Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

“Fuck if I know.” He turned away from her, feigning interest in a white stretch limo pulling into the parking lot.

Emily headed into the gym, because she knew Clay would be somewhere near the stage, probably circled by a group of slim, beautiful girls. Her feet registered the drop in temperature as she walked across the polished wood floor. The seaside theme continued inside the building. Balloons bounced against the rafters of the high ceiling, ready to drop at the end of the night. Large, round tables were laid out with sea-themed centerpieces glued together with shells and bright pink peach blossoms.

“Look,” someone said. “What’s she doing here?”

“Damn.”

“The nerve.”

Emily kept her eyes trained straight ahead. The band was setting up on the stage, but someone had put on a record to fill the void. Her stomach rumbled when she passed the food tables. The sickly-sweet syrup that passed for punch. Finger sandwiches fat with meats and cheeses. Leftover taffy that last summer’s tourists hadn’t bought. Metal bins of limp French fries. Pigs in a blanket. Crab cakes. Bergers cookies and cakes.

Emily stopped her progress toward the stage. The din of the crowd had died down. All she could hear was the echo of Rick Springfield warning them not to talk to strangers.

People were staring at her. Not just people. Chaperones. Parents. Her art teacher who’d told her she showed remarkable skill. Her English teacher who’d written I’m impressed! on her Virginia Woolf paper. Her history teacher who had promised Emily she would be the lead prosecutor on this year’s mock trial.

Until—

Emily kept her shoulders back as she walked toward the stage with her belly sticking out like the prow of an ocean liner. She had grown up in this town, attended the schools, gone to church, summer camp, field trips, hikes and sleepovers. These had been her classmates, her neighbors, her fellow Girl Scouts, her lab partners, her study buddies, her pals that she’d hung out with when Nardo took Clay to Italy with his family and Ricky and Blake were helping out their grandfather at the diner.

And now—

All of her used-to-be friends were backing away from her as if they were afraid what Emily had might be catching. They were such hypocrites. She had done the thing they all were either doing or wanted to do, but she’d had the bad fortune to get caught at it.

“Jesus,” someone whispered.

“Outrageous,” a parent said.

Their admonitions no longer stung. Dean Wexler in his shitty two-tone Chevy had peeled back the last layer of shame that Emily would ever feel about her pregnancy. The only thing that made it wrong was these judgmental assholes telling themselves it was wrong.

She blocked out their whispers, silently repeating her list of promises to her baby—

I will protect you. No one will ever hurt you. You will always be safe.

Clay was leaning against the stage. His arms were crossed as he waited for her. He was wearing the same black tux as Blake and Nardo. Or, more likely, they were wearing the same tux that Clay had picked out. That’s how the boys had always been. Whatever Clay did, the rest of them followed.

He said nothing when Emily stopped in front of him, just raised an expectant eyebrow. She noticed that despite his derision of cheerleaders, he was surrounded by them. The rest of the group had probably told themselves they were attending the prom ironically. Only Clay would know that they were attending the prom so he could get laid.

Rhonda Stein, the head cheerleader, spoke when no one else would. “What is she doing here?”

She had looked at Emily but asked Clay the question.

Another cheerleader said, “Maybe it’s a Carrie thing.”

“Did anybody bring the pigs’ blood?”

“Who’s gonna crown her?”

There was nervous laughter, but they were all looking for Clay to set the tone.

He took a deep breath before slowly letting it go. Then one shoulder casually went up in a shrug. “Free world.”

Emily’s throat bristled against the dry air. When she had thought about how this night would go down, when she had delighted at the idea of their collective shock, she had reveled in the story she’d tell her child about her mother the radical, bohemian temptress who’d dared to dance at her senior prom, Emily had expected to feel every emotion but the one she was feeling now, which was exhaustion. Mentally, physically, she felt incapable of doing anything but turning around and walking back the way she’d come.

So she did.

The crowd was still parted, but the mood had turned decidedly toward pitchforks and scarlet ‘A’s. Boys gritted their teeth in anger. Girls literally turned their backs. She saw teachers and parents shaking their heads in disgust. What was she doing here? Why was she wrecking the night for everyone else? Jezebel. Whore. She had made her bed. Who did she think she was? She was going to ruin some poor boy’s life.

Emily had not realized how stifling the air in the gymnasium was until she was safely outside. Nardo was no longer lurking by the doors. Blake had recessed into another shadow. Ricky was wherever she was in times like this, which was to say nowhere useful.