Birds In Flight

Birds In Flight

Everyone in Mrs. Stemnock's homeroom eagerly received the papers getting passed down the rows, because this time it wasn't a test or a homework assignment: it was the info packet for this year's prom. The theme, the location, the dress code, everything about the night each student at West Orchard high school had been looking forward to the entire 1998-1999 school year was contained within. I turned and, when no one else was looking, cast a quick glance and a smile at the girl sitting three seats back and two aisles over from me. Her eyes met mine, there was a brief flutter of an eyelash, hardly mistakable for a wink to anyone except me, and I turned back around. Jamie was good at masking it.

We'd been together now for almost a year, but we'd kept it quiet, with only our closest friends privy. The teachers and faculty didn't need to know that I had fallen for her like a penny dropped from the Empire State Building. We decided earlier in the year that if we made it this far, prom would be the perfect time to announce our commitment. I'd been dreaming about it for weeks: the two of us in our dresses, riding together in a limo, getting out one after another, and shocking the whole rest of the class by walking to the event hand-in-hand.

What would people say?

How would they react? 

I didn't care. As long as I had her, nothing anyone could say or do could ruin the night. Whatever happened after? Well, that was the future's problem.

Travis turned around in his seat and shoved the pile of papers for our row practically in my face. "Take one, pass it back," he grunted in a rough approximation of Mrs. Stemnock's order to the front row. As if I needed to be told twice. I grabbed them from him, peeled my own copy from the top, and handed the rest to Karen behind me without bothering to repeat Travis's instructions. He was such a dork. Everybody in the world knew he'd be going with Melanie. They'd only been together since, like, fifth grade. Weirdos.

I read casually through the first page. The theme was "Spring Into Love," a not-so-subtle attempt by the planning committee to mix in the seasons and romance without reusing "Love In Bloom," which was last year's theme.

Whatever. It was better than some of the other suggestions I had heard were thrown about. The goth crowd calling for the theme to be "The Last Night of Your Life" had been nixed. Like the school board would have given that the thumbs-up.

I skimmed the details of where it would be held, ticket prices, and what food and drinks would be available. I made a mental note to cut off the form at the bottom of page one which parents could fill out to volunteer as chaperons. Mom and Dad wouldn't be seeing that, thank you very much. No need to complicate my life by having one of them there to ruin my evening with Jamie, or witness the shock and horror on their faces when they found out that I, Hannah Cregor, their darling first and only daughter, was in fact dating another girl. I'd hit them with that when I really wanted to wreck their day, though since Jamie and I had made things official, I hadn't really been in the mood to wreck anything.

I changed my mind as soon as I flipped to the second page. I read each word slowly and carefully, turning everything over in my mind, and I felt my stomach sink into my shoes.

I read the top of the page again and again, looking for some way to twist what had been written to my benefit, but I just couldn't manage. The dress code for each male/female pairing shall be as follows...

'Each male/female pairing'? What the hell was that? Why couldn't the damn paper just say 'each couple'? I dropped my head and stared at the wood grain of the desk. I wanted to raise my hand, ask about it, but I couldn't. People would know.

Maybe...maybe they weren't serious? Maybe that was just the old standard, used by the school ever since it had become co-ed back in the 1970s. Old habits and templates die hard, you know. But this is the 90s, the last decade of the 20^th century for crying out loud. They have to know some of their students might not be interested in bringing an opposite-gender date to a dance, right?

I raised my head as I heard Mrs. Stemnock say, "Yes, Miss Simmons?", then turned back to look at Jamie, who also had her hand raised.

"I just had a question," Jamie said. "About the dress code?"

"Really?" Mrs. Stemnock cocked her head to one side, like a dog who is trying to understand you but really wishes you would speak Canine instead of English. "It seems quite clear to me. What's the trouble?"

"Doesn't it seems awfully specific?" Jamie said. "I mean, 'each male/female pairing'? What if, you know, two guys wanted to go together? Or two girls?"

A chorus of snickers rolled through the classroom at the first option, which turned to whistles at Jaime's second suggestion. Jamie was known for a troublemaker's wit, and nobody caught that she might be asking because the situation applied to her.

"Miss Simmons," Mrs. Stemnock said, her face contorting into a frown, "there is nothing that prevents young men or young women from attending the prom without a date. However, what you are suggesting? Why, it would be the very height of impropriety."

'Impropriety.'

The word rolled out of her mouth with a casual but effective force behind it that said everything she herself believed without saying anything at all. Of course, maybe she was just grumpy because she thought Jamie was getting a rise out of the rest of the class. I didn't know. I put my head down on my desk, praying nobody would notice.

"Oh," I heard Jamie say after a moment. Even with my eyes closed, I could picture the impish grin she always adopted when she was exaggerating for comic effect. "Well, we couldn't have that now, could we?"

"No," Mrs. Stemnock agreed entirely too readily, "we could not." A pause, then, "Miss Cregor, is there a problem?"

I snapped my head up a little too quickly and blurted out, "No!" After seeing the expression on the face of Mrs. Stemnock, who wasn't used to being blurted at anywhere, least of all in her own English classroom, I added, "I mean, no, no problem. I felt a little dizzy, that's all."

She fixed me with a stare that scared me with its intensity, as though she was probing directly into my brain, trying to get at the truth she knew sat behind the lie. After a moment of not being able to read me though, her expression softened and she said, "Well, I suppose I can't blame a student for being excited. Do you need a pass to see Miss Whitfeld?"

"No, ma'am," I replied. Nobody in his or her right mind ever wanted to visit the school nurse, who had to be at least seventy years old and reeked of vapo-rub. "I'll be fine."

"Good," she informed me just as much as the rest of the class. "Now, if all that is out of everyone's system, you have some homework to turn in, yes?"

The collective groan that ran through homeroom as the reality of the school day settled in took my mind off of things while I dug in my backpack for the assignment. I started to put the prom information packet into my bag, but I made the mistake of not flipping the pages around again, and I made eye contact with the line again.

I wanted to throw up.

* * * * *

I had to wait for a couple of days to talk with Jamie about this turn of events. She was in drama club, and they were practicing for the play after school almost every night. I was excited to attend, since Jamie had both speaking and singing roles, including a solo, and I'd purchased my ticket the day after she'd told me she'd gotten the part. Finally the one night she didn't have practice I called her at home only to have her dad pick up and tell me that Jamie had gone to bed already, exhausted. Did I want him to wake her up?

I told him it wasn't anything urgent and to let her sleep. Besides, in a couple nights, I'd be seeing her after the show anyway. This whole stupid prom thing could wait until then.

The night of the play, I was as close to the front row as I could get. I held my program lovingly, the way you might hold a very old photograph, careful not to fold or crumple it in any way. I read each line again and again, always stopping at Jamie's name and feeling that familiar flutter in my heart, knowing that before long, she'd be on stage, performing the way she always did, and dragging the audience along with her on a ride that none of them would ever forget.

Well, at least that I would never forget.

The whole performance was a blur, a magical story that swept me up in its tale of a girl who was forced into a cruel bet with the gods over whether love was stronger than death, and by the end, as the performers strode on stage to take their bows, I was in tears as I stood, clapping harder and louder than anyone else around me. I'm a sap, I guess. But when she smiled out over the audience, her eyes locked right on mine, both before and after the first bow and the encore bow. They broke as the curtain fell, she met me briefly afterward to say she was expected at the tear-down party, and as I drove home, only half of me was in the car. The other was in the clouds, where I belonged. Jamie always said we were like two birds in flight, defying even gravity for love. I'd never heard anything so right, and I gladly soared with her.

The next day after school, I was brought straight back down to Earth. We met up after class and drove over to the little taquiero place down the street to get a snack, and that's when she broke the news.

I guess, to be fair, I forced her into it because I brought it up, but I wanted to know. How, I asked her, were we going to work this whole prom thing if the school wasn't going to let us go as a couple?

I was counting on her, because she was already out to her dad. Her mom (last I heard, touring Europe with husband #3) didn't know and to be honest probably wouldn't care even if she did know. But I figured if anybody could do anything or say anything to the board, it would be her dad. Jamie's father wasn't a zillionaire or anything, but he made an annual contribution to the school, his own alma mater, that was more than what my parents combined brought home in two years' worth of work. His generosity was part of the reason I and a bunch of other West Orchard kids could attend, as it bolstered their financial aid department.

Instead what I got was silence, and then a soft voice suggesting that maybe...maybe I should just go by myself this year.

I flipped. I freaked. I started laughing and crying at the same time, part of me trying to convince myself that she was kidding, the other part knowing full well that she was serious.

"What are you talking about?" I said. "What about our plan? We were going to shock the whole school. Make it official. I already bought my dress, for God's sake. What happened?"

"I talked to dad," she said quietly, after I'd calmed down enough that I could listen to her. "I showed him the dress code page. He was angry, he called the board, even met with them after school. He didn't know it, but I stood in the bathroom next to the boardroom with a glass up to the wall and listened to the whole thing. They said they were sorry, but West Orchard was a private school, and they weren't going to allow that sort of thing."

"'That sort of thing,'" I snorted. "So a guy and a girl who don't even care about one another can go as a couple, but why not us?"

"Hannah, listen to-"

"No, fuck them! We'll take it to-"

"Hannah-"

"-state superintendent, they can't discriminate against-"

"Hannah, listen-"

"-like this, do they want a lawsuit on their hands, because-"

"Hannah!"

I stopped and took a breath. "What?"

"Listen to me: West Orchard is a completely private school. They don't take a dime in tax money. They're like a country club or exclusive beach resort. Whatever rules they want to set, within reason, they can. And this is... well, it's just one of those things considered 'within reason'."

I put my head in my hands and stared at my half-eaten quesadilla that was going to remain half-eaten for a long time. I'd be lucky if I didn't barf the other half before I left. "God, Jamie... God...! What are we supposed to do?" Now it was all waterworks.

She listened to me, crying and blubbering, and gave a dirty look to the guy who sat down at the table next to us. He took his tray and moved across the room, and that made me cry even harder for some stupid reason, until finally I felt like the walls weren't closing in on me.

"Hannah? Look, promise me you'll still go?"

"Why? The hell's the point now?"

"Hey..." She put a hand under my chin and tilted it up with her fingertips. "Look me in the eye and tell me, promise me, that you'll still go."

"Why? I don't want to dance with some tool who went stag, and I don't want to sit on the sidelines with the wallflowers who bitch about how no one asks them to dance."

"Then don't do either one," she said, holding my hand tightly. "Just go, OK? Love always finds a way."

"I'll think about it," I muttered, looking away.

"Hannah?"

I dragged my gaze back over to her.

"I love you. I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't. Remember that."

It was impossible for me to hear those words from her lips and not feel at least a little bit better on the inside. "I love you too."

She reached her right hand across the table and took my left hand, deftly moving her thumb so it was wrapped around mine, and pointed the rest of her fingers out away from my hand. I copied her gesture, so together our hands extended in opposite directions. "Birds in flight," she whispered, waving her fingers like the flapping of a wing.

I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the fresh wave of tears as I mimicked her motion with my hand. "Birds in flight," I managed between sniffs.

"Promise me?"

I nodded. I could promise. But I didn't have to like it.

* * * * *

Prom night came, but Mom and Dad could tell something was wrong the whole week before. Try as I might, I just couldn't fake that I was excited about anything. Jaime was the actress, that was her thing. Me, I just wore my emotions on my sleeve for the world to see and stumbled over my ever-changing response whenever anybody asked me what was wrong, listing everything from headaches to PMS to a medical emergency in the family. That one wasn't technically a lie: Uncle Roger was now on day four of trying to pass that kidney stone.

My heart just wasn't in it any longer.

The couple times Jamie tried to call the house, I had my parents tell her I was sleeping or out with friends, and I never bothered to return the call. I stopped checking AOL Instant Messenger after a few days. I guess she got the hint, because after a while she just stopped calling. I kept telling myself I missed her, that this was a stupid way to behave over a dumb dance, but I couldn't get past the fact that she wouldn't fight.

And I couldn't get past the fact that I was such a chicken. If I'd told Mom and Dad the truth about what was going on, that the school had said it wasn't acceptable for same-sex couples to attend the prom, maybe I could have gotten them on my side, and together, with Jamie's dad, something could have been done. But I couldn't tell them.

I didn't dare tell them.

Not right now. Maybe later.

Maybe never.

It was a scary thought, but something I was coming to terms with more and more each day, the idea of maybe never. What was worse, I had almost started to convince myself that maybe never was maybe better.

If only she hadn't made me make that damn promise. I'd have returned the stupid dress, and stayed home to watch whatever stupid movie Mom and Dad would undoubtedly get from Blockbuster, and eat stupid microwave popcorn that Dad always managed to cook for twenty seconds too long. But no.

Jamie had held my hand, flapped our wings, and made me promise, knowing there was no way I would go back on my word to her. I considered faking sick, some twenty-four-hour bug that made me sick to my stomach, which would get me off the hook in a semi-legitimate way, but I couldn't do it. She made me promise, and so now I was getting into my dress, putting on my shoes, having Mom do up my hair and commenting how beautiful I looked, how much fun I was going to have, and listening to Dad prattle on about how much fun he'd had at his senior prom while inside I was trying not to burst into tears.

One of Dad's long-standing jokes is that nothing in life is ever so bad that it can't get any worse, and naturally tonight was no exception. Did he mention, he told me as Mom finished twisting my hair all around in pretty little knots of curls, that he and Mom had returned the volunteer chaperon sheet I'd left for them? According to him, they had discussed it and decided it would be a wonderful way to give something back to West Orchard for all the help they had given me, both educationally and financially.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to yank the carefully-placed pins out of my hair, kick my feet out of the shoes, rip off the dress, yell that West Orchard had well and truly fucked over any chance I had of even remotely enjoying my senior prom with their stupid rules, then hurl myself dramatically out the nearest window to lay bleeding from the thorns in all the rose bushes that would cushion my fall and ensure I wouldn't die from my five-foot drop. But that would have involved me coming out to them about me and Jamie, and since I wasn't prepared to do that, I sat in silence, beyond caring.

I was numb.

So what if Mom and Dad went along tonight? All they'd see was their daughter sitting at a table, shrugging off anyone who asked her to dance, and when they called lights out, I'd get up and leave with them. No limo service; Jamie's father was going to pay for that, since may parents certainly couldn't afford it. No visit to the After Prom party where the theme was "Vegas Night"; apparently gambling was no sin, but two girls going on a date was verboten. Just a trip home by regular old car, a brief shower to wash all the gunk out of my hair, and then a dive into my bed where with any luck, the day would curl up and die and take me with it.

When we reached the hotel, I realized I had completely tuned out the entire trip over. It was like, one minute I was at home in front of the mirror, the next I heard Dad saying, "And here we are!" like we'd just arrived at the Eiffel Tower or something. I climbed out of the front seat, where Mom had insisted I sit so my hair didn't get tangled up in the upholstery that hung down off the car interior around the dome light in the back, and looked around.

Jefferson Statesman welcomes the Senior class of West Orchard for Prom Night! the sign proclaimed. I wondered if Jefferson Statesman allowed two people of the same gender to share a room, then decided that for what one night there probably cost, they'd put up with pretty much anything as long as it didn't involve livestock or ritual sacrifice. Hell, maybe even that was allowed. High society, to me, was a trip to Stokeley's on a Friday night for an order of chicken tenders with honey mustard, with a side of baked beans and mashed potatoes. I had absolutely no idea how the "other half" lived.

While Mom and Dad gawked like tourists, I walked towards the front door where they had literally rolled out a red carpet, and watched as various West Orchard couples disembarked from limousines and fancy foreign imports like Hollywood stars at the premier of a major motion picture. Everyday glitz and glamour to them, while I got Chevrolet. At this point, I figured it was a fine life lesson I was learning, and I could cry about it later. I avoided saying hello to anyone with my parents around, wandered through the doors to absolutely no fanfare at all, followed the signs to the appropriate reception room, took my place at the furthest table from the dance floor I could find, and sipped from the cup of punch one of the staff set down for me. Of course, it was cherry: Jamie's favorite flavor.