Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (24 page)

Act 1: I pee on my pants

Okay, so I peed on my pants.

I am standing in the bathroom at my junior prom, the prom that is supposed to be one of the high points of my high-school career, the prom that has cost me the entirety of my savings, the prom to which I have brought the very person I have dreamed about dating since fifth grade, the prom that has now surpassed my fourth-grade birthday party as the single worst event of my life. I am standing in the bathroom at my junior prom and I have peed on my pants.

Short of shitting my pants, this is about as bad as it gets.

I am wearing white pants.

I wanted to get a black tuxedo. A traditional, just like everyone else, black tuxedo. However, by the time David
and I finally got ourselves to Formal Deluxe, there was nothing in my size except white or lime green, and I was not up to looking like a lounge act. So I did the sensible thing. I panicked and called my mother. Within ten minutes, my mother, my sister, and our dog were standing in the lobby of Formal Deluxe discussing the options with a much too serious Mr. Killhorne, who kept insisting that we call him Jake.

My mother argued that I could just wear my good suit, which was admittedly a little small on me and made of a very nice polyester blend but would be much cheaper. She was sure that other people would be in suits, since that was something that happened a lot when she went to proms in the early part of the Pleistocene.

Carrie, being the kind of sixteen-year-old girl who knows enough to ignore her mother entirely, suggested the lime green on the grounds that if you are going to look geeky, you should look like you are trying to look geeky and not like you geeked by accident.

Both David and the dog stood there looking embarrassed and somewhat bored. Neither seemed convinced about the gravity of this crisis.

Jake told us that the white tux looks distinguished and insisted that he had rented a lot of them already for this very prom.

I went for the white tux. It was, as Jake pointed out, only a little more expensive.

I am, of course, the only one at the prom wearing white. There are a number of people who chose interesting pastel shades. Lime green would have fit right in.

If not for its exceptional ability to display pee stains, the whiteness of my tux would have been but a small footnote to the evening, which actually started out all right.

David and I hadn't talked much about what had happened in my driveway. Mostly we just pretended it hadn't happened. But when he showed up at my house on prom night to pry me loose from my bedroom, where I had retreated in total panic, I was genuinely relieved to see him. My mother declared us adorable in our tuxes and insisted on taking pictures of us. Adorable was not the effect either of us was looking for. It was a little strange to pose for pictures with David without our dates. In them we are standing side by side, trying hard to look like we aren't taking each other to the prom. Then we drove to M.C.'s house and her father took pictures of the three of us, which was equally awkward since, at least in theory, M.C. was David's date. By the time we made it to Danielle's house for more pictures, we were thirty minutes late for dinner. These few hours are the best documented of my life.

After much discussion and a careful review of our present financial situation, David and I had geeked and decided not to rent a limo. Instead David borrowed his father's car, a Honda Civic. Nevertheless, I felt pretty grown-up climbing
out of the car and holding the door for my date as we walked into Georgio's. At least we weren't forced to take the minivan. I don't remember much from dinner except that I drank a lot of water and nobody spoke much. And it was expensive. Really expensive. We knew it would be and we brought enough money, but I wasn't prepared for how large that stack of tens and twenties would look when we had to lay it down on the table. I'm pretty sure we ate something.

I look down at my pants leg. I convince myself that no one will notice. It's a dark room. If someone asks, I'll say that I spilled water on myself while washing my hands. The faucet spurted out suddenly. Or maybe I spilled a drink on my pants and was trying to wash out the stain. They are rented pants; it would make sense that I would worry about staining. I sit in the stall and practice. “God, can you believe it? Spilled the drink right on my pants. How embarrassing can you get, right down the leg. Looks like I pissed on myself.” I would use the word “pissed,” get in what it looks like first. Good strategy.

At least I didn't pee on myself at the urinals. I don't use urinals. I haven't since I was about eight. They are way too public. I always choose a stall and, once safely inside, I undo my pants and let them fall down to about the level of my knees. This way they are out of the way, beneath the level of the seat. Then all I have to do is make sure I aim for the water. This method has worked for years. No
mishaps. But somehow tonight I wasn't looking, and I peed directly into the folds of my open pants, which were arranged just perfectly like a large open flower to catch my pee. By the time I noticed, a large pool had collected in one leg along the top edge, and it was streaming down over my shoe and onto the floor. This was not an oops-I-got-a-few-drops-on-myself moment. I have emptied my entire bladder onto my pants.

I look down at my still-wet leg again, hoping it has already, out of sympathy, defied the laws of physics and dried. I can't believe how thoroughly I have soaked my pants. I know I drank a lot of water at dinner, but it looks as if I dumped all of it on myself. It isn't just the amount of water I drank that has driven me to the bathroom.

In order to get into the prom, we have to pass through an elaborate security checkpoint manned by teachers in suits and dresses who clearly aren't being paid enough for this duty. Ms. Bexter is there, looking a little lost without a chalkboard behind her, next to Ms. Kalikowski, who at least tries to smile. We are sniffed for alcohol, purses are screened for contraband, and our prom tickets are scrutinized carefully, as if there were a large black-market operation for forging passes. Since the teachers already know us well enough to realize that we are way too docile to show up drunk for the prom, we get waved through with
a minimal amount of fuss but enough so we won't feel insulted. My guess is that they frisked Louis when he arrived. Danielle and M.C. disappear into the bathroom as soon as we walk through the door. I look at David.

“Are we having fun?” I ask.

“Did you expect to?” he replies.

“I guess so. Aren't we supposed to?”

David takes off his glasses and polishes them on his cummerbund. “No. No one actually likes their prom. It's not meant to be fun. It's meant to be a ritual, like slaughtering hecatombs of cattle to the gods in the
Iliad
. We're here because we feel that we are supposed to be here and that's all. It's why we all wear the same stupid clothes, listen to the same grating music, and watch the same lame television shows. We”—he pauses for dramatic effect—“are teenagers. Hallelujah and praise the Lord.”

Danielle emerges from the bathroom with M.C. in tow. Danielle. Maybe
I'm
here to be with Danielle. At that moment, Ryan walks in with his date. She's tall, blond, thin—basically a supermodel. I'm not the only one who stares. Danielle grabs M.C.'s hand and heads back to the bathroom.

“Danielle and M.C. seem to be getting along pretty well,” observes David. He is unusually talkative this evening.

We take a swing past the snack table and pick up soda and hors d'oeuvres, noting that the plastic cups and paper
napkins are of exceptionally high quality—for plastic cups and paper napkins. The napkins have the date and theme stamped on them. Knowing that Danielle was responsible for the theme, we take a moment to appreciate the decor: little fake bridges, travel posters of St. Mark's Square, and a full-size gondola where each happy couple will sit for the oh-so-romantic picture to commemorate the event. Clearly not Paris. We find a small table off to one side, place our finger foods on the mauve tablecloth, and wait for the women to return.

“This could be a long night,” I tell David.

“They are all the same length,” he replies factually. “An hour is an hour is an hour.”

M.C. comes back from the bathroom alone.

“Danielle says she'll be out in a minute,” she tells us. “In old movies girls are always saying they have to powder their noses. Is there a historical reason that we don't powder noses anymore, or do we just have shinier noses in this century?”

“It was just a euphemism for pissing,” David says distractedly.

“Danielle's pissing. Doesn't sound as polite. Besides, she's not. She's talking to Nicole.” M.C. sits between David and me.

“Should we dance?” David asks.

“Ménage a trois?” M.C. suggests.

I tell M.C. thanks, but I'll wait for Danielle to finish powdering her nose or pissing or whatever she's doing. I watch David and M.C. dance. David's a little stiff but he doesn't look self-conscious. M.C. actually has a sense of rhythm. Even with her hair styled, her face made-up, and the tiny straps of her prom dress across her bare shoulders, she is still amazingly M.C., smiling and swirling and swaying her shoulders the way she would in our living room or in the hallway at school or anywhere the mood strikes her. Here, with an actual band and a dance floor full of dressed-up people, it's as if everyone else finally hears the music she has been hearing in her head.

A second couple moves onto the dance floor, blocking my view of M.C. A very tall Peter clutches a diminutive, barely dressed Amanda and neither of them looks my way. Amanda appears enraptured; her eyes rarely leave Peter's face. Peter is all smirks. They are dancing, but not moving much, which might be appropriate if it were a slow song. The more interesting dance is between Amanda and her dress—they often seem to be moving in opposite directions. Amanda leans, and the slit on the side swirls open around a bare thigh. The halter, which was never designed for the load it's carrying, hangs on valiantly as Amanda stands on her toes to kiss Peter. Peter turns her slightly and I am facing the line of her bare spine, topped by her brown hair and then diving dramatically, only meeting cloth at the last possible moment before revealing the full rise of her
butt cheeks, neatly outlined by the tight material stretched mercilessly across them.

A hand on my shoulder. Danielle has returned from the ladies' room. She does not look happy. I ask her to dance. “Maybe in a few minutes,” she says. She doesn't look at me; she stares at the floor, the band, the wall beyond me, anywhere but my eyes. I've never wanted to touch someone so badly in my life. I know that all the turmoil I see in her face has nothing to do with me, but I still want to hold her and tell her it will all be okay. She looks torn apart. All I feel is empty.

So this is my prom. I sit with David as the entire school watches the Danielle and Ryan show. There's a brief confrontation between the two in the hallway, followed by Danielle sobbing in the bathroom and Ryan pacing angrily. There are a few minutes of tense quiet as Danielle returns to sit with me at the table and pretends that I really am her date. An unusual amount of time is spent by both parties in their respective bathrooms. Nicole is resurrected from her role as bitch traitor and becomes the chief go-between for both sides. The goings-on might be fascinating for a disinterested third party to observe, but despite my third-party status, I'm not exactly disinterested. And I already know what all this means: my time is up.