Click

“That is too lame,” Preston said, shaking his head and tossing a shirt now unfolded at me. I caught it and glared at him. “Oh come on, Chris. It was lame and you know it. ‘Better yet I’ll be your date’. Bull crap. He’s screwed anyway. He’s got that Amanda chick, right? I’ve heard she’s pretty brutal.”

“She is,” I shrugged, scanning the racks for a pair of jeans. Blade and I hadn’t really communicated after the lunch incident. Not even in drama, when we were forced to perform a skit together where I was the mom, some guy named Blake was the father, Marcy was the baby daughter and Blade was the eldest son who we were supposed to be convincing out of smoking. The skit itself was extremely stupid, even though the idea was smart. But the dialogue couldn’t have been cornier.

After school, I had met up with Mr. Griffin, who looked very uncomfortable. From what I had heard through David, he had never done a private tutoring session with a student, so while I took down notes that I already knew perfectly, he stood leaning against the board waiting for me to finish. He had shifted his weight from one foot to another almost four times a minute, so it was obvious that this whole one-student-in-the-classroom thing was a new experience for him—and he definitely didn’t look to like it.

When I got to the mall afterwards, however, it turned out that Marcy and Kayti had not only brought all of my money—all four hundred dollars worth from a birthday and Christmas saving up for summer art classes—but now they expected me to buy a costume, and normal school clothes. However, Marcy decided this would be a good opportunity to pick out some outfits that I could “woo” Mr. Griffin in.

I still couldn’t believe I was doing this for her. This was like friendly favours to the tenth degree.

“Have you even asked your dad if you’re allowed to go?” Preston asked, holding a pair of men’s jeans against his legs and looking down at himself. “And does this look weird?”

“Right now, yes. Put them on you and no,” I said, turning to face him fully and putting an elbow on the top of the rack. “And no, I have not asked him. He’ll probably let me go though.”

“Well ask him soon, if you wait too long, you won’t be allowed.”

“Yes, thank you. I get that,” I deadpanned, narrowing my eyes. Something plaid whipped me in the face and stayed there; caught on my ponytail. I frowned and dragged it off, turning my glare on Marcy as she crossed her arms over her chest and nodded, satisfied.

“Wear that,” she said, “and Mr. Griffin might as well just give you the answers.”

I rolled my eyes and practically dragged myself toward the change rooms. I knew that there was no way in hell that Marcy was going to give in on this plan of hers until she got the answers to the test. Chances were, Mr. Griffin didn’t even have then written down so this was all a waste of our time. I looked down at the skirt for a moment, just now realizing how short it really was. It could hardly be classified as one, it looked like a belt. And I’m pretty sure that if I entered school wearing that tomorrow, than I would probably be arrested.

I turned to Marcy and she raised her eyebrows.

“What the hell did you stop for? Go try it on,” she said, nodding behind me.

I laughed semi-nervously, but more as a doubting chuckle than anything. “No way,” I said, tossing it back at her. “You want the answers bad enough to buy this skirt? Then you wear it and woo Mr. Griffin.” I walked toward and around her, back into the store part where Preston leaned against one of the round racks, eyebrows raised and an amused smile on his face. I got a quick peek in one of the mirrors to see Marcy staring at the skirt, like she was actually considering buying it.

Then she shook her head and tossed it back on one of the shelves. Preston and I chuckled at her as she walked away grumbling something about how I was going to make her fail the test.

Just because I didn’t wear a mini-skirt.

Pah!

“You guys,” Kayti said, poking her head into the store. “I found the perfect place for costumes.”

After a lot of fussing and fighting—mostly me vs. Marcy because she wanted to go to the party really badly and if I wasn’t going “with” Blade, I probably wouldn’t go at all—we ended up in a store called Costumes Plus, and the name certainly fit, seeing as the store was abundant with thousands of different outfits for pretty much any occasion you could think of.

“It’s February,” I said, shaking my head as the material of a clowns costume slid through my fingers. I shook my head. “You’d think that they wouldn’t be selling Halloween costumes when we’re like ten months away.”

Preston chuckled from behind me. “Hey guys,” he said. We turned around and found him wearing a top hat that looked like it belonged in A Christmas Carol. Only difference was, around the base of the hat, there was a pink velvet string, and on the top was a black and pink matching spinning wheel. I gave him an odd look.

“You look good,” I said, turning back around and walking towards the back of the store where most of the teenage girls’ costumes appeared to be. Preston snickered and walked up behind Kayti wearing a mask with the face of the Joker, from what I saw in one of the mirrors as I passed by. He was sneaking on his tippy toes directly behind her, very prepared to scare the living day lights out of her, but Preston, being the new guy and hardly knowing a thing about any of us, was unaware of the fact that Kayti was easily frightened by horror movie characters, and when someone she knew pretended to be them and actually succeeded in scaring her, she would usually wield a long household item around her, and try and injure the person.

Marcy believes that Kayti may have some severe attitude problems.

I just thought she had a tendency to overreact; a lot.

I glared at Preston until he got the point and put the mask on a rack. Suddenly, Marcy gasped and then squealed in a really too-girly-for-my-tastes manner, before rushing over to one of the sections where a long line of dresses were hung up beside each other.

“Look at this!” she screamed, holding up a baby blue silk dress. It really was quite nice. No, I was not a big dress fan, and I probably never would be, but still, this dress was amazing. Marcy would look amazing in it. It had thin straps in a design that someone would put their hair in if they were braiding it, as well as an empire waist made of the same material and colour, but it still stood out. It dipped down towards the center and stopped in a V-neck fashion so that it didn’t stop too soon that it would made it look like a turtle neck sweater, and not too low to make it look extremely inappropriate.

It was beautiful. Marcy shoved the hanger into my stomach and I raised my eyebrows at her. “Aren’t you getting this one?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No way, you are.”

I frowned. “Marcy, I don’t really want to wear a dress.”

She slapped me on the back of the head and I winced.

“Ow.”

“You’re wearing it.”

“No I’m not.”

She slapped me again and I scowled at her.

“Stop it.”

“Wear the dress.”

“I don’t want to wear the dress. You wear the dress.”

This time, Kayti slapped me on the head. I growled and slapped her back.

“Ow! What was that for?! You’re not supposed to hit people!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, you know what? Just try it on,” Preston said, shoving me toward the change room. I guess I had a soft spot and didn’t want to say no too many times to a guy who I hardly knew and did seem to be a nice guy. But, the thing was, I had no interest in going to this party in a dress. When I put it on, it seemed to work okay on me, but I’m sure it would have looked better on someone else. It wasn’t that that bothered me.

It was more because it reminded me that I would be wearing this. On Friday. With Blade. To the party. At that, my heart beat sped up a little bit. I didn’t know what it was, but suddenly I was panicking. Not to a point of sweating or hyperventilating or saying “oh, my God. Oh, my God!” but the kind of panic someone would get if it dawned on them that they were going out for the night with their crush. Now, it wasn’t so much that I was nervous or anxious; it was a feeling where my throat went dry, my knees wobbled from sudden lack of balance, I was going to need some water. It might have been because I had had a Pepsi on the way over here, and no matter what, those things made me thirstier after every sip.

My phone rang when I was pulling the dress over my head, and I was in a position where I couldn’t see a thing because the part that was supposed to be at my feet was right over my eyes. I had accidentally put the dress on backwards—so the tag was almost in my mouth—and basically, I was going to need assistance to get this off of me. There was no way I’d be able to handle it on my own.

With my arms straight up in the air, since the elastic was preventing me from moving them anywhere, I tilted my whole body to the left and attempted to find my phone as Marvin Gaye blasted through. I was a big fan of oldies, and yes there were some current songs that I could use as a ring tone, but personally, I just found Marvin to be so much more enjoyable. Even in my current situation, I found myself smiling.

Since I couldn’t put the phone to my ear, I reached up and pressed the speaker phone button, and then dropped the cell phone on the floor.

“Hello?” I groaned, struggling in the dress to fix myself up and get into a suitable position.

“Chris?”

I shut my eyes tightly. Of course Blade had to call me when I had a dress not even covering my underwear. I knew I should have kept on my jeans.

“Hey Blade,” I said.

“I thought I was talking to a man. Again,” he said with a chuckle.

I sighed. “You just always happen to get me in the worst situations possible.”

“So. The dance,” he trailed off and cleared his throat, assuming that I knew what he was getting at already. It was either “so, I’m not going to be able to go with you because in case you haven’t noticed, I have a girlfriend. I just wanted you to shut up already” or “try harder, stupid”.

I shimmied around the room, trying desperately to get the dress off of me. Unfortunately, I ended up bashing into a wall and the woman in the changing room next to me screeched like I was coming at her with an axe. I rolled my eyes.

Marcy asked “Chris? Is someone in there with you?” at the same time that Blade said “did your dad say you could go yet?”

“No!” I yelped, but only meant it for Marcy.

“Okay,” she mumbled.

“No?” Blade asked. “Well. I wasn’t aware it was such a sensitive subject.”

“It’s not,” I said. “I was talking to Marcy.”

“Oh okay, so you—”

The door opened and I shrieked, turning away from whoever was there but it didn’t do much good because either way, the person standing at the door still got a view of my underwear. I could feel my face boiling.

“Get out!” I yelled to the person.

“Just me,” Kayti said with a laugh.

“And me!”

My eyes widened and I tried to shoo Preston out the minute that I heard his voice but it didn’t do too much good with my hands sticking up in the air. I looked like a giraffe, and the most movement I got going on was the flicking of my hands.

“Out,” Kayti ordered, slamming the door. For all I knew, she closed him inside since I couldn’t see shit, but she wouldn’t do that. I knew she took hilarity out of the most ridiculous situations—this being one of them—but she wouldn’t purposely cause it.

“My God,” she said, laughing. “What did you do?”

“The arms got twisted,” I growled. “And I kind of got a little stuck.”

“A little?” she teased. Her footsteps got closer and she began pulling the dress from one side, causing the elastic of the front to pull my neck back. I choked.

“Ow! Release!”

“Sorry!”

I heard a stomp and a click and realized that Kayti had stepped on my phone.

“Kayti!”

“My bad!”

“What is going on over there?” Blade asked. For once, he wasn’t actually laughing; which was surprising since, if I was in his position, I’d probably be making up a scenario that did not fit what was actually going on at all.

I heard another beep.

“Kayti, remove the foot!”

“I’m trying!”

“It’s not that difficult!”

“Yes it is! Do you know how much of a struggle it is to pull you out of this tiny little thing and keep my balance?! It’s not a normal situation, Chris! It is a very messed up situation!”

“Was sagten Sie gerade?” came from my phone and I frowned.

“Kayti. You stepped on the translator.”

“I did?”

“Yes! Switch it back!”

“I’m trying to get your head out of this hole! Will you wait one minute?!”

Blade burst out laughing, right in time for another beep to overpower his voice.

“Savez-vous bizarre qui semble?” he asked.

“Kayti, forget about me for a second. Switch my phone back!”

I felt her let go of me and through the bottom of my dress, saw her pick up my phone and then stand straight up again. She pressed a couple of buttons. “Okay, I think it’s fixed now.”

“Wat zijn u twee zelfs doen?” Blade asked.

I groaned. “Unless he speaks Dutch, it isn’t fixed.”

“He could.”

“Kayti! Click on the English one.”

“I did! My finger slipped.”

“Then don’t let your finger slip.”

“Dies ist lächerlich,” Blade mumbled.

“Shut up! Stop speaking in different languages!” Kayti screeched.

“What is going on in there?” Preston asked, banging his fist on the door.

“No, you may not come in to check!” I yelled, putting my foot up on the stool in the corner of the room, grabbing the coat hanger with one hand and the arm strap of the dress with the other. I yanked myself backwards and fell onto my butt with the dress still on me, only further up so now, my stomach and everything below that was showing. If it was anyone other than Kayti, I would be shoving them out of there pronto, but well . . . it wasn’t so bad right now.

Just my position.

“Kayti, can you help me off the floor?” I mumbled.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto my feet but I stumbled with my close-to-no-balance and fell into her, causing us both to tumble back onto the carpet. We groaned and Kayti stood up while I shuffled around the floor, desperate to get this hell-causer off of me.

“Okay, pull hard against me,” Kayti said, coming over to me and grabbing onto the material near my shoulders.

“Que?”

I pulled backwards and Kayti pulled forward.

“Harder!” she screamed.

Marcy and Preston burst into laughter from the other side of the door and the lady that had screamed from before slammed her door with a scoff and walked off mumbling “disgusting teenagers” repeatedly.

Kayti grunted loudly and yanked the dress right off my head, which lead to me slamming my head in between two walls at the same time, and her to bash into the stool.

“Ow,” I mumbled, grabbing my shirt and slipping it on quickly, as well as my jeans.

It went silent between Kayti and me now, besides Blade, Marcy and Preston all laughing hysterically. I grabbed my phone and turned it back to English.

“That uhm . . .” I didn’t know how to word it, so I just stopped talking.

Blade chuckled. “No sweat, I was always rooting for you kids to get together,” he teased.

I grumbled something unintelligent that had no meaning and really, even I couldn’t understand what noise I had emitted. “I’ll call you later,” I said and hung up. Kayti sighed and rubbed her head.

“Maybe we should get you a different dress.”

I scoffed. “Or maybe I should go as a guy,” I said. “There won’t be any wardrobe malfunctions that way.”

Marcy slammed opened the door and I jumped. Good thing I was dressed again.

“No way!” she yelled.

“Yeah, you don’t eavesdrop, my ass,” I mumbled, thinking back to a discussion we had shared a while ago when she claimed to never listen in on other peoples conversations. We all knew she was bullshitting with us, but we didn’t stop the argument for her sake; we wanted to prove our point. She just chose to disagree.

We knew though, that she knew we were right and she was wrong. She got that expression on her face where her eyes were all wide and her cheeks were bright red but she kept on arguing to save face and hopefully get us to that point where we’d just give up and she’d act all proud like “oh I know I’m wrong but you’re stupid for giving in so I won an argument I was meant to lose”.

It was the worst feeling, being in the middle of an argument and then realizing that you were actually wrong.

Marcy huffed. “You’re wearing a dress.”

“Actually, I’m not. I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt—”

“Oh, ha-ha. Aren’t you funny,” she said quickly, glaring at me. She hardly took a break between each word. I smiled and raised my eyebrows. Clearly a dress for a party was a touchy subject. “No. No, you’re not funny. And you’re wearing a dress to the party.”

“It’s a stupid party,” I said, shaking my head and walking out of the change room. Preston, Kayti and Marcy followed me. “Who has a Halloween-based party in February? It’s. Ridiculous.”

“You know you want to go,” Kayti said, crossing her arms. “After all, Blade’s your date.”

“I can bet you anything though, that he’s going to end up cancelling on me. After all, Amanda’s got control over him.”

“She does not. She’s not his mother.”

“Why are you defending her?” Marcy asked, slapping Kayti on the arm. “You were just bitching about her a couple days ago.”

“I’m not defending her,” Kayti snapped, scowling at Marcy. “And thank you for that.”

“Guys,” I said, sighing and shaking my head. “I haven’t even gotten permission from my dad yet. Like Preston said. What good is it to buy a dress if I can’t even wear it anywhere?”

“Well than ask him, you dumb shit!” Marcy howled, rolling her eyes. Over her shoulder, I saw the store cashier roll her eyes and mumble something that looked to be either “teenagers and their language these days”, or “bean favors and their lag witch these plays”. I was going with the first one.

“Yeah, just bring it up tonight at dinner with him,” Kayti said. “I’m certain he’ll say yes.”



“No.”

“Why not?” I whined. “It’s just one party.”

"Is it like a dance party?" Aiden asked.

"Yeah, sort of," I answered.

“But you suck at dancing,” Karlee said, raising her eyebrows.

“Shut your face,” I snapped, throwing her a quick glare and then looking back at my dad. “Come on, please dad? I’m a good student, I’ve got good grades, and I always do what you want me to do. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to go and have fun with my friends.”

“Because I said ‘no’. Is that good enough for you?” my dad said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t like party. Never have.”

“Kevin,” Anne said, staring at him with a disapproving look. “Let the girl go to the party.”

“Why should I?” my dad asked.

“She should be allowed some freedom. You hardly even like the idea of her walking home without an escort. How is she supposed to learn about the world outside of your limits if you never give her a chance to?”

“Because I have limits,” my dad said.

“Obviously,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “Might as well be keeping me in a jail.”

“Would you like me to?”

“Dad,” Aiden spoke up for the first time tonight. I looked over at him, and for once, it seemed to me like he was on my side. “Come on, you didn’t do this with me.”

“You’re my son.”

Karlee scoffed. “Sexist.”

“Where did you hear that word?” my dad asked.

“From Aiden.”

He turned to look at Aiden with a harsh glare. Aiden’s lips were pursed tightly but when my dad’s attention was redirected to him, he put on a fake grin; his cheeks going bright red.

“It’s not even a bad—never mind. That isn’t even the point. Just because Aiden’s the only son you have doesn’t mean Karlee and I shouldn’t be allowed to even walk out of the house without your permission. Like, really, does that sound fair to you?”

“Aiden’s older than you.”

“Not when he was my age. He was allowed to do anything he wanted and you never got him in trouble!”

“That’s not true.”

“Uhm,” Aiden shuffled in his chair. “It kind of is. I mean, I came home drunk one night and you didn’t even care. I was underage and you’re a cop! I was surprised you ever let me leave the house again.”

I nodded and pointed to Aiden. “Come on dad! You never let me do anything, and I actually really want to go to this!”

“I thought you said you didn’t,” Karlee said, raising her eyebrows.

“Shush,” I snapped.

My dad shook his head. “No, okay? My answer is still no. Later tonight, my answer will still be no. And tomorrow, it will still be no. Now unless you want me to ground you, I’d stop bringing it up right now.”

I rolled my eyes and continued eating my supper and when I was finished, I stomped upstairs and spent the rest of the night in my room.

You okay?

Ugh, no. My dad’s not allowing me out of the house to go to a party.

Wow, you’ve got a really strict dad. He still isn’t being at all flexible about it? How old does he think you are? Twelve?

I think the fact that I’m old enough to take care of myself has escaped him.

Sounds like it. What kind of party? High school party? Or just like a friendly gathering?

High school party. But even at that, I’ll have my friends around and it’s not like they disappear to go make out with each other in bedrooms. They’re straight girls, for the love of God. He’s totally overreacting.

True, and you’re old enough. He’s too protective. Like, sure he’s a cop; he has a right to be. He’s seen some bad stuff but if he locks you up for your whole life, you aren’t going to learn.

Exactly! And I’ve never done anything bad. I don’t get what the issue is.

Well, maybe you should sneak out. Tell him you’ll be in your room taking a nap or something so if he comes to check on you, you’ll be at the party and he’ll have no idea.

I couldn’t do that. I’d get in so much crap if he found out.

And who said he will?

. . . I’ll think about it.