One To Watch(49)

“Okay,” Alison tittered, “open your eyes!”

“What the hell is this?” Bea blurted before she could stop herself. She was in the designated hair/makeup/wardrobe conference room at the Econo Lodge where they were staying, and she was positively surrounded by long, sparkling dresses.

“They’re for your date with Wyatt,” Alison clarified, as if this explained anything at all.

“In Cheshire, Ohio?” Bea was incredulous. “The only time I’ve ever even seen anyone in town dress this formally is—wait. No. Alison, no.”

Alison laughed with unbridled glee. “It’s prom night, baby!”

And so it was that Bea ended up in a slinky Badgley Mischka gown embroidered with ombré sequins that shifted in the light from navy blue to deep turquoise. With sky-high heels and her hair pinned back in glossy curls, Bea felt like she was finally getting the glamorous pre-prom experience she’d yearned for in high school.

“See?” Alison reassured her. “Not a disco ball at all.”

“More like that sparkly dress Ariel wears when she comes out of the water at the end of The Little Mermaid.”

“Oh my God, a forever look,” Alison exclaimed. “My little mermaid finally has her legs.”

“Changing her body to please a man, just like everyone,” Bea quipped.

“Not you.” Alison draped her arms around Bea affectionately.

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t if I wanted to!”

Bea thought back to her adolescence in this place, the years of fad diets and attempted starvation that never resulted in a loss of more than five or ten pounds (always immediately regained the second she ate a normal meal). No matter what she did, Bea was always the fattest girl in school, and maybe also the quietest, doing whatever she could to escape unwanted attention. As she rode in a limousine toward the small park in the center of town where she was meeting Wyatt—towering oak trees, a picturesque gazebo strung with fairy lights, and a small crowd of people cheering and waving posters, waiting to welcome home their town’s most famous daughter—she had the sense that if she wasn’t quite rewriting history tonight, she was, at least in some small way, righting it.

It was all a little surreal, but as Bea emerged from the limo, she thought the craziest part of all might just be the man who was waiting for her: Tall, broad, and golden, Wyatt looked every inch the football hero Bea remembered—except, in a perfectly fitted tuxedo, he was no longer the casual farmer in boots and jeans.

Tonight, he was the prom king.

“You look so pretty.” He smiled shyly as she approached him, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“You too,” she sputtered, suddenly very aware of the onlookers surrounding them.

“I got this for you.” He held out a plastic box, and Bea felt like they were reenacting a memory she didn’t have as she held out her wrist and he slipped on the red rose corsage. “Well, the producers did. It’s nice, though, don’t you think?”

Bea kissed his cheek and agreed that it was.

“Aren’t you chivalrous,” Bea joked as he held open the limo door, and he blushed bright red. Even though Wyatt was ruggedly handsome, the total picture of idealized Marlboro Man masculinity, there was something fragile about him—something Bea couldn’t explain but instinctively felt she needed to protect. It was a bizarre sensation, particularly since the rest of the men in the house could seem like a many-headed Hydra, different faces of one monster ready to attack.

“What was your prom like?” Bea asked when they were in the limo and en route to her old high school, two cameras rolling to capture their conversation.

“I don’t know,” Wyatt admitted. “I stayed home.”

“Really?” Bea was taken aback. “But you were on the football team, right? In our school, those guys were like kings.”

“I wasn’t really part of that,” Wyatt demurred. “The other guys—we got along and everything, but we didn’t really spend time together outside practice.”

“Why not?” Bea was genuinely curious.

Wyatt shrugged. “Different interests.”

“Oh,” Bea replied, wanting to know more, but not about to pry.

“What about you?” He nudged her knee. “I’ll bet you were the best-dressed girl at your prom.”

Bea shook her head. “I didn’t go either.”

“How come?”

“No one to go with.” Bea sighed. “I was friends with the theater tech kids; we were kind of antisocial. School dances were so not their scene.”

“But you wanted to go, didn’t you?”

Bea felt her chest tighten. She didn’t just want to go—she’d been absolutely desperate.

“I made my stepdad tape Pretty in Pink off cable, and I watched it over and over,” Bea confessed. “I thought Andie was so brave, going to prom alone. But she was beautiful, and all these guys secretly loved her. If I went to prom alone, everyone would have laughed.”

“Why did you think that?” Wyatt coaxed gently. “Were people at your school mean to you?”

Bea thought back to another football player—blond and tall, like Wyatt, but where Wyatt was gentle, he’d been rough. Where Wyatt was warm and inquisitive, he’d been cold and indifferent, his existence a daily punishment for Bea having had the audacity to have feelings for him.