I’m surprised to find Charlotte waiting in the parking lot when I come out of school. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. She’s been lingering after school more often, planting herself wherever she might cross paths with Josh.
She sees me and starts hopping in her lanky, goofy way, like a baby giraffe on a hot asphalt sidewalk. I’ve rarely seen her so animated. She’s usually all chill and yoga-ish. But she runs up to me and grabs my arm, bouncing on her toes. She’s like a six-foot-tall version of Libby.
“He asked me! He asked me to homecoming!”
“Who?” I ask, although I already know the answer and maybe don’t want to admit it to myself. “Josh?”
“Yes! Oh, my God! Can you even believe it?!”
We get in the car and she lets out a small squeal when the doors close.
“Josh. Freaking. Mooney!” She bangs her hands against the steering wheel with each word. It takes her several minutes to calm down enough to put her seat belt on.
“Will you go shopping with me on Saturday? I need a dress! Oh, crap, and shoes!”
Oh, man, I forgot about her shoe issues. Finding cute ones for her huge feet is always a challenge.
Before I can answer, she’s babbling again. “I have a Pinterest board. Look it up on your phone and tell me which ones you like.”
Charlotte has a Pinterest board of homecoming dress ideas? When did this happen?
I open up the Pinterest app on my phone and click onto Charlotte’s boards and, sure enough, there is one for homecoming. I scroll through the dresses, all of them more subdued and sophisticated than any teenager in her right mind would wear. None have sparkles, none are strapless and not one of them is shorter than knee-length.
“Maybe you should get the shoes first and work backward from there.”
She groans in agreement. “Uggh. I hate my feet!”
I nod in fake sympathy at her ridiculous problem: being tall and gorgeous, trying to find something to wear for her date with the hot football player. Sucks to be her.
I agree to go shopping on Saturday, though I can’t think of many worse forms of torture. But she’s my best friend and it’s our senior homecoming. Her first high-school dance with a date. For Charlotte, I will endure a day of searching for granny shoes and a dress that won’t make her look like a politician’s wife. It’s the least I can do.
And it really isn’t so bad, after all, considering both Charlotte and I seem to be missing the gene that makes most women love shopping. We kind of wander around aimlessly, laughing a lot. We finally get down to business at DSW and find her a pair of low, strappy black heels that don’t look too matronly. The large-size boxes are helpfully labeled with bright yellow stickers. ELEVEN! they scream at us. TWELVE!!! BIG-FOOT GIRL, HERE'S YOUR TWELVE!
“I know I should be offended by this,” Charlotte says as she points to one of the hard-to-miss stickers, “but it really does make it easier. I can’t even get attached to a pair of shoes if I don’t see a box with that freaking number of shame. Saves me a lot of heartache.”
I nod and think of how helpful it would be if boys had stickers like that. If they had a girlfriend, their sticker would say TAKEN, or maybe if they were gay, their sticker would say, OTHER TEAM. Would make life a lot easier for most teenage girls.
I wonder what Zenn’s sticker would say. Maybe DAMAGED GOODS, based on his fractal.
After we get her shoes, we head to Macy’s and browse the racks in the juniors department. Charlotte has a hard time hiding her disgust.
“They’re all so … shiny and bright.”
“And small,” I add. “They’re like, Las Vegas doll dresses.”
“Let’s try some on,” she says, and grabs a bubblegum-pink dress and another one the color of the inside of a lime.
“I’m not trying anything on.” I doubt I’ll get any fractals from the dresses — no one has worn them for more than a minute or two. Especially this hideous one, which I doubt has ever been taken off the hanger. But even without fractals, there’s something depressing about trying on dresses for a dance you won’t be going to. She grabs my arm and drags me to the dressing room. “C’mon. If I have to, you have to.”
I find myself in a dressing room next to her, pulling off my yoga pants and pulling on the lime-colored dress.
“On the count of three we both come out, okay?”
I glance in the mirror and cringe. “Sure. On three.”
“One …” she says, her voice high and excited. “Two …”
I wonder if I should take off my socks, then decide that they add to the comedy.
“Three!” And we both fling open our dressing room doors and step out into the aisle. I’m ready to laugh at how stupid we both look, but one glance at Charlotte and my laugh dies before it starts.
“Look at me!” she says, spinning awkwardly in the small space. “I’m like a piece of Hubba Bubba! But with sequins!”
“I hate you.”
“What?” She stops spinning.
“You actually look good in that stupid dress.”
“Shut up. This is hideous.”
Yes, the dress is certifiably butt ugly. But Charlotte, with her long, shapely legs, her narrow hips and smooth skin, is still beautiful. The dress fits her perfectly.
My dress is about three sizes too big and hangs off me. It’s the color of snot and as itchy as a wool sweater. It has no redeeming qualities.
I love Charlotte, I really do, but sometimes it’s hard to be friends with a freaking supermodel.
Eventually we give up on the Technicolor juniors section and look at the dresses for grown-ups. Charlotte gravitates toward things that Princess Kate or someone who goes to Princeton might wear. I have to talk her into something above her knees, something without long sleeves and a drop waist. We settle on a tight, asymmetrical black sheath that has one long sleeve and one bare arm. It shows one smooth shoulder and one peek of collarbone, but leaves the other side fully covered. It’s a great compromise between slutty and nun.
After we settle on the dress, we splurge and eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Charlotte treats. But eventually the talk of all things Josh wears on me and I develop a dull headache. I’m excited for her. I am. I swear I am.
“I’m going to get my nails done tomorrow. Do you want to come?”
I don’t say no, but I avoid giving her an answer right away. All day our conversations have been dominated by Josh and homecoming and … Josh. The two of them have been texting back and forth the whole time like they are getting paid by the word, which means I can hardly finish a sentence without her phone buzzing and her looking down and smiling at something he “said.” At one point she offers to set me up with one of his friends, some rich-kid football player. I politely decline. (“Hell, no” is polite, right?) I have nothing against football players, per se. I just have a problem with pity.
So in the end, even though I know it’s shitty of me, I tell Charlotte that my parents have to go to a wedding and I have to babysit the whole day. No pedicure for me.
I don’t know why I lie.
Or, maybe I do.
Chapter 12