28
The American Prom
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS: Suit and tie, dancing, selfies, cheesy decor.
FOOD SOURCES: Bowls of unhygienic snacks right next to bathrooms, snuck-in flasks, punch bowl spiked by someone wearing sunglasses indoors.
EXPECTATIONS FROM EVERY MOVIE EVER:
Balloons. So many balloons.
Record-scratch speeches to a cheering student body that artificially comes together as a family for one night.
Magically learning all the moves needed for a synchronized dance number.
There were, as it turned out, many rules to Behaving Like a Gentleman in a Prom-Like Setting, and Judith wanted Norris to soak up as many of them as possible before the event in question. As much as he tried to explain to her that he wasn’t an escort and that it was definitely, definitely a group thing, most of her rules seemed to be focused on treating Maddie with respect. He was to never let Maddie’s glass be empty. They were to dance at least twice; more so if Maddie requested it. By her own account, she hadn’t raised a “poorly socialized little hoodlum who checks hockey statistics on his phone while that poor girl sighs looking at the dance floor.” Norris had a hard time imagining Maddie waiting for a guy, any guy, to invite her to dance, but considering the stakes, he didn’t altogether mind their new postdinner kitchen dance lessons . . . Prom date. Friend. Dance Partner. Norris could manage one of these, at best, so the prospect of juggling all three became more and more overwhelming.
After realizing that her son was now A) constipated and B) trembling at the prospect of the dozens of tiny ways this evening might end up being a disaster, Judith now overcompensated by sitting on Norris’s bed—presumably guarding it so Norris wouldn’t jump in and pull the covers over his head—and complimenting him on his dapper haircut, winning personality, and good looks, as Norris fidgeted in front of the mirror hanging from his closet door. His neck had definitely gained weight since the last time he’d worn this shirt, for one of Judith’s conferences back in Montreal. Freaking key lime pie leftovers. Why the heck was he so nervous? And why did he feel guilty? He’d told Aarti about it, and she’d of course promptly made fun of him.
Enjoy the bowl of punch and pamphlets on STDs at the door, Friday Night Lights ;)
“You’re going to have so much fun!” Judith said. “People always say your generation is all phone app orgies and lipstick parties, but a prom just sounds so . . . I don’t know . . . traditional! Every movie from America I saw as a child had a prom. I always wanted to go to one.”
“Mom. Please never—and I can’t stress this enough—never say the word orgy again. . . . Don’t even say corgi anymore because they kind of sound the same.”
Norris’s reflection moved his pocket square a little to the left, and then a little to the right, and then the same amount of a little to the left again, only now it no longer aligned with the button of his shirt. Something about the bulkiness of his notebook and pen in his breast pocket made it impossible to fit correctly.
“Dammit!” Norris snapped, pulling the vile piece of fabric out entirely. “What’s the point of this thing anyway?!”
“Language,” Judith soothed. “It’s a pocket square. Like a handkerchief.”
“So if she has to sneeze I’m supposed to hand it to her?”
“Correct.”
“And then, what? I stuff it back into my jacket all mucus-y for the rest of the night?”
Judith laughed. “I think it’s just decorative.”
Decorative was all the permission Norris needed to crumple the pocket square into a ball and discard it to a corner of his bed.
“Norris! That cost . . .” Judith trailed off. It might have been a little much but in two hours, Norris would be at a Texan high school prom, of all places: a pocket square was his line in the sand.
“Never mind. You look great without it.” She sighed, standing up. The part of Norris that was hoping for a last-minute grounding deflated. She smiled, though Norris couldn’t possibly see at what.
“Lord, look at you. When did you turn into a man, exactly? Tuesday? It definitely wasn’t Monday. Monday that was still my little boy standing in front of me.” She beamed.
Norris let her redo his tie, unsure of what to say to that. He never knew in those moments where Judith, or Felix for that matter, seemed fascinated by his very existence. Then again, Norris supposed he would never see himself as the two of them saw him.
“Chin up,” Judith ordered. “This Madison seemed very . . .”
“White?”
“I was going to say nice, but sure, let’s go with that. Is her family nice too?”
Norris nodded without moving his neck, which as it turned out wasn’t very easy to do.
“They’re great. And yeah, she is,” Norris agreed. “Um, very nice.”
And pretty. And smart. And fun. And popular. And the boss’s daughter. And one of the two real friends Norris had made in this entire country.
“Hey,” Judith said, snapping Norris out of it. She poked at his temple gently. “Stay out of there.”
Maybe it was something about her tone, or the simplicity of the directive, but Norris resolved to do just that. At least for the rest of the day. Judith wondered if they should take a photo, and Norris even went along with four different mother-son configurations before pointing out that Judith was officially running late for her faculty meeting.
“Shoot! Don’t spill anything more than seltzer on that suit,” Judith said, laptop already in hand and purse straps at her arm. “Your father will sense it in Canada: I wouldn’t have bought him such an expensive suit if he was just going to ruin it.”
The instances were few and far between, rare slips of the motherly mask Norris would occasionally glimpse, but she always puffed her cheeks when mimicking Felix. Norris wondered if this was how she’d seen the man for the last leg of their marriage: a fat and slow-witted pile of disappointment, weighing her down despite the tall frame and easy charm the rest of the world saw in his father.
“No eating spaghetti with my fingers. Got it.” Norris smiled.
“Sorry I can’t drop you off, but there’s no missing this meeting. There’s sixty bucks on the table for cab rides there and back. Text me pictures if you can, and remember, home by one a.m. and t—”
“Tip the driver, yes, Mom, I know. Go. You’re really late.”
She kissed him on the cheek again before dashing off, another inscrutable soup of expressions on her face. Apprehensive pride? She clearly wasn’t used to Norris having much of an active social life, which was fair enough: it was a brave new world for both of them.
After checking his phone for an Aarti update for the umpteenth time, Norris made his way into Anderson High’s banquet hall, which was, in fact, a full-on party space. Between the tablecloths, silverware, and air filled with silver, white, and black balloons, the space felt nothing like the familiar school hallways just a few yards away.
He was decidedly overdressed as far as the guys went. In his mind, proms, even those of the junior variety, were black-tie affairs; but Austin being Austin, that mandate still allowed for a lot of wiggle room for both chaperoning parents and students alike. Some were true southerners, dressed to the nines for the occasion; flowers in hair and boutonnieres for the men. Others wore more subdued attire, which was still pretty impressive—pageantry of churchgoers and all that. The third contingent were very literally dressed for an average neighborhood barbecue. Was that guy wearing sand camouflage cargo shorts? Jesus.
“Tuxedo!” Patrick exclaimed upon spotting Norris, giving him a knuckle sandwich, which Norris now accepted as Patrick’s way of saying hello. “Looking baller, man!”
“Thanks, Patrick.”
His armpit hairs were currently contained under layers of cotton seersucker for the occasion, topped by way of a lime green bow tie. . . . A lot was happening. Patrick held up his drink.
“Coconut water.” He nodded. “Trying to cut back.”
“That’s good, man.”
“Not sure if I ever thanked you for helping that day, by the way.”
“Teammates.” Norris smiled.
If Norris were a better person—no major realignment, just like 4 percent better of a person—he might have completely put the staircase and F-word incidents behind him like Patrick genuinely seemed to have. He treated Norris like a proxy member of his tribe now. Norris got nods in the hallways, fist bumps after hockey drills, and disgusting meme photos from around the web that he suspected Patrick enjoyed sending to every one of his contacts. Still, that 4 percent still occasionally felt like a canyon. They would get there, eventually. Probably.
“Flying solo tonight?” Patrick asked.
“I’m meeting Maddie here, which I don’t even think means anything . . . basically, just that we’re going to, um, interact with each other near balloons.”
“You didn’t even pick her up?” Patrick grinned. “Who said Canadians were polite again?”
“It’s not a date! Like, I’m not on a date here with you, after all, so by that measure, nothing that takes place here can—”
“Dude, c’mon, what do I care?” Patrick said with a harmless chuckle. “Maddie’s the one you need to apologize to.”
“I’m sure she barely noticed with all the excitement going on,” Norris eventually said, looking around at their chattering, excited classmates. Only about half the junior student body was present, but those who came were clearly here to have a good time, laughing and taking selfies with this person and then the next. All the recognizable faces from Anderson High belonged to the expected kids that Norris associated with Maddie’s extensive social circle; the cream of the Bats varsity crop. It was . . . nice.
“Y’know, Madz is a real sweetheart,” Patrick said solemnly as they navigated toward an empty table. “She’s always been. So don’t be a dick to her, all right?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just, I don’t know, man, treat her right. That’s all,” Patrick continued. “Big-brother spiel over.”
Norris’s face must have betrayed his intense confusion since Patrick felt the need to go on.
“Look, I swear I’m not bringing the hammer down on you or anything. It’s mostly for my sake. Meredith wanted me to say something. Maddie and Mer; Mer and Maddie. One’s unhappy, so is the other. And then my ear gets talked off until I’m comatose.”
“Right,” Norris simply said. “No being a dick to Maddie. Got it.”
“Good!”
Patrick patted his back again, having recognized one of his football teammates and preparing to join a small pack of seersucker-ed bros. Norris chose not to follow and settled for the holding pattern of standing by the snacks table. He slid his phone out of his currently very pleated slacks. There were no new texts from Aarti, which was to be expected.
“A tuxedo, Canada?” Maddie said, startling him with a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re making it too easy.”
“You’re, um, wow, stunning” was the only thing Norris could think to say. Maddie’s dress was less revealing and less ostentatious than the pageant taffeta constructions that some of the other girls were wearing but perfectly suited to her. She looked so good it took a moment for him to realize that the shade of orange was dangerously close to burnt orange—his previous rage color.
“Hmm, stunning, uh?” She tilted her hip forward with a smirk at the compliment. “According to Derek and Marco from the swim team, I’m looking both choice and tight, so stunning is definitely a step up.”
“I mean, both are also appropriate in this case,” he said with a grin. Something weird was happening to his chest.
“Liam didn’t come?” she inquired, looking around.
“Not really his scene,” Norris answered. It was a position that had been deduced from the not really my scene text Norris had received when the invitation had been extended. According to the photo Liam had sent earlier, his scene tonight was a woodworking workshop across town.
“Fair enough. Elisa and Sarah both passed on it too,” she said, screaming over the music that was kicking off through the loudspeakers. “I’m glad you came, though!”
Luckily, Norris soon found himself dragged out of his own head and onto the dance floor, trying to keep up as best as he could with Maddie, Patrick, Meredith, Trish, and a bunch of the girls from school. Credit where credit was due, Patrick was busting a severe move.
Norris’s biggest secret was perhaps the fact that he truly, sincerely loved dancing. The opportunities were few and far between, but something about Maddie’s embarrassed squeals and Patrick’s cheering, and the school’s more than acceptable soundtrack turned the dance floor into a true friend; they understood each other. It was a beautiful, supportive friendship filled with motions and lights and girls in shimmering dresses laughing from the sidelines. His dancing had evolved into a shapeless waddling that put him at one with the universe.
“Noooooo,” he whined, as he felt himself being dragged out of the gym. Okay, fine, part of the deepest recesses of Norris’s soul might actually really enjoy dancing when he could turn off the self-conscious part of his brain. The occasions to do it without looking like a fool and/or ass were few and far between, but it just made him happy. The last time had been almost two years ago, at one of Judith’s old friend’s weddings.
“I need some air,” Maddie laughed, still dragging him.
“Where, why? The dance floor is that way!”
“Yes, I am removing you from the dance floor; the dance floor is not your friend.”
“The dance floor and I are starting a hockey league together.”
She laughed again.
“Where are we going?”
“To get some air,” she insisted, leading him by the hand. Had he ever held hands with Aarti? Actually held hands publicly? She didn’t seem the type.
Are you going to screen her a movie at the pool too?
“That was truly shocking,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “Like, upsetting.”
Norris still felt like dancing and kept moving around her.
“You loved it!”
“Stop moving!”
“Never!” he cried, still dancing as they exited through Anderson’s double doors.
Buzz. Norris paused on the front steps as his phone vibrated with another text from Aarti.
Did she pick you up for your date the way I always do, since you don’t drive?
Norris shook his head, sitting down on the steps of the school. He stared at his phone in frustration.
Maddie slid down to a seat beside him. “What’s going on? Aarti?”
Even though it was probably weird to talk to a girl you were on a date with about another girl you were dating, after months of talking to Maddie about Aarti it felt all too natural, and so he told her the whole thing—about Aarti’s flat-out refusal to go to prom, about her telling him he should go, ending in her jealous messages the moment images of him and Maddie presumably hit social media.
Norris slid his phone into his pocket with a frustrated sigh. “Whatever, I don’t need to respond to her right now. She could’ve come if she wanted, but she didn’t. I’m not going to spend my night texting her. That’d be kind of pathetic.”
“I’m proud of you, Canada,” Maddie said, watching him, a smile on her face.
“Because I’m out here, socializing like a real live American boy?” Norris snorted. “If this keeps going, I might buy a Chevy and take it to a levee, whatever that is.”
“Because you’re finally above all her mind games, Norris!”
“Says the mind-game whisperer.”
Maddie shook her head.
“You know, I was happy to help you get together with her because it’s what you wanted, but . . . can I be truthful here? . . . It’s really not supposed to be this hard.”
“What’s not supposed to be this hard?”
“Dating!” she exclaimed before pointing to two classmates who Norris recognized but did not know, giggling into each other’s ears as they traipsed toward their cars.
“See?” Maddie narrated. “He likes her, she likes him the exact same amount, and—”
“And isn’t that convenient?” Norris said with a sigh, still eyeing the couple. The guy had been holding on to the girl’s purse all night too. It was sweet.
“Something like that,” Maddie said wistfully. “I’m not saying you’re not a walking bag of neurotic nonsense sometimes, most of the time, but Aarti’s been messing with your head for months now, and . . . honestly? You deserve better.”
Norris raised an eyebrow, surprised. He’d never heard Maddie say anything negative about . . . well, anyone, really. She had a sharp tongue, sure, but she seemed to genuinely like everyone who crossed her path, Aarti Puri included. “Meow,” he said with a smile. “I can’t say I dislike you getting all cheerleader catty on my behalf.”
“I’m serious,” Maddie replied. “You’ve been seeing her basically since you got here, and for what? Are you even officially boyfriend/girlfriend?”
Norris shook his head. If there was one thing he felt pretty certain of, it was that Aarti Puri didn’t take being someone’s girlfriend lightly. It was one of the things he liked most about her—that she was so un-pin-down-able. It was a quality, though, that was slightly less charming five months in. “No, she’s not my girlfriend.”
In the distance, someone let out a cackling laugh. Norris found that he wasn’t in any particular rush to get back to the dance.
Maddie was looking at him again. She was doing that a lot tonight. She had a way of lolling her head from side to side when considering a prospect, like pros and cons were accumulating in her head.
“What?”
Finally, she tipped her head, seeming to decide something. “I have to do everything myself,” she said, shaking her head with a little smile and grabbing him by both shoulders. “It’s my plight in life.”
The next thing Norris felt were Maddie’s lips against his. Kiwi-lime lip balm. Something tropical and yummy. Maddie was kissing him! Wait, why was Maddie kissing him?! And yet Norris’s next thought, elbowing the first out of the way, was that . . . he really, really liked it.
He could feel her smile against his lips, and maybe he was smiling too. There was nothing frantic, messy, or desperate to it. It felt familiar and giddy and another uncertain thing all at once.
Somewhere along the way, Maddie had come to know him, and Norris knew her too. There was something about kissing someone you knew that quieted the part of your brain that ever felt anxious or small.
“Um,” Norris whispered. “Since when?”
“Your interview, probably,” she said with the collected smirk of someone used to an entire crowd repeating her every syllable upon command. “I remember thinking, God, this sweaty disaster boy is kind of cute when he’s not vomiting pure nonsense at you.”
“That was, like, the first actual conversation we ever had.”
“I’m aware,” Maddie said.
She’d gotten him the job on the spot. No reference checks when all she knew of him was that he was prone to calling her and her friends bad names in hallways . . .
“So,” he said, “. . . the whole time?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why didn’t—”
“You liked someone else, Canada.” She shrugged in a decidedly Norris-like way. It didn’t come off like an accusation; more like a sad fact.
She laughed out loud, slipping an arm under his. “It’s fine,” she said. “Really.”
“I really like kissing you,” Norris said. “And I like dancing, and I like balloons, and you came to our weird, ridiculous hockey game, and you’re nice and kind, which may sound lame, but is actually really rare, and did I mention the kissing?”
She smiled. God, she was pretty. Had she always been this gorgeous? “What about Aarti?” Her tone got serious again. “I’m not a thief, Norris. And unlike Mer, I try not to chase the drama. I can’t stand it, honestly.”
Aarti. Right.
The spark that Norris had felt the first time he’d seen her at school still hadn’t subsided. It was still there—a jolt that shook him whenever her name popped up on his phone. After all these months, after meeting her parents and clocking so much time together, he still felt like he’d just approached her to introduce himself at a crowded party. His mind was permanently racing to find ways to keep her attention in him alive; blowing and blowing on the spark to make it grow, and competing with the Ian-shaped hole that occupied more and more space in his mind these days. Sure, it might all be in his head, it might have all been a prison of his own making but it felt no less exhausting these days.
“Like I said, she’s not my girlfriend,” Norris finally said, though he felt a twinge of guilt even as he said it. Aarti might not technically be his girlfriend, but he also never thought he’d be the type to go around kissing someone else. “Besides, you kissed me,” he pointed out. Not that he minded, because he definitely did not.
“Someone told me to learn to be more selfish.”
“Sounds like a very wise, tall, and handsome person,” Norris agreed, and leaned in again, happy to be resuming the kissing.