“Who would have thought, you and me going to prom,” Bobby said.
“You’re not my date, Freak,” she said, and looked over at him. “You’re my escort …”
Hilary lost her breath when she saw Bobby. He was as dejected as she thought he’d be, but the idiotic black stain that had covered his head was gone. Bobby looked like he used to look, before the quarantine. Baby blue polo shirt, floppy blond hair, and a backpack worn high and tight. She’d forgotten how preppy he used to be. Catalog perfect.
The entire hallway transformed. It sparkled like it had on the first day of school. The floor shined. The paint on the lockers was fresh. Every ceiling light worked and the hallway was bright as day from one end to the other.
She looked back at the people in her wake who had been commanded to keep their distance—the Freaks and the Pretty Ones and Varsity. They filled the hall, but their blue and yellow hair was gone. Instead, she saw natural hair color, of every variety. Every outfit looked fresh and new like they’d just been to the mall with their parents’ credit cards. It was a new year, and everyone wanted to make a big first impression. Hilary was thrown off by the innocence of their faces. They still had their baby chub. Their eyes were naive and unguarded. Some of them were girls who hadn’t left her side in years, and she barely recognized them.
“Ready for your grand entrance?” Bobby said.
He stood at the closed double doors to the commons, ready to pull them open for her. The prom waited for her on the other side. Bobby was sparkling. She was waiting for her hallucination to break, but it didn’t. She wondered if maybe she’d gone too far down the rabbit hole. Maybe she should skip her prom and head straight to the quad to be lifted out.
But what a waste of a dress. What a waste of an updo. Of a precision makeup job. Of an opportunity to be the most important girl in the world.
“Open the doors,” she said.
As the doors opened, she forgot her worry. Springtime’s colors flooded her eyes. Where the commons should have been, was a meadow in bloom. A gust of wind blew a cloud of flower petals, leaves, and pollen spinning past her. The meadow’s grass was silky and verdant and it swayed slowly, like sea grass. Thousand-year-old birch trees with wide trunks were spread across the meadow, and their high branches intertwined overhead, providing cover from the blazing sun. Dappled light shined down through the breaks in the branches and it made the grass glow lime green in spots, and made the tops of people’s heads flare bright like they were catching fire.
Everyone was dressed worse than her. Every girl, in every gang, had inferior hair. Their makeup either tried too hard or not enough. They were all riddled with flaws. Fat upper arms, premature wrinkles, acne, enormous thighs, lopsided tits, no tits, weak chins, hook noses, beady eyes, huge foreheads, low foreheads, hairy arms, cavewoman eyebrows, tacky nails, recycled dresses, dirty sneakers, stubby fingers, girl mustaches, blubber asses.
This was heaven.
She switched her focus to the boys. Their clothes were all stupid but she didn’t care. What mattered was the way they were looking at her. Some smoldered. They wanted to ravage her body. The others had pleading, helpless eyes that told her they knew they’d never be good enough for her. Both reactions were wonderful, and together it was like a chocolate vanilla swirl of soft-serve.
A gathering wind ruffled her dress. Leaves began to blow off the trees and get caught in the vortex of wind circling the meadow. The vortex spun slowly all around them. Hilary and the others were standing in the eye of a lazy hurricane. A light flashed in the corner of her eye. There for an instant and then gone. She saw another flash. A sparkle.
There were mirrors flying through the air. First just a few, then there were a hundred. No matter where the mirrors were in the hurricane wind, they were facing her at all times. A hundred reflections of Hilary. From every angle, from every height, she was perfection. There was no point of view from which she looked bad. It wasn’t possible.
She tugged on Will’s leash. It was time to dance. With the first swing of her hips, the mirrors shattered to dust. The music came blasting in. She pointed her gun out in front of her and spun, so everyone would know to give her space. The other kids backed up without question, and the center of the grassy dance floor was hers.
Hilary knew how to move. She based all of her dance moves on the positions that showed off her features the best. She simply transitioned between her favorite poses to the beat. Every slight movement was a gift to her audience, allowing them to see a new aspect of her precious form. She hoped they were grateful for the chance to look at her, to be moved by her grace, by her limitless beauty. They should be happy … because I am happy. She knew that the light that she had inside was shining on them now, and they all felt it. They’d remember this night forever.
They watched her, encircled her, but didn’t dare to come close. Soon she could see nothing but their eyes. The mirrors, and the meadow, and the wind faded away until there were only eyes. Jealous eyes. Heartbroken eyes. Awestruck eyes. Then, she could no longer see their expressions. They became disembodied eyeballs, floating at head height. Wet Ping-Pong balls with capillaries and corneas. More eyeballs popped into existence. So many that the eyeballs crammed in close to each other to get a look. More and more appeared, until they were so densely packed together that they formed a dome over her, like she was nestled inside a giant igloo, and they stared and stared and stared.
It was, without a doubt, the greatest moment of Hilary’s life.
24
IT WAS CRAMPED IN THE BOTTOM OF THE rolling drink cart, but that was the least of their problems. David was scrunched up into a ball, and so was Lucy, right in front of him. They sat kneecap to kneecap, hugging themselves. A white tablecloth was draped over all four sides of the cart, keeping them hidden. The cart’s wheels rumbled along the dirty floor. Light that came through the white cloth surged and waned as they were rolled past functional ceiling lights.
“Should we look?” Lucy said.
“Better wait for Zachary to give us the cue,” David said.
He wanted to look though. It was killing him not to. The closer he got to the commons, and the closer he was to facing Hilary. He was getting scared.
The cart came to a stop. Zachary lifted the tablecloth and crouched at their level. His gold-dusted hair arced off his head in tendrils and dangled like the branches of a willow tree.
“This is where we say good-bye,” Zachary said. “I will not be making my entrance with a drink cart, thank you very much. I’ll enter first, so that all eyes will be on me when you get pushed in. The cart will be left somewhere safe. When it stops moving, it’s time to get out.”