his shoulders. And we began to slowly tip our weight from side to side.
We had a good bit of space between us at first, but as Jesse swayed, he inched closer to me and I to him, until we were pressed together. He’d recently gotten a haircut. The skin around his hairline was pink and the hairs there sparkled like tiny bits of gold thread.
He leaned close to my ear and said, “Kinda boring compared to our rain dance, huh?”
I shook my head. I thought it was more romantic than the dance we’d had outside. It was my first real-deal slow dance with the boy I’d adored forever. I hoped he couldn’t feel me shaking.
“You’re staring at me,” he said.
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“Am not,” I said. But I was. And he stared at me, too. Intensely. I almost couldn’t take it. I wanted him to kiss me so badly, right then and there, in the middle of the dance, with everyone watching, even though Principal Bundy would probably have tossed us both back out into the storm.
“Do you know this song?”
I shook my head. I could pick up his cologne underneath the rain smell, coconut but with a little bit of spice.
“Me either. I think it’s old. Maybe even from before we were born.” Jesse cleared his throat. “All the old slow songs have a saxophone solo in them. Have you ever noticed that? Like it was a mandatory thing.” You could have knocked me over with a feather because Jesse was nervous too. I heard it in his voice, the tiniest barely perceptible quiver that I picked up only because I was that close to him. It thrilled me. He kept nervous-talking, words bumbling out of his mouth. “You know, slow dancing is an oxymoron. I mean, can this even be called dancing? Really? It’s more like walking in place. Or like we’re—”
“Please shut up,” I whispered. “You’re going to make me not like you anymore.” And then I laughed, because it was a ridiculous thing to say, because I knew right then that a part of me would love Jesse forever. This was my locket moment, a memory I’d keep until the day I died.
“Wait up. You only like me? That’s it?” Jesse asked, peeling back from me the littlest bit, mock offended.
I bit my bottom lip and rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll admit it.” I turned my head slightly to the side and rested it on Jesse’s chest. “I’m in love with you, Jesse Ford.”
I’d meant it to come out 100 percent sarcastic, but there was something very clear and quiet and undeniably earnest in my voice. I heard it. Jesse must have too. I felt him stiffen. Even if he didn’t, my cheeks warmed against his cool skin, giving me away for sure.
I didn’t even have enough time to regret it. Out of nowhere, my neck snapped back hard and the lights overhead streaked fast like shooting stars. It wasn’t a slow, romantic dip. It was more like whiplash.