The week sort of went by in this strange dance flurry. I hardly saw Jake, and when I did, things felt weird. I was worried that the kiss and that conversation had ruined everything between us, whatever that was anyway. Sometimes I thought I imagined all the moments of closeness with him, sometimes I didn’t. But the longer we were apart, the harder it was to tell what was real and what wasn’t, until I was just totally confused by it all.
My mom’s reward was causing all sorts of weirdos to come forward and claim responsibility for the billboard, including one who claimed to be some kind of superhero—Cape Town’s masked avenger. My dad had tried to call me several times but I didn’t want to talk to him. And then suddenly, Friday was upon me and it was dance time. If you’d asked me just over a month ago whether I would actually be going to this thing, I would have said no. But so much had happened in the last month, it felt like I’d lived an entire year in this short time.
“You guys look nice,” Zac said, sticking his head into my room, where Thembi and I were getting ready.
“I know.” Thembi turned and looked at him.
“Are you going to be dancing? Because it’s called a summer dance.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“You must drink lots of water,” he said seriously.
“Don’t worry, I will.”
“I’ll make sure she does,” Thembi said to Zac. “Keeping hydrated is important, especially when you’re as hot as us.”
“Why are you hot? Do you have temperatures?”
I turned and smiled at him. “It’s just an expression.”
He scrunched his face up. “I hate expressions. They confuse me.”
“Well, then we won’t use them anymore.” Thembi walked over to him. “They confuse me too. I don’t know why people can’t just say what they’re thinking, right?”
“I think you have too much black stuff on your eyes.” Zac pointed at Thembi’s face before turning and walking away.
“Sorry, he’s blunt,” I said.
“I like it. I’m kind of blunt.”
“Yup. You are.”
“He’s cool, and damn, he’s right!” She leaned in and looked at her face closely in the mirror. “I went way too smoky.” She started removing some of her eye shadow.
I laughed. I liked her. And I was glad I was going with her. Our relationship had started out as a transactional one, mainly from her side, really. She’d needed a mannequin to make a dress for, turned out I was the one she needed. But somewhere along the way, it had stopped feeling like that. We actually had so much in common: we both had a dysfunctional family, we were both artists, we both had big ambitions and dreams.
I didn’t know where this was going, or whether it would grow beyond what we had now, but it felt good to have her in my life, in whatever capacity it was going to be.
The doorbell rang and I turned to Thembi. “Who could that be?” I walked downstairs and when I opened the door, tears overwhelmed me.
“Oh my God, what are you guys doing here?” We immediately fell into a group hug.
“We’re taking you to the dance,” they shouted at once. I ran my eyes over them. They looked dapper as hell in their suits, and Andile was wearing a bright-pink bow tie.
“How did you arrange this?”
“We have our contacts.” Guy winked at me.
“What contacts?”
“You’re here?” Thembi walked downstairs and I turned.
“Wait, how do you guys know each other?”
“Wow, you are even more gorgeous IRL!” Andile stepped forward.
“So are you guys,” Thembi said after a little Miss Universe–style wave.
“Wait.” I gestured. “What’s going on here?”
“We found Thembi on Insta after we chatted and asked if we could take you guys to the dance. Thembi organized us tickets and here we are.”
“And you flew here just for this?” I asked, choking back the tears now.
Guy and Andile wrapped their arms around me. “Of course,” Guy said.
“Don’t cry!” Thembi screeched from behind us. “Makeup!”
I pulled away, and Guy and Andile both started fanning my eyes frantically.
The four of us walked in together, in a single line, arm in arm. And it was as if our arrival had been announced on some PA system that I didn’t even know existed, because as we walked in, everyone’s heads turned and looked at us. Thembi turned to me.
“I’ve always wanted to make an entrance like this,” she said with a massive smile across her face.
“Me too, babe,” Andile said.
“Who hasn’t!” Guy echoed the sentiment.
My eyes swept the room. The hall was completely transformed—it looked nothing like the place where I’d almost been dragged onto the stage just over a month ago. So much had happened since I’d gotten here. And in many ways, I, too, felt transformed. Maybe even more so than the hall. And that was saying a lot.
Purple velvet curtains were draped around the walls. On the stage, two huge thrones were set up against a green screen, presumably for photos. The rest of the hall was dotted with tables covered in gold and purple tablecloths; cutlery and crockery and shiny crystal glasses completed the opulent look. In the middle of all the tables was a dance floor illuminated with purple lights.
I felt an elbow in my ribs. It was Guy. “Where is he?”
“Who?” Thembi asked.
“Jake. The guy who asked her but she totally rejected.”
“What? Jake asked you to the dance but you decided to come with me instead?” She looked at me with wide eyes.
“I don’t know if he asked me exactly,” I insisted.
Andile rolled his eyes. “Poor guy. You kiss him in the sprinklers and then leave him high and dry. Well not dry—wet, actually.”
“You kissed him?” Thembi asked.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. I really didn’t want Thembi knowing all this. And certainly not right now.
“I love it,” Thembi blurted out enthusiastically. “You’re probably the first girl who has ever done that to him, and that makes you my hero. And Amber is going to hate you for it and that makes me love you even more.”
“I thought you were friends with Amber?” I asked.
“Yeah, like a scorpion is friends with a frog.”
We all turned and looked at her blankly.
“You know the story.” She clicked her fingers. “Frog offers to take a scorpion across the river on its back, scorpion promises not to sting it. But does and they both drown, because it’s in his nature.”
We all continued our blank stare and Thembi rolled her eyes. “Point is, Amber is one of those people who, given the opportunity, will sting you. And the sting seldom has anything to do with you, it’s all about her. Putting others down makes her feel better about herself. It’s actually quite sad. She makes people feel bad about themselves so she can feel better about herself. That’s most bullies, though, isn’t it?”
“And there are plenty of them,” Andile said quietly, and I knew who he was thinking of. Everyone who’d teased and bullied him over the years for being a Black, gay, ballet dancer.
“Oooh! Oooh! Speaking of Amber . . . twelve o’clock,” Thembi said and we all looked in the direction she was pointing.
Guy flashed her a look. “Seriously. Twelve o’clock. Are we in the army?”
Thembi flapped her hand. “Well, there. By the purple curtain.”
Guy rolled his eyes. “They’re all purple. What’s she wearing?”
Thembi smiled. “Now that, I can do. The one in the cheap knockoff of the burgundy brocade dress that Meghan Markle wore on the red carpet, which really doesn’t go with Amber’s skin tone, since she has a bit of a pink undertone.”
We all looked and there she was. Laughing, head thrown back in the air, gold locks tumbling down her back. And then she moved and a surprised breath escaped my lips.
“What?” Guy asked.
“Oh no,” Thembi moaned. “Look away. Look away.”
I tried to look away but couldn’t.
“What’s going on?” Andile asked.
“That’s Jake,” she whispered. Because it was Jake. Standing there while Amber laughed and flirted and flipped her hair, and when she reached out and touched him on the arm, a long lingering touch, I felt dizzy.
“He . . . he . . did go with her,” I stuttered stupidly.
“Shit!” Guy said, grabbing my arm tightly.
I stood there frozen for a moment or two. I could feel the tension coming off the three next to me, as if they were all holding their breath to see what I was going to do. And then something miraculous happened. Vuyo came over to them, Amber slipped her arm through his, and they walked off together, leaving Jake standing there all alone.
“He didn’t come with her,” I whispered, and as if he’d heard me, his head tilted up to mine and our eyes locked across the room, cerulean explosion. He took a step forward and before I knew what was happening, he was walking across the room toward me. My feet moved, too, without me even consciously giving them permission to do so. We walked, getting closer and closer until we met in the middle of the dance floor.
“You look, you look—” He seemed to be struggling to get the words out as his eyes swept over me. “Beautiful.”
I smiled at him.
“I thought you were coming with Thembi?” he said, looking over my shoulder.
“They’re my friends from Joburg. They came up here to take us.” I put a lot of emphasis on the word friends.
He smiled, as if pleased with my answer. “So . . . I’ve been thinking about—”
“Wait.” I cut him off. “Before you say anything to me, there’s something I need to say to you.”
“You do?” he asked.
“I have so, so many somethings to say to you, actually.” I sighed. “Soooo many.”
“The floor is yours then, Lori,” he said through a small chuckle.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m a succulent,” I said.
“A succulent?” he repeated, looking amused.
“What I mean is that once upon a time I was broken. I think I was broken a few times, actually. Had my leaves pulled off, my stem snapped and tossed away, maybe stepped on a bit, and there’s this part of me that hasn’t fully recovered from it yet, even though I go to therapy. I have these panic attacks and worry about things like having a stroke or drowning in air, and am so petrified of water that I haven’t bathed in years . . .” I paused. “I mean, I shower, okay. I’m not, you know . . .”
“I know what you mean.” Jake’s voice was soft and I could see he was listening to every single word I was saying.
“But also, I think that there’s this part of me that still sees me as this damaged, broken thing. And because I see myself like that, maybe I feel like I don’t really deserve fixing. That maybe, I deserve to be like this and I think I’ve been pushing you away because of that feeling.”
“Then don’t push,” Jake said emphatically.
I held my hand up. “Wait, there’s more.” I continued. “But thing is, I’m starting to grow little roots. They’re really small and pink, but they’re there, and they are reaching out for water and soil, and reaching for a new place to start growing. Because I want to start growing again. I deserve to start growing again, and in this really strange way, coming here to this place I thought I was going to hate has helped me. Meeting you and my new therapist and finding this voice through my art that I literally never knew I had, all that has made me the little propagating echeveria looking to put down roots.”
His grin grew. “I literally have no idea what you said at the end there, but I kind of like it and I’m not sure why . . . kind of like those Grimes songs.”
I smiled back at him. “I’m a bloody Grimes song!”
“You are. Brilliant and creative and once you start listening . . . you can’t stop.”
I felt that flutter in my stomach again, the one I felt only in the presence of Jake Jones-Evans.
“I think I know what you’re trying to say, Anything But JustLori.” He stepped even closer and the gap between us vanished.
“You do?”
“I think you’re trying to say that you like me.”
I bit my lip as the fluttering grew so big that my whole body felt like it was going to explode. I nodded. And then suddenly, I swear the heavens opened and I heard angels, because his hands slipped into mine. I looked down at them.
“I like you too. A lot,” he said.
“You do? I mean . . .” I shrugged and maybe I grimaced. I didn’t want that to be my reaction, but it was. “You do?”
“I don’t think you see yourself like I see you.”
“How do you see me?” I asked.
“I think you’re beautiful. Funny. Kind. You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
“I am?” I asked, shaking my head a little. “I don’t . . . I guess . . . I don’t see myself like that.”
“I know. And I say screw every single person in the world who made you doubt that. And especially fuck those kids who pushed you in the pool.”
I bit my lip. I could feel those pesky tears that wanted to spring out and ruin my makeup. And then, the music changed. It slowed down, the lights changed, and . . .
“Want to dance?” Jake asked.
I looked around, feeling strange and self-conscious now. “Everyone is looking at us.” They were probably all in shock, wondering what on earth was going on here. Why was the hottest guy in school asking someone like me to dance? They were probably wondering if they had been cast in a teen movie, the one where the once-ugly girl suddenly becomes hot just by taking her glasses off. But this wasn’t a movie. This was real. And I was the star. Barbie and Ken. Belle of the ball. All eyes on me . . .
“Trust me,” Jake whispered, “they’re not looking at us. They’re looking at you.”
I glanced around again, anxiety bubbling up inside me as they all stared relentlessly, like the mirror had.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, slipping an arm around my back. “Forget them.” He took my other arm and wrapped it around him. I closed my eyes and laid my head on his shoulder.
“I really, really like you, Lori,” he whispered in my ear, his warm breath prickling against my skin and making it pebble.
“I . . . I . . . like you too,” I said back to him.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. In my mind a massive spotlight was now illuminating us. It was drawing even more attention to us, the kind of attention that, if I was totally honest with you, I’d wanted every single day for my entire life. This was a serious moment right here.
This was my moment. The moment that girls like me never got. The kind of moment that girls like me never think they deserve to get.
But I was getting it. Right about . . . now.
The slow music swirled around us, making it feel like the floor had spun away. Making it feel like gravity no longer existed. We floated like two ghosts above the surface, enclosed in our own magical world. A little bubble formed around us where everything, and everyone, ceased to exist. The hall melted away. The ceiling and the walls fell away, until it was just us. I pulled my head away and looked him in the eyes. Ocean blue. Like the sea this time. Like the waves crashing against the shore; crashing against my heart, rolling in the pit of my stomach. The purple light cast a glow across the side of his face and he was the brightest thing I’d ever seen.
“I can feel your heart beating,” he whispered softly.
“Me too,” I whispered back. I never wanted this moment to end. This was the moment I felt like my whole life had been building up to, without me even knowing it. I wanted to breathe this moment in, drink it down, and live in it forever, only I couldn’t, because the music went off, the lights flicked on, and a voice over the PA called my name. It was the principal.
“Lori Palmer, come to my office, now.”
I pulled away from Jake, and if people hadn’t been staring at me before, they were certainly staring now.