The Anti-Prom - By Abby McDonald Page 0,19
to catch up. Meg is scurrying ahead of me, her head down and the fabric of her dress bunched up in her hands to keep it from sweeping the ground. I feel a pang for that outfit — bombshell black satin, and she’s skulking down the path as if she’s draped in a garbage bag. Some people don’t deserve high fashion.
“The library.” She nods to the concrete-and-glass building looming up ahead.
“Right.” I sigh. “Figures.” Girls like Meg are always programmed to detect the nearest gathering of nerds and bookworms.
I look around. It’s warm out, and the campus is busy with students already in the weekend spirit as they head out for the night, joking around on the lawns and yelling to each other about plans for a pajama party or karaoke session at the bar. Even though I shouldn’t be impressed by college kids anymore, I can’t help but soak it all in. I always love how these older girls look so at ease with themselves, as if they have everything figured out. Jolene’s that way as well — she’s got this mysterious air of self-possession, like she genuinely doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. Maybe I’ll get that way, too: just wake up on my eighteenth birthday with all the answers, and not even blink if Courtney “helpfully” points out that my mascara’s smudged, or that she and Nikki have tickets to Jared Jameson’s next show and — pause — I can come along, if I want.
I can dream.
For a moment, I wish I could just take it all back and go get a glass of punch instead of looking for that useless lipstick. Maybe now I would be giggling happily with Kaitlin, or sneaking kisses with Cameron in the shadows of the paper streamers and balloons, oblivious. I’d be stupid and naive, sure, but at least I’d be happy. Ignorance is Bliss, right?
“We’ve got to do something about these dresses,” Jolene mutters, climbing the front steps. She’s been bitching about her ruffles all night so I barely register the comment, but then a group of gothy-looking girls gives us a long stare, and I realize that she might have a point. If someone in white face powder, a corset, and a floor-length Victoriana skirt can look at us like we’re the weird ones, clearly, a change in outfits is required.
“Later,” I agree reluctantly, “but stop tugging it. It makes you look even more awkward.” She glares at me, but stops twitching as we file into the atrium.
It’s a huge, modern building, with information desks and security barriers along the front, and then at least three vast floors of shelving, work tables, and computer stations. Even though it’s Friday night, the place is packed with students clutching note pads, their eyes full of a glazed panic that can mean only one thing: finals.
“I don’t know.” Meg hedges. “You need to register for a reader’s pass, and they’re pretty strict about —”
“Come on,” Jolene interrupts, tugging me quickly to the barrier farthest from the bored security guy. He’s staring off into space, and the librarians all seem busy with a long line of students, so she plucks Meg’s access card from her hand and swipes it through, squeezing us together past the entry in a single knot of bodies. “See? Simple.” She steers us to a safe row of shelving and then raises an eyebrow at me. “Well? You said you had this next part under control.”
I need to win back some credit, and fast, so I give them a superior grin. “Leave it to the expert. Just watch and learn. . . .”
Spinning on my heel, I sashay toward the stairs, quickly thinking up my plan. Up on the first floor, it’s quieter — home to only hard core study nerds, I can tell. The individual study booths are set back between the shelves, and everyone looks settled in for the night, giving off this air of total desperation.
The other girls trail behind me as I walk the length of the room, mentally crossing off the prospects as I go.
“Are we just taking a stroll for the hell of it?” Jolene mutters, dragging her shoes on the dull gray carpeting. “Or are you lost — again?”
“Shh!” I glare.
And then I spot him: the blond boy in the corner, with square black glasses and a robot printed on his gray shirt. He’s squinting at his laptop, surrounded by loose-leaf papers, and has a smudge of highlighter on his chin.