The Beginning Of After Part 6

"They have it worse," he said.

I just nodded, looking at the CD instead of him. I was glad we had this prop between us.

"That's the whole thing about grieving," Joe continued. "It's part of the deal: You get to be alive and to love, but in exchange you also have to put in some serious hurt time."

I couldn't believe he was saying these things to me. n.o.body had been so direct about my situation. Not Mr. Churchwell, not Suzie Sirico that night on the white couch, not Nana driving our Volvo. Meg had the strong, stoic thing wired into her blood and would never dream of being so simple and ridiculously true.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I have no right to talk to you like that."

"No," I said, snapping out of it. "You can talk to me like that. I appreciate it." It sounded too bland and polite. In my mind I was throwing myself across the desk corner that separated us, wrapping my arms around his neck, adoring him.

Joe finally stood up. "So, Laurel," he began, "I know that you know that I want to ask you to the prom." He was smiling as he said this, showing that he appreciated the weirdness of what was coming out of his mouth. His eyes said, Go ahead. Play along.

"Okay. And I guess now I know that you know that I know."

We both laughed a little nervously.

"You wanna know how I know? I'm the one who started the rumor. I told my sister and her friend, and told them to make sure they told Megan Dill's sister. I guess that's not really enough people to be a rumor. Maybe just a buzz."

"A buzz," I echoed, nodding, feeling stupid.

"To give you a heads-up. I didn't want to take you by surprise."

"That's considerate," I said, cringing at another word from the Bland and Polite collection.

"I'm glad you think so," said Joe. "I was worried that maybe it was kind of chicken. Like it was the easy way to do it."

"There's nothing wrong with the easy way. I'm a big fan of it myself."

He looked at me and smiled again, those eyes, those eyes. It was the second or third instant with him that I thought, perhaps pity has nothing to do with this.

"So. Will you? Go to the prom? With me?"

"Yes. Of course," I said. It came out sounding vague, like I wasn't sure what I was agreeing to. "It'll be fun."

"That it will."

We paused. Suddenly, brilliantly, there was Meg standing in the doorway. She looked back and forth between us, as if she'd been flipping through channels and landed on something strange but fascinating.

"Hi, guys," she said, then looked sideways at me. "Do you still want to go eat?"

"Yeah. We're going into town," I told Joe. The whole school knew about our off-campus privileges.

He looked at Meg with a "You can trust me" face, then turned to me. "I'll call you. We'll talk."

I looked straight into his eyes again and forced myself to hold them there, counting one, two, three, before it became unbearable and I had to glance away.

Chapter Eight.

I went with Meg, Nana, and Mrs. Dill to Bettina's Boutique to shop for our dresses. It was the one store almost everyone went to for the prom, since decades ago. They actually kept track of who bought what so you wouldn't get caught wearing the same thing as someone else-unless you wanted to, of course. Meg had desperately wanted to try Macy's or even go down to the city, but her mother insisted.

"It's a tradition," she said. "I bought my prom dress here."

"Further evidence as to why I should skip it," snorted Meg as we walked up the store's brick steps.

The boutique was now owned by Bettina's daughter, whose name we could never remember, so we called her Bettina 2.0. She greeted us as we walked in and smiled wide at me and Meg.

"h.e.l.lo, girls!" she chirped. "All the prom stuff is over there; I call it the *Prom Parade of Prettiness.' See the banner?"

She doesn't know who I am, I thought, and felt disappointed, and then felt bad about feeling disappointed.

Nana hurried toward the prom racks, which were organized by color, and in seconds was holding up something pink and fluffy.

"Oh, I like this," she said, as if she were going to wear it herself to the next Hospital Auxiliary luncheon. I shook my head and frowned, then followed Meg toward the dark dresses at the far end of the racks.

"Black all the way," Meg said. "Don't you think?"

"Not for me," I said. "Too obvious."

Meg froze for a second and looked at me sadly. "Right."

As she plunged her arms into the rows, I scanned the whole rainbow of the Prom Parade of Prettiness, not sure what I was even looking for. Bettina 2.0 had put up extra banners that said FUN & FLIRTY! and FOREVER YOUNG! but nothing jumped out at me. I let my eyes wander past the prom racks, into the rest of the store. There was a mannequin near the front, and all I could see was that she had her arms up in a sort of "Oh, to h.e.l.l with it" pose. I went over to get a closer look.

The dress did not make the mannequin look Fun & Flirty or Forever Young. It made this mannequin look like she was at the Oscars and owned the red carpet, even though she was made of plastic and had no face. It was a color blue I'd never seen before, and a material I didn't even know what to call. It caught the light in dazzling ways and begged me to touch it.

Somewhere in the corner of my gaze, I saw Bettina 2.0 and Mrs. Dill talking in low voices. I made out the words remarkably well.

Now I felt their eyes on me as I found the dress in my size on the rack next to the mannequin. I paused, then took a moment to notice the feeling of my jeans loose around my waist, saggy in the b.u.t.t. It was a feeling I'd been ignoring, because it felt so unfamiliar. I let my fingers find the dress in the next size smaller, and headed to the fitting room. Meg noticed my beeline and motioned for the others to follow.

Minutes later I stepped out, toward the scary three-way mirror where everyone was waiting.

The dress wasn't perfect; at least, not the "It's so me!" kind of perfect. Instead, it looked like it was worn by someone else. This not-Laurel person's skin glowed pale against the blue fabric, and the overhead fluorescent light deepened the shadows under her eyes. She was older, and came from somewhere foreign like Europe or Vermont. And it hung on her just right, with a long flared skirt, beaded bodice, and gauzy sleeves.

"This is it," I said to Meg. She nodded. I raised my head to look at Nana's reflection over my shoulder. I said it again: "This is it."

"It's not really a prom dress, and the color . . . ," Nana said weakly, but I just twirled, letting the fabric caress my legs. Finally, she just said, "You've lost weight." In the past, coming from her this would have been praise. Now she said it with worry, like she wasn't doing her job of getting me to eat.

I shrugged as casually as I could. I'd been trying halfheartedly for a year to drop a size, and now it had just happened and all I could feel was sad about it. I mean, could I afford to lose anything else?

Not the time or place to be sad, I told myself. These were pounds you didn't want. Push it, push it, push it away.

"Nana," I said as solidly as I could. "I love this dress. Don't you love it?" And Nana had no choice but to nod.

At the register, Bettina 2.0 looked wide-eyed at me as I handed her the dress, as if I were a celebrity she'd just now recognized.

"This is one of my favorites," she said. She fumbled for the tag and looked at the price. I'd already checked it and knew it was more expensive than any of the prom dresses. It was probably more expensive than anything else in the store.

"Oh . . . this is wrong," said Bettina 2.0, frowning. "This dress is actually on sale."

"Isn't that lucky!" exclaimed Nana.

I looked around the store. "There aren't any signs," I said.

"That doesn't matter," Bettina said, touching my arm across the counter. Now she looked at Nana. "I'm the owner, and I can put things on sale whenever I want."

I felt heat rise from the middle of my back. But Nana winked at Bettina 2.0 as she pulled out her MasterCard, and the someone-else dress was thirty seconds away from being mine.

The next day, Meg and I were walking through the senior parking lot on our way out of school when we heard a car driving slowly alongside us. I looked up to see that it was Andie Stokes's canary yellow VW Beetle.

"Hey!" yelled Andie from the driver's seat. She was alone in the car. I didn't think I'd ever seen her without Hannah or one of her other friends. "Laurel! How are you?"

I'd talked to Andie almost every day since I'd come back to school. She was always seeking me out after cla.s.s or by my locker, touching one finger to my arm as she asked how I was and gave me an update on the memorial fund plans.

Meg and I approached her car. Other students walked by extra slowly to check us out. I am talking to Andie Stokes, I thought, and people are seeing me talk to Andie Stokes.

"Hi Andie," I said.

"I'm glad I ran into you guys," she said, letting her eyes bounce between Meg and me. "I was in Mr. Churchwell's office today, looking at the prom seating chart, and noticed you weren't a.s.signed to a table yet."

"We were going to let the guys figure it out," said Meg, which was sort of a lie. We hadn't even talked about tables.

"Well, I'll tell you that we have four empty seats at ours, and we'd love for you to join us."

Ours. We. Andie moved through life in a collective. I wondered what that would feel like, to always be part of a whole.

"I- Thanks- Cool-" was all I could say. I was still working on the not-a-moron thing with her.

"That's totally sweet of you," said Meg, stepping in. "We'll talk to Gavin and Joe and see if that works." Suddenly Meg and Andie were entering each other's cell numbers into their phones. While they did this, other students were forced to squeeze their cars around the Beetle on their way out of the lot.

Business done, Andie waved good-bye and drove off. Meg turned to me.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"What do I think about going to the prom and sitting with the cool crowd?"

"Other than the fact that it reminds you of Carrie and you might end the evening covered in pig's blood."

"Could be fun, could be so bizarre our heads will explode."

"I agree. But I'm going to bank on the fun part."

We stood there, popping our eyes at each other. The exciting reality of all this was beginning to sink in. The prom! The someone-else dress! Joe Lasky! Andie Stokes!

"Let's go to my place and put on our dresses again," said Meg, and I followed her through the parking lot.

In the mornings, right when I woke up, I usually had about two seconds of feeling like nothing had changed. I was in my bed in my room, and the light coming in from my blinds was the same light as always.

Then I'd remember.

And then I'd have to think of something to get me out of bed. Usually it was as simple as walking Masher or a test in English. Today, it was the SAT scores.

They had been available online as of five a.m., which was when I knew Meg had logged on. I checked the clock. Six thirty. Earlier than I usually woke up. My body must have known.

I walked slowly downstairs and wondered if I was nervous, how much I cared. Clearly a lot, since my hands shook a bit as I found the paperwork where I'd written my log-in information. They still shook as I entered it, and clicked the mouse where I was supposed to.

710 on the math. 790 on critical reading, 760 on writing.

790 on critical reading! A near-perfect score. I turned around to tell someone, but realized Nana was still sleeping. I picked up the phone to call Meg.

"How'd you do?" she answered.

I gave her the numbers.

"Rock on!"

"I didn't think I did that well. I wonder if they thought I cheated, since I took the test by myself."

"I doubt that."

We had another one of our awkward pauses.

"Laurel?" Meg asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you going to ask me how I did?" Her voice got high.

"G.o.d, I'm sorry. How did you do?"

"I kicked b.u.t.t too." Another pause. "I've got to go. We'll celebrate after school today."

We hung up, and almost instantly my speeding, soaring sensation-festal: meaning "joyous"!-hit a brick wall.

Dad.

He would have been standing here. Maybe he would have been the one to jiggle me awake just past dawn. He would have given me a high five and a hug, his customary "I'm so proud of you, kiddo" combo, proclaiming that all my studying, the prep course, him quizzing me-it had all been worth it.

The image filled me with instant agony. Make him go away. Don't ruin this, don't ruin this, don't ruin this.

And with that, my father was gone.