I'll Be Here

considered having it surgically implanted in my ear.” 
    Alex pauses for my laughter.  “I’ve waited two years to be able to call you whenever I want and now that I can—”  His voice trails off like he’s working through the words and I think that I catch a soft sigh.  I wonder if his heart is beating as fast as mine.  I squeeze the phone up to my ear.  “You’re the bright spot in my day.”
    And you’re the bright spot in mine.   I don’t say the words but I think them. 
    ***
    Last year, the prom theme was “Glittering Lights” and the auditorium was decorated with dozens of threaded white Christmas lights we found marked down forty percent in January.  I was on the committee last year and spent two Saturdays twisting strands of crepe paper and debating the angle of the droop in the center with six other girls as if we were engineering a four lane bridge over Jackson’s Bay.  I felt important—important to be assisting in what seemed at the time to be something big—something larger than my own pathetic life. 
    This year is different.  I’ve been avoiding the posters emblazoned with the school logo and the title “Arabian Nights.”  I’m not even sure what that’s all about. 
    Answer me this: is everyone going to come in Middle Eastern garb?  Will camels complete the romantic ambience? 
    I did email Wes Hardin awhile back to tell him that although his offer was wonderful to receive, I couldn’t go to prom with him.  He responded right away assuring me that he understood and that he would be fine going stag.  His words were kind and understanding but I still felt like a bit of a dolt. 
    When Sabine washes her hands beside me in the oblong sinks in the first floor girl’s bathroom between second and third period and asks into the mirror what I’m wearing to prom, I barely flinch as I say, “nothing.”  By the look on her face I can’t tell if she thinks that I’m going naked or if she understood that I meant that I’m not going at all.  Katie Evans is coming out of a stall behind us and she cracks a funny sort of smile. 
    Ugh.
    Laney and I are browsing the racks of a vintage store downtown.  I’ve decided to buy a ridiculous metallic silver cowboy hat because it’s a metallic silver cowboy hat.  Come on.    
    “I’m thinking of asking Brian to go with me.”  Her platform boots sidestep a display of scarves slithering colorful tails to the floor.  She bends down to release her heel from a persistently clingy purple one.
                Watching a salesgirl move past us, her arms loaded with clothes to return to the racks, I round the corner in Laney’s wake.  “To prom?”
                Laney pauses at a cluster of long dresses and glances back at me over a bony shoulder.  Small lines appear around her clear grey eyes.  “Is that weird?”
                Looking down and running my fingers over a silky green dress, I shake my head.  “No.  It’s not weird I guess.  Brian seems… Well, he seems really great.” 
    It’s true.  I’ve met Brian only once when he came by the record store on Monday afternoon to return Laney’s silver hoop earrings.  She said that she left them in his car on Saturday night when they met at a party.  She’d invited me to go with her but I was away on the wedding dress adventure with Diana. 
    I refrained from asking Laney why she’d taken her earrings off to begin with.  From her coquettish grin and the wistful look that’s been plastered on her face for the past few days, I figure that my guesses on the matter are pretty accurate.
                Brian is about two inches shorter than Laney.  His face is pale and freckled and his dusty hair is in need of some attention, but there’s something about him.  Some people have it and some people don’t and Brian has it.  He’s three years older than us but he isn’t in college.  By day he works behind the counter of a sandwich shop and by night he’s the bass guitarist for an indie rock band called Phosphorescent. 
                She says, “It’s not for two more weeks so I guess that I can think about it for a little while longer before I ask him.” 
    Laney’s fingers pause on a dress with slim blue straps and ruched sides.  “He probably wouldn’t even want to go, right?  A high school prom seems sort of lame.”
                I sidle closer to her so that she is forced to look at me.