Brandy Colbert - Pointe

Mrs. Pratt’s head whipped toward Principal Burns, but he must have been well versed in dealing with hysterical parents. He was already calling out to his secretary to get the store on the phone. A couple of minutes later, he was talking to the owner. Larry.

Yes, Larry had seen Donovan; he’d been in the store about thirty minutes after I saw him, and he was alone. But no, he didn’t know where he was off to after he left the store on his bike. He’d bought snacks while he was there—beef jerky and potato chips and soda and licorice. And a comic book, but Larry couldn’t remember which one.

Why was he at the convenience store when Chris no longer worked there? Sure, we’d stopped in a few times, when we were bored or dying of thirst or hunger. That was the way we’d met Chris, after all. But why stop for snacks, like he was going somewhere and would need food later?

Mrs. Pratt was inconsolable. My mother showed up to take both of us home a little while later. Honestly, I would have preferred to stay at school, even for those last couple of hours, because it meant I didn’t have to confront the dread that was slowly spreading from the Pratt house to ours to the rest of the town.

When Donovan still hadn’t shown up by eleven that evening, my parents sent me to bed. As if I could sleep, not knowing where he was. If he was coming home, why hadn’t he told me where he was going?

They kissed both my cheeks, held me an extra-long time in their arms before I went upstairs that night. I turned off my light and got into bed, but on top of the covers with all my clothes on. I uncurled my phone from my palm and pushed the button for Donovan’s number. I held my breath, waiting for him to pick up, to tell me he’d lost track of time and he was coming home soon.

I got nothing. Not even one ring, just straight to his voicemail, where the tone he used around grown-ups told me he couldn’t come to the phone right now, to please leave a message and he’d call me back.

I didn’t leave a message because I’d already left so many. One more wouldn’t make a difference.

I called Chris, though. Just one last time, to see if his silence had been a mistake, if he missed me, too, and wanted to see me.

But all I got was the same message I’d been getting for the last two weeks:

I’m sorry, but the number you’ve reached is no longer in service. If you believe you’ve reached this recording in error, please hang up and dial the number again.

I didn’t fall asleep until two in the morning. I slept with my phone on the pillow next to me, but it never rang. Not during the night, or the next day, either.

My phone never rang again with calls from Chris or Donovan and I never stopped wondering what I’d done to deserve it.

WINTER FORMAL.

Decidedly less cheesy than homecoming and more relaxed than prom, yet it’s done little to earn my respect over the years.

But Ashland Hills High School takes its dances very seriously, and the specially appointed student council committee starts planning immediately after homecoming, more than two months in advance. This year, it’s the Friday before the trial. I have three days until it starts, and I think that’s as good a reason as any to skip it, but Sara-Kate and Phil aren’t having it. Like last year, we go together. Dateless, but not alone.

This year I thought they might go together, as actual dates. I don’t think anything has happened beyond the rampant teasing I’ve witnessed at lunch, at Casablanca’s, and virtually anytime the three of us are together. But it’s there. It’s in the way Phil always jumps to hold the door open for her or give her the best seat at the movies, in the gaze that never stops appreciating her hourglass figure. And it’s in Sara-Kate’s extra-sweet smiles and the constant patience she reserves for his excessive complaints about the injustices of the world.

So I let my mother take me shopping for a dress and I get ready with Sara-Kate, let her doll me up with the miracles hidden in her makeup case. I feel beautiful when she’s all done, when I’m slowly turning in front of her full-length mirror, admiring my long, plum-colored dress with the low back.

“Is Hosea going tonight?” she asks, sitting on the edge of her bed as she looks at me looking at myself.

“Yeah.” I catch her eye in the mirror as I slide my hands over the smooth fabric. “I mean, I think so. He said Ellie wanted to go, so . . .”

“So you’re still talking to him. Of course.” She gives a quick nod, and I know I shouldn’t be offended by that nod, by the way she says “of course,” but I am. And that’s exactly why I haven’t told Sara-Kate that I slept with him. She doesn’t understand, and I don’t know how to make her see that he’s worth it.

“Are you mad at me for . . . liking him?”

We’re still looking at each other in the mirror. She clasps her hands in her lap, glances briefly toward the window. The night is black and cold behind her white lace curtains. We’re all going to freeze tonight because nobody likes to wear their coats over pretty dresses and fancy suits. I hold my breath as I wait for her to respond.

“I’m not mad at you, Theo,” she says to my reflection. “I just think you can do better. You deserve someone who doesn’t have to hide his relationship with you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I look away from her. Step away from the mirror.

Two seconds later, her arms are around me, in a hug from behind. She slips her chin into the nook between my neck and shoulder. “But I still love you, and I want you to be happy.”

We stand like that for a while, and I feel so good wrapped up in Sara-Kate love, and I wonder if she’ll feel the same way about me if she finds out about Chris.

I think Phil is going to stroke out when he sees Sara-Kate in her evening finery. Honestly, his eyeballs nearly pop from their sockets behind the black-framed glasses he’s donning for the occasion. For good reason. Sara-Kate’s hair is the whitest shade of platinum blond, a stark contrast to the navy chiffon dress that hugs her hips. Her lips are painted ruby red and she looks like a modern-day version of Marilyn Monroe.

“You look . . . Wow ” is all he can say as she approaches.

“Is that the official Philip Muñoz Seal of Approval?” Sara-Kate teases, her mouth turning up in a wide smile. She touches the rhinestone barrette clipped to the front of her hair.

“Yeah.” He gives a lopsided smile of his own, a smile so goofy, it looks foreign on Phil. “Something like that.”

He tells me I look good, too, and I can’t stop wishing it were Hosea saying it instead.

Everyone usually goes to a nice restaurant to eat dinner before the dance. Like Rizzo’s, the fancy Italian place with an actual maître d’ at the front. They make reservations and take their parents’ credit cards and try to sneak glasses of wine with their fake IDs.

We go to Pizza Bazaar, which is hardly fancy enough to be considered a restaurant. It basically consists of a long counter with bar stools at one end, a few booths, and some wobbly-legged tables scattered around the black-and-white tile floor. The lighting is bad and the pizza is just okay. But it’s empty and affordable and it makes Phil and Sara-Kate feel as if they’re not taking this dance thing as seriously as they are.

Phil goes up to put in our order. Slices of pepperoni and sausage for them and a small house salad—sans dressing—for me. I look down at the laminated menu caked with dried marinara sauce and sticky droplets of soda. The pizza here is mediocre but it’s hard to fuck up a slice of cheese, which is what I really wanted to order.