TWENTY-FOUR
Leading up to the play, on top of rehearsing for Peter Pan, which is a script that is just way more complicated than you think it is, most of my time was spent drowning in fabric, because in addition to playing the starring role, I was also the only person in the cast who could sew. Except for Sarah’s mother, that is, who informed Mr. Davidson in what I heard was a pretty snippy email, that she was making Sarah’s Wendy costume. But no one else’s.
Fortunately for us, we at least had the funding for the costumes, care of our new patron, the enigmatic and exuberant Beverly Lynde, who wrote a choice letter about the Pyes that I won’t share because it was very funny, but very rude. There was also a check enclosed.
I made all six pirates’, six Lost Kids’, and Hook’s costumes. Because Gilly needed to stay off her feet, she was a sitting Lost Kid, with big bell-bottoms to cover her cast.
With the scraps, I made extra pirate gear for Monty and Bjorn. They looked adorable. Bjorn hated his and ate the bottom half, and I had to throw it away basically.
For my costume I was pretty much set, as any fashionista would be. I already had the tights, I just needed to stone them and take in my tunic so it looked more Panlike. Minnie and I actually stoned our tights together. Minnie was upping her makeup and accessories game each day, which was catching on with the cheerleading and debate teams, so maybe there’s hope for the rest of Greenville yet.
Oh right. Yeah, Tanner and Sarah and John all stayed in the play. Like, the day after our standoff they showed up for rehearsals with their lines memorized and everything. I think Sarah and Tanner especially really wanted to be there. Sarah was like putting in the work as Wendy every rehearsal and asking for notes and everything.
So after Tanner tried to set me and Berry up for arson, we set to work rehearsing our sword-fighting scene, which was a little nerve-racking considering. And afterward Tanner came up to me with this, like, weirdly apologetic vibe and asked me if I could find him buttons for his cufflinks (we ended up using some from Lucy’s vice-principal drag).
Maybe Greenville just all had this pent-up creativity and they just needed to let it out? Like the game changer was when we got Tanner his hat. Suddenly every time I turned around, there he was in the hallway working on these one-handed flourishes with his feathered hat and no soccer jerse y! Like, I didn’t even know Tanner had regular shirts. He does!
With the leftover Bev money, Mr. Davidson ordered a proper flying apparatus. It was a complicated harness with industrial straps that was somehow supposed to fit under my tunic. The first time they strapped me in and three kids from the soccer team hoisted me up over the stage, Lucy nearly passed out.
“It’s not as dangerous as roller-skating,” I reasoned, dangling over her head while my stomach muscles strained to keep me from looking like a dead spider.
“Don’t tell me that,” Lucy grumbled as I spun and finally was lowered to the ground.
Gilly also didn’t think it looked safe.
“I’m just flying in and flying out,” I reasoned. “Plus the guys they’ll have the night of the show will be professional. . .hoisters.”
A couple of days before the dance, Millie asked me what was going on with Berry.
I didn’t say it, but I was looking for Berry, like a lot, in school. Every time I turned a corner, she was flying out of whatever room I was in. In every class she came in last and left first, spending most of her time with her face buried in a book. She also wasn’t replying to my texts. Even the really funny ones.
Whenever I talked to Millie about it, she got this weird look on her face. Like this little wrinkle in her forehead.
“Should I call her?”
“Do you want to?” Millie asked.
“Yeah. I mean, I miss her.” Every time something happened, I’d think about talking to Berry about it. Like when I was flying, I wanted to look down and see Berry waving at me with her fuzzy green hair.
I wanted to know she was okay.
I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what I needed to say.
The night of the dance, I took out my tuxedo again and laid it out on the bed. Lucy peeked in just as I was putting together my shoes and accessories.
“The velvet tuxedo,” she said appreciatively. “It’s very you.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
Lucy wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She was wearing her sweatshirt with the logo that was a woodpecker (as a school mascot!). I had suggested, and Lucy was thinking about it, that she start a “school mascot” day at school so she could wear her favorite sweatshirts to school.
“You know I was thinking about how you said it’s good I’m staying Anne in Greenville,” I said, pulling out a sparkly bow tie and then putting it back. Too much. “I think I can be Anne of Greenville too.”
“Yes, you can.” Lucy pulled out something from behind her back. A huge corsage with giant orange roses. “Because they sell these here.”
“ORANGE ROSES!” I squealed. “AHHHHHHHHH! THANK YOU!”
Monty whined from the doorway. Either because she felt left out or because she had to pee.
“I’ll walk her,” Lucy said, releasing me from the hug. “You get dressed.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“And have fun!” she called from the stairs.
Technically a velvet tuxedo wants for a top hat, but I figured my first dance, I would just do big hair instead. So several cans of hairspray later, once I had molded my hair into a shape I was thinking of as “campfire big,” I floated down the stairs. I would say I looked like a Creamsicle. Like a velvet Creamsicle with a cloud of sherbet hair on top.
“TA-DA!” I assumed a jaunty pose at the bottom of the stairs.
Millie said she thought I looked like a fancy cheese stick. Which I accepted.
“All right, then, Fred Astaire,” Millie snorted, grabbing her robe to cover her pajamas. “Come on, Monty. Try not to get too much fur on Captain Orange as we drive her to the dance.”
“Empress Orange,” I corrected, taking a few long steps to make sure the pants wouldn’t split. You never know with vintage trousers. And really the last thing I needed was a crotch incident.
By the time we got to the school, the parking lot was full. Kids were spilling out of cars, posing for selfies, hugging, dancing toward the front door, which someone had decorated with fall leaves and a wonky but effective cut-out pumpkin.
“Have fun!” Millie called out as I stood on the curb, peeling a layer of Monty fur off my legs.
“I will,” I called back.
I strode up to the front steps, adjusting my coat. I passed the kid Marcus who was playing a Lost Boy and a girl named Jennifer who was in my math class.
But no Gilly.
I didn’t want to sit and ruin my pants, so I stood off to the side of the steps, trying to look casual and not worried. Casual but cool.
“Anne.”
Berry stepped up onto the curb.
“Holy COW!”
Her hair was up and sprayed into a pouf of green. Instead of her usual coveralls she was wearing a black-and-green-checkered blouse and liquid-black leggings with boots that buckled up to the knee with acid-green clasps. Her lips were painted bright green to match the glitter around her eyes. She looked like what a cool alien would look like going to prom, in the nineties.
Not that I was there, in the nineties.
She looked really, really cool.
Berry was clearly overcome by how cool I looked. “Wow! Nice tux!”
“I mean! You look amazing.” I gawked. “Where did you get that shirt? Did you get that from Greenville?”
“It was my dad’s.” Berry shrugged. “He used to be cool. What can I say?”
“Your dad is clearly the best,” I marveled.
“You haven’t experienced the fashion marvel that is Harry Blythe,” Berry added. “You should see what he wears on his birthdays. It is. . .a whole thing.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I rubbed my chin in exaggerated evaluation. “I mean, maybe I’m coming over to your house to raid your dad’s closet.”
“I’m sure he’d be thrilled.” Berry put her hands on her hips as she assessed. “But this, this really takes the cake. I’m sorry I underestimated the tux earlier. It is very cool.”
“Hey.” Without warning, a ripple of nervous ran through my body. “I’ve like really missed you.”
“Oh.” Berry looked at her boots. “Yeah. Well. I just, yeah.”
“Can we, like, I would love to hang out with you again?”
And then everything was slow motion as Berry looked up at me. With her big eyes and her freckled cheeks.
And I got it.
“Berry.” The name escaped from my lips.
How could I have missed it? This person who just showed up and was so amazing from the first moment? This secret-garden painter, asphalt rider, my friend, my superhero, had been my true true this whole time.
“Anyway. I know you’re waiting for your date.” Berry pointed at the door. “I should go in. Make an appearance.”
There was a series of sharp honks. I looked up to see Gilly’s hand waving out the window of a big black truck.
“Hey! Anne!” she called.
There was a slight metallic rattling of buckles as Berry disappeared. “Bye.”
And then it was like there was just this big empty space. A Berry-shaped space.
“Hey!” Gilly hobbled forward as her dad honked and roared off. “You’re here! Am I late?”
“No.” I couldn’t breathe. “Uh. I mean, no worries.”
Gilly’s hair was all pinned up with little flowery clips, and she was wearing a yellow dress with little yellow flowers on it, with a matching yellow sweater. Her cheeks were flush from the short walk from the truck, and she leaned on a crutch to wipe the sweat off her forehead. “Geez, these crutches make everything take forever.”
“You look great,” I said, trying to shake whatever it was that was making everything feel like molasses.
How could I not have noticed?
“Hey!” Tanner was wearing a navy suit matching Sarah’s navy dress. They waved as they walked toward us.
“Hey,” Gilly said, cautious.
“You guys look great,” Sarah said quietly. “Are you going in?”
“Yeah,” Gilly said, “in a second.”
“Okay, well.” Tanner nodded. “We’ll see you in there.”
Gilly seemed to wait till they were out of earshot to release a relieved sigh.
“So, you guys are all good,” I asked in a low voice. I wondered if they’d talked since the chem lab fight. Maybe not. I mean we’d all spent a week in rehearsals, so I knew Gilly was at least able to be in the same room as Tanner and Sarah, but I hadn’t seen them talk.
“Yeah.” Gilly touched her chin to her shoulder. “I mean, Sarah’s been texting me, more and more, I suppose. She was angry, but. . .I think we’re still friends? I don’t know, I probably should have stood up for myself a long time ago.” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry I asked you to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the party? I thought. If you talked to them. Like, then everything would be fine, you know? And we could all hang out? It would be fixed.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “it probably would have been better if you had talked to them. Since they’re your friends.”
“Maybe.” Gilly smiled up at me. “But it all worked out! We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
A chill crept up my coat sleeve. She didn’t really get it. I mean, she asked me to fix something she needed to fix. After all that happened? And now it was just. . .fine, in her eyes?
“Um. Okay,” I offered. “What do you want to talk about?”
Gilly looked over my tuxedo, her eyes pausing on my multiple accessories. “That’s quite the, uh, outfit.”
I took this to mean she wanted to talk about my outfit. I flexed the lapels. “Thanks. I like yours too!”
“Thanks.” Gilly’s head bobbed slightly. Then she looked like she wanted to change the conversation again. A silence stretched out between us like gum.
Finally I cut the awkward with, “We could go into the dance now, if you’re like, ready?”
“Yeah, sounds good.” Gilly’s hands gripped her crutches. “Let’s go.”
The gym was decorated mostly with the orange-and-green-fabric leaves you get at craft places, all of which faintly smelled like vanilla, which combined with the smell of teen sweat to create a curious Greenville funk. The funk did not match the music, which was, I would say, modern dance electronica.
“Sorry, I can’t really dance,” Gilly yelled over the bass as we made our way into the gym.
“It’s okay,” I yelled back. “This music kind of sucks anyway.”
“What?” She hadn’t heard me.
“Nothing!”
Gilly did that little nod again.
I scanned the room for Berry. I mean how hard can it be to find someone lime green in a sea of pastels and navy formal wear?
Tanner walked over with a chair and put it next to Gilly so she could sit. I took Gilly’s crutches and leaned them against the back of the chair.
Gilly rested her hands in her lap. “I guess it’s probably not as exciting as other dances you’ve been to.”
“It’s pretty much the same!” I nodded along with the music.
Gilly shouted something I couldn’t hear over the bass, so I leaned closer. “What?”
“Nothing,” she shouted back. “I love this song!”
As the bass built on the dance floor, more and more kids streamed into the crowd, jumping in unison like they were trying to smash a hole in the floor together.
Somehow, I was standing with the same group of kids that, like, a week earlier had tried to erase me from Greenville High existence, and it felt like I was still standing on the edge of a cliff.
Because I still wasn’t where I needed to be.
My eyes darted over the crowd. That’s when the music on the dance floor faded, and the first beats of tinny metal funk came over the loudspeakers. Tanner shot Sarah a confused look. I searched the auditorium for an explanation.
“Did you put this on?” I asked Gilly.
“Put what on?” Gilly shrugged.
“ ‘Funkytown.’ ”
“Wait.” Gilly looked up at me. “Is this, like, your song?”
“It’s a song I like,” I shouted. “Like, a lot.”
Gilly nodded blankly. “Oh. Right.”
I turned and spotted Berry strutting along the edge of the dance floor, a flash of green hop-stepping along the sidelines.
Berry.
“Gilly!” I squatted down by her chair. “Um. I have to say something!”
“What?” A confused look flashed over Gilly’s face.
“I want to thank you for inviting me to the dance. And I think you’re really cool and possibly after this we can be friends,” I hollered, “but there’s someone I need to go dance with. Now.”
Gilly looked at the ground then up at me. “Berry,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s BERRY!” Gilly yelled over the music, a small smile on her lips. “It’s OKAY. GO!”
Officially it is possible everyone knew but me.
I bolted across the dance floor, through a soft sea of not fabulous suits and spaghetti strap dresses, to the far end of the floor, where I saw her, dancing.
Let’s say, when she really cuts loose, Berry is an amazing dancer. I’d seen only flashes of her brilliance earlier at the mini putt. Tonight she was using every bit of her body from her fingers to her toes. She hopped when the music called for it.
“BERRY!” I screamed.
Many, many people stopped their tepid movements to this amazing song and stared.
In mid-jump, Berry spun around to face me.
I knew what I had to do.
I took a long run, dropped to my knees, sliding across the dance floor, friction building on my velvet pant legs as I skidded to a halt about a foot short of where I wanted to be.
And then Berry stepped forward and met me so the pose would be perfect.
“I’m SO SORRY!” I screamed up at her, over the music.
“Why are you sorry?” Berry screamed back as she grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.
“BECAUSE!”
Berry searched my face. For signs of intelligence, possibly. “BECAUSE WHY?”
All the little details, like the flecks of green in her eyes. Or the way her lips pouted when she relaxed her face, or when she was looking at me when I was sweating profusely in velvet. The three freckles that formed a perfect triangle on the top of her right cheek. The tiny heart on her nose. The way she wiggled a little when she had a great idea. The many shades of pink her cheeks turned when she was upset or happy or nervous, like a human mood ring.
“BECAUSE IT’S YOU!”
“ME WHAT?”
“It’s YOU that I LIKE,” I bellowed. “But it’s MORE than that. You’re weird and I’m weird and when we’re together it feels AMAZING instead of strange. Because you’re awesome and I just want to hang out with you all the time!”
“You want to hang out with me?” Berry’s face swam in front of mine, surrounded by glowing dance lights. “Your friend?”
“NO.” I shook my head. “I want to BE, like, WITH you!”
“Are you SURE?” Berry eyes searched my face.
My throat was starting to vibrate from screaming on the dance floor. “YEAH, OKAY. I know I’m late. But I’m here now and I will MAKE IT UP TO YOU!”
Berry did a little spin. I grabbed her hand and spun her back into me. “Okay,” she said.
“So now what?”
Some slow song came on. Not disco. Something else. “Aw,” some kid yelled, “I love this fucking song.”
I took a small step forward. “I was thinking I should kiss you if that’s okay.”
Berry considered. “You’re very sweaty.”
“Deal breaker?”
Berry shook her head and held out her hand. I reached out and my fingers laced with hers. I thought maybe I could feel her heart beating, but it might just have been my heart finally beating loud enough for the both of us.
“Okay, here I go.”
“Okay, stop talking now.”
It was a pretty sweaty kiss. But it was our first kiss. Which would make Greenville and Greenville High, as the site of that kiss, a very important place, maybe my favorite place, after that.
Berry’s lips were soft and they tasted like green lipstick. Which weirdly tasted like cherries.
Berry pulled her face away and smirked. “There’s green all over your chin.”
I kissed her again. I didn’t care.
When your heart’s exploding, a little lipstick on the chin is pretty much no big deal.