MIDNIGHT BLUE
“That dress is practically made of stars,” Will said.
We were lying on our backs on a blanket, staring at the blue sky above. Two glasses, half-f of champagne, were within reach. The prom was later on tonight but we weren’t going, despite Krupa’s pleas and Kecia’s protests. Will and I had other things to celebrate—it was our anniversary of sorts. On this day seven months ago, Will and I had planted a bed of peony roots on a warm, sun-drenched afternoon. Now, next to us, a new flower garden was bursting with life, pink and white peonies blooming across plants that had grown and flourished this spring. Earlier, when I’d gone into my closet searching for just the right thing to wear for this special occasion of our own, I knew immediately that I’d wear the dress.
That
dress.
I smiled and turned to Will, our faces close enough to kiss.
“You’re gorgeous, Rose,” he said simply, as if this were obvious, and my cheeks flushed.
“I’ve always called this the dress made of night. It was my mother’s.”
“A dress made of night. That’s really beautiful. Thank you for wearing it.”
“I only needed the right occasion.”
Will took a sip of champagne. “I think I have another name for it.”
“For what? The dress?”
“Mm-hm,” he said between sips, then put the flute down. He gathered a handful of the soft chiffon, shifting it slightly, watching as it glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. “Maybe it’s a wishing dress.”
I sat up farther. “I like that,” I said, and thought about my mother, who would have loved the idea. “It goes well with the star in my Survival Kit.”
Will began to count, his fingers moving along the dress.
I laughed as I watched him. “What are you doing?”
“Counting potential wishes,” he said.
“That’s a lot of wishes. It would be difficult to think of that many.”
“I can think of a few already. Easily.” Will paused his count to grin and leaned toward me, kissing my lips. “There goes one,” he said after pulling back.
“If all your wishes are for a kiss, you’ve probably gotten enough for at least half the stars on this dress in the last few weeks.”
“But what about the other half?” Will asked, and kissed me again. When we stopped for breath, out of my mouth came a wish I hadn’t anticipated, one that a few months ago I never would have dared say out loud.
“I wish,” I began, then looked away, thinking a moment. “I wish that my mother could see us. I wish she had lived to see me wear her favorite dress, just once. And I wish, most of all, that she would know I’m okay.”
Will took my other hand. “I wish for that, too, Rose. For you and your mom. For me and my dad.” He smiled a sad, faraway smile.
“Maybe they do know,” I said.
“Maybe,” Will said, running his fingertip up my bare arm to my shoulder and sending a shiver up my spine. “I’m glad
I
get to see you in your dress,” he whispered, his finger tracing the line along my jaw.
“Me, too,” I said, wondering if he was going to kiss me again.
Will stopped, his mouth inches away from mine.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know if I should.” His voice shifted from serious to playful.
“You always should,” I said, playing with his fingers, a happy smile working its way back onto my face.
“You know how you thought all my wishes were for a kiss?”
“Yes,” I said, wanting him to continue, curious what he was about to say.
“Well, one of my wishes may have been for something other than a kiss.”
“Really.”
“Really,” he said.
“Okay. So … tell me. I’m listening.”
Will was silent at first, making me wait. Then he blurted, “Do you want to go to the prom?”
“You’re asking me now? It’s barely a couple of hours away!”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled all the way to his eyes.
“You’re serious.”
“I am. And if you’re still in the mood to grant wishes …” He trailed off, his eyes so blue they matched the sky.
“
You
want to go to
the prom
?” I asked, as if I hadn’t heard it the first or second time. “We don’t even have tickets.”
“Actually …” Will reached into his pocket and pulled out two slender tickets, silver calligraphy shining across them. “Krupa may have thought ahead—”
“Krupa?”
“—these were in the Survival Kit she gave me.” He placed them on the blanket.
“Oh, Krupa. Of course, Krupa would do that.”
“Listen, you’re already dressed for it.” He stood up and walked over to the garden, bent down, surveying the peonies. Then he carefully snapped a flower from the bottom of its stem. “And now you have flowers. Sorry, one flower, but it’s a beauty. And I can always pick a few more.” He held it out to me, endless layers of silky white petals edged in bright pink curled up into a delicate bowl filled with even more petals. I took it from his hand, stared into its center, so big and full and perfect it didn’t seem real.
“I don’t know,” I said, hesitant.
“Come on. All our friends are going. Tamika is going with Joe, Mary with Tim, and by some miracle Krupa is going with that linebacker you like so much—what’s his name?”
“Tony.”
“So your best friend Krupa is going with linebacker Tony, which I know makes you happy because you said as much, and your brother”—Will let these two syllables hang in the air a moment, to let them sink in—“is going with Kecia.”
“I know,” I said with lingering disbelief.
“It’s practically the oldest story in the book.”
“What is?”
“You know, the cheerleader and the hockey player, they date, fall in love, go to prom. It’s classic high school, you and me.”
I took another peony from Will’s hand, gathering it together with the others he kept handing to me. “I think you’re a little mixed up. The cheerleader, sure, but she dates and falls in love with the football player. It’s never the hockey player. When have you ever seen a movie or read a book where it’s a cheerleader and a hockey player?” My grin begged for a response. “Besides, I’m not a cheerleader anymore.”
“Well, in my version of this classic high school story, the cheerleader—sorry, the former cheerleader—is named Rose Madison, and she does not end up with the quarterback. She falls in love with the right wing forward on the hockey team, whose name happens to be Will Doniger.” He brought me another flower.
I studied the bouquet in my hands, hundreds of delicate petals spilling into other ones, lines of pink streaking across white, red melting into fuchsia, and when I looked at Will again I asked, “They fall in love, do they?”
He nodded ever so slightly. “So what do you say, Rose?”
Now it was my turn to go into the garden and search for another flower, this time a smaller one, a thick bud, all white edged with only the green of the stem at the bottom. Carefully, I snapped it with my fingers. “This one is for you,” I said, and walked over to Will, who was waiting for my answer. I threaded the stem into the buttonhole of his shirt.
Will stared at me. “Do I get an official answer or only a vague one?”
“Yes, I’ll go to the prom with you. I have to, right? Apparently, it’s the oldest story in the book. The former cheerleader and the hockey player. You know the one I’m talking about,” I said, and took Will’s hand and led him toward the house.
DREAMS
“Oh, Rose, stop being coy,” Grandma Madison said, shaking her head.
Jim, Kecia, Will, and I were discussing prom logistics while Grandma, Dad, and Mrs. Doniger cornered us with cameras in the backyard among the gardens. “You drove your mother crazy about wearing that dress, and now that you are in it we are going to get a picture.”
I rolled my eyes.
Will squeezed my hand. “Come on. Make everybody happy and smile.”
“Now, you,” Grandma barked at him. “Yes, you, the invisible truck driver,” she added, giving me a wicked grin. “Go stand next to Rose over there by the stone bench and smile like you mean it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Will said.
“I am not to be called ma’am. My name is Maggie,” she crabbed.
“Well, I also have a name. It’s Will,” he shot back.
Everyone stopped. We held our breath, waiting to see what
Grandma would say next, but she just smiled at him. “I like this one, Rose. He’s got spunk. Not like that other dolt you dated—”
“Ma, please!” Dad interrupted.
“Oh, like Mr. Will doesn’t know who his competition is.
Was
,” Grandma corrected herself, walking over to him, brushing off his collar and straightening the peony I’d pinned there. “But you are also smart enough to know there is no competition between you and that other boy. Aren’t you?” She looked straight up into Will’s face.
“Yes, Maggie,” he said, smiling.
“Good to hear,” she said, and stepped back again to direct the photo shoot. “Confidence is attractive in a man.”
Two spots of red appeared on his cheeks and Will turned to me, his eyes growing wide. Then he leaned down and gave me a quick peck. The moment our lips touched I heard a click and a cackle from Grandma. “Now, that’s the way to do it. Good boy,” she said to Will.
“Grandma! He’s not a dog,” I protested.
“No, he’s not,” she responded, and whistled.
“Oh my god,” I said, shaking my head, giving her a pleading look. “You are so embarrassing.”
“Okay, kids, let’s get one group shot and off you go,” Dad said, taking over, a fact for which I was grateful. He hobbled to where Grandma and Mrs. Doniger stood to set up the photo, while Kecia, Jim, Will, and I arranged ourselves in front of the peony garden.
“It’s about time you stepped up to do your job, James,” Grandma Madison said to Dad.
“Ma, leave me alone. You’re distracting me from my handsome children and their dates. They don’t want to be late for the prom.” There were several more clicks as we smiled, then laughed, and then made funny faces and poses while Dad snapped pictures. Finally, after more photos than I ever imagined I’d freely agree to, Dad said, “All right. I think I got some good ones. Time to go. Your limo, or your chariot, or however it is you four are getting to the prom, awaits.” Just before we turned to go, he gave Jim and me a hug. “Your mother would have been so proud of you both,” he added in a whisper.
The four of us took off across the yard toward the driveway, where Will’s truck and Jim’s car were parked, my dress, the dress made of stars and wishes and night, trailing along the grass, floating upward with each step. Will’s hand held mine, our fingers loosely clasped together, and like I’d done so many times before this last year, I reached for the passenger door to Will’s truck. He got to it first, opening it for me, and I climbed inside. He made sure all the layers of my dress were tucked safely by my feet before he shut the door and I watched as he walked around to the driver’s side and got in.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I am, right now, taking in this moment. I feel like I need to pinch myself.”
“Why?”
“You and I.” I stopped to let the full effect of the
us
I’d put together with those two words echo in the space around us. “That would be Rose Madison and Will Doniger. We are going to the prom. Together.”
“We definitely are,” he said, and gave me a mischievous smile.
“I never would’ve thought, you know? I never would’ve guessed. This all has been, I mean … I’m just so surprised.”
“I’m not,” Will said, backing out of the driveway and pulling in front of Jim and Kecia, who were waiting in the road to follow us. “Not at all,” he added as we headed on our way.
“This goes out to Rose Madison, by special request,” I heard the DJ say over the mike. When the first bars of “Dreams” by Van Halen blasted through the speakers I shot Will a look.
“What?” He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. Kecia and Krupa burst out laughing and grabbed my hand.
“We can’t dance to this,” I protested, but they continued to drag me out onto the floor where we’d been dancing all night, through slow songs and fast songs, in groups and couples. We sang at the top of our lungs, occasionally embarrassing our dates with our bad voices—well, except for Krupa.
I couldn’t believe the prom was this much fun.
Later on, when Chris Williams was crowned Prom King,
which came as no surprise to anyone, and a girl I thought might be a sophomore or even a freshman was crowned Prom Queen, my friends all turned to me.
“Why,” I said, “are you guys looking at me like that?”
Kecia spoke first. “Isn’t it obvious?” She nodded toward the wide-open space the crowd had formed for Chris and his queen to have their special dance. “That used to be you. Last year, you were
that
girl.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not
that
girl anymore,” I said, watching the way she looked up at Chris while they danced. I recognized her, saw an old version of myself in her face, and felt relieved to be in a different place now. I hoped he was happy. “While you guys ogle the royalty over there, Will and I,” I said, taking Will’s hand, beginning to lead him away from the group, “are going to go find a dark corner.”
“We are?” he asked, following after me, both of us glancing back at our friends—Krupa, Tony, Kecia and my brother, and Mary and Tamika, who had already ditched their dates. Will gave everyone a happy sort of shrug. “I guess we are,” he said, and soon it was Will pulling me along to a spot against the wall that the lights didn’t reach, where we stayed for a long time, during so many songs I stopped counting.
So on that night in May, I found out just the sort of girl I’d become over this year—the one who went to the prom after all and danced the night away with her friends. The girl who hung out with the cheerleaders and dated the star of the hockey team.
The girl whose mother died last year, too early and tragically, a reality that would always bring more sadness than it seemed reasonable to bear. Yet little by little, I was also becoming the girl who was learning to live with this, all of it, letting it weave together with everything else, the good and the bad, as life moved forward, because that’s what life did, regardless of whether we were ready for it or not. Before, last spring, when everything began to unravel, it never occurred to me that the girl I’d always been in high school could bend and shift and change without breaking altogether.
But the girl I am now,
this
girl—she survived.
I just needed a little help getting here.