“Breeeeee! You ready?” My mom calls up the stairs.
“Just a minute, trying to find a shirt.” I yell back. I’m glad I have her to occupy my time today. As I rifle through my drawers, a framed picture of Kallie and me stares me down. We’re goofing around, holding up fish we’d caught the summer before seventh grade. Dad took the picture while we pretended we were going to kiss the fish. Kallie’s fish did a floppy bounce out of her fingers and she actually did end up kissing it. We laughed so hard and Mom had tears running down her face.
I’m calling Kallie as soon as I get back home today.
Over omelets and orange juice my mom asks how things went with Sean last night. Maybe the smell of vomit was some sort of truth serum because I spill everything: The Jane and Todd cheating scandal, Drunk Molly, and my puke-soaked shoes. Mom gives me a short lecture on hanging out with drunk kids mixed in with an “I’m proud of you for making some good choices” speech.
“So can we look at some Prom dresses today or what? You can’t be a Prom Queen wearing jeans and tennis shoes.”
“Why not? I mean, I don’t even have a date.”
“Hmmm,” she says. “When is this Sean guy going to ask you? I’m guessing he doesn’t have a date if he’s taking you to the movies and on drunk driver ride-alongs.”
“I don’t think he has a date but that doesn’t mean he’s going to ask me, and if he doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Okay, maybe it would suck a little. A lot. But if I don’t have a date, I’ll just go with Sam, Kendall, and some other kids as a group. It’ll be fun.
“That sounds fun, but if he doesn’t ask you,” she smiles, “you should ask him.”
“Just thinking about asking him gives me hives. I don’t want to put myself out there like that, plus it’s Prom. I want to be asked.”
“Yeah, you’re right hon, you deserve it. There’s still time, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
We thumb through a few racks of dresses at Macy’s but I don’t try any on. Instead, Mom buys me a new pair of purple Converse and says it’s my “Good Choice” award. I give a short acceptance speech at the counter. The cashier looks confused when I thank the alcohol industry and Molly for eating something green for dinner.
It’s really, really nice to see my mom laugh.
As we drive the forty-minute ride home from the mall, I practice a hundred different ways to tell my estranged best friend that her hot and amazing boyfriend is a dog-pig. Unfortunately no matter how I recite it, it all sounds the same.
The second I get home, I run upstairs to my room to check my phone. I’d purposely left it on my nightstand to charge. It seemed like a strategic plan that wouldn’t have me checking it every two minutes at the mall. Six missed calls, one voicemail, and two texts. One missed call is from my dad, and the other five are from an unknown number. I click the voicemail button.
“Hey Bree, it’s Todd. Can you please call me back. I think there was some sort of misunderstanding about last night. I’m not sure, but give me a call. Okay, well, just call me. Thanks.” Even though my messages are over, I wait to see if there’s an extra one that didn’t get listed. One from Dad. My stomach pangs with missing him.
Both texts are from Todd.
Bree its Todd. CALL ME ASAP
The other one:
BREE CALL ME WHEN U GET THIS THX
Call when I get this? Pffft. Don’t mind if I don’t.
I scroll through my recent calls and look at Dad’s number instead, but my phone vibrates, playing the song I programmed last night for Sean.
“Hello?” Please ask me to do something please, please, please, ask me out tonight.
“Bree. Hey, is it too late to see if you wanna do something tonight? Or do you have plans already?”
“Nope, I don’t. I mean, well I don’t have plans. I can. Yes. I can do something.”
“Are you suuuuuure?” he asks. “I think it’s against the rules to accept a date on the same night a guy asks.”
“I’m sure,” I say. “That’s so nineteen hundreds anyway. Plus, I was hoping we could get drunk and puke all over each other in your car tonight.”
“That sounds really hot. I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing. Cool. But can you drive? My car’s all puked out.” His laugh is so charmingly sexy.
“No problem,” I say into my phone as I tell the fluttering in my stomach to calm the hell down.
“Hey,” Sean says. “Have you talked to Todd?”
“Todd? No, why?”
“He called me to ask if the number he had for you was the same one I had. I guess Kallie gave him your number but he said you weren’t answering.”
“Yeah, I saw that he called but didn’t call him back and probably won’t. For reasons.”