Chapter 34 #2
“This is why I didn’t put my lipstick on yet,” I told him when we broke apart.
“Good planning,” he said, running his thumb gently over my chin before returning to his task at hand.
It had been two weeks of casual, orgasmic bliss. And I wasn’t hating it. I got sex, clean laundry, and meals out of the deal. While Gage got…well…sex. And whatever entertainment I provided.
“Where’s Nana?” I asked, watching him fill a vase with water and arrange the flowers in it.
“She’s spending her evening indoors at my parents’ with strict instructions not to let her off leash.”
“You know who rarely gets sprayed by skunks?” I teased. “New Yorkers. You should come visit someday.”
He turned to face me, a man in a suit and tie, holding a vase of flowers that made him think of me, and something invisible punched me right in the sternum. I didn’t know what it was, but it felt similar to a serious case of heartburn.
I hated it.
“You look beautiful. What the hell are you doing?” Gage asked.
“Making sure I can feel my left arm. Am I smiling on both sides of my mouth?”
“Are you having some kind of medical emergency?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
He looked at his watch. “I need to know if we’re going to see Dr. Ace or to the prom in the next two minutes so I can make arrangements.”
“Did you say the prom?”
“I did. We’re chaperoning.”
“I don’t know if I’m qualified for that. But we’re definitely taking my car. A convertible is required for prom.”
“I hate your car. It’s falling apart, the door rattles like it’s going to fall off, and every light on the dashboard is on,” Gage complained.
“That’s only because every time I get out of the car, I forget it and its check engine light exist. I’ll schedule an appointment…eventually,” I promised airily.
“This is a really weird prom,” I said, taking in Story Lake High School’s gymnasium, which was decked out with cardboard waves and seaweed cutouts.
“The theme is Literally Under the Sea,” Gage explained.
Darius, dressed in a tuxedo, a scuba mask, and flippers, duckwalked past us, flashing an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“Uh-huh. Um, why?” I asked.
“Student vote.”
“The democracy here gets pretty creative,” I said, dodging the bow of a Styrofoam Titanic.
“Speaking of pretty creative, wait until you see the kids,” he said, guiding me toward the other chaperones, who were congregating around the refreshment table.
Bookstore Chevy and his husband, Art—the high school art teacher—were deep in discussion with the Blumenthals. Chevy was wearing an Evanescence T-shirt under a suit jacket while Art was in a handsomely tailored suit and glittery loafers. I signed hello to Mr. Blumenthal.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked them.
“The senior class has been sending students as tech support to the Haven, and we got along so well they invited us to chaperone,” Mrs. Blumenthal said, waving her hand over her exquisite cocktail dress. “We can’t wait to show off our ballroom dance skills.”
Mr. Blumenthal gave her a dramatic twirl.
“I told you we should have practiced,” Art said to Chevy.
“I see we’ve got some competition,” Gage observed, popping a pretzel into his mouth.
“You better bring your A game on the dance floor,” I said, drilling my finger into his ribs.
“Are you sure you can handle my A game?” he teased.
I was barely surviving our world-rocking sex life. I didn’t know if I could survive his best anywhere but the bedroom.
“Oh good. You’re all here,” Principal Destiny Sprout said, rubbing her hands together as she approached.
She was a woman in her late fifties with the enthusiasm of a twenty-year-old on a steady diet of energy drinks.
“Your main job is to float around and make sure everyone is having a good time…but not too good a time. They’re good kids.
I’m not anticipating any 1980s movie moments, but check the restrooms regularly.
Prom is prime heartbreaking season,” she explained.
“If you see anything like drugs, alcohol, or making out that’s too enthusiastic, flag me down. Any questions?”
“We’re good to go, Destiny,” Gage promised like the responsible adult he was.
I joined the rest of the chaperones, nodding my agreement. It was ironic that I was here, chaperoning, when at my own prom, I’d snuck in a bottle of peppermint schnapps from my parents’ liquor cabinet. I’d sold enough shots in the restroom to cover the cost of my graduation outfit.
“I bet you were a hall monitor in school,” I whispered to him.
Gage responded with a friendly pinch on my butt.
“Great,” Destiny said. “We’ve got two minutes before they open the doors. I’m going to go do a final sweep and be completely distracted by a brief conversation with the DJ.”
“That was weird, right?” I said as Destiny headed off toward the makeshift stage in her glittering suit separates.
When I turned back, Chevy and Art had produced a flask from God knows where.
I laughed.
“Shh,” Chevy cautioned as Art poured whatever was in the flask into small paper cups.
“We’re not supposed to have alcohol on school grounds,” Art explained. “But Destiny knows chaperoning is a pain in the ass, so she goes the route of plausible deniability.”
“I had no idea being a chaperone was so cool,” I said, accepting a cup.
Forty minutes into the prom and I was supremely grateful not to be a teenager anymore.
As an adult, there was no one to monitor the appropriateness of my outfit.
No one to tell me to quit making out with a cute boy in a dark corner.
My friends were reasonably responsible adults who weren’t still trying to find that delicate balance between fitting in and standing out.
While Gage handed out punch for the Blumenthals, who were cutting a rug on the dance floor to Sia’s “Chandelier,” I ducked into the restroom to check my lipstick…and pretend to look for nefarious teenage activity.
I was just redrawing the line of my lower lip when a wet sniffle from one of the stalls caught my attention.
“You okay in there?” I asked, recapping my lip liner.
“No,” the voice sniffled.
“You wanna come out and talk about it?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m willing to share half of the candy bar I have in my clutch with you if you come out and talk about it,” I offered.
A moment later, a girl in yellow chiffon under a deflated life jacket exited the stall. Her eyes were red and puffy. A skilled stylist had wrestled her curly brown hair into a severe French twist that looked like it had so much hair spray it could double as a helmet.
Wordlessly, I handed her half of the dark chocolate bar.
“Thanks,” she said with a wobbly voice. “You’re really pretty.”
“I was just thinking the same about you.”
She grimaced in the mirror, her hand rising to poke at the brunette shellac situation on her head. “I look like a member of the school board. I wanted to look grown-up, not ancient.” Her eyes darted to me. “No offense.”
“Only a medium amount taken. What happened?”
She crammed the chocolate into her mouth. “I asked Gregory Prine to go to prom with me, and he said he wasn’t going. But he’s here with all his dumb friends, acting like he didn’t lie straight to my face because he didn’t want to go with me.”
“Gregory sounds like a dick,” I observed.
That got a wobbly smile out of her. “You’re not the usual chaperone type.”
“It’s part of my charm. So what’s the plan? Are you going to let Gregory Prick ruin your prom?”
She shrugged and ate more chocolate. “Probably.”
“Sorry. I can’t allow that to happen. I’m in charge here,” I said, turning her to face the mirror. “There’s only one course of action allowable here.”
“Call an Uber, leave in shame, and switch to cyber school for the rest of my senior year?” she asked hopefully.
“Nope. We’re going to fix your hair, then we’re going back out there, and while I tell the DJ to change his playlist, you’re going to get all your friends on the dance floor, and you are going to forget that Gregory Prick ever existed, because the best revenge is to have a better time than your nemesis. ”
“I don’t mean to be a doubter, but how the hell are you going to fix this mess?” she asked, poking her hair.
“Trust me. I’m an adult, and I’ve known a million Gregory Pricks and a billion bad hair days.”
The girl wiped her fingers under both eyes. “I’m Ruby.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Ruby. I’m Zoey.”
“You’re kind of cool for an adult.”
“I know.”
Ten minutes and one full head of wet hair later, Ruby and I exited the restroom.
Gage caught me by the elbow. “Everything okay? I was getting worried.” He shot a concerned look at Ruby as she adjusted her life preserver.
“Everything’s about to be great,” I promised him. I turned back to Ruby. “Go get your girls. I’ll see you on the dance floor.”
“This sounds like trouble,” Gage grumbled under his breath.
I patted him on the cheek. “Only if your name is Gregory.”
“Gregory Prine? I hate that kid.”
My mouth fell open, and I temporarily forgot my quest. “You don’t hate anyone. You’re too good for that.”
“He made my niece cry on the playground in elementary school, and Dad caught him stealing MoonPies from the store when he was fourteen. Get the little bastard, Disaster.”
“With pleasure.” I planted a kiss on his cheek and headed for the DJ.
“Mind if I cut in?”
Gage appeared through the seaweed streamers hanging above the dance floor and tapped Wes on the shoulder.
“I do mind, Uncle Gage,” Wes said cheerfully. The kid was in a burgundy tux with one of the legs jaggedly torn off and shark teeth glued to the remaining fabric.
“She’s my date. Between you, Harry, and the rest of the literal children, I haven’t danced with her all night,” Gage complained, giving his nephew a good-natured shoulder check out of the way and sweeping me into his arms.
“Well, if you didn’t date the hottest girl in town, we wouldn’t try to steal her away,” Wes complained.
“Remind me to work on compliments with you,” Gage said, whirling me away from the teen.
“You are significantly less sweaty than my last several dance partners,” I noted as we swayed past a drenched couple in full prom regalia.
“At least I have that going for me. Having fun?” he asked.
“I kinda feel like the belle of the ball,” I admitted.
“You should. You’ve been asked to dance by forty percent of the male population of this school.”
“And two percent of the female population. That Janice can really move. This is way better than my actual prom.”
“Really? What happened?”
“My hair was up, and the stylist must have used nine hundred hairpins. It felt like I was being stabbed in the scalp every time I breathed. My date got mono from Gwendolyn Fucking Murphy and didn’t show up.
But the night was saved when Hazel and I convinced the DJ to play three Spice Girls songs in a row and we got every girl out on the dance floor. ”
“Just like you did for Ruby tonight.”
“Technically it was ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ by the Darkness,” I corrected with a grin.
“My ears are still ringing from the entire junior and senior classes scream-singing. I saw you also managed to dump an entire container of coleslaw on the little shit. Where did you even find coleslaw?”
I gave him a diabolical eyebrow wiggle. “The less you know, the better.”
“You always make the best of everything, don’t you?” he asked.
“I just always look for the sparkle.”
“You’re beautiful, Zoey. And exciting. And creative. And so smart I can’t believe sometimes you don’t see it.”
My feet fumbled the steps, and I lost my train of thought. “Gage,” I whispered.
“I’m serious, Zo. You’re something special. For the first time in my life, I’m not worried about tomorrow because I’m having a hell of a good time today.”
“Well, damn. You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet in the middle of the sea.”
“And you sure know how to show a man what he’s been missing.”
Our eyes locked and held as we swayed to the music. The heartburn was back. But it was even worse now.
“Do you have any antacids?” I asked.
His grin nearly took my breath away. “You never say what I expect you to. I like that about you.”
“Yeah, that’s nice. But I’m serious about the antacids.”
Still grinning, Gage led me off the dance floor. He got a lead on antacids in the nurse’s office from the principal and followed Destiny out of the gym.
“That boy is head over heels for you,” Mrs. Blumenthal observed.
“We’re just having a good time,” I said, rubbing a hand over my weird, glowy chest. Why did I want her words to come true? What was happening to me? What was in that damn flask?
“I had a good time once too,” she said, nodding at Mr. Blumenthal, who was distributing cups of soda to a group of kids dressed as varieties of fish.
The couple at the front of the line signed, “Thank you,” to him, and the glow in my chest got warmer. Jesus, was I actively dying?
“We met at a Fleetwood Mac concert,” she continued. “His sister was there signing the lyrics to him. I took one look at him and fell head over heels. I didn’t know how to sign a single word. He lived two states away. And I was in the middle of an engineering degree. But we made it work.”
“It couldn’t have been easy. I mean not with those obstacles.”
“Nothing good is ever easy, dear. Relationships shouldn’t be easy, because people aren’t easy. But for the right person, all the hard is worth it.”
“I’ve never been the right person before,” I admitted.
She gave my hand a squeeze. “Or maybe you’ve always been the right person and you’ve only met the wrong ones so far.”
“Did you believe in the whole happily ever after, ‘the one’ thing when you met Mr. Blumenthal?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I believed it, but I sure hoped for it. Sometimes that’s all you need. To be brave enough to hope. I just knew that no one else gave me that warm, glowy feeling in my chest like he did.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
Hazel: I can’t believe Gage took you to prom! Send pics! Also, I’m suddenly thirsty for peppermint schnapps.