Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Chapter 54 - Prom Fever

A Memoir 261 54. Prom Fever Hepburn and Tracy hit the halls of Cathedral High School. Robert Browning, played by John Brody, and Elizabeth Barrett, played by Christina Lovett, are waltzing off to the prom together. It must be reciting all those flowery sonnets. Bella, played by me, has no date, and the prom is only a week away. It is hot and stuffy in the auditorium as the imperial Suzanne, our director, is trying to bar any audience, insisting on a government-like secrecy surrounding the production. Richard Trudeau dashes around the stage, setting props. Watching him, it strikes me that he will ask Suzanne to the prom. I pull out my page and study it the way I would the French subjunctive. Half an hour later, when I finish up my little snippets of comedy, my dozen lines, I sneak out of the rehearsals. By Wednesday, six days from now, The Barretts of Wimpole Street will be history. For me, Sharon Ford’s pre-graduation party is a last-ditch social effort to snag a prom date. The whispered word “party” had flown through the study halls, the cafeteria, and the homerooms of Cathedral to its caged seniors. By senior year, if you hear about the party, you’re invited. So many cars are lined up and down Bay Street that Monica has to park the car on a side street two blocks away. In Sharon’s crowded basement, girls outnumber the boys three to one since many of the senior boys are now dating juniors, and the few boys there hug the walls. Had they missed the social graces in Jane Austen and don’t understand that parties mean dancing? In a unit, we head toward the chip table. Jean hands us paper cups of ginger ale, the only soda left. “He called on a Saturday morning, before Easter even. I was vacuuming for my mother. I don’t know what made me say it, but I told him I had other plans for the prom,” Jean confesses. “I should have kept the vacuum on when I shot him down.” “Wouldn’t the vacuum noise add to his rejection?” I ask, and we laugh. “Who asked you?” Monica probes. His name has slipped by me too. “I’m not saying. You don’t want to know,” Jean says with a tone of finality. I respect her protecting him, but am wondering if he, a discard on Jean’s 262 H u n g ry H i l l reject pile, might ask me. So Jean and the twins had been asked over a month ago. “You were gutsy. What if Mr. X had spread around that you already had a prom date?” Veronica asks. “Well, I didn’t think he’d broadcast that I turned him down. I didn’t really think about it. I just didn’t want to spend four hours in his company.” The “in his company” phrase has a refined, Austen feel to it. “Is he here?” I ask, looking at the clumps of boys scattered around the basement. “No, thank God,” she answers with relief. “Because if he shows up, maybe you could point me in his direction and I could snow him with my charm.” “Trust me on this one. You’d rather stay home,” Jean says. The weekend Barry left for college, Jean had written him a Dear John letter. She had even kept a handwritten copy, having had a number of boyfriends. Jean is short, not even five feet, which I think helps, but the sad truth is Jean has a gift for flirting. When I bat my long, dark lashes in a come hither look, boys scatter. In the front seat of the car on the way home, I seat dance to Elvis, thinking that if I had a choice between a gift for Latin and a gift for flirting, I’d go with the flirting, picturing Elvis in his white-glitter suit as my prom date singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” The Saturday morning before Senior Week, I am headed out for work when Mary tosses an envelope on the kitchen table. “There’s something for you. Are you going to open it?” Her questions sound more like commands. Her urgency, coupled with her impatience, makes me nervous. “It’s from the Irish Historical Association. I’m sure it’s saying I did not get the scholarship,” I say, staring at the return address. “You don’t...