Maxis Dare#20: The Night of Our Lives
The halls at Pleasantview High School were littered with flyers and banners, streamers and posters, all of which obnoxiously proclaiming the same thing: prom was coming. Get your tickets now - only $55 for the night of your life.
“Yeah, right… not the night of my life,” Dustin muttered as he tore a streamer from his locker and opened it with a jerk. It slammed back against the locker beside his, causing the owner of said locker to jump back in surprise.
“Yo, Dustin! You okay, man?” asked Dirk Dreamer. The two of them had been in the same homeroom since forever, and Dirk dated Angela’s twin, Lilith, but Dustin rarely hung out with him. That was more to do with their girlfriends than anything else, though. Angela and Lilith Pleasant were like oil and water, or maybe fire and kerosene when it came to each other. They were always fighting, always at each others’ throats. Maybe if they weren’t he and Dirk would be better friends, because they sure had a lot in common.
“Same old crap,” Dustin replied, grabbing his math book and closing the locker door more gently this time.
“Uh huh,” Dirk responded, closing his locker as well. “So… you asked Angela to the prom yet?”
Dustin glared at Dirk. Had he just been thinking they had anything in common? Seriously? “No,” he bit back. “Prom’s a joke.”
“Don’t let your girlfriend hear that, man. You’ll be soo in the dog house if she does.”
Dirk walked off, headed in the direction of his Honor’s English class, and left Dustin standing there while everyone else hurried off to their first class of the day. Dirk was right; Angela was totally into this prom thing. Hell, she’d probably been the one who streamered his locker in the first place.
“Young man,” came the cranky voice of Assistant Principal Crumplebottom. “You’d better not be loitering out to meet up with that Pleasant girl again. Next time I catch you, it’ll be detention.”
“No, Mrs. C…” Dustin mumbled as he hurried off as fast as could towards math class.
*****
“Angela… we need to talk.”
Dustin hung his head. He’d invited her over so he could break her heart. He just didn’t know how to do it now that she was here.
Angela stopped playing pinball and looked at him, really looked at him. Her head cocked to one side, like she was seeing something deep inside him.
Dustin ran a hand through his hair, shifting from one foot to the other and sighed. “It’s about prom.”
Angela’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Dustin, yes! I’ve been waiting for you to ask me!”
She quickly hugged him and he quickly disentangled himself from the hug. “No, no, Ange… I’m not asking you to prom. I can’t go.”
Her face clouded over and it hurt to look at her. “Why not?”
“I can’t afford it, Ange… I can’t pay for the tickets, a tux… taking you to dinner. I… I don’t even have a car we can go in.”
Her expression changed, softening even if it still looked sad. “Don’t worry, Dustin. We’ll figure something out.”
“Angela?” Lilith approached her sister cautiously. Angela had been quiet since she got home from her boyfriend’s house last night, but Lilith had heard her crying in her bedroom. “Did… you and Dustin have a fight?
“No,” Angela said, starting to scowl. “Why would think that?”
“You were crying last night.”
“Were you eavesdropping on me, Lilith??” Angela lashed out.
“No, Ange… I heard you when I left the bathroom. Look, I know we’ve had our differences, but we’re sisters. If something’s wrong, you can tell me.”
Angela sighed deeply. “What can it hurt,” she muttered and launched into an account of her talk with Dustin.
Lilith listened with interest and relief. “Dirk and I are in the same boat, you know? He works hard at the gas station, but it’s not enough to pay for ‘the night of your life.’ We were gonna do something else that night.”
She paused, considering her next words carefully. Her sister was on the prom committee, had worked so hard for an event she might wind up going to alone. If she went at all. “This may sound crazy, but…”
*****
“I can’t believe you talked the guys into this,” Angela said as she followed her sister into the clothing store.
Lilith shrugged and then grinned. “Dirk’s pretty easy going. And he gets it, Ange. Nobody gets not having a lot of stuff like Dirk. He’s not even wearing a tux, just a nice jacket and shirt.”
Angela nodded and made her way to the clothing racks. “Dustin’s mom found one of his dad’s old suits hidden in the back of a closet. She says it’s what he wore when they went to prom.”
“Ooooh! Vintage!” Lilith laughed.
“More like dusty and moth-ridden!” giggled Angela. She hesitated and then admitted, “I’m glad you suggested this, Lil. Planning this has been more than I’ve had in ages.”
The sisters locked eyes, meaning flowing between them in a river of unexpressed emotion.
“Me, too.”
*****
The afternoon of the prom, Lilith and Dirk took a box of streamers and things to the park in town. While everyone else they knew was getting ready to go on their pre-prom dates, they decked out the park gazebo and bridge with Christmas lights and left Dirk’s boom box there for later.
*****
The two couples met at the Pleasant house, where Mary-Sue took pictures while Dustin complained about his pink tux.
“Stop squirming, Dustin, or she’ll take more pictures,” Angela scolded.
“I can’t help it! This thing is sooo….”
“Handsome?” Angela supplied.
“You think so?” Dustin asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.
*****
“Well, here we are,” Lilith said when the four of them arrived at the park.
“Our very own Budget Prom,” Dirk joked.
“The night of our lives,” Angela corrected, referring to the theme of the school prom she’d help create but would never see. Somehow, that didn’t seem to matter to her right now.
“It sure is…” Dirk agreed hours later.
“Sure is what?” Lilith asked softly, looking into her boyfriend’s eyes. “The night of our lives. Angela was right about that.”
Mirrored from SIMulated Storytelling.