The Last Boy and Girl in the World (6 page)

Mom was not someone who lied, but in this case, she made an exception. First off, men don't understand how expensive clothes can be, especially not a guy like Dad. But also, for Dad's protection. “He wants the best for you, Keeley,” she assured me. “He hates that he can't contribute. You know how proud the Hewitts are. I think it's in their DNA. I don't want him to feel bad for something out of his control.”

I nodded.

It was a little more than two years ago that Dad fell through the floor of a rotten hayloft while repairing someone's barn. Dropped twenty feet onto a cement floor, shattered his hip, and snapped his left femur in half. He had multiple surgeries and steel rods and plates screwed in. He could still walk, but not without a limp, because his leg could no longer bend. That was the last carpenter job he'd taken.

Anyway, none of our conspiring even mattered. When we walked in, Dad was on his computer, and he barely looked up from the screen as he asked, “Dress success?”

“Dress success,” I confirmed, already halfway up the stairs.

Saturday, May 14

Heavy rainfall, possible flood conditions, high of 43°F

On the morning of Spring Formal, I woke up early at Morgan's house, as if we had school. Except I wasn't groggy or begging for another five minutes of sleep, like on a school day. As soon as I opened my eyes, possible texts that I might send to Jesse Ford burst inside my brain like popcorn, hundreds of different funny-yet-flirty ways to say good morning.

I settled on taking a “before” picture with my hair extra mussed up and wild, my eyes half open and heavy-lidded, mouth open in a lion-size pretend yawn. Right as I took it, Morgan lifted her head off the pillow and squinted away from the glow of my phone screen. It was still dark out because of the storm. Actually, I don't think the sun ever came out that day.

She sleepily said, “Let him text you first, Keeley.”

I laughed dryly, like Morgan had it wrong. “I'm just sending him a stupid joke. No declarations of love or anything like that.” Even though, in my own weird language, that was exactly what every text I sent to Jesse was.

Morgan tried to take my phone away, but her arms were heavy and floppy and I easily outmaneuvered her. She eventually rolled back over to the wall. “Okay, but remember,” she said through a yawn, “you don't want to make Jesse laugh tonight. You want him to kiss you.”

She was right, of course.

I looked at the picture again. I didn't look cute. I looked crazy.

I quickly deleted it. Then I lay in Morgan's bed and watched the plastic blinds get sucked in and out of her half-open window, watched her ceiling fan spin from the wind outside. I listened to the rain. I went over the instructions I'd found in a beauty magazine on how I should do my eyes. I dreamed about kissing Jesse Ford on my tiptoes, hopefully with his blazer draped over my shoulders to stave off the chill from the rain they were predicting, because in my mind there was no more romantic gesture than when a boy does that for a girl. I silently willed Jesse to text me. To give me a sign that he was thinking about me, too. Or even that he was awake. I would have gladly settled for that.

My phone finally buzzed in the afternoon, while I was sitting in the Dorseys' dining room–turned–salon, Morgan's mom loading my hair up with bobby pins.

Mrs. Dorsey used to have her own salon on Main Street, but after Mr. Dorsey left, she broke the lease to save money and started working from home. She put a hair-washing sink next to the washer and dryer in the mudroom. And she transformed her dining room into a beauty parlor, selling her dining set at a big garage sale and replacing it with a salon chair and mirror.

Morgan pulled up a chair close to me. One hand held a sleeve of Chips Ahoy! for us to share, the other a photo I'd printed off the computer of how I wanted my hair to look so her mom could reference it. I'd figured Morgan would do my hair herself, but she didn't want to take the chance that she'd mess up. The stakes were too high.

Morgan's hair was already finished. Her curls had looked more pageant-y when her mom first unwrapped them from the big barrel curling iron, ribbons of dark chocolate, but they'd already begun to fall out the way Mrs. Dorsey had told us they would, turning looser and beachier by the minute.

Mrs. Dorsey sprayed me with hairspray and turned me around to face the mirror. Mrs. Dorsey mostly did old people's hair around town, and I wasn't sure she'd be able to pull this look off for me, but it came out perfect. She'd parted my hair off to the side, then braided a few pieces and pinned everything into a bun set low and off-center. It was pretty and special, but hopefully not so much so that Jesse would realize how less pretty and un-special my hair normally looked.

Right then, my phone buzzed in my hand. Two texts from Jesse, back to back.

The first was a picture he'd taken of an old photograph. There was a bit of glare from the plastic sleeve, so it must have been inside a photo album. The picture was of a little Jesse, maybe nine or ten, probably taken at some family wedding. Sweaty-headed, surrounded by adults, in the middle of busting a serious move on the dance floor. His arms in a V shape over his head, one foot lifted off the floor, chin jutted forward, eyes closed, mouth open wide enough to see his bottom molars. His hair was white, the center of the sun. Also, little Jesse was wearing a freaking mini-tuxedo.

My heart liquefied, hot wax dripping over my ribs.

His second text said
Warning: This is my body's automatic response to hearing Cupid Shuffle. Just so you'll be ready for me tonight.

I was ready, Jesse Ford. Oh God, was I ready.

My mom was supposed to make it over for pictures, but she got behind seeing patients, so Mrs. Dorsey took some with her phone and texted them to Mom. Mrs. Dorsey also pulled out an old photo album of when she, my mom, and my dad were all in high school together. Spring Formal was called Spring Fling then. My mom looked beautiful. And so young, her hair the color of ginger ale. I'd never seen it that color in real life, only in pictures. This might sound gross, but my dad was a total fox, tall and lean and tan with dark hair and even darker eyebrows. He had his arms folded, his chin lifted, his legs spread apart just slightly. He oozed confidence. In a couple of the shots, I saw my grandparents, and great-grandparents too, all Hewitts, Dad's side. Mom had lost her parents when she was young, and the Hewitts basically adopted her once she and my dad started dating.

Just for kicks, Morgan and I tried to duplicate one of the poses together, where our moms were both doing some kind of weird curtsey to each other. Then Mrs. Dorsey sprinted outside and pulled the car inside their garage so Morgan and I wouldn't get wet climbing in.

At that point, the storm was more annoying than scary, even though it was the one we'd stacked sandbags to prepare for.

Our preparations were different. We were thinking of the dash from her car into the gym. Morgan had on her pea coat, plus a rain poncho on top of that, plus rain boots and matching umbrella. Her silver heels were tucked inside a plastic bag. She also had the genius idea of gathering up her long skirt with rubber bands so it wouldn't drag in the puddles. I had my winter coat on, my umbrella, and my rain boots. I tucked the shoes I was borrowing from Morgan, a pair of gold sandals, into my coat pockets.

As we pulled out of the garage, I couldn't have been more excited. I'd looked forward to Spring Formal since I started high school. But it was about going with my two closest friends, dancing all night long, having a great time, taking a million pictures.

I still wanted those things, but now there was something else. A huge thing that had seemed completely unimaginable one week ago but now appeared within reach. And even though I couldn't see the stars through the rain clouds, I had this feeling that they'd magically aligned for me.

•  •  •

Spring Formal was supposed to kick off at seven o'clock, but by a quarter to eight, Morgan and I and most of the other juniors and seniors from our high school were still stuck in our cars, engines running and headlights shining through the gray, waiting for the rain to let up enough to make a run for the gym. I'd never seen it come down so hard in my life. The rain made talking difficult, the sound of it thundering on the roof of Morgan's car. Which was fine. I was honestly too nervous to talk.

So far there'd been no sign of Jesse. When would he get here? What would happen between us tonight? His two texts from earlier were my asthma inhaler. They kept me breathing. I must have reread them a hundred times.

“Keeley.”

“What?”

Morgan gently guided my hand away from my mouth. I hadn't realized it was there. “Your nail polish is going to chip before we even get inside.”

At eight o'clock, the janitor propped the doors open, as if that were the thing keeping us out. I saw inside the gym in brief but steady flashes each time Morgan's wipers crossed the windshield. Coach Dean spread some towels from the locker room across the wood floor. The other chaperones—Mr. Landau, Ms. Kay, Principal Bundy—stood in a circle and talked for a while, but then opened up some folding chairs and sat in bored silence. Only a handful of students were inside, the ones on Dance Committee like Elise, or kids who'd had their parents drop them off right at the doors. Someone had built a soda can pyramid on the food table. A few guys tossed a Nerf football across the empty dance floor. Two girls swayed to music we couldn't hear.

The rest of us were trapped.

It sucked for everyone, but way worse for us girls, I think, because the guys were in khakis and button-ups, nothing special. The girls were the ones who were dressed up. And we'd dressed for how May weather was supposed to be, not what it actually was. That meant we had the heating vents pointed at our bare legs, legs that had been bronzed with either lotions or light bulbs, but not the sun. Even though our fingers and toes were painted juicy watermelon pinks and strawberry reds, they were numb from the cold. We had spritzed on too much perfume, blooming flowers and freshly baked angel food cake, because our whole school still had that dry, overcooked radiator smell left over from winter.

Worst of all, we were smothering the prettiest spring dresses with our winter coats.

My down parka definitely showed the extra two months of wear and tear. I'd lost the belt that kept it from looking like a sleeping bag with sleeves. It needed to be washed, but I was too afraid it wouldn't survive the spin cycle. Already, every time I sat down, a few stray feathers poked free, as if I were not a sixteen-year-old girl, but a molting goose.

We would all soon learn that the cold temperatures were partly to blame for what happened later on. The ground hadn't ever fully thawed from winter. It was still frozen five inches down, the dirt as hard as concrete. There was nowhere for the rain to go, nothing to soak it up. I didn't know that at the time. And even if I had, I doubt I would have cared. I was just annoyed that I had to cover up my dress in the first place.

Morgan let her head tip forward until it was resting on the steering wheel. “What if it doesn't stop? Do you think they'll cancel it and send us home?”

I feared that too, but I shook my head like the idea was crazy. “They'd better not! Bundy can see everyone out here waiting. Plus, we don't need the rain to stop. Just slow down a little.”

Although I'd gotten more and more excited as the night passed, Morgan drifted in the opposite direction. I was a bottle of soda shook up, while she defizzed on her way to flat.

Morgan had planned to wear her Spring Formal dress to Wes's prom. It was strapless, mint green, with a pleated sweetheart bodice that snugly wrapped around her and a long skirt that flowed loosely to the ground. I worried it looked too much like a prom dress, but she accessorized it differently, swapping out the sparkly rhinestone jewelry for her everyday silver horseshoe pendant and a pair of tiny hoop earrings. She did her makeup dewy and fresh, just shimmery shadow, mascara, and a strawberry-colored lip. She'd been so proud of her frugality, though I bet it felt in that moment like a missed opportunity.

I hoped that was all it was.

“You look so beautiful, I'm thinking I might just ditch Jesse and try to score with you tonight.”

She smiled a thin, brokenhearted smile.

As soon as we got in the gym, I'd make sure Morgan had a good time. Maybe I'd have the DJ dedicate some terrible song to her, like the chicken dance or the hokey-pokey, just to embarrass her. I'd come up with something to lift her spirits, to help her forget about Wes. It was the least I could do, all things considered.

Her phone dinged in her lap. “It's Elise. Someone in the gym heard that a huge tree fell across Basin Street and people had to be diverted.”

I unrolled the passenger window the littlest bit for some air, but the rain blew in sideways, so I rolled it back up. Then I texted Elise myself and asked if any cars were trapped underneath that fallen tree. I was specifically concerned about a black hatchback like the one Jesse drove, but I phrased it in more general terms.

Not that I heard,
Elise texted back.
But apparently it took a bunch of power lines down. The news guys were already there with their stupid cameras.

Ever since the sandbag day, the news channels had begun showing up in their trucks in anticipation of tonight's storm. They'd park half in the ditch and film themselves on our riverbanks in the kind of gear you'd expect a fisherman to wear, watching as the river crept closer and closer to sandbags we'd stacked. It became a game for me. Whenever we'd drive past them, I'd reach over and beep Morgan's horn or yell out her window to mess up their shots.

I imagined Jesse Ford blocks away, his car stuck in traffic on Basin Street. It was practically guaranteed that he'd dress up for Spring Formal wearing something cool, something that would set him apart from the other guys. Like flip-flops and a bow tie. Or maybe he'd go full-on tuxedo, rented, or even some weird retro number from a thrift store. That would be so Jesse.