Prompts, Promises, and Prom

Vitality Stories

Negotiating normalcy

Prom has been on my mind. Facebook friends have been posting pictures of their teenagers heading off to this traditional, timeless, and rite of passage dance.

Prom plays a large role in my novel, Tiger Drive, because seventeen-year-old, Carrie Sloan recognizes that the anticipation and excitement around prom is normal, but her situation demands that she focus her energy on finding money for college. Alas, to be a normal girl with a normal life is all she really wants.

She imagined what it would feel like to be one of her friends, able to anticipate her future at college all the while obsessing about makeup, clothes, guys, dating, and prom.

~Carrie, Tiger Drive

At eighteen, I shared Carrie’s anxiety about finding enough money for school. I wanted a ‘new and improved normal’ someday, and I was convinced higher education was my ticket (I was right). I was working two jobs to save money, and while I thought it would be fun to go with my friends, prom wasn’t my priority. Besides, unlike Carrie who avoids a classmate who clearly wants to invite her to prom, no one–and I mean no one–was champing at the bit to change my mind about going, or to be my date. Now, not having a suitor wasn’t a big deal to me; I expected it. For a variety of dysfunctional reasons, the summer before high school, I had made a deal with the universe, God, or who/whatever I believed in at the time. My earnest negotiation went something like this:

I promise I don’t need to be popular or pretty in high school if one day life will be normal and my little brothers and sister will be okay.

In hindsight, this sounds arrogant but the truth is I only had a romantic notion, not reality, to barter with, and most teenagers just want to be well-liked and to belong.

Prom-drastic

It’s safe to say, the world, and my brothers and sister, didn’t prompt me or expect me to make any sacrifices, but I went ALL IN on this one-sided pact and stuck to it for three years. All through high school I didn’t date. I didn’t spend money on makeup or hair gel (though my friends begged me, and they often performed make-overs to try to convince me). So instead of setting my sights on attending Prom, I volunteered for the Prom Committee (extracurricular activities look great on college applications) where we picked the theme Forever Young* and planned an ambience that would rival the Magic Kingdom’s and provide a place where classmates could dance away the night one last time before they graduated and became legitimate adults.

So you can imagine my surprise when a few weeks before the prom, and while I was knee deep in tissue paper for Cinderella’s coach, I found out I had been nominated for Prom Queen by my classmates.

I was horrified. How did this happen?!

Let’s revisit the situation:

My prom night was supposed to be a book and an x-large box of Hot Tamales,
I didn’t have a dress,
I couldn’t afford a dress,
I had no makeup,
there was no chance I was going to win Prom Queen,
AND I DIDN’T HAVE A DATE.

My friends were ecstatic and flitted around me like Cinderella’s bevy of helfpul creatures. They vetoed my idea to decline the nomination, assured me, “We’ll figure out the date thing,” and took me under their wings. We took a trip to the nearest mall to buy a dress that I couldn’t afford–it was easily the prettiest and pinkest piece of clothing I had (and have) ever owned. I made arrangements to miss work. And I reached out to my older sister, Sandi, who I hadn’t seen for a while to help me with my makeup–she said, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” It didn’t matter that our skin tones were different, and that just like my pale pink dress, I’d be wearing all the wrong colors for my skin tone (something I wouldn’t actually learn about until my sophomore year in college, but that’s another story), but this was the least of my concerns because in my mind’s eye I was going to all of this trouble and expense for a nomination I wouldn’t win, and I’d be the only gal without a date.

The people have spoken

Then, just days before the big night, my grandpa knocked on my door to tell me I had a phone call. It was a classmate, Tom, whom I knew well enough to know he was a nice guy. I don’t know the details, but he found himself without a date to the prom and he’d heard that I needed a date so could we go together? I said,

“Um, yeah.”

It worked out we could go with a group of friends. We had pictures taken at Mills Park (sorry, mine are currently packed so I can’t share one with you), and we headed to the dance.

The time inevitably came to crown the king & queen, and by this time, I was positive I wasn’t going to win because earlier that day, as we set up the final decorations in the Nugget Casino, a committee member accidentally slipped and said something like, “But it must have been fun to at least be nominated.” I lied, “Um, yeah.”

My date escorted me to the stage and left. I whispered to the maybe-queen next to me, “What should I do when I lose? Do I just leave?” She gave me a blank look. Finally, the names of two high school sweethearts were called. The rest of us clapped like court jesters, but otherwise froze like deer caught in the spatter of disco ball lights. The king and queen were now slow dancing center stage. What were the rest of us prominees supposed to do? Stay on the dance floor? Tiptoe away? Help!

And then…

My last-minute-gentleman-date-who-knew-what-to-do walked across the dance floor, and said, “May I have this dance?”

My hero!

I said, “Yes,” and as other couples flooded the dance floor, all I could do was smile. I smiled about life and my deal with the universe because as I looked around the room at several of my close friends dancing in their finery, I felt better than a prom queen. I felt better than Cinderella. I felt like a normal teenage girl.

I’m not going to spoil what happens with Carrie Sloan in Tiger Drive. You’ll have to wait to see if she goes to prom or not.

I hope you enjoyed a tidbit of my nostalgia for normalcy. Do you remember a time in your life where you craved normalcy only to realize it was right under your nose? Please email me. I’d love to learn more about you.

As always, thanks for being you.

Teri

*We actually chose Forever Young by Rod Stewart as the theme song, but when the committee announced it at a senior class pep rally, most of our peers cheered after assuming we meant Alphaville’s version of Forever Young. Too afraid to correct them, we caved into peer pressure and skirted clarification by having the dj play both songs, repeatedly, on Prom Night. Whew! It was close. PS: This will be news to some of my classmates.