29
The After-Prom Party
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS: Complete lack of parental figures, wall-to-wall bodies thrashing, joints in bathrooms, sex in cars, party crashers, extensive property damage.
FOOD SOURCES: Kegs, coolers, ransacked liquor cabinets—nothing solid.
EXPECTATIONS FROM EVERY MOVIE EVER:
Secrets revealed, tempers flaring.
Fistfights. Someone is inevitably punched across the face. Please, God, let it be Ian.
Hissy fits. Someone is inevitably left publicly shamed. Please, God, let it be Meredith.
Strict dance laws are likely to be upheaved.
After Meredith’s perfunctory coronation as prom queen for the second year in a row, Maddie, Meredith, Patrick, and a few others decided to check out an after-party currently taking place at a nearby golf club. Apparently, plenty of the kids who could not bother with the actual jock-y prom crowd (which Norris categorically did not see himself being a part of) were already there in jeans and shorts, getting properly trashed without adult supervision.
Norris and Maddie rode in the back of a crowded pickup truck, surrounded by laughter and shrieks—the sort of car filled with teenagers he had always rolled his eyes at before. Right now, he couldn’t help but feel like he had been missing out, especially while holding Maddie’s hand. His lips were still tingling from their kiss. Again and again, he found himself catching her eye at the same time she was looking at him. This could be something, he allowed himself to ponder.
That was, of course, until they got to the golf club, where the party was in full swing around them. Norris froze dead in his tracks before he could even feel the room’s air-conditioning.
“What’s wrong?” Maddie asked.
“Aarti,” Norris simply said, looking straight into the crowded space. Maddie followed his eyes to the middle of the dance floor, where Aarti and Ian were making out hard.
“Oh,” Maddie said softly.
It was the sort of making out that needed the qualifier. Standard making out implied lips and tongues and nothing more. The current display involved esophaguses and pancreases (has anyone ever used the plural of pancreas before? he wondered distractedly). Ian and Aarti were making out hard, groping and pulling. Even people around the pair were taking unfavorable notice, and like them, all Norris could do was contemplate the sight. He felt restless, angry, and sad all at once. Nothing was rising; it was just a slow boil of emotions sitting hard and heavy in his belly.
Before he knew what he was doing, he had marched over and interrupted the make-out session. “Norris, no! Bad idea!” Maddie cried, hustling after him. That was the thing about Aarti; his legs always seemed to be moving toward her before his brain could catch up.
“Really, Aarti?” he asked, startling her out of the kiss. She looked back defiantly, shocked but entirely unapologetic.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dude,” Ian said. “Fuck off! Every time we turn around, you’re there. What the hell?”
For all the online stalking, this was Norris’s first up-close look at Ian. It really was impressive how much blandness could be squeezed into a single human being.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Norris asked.
“None of your business, man!”
He was right. Norris really knew nothing of the Ian and Aarti drama; he was on the periphery of Ian’s life in the same way that Ian was on the periphery of his.
“Guys, I don’t want to hurt any feelings here, but neither of you has the physique to pull off the aggro showdown that’s about to happen here,” Maddie joked, trying her hardest to diffuse the simmering tension. “So, let’s all calm down and breathe before we embarrass ourselves.”
Aarti rolled her eyes at Maddie’s words. Rolled her eyes hard.
“Christ, were you born with a hall-monitor badge around your neck? Let them at it. What do you care?”
“Norris.” Maddie turned to him, trying her best to ignore Aarti’s taunt. “How about we just get out of here, hmm?”
Norris could feel Maddie tugging at his arm, but he really didn’t want to move. There was an urge in his stomach to hit.
“Aren’t you being just a little bit of a hypocrite here, Norris?” Aarti said, arms crossed in front of her. “You’re wearing a tuxedo! You were at prom with someone else.”
“Yeah,” Norris retorted. “Because the girl I’ve been dating for months wouldn’t go with me! And by the way, if you think going to prom is too much of a cliché, rushing to Ian’s side whenever he snaps his fingers, hoping he’ll leave his girlfriend, is straight out of the daddy issues playbook.”
That one earned Norris some “oohs” from the crowd, which felt both good and terrible.
“I don’t owe you an explanation for anything I do, Nor,” Aarti said. “We’re not exclusive!”
“Oh, enough with that crap!” Norris said, maybe a little too loudly. They were now gathering an audience. “What does that mean? Honestly! Are we a freaking commune of hippies? We’re sixteen! What’s so wrong with dating one person and—”
“Canada, stop!” Maddie said, stepping in and employing the authoritative tone of hers that could command a kitchen full of grown men at the Bone Yard. “This is so not worth it. Let’s just go get some air, all right?”
“Sidekick Barbie to the rescue,” Aarti said. “Accessories include cell phone, barbecue sauce bottle, and Meredith Santiago’s tampon case.”
An uncomfortable sensation formed in Norris’s stomach at her words. He felt something roiling.
“What the hell is your problem?” Maddie asked Aarti.
“Oh, that wasn’t me, babe,” Aarti said, her voice low and detached and taking on a new edge. “That was just my favorite line from your entry in Norris’s field guide.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The little yellow diary he keeps? You must have seen it around. All he does is write in that thing. His most intimate thoughts about the vapid, stupid, or ridiculous people that come his way.”
Aarti laughed, turning to Norris for a moment. “What, you only showed it to me then? I should be flattered.”
In that moment, everything became startlingly clear. When he looked at Aarti, he didn’t see the artist or the dreamer; he only saw the role she was currently playacting: complete bitch. Playacting, because it was definitely an act. She was very good at being nasty when hurt, Norris thought. In that moment, she reminded him of himself.
“You’re the worst of the bunch,” Aarti said with a sneer before turning away and heading for the exit.
Norris was getting exhausted. This was too much. Their voices were starting to blur. “I don’t feel well.”
“Hey,” Maddie said, resting a hand on his cheek. Why was she being so gentle with him, after what Aarti just told her? “You’re looking kind of pale.”
“I am?”
“Well, no, actually,” she said. “But that always seems to be something people say to someone who doesn’t look well on TV.”
Norris chuckled uncomfortably. “Look, what she said, that’s not— I mean, I categorically don’t think that of you, okay?” he pleaded in a hushed tone. The crowd was dispersing, leaving him and Maddie alone. “Please believe that.”
“Hey, I know, it’s okay. Really.” She brought him in for a hug, and Norris melted into her embrace. No wonder people were always hugging her around school; she gave really good hugs. Her hands reached around his waist and then up against his chest. She gave his lapel a tug.
“I’m gonna go give my dad a call, so he doesn’t worry,” Maddie said.
“Okay,” Norris said. “Are you going to come back?”
“Of course.” Maddie smiled, but something about it felt off.
A few moments went by and then it all came together in a sickening rush. Norris patted himself down. No, shit, no, no. The notebook was gone.
Maddie had swiped it during their hug.
Maddie was nice. Maddie spent her days caring for other people. When her father needed someone to take over the reins, she was an assistant. When any of her friends needed a shoulder to cry on, she was there with a smile. When her church needed money for new pews, she was the one stapling flyers around the school. When an abrasive new foreign kid needed a job and dating advice, Maddie was there.
That’s what Norris told himself as he rushed outside, looking around for Maddie. There was nothing she wouldn’t forgive in that notebook. Right?
“She’s at the gazebo” Norris heard out of nowhere.
Meredith was climbing up the hill, arms fully gloved, ridiculous tiara perched on her head and meticulously braided locks circling her head. She held up the hem of her taffeta dress, the fringes already muddy. “I was looking for a place to pee and she just ran out. . . .”
“Thanks,” Norris mumbled as he caught up with Meredith and headed for the gazebo at the back of the expansive golf course.
“Do you want me to come wi—”
“No!” Norris all but hurled back.
This would be fine! He would cover a week of shifts for her to make up for it, and they would go back to doing their thing. Norris and Maddie. All he had to do was talk to her, and everything would be okay.
Norris found her seated on the lit-up gazebo, reading the notebook intently. Unlike Aarti, who had contented herself with skimming a few entries, she had a frown on her face and seemed to be absorbing every page. She looked up to him and returned to flipping through, reading aloud the headlines of Norris’s scribbles. “‘The Taxonomic Differences Between Swim Team and Football Team’ . . . ‘Teachers Most Likely to Start a Drug Cartel on the Side’ . . . Oh, here it is.”
Shit.
“‘The Beta Cheerleader,’” she read aloud. “‘Just blonde, just talented enough to flip to the middle of the pyramid. Hobbies include kissing the ass of those at the top.’”
She gently closed the notebook and put it down on the gazebo’s seat.
“I should be flattered I got my own page, right?”
“That was before I got to know you,” Norris sputtered. “It’s a first impression and nothing else! You’ve totally changed my mind!”
“Oh, have I, Norris?” she said. “Did I redeem all basic white cheerleaders in your complex little mind?”
“Come on, Maddie, that’s not fair. Haven’t you ever realized you were wrong about anyone before? I wrote all that a million years ago. It’s in the past.”
“It’s not in the past.” Maddie shook her head, holding up the notebook as evidence. “It’s in your tuxedo pocket. It’s coming out of Aarti’s mouth.”
“Maddie . . .” Norris began, desperately trying to defuse the hurt in her voice that was gutting him in the moment. He didn’t know what to say.
“All I did was be nice to you, Norris,” Maddie said. “From what I can see, all everyone did was be nice to you. Basic white cheerleader. Coven of bitches. Prozac popper. That wasn’t a slip. That’s the real you, isn’t it?”
“No! I don’t . . . I don’t know.” For once Norris was at a loss. Was it the real him? He’d felt badly about it, sure, and in the case of Liam, he’d made sure to apologize. But he still couldn’t help thinking those things, and half the time, he still couldn’t stop his mouth from saying them. “I guess I . . . I guess I do judge people.”
Didn’t everybody? All the time, always?
“I’ll say.” Maddie gestured at the notebook as she snapped it firmly shut. “But guess what: you may turn your nose up at the cheerleaders and the jocks and the prozac popper, you may sit in your room cackling over our predictable habits, but the rest of us are just trying our hardest to make it through each day being who we are. And I’ll tell you right now—you are as profoundly basic as the rest of us, Canada. Actually, no. You’re worse. Because at least the football team fuckboys aren’t pretending to be better than everyone in a hundred-mile radius.”
“Maddie,” Norris pleaded. This was a misunderstanding. This was getting out of hand. “You know I’m better than the football fuckboys.”
“Right,” Maddie said after a moment, eyeing him up and down and taking in the whole of his being. “You know what, you deserve her.”
He didn’t even have to ask who she meant. Of course she meant Aarti, the girl he’d spent all year admiring and pining for; the girl whose side he’d rushed to at every opportunity, just like he’d accused her of doing with Ian, in the most pathetic, clichéd of ways. The girl who’d, the second she thought she was on the brink of not getting what she wanted, responded with outright cruelty.
She was right, Norris thought. He and Aarti did deserve each other. And the person he didn’t deserve was the kind, generous person sitting across from him, looking like she was doing everything in her power not to cry.
“Maddie . . .”
Norris turned to see Meredith hovering at the doorway to the gazebo. She took a step toward Maddie, making an attempt to put an arm around her best friend’s shoulder. Maddie shrugged it off.
“No worries, babe. I’m fine,” Maddie said, throwing a bright smile at Meredith. She looked back at Norris in a way that very much felt like it would be the last time, and then started to walk back toward the golf club, framed by the late-night fountains.
Meredith was staring at him like he was a flavorless piece of gum, chewed gray and found at the bottom of very expensive shoes.
“I thought you cared about Maddie.”
“I do care about her!”
“No, I care about Maddie,” Meredith all but hissed, obviously trying very hard not to shout. “Everyone back inside cares about Maddie. You—I have no idea. Liked that she was nice to you? Maybe it fed your ego, I don’t know. And I really don’t care.”
“I don’t . . . know” was all Norris could think to say. He was exhausted from the ups and downs of this seemingly endless evening.
Meredith scoffed. “Sixteen years and she’s finally wrong about someone,” she eventually sighed. “Go home, Norris.”
A moment passed, and then another. The night was hot, because that was how nights were in this place. Hot and oppressive. Norris felt as though any ball he tried to throw upward would immediately be brought down to the ground by the density of this heat. The very weight of being in Texas.
Maybe that was all he’d been doing all along: distracting himself from being in this place. His legs were no longer wobbly and had instead hardened into cement blocks as he trekked back toward the clubhouse.
Two girls chuckled upon seeing him, then quickly turned their shoulders to him. There was no one to give him a ride home, he realized. Norris was exhausted and really no longer had any reason to pretend that he belonged there, anyway.
But he didn’t want to go home yet. He just wanted . . .
What did he want, exactly? He wasn’t sure.
One thing he did know was that it was a perfect occasion to try a long-held theory of his, which was that any black guy in a passable tuxedo can walk into a fancy kitchen. No one even noticed Norris as he waltzed into the clubhouse, through the passing waitstaff, and grabbed a bottle of champagne from an opened case. He quickly shoved it his jacket on his way out through the course’s parking lot, Meredith’s words ringing in his ears.
Go home, Norris.