Her Name in the Sky (24 page)

It’s about 15 minutes later that Hannah notices Baker and Clay on the dance floor. Baker faces away from Hannah, her back muscles visible as she strains to reach her arms around Clay’s neck. Clay’s talking to her, his whole face lit up with happiness, his boutonniere fastened a little lopsidedly on his tuxedo jacket. Hannah’s heart starts to ache more acutely than it has all night as she watches them dance.

“So you know what my mom said to me before I left tonight?” Wally asks.

“What?” Hannah says, glad for the distraction.

“She said, ‘Hannah is much more beautiful than I was at 17, so you make sure you treat her well.’”

Hannah laughs. “Your mom’s gorgeous.”

“Try telling her that.”

“I have. But that was nice of her to say.”

Wally’s mouth lifts in a gentle smile. “You are beautiful, though.”

Hannah blushes, feeling touched that he would say that, but also sad that it doesn’t matter.

Hannah and Wally dance on and off for an hour, lost in the middle of the crowd. Hannah watches Mackenzie dance with Jackson, Lisa dance with Bryce, Ellie Thomas dance with Michael Ramby. She even watches Michele dance with Cooper, though Michele scowls over his shoulder, her eyes on Clay and Baker.

Father Simon nods curtly at Hannah and Wally whenever he walks by. Ms. Carpenter smiles at them from her position on the edge of the dance floor. Clay catches their attention once or twice, but Baker never acknowledges them.

“Alright…” the deejay says, his voice hovering somewhere between manufactured enthusiasm and genuine boredom, “if I can have everyone gather ‘round, it’s now time for the Prom King and Queen announcement.”

The sea of students turns toward the deejay platform, and several people break out into applause and whooping. “That’s right,” the deejay says, “…very exciting moment for everyone here.”

Mr. Manceau waddles up to the deejay booth, rings of sweat darkening the underarms of his chartreuse button-down shirt. He hands a sealed envelope to the deejay and whispers something in his ear; the deejay nods his head a couple of times while the student body waits eagerly for the big reveal.

“Okay, here we go,” the deejay says, his voice affecting more enthusiasm. “When I call out the Prom King and Queen’s names, please step up here to the booth, where Mrs. Shackleford and Mr. Manceau will crown you. The official King and Queen dance will follow that. Y’all ready?”

The crowd responds with a heavy cheer and an ever-increasing amount of clapping. Hannah claps her hands limply together, feeling misgivings in her stomach.

“Your 2012 St. Mary’s Prom King is…” the deejay says, inflecting his voice on the last few words, “…Mr. Clay Landry.”

A huge cheer goes up around the ballroom. Hannah looks to her right and sees Clay, his smile too big for his face, standing momentarily frozen as he lets the moment soak in. The guys all around him, most of whom are other football players, clap him on the back and shove him forward toward the deejay booth.

“Nice job, man,” the deejay says, seeming like he’s just going through the motions. “How do you feel? Nervous?”

“Hell no,” Clay calls as he walks to the booth, and a great roar of laughter and applause follows his assertion. Hannah hears more whooping from some of the football players.

“Are we allowed to say that at a Catholic prom?” the deejay asks, glancing toward Mrs. Shackleford and Mr. Manceau and sounding truly amused for the first time all night. Mrs. Shackleford, standing with her arms folded, rolls her eyes but lifts her shoulders in a defeated gesture. Mr. Manceau frowns and tugs up the waistband of his pants.

“I didn’t think so,” the deejay continues, clearly trying to stir the pot now. “Maybe we should send this Prom King to Confession?”

“Get to the Prom Queen!” someone in the back yells out, and the surrounding students clap and echo his sentiment.

“Alright, alright. Just having some fun. Well, St. Mary’s, your 2012 Prom Queen is…”

Hannah’s stomach clenches.

“Miss Baker Hadley!”

A deafening roar goes up around the room. Wally cheers very loudly next to Hannah, pounding his hands together, and Hannah, standing there and feeling like she’s watching this moment from above the dance floor, experiences a strange bittersweet feeling, like she wants to fall on the floor crying but run to Baker and hug her at the same time. Baker walks to the front of the crowd, her smile somehow both nervous and confident, mouthing thanks to the classmates who cheer her on. She walks to join Clay at the deejay booth, and Hannah’s stomach surges upward to meet her heart with a feeling of love and pride. 

But the feeling extinguishes as soon as Clay leans forward to hug Baker and the student body responds with even more amplified applause. Mrs. Shackleford and Mr. Manceau walk forward, shaking hands with both Baker and Clay, and then Mr. Manceau hands the crowns to Mrs. Shackleford, who places them carefully on top of Clay and Baker’s heads.

“Let’s hear it for your King and Queen!” the deejay shouts into his microphone, and the student body whoops and hollers and smacks their hands together, and someone on the far side of the room shouts “Get it, Landry!”, and both Clay and Baker laugh, their whole faces shining like it’s the happiest day of their life.

Then music starts to play, and the deejay signals to Clay that he should lead Baker to the dance floor. The students all around them part down the middle, and Clay steps forward with his hand clutching Baker’s. He takes her right hand in his left and places his other hand around her waist; she wraps an arm around his neck and allows him to lead her in a slow dance. Hannah stands rooted to the spot, easily able to see them from her vantage point on the front ring of the crowd. She watches her classmates’ reactions—how the girls look hungrily but fondly on the scene; how the guys nudge each other and mutter under their breath, probably joking about how they’re glad it’s not them who has to dance in front of everyone; how Michele Duquesne, standing on the far side of the crowd, clenches her jaw. Abby Frasier, one of Hannah’s friends since freshman year, who stands just behind Hannah and watches the dance as if transfixed by magic, turns to Julia Grey and whispers, “Baker’s so lucky. Can you imagine how amazing she must feel right now?”

Hannah wants so badly to leave, to run outside and gulp down fresh air. Her throat is tight with a choking sensation; her stomach aches so badly that she wants to throw up. But several girls are looking at her, gauging the reaction of the Prom Queen’s best friend, even if they haven’t seen Hannah and Baker interact much lately; so Hannah fixes her face into a happy expression, forcing herself to look absolutely delighted and proud, to look as if she cannot imagine anything better for her best friend, to take in the sight before her as if it’s heartening her rather than killing her.

Finally the dance ends, and Baker pulls gently away from Clay. Clay runs a hand through his hair and grins down at her, his entire countenance suggesting that he’s the luckiest guy on the earth.

“Okay, thank you to Clay and Baker,” the deejay resumes. “I’ve got a few more songs for you, St. Mary’s, and then it’ll be time to wrap up this night. So enjoy these next few gems and dance with your date as long as you can.”

He plays Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” Wally checks Hannah’s expression, raising his eyebrows playfully to ask
Shall we?
, so Hannah wraps her arms around his neck again and allows him to sway her where they stand.

They’re halfway through the song when she sees it. Baker and Clay, still dancing in the middle of the dance floor, are kissing. Baker’s chin is tilted up to meet Clay’s mouth, and Clay’s hands are low on her back, and they’re truly, freely, eagerly making out.

“Don’t feel well,” Hannah says, jerking away from Wally. She turns on the spot and hurries off the dance floor, toward the double doors that lead to the hotel lobby. She rushes down a hallway until she finds an exit, and almost as soon as she’s out the door, she retches all over a patch of plants near the parking lot.

She falls against the building, her body weak and broken. She gasps for breath, begging it into her lungs, wanting so badly to clean these anguished feelings from her body. Cars rush past on the interstate across from the hotel, and Hannah wishes she was in one of them, heading somewhere far away.

Eventually, once she’s able to catch her breath, she walks shakily to the sidewalk and sits down upon it, even though she knows her dress will snag on the concrete. She wraps her arms around her knees and demands that her mind think of something else, anything else, other than the images that keep floating to its surface: Baker grabbing Clay’s arm at the picture party—Baker dancing with Clay in the middle of the dance floor—Baker kissing Clay, kissing him with those same lips that have kissed Hannah—

Please make it stop. Please take it away. Why can’t you just take it away. What am I doing wrong. Why did you give me these feelings. Please help me. Please.

“Han? You okay?”

It’s Wally, come to check on her. He lingers in the hotel doorway, his expression concerned but confused at the same time.

“Yeah,” she says, steadying her breath, smiling as nonchalantly as she can. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got overheated.”

“You want me to sit with you for a little while?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

They sit next to each other on the sidewalk, Wally’s shiny black shoes splayed out before him, Hannah’s dress scratching on the concrete. They listen to the cars racing past in front of them.

“You sure you’re alright?” Wally asks after a minute.

“I am. You want to go catch the last dance?”

He shakes his head. “Sitting out here is fine with me.” 

They follow a long line of cars to Clay’s house for the afterparty, and Hannah, feeling relaxed from Wally’s soothing company and from the ever-growing distance between them and the hotel ballroom, starts to feel marginally better. Dr. and Mrs. Landry greet the procession of teenagers at the front door. “Boys’ things in the guest room, girls’ things upstairs,” Mrs. Landry recites, hugging Wally and Hannah and a few others, while Dr. Landry stands behind her with a glass of wine. “There’s water and Coke in the coolers!”

The house feels as crowded as prom did, but everything is brighter and closer. Hannah weaves her way through the hallway, saying hi to some of her friends, Wally following behind her and echoing the hellos, occasionally placing a hand on the small of her back.

“Let’s go outside,” Wally says. “There are too many people in here.”

The backyard is blissfully quiet—a welcome change from the loud music of prom and the booming bass in Clay’s family room. Wally takes off his shoes and dress socks and rolls up his pants. “Come on,” he says, extending a hand to Hannah, “let’s take a ride on the swings.” 

She kicks off her high heels and hitches up her dress, then takes his extended hand. His palms are sweaty but warm, and she allows him to lead her across the dewy grass toward the swing set. He waits for her to sit down on the left swing; she tucks her dress under her and wraps her arms around the chains. He smiles and sits down upon the other swing, and then, wordlessly, they both kick off the dirt and start to swing up and down, surging higher and higher, lengthening their arcs each time, balanced by the two wooden triangular structures on either side of them.

“I’m trying to get in sync with you,” Wally laughs, “but I can’t.”

“That’s about the hardest thing in the world.”

“Wait for it,” Wally says, holding up his hand, daring her with his eyes. She watches as his body hiccups on the swing, so that he slows the arc of his swing to more closely match hers, and a few seconds later, after another hiccup, their swings move in sync so that they are perfectly paralleling each other, even down to the lift of their bare feet. And Hannah remembers, with a jolt, what she and Joanie and the neighborhood kids used to call this phenomenon when they were younger.

Look! We’re married!

The memory startles her, so that her whole body falls out of rhythm and she loses her momentum. The synchrony between she and Wally breaks very suddenly. “Shit!” Wally yells, his voice brimming with laughter. “Catch up!”

She pumps her legs and arms hard, trying to recover from her mess up. She mimics Wally’s hiccup maneuver, but she doesn’t pull it off right: the gap between their swings grows more pronounced. “Han!” Wally calls, still laughing, and she yells, “I’m trying!”, her voice pouring forth more desperately than she realized it would. She pumps her legs harder and harder and grows more and more frustrated, until Wally eventually does his hiccup maneuver again and restores their synchrony.

“Yo!” a voice shouts from the house. They whip their heads up to see a tall figure illuminated by the lights outside the door. It’s Clay, his tuxedo gone and replaced by his normal clothes. “Stop flirting and get in here!” he shouts at them. “You’re missing the party!”

“We’re coming, you dick!” Wally yells back.

Clay swats his arm over the air as if to say
Yeah, yeah
, and then he turns back into the house and shuts the door behind him. Wally and Hannah slow their swinging until they reach a gradual stop, both of them kicking up dirt in the process. “I’m gonna ruin my pedicure,” Hannah says, scrunching up her face, “but I don’t really give a shit.”