Pamela Browning - Snapshots

“Usually, kids dress for the prom at the hotel beforehand, and afterward they wear the same clothes they had on when they checked in. Then everyone watches TV and maybe orders room service,” Martine said. “And they have tables in the rooms. Sometimes a couch to sit on.”

“But there are beds,” Dad said ominously.

“It’s not a big deal, Dad,” I said. “Anyhow, you don’t have to have beds to do what you’re thinking.” This seemed like common sense to me, knowing as I did two or three girls who’d had babies, and not by stumbling across them in a collard patch, either.

He glowered across the table. “My daughters do not spend the night in a hotel room with a guy.” Have I mentioned that as a defense lawyer, our father excelled at the art of logical argument and enjoyed sparring with us?

“Dad—” I said, not too worried at this point. His resistance might be no more than part of his training program; Dad still cherished the possibility that Martine and I might join his law firm someday.

“Daddy—” Martine said at the same time.

“Roger,” Mom said hastily, “maybe we should talk this over later.”

“It’s only Rick, Dad,” I reminded him patiently. “He’s not just ‘a guy.’”

“Roger, there will be three of them,” Mom added. “It’s hard to imagine that anything, um, bad could happen. Rick’s parents gave him permission.”

Dad slapped his hands on the table, palms down. A vein throbbed in his neck. “Rick is a fine young man, but Trista and Martine are not spending the night at a hotel with him or any other boy. Stuff happens. Bad stuff. And don’t give me ‘Daddy, please,’ or ‘Dad, all the kids are doing it.’ Just because everyone else decides to jump off a cliff, does that mean I have to let my daughters do it?” This, of course, has a rhetorical question, and one that we’d heard often enough as we were growing up.

“But if you don’t let us stay at the hotel all night, we’ll have to come home after the prom is over,” Martine wailed.

“Nothing wrong with that,” my father stated firmly, tossing his napkin onto the table and stalking out of the room.

Okay, so Dad’s abandonment of the argument meant that his decision was final. The master of our fates had spoken. I was smart enough not to push it, at least not then.

I gazed down at my lap, my mother emitted sounds of distress and Martine burst into tears.

Martine and I spent the next few days commiserating with each other. Our friends added fuel to the fire by declaring that their parents were allowing them to stay at the hotel overnight, and how could our parents be so mean? To which we replied sorrowfully that it was beyond us, our father was hopelessly old-fashioned and just didn’t understand. Keep in mind that this was the year that Martine and I alternated between loving our parents to death and being sure they were out to ruin our lives.

A few days before the prom, our mother, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement, walked into our room and perched on the edge of my bed. She’d just had her hair trimmed, and it swung across her cheeks in a shiny arc as she told us she had a wonderfully exciting secret to reveal.

“It’s about prom night,” she said, barely able to contain her glee. “The Finnerans are having an all-night party at their house and you two are invited!”

I was folding socks to put in my drawer, and Martine sat at her desk producing a pen-and-ink cartoon for the school paper, where we both were on staff. My face fell, and Martine let out a groan. “Alec Finneran is the biggest dork in our school, and I wouldn’t spend prom night at his house for anything in the world, not even a date with Keanu.” This announcement was major, since Martine had been in love with the movie star Keanu Reeves for over a year. She even blotted her lipstick on a mini poster of him that she’d taped on the inside of her school-locker door.

Mom plowed ahead. “Both Gail and John Finneran intend to stay up all night to monitor the party. They’ll set up tables around their swimming pool, and they’re planning to order an eight-foot-long sub.” I had to hand it to poor Mom; she was trying to make the idea sound attractive.

“I told you Alec was dorky,” Martine said with conviction. “Otherwise he wouldn’t agree to an eight-foot-long sub.” Her words oozed sarcasm.

We waited in stony silence for Mom to say the next word, and of course she did.

“Your dad said it would be okay if you stayed out at the Finnerans’ after the prom.”

“Auurgh! I hate my life,” Martine said, flopping onto her twin bed and burying her head under the pillow.

“Me, too,” I agreed. I crossed my arms over my chest and avoided Mom’s eyes.

Our mother heaved a sigh, stood and headed for the door. “Mine isn’t so great right now, either. You twins didn’t arrive with an instruction manual.” She was still smiling, forced though it was. “I worry about you.”

“We’re eighteen, Mom,” I reminded her with growing impatience. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“You don’t even know what to watch out for,” she said with considerable conviction, and Martine and I exchanged a baffled glance. This was another parental declaration that made little sense to us.

As Mom’s footsteps faded down the stairs, Martine spoke up, her words still muffled by the pillow, “You’d better call Rick and tell him the fantastic news about Alec Dork’s party. And don’t forget the eight-foot sub, which we’ll be eating by the romantic blue light of the Finnerans’ humongous bug zapper.”

When we told him about the party, Rick tossed off a good-natured comment along the lines of “Let’s roll with the punches.” As a result, by the time prom night trundled around, we were psyched up for the dance and resigned to Alec’s party. A few other kids in the neighborhood would be there, and one of them was bringing his guitar. If the weather was warm enough, we’d go for a moonlight swim in the Finnerans’ pool. None of that would be so bad, really, and Rick even talked Alec out of the sub in favor of grilling hamburgers.

When Rick arrived at our house on prom night, we oohed and aahed over him in his rented tux. He’d chosen black, like our dresses, and the white tucked shirt had a cool wing collar and cuffs fastened with links borrowed from his dad. He wore a red cummerbund and shiny black shoes. He looked fantastic and said the same about us.

Of course, we had to troop out to the backyard and have our pictures taken in front of Mom’s prize camellias. Another snapshot, another milestone in our lives.

When the three of us walked under the bower of fresh flowers into the ballroom at the hotel, we were a showstopper. Heads literally snapped around in midconversation, jaws dropped and Mr. Helms, the principal, favored us with one of his toothy smiles. He clapped Rick on the shoulder, shook Martine’s and my hands and directed us to the refreshment table, where Mrs. Huff was ladling out syrupy pink punch.

“What is this stuff—antifreeze?” Martine murmured, smiling sweetly at a bevy of chaperones all the while.

“Flop sweat,” I told her, having recently heard the term and thinking it appropriate, though I had no idea what flop sweat might be.

Martine snickered, and Rick grinned. “Which one of you would like to dance first?” he asked as the band ground out a heavy rock beat. They were a local newbie outfit called Hootie and the Blowfish, whose popularity was growing with the college crowd.

“I’ll dance,” Martine said offhandedly. She set her cup down on a nearby table and accompanied Rick out on the floor.

After that, guys asked me to dance, putting both arms around my waist, and I looped my hands behind their necks. It was the classic prom waddle, nothing fancy. I’d known a lot of the boys from kindergarten—Dave Barnhill, Shaz Gainey, Chris Funderburk. They all had dates, but their dates were my friends, and we had no illusions of exclusivity.