circuit, the girls were told to remain in the back seat, still waving up into the bleachers, while the band finished its number. Then Todd opened the rear door. Marcia got out first, followed by Rosemary, whose emergence inspired scattered applause. Susan got out and Todd took her in his arms with such force she gasped. “I'm so proud of you,” he whispered. When he released her she scanned his face for signs of sympathy or disappointment. She saw none, but he was impossible to trust. He claimed he'd never met a man he didn't like.
Several girls, those who'd expected to be nominated but had been passed over, congratulated Susan and she began to know, for the first time, the particular kindness the world extends to those who do not win. Rosemary stood several feet away, beside her boyfriend, Randy, her face still shining with tears. Tonight it was safely behind her—a girlhood of unqualified success. Flashbulbs snapped, igniting Rosemary's crown, and when Susan blinked she saw the crown's phosphorescent red image.
“The yearbook people told me I've got to keep you three together for pictures,” Todd said softly. It was uncharacteristic phrasing. Ordinarily Todd would have said, 'You have to stay together for your pictures.' Ordinarily he acknowledged no gap between what was expected and what was necessary. He squeezed the back of Susan's neck, and she grazed his cuff with her fingernails.
Two more girls offered congratulations, and then Susan's family emerged from the crowd. Her mother reached her first, clasped her quickly to her breasts, and said, “You looked so beautiful out there.” Her father chucked her under the chin with his thumb, laughed, and said, “Robbery. There should be a recount. Don't you think so, Todd?”
Todd said, “Sir, there's no doubt in my mind who the winner is.”
Her father nodded, and shrugged. “Blondes,” he said. “The whole world goes crazy over blond hair. I've never understood it, myself.”
Susan shifted her weight toward Todd. Her father blamed her, though he wouldn't admit it. She'd never missed the honor roll, never lost a club election. She'd danced the lead in her ballet recital. Now she stood uncrowned, with one rose, while cameras clicked and flashed around a girl who had somehow worked harder, exerted subtler charms, been more. Susan Stassos was a handmaiden. Of three sisters, she was one of the two the prince disdained to marry.
Now she belonged to her father.
Zoe hung back, embarrassed, but Billy punched Susan's arm and said, “You should get the goddamn purple heart for this. I mean, the whole rest of your life is going to seem safe and tame compared to this.”
She didn't want to be this rancorous girl, standing with a single rose under crepe-paper bunting in the cafeteria as the band played “Cherish.” If she couldn't win she wanted at least to be blase like Marcia, who stood at the edge of the dance floor proud as a captive Amazon, surrounded by her friends—tough girls in makeup and short skirts—and by Eddie Gagliostra, an ill-tempered, handsome boy who was, in Marcia's own words, only good for one thing. One of her girlfriends said loudly, “Let's duck into the ladies' for a smoke, Princess,” and Marcia laughed. Maybe she'd prove mean enough to escape her fate, the two-story brick apartment building, the wild husband who couldn't keep a job. Before she left for her cigarette Eddie whispered something to her and she smiled knowingly. Eddie had thick lips and a broken nose, a curl of oily hair that trembled on his forehead. Susan pretended to be listening to Dottie Wiggins but in fact she imagined what it would be like to be Marcia, later that evening, drunk and naked in a car or a borrowed bedroom. She imagined Eddie—those fat, obscene lips. Dottie Wiggins was saying something about college and Susan thought of Eddie, of the sneering self-satisfied pleasure he would take in making a girl lose control. He broke into houses, bullied the younger boys. He had twice menaced Billy in the locker room. Susan imagined the sinews of his arms and thighs, his insolent tongue, the spare hard muscles of his chest and stomach. She returned, flushed, to Dottie Wiggins, who was saying, “—Tufts is a better school but the University of Colorado would be a lot more fun and I think there's a lot to be said for having fun, don't you?”
“I don't think anybody around here has any fun, really,” Susan said. “I think we've all just learned