OCDaniel (6 page)

“All ready for the big dance?”

She rolled her eyes. “If I have to talk about it one more time, I'm changing schools.”

I laughed. “Agreed. I saw you at the game on Saturday. You don't usually come.”

“I know,” she said. “I went against my better judgment. Taj asked.”

I stiffened just a little, my eyes flicking over to him. “Makes sense.”

We were silent for a moment.

“You did a nice job with the Gatorade.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It's an art form, you know. Most important job by far.”

Raya giggled, shaking her head. “Naturally. You'll be critical in the play-offs.”

Why was I talking about football again? I thought back to Steve's advice—be smart.

“So,” I said, “what do you think about the new policy on Iran? A bit pragmatic, right?”

She frowned. “Where did that come from?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I just thought you would be interested. Not really anyone I can talk to about that stuff, you know? You seemed like you would know about it.”

“I'm not Iranian,” she said, sounding a bit terse. “I'm Indian.”

“I know . . . I just meant . . .”

She forced a smile. “No big deal. Not too into politics. Clara, what are you doing?”

She turned away, launching into conversation with Clara about her jeans.

That had gone well.

  •  •  •  

“So your mom is going to grab me at seven?” Max asked during history. It was the Tuesday of the dance.

“Yeah,” I replied. “But you know it starts at seven, right?”

He snorted. “Do you really want to be there on time?”

“No?” I guessed.

“Of course not. I'd go even later, but it's only two hours long anyway.”

Mr. Keats was talking in the background about the Constitution. No one was listening. I saw Clara looking over at Max hopefully. She had turned down, like, five invitations already in the hopes that Max would still ask her. She looked like a Barbie doll today. Her hair was in elaborate curls, and her skin looked oddly smooth and shiny.

Max noticed her and looked away.

“Are you going to dance with her tonight?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe. We'll see how it goes.”

I had to ask. “Do you really not like her? I mean, she's vapid, crass, and sardonic—”

Max raised his eyebrows.

“She's mean,” I said. “But she's also pretty.”

Max looked uncomfortable. He did that sometimes when I talked about Clara.

“Yeah, she's cute,” he agreed. “But she's just not my type. Like you said . . . she's mean.”

“Not to you.”

He looked at me. “And has she ever said two words to you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “ ‘Where's Max?' ”

He snorted and turned back to the board. “We'll see. Are you wearing anything nice?”

“Dress pants and a collared shirt,” I said, suddenly alarmed that we hadn't discussed this yet. “Are you wearing jeans or something?”

“Mom wouldn't let me. Try not to wear a blue shirt. We don't need to be dates and twins.”

“Right.” On to my second shirt choice.

As we were leaving school that afternoon, Clara delayed extra long, and Max just walked right by her. Raya gave me a little smile, and then I saw Taj give her a little smile, and I quickly turned away.

“See you tonight, Space Cadet,” Max said.

“See ya,” I said, heading off to find Emma.

It was a Tuesday. It had to be a good day, right?

  •  •  •  

It takes me a long time to get ready for events. Today I actually had to think about my outfit, so it was not helping.

I had cosmopolitan.com opened on my computer, along with, at least five men's style sites.

I stared in the mirror, turning right and left and eyeing my reflection carefully. Blue was definitely my color. It matched my eyes, and cosmopolitan.com said the eyes were the most important thing to girls. But Max had already called it. I grimaced and took off the blue shirt, flipping through my closet.

I only had five dress shirts, and three were blue. There was also one black and one taupe.

Checking the men's fashion sites, I saw that black wasn't really in style. There was nothing about taupe. I tried both shirts on ten times and then finally settled on taupe. It was fabulously neutral.

  •  •  •  

My mom inspected me before I left. She fixed my hair with nervous hands.

“You need a trim,” she said, tucking my tufts of blond hair behind my ears. “Are you sleeping all right? You look sick. It's those circles under your eyes. And you're so pale. You look like a ghost.”

“This isn't helping.”

She stepped back and smiled. “But you're still so handsome. You sure you won't wear blue?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “Fine. Let's go.”

She gave me pointers the entire way there. “Girls like p's and q's, no matter what they say. Being polite goes a long way,” she said. “You have to dance. Girls love a dancer. They don't like the guy in the corner.” She looked at me sternly.

“And remember. The quiet girls in the corner probably want to dance too. Don't always go after the pretty ones.”

This was all fairly horrifying, of course, so I just sat there silently. We picked up Max, and as he was walking toward the car, she turned to me and said, “See how good he looks in blue?”

I sighed.

“Hey, Mrs. Leigh,” he said, jumping into the car. “Daniel, love the color.”

We pulled up in front of the school, and my mom looked at me.

“Have fun, you two. You sure your mom is okay to pick you guys up?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “She can't wait to ask me all about it.”

My mom laughed. “I'm sure. Now get in there. You're late.”

We piled out and walked inside. School is weird at night. It's exciting for some reason, since I always think it just doesn't exist when we're not in class.

We reached the gym, handed in our tickets, and walked inside.

That's when it all went wrong.

I'm not sure I like the idea of fate. It kind of means you don't have a choice. Or you can make choices, but they'll still bring you to the same place. I like the idea of choice, because I don't get to do it much. Once I tried to not brush my teeth the correct amount of times. And most people would probably say that was an easy thing to do, but for me it was like lying down on some train tracks waiting for a train to hit me, and I heard it rumble and I knew I could get up, and so I did, because why would I want to be hit by a train? So of course I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

The dance looked like fun. It was in the gym, but it was dark enough that everyone kind of looked the same, and there were lights set up, flitting around like multicolored birds. The music was loud and a few people were even dancing. One of them was Mrs. Lenner, who was really loud and wore a lot of yellow and orange outfits.

Principal Frost was watching in the corner, looking agitated.

I looked around, and saw that Raya was there already. She looked beautiful.

She was wearing a dress. I didn't think she wore dresses. Hers was purple. Her hair was tied back, and I think she had lip gloss on or something, because her lips sparkled.

“Raya looks good,” Max said, sounding bemused.

“Yeah,” I managed.

“Pull it together, Space Cadet,” he said. “Let's go find the guys.”

I followed him, but my eyes didn't. They were locked on Raya. I never realized how much I liked the color purple.

Raya saw me and smiled. I smiled and then quickly turned away. I was glad it was dark.

“What up, Max?” Taj said, wearing a white dress shirt that was way too small.

How did he have so many muscles?

“You know,” Max said, standing beside him and looking out at the crowd. “Good crowd.”

Taj nudged Max. “Check out Clara.”

We both looked. Even I was impressed.

Her blond ringlets spilled all the way down her back and over a sky-blue dress.

“Wow,” I said.

“Wow indeed,” Max replied, giving her a little wave. “I didn't know this was the prom.”

Taj snorted. “You should go talk to her.”

“Maybe later,” he said. “Let's go join the group.”

“I'll catch up,” Taj said. “Tom and I are working on a little routine. ‘Billie Jean,' baby.”

Max laughed and shook his head. “I can hardly wait.”

I felt my cheeks getting even hotter as we got closer to Raya. She was standing with Ashley, and Clara appeared almost instantly, flashing her gleaming white teeth.

“Hey, Max,” she said. “Love the shirt.”

He smiled. “You look nice. Like a princess or something.”

I thought she was going to faint, she looked so happy. “It's just a thing I had in the closet.”

“Hey, Dan,” Raya said. “Love your shirt too.”

Max smirked. I fixed my collar. “Just a thing I had in my dad's closet.”

Clara gave me an annoyed look and then walked right past me to talk to Max, laughing at a joke he hadn't even told yet. I stepped a bit closer to Raya to get out of her way.

“Hey,” I said nervously. “I just wanted to apologize—”

“No,” she said. “I need to apologize. I was being stupid. I'm just, like . . . the only Indian girl in the school, and I get a little sensitive sometimes. We're good.”

“Good,” I said. “Having fun yet?”

Raya rolled her eyes. “The best. Loud music and boys staring at me across the gym like I might attack them. I do like watching Mrs. Lenner dance, though. That will probably be the highlight of my night.”

“If our dates don't stop clowning around,” Ashley agreed, who was Tom's date. “I'm going to go see if that dufus plans on coming over here tonight or just dancing in the corner with his boyfriend.”

She stormed off, leaving me with Raya. I loved dances. Everyone was so preoccupied.

“So how's your date going?” she asked me, looking at Max.

“Pretty good,” I said. “I mean, my mom picked him up, and I forgot a corsage, so not great.”

She giggled. “Better than mine. Taj's older brother picked us up in a Camaro and told him to have fun while winking at me. It almost made me vomit.”

“That would have been bad for the Camaro.”

“I know. So did your mom comb your hair for you?”

I paused. “She fixed it. I did most of the original combing.”

She reached over and messed it up a little. The touch sent shivers right down to my feet.

“Too much combing. I like it like you haven't slept in a week because you were writing a novel.”

I glanced at her. “How do you know I like to write?”

“Because you do it sometimes when no one is looking.” She smiled. “Or so you thought.”

This was the greatest conversation of my life. Clara and Max rejoined the group, but my arms didn't stop tingling for a second. We stood there and talked until Clara pulled Raya away to the bathroom.

“How happy?” Max asked.

“Twelve.”

“I thought so.” He watched Clara disappear into the bathroom. “She wants to dance.”

“So dance.”

He looked at me. “I don't like her.”

“She looks like Cinderella.”

“And she talks like the evil stepmother.”

I snorted. “So don't marry her. Just dance with her and act like Prince Charming.”

“And if she wants to go out or something?”

“Disappear at midnight.”

He sighed and turned to the bathroom. “Yeah.”

“Buck up,” I said. “And I need to go to the bathroom too. I drank five pops before I came.”

“Why?” he asked, laughing.

“Nervous drinker,” I replied. “I'll be back.”

I hurried off to the bathroom, practically gliding across the gym. Raya had talked to me and touched my hair. She knew I liked to write. She'd said she liked my hair messy.

My brain was so busy, it didn't even worry about the lines of the floor. I stepped on the half-court line. I never step on the half-court line. It's red and highly ominous.

I was almost to the bathroom when I saw Sara sitting at a table. Miss Lecky was beside her. Sara's dark hair was curled, and she was wearing a green blouse and dress pants. She was just sitting there, her eyes glazed over while Miss Lecky texted. Maybe Sara's parents thought it was good for her to get out.

We met eyes for a moment, but she didn't say anything this time. She just watched me.

It was unnerving, and I felt her eyes on me all the way to the bathroom. But when I turned back, she was staring at nothing again, the bright lights playing tricks on her face. I wondered where her mind went when she stared.

I guess I took a long time. I was nervous, so it took me a while to pee, and then I fixed my hair for five minutes to try to make it look messy, which I know is ironic, but there are certain types of messy. When I was finally satisfied that I looked like an exhausted writer, I emerged from the bathroom.

I stopped.

Raya was on the dance floor with Taj. Obviously Ashley had succeeded in getting the two boys to pay attention to them, because she was dancing with Tom as well. That was one thing, but Raya was having fun. She was laughing and letting Taj put his arm around her back, and then they were dancing close and then doing something like the funky chicken, and then they were close again.

I'd never seen her laugh like that. When she laughed with me it was quiet, smart laughter. I'd thought that was her laugh. But this was different. It was fun and loud. I felt the heartache again.
You're not good enough. You messed up.
My stomach started to hurt, my breathing didn't feel right, my skin went cold. I looked for Max, but he was dancing with Clara.