at a party after prom, as I carefully stepped into my dress and zipped it up the side. As I pulled on my heels, I realized that neither Kelly nor Jess had said anything. Maybe they were really listening to my objections about this drug experiment.
I turned around and they were both staring at me, completely wide-eyed. I stopped short and looked at them and said, What?
Kelly softly whispered, Holy shit. And I realized they hadn’t listened to a WORD I’d said. Jess shook her head and said she never should have invited me to prom with them. I was surprised and asked, Because I don’t want to do drugs at the after party? She collapsed into giggles, yelled, NO, YOU MORON, and spun me around to look in the mirror on my closet door.
Looking in the mirror with the two of them over my shoulders, I saw what they were seeing, and I froze. I looked SO HOT. I couldn’t believe it. Jess said, SEE? I shouldn’t have invited you because NOBODY is going to look twice at me because you look so freaking unbelievable. And you know what? She was right. For the first time in my life I felt like I was looking at some crazy future adult version of myself. I was standing there staring at myself in the mirror like an idiot when the limo pulled up in the driveway.
Jess and Kelly wanted to race downstairs, but I stopped them and asked if we could just take a second. Jess said that she needed to talk to Reid about the after party, and I was like, Um, you cannot march downstairs in front of my PARENTS and tell him you have drugs and that he needs to tell Derrick to let you into the party. She rolled her eyes and I was like, Don’t roll your eyes at me. Seriously? This was her plan? Sometimes Jess can be such a dummy. Her enthusiasm gets in the way of her common sense. Then Jess narrowed her eyes and said, OH! I get it. Then she explained to Kelly that the reason I didn’t want to go downstairs was because of Carson.
I spun around and started denying that up and down, but this only made Jess laugh and she filled Kelly in on the whole situation last week in the hallway. As Kelly listened to Jess tell her how I’d shared a little “moment” in the hallway by our lockers, she did a last look in the mirror. Then she grabbed her clutch and sheer hot pink scarf that matched the hot pink streaks in her hair and took my hand. She said that Carson’s date was the one who should be nervous because once he saw me, Carson wouldn’t be able to look at anyone else all night. Then she smiled at Jess and said, Let’s go.
I thought I might throw up as I followed Jess and Kelly down the stairs. Luckily, I’d practiced walking around in the heels Mom bought me. (Turns out small steps is the key to stilettos.) I could hear Mom already art-directing the first photographs, and I wondered if Reid and Carson were regretting what they’d gotten themselves into. As I stepped into the living room, behind Jess and Kelly, Dad turned around with the camera and just stopped and stared at me. So did Carson. In fact, the look on his face was exactly the look that had been on Jess’s and Kelly’s faces a few minutes earlier. He caught my eye and smiled, and I felt my cheeks flush. Dammit. I didn’t want to freaking BLUSH all night long. This was going to be torture.
Mom was busy posing Reid and Ashley in front of the fireplace for the next shot, and I glanced around looking for Carson’s date. I figured she must be in the bathroom off the kitchen checking her makeup or something. That’s when Mom turned around, saw me, and squealed, OH GOOD, YOU’RE ALL HERE. She stopped, looked me up and down, and said, Well, darling. You look . . . so . . . grown up. Which, I suppose is as good a compliment as I could expect from my mother, considering the situation. I glanced nervously at Carson, who wasn’t so much taller than I was now that I was wearing these ridiculous stilt shoes. He just smiled and said, Wow.
Jess laughed and said, Welcome to BAND GEEK BE GONE. And of course, everybody