Prom and Thereafter

"I can't believe you..." A strange mix of disbelief and something she couldn't quite identify, is what Erica Dane felt at that moment.

"Kicked out of prom... Really!?" The blonde mother continued in query as she drove, her narrow eyes keeping to the wet road before her.

"You are eighteen years old. Eighteen! You're supposed to be the mature one in your class. Buuuut noooo, you just had to..." Erica stopped mid-sentence, too beset by emotion to even put what she had been told by the principle of her daughter's school into words. She instead just shaking her head, as her gaze drifted across the rain-obscured night sky that lingered over their journey. Her focus at that moment spent on finding the strength to speak past all she felt.

"Mom, I'm sorry, I... She just..." Despite the youth-amplified intensity of the feelings that coursed through her, or perhaps because of them, Allison found it hard to breathe, let alone speak. Despite that, she continued, trying to explain herself, even if such was impossible in her mother's eyes.

"She's just always so mean to me! I wasn't trying to get into a fight with her. I swear!" It was the truth, but even as she mustered it, she knew it wasn't enough. Not enough to quell the growing anger of her mother, whose hands clung to the wheel, squeezing so hard that the leather of it began to squeal beneath them.

It wasn't that sound that made Allison nauseous. For though the 18-year-old high school senior feared her mother's rage, she was also beset by regret. As in a flash of tempers and torment, the young blonde had lost what she had always hoped would be one of the greatest nights of her life: prom night.

"Do you know how many people are mean to me, Allison?" Erica began, her voice having been found and her will to speak forged.

"How many people are rude to me on a daily basis?" Though they seemed like questions, Erica waited for and wanted no answers from her daughter, she instead just continuing to speak.

"A ton. And I don't just..." The blonde mother again paused, as thoughts of what she planned on saying next entered her mind and froze her. Not for reasons she could identify in name, at least, not at that moment.

"...go around pulling their hair or rolling around on the floor with them." When finally the words passed her lips, Erica's eyes closed, as she tried to shake off whatever oddities of thought and imagination she felt nipping at her heels and tugging at her soul.

"What you ... and that girl did, was just ... just ... childish! It was stupid ... and ... and ... dangerous(!), for both of you." Past the comment though she was, and open though her eyes were again, the lonely middle-aged woman could see it. Picture it. Another woman and she grabbing each other's hair and rolling together on the floor.

And though that image played tease to Erica, in the resulting silence, Allison's eyes welled with tears as she tried decide how to respond to her mother lecture. Not sure how to escape the consequences of actions she took in a split-second and at the height of overwhelming frustration.

The 18-year-old high school student, at least in her own mind and at that moment, only defending herself against a girl she felt was not only bullying her in general, but there at prom - the most important night of her albeit short life!

"Mom, where are we going? This isn't the way home." The blonde, curly-haired daughter asked in a panic. Her heartbeat beginning to increase alongside a quickly growing worry about the direction she and her mother traveled.

Without looking to her daughter for reaction, knowing what it would be, Erica just spoke. Telling Allison of her fate, in one pitiless sentence. "We're going to do what you and this Nisha girl should have done: talk this out."

"Oh my god, mom; please!" Terror. Absolute terror took the 18-year-old. "No... I can't... You don't understand!"

"You can, and you will. It's part of being an adult, - dealing with people you have disagreements with. You're not a kid anymore, Alli, you're 18." Erica continued to speak sternly, even if in her voice there was a certain soothing - a tone to help her daughter understand. This was for her good, even if she hated the idea.

"You can't just run away from your problems like your father did. You have to stay and deal with them." Erica added as her own imagination began to settle, the statement unveiling the true reason behind her decision to force Allison to try to work out the issues that existed between she and her bully. That being a sensitivity to any decision that resembled one Allison's father's might have made. A father who had left them both when finances and parenthood got hard.

Revealing though the comment was, Allison was too young and too distracted by fear to catch it. "Mom, no, you don't understand. Nisha hates me. She hates ... us!" Without clarification or context, Allison pled, trying to convince her mom to turn the car around and just take her home.

"What do you mean she hates us? That doesn't even make any sense. I've never met her." For the first time, the wavy-haired mom seemed shaken. Not deterred, but confused. Off-put by the very suggestion that somehow, she played a role in what happened that night.

"She doesn't like US! White people... I don't know why, she's just rude. Rude, hateful, and mean. Please, just take me home." For a moment, after her own words ended and her mother failed to respond, Allison thought she had done it - successfully talked her way out of seeing Nisha again that night.

"Well ... I'll be sure to bring that up with her mother..." Like a an arrow loosed from a thousand yards away, the blue-eyed mother's response drove through Allison's heart and hopes of escape. And though Allison continued to plead and argue to avoid the humiliating fate of facing not only Nisha but her mother, Erica could not be dissuaded.

Set and certain as she was, after a few more turns and wet roads, did the two arrive at Nisha's home. The address texted to Erica by the mother of one of the girls' rare, mutual friends. Arrived though they had, Allison continued her efforts to talk her mom out of the meeting.

Even as they together exited their car.

Even as they walked from that car to the door.

Even as she knocked, her pleas only ending when the handle to the door turned and thereafter opened.

"Hello." Was the greeting. "How ... can I help you?" Was the question thereafter asked by the Indian woman who answered the door. Her skin a dark brown, and her hair a jet black. The strands of which were wet-sprayed in crisp, luxurious curls.

It was clear she was confused by what she saw in her doorway. Two women, one young like her daughter and the other her age though each of was a different race. Each standing before a backdrop of downpouring rain.

"Hi, Ms. Patel. My name is Erica Dane. My daughter's name is Allison." She could have said more. Could have gone on, and explained what had happened, and why she had come. But she knew. They both did. And in an instant, Erica could read it on the Indian mother's face.

"Oh..." Ms. Patel responded knowingly, as she continued to study those in her doorway.

The response wasn't what Erica expected, but as the chill air of the night began to wrap itself around her exposed legs, she pushed. "Can we come in? I'd think we need to talk about what happened."

"Yes, my apologies. Come in." Though her first reply was short, something in the request seemed to rouse the open-door-holding mother. One who wore a flowery orange skirt, a earthy brown singlet top, and bare feet. The flats she had worn placed neatly under a bench near the entrance.

"Erica, I'm Anjali." She who opened her door wide introduced, as her eyes scanned the rain-damp body of her counterpart.

"I haven't had a chance to speak to Nisha yet, but I heard what happened. Why don't you two have a seat on the couch, and I'll go get her." Friendly, Anjali seemed. Calm, especially given all that had occured that night, at least as Erica entered and passed her. But still there was something in her voice - in her eyes that Erica could not quite translate. At least not yet.

"Thank you." Erica said with a smile, as she entered the warm, yellow-red-hued home. Her own attire being very similar to Anjali's. She wearing a black skirt, a belted white blouse, and red heels. Heels she took off, much like her daughter, the visiting pair wanting to show respect for what seemed to be the Indian family's tradition.

"Mmm hmm..." Sounded Anjali, as she waited for Allison to enter and head to the couch with her mother. Only to speak again, as the blonde mother and daughter took a seat on the plush, red couch. "I'll go get Nisha. I'll only be just a minute."

A minute though she said, Anjali was gone for much longer. Leaving Erica and Allison to examine and study the immaculately clean home. Each impressed, by not just its state of keeping, but how well-decorated it was.

All of the decor that surrounded them looking as if it had been taken out of an exotic finds store you might run into in the mall. Golden elephant heads made of wire hanging on walls. Beautiful, handmade carpets. And symbols each of the two blondes recognized, even if they were uncertain as to their significance in Indian culture.

But even in all of that ornate decoration, one particular placement could not be ignored or missed. A shrine, almost, one dedicated to the late man of the house. Nisha's father. Anjali's husband. A man whose portrait sat surrounded by incense, and fresh, petal-rich flowers.

A sight Erica let her eyes examine, and her thoughts to focus on, even as Allison paid it not a single moment of contemplation. She having no interesting in truly finding a cause for her rival's social failings.

And though, at least up until that moment, the visit was not as awful as Allison had surmised, quickly, it became no less. For down the hall, in Nisha's room, Erica and daughter could hear raising voices. Shouting. And then, barely audible whispers. Whispers which came to a sudden stop, only a moment before the door to that room opened.

"I am sorry, that took far longer than I expected. I just wanted to make sure I knew Nisha's side of the story." Anjali explained from behind the sitting Dane family.

"Not a problem." Replied Erica in part, she stifling her own thoughts about the prospect of taking into account either of their daughter's "sides".

"Now, all of this sounds entirely foolish to me." Anjali began as she walked into the living room, and then to the couch opposite their guests. Her daughter behind her. She still wearing her prom dress. One with a single strap, that rose high up the caramel-skinned girl's narrow thighs, showing off her toned, muscular legs and red-toe-painted feet.

In that nubile state, the 18-year-old Indian girl entered the room, her eyes immediately finding and locking onto Allison in a glare. A glare the young blonde, in exactly the same state of dress (save for the color), fitness, and figure, avoided. She shifting her eyes down to the expensive carpet below her alabaster-toned legs and feet, fearful of getting into any more trouble than she was already in.

"I agree. Silly." Erica said with a nod, she noticing Nisha's targeted eyes, only to choose not to comment on them.

"It seems, you sent your daughter to Prom with the same dress as my daughter. A simple mistake." Not once, during the comment did Anjali look at Erica, instead she kept her eyes firmly affixed to Allison, just like her daughter. Each of them almost boring holes in the young blonde, who tried, as best she could, to just sink in and disappear into the couch on which she sat.

"I'm not sure how it was a mistake - how was I supposed to know you were going to choose that dress for your daughter. I didn't even know your family could afford a dress like that." Despite all the talk of calmness, and control - maturity and acting like an adult, Erica felt a twinge at Anjali's accusation of error. A twinge that pushed her, as her own eyes flared, to respond with a tiny jab of her own.

"But regardless..." Erica continued, before Anjali could respond. "...the dresses weren't even the same color. My daughter's dress was black, and Nisha's..." As she referenced her daughter's persecutor, Erica shot a glare in the direction of the same. The caucasian mother quickly finding herself irritated by Nisha's antagonizing glare. "...was red."

As Erica continued to speak, and her voice to harden, Allison looked up from the floor shocked. Not expecting her normally demanding and perfect mother to act in such a way. But something about it. The strength. The cattiness. The way she seemed to be match her rival's mother's comment with one of her own, gave Allison the opening to do the same. Not in words, mind you, but with a lifted head, as the high school senior finally returned Nisha's hateful glare.

A glare Anjali missed, as she had found her own attention drawn to Erica, who seemed far less like the soft, white sheep, she assumed her to be. "It's funny you say that, about my family not being able to afford such a dress. From what I hear, your daughter usually wears rags to school. Maybe even your hand-me-downs? From when you were thinner, perhaps?"

It was at that moment, and that comment, that Erica and Anjali's interest in their daughters began to ebb, their eyes fusing together as the words and tone of the other became the new cause of the continuing conversation.

Despite that shifting of tracks, Erica made one last attempt to keep their mutual trains on track, by trying to ignore Anjali's searing cut. "My daughter tells me Nisha doesn't like white people. Did you know that, Ms. Patel?" No matter how those words read, or look on paper, each came like a brick dropped from a window. Their speaker barely in control of her quickly intensifying emotions and returning excitement from the car.

"No, I just don't like her!" Nisha spat quickly, knowing she was not supposed to speak. And yet still she did, as she sat next to her mother, still in her prom dress, on the couch opposite the blondes'.

"You're a liar!" Allison's replied in no less of a burst.

And whereas Erica shot out a rebuke, "Allison", Anjali simply placed a hand on Nisha's thigh and patted approvingly.

"It is as she said..." Came Anjali's answer, her face plastered with the most irritating of fake smiles.

"Look..." Erica began, the image she saw as she drove her daughter returning to her mind. Though the faceless woman she had been rolling with had been replaced by Anjali. By the woman at whom she glared. By the woman who glared right back at her. Each hanging on the other's every word. "...I know it's hard. We're both single parents with an only child. But that doesn't mean you can just let your girl be a bitchy little brat. You have to be..."

"Do not!" Anjali responded in a shout that quickly gave way to tone of lesser volume, though it held no less outrage. "Do not compare our situations. My husband loved me. He loved Nisha. To the very moment he died. Your husband, left you and your slutty little daughter."

The comment was harsh, cruel, and reflective of what Anjali truly felt, deep in her core. And yet, as the words were spoken, their speaker's eyes told their own tale. They speaking of a need, a desire, a hope that Erica would respond. That she would escalate the moment and the words used. Those windows to the soul flaring wider and wider, as the true poison of the rebuttal was passed from one mother to another.

Those missives were forged not by intent, but instead by instinct. The widowed Indian not even knowing that at that moment she wanted one thing, and one thing only: to fight Erica. To grab her. To pull her. To push their bodies together and war, just as their daughters had done. The idea planted, and in a blink, blossomed. Not only in she, but in the woman who must play a part, should that terrible, wonderful dream come to pass.

A dream hewed from loneliness. Cruel, soul-tearing loneliness that had plagued both mothers for years. Neither possessing the strength to find another man, even when the same had pursued them. Each still trapped in ended relationships. Erica's by abandonment, and Anjali's by fate and a dragon named cancer.

Two causes which left the women to sit in their rooms at night pining. Not for a man in particular or even their lost husbands. But instead for anything. Anyone. Some kind of excitement. Some kind of contact. Sensual or not. Touch, in any form. Passion, regardless of cause

And though that same subconscious desire had taken hold of her, not just on that couch, but as they traveled in the car, Erica too failed to understand what was happening. Even if, as a woman lost in a raging river, she was pulled by the rushing water.

Towards escalation.

Towards outrage.

Towards conflict.

"And that makes you better than me?" Erica asked hotly, as she shot up from the couch. Her jaw bent in an anger and desire she could no longer control.

"Oh, yes... It does..." Anjali replied as she stood, she at that moment beginning to walk towards the angry white mother. Drawn to her, as a moth to a flame.

As the fire between their mothers grew and flared, Allison and Nisha were having a war of their own. Each mouthing silent curses and threats to one another, as those who would otherwise stop them argued.

"You aren't better than me..." Erica said in a confident hiss, as she stepped forward, meeting Anjali between their parallel couches. The two mothers hearts pounding and pulses racing as the moment they each wanted, though without knowing it, came ever so close to being theirs.

"She's not wearing any panties, mom! Tell her!" Nisha reminded in a sudden seizing of desire to hurt Allison. One that took her and pushed her to leave her couch to rejoin her mother, all in an effort to get closer to her rival.

"Bitch!" Allison screamed back at Nisha as she moved to her mother's side, she too feeling the need to get near the girl with who she rolled at prom. A curse that at any other moment would have made Erica blind with parental anger. But then and there, all that distracted mother did was glare. Not at Nisha or her daughter, but at Anjali.

"She wasn't wearing any panties either!" Allison added, her voice drenched with a desperate expectancy of punishment and anger from Erica. But that anger never came, nor were the words said even replied to.

For even as their daughters cast accusations about each other, Erica and Anjali were transfixed. Locked together in a moment unlike any they had ever experienced. They each leaning in, closer and closer, as they looked to smell each other. Their eyes looking deep into those of their rival mother, each trying to decipher what the other wanted. All as their clothed breasts hovered so close to each other that they could feel the fabric of the other's top brush against theirs.

But even with all that had been said by their daughters, who now stood next to them. The two of them leaning closer and closer to snarl and hiss.

Each wanting to destroy the other.

To finish what they started earlier that night.

And though for a moment they each considered it. Lunging and leaping at each other. Anjali suddenly spoke, replying to Erica's previous comment. One that had seemed to have been spoken years ago.

The Indian widow leaning in, and with her own dark-lips pressed to Erica's hair-covered, ivory ear, she whispered. "Yes. I. Am."

She WAS better, in her own mind. And though she had waited to say it, instead lingering in their staredown - their standoff, she wanted Erica to know. Wanted her to feel it, as her dagger of words pressed in.

At the hearing - at the plunging, Erica's mouth dropped open, even as Anjali pulled back. She wanting to see the blonde mother's eyes, as she processed what had been said. To examine her face, as she realized the challenge that had been issued.