NOVEMBER 28, 2009
Tyler and I go to Holiday Formal. I decorated his locker; then, the night of the formal, he decorates me with a hanger from the booster club. The long silver-and-black ribbons strewn with tiny gold footballs and helmets cover half the front of my dress. They are beautiful floating against the slinky, wine-colored fabric of the formal I’d scored at Ross for $19.99 that, in the dark, looks like real silk.
Tyler somehow even managed to find a tiny clarinet and has that pinned to the hanger as well. Or maybe whichever Pirate Pal he’d ordered it from came up with that touch on her own. I’m becoming kind of an idol to the quiet, ordinary girls who populate the booster club. A commoner like them, except that the glass slipper fit my foot. At the formal, they watch from the sidelines. Tyler splays his large, tan hands across my pale, bare back like he owns me. Like we are lovers.
I wonder what they think he is whispering in my ear when he massages the muscles along my spine and jokes, “Shit, girl, you are ripped. How did you get so scary-mad ripped? What can you bench?”
Laser lights strafe across the dark gym, which now, in addition to sweat, smells like Captain Morgan rum and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue. The deejay plays the song that tells everyone to get “low, low, low.” Groups of girls dance with one another, hiking their strapless dresses back up every time they finish getting “low, low, low.” The deejay commands us to put our hands up and the gym looks like it is filled with born-again Christians.
A slow dance comes on. Lights strafe us with a pattern that is like giant snowflakes falling across our faces, our shoulders, spilling over onto the floor. Tyler puts his hands on my hips, looks down at me, and we sway to the music. The floor around us clears. A photographer crouches down and takes photos from several angles. Tyler whispers, “Smile.”
It all makes me remember the Halloween when I was four and really, really, really wanted to be a princess. I can’t recall if I’d actually expressed this desire in words, but I was certain that I had communicated it through the entirety of my being. I was equally certain that my mom understood, since she told me all the time that I could be anything I wanted to be.
But that Halloween, I guess, my mom really didn’t have a lot of time or money or mental molecules to spend coming up with a costume. Which is why, when she picked me up from day care, she had a costume in a bag from the grocery store.
It was on the backseat next to where I was strapped into my booster seat and I immediately tore into the package, my chubby fingers aching for the touch of the fluttering pink princess dress I was certain would be inside. Instead I pulled out a Wonder Woman costume.
I trick-or-treated that year in a red plastic cape like Superman and a gold belt like a professional wrestler. I had only just figured out that I was a girl and then she dressed me like a boy. That confused me. I wanted to be a princess. I wanted everything I wore and touched and ate to be pink. I didn’t want to leap and punch and fight crime and save someone. I wanted to float through life serene as a billowy cloud. I wanted to be pretty.
I put my head against Tyler’s chest and he wraps his arms around me and I float across the floor serene as a billowy cloud.