Pamela Browning - Snapshots

Things got a little crazier as the evening wore on, and the dancing became less inhibited as more people arrived. Girls exclaimed over one another’s dresses, the guys joked, the chaperones beamed approvingly the way they always do as long as things remain calm. The stays from my long-line strapless bra dug into my ribs, and I was glad to dance with Rick after a while because I could be honest about my agony.

“You should be wearing a choke collar like this one.” With a grimace of distaste, he removed his hand from my waist and ran a forefinger inside the offending object. “But—” and he gazed down at me with a twinkle in his eyes, just managing not to ogle my cleavage “—I’m awfully glad you’re dressed the way you are. You’re gorgeous, Trista.”

“Martine, too,” I replied automatically as she swooped into the periphery of my vision. Shaz was dipping her, and her laughter verged on the manic. I tried to catch her eye, but Rick twirled me too fast. When I remembered to look for Martine again, I didn’t see her.

I was having such a good time that it didn’t matter. Martine and I weren’t joined at the hip, after all. Kids began to drift out of the ballroom toward the end of the evening, heading upstairs to their rooms, and I admit to a pang of frustration as I watched them leave. I was eager that night to leave my childhood behind. Senior prom marked a rite of passage, and I was heady with the promise of the future and all the wonderful new experiences that would soon open to me.

Before the last dance, Mr. Helms climbed the steps to the bandstand. He intoned something into the microphone about the revels at the hotel being over, that mumble mumble we were a fine group of young people, that he harbored great mumble hopes as he loosed us on the rest of the world. He also said, his voice lowering on a note of seriousness, that none of the gatherings at the hotel after midnight were school-sanctioned. He’d sent flyers home stating that very fact, much to the satisfaction of my father.

The last dance was slow and dreamy, and Rick appeared as if by magic and took me in his arms. This time, unlike during our other dances, he rested his cheek against my temple, making me conscious of how well we fit together. For a few minutes, I imagined how it would be if Rick were really someone I dated. I’d had boyfriends, a few that I liked a lot. I never fell in love with any of them, and to the guys I went out with, I was just a date who had a few interesting things to say and knew how to shag really well. No, that doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. The shag is what we call our South Carolina official dance, and I’d learned it from my parents, the 1970 shag champions of Myrtle Beach. Okay, okay, I can’t help it if that’s what they call the sex act in England. A shag can also be either a rug or a haircut, take your pick.

Anyway, as the band wound the song to a close, Rick held me close for a moment. Then it was over, and everyone started calling out their good-nights. One boy stumbled over the edge of the dance floor, and Rick pulled me back in case the guy fell in our direction.

“That’s Bill Kryzalic,” Rick whispered. “Drunk as a skunk.”

“What did he do—bring booze in a flask?” The chaperones were keeping a sharp eye out for any flouting of the rules, which were clear: we catch you drinking at the prom and you get a stern lecture, plus we deliver you in disgrace to your parents. Serious infractions were penalized by school suspension, and with final exams in the offing, this could jeopardize a student’s graduation.

“Some guys had flasks in the restroom,” Rick acknowledged. “Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

“Have you seen Martine lately?” I asked, frowning.

“She was dancing with Hugh Barfield about twenty minutes ago.” A lightning streak of alarm rippled through me, a warning, an alert. A glance passed between Rick and me, an instant communication of alarm. We each knew what the other was thinking, as we so often did.

I kept my voice calm. “Think I should check out the ladies’ room?”

“Sure. We don’t want to be late for Alec’s party,” Rick said, devilishly trying to distract me from worrying about Martine.

Exasperated, I punched him in the arm and left. He leaned against a column, hands in pockets, to wait.

The ladies’ room was not as crowded as it had been earlier. “Martine?” I called as I entered the anteroom, where a couple of girls were applying lipstick or tucking stray wisps of hair into their elaborate hairdos.

“She’s not in here,” drawled Kaytee Blackmon, one of the girls from Spanish class. “Are you two heading up to the sixth floor for the parties?”

I didn’t feel like launching into the poor-pitiful-us explanation. “Not sure yet,” I said, pretending that everything was normal and breezing out of there as quickly as I could.

Rick was still leaning against the pillar where I’d left him, but he had loosened his tie so it hung around his collar. He lifted his eyebrows. “So where is she?”

“I haven’t a clue. Rick, I’m worried.”

“Let’s check the ballroom,” he said.

The only people still around were members of the hotel cleanup crew, our principal and Mrs. Huff, who was packing up the punch bowl.

“Do you know,” she said, smiling as we approached, “this is my aunt’s Waterford that she willed to me? Aunt Eulalie would be so pleased that I’ve put it to good use.”

“Mrs. Huff, do you know where Martine is?”

“Oh, she was out dancing the boogaloo with some John Travolta look-alike a few minutes ago,” Mrs. Huff said.

Rick and I exchanged grins. Boogaloo? John Travolta? What century was Mrs. Huff living in, anyway?

Still, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Martine. My concern mounted as we pressed into the lobby behind a couple of football players who were friends of Rick’s. We asked them if anyone had seen her.

“Didn’t she go upstairs with some of the other kids?” asked one of the guys.

“I doubt it,” I replied.

“I’m sure she got on the elevator,” said one of the others.

“Oh, shit,” Rick muttered. “What the hell is she up to?”

I rested a hand on Rick’s sleeve. “Rick, she could have gone up for a while and meant to be back but lost track of the time.”

“You’re right,” Rick said, a line of worry appearing between his eyes. He knew as well as I did that Martine had no business being on the sixth floor.

We crowded into the elevator, and the exchange among the other kids was loud and jocular. When the doors opened and we all tumbled out, someone behind us yelled, “Party!” at the top of his lungs.

Most of the doors to the rooms lining the corridor were open, and music blared from several. Shannon Sottile, one of my colleagues on the school newspaper, lounged in a doorway, sipping from a paper cup.

“Hiya, Trista. Whassup?”

“We can’t find Martine,” I told her. Shannon had changed into hip-huggers so tight that she must have slithered them on.

“She’s not in my room,” she said, “but come in anyway. We’ve got a bunch of food that my mother sent over, Triscuits and cream cheese with hot-pepper jelly. Half a ham.”

“Later,” Rick said, pushing past her.

The next room’s door was closed, a discarded bow tie draped across the doorknob in a not-so-subtle signal that the occupants wanted privacy. I wondered who was in there doing the deed; I wondered whether I’d be having sex, too, if I had a boyfriend. I had never let anyone get past second base, though I was curious about how I’d feel if I ever did. Happy? Scared? In love? Who knew?

Rick’s hand in the small of my back guided me to the next door, behind which a raucous gathering was in progress. Sam Gambrell, wearing a pair of wrinkled Bermudas and nothing else, staggered into the hall. In the room behind him, the cheerleaders’ captain danced on one of the beds to an MTV video playing loudly on the television set behind her. She was bouncing up and down, her hair loose and unruly, a group of onlookers egging her on.