What We Saw(36)

Mr. Johnston smiles and shakes his head. “Not a star,” he says. “More like collateral damage.”

“No way, you were on all three newscasts last night,” Christy says.

There are hoots and whistles of affirmation. One of the guys behind me shouts, “Lookin’ good, Mr. J.”

Phoebe’s voice cuts through the noise. “How come you let that reporter film for so long?” Her question hangs in the air like a heavy fog.

Mr. Johnston waves it away. “Didn’t know she was standing there,” he says. “She wasn’t authorized to be in the building.”

“Shoulda gotten a permission slip,” Ben says.

“Exactly.” Mr. Johnston frowns. “That’s the trick about permission. You don’t have it unless it’s been given.”

“You and Coach still wound up on the news,” says Rachel, “even without your permission.”

He pauses for a moment, thinking. “You’re right. Ms. Keating took what she wanted without asking. Does that make people around here trust her? Think anybody’s gonna want to talk to her now?”

“No.”

The word slips out louder than I intend it to. Everybody turns to stare at me. Mr. Johnston nods. “Acting first and worrying about consequences later is a dangerous way to do things.” He holds up the stack of leftover yellow. “Get ’em signed, you guys. One week. Due back to me next Friday.”

At lunch, the Tracies announce that they’ve decided not to attend Spring Fling tonight.

“Too much of a downer,” Tracy says.

Tracie agrees with a shudder. “Have you noticed? There are even more cameras around today. They creep me out.”

Phoebe’s calls to Dooney’s house and texts to his cell phone have gone unreturned. The radio silence has her terrified. She may be dateless, but she is bound and determined that she will not be abandoned.

“You have to be there.” Her voice leaves no room for denial. “If you don’t come, Stacey Stallard wins.” She spits Stacey’s name from the tip of her tongue like spoiled milk. There is hemming and hawing. The Tracies waver and whine.

As much as Phoebe would like to, there’s no denying it. Something is missing.

Usually, on the day of a dance, there’s a sort of zing in the air—a current humming beneath our feet, a hallway that nearly pitches and rolls with excitement.

Tiny seismic shifts.

But, today, no one seems to care about the dance. Our brains are too full of the one thing no one can mention.

So much is so different.

Tomorrow will only be one week since the party. One week since everything changed. It seems like a hundred years have passed since then—and also no time at all. It’s as if the Devonian Era flashed by only yesterday, and we are now gulping air into newly formed lungs that used to be gills, taking first steps on our flippers-turned-feet.

In one short week, we have become different creatures.

When Ben rings the doorbell on Friday evening, I walk down the stairs in recycled silk, a light breeze of sauce-free organza fluttering around me. Mom has tears in her eyes, as if I am leaving forever instead of attending a two-hour dance in a thrift-store dress.

The shaky video of Coach Sanders threatening Sloane Keating ricocheted across the cable news channels all afternoon, and as Ben steps through the front door with a plastic shell of red roses for my wrist, a graphic the color of bruises flies in beneath the cleft chin of a national evening anchor: CRISIS IN CORAL SANDS.

Dad turns off the TV while Mom snaps several pictures on the digital point-and-shoot she still insists on using. It’s another one of the single-function gadgets my parents refuse to retire. Will tries to explain that his smartphone camera has more megapixels, but Mom says that he can take his pictures and she’ll take hers.

Ben jokes with my dad. Will stands on the back of the couch to “get a cool angle.” As Mom clicks and clucks and coos, I know that one of these shots will wind up in a gallery frame on the wall upstairs. Long after the continuing saga of Kate and Ben reaches its next chapter, I will find her in the hallway, gazing at the glass with shiny eyes and a full heart. These will be her fossils in bedrock, her coral clues to a bygone era. A strange lump forms in my throat as Mom gently tucks a strand of my loose updo behind my ear.

I was once your little girl.

Iowa was once an ocean.

Will tries to follow us outside. I think he’d have climbed into Ben’s truck and come with us if I hadn’t grabbed him by the shoulders and given him my get lost look.

He may have a bigger crush on Ben than I do.

The number of news vans in the parking lot has doubled to six, with affiliates as far away as Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. Sloane Keating is still front and center, but joined now by three women and two men, lined up with their camera guys at the front entrance. Sloane’s blond hair is up in a tight French twist like Grace Kelly’s in an old movie. It appears she had her hair done for the dance.

“Gotta be kidding me,” Ben says as we park.

I stare at the gauntlet of cameras and hairdos, lips poised to question, microphones at the ready, bronzer so thick it glows orange. “Can you believe it was only a week ago Saturday?”

Ben frowns. “You mean a week ago Sunday.”

I smile. “The party was Saturday, remember?”