got ruffles and everything.”
“What is she even doing here?” Brianna whines. “I thought she was suspended. Didn’t she, like, set fire to one of the back buildings?”
Courtney bobs her head in agreement. “I heard they’re pressing charges. She’s going to go to juvie.”
“I heard it was because she slept with Mr. Milton,” Jessica says smugly. “Taylor told me that Nadine told her that Jolene totally seduced him, and then blackmailed him for five thousand dollars. He’s like, a public school teacher, so he couldn’t pay, and she ratted him out to the principal.”
“The bitch!”
“What a slut.”
“I can’t believe she showed her face.”
While the other girls rally to poor Mr. Milton’s defense, I pause, an unlikely idea sparking to life. Jolene Nelson, here at prom? Part of me doesn’t believe Jessica — I mean, that whole “pink ruffles” part? — but if it’s true . . .
I leap up before I can change my mind. “I forgot!” I exclaim, reaching for my purse. “Cameron’s waiting for me. The DJ’s going to play our song.”
“Awwww!” The looks I get are the usual mixture of simpering and sheer envy.
“See you inside!” I bolt from the room. But it’s not Cameron I’m looking for.
I hurry back through the maze of glossy hallways, checking the lobby and the cloakroom and even the refreshment area for any sign of her angry glare. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find her. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just know that for the first time since the parking lot, I feel like myself again: like I have a mission, some freaking sense of control.
“Bliss!” A group of girls from the prom committee stops me by the portrait setup, but I just wave, avoiding the flash of their digital cameras and perfect party pouts. Even when Tristan, the undisputed hottest guy in our class, catches my eye and starts to ask “What’s up?” I don’t even slow for a second; I just keep searching. Finally, when I’m about ready to give it up as an urban prom legend, I open the door to one of the gloomy storage rooms.
And there she is: perched up on a cluttered shelf, smoking out of the open window. That spiky bleached hair has been gelled into something sleek and almost stylish, a pink silk dress is crumpled around her knees, and a pair of gorgeous strappy sandals lie abandoned on the dusty floor.
Jolene Nelson, the baddest girl in school.
“Do you want something?” Flicking ash out the window, she looks down at me with the trademark icy stare that’s reduced freshmen to tears.
“I . . .” I pause, but just as I’m about to take it back and turn around, the music drifting through the open window switches to a new song. Not just any song, but ours — mine and Cameron’s. The one he put on that old-school mix CD, the one playing in his car when we went on our first date. I wasn’t lying to the girls in the bathroom: I asked the DJ to play it especially. I thought it would be a perfect romantic moment for us, something to look back on when I’m old and gray and sucking strained beets through a straw.
Instead, I get to remember his hands up someone else’s skirt, and the color of Kaitlin’s hot-pink thong panties.
I steel myself and take a couple of steps into the room. “I need your help.”
According to my ex–algebra teacher (who, despite what everyone thinks, I didn’t seduce, blackmail, and leave penniless working as a fry cook at a roadside diner in Idaho), the only real impossibilities are mathematical. You know, two plus two equaling five, or a triangle not adding up to 180 degrees. Everything else, even gravity failing or Miley Cyrus releasing a death-metal album, is just improbable — wait around long enough, and they might just come true.
I’m beginning to get what he means. Because right now:
I, Jolene Roseanne Nelson, am at the East Midlands prom.
Wearing a stupid pink dress.
And Bliss Merino is asking for my help.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Milton.
“Say it again?” Taking a slow drag, I look down from my vantage point atop the shelf of cleaning supplies. Bliss looks plastic and perfect as ever, a white floaty dress taped to her perky chest, almost glowing against the silver heels and tumble of black hair. She looks totally out of place in the messy supply closet, but then again, I can hardly judge.
Freaking ruffles.
“Will you help me?” Bliss edges closer,