Prom Memories

                I've often wondered whether or not I should have asked a boy to go to the prom with me. Of course it's a moot point, and has been for years, but I'm sure I'm not alone in mulling over these useless questions. Maybe I would have had more fun with an actual date, and maybe not. I certainly would have a less interesting prom story, though.

                I was only a little bit disappointed when I didn't attend my junior prom. Somehow it seemed kind of like a practice prom. I hoped that by the time my senior prom rolled around, I'd have a date.

                Of course, the entire idea of dating was terrifying too. I had a lot of male friends, and I was very comfortable with them. Dating was different, though. Dating looked scary. Even with the guys I hoped would ask me out, I would break out in a cold sweat trying to imagine something as ordinary as a movie and pizza. What would I say? What would I do? What would he say and do? It was like trying to imagine life on Mars. I'm imaginative, but I just couldn't picture it. I just froze. When you add that to adolescent insecurity and my complete inability to read and respond to non verbal signs of interest, my chances of dating were pretty darned small.

                Besides, the guy was supposed to do the asking, wasn't he? I was sure that if I asked someone, I'd look desperate or needy or infatuated. If it had been a more ordinary event, I could undoubtedly have been comfortable saying, "I don't want to go alone. Come with me." But to the prom? There are few, if any, teenage occasions fraught with more emotional minefields.

                I had intended to skip my senior prom as well. I had no boyfriend and no real reason to go. The prom became a "must attend" occasion in the blink of an eye when I heard that my best friend had been nominated for prom queen.

                I found out before she did.

The nominees were supposed to be extremely hush hush until the formal announcement was made. To a point, though, processes like these tend to be at least fairly predictable, and there were opinions floating around the school as to who the nominees should be.

On the yearbook staff, there were a fair number of girls from the upper echelons of high school society – the varsity cheerleaders, the drill team members. Several members of an extremely close knit group of "in" girls sat at the table right next to where I sat in the publications room. The group consisted of best friends and cousins. One of the cousins had been the fall homecoming queen, and one of the best friends had been winter homecoming queen. It was now accepted among them that all that was needed to make their senior year perfect was for another cousin to be chosen as prom queen. They were pretty sure it would happen, too.

In the publications room, members of the yearbook or newspaper staff sat at tables, grouped by their assigned sections of the publication. For the yearbook, that translated into classes, activities, organizations and the like. My junior year, I sat with the advertising/faculty section, since that's where my best buddy was. The photographers didn't have a table. They worked in the darkroom, were out on assignment, or just kept to themselves. My senior year, I couldn't sit by Ariane like I had the year before, since she wasn't in the classroom. So, I sat on top of a large desk just inside the door, right next to the teacher's desk. The only other photographer sat by himself in the back of the room, usually on the floor. A talented guy with equipment costing many times more than mine, he was aloof and intimidating. I don't think we said more than a dozen words to each other in the two years we worked together.

As far as I know, none of the yearbook staff members were on the nominating committee, but the "in" girls obviously knew someone who was. Since I was pretty much invisible to popular people, they talked as though they were alone, even though I was about 18 inches from their table. One day, I got an earful about the prom queen nominations. They had not been announced yet – they wouldn't be for another week or so – but someone had given these girls a peek at the list. They knew who all the nominees were, and they were furious to find that Girl A was not on the list. They were livid at finding that Ariane was. She had, in their eyes, STOLEN the spot DESTINED for Girl A.

They had little quarrel with most of the other nominees, but Ariane's inclusion made them furious. She was not skinny, she was not popular, and she was not a cheerleader or drill team member. "She doesn't even do anything!" was repeated over and over again. Oh, sure, I thought. She's just been freshman class president, spent 4 years on the tennis team, 4 years in the drama guild (three of those as an officer), 2 years on the Academic Olympics team and 2 years on the debate team (winning awards in both), 2 years in the Honor Society, 2 years on the yearbook staff, 4 years in the French Club… here, of course, is a girl who doesn't do anything. "You should be on there, not her," they consoled Girl A repeatedly. She waffled between distraught and furious.

After class, Ariane and I always met at a particular corner in the halls. I couldn't wait to get there and tell her. "Guess what?!" I was ecstatic. She was not.

"No! That can't be right."

"It is! It is!" I told her. Knowing that she already disliked Girl A, I told her about the reaction. "She's furious," I gloated.

"But I'm not even going to the prom!" Ariane wailed.

"You are now," I said smugly.

She tried to think of some way to refuse the nomination, but there wasn't one. Her assigned escort was a great guy, someone we'd both known for years. He managed to be both one of the smart kids and one of the jocks. She was at least OK with the idea of winning or losing with him. She needed an actual date though – her escort was going with his girlfriend. She and Joe Beard, her debate team partner and close friend, decided to go together.

That left me with the problem of who to go with. I wasn't going to go alone, and I wasn't going to tag along with the two of them, even though it wasn't a "real date." I hated it when friends took me along on their dates. It happened fairly frequently.

I planned at first to go with Lana, the third member of our little triumvirate. She'd dropped out of school, but I didn't think you needed to be a student to attend; you just needed to be with a student. She ended up not being able to go; I don't remember why. She probably had to work. So, I was again escortless.

Asking someone to go with me was an uncomfortable proposition. I'd never been on a date at all, and I didn't want to be the one doing the asking on my very first date. I especially didn't want to be asking someone out to an occasion as emotionally loaded as the prom. If it had been an awards dinner or something less intimidating, I might have felt comfortable asking a friend of either gender. To the prom, that seemed out of the question. It wasn't a buddy event. It was a date event, a romantic event. I was worried that if I asked anyone, they'd assume romantic intent, especially if I said there was none. There was an age problem, too. I'd feel most comfortable asking someone like Joe English to go with me, but he was a sophomore. I wasn't sure how much of a faux pas it would be to bring a sophomore to the senior prom, especially since we weren't dating.

Waiting for someone to ask me was more than problematic. Having never been on a date, I wasn't going to hold my breath until someone decided I was the perfect girl to ask out. I was sure – I still am – that nobody was waiting for the chance to be my prom date.

A large group of us went to see the movie "Footloose" one night shortly before the prom. We were standing in line, about a dozen of us, when I started to complain about my prom dilemma. I vaguely hoped that someone would speak up and offer to go with me. You've heard it said that you should be careful what you wish for?

Scott, a freshman, said, "I'd go with you, but I have nothing to wear." Alaina, another freshman, piped up, "We're about the same size. I have a formal you could wear." In another group, we would have snickered and the whole thing would be forgotten. In our group… in less than five minutes, the plan was made. Scott would go with me, in Alaina's white lace formal. We would tell everyone he was my cousin Sandy from, I think, Arkansas. We'd go with Joe and Ariane.

What my mother thought about this insanity, I don't know. She didn't say much. To her enormous credit, she rarely criticized any hijinks. If it wasn't immoral, illegal, hurtful or dangerous, well, OK. So her youngest child was free to attend her high school prom with a freshman in drag.

We went up to our friend Kathy's house to get ready on the day of the prom. Kathy, one of Ariane's oldest friends, was going on a traditional, romantic prom date with her boyfriend, Tim, but she was more than happy to help the three of us get ready. I have a snapshot of Kathy in her prom gown and Scott in nothing but shorts as she curls his hair. The next shot is of the two of them with Scott's hair and makeup finished, looking convincingly female from the neck up while still a shirtless male from the neck down. It was surprising that he made such a cute girl.

I don't remember if Ariane or Kathy did my hair, but I had one of them French braid a section, working a pale blue ribbon into the braid. The ribbon was from a bouquet of balloons that Tony, another best friend, had sent the cast and crew of "Arsenic and Old Lace" the previous spring, delivered onstage during our curtain call. It closely matched the blue ribbons in my dress, and was my one hint of sentiment. I hadn't even bought a new dress; I was wearing the formal I'd originally bought for the Thespian banquet when I was a freshman. I loved that dress – floor length white cotton and eyelet accented with pale blue ribbons and lacing up the bosom.

Ariane and I had bought corsages for ourselves and "Sandy," and I think we bought Joe a boutenniere. We'd taken her VW bug to the car wash to get it ready for us to ride in, but Joe had since borrowed his uncle's green sports car. It was a much more prom worthy vehicle. Joe picked us all up – three "girls" in frothy formals.

We'd decided on dinner at McDonald's. We brought along a satin tablecloth, silver candlesticks and white candles that had unfortunately wilted a bit from being next to the car's heater. Another friend, Tim Lange, walked down to McDonald's just for the kick of seeing us. We ordered the 20 piece box of McNuggets and two large fries, plus soda.

The restaurant was virtually empty, except for us. The employees had stared at us as we came in, and kept staring while Ariane fixed the table and I ordered. Someone went into the back to get the manager, who came out and stared at us. I will never forget the flabbergasted look on his face. When they called our number and I went to pick up the food, the manager told me there would be no charge. He even threw in extra food. I don't know if that came from pleasure at watching us spend our prom night there, or pity that we couldn't afford a fancy dinner, or even amazement, but it was OK with us. We all knew the employees would go home that night and start telling stories that began, "You'll never believe…"

Tim played waiter, draping a towel over his arm and offering Joe the soda so he could sniff the straw. Since he wasn't going to the prom, it was his chance to be part of the madness. There was virtually no other business in the restaurant, so the employees all stood at the counter and stared at us while we ate.

Once at the prom, we sat at a table with Tony and his fiancee, Jeanette. I believe Kathy and Tim Groves were at our table, too. I danced one dance, with Tony. I stepped on his feet at least three times. Most of the rest of the time I spent waiting rather impatiently in overly loud music to hear the announcement of the prom king and queen.

I knew Ariane was a long shot, but I was hoping that all the members of the senior class who disliked the popular kids would vote for her and Stuart. Rather predictably though, Robert Escobar and CiCi Cook won. They were both popular kids and a widely recognized Adorable Couple. At the announcement, Tony spread his arms out and snapped, "Nobody clap!" I clapped anyway, briefly and without enthusiasm.

Several of my friends were on the prom planning committee, so I'd been privy to a bit of the planning. They'd been very annoyed to discover that another area high school had chosen the same theme they had. Since the other prom would be held first, our school's committee decided, amidst much griping, to change our theme. "We had it first, but everyone will think we're copying!"

Their second choice was "Somewhere Down the Road." That on its own sounds OK. In reality, it meant that the victory dance for our prom king and queen was to a song that began, "We had the right love at the wrong time." The entire song is about breaking up. It was just goofy watching this supposedly romantic, victorious moment take place to such an incongruous soundtrack. I wondered if any of the committee had considered the lyrics when they chose the song, or if they hadn't scrutinized any further than the title.

Scott – er, "Sandy," – was actually asked to dance once. His dance partner was a fairly popular guy who swore ever after that he'd known Scott was a guy in drag and he was trying to blow his cover. As far as I could tell, in the dimly lit, hormone laden environment, nobody paid much attention until one fateful moment. Scott came up to me, eyes wide, and said, "I have to use the bathroom. Which one do I use?"

Ah, what a quandry. We decided that, of course, he'd have to use the ladies' room. That meant leaving the dark, packed ballroom, walking down the bright hallway and into the brighter, crowded ladies rest room. I instructed him: "OK. I'll go in first, and you just follow me. Don't look around, don't talk to anybody, just follow me. I'll stop in front of the first empty stall." In we went.

It was almost as packed in the rest room as it was in the ballroom. With Scott in tow, I plowed through the assembled crowd.  All kinds of girls were crowded in front of the mirrors, fixing their makeup and checking their hair. All the stalls seemed to be full. Oh, crud. I kept walking straight ahead, making no eye contact with anyone lest they stop me to talk. At the far end of the enormous room – it must have held almost two dozen stalls – there was an empty one. In went Scott. I used the stall next to him, more so I'd have a purpose for being in the restroom than because of actual need.

Maybe it was the bright lighting. Maybe it was the pause while we washed our hands, or the rush in and out. Maybe it was female intuition, or just the first chance anybody'd had to see "Sandy" up close. Whatever it was, I saw realization dawning on face after face. Oops, our cover was blown! Better get out before someone screamed that there was a man in the ladies rest room!

We giggled on the way back to our table, told everyone else, and waited for someone to approach us, screaming in outrage. Nobody did. Then Scott had another idea. "Hey! Why don't we leave, I'll come back in guy clothes, and we'll tell everybody I'm Sandy's brother."

"Sandy's supposed to be my cousin! You can't be her brother! People know who you are."

"Where are you going to find a tux? You can't come back in regular clothes!" We did not immediately find this idea as brilliant as Scott did.

"Come on! They've already figured it out! Let's go!" He was antsy. "Joe English is about my size, and he has his own tux. He wears it for Youth Symphony stuff." Always up for an adventure, he was anxious for a new game to play. So, Ariane and I left, taking Scott to borrow his second formal outfit of the night.

Joe was mildly baffled at our abrupt appearance requesting his tux. I wondered if he felt left out of the whole thing. Even if he was, he gamely offered his tux and watched us all go back to the prom.

I remember watching Scott, in his gender appropriate clothes, stride back into the ballroom like he owned the place. Still, nobody walked up and said, "Hey! Weren't you just here in a dress?" Nobody of either gender asked him to dance, either.

I don't know if anybody ever said anything to Scott about the escapade. The next Monday morning, someone said something to me.

I had yearbook second period. That Monday, after a whispered conference at the table closest to me, the homecoming queen approached me. "Are you the one who took a freshman in drag to the prom?" she wanted to know. I don't think she was prepared for my response. I beamed and said, "Yes! It was!" I looked at her expectantly, as if I thought she'd ask for all the details. In reality, she rarely spoke to me at all.

She looked confused. All she said was, "Oh," before she scuttled away as though she thought I was contagious. I don't know what anyone outside the drama guild had to say about the whole thing. Nobody else ever asked me about it again.

I'm willing to bet that the four of us have the most unique prom story of any of our classmates. It was worth not having any romance that night.