Dating on the Dork Side

Chapter 8-2

The quiet at his end of the line felt different this time. “Wait,” I said. “Do you really have to wear a suit?”

“I barely escaped a haircut.”

Actually, he could use a trim, but I didn’t say so.

“Plus,” he added, “I may have to dance.”

I snorted. The thing was, Rhino could dance. He could really, really dance. His mom had forced him to take lessons back when we were little kids, so Rhino could do a bunch of dances that went way beyond what we’d learned in eighth grade social dance. That was the year Mrs. Holleman, the PE teacher, had made him demonstrate each step with her.

No one had been brave enough to tease him on the gym floor. But once they got to the locker room, I guess things had turned brutal. Poor Rhino. Remembering what he’d gone through made me feel sorry for him.

“I … I could pull out a skirt and go with you,” I told him. “I do have one somewhere. I think.”

“Nah, Ladybug. I’ll be all right. But I will see you tomorrow.” And with that promise, or threat, he hung up.

“Hey, Camy?” Dad’s voice came from downstairs.

I opened my bedroom door. Dad was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was decked out in running pants, trail shoes, and his Code Monkey t-shirt.

“How about a walk?” he asked. “Maybe to DQ?”

“It’s dinnertime,” I pointed out.

“That’s why they invented Grill and Chills.”

Dad food was great, but a girl’s got to have a vegetable every now and then. “Rolly’s has salads,” I said. “And those bread bowl things you like.”

Dad looked like a five-year-old who’d been denied his ice cream, so I added, “DQ for dessert? Just let me change clothes, okay?”

I pushed back my chair and walked to my closet. I flipped past a couple dozen t-shirts and jerseys. Was that really all I owned? Where was that shiny gray blouse, the one I’d worn to my aunt’s wedding last year? My fingers grazed a sage green sweater with tiny black rosebuds that felt satiny when you rubbed them. A layer of dust covered the top of it, and a crease now ran from one shoulder to the other. I tried not to think about the skirt that matched it, although sometimes I still wondered what Clarissa had done with it.

I remember the exact moment I pulled that skirt from the rack at Macy’s and held it up to my waist. It was eighth grade and I was shopping with Clarissa Delacroix. We were best friends.

The material felt incredible, silky and soft. The rules for Spring Fling said no floor-length dresses. (The note home started with: This is not prom!) No dresses shorter than three inches above the knee were allowed either.

I’d only been off crutches from my football injury for a couple of months and the surgery scars on my leg were still raw and angry looking. I wasn’t planning to show any knee. I took the skirt over to the mirrors and held it against my waist. The hem skimmed just below the scars. It was perfect.

“What do you think?” I asked Clarissa.

“I think you should try it on.”

She shoved me toward the dressing rooms. Once I had the skirt on, I didn’t want to take it off. I’d never been much of a girly girl. My mom hadn’t allowed Barbies in the house. And the only time I remember playing princess was when I had Rhino’s paper crown on my head. But as soon as I fastened the clasp on that skirt … I got it.

I finally understood the whole great dress, right pair of shoes thing and what they could do for a girl. In that skirt, I felt like I couldn’t lose. In that skirt, I’d get Gavin to speak to me again.

He’d stopped showing up for tutoring the week before. And the few times I’d tried to ask him about it, he’d spun away from me. It was almost like the sight of me burned him. I’d tried to ask the tutoring advisor about it, but she’d just mumbled something about “private instruction.” Then she’d run away from me too.

But in that skirt? I could fix it. All of it.

I used all of the money Mom had given me for shopping to buy it.

Clarissa tried on a two-piece outfit that dipped low on top and ended way more than three inches above her knees. I thought she was joking when she walked out of the dressing room.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I said.

She waved a handful of lace at me that turned out to be a shrug with rhinestone buttons. When she put that on, the top looked mostly decent. But still …

“It’s way too short. They’ll never let you into the dance like that,” I said.

“They just don’t want anyone treating this like prom. They won’t make anyone leave just for showing a few extra inches of skin. That would be cruel.”

The next Saturday night we discovered just how cruel the school could be.

“I’m sorry, but there’s a dress code for the dance,” Vice Principal Tanner said. We both heard the echo behind his words: And you know it.

Clarissa’s lip quivered and I pulled her into the girls’ bathroom.

“Now what?” She leaned close to the mirror and pushed tears away from her mascara. “This is so not fair. Did you see Elle, in her freaking almost down to the floor dress? How does she get in and I don’t?”

I shrugged. “Maybe you can call your mom?”

Clarissa rolled her eyes. “Right.” Her gaze in the mirror’s reflection flickered, not to my eyes, but to my skirt. “Hey, I know! We’ll use yours.”

“We’ll use my what?”

“Your skirt. We can take turns. I’ll wear it for twenty minutes, then come back here and we’ll switch.” She crouched so her waist lined up with mine. “It kind of matches and it’ll be long enough, see?”

“I don’t know.” This was my magic skirt, the one I planned on having an honest-to-goodness princess moment in. I wasn’t sure there was room for two princesses in one skirt.

“Oh, please, Camy, please.” She gave me an all-out dazzling smile, the kind that took your breath away, the kind that said you know I’d do this for you.

I laughed. “Okay.”

“Me first,” she said.

Which was how I ended up in a bathroom stall, stepping out of the skirt and handing it over the top of the door. Clarissa changed, right there in the middle of the bathroom. If I’d been thinking, I would have suggested we swap entire outfits, but the thought didn’t cross my mind until the bathroom door had already whooshed open and closed.

Her skirt would be too big. Clarissa was already five foot eight. On me, the skirt might skim my knees. I could sneak into the dance and stand along the bleachers. I could at least check things out. I could at least not be stuck in the bathroom wearing nothing but a sweater and pantyhose.

For twenty minutes, I lived on hope. Every time the screen on my phone went dim, I refreshed it. I counted the minutes and wondered at the wisdom of handing over a magical skirt to a girl I’d only known for five months. Clarissa had moved to Olympia that winter. She’d started at Olympia Middle School after the holiday break.

Rhino had tried to warn me. There was something about Clarissa that he didn’t like. But then, there was something about him that Clarissa didn’t like either.

“He’s so nosy,” she’d say. Then she’d laugh and point to her own nose. “Get it? He’s got a big nose and he’s nosy too?”

And yeah, your new best friend making fun of your old BFF? Kind of uncomfortable. But I couldn’t gush about Gavin to Rhino like I could with Clarissa. She wanted to know everything. So I told her how smart he was. How it didn’t matter that he was flunking every subject. He was just bad at test taking; a lot of smart people were. Wait until football season, I said. She’d see how amazing he was then. We made plans to go to every single game. I told her everything I knew about him, especially about the time he’d held my hand when we left the tutoring room.

There were girl things and guy things, I’d decided. And finally I had a friend for both.

I started to worry after twenty-five minutes had passed. I called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. She was dancing with someone, I told myself. If I’d been dancing with Gavin, she’d want me to keep on doing that. Wouldn’t she?

After thirty minutes, I cracked open the bathroom door. Vice Principal Tanner, standing nearby, looked bored. Two girls burst from the gym and headed straight for the restroom. I ran back to my stall.

“Did you see Clarissa’s skirt?” the first girl was saying as the door swung open.

“I am, like, so jealous,” the second girl said.

“It doesn’t fit her right, though. I mean, come on, try a bigger size.”

“Wonder where her shadow is tonight?” girl number two added.

I held my breath.

“Probably couldn’t get in because of the dress code,” girl one said.

“Huh?”

“I don’t think they allow those football shoulder pad things at Spring Fling.”

Girl two laughed. Then, a second later, she asked, “Do you think she’s … you know?”

“Who, Camy? Nah. I think it’s more like she’s desperate. How else would she get boys to pay attention to her? I mean, besides Rhino.”

They both laughed at that.

“And those crutches. I bet she wasn’t even really hurt. She was just trying to get sympathy from Gavin. You know she’s in love with him, right?”

“Puh-leaze. Could she be any more obvious about it?”

The clatter of their shoes echoed against the tile, and the bathroom door opened, letting in a hint of music from the dance. And then they were gone. I gripped my phone so tightly that, for a second, I thought I’d broken it.

I tried calling Clarissa again. Forget about the skirt. I needed her. I needed her to tell me everyone wasn’t laughing at me behind my back. I needed her to tell me that there was nothing wrong with a girl playing football. I needed her to tell me Gavin wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with me, that there was some other reason he was suddenly pretending I didn’t exist.

But she didn’t answer.

I pecked out a text message to Rhino. He was there in less than five minutes, tossing his backpack into the restroom. He’d stuffed his mom’s neon orange skirt inside of it. And no, he hadn’t done that to be mean. Rhino is many things. Color blind is one of them.

I pulled on the skirt and tugged the belt as tight as I could. I tried to ignore the clashing image my beautiful sage top made with the pumpkin of a skirt below it. Rhino stopped me at the gym door.

“Camy. Cam-ster, don’t,” he said.

But I gave his hand a quick squeeze and raced into the dance anyway. The scent of Axe cologne was floating in the air, along with something sweet, like fruit punch or bubblegum. A slow song was pouring from the speakers. It took forever for my eyes to adjust. Once my vision improved, I could tell no one was putting their social dancing skills to use; it was all zombie-shuffle with some swaying back and forth.

About what happened next: The betrayal turned out to be epic. But if they did it on purpose, it sure didn’t look like it. If Clarissa really had orchestrated the whole thing, she should have gotten some kind of award. Just as I could start to pick out couples in the crowd, she danced into view.

I want to say that she was clutching her partner in a death grip. Or that he was letting his hands hang loose at her waist. I’d like to believe that dancing with Clarissa was an obligation. That it was like homework, maybe, or like eating Mystery Hot Dish in the cafeteria. Something you did because you had to. But that might not be true.

What I do know is this: Light from the glitter ball hit their faces. And then it hit mine. They saw me. I saw them. Clarissa, dancing with Gavin. They both smiled.

And I ran from the gym.

Clarissa never talked to me after that. At least she never said anything nice.

One dance with Gavin was all it took to launch her into Elle’s crowd. One dance in a magical princess skirt … and she didn’t need me anymore.

Two weeks later, after the last week of school, my parents sat with me at the kitchen table and told me they were separating. My world tilted again. If not for Rhino, I would have fallen through the hole in what used to be my life. If not for Rhino, I would’ve crashed at the bottom.

I shoved the sweater to the back of my closet and pulled out my old youth football jersey instead. I sat at my desk to tie my shoes. I resisted the temptation to turn on my laptop and do a quick wiki check. I knew what I’d find there: some pretty awful guys.

I thought about Dad instead, ready to eat ice cream for dinner. Then I thought about Rhino. He might dread it, but he was still willing to put on a suit coat and dance with his mom at the country club. Even though he knew better, he would always come to my rescue. Despite anything I might read on the wiki, I had undeniable proof that living, breathing decent guys really did exist.